The entire sect is obsessed with love, but I'm the only one who's truly insane.

After Lin Du and his group left the city, Hou Cang discovered that Lin Du was still heading deeper into the Ghost Realm.

"What else do you want to do?" Hou Cang asked, puzzled.

"An equivalent exchange, we have to fetch water from the River Styx for Granny Ma," Lin Du said. "And you? She brought you down here, didn't she ask for anything?"

Ni Jinxuan shook her head. "My mother-in-law said she doesn't want you to not come back and end up losing money."

Upon hearing this, Lin Du raised an eyebrow, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

The River Styx is outside Fengdu. After asking a ghost for directions, Lin Du headed straight for the River Styx.

Before the ghost who had been asked for directions could finish speaking, he watched the white-haired ghost run away and couldn't help but mutter, "I haven't finished yet. Normal ghosts shouldn't go near the River Styx. It's where evil ghosts who refuse to reincarnate fight. You're just waiting to die."

The underworld is always gloomy, and the deeper you go, the colder it feels.

The group walked quickly; they didn't have much time.

"Don't you guys think that the inside and outside of this Underworld City seem completely different?" Yuan Ye shivered. "The city is bustling, but it seems like there's no sound outside."

"It's not normal for it to be lively when there are ghosts everywhere, is it?" Yan Qing held a booklet in one hand and a pen in the other, following closely behind Lin Du's steps.

"I can see the River Styx!" Ni Jinxuan shouted excitedly, pointing ahead.

They traveled for nearly two days, and although the journey was quiet, there were no unexpected incidents because they were traveling together.

Hou Cang carried the spirit sword, and Ni Jinxuan carried the whip. Their combined presence was enough to make Lin Du appear like a truly frail and thin ghost.

"Strange, this river is completely silent, lifeless, and doesn't flow at all." Ni Jinxuan stood close to Lin Du, looking at the river that seemed so close.

The moment they approached, the River Styx, which had been silent for so long, suddenly surged and boiled. Demons roared, and countless hands reached out, as if to pull the approaching new demons down and climb ashore using the steps they had made.

Those grotesque, swollen hands, when they were taken out of the water, seemed to still be stuck to the surface. The hands, breaking through the tension layer of the river water, began to rot instantly, their flesh and blood dissolving into the River Styx with a splash, yet as if sinking into a muddy pool, they remained silent.

Ni Jinxuan stared wide-eyed at the scene before her, while Yan Qing next to her gagged.

Compared to the bloody chaos of the previous demonic tide, this scene is quite a challenge to one's visual senses.

Lin Du turned her head away. Compared to the direct impact, what she could not bear at this moment was the countless emotions and desires. Years of heavy greed, anger and ignorance had condensed into resentment and poison, and the yin energy was soaring to the sky. She was now in a state of yin spirit. Although the red rope did not follow her, her senses were completely with her.

"It's better to be blind," Lin Du murmured wistfully.

Ni Jinxuan was a little worried. "This water doesn't look easy to get. Junior Uncle, what will you use to get it?"

"The River Styx is stagnant water; it's not just the water that doesn't flow, but also time itself," a woman's voice rang out. "Most ghosts that enter the River Styx never come out again, truly becoming dead ghosts."

Lin Du turned his head and saw that the person was dressed in a long red gauze robe, with beautiful eyebrows and eyes. Walking in the silence, he seemed to be the only bright and passionate color that broke free from the gloom and darkness.

The moment that person appeared, all the hands in the River Styx sank to the bottom, the eerie wind dissipated in an instant, and silence returned.

"No one from the Ghost Realm ever comes to fetch water from the River Styx. Those who wish to live would never approach the River Styx, fearing they would be completely dissolved. Why would you, the people above, want to come and fetch water?"

Lin Du turned around completely. "Lin Du, disciple of the Supreme Sect of the Dongming Realm, greets the Ghost Emperor."

The people behind him tensed up at the same time. Ghost Emperor? What Ghost Emperor? The one second only to the Lord of the Underworld among the Five Ghost Emperors?

So they've come to deliver groceries, right? Will they be able to go home?

The Ghost Emperor stared at her for a while, "So bold, aren't you afraid I'm here to capture you?"

Lin Du lowered his hands from the Daoist salute, saying, "I am fortunate to have met the Ghost Emperor in this life, so this trip has not been in vain."

Seeing Lin Du so calm and composed, the people behind him breathed a slight sigh of relief.

See? Lin Du always has a way.

"Oh? You're not afraid of dying?"

Lin Du shook his head, "This junior is afraid of death, but if you really are here to arrest us, we may not be without a chance of winning."

Before the Ghost Emperor could reply, Lin Du instantly raised his hand to form a seal. Just as the Ghost Emperor raised his hand to block the attack, Lin Du nimbly flipped over, condensing an ice cup in his hand and infusing it with Yin energy. Instantly, he drew the Styx River water into it, and the lifeless surface of the water rippled in an instant.

At that moment, Lin Du clearly saw another face that was both familiar and unfamiliar.

That was how she died in her past life.

Her body was frail and broken, her face was still young, but her hair was gray. She was surrounded by a soul-trapping array, which she had undoubtedly set up herself. The array would trap her soul for seven days, preventing her from entering the underworld and abandoning the cycle of reincarnation.

Lin Du was stunned for a moment, not understanding how the Styx River had this function, and he hadn't heard the ghost messengers mention it.

The ghost below seemed to be puzzled for a moment after seeing Lin Du's face clearly, wondering why a person would step into the same river twice. Then, out of instinct, it still reached out its hand, wanting to pull her into the river.

In that instant, a powerful ghostly force pulled Lin Du back abruptly. The ghostly force condensed into thick chains, which directly clamped onto Lin Du's vital joints.

"Tell me, what chance do you have of winning when you haven't even ascended yet?" The Ghost Emperor's voice sounded extremely dangerous.

Upon seeing this, Hou Cang and Ni Jinxuan simultaneously attacked the Ghost Emperor.

The Ghost Emperor merely chuckled softly, and his attack was shattered before it even reached her.

She raised an eyebrow slightly at Shang Lindu's face, which was completely different from the deathly appearance shown on the River Styx. "Hmm?"

"You won with one move, so let's just call it even," Lin Du replied sincerely, meeting her dark eyes.

Ghost Emperor:......

Hou Cang: ? ? ?

The Ghost Emperor remained silent for a moment, then released his grip, as if he had thought of something. "Come back when you've grown strong enough to challenge me."

Lin Du let out a sound of surprise. Still facing the Ghost Emperor, he recalled the death he had just witnessed, realized something, and gestured for the people behind him to run.

The group instinctively cooperated with Lin Du and turned to run.

"You abandoned reincarnation, imprisoned yourself in the Realm of Enlightenment, stole a narrow path from the heavens, and now you dare to descend to the Underworld? Are you truly not afraid that we in the Underworld will exploit your weakness?"

The Ghost Emperor spoke with an air of authority, but to Lin Du, it was not the case at all.

"Without me, the entire Dongming Realm would perish, the Underworld would lose a territory it controls, and the Thirty-Three Heavens would gain another grotto-heaven it holds under the guise of eliminating a menace. You are the Ghost Emperor, what will you choose?"

Lin Du stood far away in front of her, pointed to his head, and said, "I have another interpretation of what you just said. You win. Let me settle the score for you."

Looking at the arrogance and self-confidence in her eyes, the Ghost Emperor chuckled, "Lin Du, you cultivate the Dao Ancestor's personally transmitted Dao, so I'll consider this a pre-arranged friendship. Remember to settle this score later."

"Sure," Lin Du replied readily. Having too many debts wasn't a burden, especially since this debt was actually quite small.

The moment Lin Du stepped onto the River Styx, the Ghost Emperor realized that Lin Du might not have come for just water. "A person who has abandoned reincarnation, his body is actually in the River Styx?"

"Lin Du, are you taking back what you left behind?"

Time is stopped in the River Styx, which means that there may be countless people on countless lines and at countless nodes within it, but they are relatively still and cannot be touched.

But the Ghost Emperor is different. She cultivated from the River Styx and is the only ghost cultivator who has mastered the laws of time in this world. She has firmly established herself as the Ghost Emperor and is known as Shen Tu.

Lin Du was the first person to break free from that predetermined long-term path and then return.

Shen Tu learned that Lin Du had come, and he came specifically to see this heretic.

"Am I... trying to find a lost sword by marking the boat?" Lin Du looked at the Ghost Emperor, both as a test and as a verification.

What she saw was not her death in her previous life, but her true self in her previous life.

The Ghost Emperor tilted his head and glanced at the River Styx. "Who knows?"

Lin Du sighed, "You're putting me in a difficult position."

What she was most worried about wasn't anything else, but the questions from those kids behind her. She hoped they would run faster and not hear her.

Once we get out, how should we fabricate the story?

Shen Tu was puzzled; she couldn't understand Lin Du's strange way of thinking.

Every word he said was unexpected.

Lin Du closed his eyes and shouted behind him, "Listen to me, keep going forward and don't look back. Granny Ma already said not to look back on the way back. I'll catch up right away."

This one sentence made the Ghost Emperor understand perfectly: Lin Du had initially signaled for his men to escape, but he himself hadn't turned around and run with them because of this.

When a living soul comes to the underworld, it must never turn back on its return journey, or it will be devoured by the evil spirits that discover it.

Lin Du did this on purpose.

They deliberately told that group of people to return first.

"Then, I'll have to trouble the Ghost Emperor."

Only now did Lin Du truly owe the Ghost Emperor a favor.

Shen Tu would neither kill her nor keep her alive, but Lin Du alone could not retrieve her body from the River Styx.

Shen Tu replied, "No problem."

The woman, whose beauty was almost otherworldly and dangerous, turned to the Styx River. With a wave of her hand, countless timelines transformed into fine threads, flowing through her fingertips.

The Styx River surged with immense waves in an instant, and a thin thread was grasped by Shen Tu. A moment later, it appeared as if Lin Du's reflection had suddenly appeared in a silver mirror, but it was real and completely different, breaking through the mirror and appearing in front of Lin Du.

The corpse was exactly as Lin Du had seen when he looked at the River Styx.

Despite his meticulous planning, he was frail and sickly, and his face was etched with unyielding sorrow.

But that was indeed the kind of outfit Lin Du liked.

The child who grew up eating food from many families loved the color blue, because no other land in the world belonged to her, but only this blue sky would always belong to her.

Therefore, she has always liked the color cyan.

It has always been this way.

That's her, that's who she is.

Lin Du's memories came flooding back.

That was... a storage treasure that connected to her soul.

The only place where time stands still is where she can store all the medicinal herbs she has painstakingly found and accumulated for her next life.

There is only one place in this world that she can reach, and where time just happens to stand still.

That is the River Styx in the underworld.

The place a dead soul should go, so after completing all the arrangements, Lin Du personally threw his body into the River Styx.

The body was clean and looked as if it had just died, but the moment it left the River Styx, it began to show signs of weathering and dissipating.

Lin Du raised his hand and touched his fingertips to the corpse in the air, which was himself, then clasped his hands together.

In an instant, Lin Du began to disappear on that timeline.

Like a snowman formed by the power of ice and snow in the forest, it melted into a forest spring when winter ended and spring arrived, making a tinkling sound.

The snowman melted away, and the storage ring on her finger fell into Lin Du's hand; it was cold and damp.

Like... when I was building a snowman, I embedded my favorite piece of jewelry inside.

Lin Du laughed. Only at this moment did she realize just how far she had gone in her scheming in her past life.

The Gu poison in Mo Lin's body must be cured by Granny Ma.

Lin Du knew from the beginning that she would meet Granny Ma, so she was certain that she would meet Granny Ma in this lifetime.

Lin Du is Yan Ye's apprentice, and his thinking is habitually based on real and specific data.

To uncover the root cause of the decline of the Heavenly Dao and to understand the overall situation of the Insightful Realm, Lin Du would definitely choose to personally examine the concrete data.

Therefore, when Lin Du reaches the final checkpoint, he will definitely go to the underworld, and the best candidate to help Lin Du conceal his anger is Granny Ma.

The reason Lin Du knew about the characteristics of the River Styx in his previous life was because Granny Ma told him.

Because Granny Ma wanted the water of the Styx River.

Granny Ma transcends the Six Realms and is not within the Five Elements, making it virtually impossible for her to die completely.

Only the Styx River, which dissolves souls.

Granny Ma wanted a cup of Styx water so that when she had lived enough, she could pass away peacefully.

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, the soul returns to its origin, and all is eventually scattered.

As long as Lin Du finds Granny Ma, he will definitely go to the River Styx in the underworld.

At this point, Lin Du's cultivation level was definitely not weak, and the matter had been almost completely revealed, leaving only the rules of the world. It was also around the time that Lin Du and his spirit merged, but due to the Heavenly Secrets shielding him, he could not recall his memories, nor could he access the storage ring that was connected to his spirit.

Only physical entities.

Now that Lin Du has found his own body, he has found his physical form, and he has all the remaining medicine.

Lin Du stood there and said sincerely, "I'm really amazing."

She's really amazing; she calculated every step, including her own thinking and timing.

One step at a time.

Even if there are differences in timing, the nodes will not be wrong.

Lin Du thought that if her opponents knew how skilled she was at strategizing and calculating, they would probably think twice about whether or not to let her join the table.

She bowed solemnly to Shen Tu, saying, "I will repay this favor in the future."

Shen Tu stood on the shore, gazing at this miracle—the only one in thousands of years whose mind had transcended the rules—and said, "I'll wait."

Holding the storage ring, Lin Du ran towards the few stiff-looking brats who dared not turn around without looking back.

"No, could Junior Uncle have been eaten by that Ghost Emperor? Should we turn back?" Yan Qing asked worriedly.

"What did they just say? I have a bad feeling about this," Ni Jinxuan whispered. "I feel so sad, so very sad."

Yuan Ye asked, "Can you make a mirror? Let's look at ourselves in the mirror, shall we?"

"..." Hou Cang was speechless. "You forgot? Ghost cultivators can't be reflected in mirrors. Did you waste your time reading books? I know all that!"

Yuan Ye: ...Huh?

Lin Du hurriedly caught up, deciding to disrupt their thinking with his anxious moment, "Run! I've already grabbed the things, what are you standing there for! If you don't run now, time will be up."

The group hurriedly took off running towards the gates of hell, back to their human world.