The gray mist was peeled aside by Li Zhiyuan layer after layer. At first it was still fairly thin, but the deeper he went, the denser it became, until in the end, even the slightest touch would make pus ooze out.

After he passed through completely, what lay ahead was a crescent-shaped darkness.

"Boom!"

Thunder sounded, and lightning lit up this region, briefly revealing a courtyard with a pond, and beneath the eaves, the Tomb Master sitting there, leaning against the wall.

He now looked somewhat younger than the body lying in the coffin after his death, yet in terms of state, though technically alive, he was no different from the dead.

His skin was seeping white, he sat there motionless, his eyes open but utterly dull. In short, he was a more delicate, not-yet-rotten walking corpse.

From the moment he was born, he had been treated by the Yin Cha like an inn they could "check into" at any time. This constant possession shattered not only his body, but ground his spirit to dust.

To put it bluntly, the girls and pimps in a brothel lived with more dignity than he did.

If his temperament had been ordinary, that would have been the end of it—he'd have smashed the pot early, let himself go completely, wiped out his sense of self, and perhaps found a kind of release in that. But by some cruel twist, he was, at his core, a remarkably tenacious person.

People with a face like his generally don't live to see ten, yet he had managed to reach his early twenties—more than double that. But this tenacity didn't bring him any "bitter comes, sweet follows", only a more prolonged torment.

Li Zhiyuan went around the pond and walked up to him.

The spirits inside ordinary corpses usually showed varying degrees of damage, some even so frail that the term "wretched" would not be an exaggeration. At such times, Li Zhiyuan often had to personally replenish their spirit.

But the man before him, even after being buried for so long, still had a spirit that was perfectly intact.

In theory, this was a good thing, but when pushed to the extreme, it meant that although he was dead, he still retained his complete memories. If one wanted to "deceive" him, even to the extent of altering his memories, one would have to account for that long, unbroken span, which actually made the task much harder.

Li Zhiyuan waved his hand in front of his face, then called out to him twice. As expected, there was no response.

As though, in his "eyes", Li Zhiyuan was nothing more than yet another Yin Cha trying to take over his body.

Which, in truth, he was.

The youth chose to walk out; his own time was extremely tight, and he couldn't afford to waste any.

In reality, those three who had descended into the Tomb Master's body, while breaking the rules, had also continued them. Once a new balance was established, their attention was instead locked on the four "people" before them.

This was equivalent to giving Li Zhiyuan the chance to dare pull tricks right under the lamplight.

But the pressure on the youth right now was immense, the burden extremely heavy. He had to maintain the situation in reality while secretly wielding the Black Skin Book secret technique. Therefore, he had to achieve results in the shortest possible time.

There was no time for a full-scale rewrite of the Tomb Master's memories; Li Zhiyuan intended instead to achieve resonance with him.

He himself was certainly not suitable for this, but there was someone whose experiences were somewhat similar.

Back in the gray mist, Li Zhiyuan's appearance changed rapidly and became… the likeness of Zhao Yi.

He stepped out of the mist again and reentered the thunder-split courtyard, then sat down before the Tomb Master.

"Zhao Yi" began to shrink, from an adult into an infant, while around him the figures of "parents", "clan elders", and the like appeared one after another.

The infant "Zhao Yi" endured the agony of attacks from the Life and Death Door, a pain that made him wish for death, while at the same time he reached out his tiny hands, desperately seeking warmth and comfort, only to receive his "parents'" dissatisfaction and hatred, as well as the coldly calculating gazes of clan elders who saw him as a low-probability gamble that might just pay off.

Zhao Yi would occasionally mention his past in a joking tone, and Li Zhiyuan had never really talked with Zhao Yi about each other's childhoods.

After all, neither of them was particularly fond of their own childhood.

But given a set of "thematic keywords", Li Zhiyuan could still easily patch and fill in the "Zhao Yi of the past".

As he displayed all this, Li Zhiyuan watched for the Tomb Master's reaction.

The Tomb Master… had no reaction.

This made Li Zhiyuan start correcting himself. Pure "tragic empathy" might seem highly effective on paper, but for an existence like the Tomb Master, it was still too bland.

The youth immediately adjusted his plan. Previously, in order to highlight the tragedy of Zhao Yi's past, he had deliberately removed the character of "Old Tian".

If it was going to be miserable, it might as well be utterly miserable, with no hope or warmth—only then would it be extreme enough.

But if there is no touch of warmth, how can the hardship of those years be properly thrown into relief?

It was a bit like using movement to set off stillness.

In the new round of display, Old Tian appeared. While the entire family watched with cold eyes to see when Zhao Yi would die young, only this slave of another surname played with the young master, kept vigil by his bed through toil and fatigue, and then carried him on his back to watch the other children playing outside.

As Old Tian's image gradually unfolded, the Tomb Master showed emotional fluctuations. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

The surroundings were no longer unchanging either. Beside the Tomb Master, a gentle woman appeared. She held him in her arms, her tears falling like pearls from a snapped string.

This was his mother.

She had given birth to her child, then watched with her own eyes as he was torn apart by "illness and torment". She never gave up, always staying with him.

Perhaps this was also why the Tomb Master could grit his teeth and drag this despairing life on and on.

As the scene shifted, white sails appeared all around, paper money was set aloft, and the Tomb Master's mother passed away.