Scripture of Days Past

Humans had been studying ghosts since ancient times.

This special state, attained by an extremely small percentage of people after passing death, had intrigued countless people, many of whom believed that ghosts held the secrets to life and death.

The Demon Vanquishing Department's earliest research into ghosts began with a strange scripture known as the Corpse Codex.

It was an ancient scripture filled with astonishing and confounding images, while its contents were arranged in an extremely chaotic manner, like the stream of consciousness of a madman written down onto paper.

After reading the codex, some members of the Demon Vanquishing Department discovered that they were able to see spirits, entities that were somewhere between humans and ghosts.

These people became known as spiritualists, and they formed the earliest foundation of the Spiritualist Faction.

Under their guidance, the Demon Vanquishing Department began conducting large-scale experiments on death-row fugitives, cult members, and fiends in an attempt to create ghosts that could be controlled.

The results of those experiments had long since been lost to time. According to the records compiled by Yi Shuang, the earliest spiritualists of the Demon Vanquishing Department had all taken the secrets of the Corpse Codex with them to the grave, and more than half of them committed suicide.

This only made Yi Shuang more curious about the contents of the codex. Through tireless research, he found some experimental records from the time, but that still wasn't enough to satisfy him.

Driven by his burning curiosity, he turned to the archive building and began searching for the Corpse Codex. After reading many scriptures and historical records related to cults, his research gradually became more twisted and blasphemous.

He began to doubt the teachings of the Profound Origin Dao Lord and developed a keen interest in the Immortal Dao. Eventually, he came to believe that Name and Principle, the orthodox art of the Immortal Dao, was the only orthodox art that could truly allow one to glean the secrets of the consciousness and the soul.

However, Yi Shuang was unable to find the all-important Corpse Codex on the first floor of the archive building, so he set his sights on the second floor.

After much effort, he was finally able to secure permission from the gatekeeper, the bookkeeper, and the head instructor to access the Corpse Codex.

No one knew what he had read in the book. All the gatekeeper and Lin Lan knew was that he had fallen seriously ill after reading the codex. Even after recovering, he never mentioned what he had seen, and his visits to the archive building became increasingly infrequent.

On the surface, Yi Shuang appeared to have returned to normal, but in reality, the twisted knowledge contained within the Corpse Codex had already taken root in his mind.

He could see and hear spirits everywhere, and they were constantly stimulating his consciousness and will, pushing him to the brink of a mental breakdown.

He tried to seek help from the Profound Origin Dao Lord, only to discover that he had already lost his faith. He then came to the soul-crushing conclusion that the Profound Origin Dao Lord had abandoned him.

Without his faith to protect him, his condition continued to deteriorate until he could no longer distinguish hallucination from reality.

That was until he made contact with the Immortal Dao.

Thanks to the dark knowledge bestowed upon him by the Immortal Dao, he was finally able to regain a stable state of mind. However, far from abandoning his research into ghosts and spirits after such a traumatic experience, he became even more enamored with the subject.

He read everything he could find on the topic, and his obsession with the Corpse Codex only deepened.

He had shared some of his knowledge with Chu Qiguang, and that was what had been recorded in that tainted notebook.

***

Chu Qiguang read through the mad ramblings recorded in the notebook, and before long, he began experiencing both visual and auditory hallucinations.

It felt as if his brain had turned into a pot of boiling sludge, growing murkier with every word he read.

It was only when he reached the final few pages, which contained his own words, that his vision gradually began to clear.

Those pages contained Chu Qiguang's thoughts, written in Chinese.

"What Yi Shuang has taught me has given me the ability to see spirits and ghosts. The more knowledge I accumulate about them, the more strongly I will be drawn to these entities, like a moth drawn to a flame. The average person would quickly be driven insane by this knowledge, but naturally, that's not a concern for me.

"Yi Shuang thinks there's no way he could be fooled by a sixteen-year-old boy, so he has lowered his guard around me. Thanks to that, I've been able to obtain several key pieces of information from him with ease..."

Through his conversations with Yi Shuang, Chu Qiguang learned that the former had been closely observing him this entire time and had taken a particular interest in his relationship with Lin Lan.

Although Yi Shuang had done his best to hide it, Chu Qiguang had still noticed the delight in his eyes when he learned that Chu Qiguang had become good friends with Lin Lan.

As Chu Qiguang continued reading, more and more background information was revealed.

"It happened on the fifth day of my studies under Yi Shuang. At the time, I hadn't yet developed the habit of recording and forgetting everything he taught me. That night, I was reading in the archive building with Lin Lan beside me when she suddenly hugged me without warning. I asked her what she was doing, but she said she didn't know. I could see that she was blushing as she rubbed her face against my chest.

"I had no idea what her intentions were, but I knew I was in danger. She moved so quickly that I didn't have time to react, and her strength surpassed that of every martial artist I had ever fought. She even began licking my face and my neck, as if she wanted to eat me.

"I had no choice but to channel my Primordial High Zenith Demonic Arts to strengthen my body and protect myself. At the time, I thought Lin Lan had either gone insane or had undergone demonification and was trying to kill me. As a result, I was prepared to get her off me by any means necessary, even if I had to resort to using force.”