Le Gui watched as the ghost girl was forced back step by step. Just as she started to panic, the girl suddenly smiled.

The steward’s expression changed instantly. He tried to retreat, but an invisible force had already bound his limbs.

In the blink of an eye, the ghost girl expanded to five times her original size. A fierce wind howled around her, her presence overwhelming. “Five thousand years have passed. Did you really think I was still the weak little child you once slaughtered at your mercy?”

The steward coughed up blood. His once-calm gaze now showed unmistakable fear. “Impossible… You just helped her complete the trial tournament. You should have wasted a great deal of your power—”

Hiding behind the table, Le Gui stiffened. Then, she scowled. “So that’s why you didn’t attack earlier. You were waiting for today!”

Even after all this time, this man was still scheming against his own daughter. He was lower than a beast.

The ghost girl stepped closer, forcing the steward to stumble back in fear. He crawled desperately across the floor, but before long, he was backed into a corner with nowhere left to run.

“Daughter… my daughter! I am your father!” His voice trembled with terror.

The ghost girl let out a soft chuckle. Her voice was no longer hoarse and ragged—it carried an eerie, ethereal quality. “Father, you never even gave me a name.”

“You bastard!” Le Gui cursed from behind a chair.

The air around them seemed to solidify. An unseen hand clamped around the steward’s throat, lifting him off the ground. He thrashed wildly, clawing at his neck, but could only tear bloody gashes into his own skin.

“It’s finally over.” The ghost girl raised her hand, her expression devoid of emotion.

“Even if you have the heart to kill your own father…” The steward’s body began to shift, his voice growing more feminine. “Could you truly bear to kill me?”

The ghost girl froze.

Le Gui also hesitated, staring in disbelief as the man before them transformed—his features shifting until he became a woman.

“My daughter… my child,” the person on the floor gasped, tears welling in her eyes. “After all these years, I finally see you again.”

The ghost girl remained motionless. Dark blood seeped from the empty sockets where her eyes had once been. “Mother…”

[Wait, what?! Did the father just turn into the mother?!]

Le Gui knew that in a world of cultivation, anything was possible. Reincarnation, ascension, and divine transformations were all commonplace. But witnessing a man shift into a woman right before her eyes—that was something else entirely.

“You’ve grown… but you still look the same in some ways. Do you still like plum cakes? I’ve kept making them all these years. My cooking is much better now. I remember when you were little, I would hold you in my arms and watch the moon whenever your father wasn’t around… I had no power. I couldn’t stop what he did to you. I regret it… I regret it so much…”

The woman trembled as she reached out a hand. “After all these years… do I still have a chance to hold you again?”

The little ghost girl stared at her mother for a long time before slowly stepping closer.

“Don’t…” Le Gui instinctively tried to warn her, but the moment she uttered a single word, her voice completely failed her. A chilling coldness enveloped her body, freezing her in place, making it impossible to move.

She could only watch helplessly as the little ghost girl crouched down in front of the woman, awkwardly leaning into her embrace. The woman gently patted her back, her voice trembling with emotion. “It really is you… I missed you so much…”

“Mother.” The little ghost girl called softly.

“Our family is finally reunited,” the woman sighed. “Your father has made many mistakes in the past. Now that you have taught him a lesson, I doubt he will dare to act recklessly again. There is no lasting resentment between family members. Let us live peacefully from now on.”

“Mother.” The little ghost girl called again.

The woman rubbed her chin against the girl’s forehead, her touch affectionate and gentle. Yet, the hand resting on the girl’s back was slowly changing—sharp nails grew from her fingers, gleaming with a sinister light, as if dipped in poison.

Le Gui watched in horror as the woman silently raised her claws, aiming directly at the little ghost girl’s heart. Despair washed over Le Gui. Just as she was about to give up struggling and resign herself to fate, the little ghost girl suddenly spoke.

“You have deceived me time and time again. What makes you think I would still believe you now?”

The woman’s body stiffened. After a long pause, she looked down in disbelief—only to see the little ghost girl’s thin, withered hand effortlessly piercing through her chest, pulling out a still-beating heart.

“No… please…” The woman’s body froze as if someone had pressed the pause button. She let out a choking sound, unable to form a complete sentence.

The little ghost girl gazed at her mother’s face, and memories from the past surged within her mind.

She was born with a spiritual bone, a rare gift that made her a prodigy in cultivation. However, it also made her the perfect elixir for strengthening one’s power. From the moment she was born, her father ceased to see her as his daughter. He used soul-destroying nails to extract her spiritual energy, carved into her flesh with sharp blades to harvest her bones, and forced her to endure excruciating pain—only to push her spiritual bones to their limit.

Whenever her father did these things, her mother would hide in the shadows, quietly shedding tears. Afterward, she would take her into the room, feed her a piece of plum cake, and whisper words of comfort.

That sweet and sour plum cake was the only taste of kindness she had ever known in her short seven-year life.

At the age of six, she had nearly escaped. But she chose to stay because her mother could not leave. The bond forged through her parents’ cultivation partnership had sealed her mother’s fate. She was bound to her father for life, unable to break free.

Her mother had been deeply moved by her decision to stay. She held her in her arms, sobbing in silence.

She had once believed that at least one of her parents truly loved her.

But when her father decided that extracting mere fragments of her bone was no longer enough—when he resolved to strip her entire skeleton—her mother did not protest.

She merely wiped away her tears and sighed.

“This is your fate.”

This is your fate.

I have done all I could. I have no regrets.

We are both unfortunate souls.

It is not your father’s fault. He was simply too desperate for power. As his daughter, you should understand his need to prove himself.

Child, do not blame me. Do not blame your father. He had no choice. Only by killing you can he and I share eternal life together.

Please do not resent us. Just accept your fate.

The heart in her hand was still beating.

The little ghost girl gazed at the bloody, pulsating organ, her expression eerily calm.

“So this is why your aura felt unfamiliar,” she murmured. “It turns out Father devoured you as well. Why? Was it because you once consumed half of my spiritual bone, and he decided that you, too, were no longer of use to him?”

The woman’s body twitched. Her face flickered between that of the old steward and her own, shifting back and forth. In the end, she was too weak to maintain the disguise, and her original form returned. Her murky eyes locked onto the little ghost girl with resentment.

“Why…?”

Her voice was faint and unclear. The little ghost girl leaned in slightly.

“Why could you never just obey…?” The woman’s soul was already disintegrating, but her gaze grew increasingly vicious. “You are… his child. Being consumed by him… is only natural, is it not?”

“Even now, you still think like this.” The little ghost girl chuckled darkly. Her fingers tightened around the heart.

The woman’s expression twisted with hatred. “You have killed your own parents. Karma will come for you. You will suffer retribution…”

The little ghost girl crushed the heart with ease. Blood and torn flesh dripped from her skeletal fingers.

The woman’s body rapidly dissolved, melting into a puddle of blood.

The little ghost girl suddenly remembered fragments of her short life.

She recalled the nights when her mother held her under the moonlight, softly singing lullabies. Every time a song ended, her mother would pluck a wildflower and place it over her wounds.

Her mother would always tell her, “In your next life, be born into an ordinary family. Do not be my daughter again.”

The woman’s face had completely melted away.

The little ghost girl traced a finger over the dissolving remains and whispered, “In my next life, I won’t be your daughter. I’ll be your husband.”

With that, the last remnants of the woman vanished.

The restrictive force that had been paralyzing Le Gui finally disappeared. She gasped for air as if she had just broken the surface after nearly drowning.

“Uh… Ah Hua?” Le Gui hesitantly called out.

The little ghost girl floated into the Seer Mirror. “Let’s go.”

“Ah… Oh, okay.” Le Gui didn’t know what to say. She obediently turned to leave.

However, just as she reached the doorway, a strange chill crept down her spine. Instinctively, she glanced back.

[AHHHH WHAT IS THAT?!]

Le Gui’s face turned pale.

The bloodstained puddle on the ground had begun to boil violently, its size expanding a hundredfold. And it was still growing, threatening to burst through the house.

Reflected on its grotesque surface were two twisted faces, their expressions filled with rage and madness.

With a horrifying screech, they lunged at Le Gui.

“Overestimating yourself!”

The little ghost girl reappeared, growing instantly larger than the pool of blood before opening her enormous mouth and swallowing it whole.

[She just swallowed… her parents’ corpse blood.]

“Urgh…” Le Gui clutched the wall, gagging. “Urgh… urgh…”

She retched violently until the little ghost girl returned to her normal size. Weakly, Le Gui gave her a thumbs-up. “You’re incredible. That massive puddle of filth, and you swallowed it all in one gulp… Just how much spiritual power have you accumulated over these thousands of years?”

“Didn’t earn much from making deals. Most of it came from His Lordship gifting me six thousand years’ worth of cultivation,” the little ghost girl admitted.

Le Gui froze. “How much did he give you?”

“Six thousand years,” the little ghost girl glanced at her. “If not for a certain someone, I would have inherited all his power by now and fully freed myself from the Seer Mirror’s constraints.”

“Wait a minute,” Le Gui, still weak from vomiting, took a moment to process before saying, “Didn’t he only live for ten thousand years? If he gave you six thousand years’ worth of power, and already wasted two thousand healing his injuries, then that means…”

“He only has two thousand years of cultivation left,” the little ghost girl confirmed her suspicion. “Why do you think I rushed to deal with them so quickly? I was afraid the commotion would expose the fact that my spiritual energy is the same as His Lordship’s. If anyone realized his power had diminished, do you think they’d let him go? Right now, the strongest cultivators from both the immortal and mortal realms are gathered outside. If they knew the truth, do you think they wouldn’t take this chance to attack him?”

“…That commotion just now wasn’t considered big?” Le Gui asked dryly. She finally understood what the little ghost girl meant when she said Di Jiang’s power had weakened.

The little ghost girl remained calm. “This courtyard exists within an independent, sealed barrier. I made sure to settle everything before the barrier shattered. How could anyone outside possibly know what happened?”

Le Gui silently pointed behind her. “Not broken? Then what’s that hole over there?”

The little ghost girl: “…”

Le Gui stared at the gaping hole in the courtyard wall for a long moment before innocently asking, “It’s just one hole, should be fine, right?”

The little ghost girl: “…”

Near the trial platform, everyone saw the massive swirl of purple demonic clouds gathering in the southeastern sky. Most cultivators were confused, but the immortal emperor and his entourage exchanged thoughtful glances before turning their attention to Di Jiang.

Di Jiang, who had been enjoying the spectacle, suddenly found himself becoming the spectacle instead. He let out a low chuckle. “Always causing trouble for me.”