**Chapter 86: The Realm of the Dead**
Qin Mu sat beneath the lantern, his jade pendant emitting a faint glow, still wanting to float upward, flying into the distance.
"Is this the Carefree Village? If not, where exactly is it?"
The skiff moved at a steady, unhurried pace. Once aboard, Qin Mu noticed the skeletons on the shore ignored them completely, as if unable to see them. The bone-mountains returned to normal, the skeletal forms falling back into death and silence as though their momentary animation had been nothing more than a dream.
He shook his head, trying to clear the sense of unreality that had settled over him like the mist itself. Everything on this journey had been beyond belief. The demons lurking in the darkness of the Great Ruins, the death-guides along the river, the world within the gray fog, and now this boat with its skeletal boatman in a tattered straw coat—all utterly incredible, yet undeniably real.
Moreover, the world within the darkness was not as simple as the Village Chief had assumed. He had thought there was a single Dark Realm, but now it seemed that one realm could not explain everything they had seen and experienced. The Dark Realm might exist, but there might be other worlds in the darkness as well.
"Village Chief, who was that passenger who gave us the Fengdu coins?" Qin Mu asked quietly.
"An old acquaintance." The Village Chief's expression was mild. "I haven't seen him in a very long time, nor heard any news. I thought he was dead. Those of us from that era who are still alive—every one of them is remarkable."
Qin Mu felt a surge of admiration. The Village Chief's era must have been an age of heroes, like a sky full of brilliant stars, producing countless figures as extraordinary as the Village Chief himself.
"I didn't expect him to still be so restless, always running about," the Village Chief smiled. "He's more resourceful than I am, and he's witnessed more of the mysterious. I envy his carefree life—it's lighter than mine. His name is Ling Jing. He has a dark mole under his left eye and is missing the ring finger on his right hand—I cut it off."
"Village Chief, where will this boat take us?" Qin Mu looked around. They were far from the entrance, with no sight of the way they had come. The fog had closed behind them. Who even knew if this was still the Great Ruins?
The Village Chief frowned slightly. Qin Mu's pendant had brought them here, and in all his years in the Great Ruins, he had never encountered anything so strange. Since the pendant led them here, it must be connected to the pendant's origins.
"Mu'er, if I hadn't brought you out, I might never have discovered this place."
As they spoke, the gray fog ahead gradually thinned, revealing vast lands and towering mountains—no longer bone-mountains. Near the edge of the fog-sea, a wooden dock appeared. The skiff slowed and pulled up to the dock.
Qin Mu quickly took out a Fengdu coin to pay. The boatman raised two bony fingers. Qin Mu produced another coin. They disembarked. Looking back, Qin Mu saw the skiff and its skeletal boatman vanish into the mist, only the bow lantern's feeble glow still visible.
"What a strange place..."
The jade pendant floated upward, pointing ahead. They followed it, soon arriving at a boundary stele inscribed with several seal-script characters.
"The Realm of the Dead. The living shall stop. The dead shall proceed."
Qin Mu read aloud, then hesitated. "Village Chief, should we keep going?"
The Village Chief looked ahead, faintly making out settlements. "Since we've come this far, how can we not continue?"
They crossed the stele. Qin Mu cried out, raising his hands—they had turned into bare white bones! He tore open his clothes. His flesh was entirely gone, leaving only white bones!
He looked at the Village Chief, who had also become a floating skeleton. But strangely, the Village Chief had *grown arms and legs*—his torso and head were bone, but his limbs were flesh and blood.
"The Realm of the Dead... Mu'er, let's turn back," the Village Chief said abruptly.
Qin Mu retreated past the stele. His flesh returned, and the Village Chief's limbs vanished again, his flesh restored.
"What a wondrous world..." the Village Chief murmured.
He smiled faintly and walked back into the Realm of the Dead. "Let's go in and have a look."
Qin Mu followed. The Village Chief's legs touched the ground, and he took a step—then stopped, gazing at his own hands, overwhelmed with emotion, as if mourning his lost limbs.
Ahead, mountains rose and temples multiplied. A village appeared before them—peaceful and idyllic. Birds sang, flowers bloomed, villagers raised chickens and cattle. A fat white pig waddled past.
At the entrance, a trembling old man emerged. "Two visitors from afar. What brings you here?"
Qin Mu asked, "Elder, may I ask how to reach the Carefree Village?"
The old man pointed behind the mountains. "Cross several mountains, pass through a gateway, and you will see it."
"Thank you."
They headed up the mountain. Qin Mu looked back; the villagers still watched them with eerie gazes.
"In their eyes, we are dead," the Village Chief said.
Qin Mu frowned. "Village Chief, I sense something strange... Grandpa Blind gave me the Nine-Layer Divine Eye. Although my physical eyes are gone, I can still see things dimly."
"What do you see?"
"There is demonic qi on them."
The Village Chief considered. "The Realm of the Dead alters the rules of life and death—that is the power of gods and demons. Our flesh is actually still present, only twisted by the rules so it cannot be seen or touched. Your Nine-Layer Divine Eye still works. Can you use your qi to activate it?"
Qin Mu tried, flowing qi into his eyes, activating the array the Blind One had branded there. Everything became crystal clear.
He looked back. Everyone in the village had changed—no longer human, but bare skeletons. Even the chickens, cattle, and pig were all bones! And the skeletons' shapes were inhuman—broader in some places, with elongated skulls.
"The Tianmo," the Village Chief said.
"The Tianmo?"
"They are a demon race from another realm, highly aggressive. Your Heavenly Demon Cult has 'demon' in its name, but its members are all human—the Tianmo are different. Could this be their world? It doesn't quite seem so. Let's press on. If it is, we leave immediately!"
They crossed several mountains and reached the gateway the old man had described. Two mountain gates flanked a stone bridge, with "Fengdu" carved into the cliff. Fengdu—the legendary Ghost Gate.
The Village Chief walked through without hesitation. Qin Mu quickly followed.
Before them stood orderly city after city, arranged in a vast grid that stretched to the horizon. Temples and palaces soared to the heavens—majestic, magnificent, their rooftops gleaming with a light that seemed to emanate from the stones themselves. Countless cities, countless palaces, countless temples, each one distinct, each one enormous, stretching onward until they blurred into the distance like a painted backdrop.
This was the world beyond Fengdu's gateway. Vast, boundless, spectacular.
"This should be Fengdu's capital," the Village Chief said, hushed with awe.
Then Qin Mu spotted a dilapidated ship, its hull made of mountain rock, chains trailing from it like kite strings, each tethered to a gray sphere at its end.
A massive sphere, broken on one side.
It was a moon.