In the twenty years Ding Yun dedicated to building her career, her older sister and mother were not entirely idle.
Her sister, Ding Gui, while not skipping any grades, completed her high school education as planned. She achieved one of the top three scores in her county’s college entrance examination. With Ding Yun’s support and no financial pressure, she ultimately pursued a path of academic research.
Later, Ding Yun even funded a laboratory for her and provided research grants.
Her academic research journey was remarkably smooth, with tangible results emerging in the last seven to eight years, offering Ding Yun some returns. Additionally, at the age of twenty-nine, she fell in love with a colleague from an independent research institute and they married a year later.
Their daughter is now five years old.
Considering that having more children would significantly impact their research progress, the couple has decided against having a second child.
As for her mother, Wu Hua, she was laid off fifteen years ago.
It wasn't until Ding Yun used her money to buy a building and put it in her mother's name for rental income that Wu Hua began to recover from the depression of being laid off. Leveraging her extensive professional network from her years of employment, she opened a small shop in the largest garage on the ground floor. Although the monthly profits were nowhere near the rental income, she was personally content.
Overall, the family was harmonious and lived in peace.
The only point of concern for Ding Yun was her own unmarried status. She dated young university students, but after a few years, she would give them a breakup fee and part ways, never discussing marriage or children. Apart from this, there were no significant troubles.
Everything appeared to be idyllic.
Ding Yun also felt that with a few more years of hard work, she might be able to orchestrate a grand promotional event, gain enough influence, and complete her mission to leave this world.
However, at twelve o'clock on the fourteenth day of July that year, the unexpected happened.
Ding Yun usually went to bed at ten, so by midnight, she was in a deep sleep.
Ordinarily, she wouldn't be startled awake in the middle of the night. But on this particular night, just a few seconds after the twelve chimes, Ding Yun was abruptly awakened by a sudden, tenfold increase in the surrounding Yin energy. She then, with astonishment, extended her spiritual sense to survey her surroundings and look into the distance:
"How can this be? The Yin energy concentration has suddenly increased tenfold. And it's not just my immediate vicinity; the Yin energy has intensified everywhere within my spiritual perception, with some areas experiencing an increase of more than twenty times!
This shouldn't be happening…
Even though it's the Ghost Festival, this shouldn't occur. In previous Ghost Festivals, the Yin energy would at most increase by twenty to thirty percent. Could it be that this world is experiencing a resurgence of the bizarre, or perhaps a spiritual energy revival? No…
Spiritual energy revival doesn't start with Yin energy.
Malevolent energy, heavens above, even the moon has mutated!"
While Ding Yun was amazed by the tenfold increase in the surrounding Yin energy, she soon felt a surge of malevolent energy. Looking up, she saw that the usually brilliant moon in the sky had gradually taken on an eerie, purplish-red hue.
Everything seemed highly abnormal.
"Purplish-red, isn't that a Nether Moon?"
"This is bad. This isn't a spiritual energy revival; it's the Underworld, or the netherworld, or perhaps the Yin and Yang realms of this world are overlapping or even merging!
We're doomed. This is far more terrifying than a spiritual energy revival.
And there are hardly any cultivators here.
We might only be able to rely on humanistic conviction for resistance."
As the purplish-red Nether Moon appeared, Ding Yun immediately understood the situation.
Generally, worlds are divided into Yin and Yang, commonly known as the mortal realm and the underworld. The mortal realm is self-explanatory; it's where we live. The underworld, however, has many variations: some may be a simple realm of ghosts, others ruled by Ghost Emperors, and some might have Yama Kings.
But most are purely spaces of Yin energy.
These spaces coexist in harmony with the mortal realm and undergo a cyclical transformation.
Departed souls entering the underworld are soon converted into Yin energy, forming an exchange cycle of Yin and Yang at the boundary between the two realms, without any concept of reincarnation.
Under normal circumstances, although the two realms are interdependent, they do not have significantly direct contact, let alone open passages or merge with each other.
However, there are exceptions.
World invasions, spiritual energy revivals, spatial rifts, and other anomalies can lead to the connection of the Yin and Yang realms, causing imbalance, or world evolution might also lead to such connections.
The current situation clearly indicates that the underworld and the mortal realm of this world have begun to overlap and merge. Whether this overlap and merger is temporary or will continue until they become one is difficult to say.
If it's a temporary accidental overlap and merger, it might be manageable.
At most, individuals with weaker constitutions might experience more nightmares and become frailer for a period. However, after a few days of sunshine, these negative effects would gradually disappear.
But if the long-term overlap and merger, or even complete fusion, occurs, then things become troublesome. Frailty and susceptibility to Yin energy, leading to illness, are not the main concerns. The truly terrifying aspect is the gradual emergence of bizarre demons and monsters that were previously impossible to appear.
At that point, it might become a chaotic era reminiscent of Liaozhai.
Furthermore, this world has very few cultivators. If the underworld truly merges, the cultivation of orthodox practitioners will become even more difficult, unlike during a spiritual energy revival. Only by resorting to unorthodox and demonic paths could one rapidly increase their cultivation, but doing so would easily lead to falling into evil ways, which is quite problematic.
In the early stages, ordinary people would likely only be able to rely on humanistic conviction for resistance. What is humanistic conviction? It is related to humanistic faith but not entirely the same. If it is full of righteousness and recognized by all people, it constitutes humanistic conviction.
For example, "all ghosts and monsters are paper tigers."
For example, "Prosperous, democratic, civilized, harmonious."
For example, "Confucius did not talk about the strange, the powerful, or the supernatural."
These declarations, filled with righteousness and recognized by the populace, can borrow a small amount of humanistic destiny to resist all Yin evil energy. The more people who utter these words, the more righteous they are, and the more merit or humanistic destiny they possess, the greater the power they can exert.
If the ancient sages were to revive,
They could annihilate the Black Mountain Old Demon with a single word.
If one's heart is filled with darkness, they are not a good person, and they do not even acknowledge these words, then speaking them a thousand times until their lips are worn away would be useless.
However, this is only a temporary solution. As the population decreases, people's quality of life declines, and their physical fitness deteriorates, humanistic destiny will weaken, and the effect of humanistic conviction will diminish. Therefore, the only fundamental solution is the separation of Yin and Yang.
In short, it is extremely troublesome.
At this moment, Ding Yun could only silently pray that this sudden anomaly was just an accident and that everything would return to normal after the special day of the fifteenth of July.
And out of concern,
She drove overnight to visit Wu Hua.