At this moment, the green-clothed flying zombie at her feet suddenly slammed its head to the ground, frantically clawing at its matted hair, looking as if it were in great pain.
Gu Junshi turned her head, swept a glance at him, and then paused.
She noticed something peculiar about him.
The green-clothed flying zombie kept muttering, "No, absolutely not for you... not for you..."
He groaned in pain again, "Urgh."
His unyielding, angry tone abruptly turned cold and vexed.
"Get out of my body—"
A dark light flashed in Gu Junshi's serene eyes. She walked over, and the oppressive aura in the air bound the green-clothed flying zombie, levitating it before her. She lowered his head and placed her fair, jade-like palm on his Baihui acupoint.
The next second, she unhesitatingly performed a soul-searching.
The scene shifted, and she entered the spiritual consciousness of the green-clothed flying zombie. In the hazy gray space, as expected, she saw two residual souls fighting.
One was Gu Chuhao, whom she had been searching for.
The other was Tian Yi, the original inhabitant of this body that had become a flying zombie.
Gu Chuhao's soul hadn't stayed near his corpse but had gone into someone else's body to tear at their soul. Was he planning to possess it?
With such a weak, pathetic soul?
With a wave of her hand, she separated the two entwined residual souls and erected a barrier. A pillar of light rose from the ground, forming a cage and trapping Tian Yi inside.
Now that the spiritual consciousness was peaceful, she summoned Gu Chuhao, possessing the green-clothed flying zombie, to question him. As for how Tian Yi would be dealt with, that would be decided after she ascertained the truth.
The green-clothed flying zombie was dazed, fixed in mid-air, his pupils unfocused and bewildered. He stared blankly at Gu Junshi for a moment before gradually regaining his senses.
"Gu Er."
The dusty, long-forgotten nickname, spoken by someone who looked like his sister, directly confirmed Gu Chuhao's suspicion.
His eyes widened: "Gu... Gu Yi, is it really you?!"
The Gu family's naming convention was indeed simple and crude.
The elder was "Yi," and the younger was "Er."
Gu Junshi frowned. As a true noble, nurtured by family etiquette, Gu Cai Fu always respected elders. She was an only child and had never raised a younger brother who would address her so casually. However, when it came to ill-behaved children who disrespected their elders, she always believed in action over words.
She directly flicked her finger, tapping his forehead. The restraining force loosened, and he fell from mid-air, crashing to the ground.
She said faintly, "Idiot, is 'Gu Yi' a name you can call me?"
Gu Chuhao, now a flying zombie, felt no pain but couldn't believe it. Tears welled up in his eyes: "Hey, Gu Yi, this is the first time we've met after so long, and you're already resorting to domestic violence? Don't you remember who worked day and night to raise you? Who ran out to find food for you when they were still shorter than your waist? I risked my life to bring you here, and I was betrayed and killed. And you're still hitting me?"
As he spoke, his heart filled with sorrow. Gu Chuhao burst into loud sobs, as if a great injustice had been held within him, needing to be vented.
Gu Junshi was somewhat speechless at the noisy, ghost-like crying.
How could a grown man cry like this? Couldn't he learn to cry more aesthetically, like others?
"I'll count to three. If you don't stop, I'll have the other soul in this body answer me." The domineering president issued him a final ultimatum.
The other...
Suddenly remembering that Tian Yi, who had been wrestling with him, was still confined in the spiritual cage, Gu Chuhao, with teary eyes, shivered at the sight of her unmistakably serious expression.
"You, you haven't seen me for years, and this is how you treat your, your long-lost brother?" he complained indignantly.
Gu Junshi, seeing his sniveling and uninspired appearance, found it difficult to reconcile him with the "clever from childhood and mature beyond his years" child prodigy mentioned by the villagers.
She hadn't expected that even simple country folk needed debunking.
She directly asked, "You're saying you brought this upon yourself, leading your fellow disciples to kill you?"
Seeing her disbelief, Gu Chuhao wiped his face, stained with tears, and then noticed the blood and tears smeared on his sleeve, which startled him somewhat.
He figured his face must look like a crime scene...
No wonder Gu Yi looked so displeased seeing him cry. He thought if he saw a ghastly figure crying with a face full of blood, he wouldn't feel any brotherly affection either.
There was a reason for everything. Fine, he decided not to blame her anymore.
"It was all for you. You have a weak constitution, remember? I heard that there's a treasure in the Du Sheng Temple called the Nirvana Bead, which can completely change a mortal's physique and grant extraordinary power. So I thought I'd take the risk to snatch it for you, so you wouldn't have to grow old alone in the mortal realm."
Weak constitution?
Grow old alone?
Skipping all the preamble, she grasped the key point: "Nirvana Bead? That's not for people at all. You've been deceived."
The "Nirvana Bead" was a treasure that could preserve a decaying corpse for ten thousand years, containing immense Yin and ghost energy. How could a living person endure it?
Yes.
He, Gu Chuhao, clever his whole life, foolish in one moment. He tried to force a bitter smile, but found his corpse face too stiff. Both smiling and crying looked like wearing a mask.
"I know it's fake now, because I swallowed it, and then I turned into something neither ghost nor human."
He recounted the entire sequence of events to her.