Ultimate Villain's Return as a Doctor in the Cultivation World-Chapter 219- A Ghost... Chic?

The specific, flight-assessment distance of a man who had been dropped, by ruin displacement, significantly far from where he had originally been going.

He noted this.

He noted: several stops between here and there.

He had his wives.

He had his previous routes.

He had the specific, practical logic of a man with multiple obligations in multiple locations who was going to sequence them correctly.

He began to fly.

The flat, present, no-ceremony, point-toward-destination flight of a Nascent Soul Mid Stage cultivator who had somewhere to go and was going there.

The wind.

The specific, clean, present, high-altitude wind of early morning flight — the flat, cold-but-not-cold, ambient-qi-carrying morning wind of a cultivation world’s upper air.

He moved through it with the specific, efficient, no-surplus flight of someone who had been doing this for three thousand years.

Below:

Mountains. The flat, grey, old, enormous mountains of the cultivation world’s eastern zone — not the Titan-bloodline heavy mountains of the Giantess territory, these mountains were older, the specific, ancient, greyed-stone, long-eroded profile of mountains that had been here since before any cultivation civilization and would be here after.

Among the mountains: a sect.

He saw it from above.

The specific, broken, empty, nobody-home visual signature of a cultivation sect that had not been a cultivation sect for some time — the pavilions still standing but the specific, alive, populated, multiple-qi-signature ambient field of an active sect entirely absent, replaced by the flat, hollow, resonant, empty quality of a space that had been built for people and no longer had people.

Abandoned.

He noted this.

He noted: clothes.

He was currently in the sky at altitude without anything on and was going to a civilization zone where the absence of clothing would produce a social response he did not currently want to manage.

He descended.

The flat, present, no-wasted-motion descent of someone who had a logistical need and had identified a solution.

The sect received him.

His feet finding the main pavilion’s stone courtyard with the flat, present, exact placement of someone who had picked a landing location from altitude and had put himself exactly there.

He looked around.

Empty.

The flat, hollow, stone-echo, nobody-present quality of an abandoned cultivation sect at early morning — the pavilions’ doors ajar on some and closed on others, the training grounds clear of training, the cultivation circles’ markers still in the stone but the circles empty.

Broken in places.

The specific, selective, targeted breakage of a sect that had had something specific happen to it rather than the gradual, time-and-weather deterioration of simple abandonment.

Someone had attacked this place.

He noted this.

He filed it as background.

He walked.

Toward the residential pavilion — the flat, present, direct walk of someone who had a specific need and was going to the most likely location for the item that addressed the need.

He found them in the outer room of the residential pavilion’s second tier.

Clothes.

The flat, present, folded, still-here, uncollected-by-whoever-had-left-in-a-hurry clothes of a cultivation sect’s clothing storage — the specific, practical, sect-standard robes of an institution that had maintained uniform dress and had left the uniforms behind when it departed in whatever circumstances it had departed in.

Sky blue.

The specific, pale, present, morning-sky blue of a sect whose identity color had been this, the flat, cool, clean color of a faction that had, from its clothing choice, cultivated something in the wind-or-sky or water-or-spiritual axis.

He picked them up.

He assessed them against his frame with the flat, practical, two-second assessment of a man determining whether the available size was the relevant size.

Close enough.

He tied them.

The flat, present, quick, functional arrangement of someone dressing for practical purposes — not the careful, cultivation-ceremony robe arrangement, the specific, going-somewhere, covering-the-essentials, loosely-tied arrangement of a man who was going to be traveling.

He looked at the robe.

Sky blue.

He noted: he had been in Void Return bloodline territory colors for five days. Sky blue was a change.

He was about to step back into the flight position when he heard it.

The sound.

Not loud.

The specific, soft, present, stone-echo quality of a sound that was coming from inside the pavilion — the flat, specific, unmistakable, human-origin sound of someone crying.

Not the breakthrough tears.

Not the five-day sound.

The specific, long-duration, deep-source, grief-origin crying of someone who had been doing this for a long time and was still doing it.

He stopped.

He looked at the pavilion.

He looked at the direction of the sound.

He walked toward it.

The flat, present, unhurried walk of someone who had assessed the source direction and was going there without having decided yet what he was going to do when he arrived.

The main pavilion.

The largest structure — the specific, high-ceilinged, central-hall, full-scale architecture of a sect’s primary gathering space, designed for the full-population assembly of whatever headcount this place had held at its peak.

He stepped through.

He stopped.

She was at the center of the hall.

Not standing.

Not sitting.

Hovering.

The specific, low, floor-adjacent, yin-energy hovering of something that was not standing because it did not have the relevant anatomy for standing — the specific, waist-and-above, hair-down, pale-skin, absent-lower-half visual configuration of something he had an immediate classification for.

’Ghost.’

He noted this with the flat, automatic, inventory-filing speed of a man who had been navigating cultivation zones for three thousand years and had a comprehensive catalogue.

Yin-energy condensate. Consciousness-retaining. Territory-bound. The specific, non-aggressive, grief-state subtype of a ghost that had not yet crossed the relevant threshold and was still running on whatever had kept it here.

She had not heard him.

She was facing the hall’s broken altar — the specific, broken-stone, damaged-offerings, attacked-not-abandoned state of an altar that had been in a sect’s main pavilion and had been addressed by whoever had attacked the sect.

She was crying.

The flat, long, low, soft, present crying of something that had been doing this for a while and had no particular expectation of stopping.

Her hair: down. The specific, pale-washed, slightly-translucent, yin-energy-degraded hair of a ghost who had been a ghost long enough for the yin condensation to have affected the color.

Her skin: pale. The specific, translucent, cool-light, ghost-pale of something that was not quite present in the material dimension.

She was young.

Or had been young.

He looked at her.

He looked at the altar.

He looked at the hall.

He turned.

The flat, present, this-is-not-my-business turn of a man who had assessed the situation and had arrived at the conclusion that the situation was not his problem and that yin-condensate ghosts did not require his intervention and that the Ghost Realm’s affairs were the Ghost Realm’s affairs.

He was three steps toward the door.

"Help me."

He stopped.

The specific, full-body, involuntary stop of legs that had received information through the ears and had suspended forward motion pending brain assessment.

He had heard these words before.

In three thousand years of previous life, he had heard these words more times than he had catalogued. Mortals, cultivators, ghosts, demons, the full spectrum of entities that inhabited a cultivation world produced these words with the specific, consistent, desperate, last-available-option delivery that made them the same words regardless of the source.

He had heard them.

He had walked past most of them. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

He was about to walk past this one.

"Help me."