The evil spirit, under Ye Ling's gaze, felt increasingly guilty and replied tremblingly, "I, I am merely a spiritual entity, how could I know what you're asking?"
"That's not necessarily true."
Ye Ling smiled, "The Jiang family has been so cautious in nurturing you, even arranging three other evil spirits to guard you in that place. It seems you are anything but ordinary."
"I'm thinking, perhaps you are a member of the Jiang family, unwilling to die easily, and thus chose to become an evil spirit to continue living."
"However, your Jiang family is not known to be involved with cultivators. With the Jiang family's own capabilities, they couldn't have turned a living person into an evil spirit. Besides cooperating with the Ghost Gate, have you been collaborating with other mystical forces?"
Upon hearing Ye Ling's words, the evil spirit's expression shifted, and it began to subtly move closer to the Pure Yin Yuan Corpse, replying, "I don't know what you're talking about."
Seeing the subtle change in the evil spirit's expression, Ye Ling knew it was hiding something.
Ignoring its small movement towards the Pure Yin Yuan Corpse, Ye Ling shook his head, "Why bother?"
"We are both intelligent beings. The situation is already clear. No matter how you play dumb, you cannot change your relationship with the Jiang family."
"If you cooperate properly, I could have spared your life."
If the evil spirit before him were human, Ye Ling wouldn't need to waste words; he could simply search its soul for information.
However, this evil spirit was only a low-level spiritual entity. Although it retained its intelligence, its spiritual body was incredibly weak and could not withstand the spiritual power required for soul searching.
If he were to force a soul search, it was likely that the evil spirit would be annihilated before any information could be extracted.
Therefore, to obtain useful information from this evil spirit, Ye Ling had to maintain his patience and painstakingly pry the secrets from its mouth.
"Cooperate properly? Spare my life?"
Hearing Ye Ling's words, the evil spirit realized Ye Ling had uncovered something and decided to stop concealing it. While approaching the Pure Yin Yuan Corpse, it sneered at Ye Ling, "Kid, are you too naive, or do you think I'm easily fooled?"
"Actually, there's no harm in telling you. I do have a close relationship with the Jiang family. Those fellows from the Ghost Gate are merely fools manipulated by the Jiang family."
"Whether it's you or that Qiu Baiyi's Ghost Gate, you all believe the Jiang family has no cultivators and can be manipulated at will, unaware that you are actually pawns of the Jiang family!"
"Oh? A mere Jiang family possesses such great power?" Ye Ling chuckled, his eyes filled with amusement.
"Arrogant fool!"
The evil spirit snorted coldly, having retreated next to the Pure Yin Yuan Corpse.
It glanced at the female corpse beside it before sneering at Ye Ling, "You still don't realize your doom, truly a pitiable fellow."
"You want to investigate my Jiang family? Wait until your next life!"
With that, the evil spirit suddenly attacked, directly charging into the Pure Yin Yuan Corpse!
Moments later, the female corpse abruptly sat up, its bloodshot eyes staring intently at Ye Ling.
The female corpse's once delicate face had become terrifyingly monstrous!
"Kid, you were too careless, allowing me to come into contact with this corpse. You will now pay the price for your arrogance!"
The evil spirit, controlling the female corpse, roared. Its aura instantly amplified severalfold, causing the temperature in the room to plummet by dozens of degrees, and ice began to form on the walls.
Ye Ling's expression remained unchanged as he watched the female corpse roar at him. A faint glow flickered in his eyes, allowing him to clearly see the situation within the female corpse.
'This evil spirit is not compatible with the Pure Yin Yuan Corpse, and this body is even subtly rejecting the evil spirit... It seems the Jiang family didn't nurture this evil spirit to possess this corpse from the Ghost Gate.'
Ye Ling had intentionally allowed the evil spirit to enter the corpse, wanting to ascertain if there was any connection between the evil spirit nurtured by the Jiang family through the Ghost Gate and the Pure Yin Yuan Corpse.
At least, from what he could see now, Ye Ling had been overthinking.
"Still spacing out, you really want to die!"
Seeing Ye Ling's lack of reaction, the female corpse let out a wry laugh and lunged at him.
Sensing a gust of chilling wind, Ye Ling snapped back to attention, reaching out and grabbing the lunging female corpse.
"That's enough, you can come out now."
Ye Ling said calmly, channeling his spiritual energy into the female corpse, forcing the evil spirit out!
"You, you!"
The evil spirit was shocked by Ye Ling's powerful spiritual energy and was forced out. It floated in mid-air, staring at Ye Ling in terror, never expecting to be forced out even after entering the Pure Yin Yuan Corpse!
Only then did it realize that Ye Ling in this room was more of a monster than itself!
The evil spirit lost any desire to challenge Ye Ling and once again attempted to flee!
Unfortunately, even with all its might, the evil spirit had failed to escape Ye Ling's grasp the first time, and it had no chance the second time.
Ye Ling carefully placed the Pure Yin Yuan Corpse on the sofa, then, with a grab from a distance, the evil spirit once again fell into Ye Ling's hands.
Bound by Ye Ling's spiritual power, the evil spirit completely caved. It quickly pleaded with Ye Ling, "Don't, don't kill me! I'll cooperate with you! Ask me anything, and I'll answer!"
This time, the evil spirit was thoroughly subdued and quickly spoke to Ye Ling, its eyes filled with fear.
It was as if Ye Ling were the true ghost!
Ye Ling, holding the evil spirit, asked, "What is your name?"
Imprisoned by Ye Ling's spiritual energy, the evil spirit trembled and said, "I, my name is Jiang Xu..."
"Jiang Xu? Jiang Wen Chun's grandfather?"
Hearing the evil spirit's words, Ye Ling froze. He had guessed that the evil spirit was a member of the Jiang family, but he never expected... it to be Jiang Wen Chun's grandfather, the previous patriarch of the Jiang family!
Ye Ling first heard the name Jiang Xu six years ago, when the Jiang family had not yet made a move against the Ye family.
Although there were conflicts between the Ye and Jiang families at the time, they had not openly fallen out. Generally, for any significant events, out of courtesy, they would invite each other.
Six years ago, Jiang Xu passed away. The Jiang family held a lavish funeral for him, attended by all the prominent families in Jiang City, including the Ye family.
At Jiang Xu's funeral, Jiang Tian Hao, taking advantage of being on his home turf, tried to bully Ye You when Ye Ling wasn't paying attention. Fortunately, Su Ruo Xue stepped in to defuse the situation.
After the funeral, Ye Ling severely beat Jiang Tian Hao for this incident, nearly killing him.
Therefore, Ye Ling had a deep impression of this event.
"Y-yes... After I died, my descendants hired someone to preserve my soul using a secret technique, turning me into an evil spirit and using a corpse to sustain my life."
Jiang Xu trembled. Although he had lived for nearly a hundred years, the longer he lived, the more afraid of death he became.
To survive, he was willing to become a man-eating monster!
"After my body was cremated, I was left with only my spiritual body. I had to consume humans daily to maintain my life, and this has continued until now."
Saying this, Jiang Xu, fearing Ye Ling would kill him, quickly added, "However, I only ate homeless people. Those people were all scum of society, I didn't harm society!"
"Please spare my life! I just want to live!"
Ye Ling did not respond to Jiang Xu's plea and continued to ask, "Why did you say the Ghost Gate was manipulated by your Jiang family?"
"What other secrets does the Jiang family have?"
"In, here..."
Seeing Ye Ling inquire about this matter, Jiang Xu's expression changed again, and he began to stammer.
He dared not answer...