Between the crossing of realms, golden light shimmered with a bizarre scarlet hue. A tranquil figure held an octagonal golden pagoda, standing silently at the boundary between worlds.
Dachang City
The entire sky glowed with a faint blood-red, and an eerie, silent atmosphere permeated the city.
Atop a tower spire, an old black-red coffin sat quietly in a hidden room.
"Bang!"
A loud crash rang out as the coffin lid was blown away, and a man slowly sat up from within the coffin.
"Captain?"
Li Yang stood on the rooftop, gazing at the signature scarlet Ghost Domain in the sky, his eyes flickering with uncertainty.
Suddenly, a massive crack tore open in the sky above Dachang City. Looking into the fissure, a continent was being cleaved in two by some unknown, majestic force. Countless figures were fleeing in all directions, some riding swords, others flying through the air.
"Holy crap! Honey! Come out and see the immortals!"
"Mom! Come see the mirage!"
"Which fellow daoist is undergoing tribulation here? This poor daoist has come to aid you!"
In an instant, everyone in Dachang City saw the scene within the crack. Every television station scrambled to report on the incident, while various experts spoke eloquently during live broadcasts. Mirages, atmospheric refraction, the latest drone technology playing movies—so on and so forth...
Li Yang stared fixedly at the massive crack in the sky. He knew this aberration was caused by his captain.
"A new supernatural incident? It's been thirty years. Has the captain been fighting against something this terrifying all along?"
"Hm? What's that?"
Li Yang's gaze fell upon an inconspicuous corner of Dachang City. A small spatial crack hovered within an alleyway. The entire city's attention was captivated by the massive crack in the sky; no one noticed this anomaly at all.
Peering into the crack, Li Yang saw only a street filled with raging winds.
"The captain is dealing with that supremely terrifying supernatural incident in the sky. Huang Ziya and the others are still in their coffins. I'm the only one who can act in Dachang City right now."
Without the slightest hesitation, Li Yang stepped into the crack.
Rain filled the sky, connecting into a single sheet, while unrestrained gales destroyed everything within sight. The entire city seemed to face the apocalypse. Beside a colossal tornado that reached straight to the heavens stood three figures.
After Fang Shiming successfully harnessed that patch of flowing sand, he relied on this new supernatural ability to locate Yang Jian and Liu San within the hurricane.
The entire tornado was composed of countless mutilated corpse fragments, with frigid lake water rapidly flowing between the body parts. Yang Jian and the other two were currently emanating an intense red glow, relying on their Ghost Domain to approach the source of the hurricane at such close range.
"These people aren't dead yet."
Liu San looked at a man's head, barely half of it remaining among the mutilated limbs. The man's gaze was filled with terror as he looked back, wanting to speak but then being swallowed once more by countless corpse fragments.
Fang Shiming stood to the side, observing the corpse fragments. "The person controlling this hurricane is probably conducting some kind of experiment. These people's condition is slowly shifting toward that of ghost slaves."
"No, it's not quite like ghost slaves. Their condition is closer to that of Ghost Wranglers."
Yang Jian keenly discovered that each living person's body was permeated with trace amounts of lake water. It was precisely because of these extremely minute supernatural puzzle pieces that such a large number of ordinary people could harness them.
"I have to admit, it's practically an avant-garde idea... Using the hurricane to disperse the Ghost Lake, then forcibly implanting the supernatural fragments of the Ghost Lake into their bodies through some method to mass-produce Ghost Wranglers?"
"Watch out!"
Suddenly, the giant tornado composed of countless corpse fragments and living people began to spin with insane speed. A putrid gale carrying frigid lake water surged toward the three of them.
"I can't move?"
Liu San was shocked to discover that the old corpse inside his body had actually been blown open by a crack.
"Don't panic. The confrontation between malevolent ghosts is mutual—the people over there aren't faring well either."
Watching his Ghost Domain being torn apart, Yang Jian pondered their next move. A patch of black-yellow sediment slowly enveloped the three of them, isolating them from the supernatural assault.
"It won't last long. Think of a way to get inside quickly."
Yang Jian looked at the black-yellow sediment, pondered for a moment, then said, "Fang Shiming, coordinate with me."
A burst of red light suddenly exploded, coating the surface of their bodies within the sediment.
Fang Shiming instantly understood what Yang Jian intended to do and replied, "Five seconds. Supernatural interference of this level can only delay it for five seconds."
"That's enough."
Flashes of red light pulsed within the black-yellow sediment, then suddenly pierced forward, invading the rapidly spinning mass of corpses.
Several people at the center of the hurricane turned around simultaneously, looking at the three intruders.
"Not bad, youngsters. I didn't expect you to actually make it in," said an old man, skinny as kindling, holding a rotting meatball oozing with corpse fluid in his palm. He looked at Yang Jian's trio with what seemed like gratification.
"But we can't let you disrupt the plan now. Leave, and pretend you were never here. The Reform Society merely has different ideals from yours, we aren't—"
"Do it!"
Before the old man could finish, a black shadow rapidly lunged toward him.
"Court death!"
A bizarre, slow-moving gale surged upward.
"Save Li Jun first!"
Liu San saw Li Jun's corpse lying at the edge, and paper effigies appeared around him. Yang Jian's Ghost Shadow had just reached the old man when it was scattered by a gale interwoven with lake water. This pure supernatural suppression made Yang Jian's eyelids twitch violently. From just a moment of contact, his Ghost Shadow was nearly dismembered.
The old man once again raised the corpse-fluid-oozing meatball in his hand toward Fang Shiming. Fang Shiming instantly felt a tremendous force pressing down on the surrounding space, his body pinned firmly in place, unable to move.
"Hm? What did he do to the ghost inside me...?"
Fang Shiming looked at the bizarre meatball in shock and alarm—he couldn't walk out of this frozen space.
"If I can freeze even this hurricane and the Ghost Lake, let alone you, youngster."
The old man glanced at Liu San, who was supporting Li Jun, and waved his hand.
"Take that major general and leave. The Reform Society's goal is not to kill. We do not wish to create more bloodshed."
This old man seemed unwilling to entangle himself further.
"You seem to have misunderstood something. This isn't a game where you come and go as you please. This is a life-and-death struggle."
Fang Shiming looked coldly at the old man.
"That patch of flowing sand was your doing, wasn't it? If I don't kill you today, I'll be the one who dies. Hand over that meatball, and I might let you live a few more years."
Fang Shiming stood in place, both hands behind his back, gripping a pair of old scissors tightly. Ten seconds—he only needed ten seconds to break free.
"Hehehe, what grand words! Lao Qian! Do it! He's stalling for time!"
As soon as the words fell, an old woman beside him reached out and grabbed toward Fang Shiming. He immediately felt an unimaginably powerful suction force. An unknown supernatural power was pulling at the malevolent ghost Fang Shiming harnessed through a method he couldn't comprehend.
"Stupid old hag."
Fang Shiming's eyes focused. His shoulders lowered slightly, and a bizarre corpse instantly pressed down onto the old woman's shoulders. This corpse was heavy—unimaginably heavy—pressing down on the old woman so that she couldn't move at all.
"Lao Qian, watch out!"
A tall, thin youth on the far left, his expression pained, saw the old woman being attacked and was about to act. In that instant his attention shifted, a flash of scarlet blurred across his vision.
"Where are you looking?"
Yang Jian's Ghost Hand clamped tightly around the youth's neck, and the ferocious tattoo on the Ghost Hand slowly invaded the youth's body.
The situation instantly reversed. Both individuals were simultaneously subdued by Yang Jian and Fang Shiming. The old man holding the meatball and another short, stout old man looked shocked and uncertain. Yang Jian looked coldly at the two, his hand still applying constant force.
"A bunch of cowards who cling to life and fear death. You absolutely won't make a move unless it's the last resort. Time to send you on your way."
The Ghost Hand had already dug into the youth's neck. Blood dripped down the arm onto the ground, drop by drop. The Reform Society members didn't dare move at all now. Judging by Yang Jian's posture, he was truly prepared to fight to the bitter end.
Yang Jian had halfway guessed correctly. After long years, they indeed no longer easily used the malevolent ghosts within their bodies. But the deeper reason was that an old man named Elder Qin had been observing the future. Although intel indicated that Elder Qin's view of the future was incomplete, no one dared to bet on when Elder Qin might drive a bus over to run them down.
Most importantly, they truly hadn't expected the Ghost Wranglers of this era to be so savage—ready to go all-out before even finishing a sentence.
The short, stout old man carrying a corpse on his back said to Yang Jian, "Youngster, I admit you are quite capable. Let go, and there's still room for negotiation."
Yang Jian merely looked at him, then crushed the youth's throat with force.
"Court death!"
The corpse behind the old man suddenly opened its eyes. In an instant, the entire world ground to a halt. This sensation was very familiar to Yang Jian—it greatly resembled the time stop after activating the sixth layer of Ghost Domain.
The Ghost Eye slowly rotated, completely unaffected. *To think it could achieve this level.*
But before Yang Jian could act, to his astonishment, his own movements went out of control, slowly releasing the youth's neck.
Everything around began to slowly shift backward. The hurricane started rotating in reverse. The blood on the ground flowed back into the youth's body.
"Are you kidding me?! A regional reset?!"
During the Dajing City incident, Yang Jian had once briefly achieved a regional reset for four seconds through the Corpse Banner, but the reset before him had already far exceeded four seconds.
"Seven, eight... nine..." Yang Jian counted silently, his Ghost Eye fixed on the corpse behind the short, stout old man.
"In this entire regional reset, only that corpse is unaffected. It's because of that corpse."
"No! That meatball can move too!"
A gale carrying frigid rain, along with mutilated limbs from high above, surged toward Yang Jian.
"There's no time. I have to take this attack head-on."
Right at this moment.
"Bang!" A loud crash.
An old wooden door flew in from nowhere, slamming down between Yang Jian and the meatball, embedding itself diagonally into the ground.
Another "Bang!" The door was violently pushed open by a figure.
The rain-laced gale instantly dissipated. Large swathes of corpse fragments froze in place and fell from the sky. A man stood amidst the raining corpses, turning his head slightly to look at Yang Jian.
"Captain... long time no see."
Afraid some friends are reading too fast, I'll explain the plot here.
Li Yang's timeline is thirty years after the original story's Yang Jian entered the golden sculpture. He has silently guarded Dachang City for thirty years, lying in a coffin several times in between (he is much stronger than before).
Treat the "What If" series as another timeline (if-line) or another world. For example, the world of the original story's Yang Jian is Designation 36 in Tianqing; you can treat the What If world as 37.
Having Yang Jian (Erlang Shen) appear is just to explain why Li Yang is capable of crossing realms, to make this matter seem reasonable (though the novel doesn't really have much reason to begin with).
You can imagine that when Yang Jian crossed realms to the Xuanxian Continent to kill people, he used too much force, causing multiple cross-realm channels to crack. (Whether Yang Jian knows about the if-line, I can't say—after all, his setting is nearly omniscient and omnipotent.)
But at this point in time, Li Yang doesn't know that the world he went to is another world, nor does he know that the Yang Jian in this world isn't his captain in the true sense.
He simply trusts Yang Jian completely, so he crossed over without hesitation.