His gaze moved downward, and Lu Yuan's pupils contracted again.
Her lips had been sewn shut with a kind of dark red fine thread.
That wasn't thread.
Upon closer inspection, the silk thread actually shimmered with faint glimmers of five colors: blue, red, white, black, and yellow.
It was "Five Elements Soul-Sealing Thread," made by soaking it in black dog blood and crow feather ash, then twisted together with corpse oil.
The direction of the stitches formed a reverse-written "Speech-Prohibition Talisman."
On both sides of the corners of her mouth, there was a black dot made from a mixture of coffin nail rust and mercury sand.
Mute Gate Nails.
Using coffin nails to permanently seal the apertures through which she could make sound.
Even more sinister was her obviously sunken oral cavity.
Her tongue had been cut off at the root.
Lu Yuan could even imagine the scene at that time...
A few years after her death, her corpse was dug up. First, they poured in muteness talisman water, then severed her tongue root, ensuring she would be forever voiceless from the mortal world to the netherworld...
But that wasn't all.
On her lips, there was also a piece of "Silencing Silk" as thin as cicada wings.
This silk was cut from the inner lining of the burial garment of an unmarried girl who died young, inscribed with twisted incantations using coffin nail rust, fish bladder glue, and centipede venom from tombs.
Yin wind couldn't blow it away, ghosts and gods couldn't question it.
Making it impossible for her to speak even half a sentence of grievance before any existence.
The entire process was called "Throat-Locking Pass, Mouth-Sealing Prison."
Seeing this shocking scene, somehow, what arose in Lu Yuan's heart wasn't revulsion, fear, or horror...
Instead, it was... heartache.
What... what crime had she committed to deserve this??!!
Had she rebelled against heaven itself?
Or had she done something that both humans and gods would condemn??
Wasn't she just a kind twenty-year-old girl who, while washing clothes by the river, saw a child fall into the water and jumped in to save him?
The child was saved by her, and she died.
Wasn't she just doing a good deed!!
Why... why did she have to suffer like this after death??
One must know, this ghost marriage wasn't arranged when she first died back then.
Rather, it was only two or three years after her death that they came looking for her.
In other words, these sinister techniques of gouging eyes and severing the tongue were performed two or three years after her death by digging up the grave and opening the coffin.
At that time she was already dead!!
Already dead for two or three years!
Why did they still need to use such sinister techniques!!
Lu Yuan's eyes no longer held fear or revulsion, only endless pity and also... a scorching, chest-burning... fury.
Looking further down at what he saw, Lu Yuan sighed weakly and quietly...
Her legs had been severed cleanly from the middle of her thighs downward.
The cross-sections were abnormally smooth, covered with a thick layer of lime mixed with iron sand and pot bottom ash called "Foot-Suppressing Powder."
Before the severing, they must have used red rope soaked in virgin boy urine and talisman water to bind the area above her knees seven times, corresponding to the "Seven Souls."
This was the technique of "Severing Roots and Cutting Off Paths," both cutting off her path to "run back to her parents' home" to lodge complaints in the underworld and also making it so that in the underworld she could only rely on and follow her husband's soul-summoning banner to "walk."
In reality, she was being dragged by her husband's soul power, forever unable to act independently.
At the major acupoints on her body: between her brows, at her throat, over her heart, at her dantian, and on the cross-sections of her severed limbs.
Each was pressed with a "Victory Coin" soaked in corpse oil and engraved with her husband's birth date and time.
Beneath the bright red wedding dress, her undergarments had all been worn inside out, all the buttons tied in dead knots.
Her right hand was twisted into a strange posture, thumb pressed tightly to her palm, four fingers curled. This was the "Broom-Holding Mudra."
Signifying that in the underworld she would forever hold a broom, serving her husband's family.
The entire interior of the coffin was like a carefully designed and cruelly executed "Underworld Slave Manufacturing Ritual."
Every detail was soaked through with extreme fear, control, and objectification of Gu Qingwan's soul.
Attempting to use the most brutal bodily mutilation and the most malicious witchcraft incantations to eternally inscribe upon her soul form the "obedience" she had not completed in the mortal world.
In the night wind, the cool moonlight in the night sky illuminated the scene inside the coffin, making it appear even more sinister.
The branch shadows of the withered mulberry swayed on the coffin wood, like countless hands trying to grasp something.
Whoosh—!
A gust of yin wind howled past then a blood-red figure quietly descended behind Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan turned his head and looked at that familiar yet unfamiliar blood-red figure.
That was her original appearance.
That face of ultimate beauty and ultimate coldness appeared before Lu Yuan once again.
She was too beautiful.
Even after becoming a twenty-star super fierce entity, she was still breathtakingly beautiful.
When ordinary people became evil spirits, even if their soul forms resembled their previous appearance, they would still look gloomy and terrifying because they had become evil spirits but aside from those crimson pupils that displayed an eerie otherworldliness, everything else about her was still beautiful.
Such an absolutely beautiful, kind-hearted girl yet this woman had died at twenty years old.
Died trying to save someone else and there was no plot development of good people being rewarded.
Immediately after, after her death, her family was also destroyed.
Her younger brother was murdered, her parents became mad and demented.
Lu Yuan looked at Gu Qingwan with a face full of pity.
While Gu Qingwan floated in mid-air, quietly observing Lu Yuan.
When Lu Yuan had seen Gu Qingwan before, he had many emotions in his heart: fear, doubt, curiosity...
But now there was only one.
Heartache.
Lu Yuan had said before that one couldn't form emotional bonds with evil spirits.
Lu Yuan had also said before that her current "goodness" wasn't real goodness, but rather she was a super fierce entity that could explode at any moment and disown even her own kin.
Lu Yuan understood everything, Lu Yuan knew everything but Lu Yuan still felt heartache.
After quietly gazing at Gu Qingwan for a few seconds, Lu Yuan took a deep breath.
He forcibly suppressed the surging pity and righteous indignation in his chest.
Resolutely turned his head to look at Gu Qingwan's actual body in the coffin.
His eyes became focused and sharp again.
First, wipe away that most malicious curse on her forehead!
Then break open all these sinister techniques!
Finally, replace Gu Qingwan's eyes, restore her tongue, and reconnect her legs!!
Lu Yuan steadied himself and took out a flat jade box from his shoulder bag.
Opening it, inside was a small mass of substance as smooth as ointment, emitting a faint fragrance: "Spirit-Cleansing Balm."
This substance was refined from Tianshan snow lotus pistils, rootless morning dew, and glutinous rice paste aged for over three years.
Supplemented with essences of forty-nine kinds of heart-calming and spirit-soothing herbs.
It was most capable of purifying defilement, soothing malevolent qi, and gently dissolving yin qi. It was the first choice for handling this type of sinister seal.
It was also the best thing Lu Yuan could currently produce!
Lu Yuan carefully picked up a small piece of Spirit-Cleansing Balm with silver tweezers, held his breath and focused his spirit, slowly injecting a trace of gentle true qi from his body into it.
The balm, stimulated by the qi, developed a layer of milky white soft halo on its surface.
It emitted an even fresher herbal fragrance, and even the surrounding cloying corpse decay smell was dispersed somewhat.
Lu Yuan's wrist was extremely steady as he lightly touched the Spirit-Cleansing Balm with its flowing halo to the core of the talisman seal on the female corpse's forehead.
The first stroke of the character "forever”.
The instant the balm touched her skin.
A sudden change occurred!
The writing that had already turned black suddenly seemed to come alive and violently erupted!
Countless fine blood threads frantically burst out from the strokes.
Not rushing toward Lu Yuan's hand, but like living roots, they "bit" down fiercely on that bit of Spirit-Cleansing Balm!
"Hiss—!"
An intense corrosive sound rang out, and the milky white halo was instantly dyed red and devoured!
The fragrant Spirit-Cleansing Balm turned charred black and hardened in the blink of an eye, transforming into a pinch of foul-smelling black ash that rustled down from the tweezers.
Lu Yuan retreated half a step with the tweezers, his face slightly pale, his eyes full of shock and gravity.
This?!!
This spell... could actually reverse-devour his curse-breaking substance!
The underworld secret curses, bloodline bindings, and earth vein connections contained within were already almost heretical!
This spell… with his current level of cultivation...
He couldn't erase it.
Not even a trace, not even a bit could be moved.
The moonlight was cool and cold, illuminating one person, one ghost, one coffin, silently confronting each other before this lonely grave.
Lu Yuan stood with his back to the blood-red figure, silent for a long time.
Suddenly, Lu Yuan stood up.
Going home!
Going home to find the old man!!