The Old Taoist Priest grabbed her and they took the opportunity to flee amidst the chaos, not even paying for their pleasures!
Gu Shi Yi was boasting for quite a while and was about to say more, when suddenly, as if aware of something, he stopped mid-sentence, looked around, then raised his head to the sky, muttering,
"The weather's changing!"
Li Yaner looked up as well and indeed saw that the moon, which had been hanging in the sky, was now obscured by dark clouds. Gu Shi Yi counted on his fingers and muttered a few words, then said,
"Time to head back!"
Li Yaner nodded, suddenly shrank her neck, and imitated Gu Shi Yi by looking around,
"Shiyi, why do I feel a bit cold?"
Her body now made of clay and all her senses gone, how could she feel cold?
Gu Shi Yi sighed,
"Bad luck, even coming to see an Oiran can get you entangled with unclean things!"
He turned to leave and after walking a bit, heard someone calling out to him,
"Young man, would you like to spend the night on the boat?"
Without looking back, Gu Shi Yi casually responded,
"No silver, how about free of charge?"
"...Sure!"
The voice of the woman behind him was soft and gentle, Gu Shi Yi paused, then quickened his pace and replied,
"You're too ugly, I wouldn't want it even for free!"
Carrying Big Boss, he lowered his head and hurried forward, but after a few steps, he saw a lady in red standing about five steps ahead of him. Her face was pale, having no makeup on, but her features were not bad, her figure slender, except...
Gu Shi Yi scanned her tiptoed feet without showing any reaction, and observed her silently. The lady in red looked melancholic,
"Young man... you keep your head down and don't look at me, how can you know if I'm not pretty?"
Gu Shi Yi lifted his head, expressionless, and put up two fingers,
"First, I'm a woman, and second, do you have an addiction to pursuing fleshly pleasures, that even in death you still come out to solicit customers?"
Gu Shi Yi's words revealed the identity of the Female Ghost, whose expression immediately changed, her face twisted into something ferocious,
"You think I want this?"
Her voice suddenly hoarse, her face changing, the delicate features disappeared, replaced by a countenance marred by messy slashes, flesh turned inside out and bloodied,
"If I don't absorb the living's energy, how can I walk this world!"
Gu Shi Yi looked unimpressed and closely inspected her face, asking,
"Who slashed your face?"
The Female Ghost, surprised that Gu Shi Yi wasn't afraid, hesitated for a moment, then turned to look at the flower boat on the river where singing and dancing continued, her gaze landing on the woman in red,
"Oh... I see!"
Gu Shi Yi nodded, holding Big Boss, and walked around the Female Ghost, but after only a few steps, her field of vision blurred, and the ghost's disfigured face was in front of her again,
"You are not allowed to leave!"
Gu Shi Yi rolled his eyes,
"It wasn't me who disfigured your face, find whoever did it. You recklessly harm people; beware of the ghost messengers catching you and sending you to the eighteenth level of hell to suffer..."
The Female Ghost spoke viciously,
"Do you think I'm willing... We were sisters who came out together, why did she have to harm me? Now she's become the Oiran, that's fine, but she trapped me under that flowerbed with a talisman, making it impossible for me to reincarnate. If I do not consume human energy, within three days I will disperse, forever unable to move on!"
Gu Shi Yi's expression changed slightly at her words,
"She prevented you from reincarnating?"
The Female Ghost's features twisted into an expression of extreme resentment, pointing at the woman in red dancing on the flower boat,
"She has always been at odds with me, often competing for customers. One time she tricked me into drinking and strangled me to death, then disfigured my face, and pressed my bones under that flowerbed. She even spent a lot of silver to have a talisman carved on that tree, trapping my soul, preventing my reincarnation, leaving me with only the end of the month to find a chance to escape..."
Do you think she wants to harm people?
"A talisman?"
The Female Ghost nodded,
"The talisman is carved on the trunk of that tree..."