Chapter 291: Former Dad

"Former father," or "father from a past life," was a new title unique to Li Haoran.

Qin Yanyan was traveling the world, seeking an opportunity to form her Core, thereby comprehending the mortal world, and aiming for a breakthrough in her state of mind. She had just passed through a few counties and, while staying for a night in this dilapidated temple, encountered such a thrilling incident.

After a month of persuasion from her mother, Qin Yanyan was just about to accept this father with whom she shared no blood relation when she ran into this situation. Comprehending the mortal world wasn't supposed to be experienced this way.

"Wait, Yanyan, listen to me!" Li Haoran was a bit flustered. Heaven knows, he was truly here to catch ghosts, and he hadn't even extracted any useful information when Qin Yanyan caught him red-handed. The Central Continent was so vast, so how did Qin Yanyan happen to run into him? Was this the karmic entanglement between a father and daughter?

The white-clothed female ghost also realized something was wrong and tried to escape. Li Haoran used a grappling technique, shifting between solid and ethereal, and back again, in a fluid transition, pinning the female ghost to the ground. This was a technique Li Haoran had learned while refining artifacts, which he had now slightly adapted for catching ghosts. Although both were at the late Foundation Establishment stage, the female ghost was far from Li Haoran's match.

"I received a sect mission and came here to catch ghosts with Senior Brothers Lu and Meng!" Li Haoran quickly explained. If Qin Yanyan were to find Su Yiren with this misunderstanding, he wouldn't need to inherit Qin Yuanhao's memories and could directly start his tenth reincarnation.

"Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou?" Qin Yanyan, hearing her "former father" say this, remembered these two Heavenly Talents of the Way-Seeking Sect. One was the Way-Seeking Sect Master's disciple, and the other was the eldest young master of the Meng family; their credibility was much higher than Li Haoran's.

"Yes, they're sleeping in the next room; they can definitely prove my innocence!" Li Haoran said, while using a refined soul-binding chain to tie the white-clothed female ghost to a load-bearing wooden pillar. Only then did he go to find Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou.

Half-believing and half-doubting, Qin Yanyan followed Li Haoran to find them.

Li Haoran pushed open the door, speaking at a terrifyingly fast pace: "Brother Lu, you must prove my innocence; we're here to catch ghosts, right? You never gave the signal to act, so the female ghost probably didn't come to you..."

Before he finished speaking, he saw Lu Yang with a strange smile on his lips, pulling at a green-clothed female ghost. The green-clothed female ghost resisted desperately but to no avail, with a look of despair, and could only let Lu Yang do as he pleased. This scene certainly didn't look like something a gentleman would do.

"Senior Brother Lu, you..." Li Haoran stammered, never expecting Lu Yang to be this kind of person.

Qin Yanyan saw this scene, felt Li Haoran was making excuses, and flew into a rage: "You still dare to say you're here to catch ghosts?!"

"Go look at Senior Brother Meng; he must be seriously catching ghosts!" Li Haoran was certain there would be no surprises with Meng Jingzhou, as a "single spiritual root" might have a mind to conceive ideas but no body to realize them.

Then Qin Yanyan saw a red-clothed female ghost, unconscious, and Meng Jingzhou squatting beside her, observing intently.

"Drugged rape?!" Qin Yanyan was greatly alarmed. How could these methods be more outrageous than the last? Comparing the three, Li Haoran's actions seemed the most conservative.

Li Haoran was speechless.

"Why is it that every time I go out with Senior Brothers Lu and Meng, nothing good happens? Last time, I ended up with a fiancée two thousand years older than me and a biological daughter with whom I shared no blood relation, and I became the former leader of one of the Four Great Demonic Cults. This time, when I need you two to prove my innocence, you two pull these stunts."

"Nonsense! Who said I drugged her? Don't you know I'm a 'single spiritual root'!" Meng Jingzhou retorted angrily, turning to see who was so tactless. "Hey, big niece, you came to find your dad?"

Qin Yanyan felt the Golden Core stage aura emanating from Meng Jingzhou and repeatedly warned herself that she couldn't defeat him.

At the same time, Lu Yang finally subdued Immortal Undying, regained control of his body, and, carrying the green-clothed female ghost, came to find Li Haoran and Meng Jingzhou.

After the three pulled out the sect's mission scrolls and Meng Jingzhou declared his identity as a "single spiritual root," Qin Yanyan finally believed that they were there to catch ghosts, not to solicit prostitutes.

The green-clothed female ghost, held by Lu Yang, trembled. These three were surprisingly from the Way-Seeking Sect, one of the Five Great Immortal Sects.

Everyone came to the main hall. Li Haoran took the still trembling green-clothed female ghost and the unconscious red-clothed female ghost and tied them next to the white-clothed female ghost. In this way, all three female ghosts were captured.

"So, the Way-Seeking Sect issued a ghost-catching mission, and you came to Guhuai Town to complete this sect mission?" Qin Yanyan mostly believed the trio's explanation. Qin Yanyan still didn't know that her father from a past life was the reincarnation of the Nine Nether Cult. Li Haoran acquired Qin Haoran's memory fragments only after Su Yiren and Qin Yanyan had left. This wasn't something easy to tell Qin Yanyan. Li Haoran couldn't possibly say, "Your father was the leader of a demonic cult in his previous life, and not a good person." Their father-daughter relationship would truly collapse then.

"What about you? Why did you come to Guhuai Town?"

"Mother said that last time I went to your place, I started arguing right away, behaving too impatiently, and my state of mind needs improvement. It's also about time for me to form my Core, so she told me to go out and travel to temper my mind. Today, during the day, I was in Shoutian County. I wandered around the merchant guild, spent all my travel funds, and there were no free inns in Shoutian County. So I had to continue north. I saw an old temple here, thought I could stay for a night, and came."

Li Haoran was very worried about Qin Yanyan's travels. In a few more days, Qin Yanyan would probably have to perform in the streets to earn a living.

"Four, four great heroes, although we are ghosts, we have never harmed anyone!" the green-clothed female ghost cried out in injustice. They cautiously absorbed Yang energy, careful not to cause trouble, precisely because they were afraid of attracting righteous cultivators. Unexpectedly, what they feared most came true, and what came was the Way-Seeking Sect, the strongest among the righteous paths. They heard that righteous cultivators deeply detested demons, monsters, and ghosts, killing them on sight. Could they possibly survive in their hands?

"Never harmed anyone?" Meng Jingzhou sneered. "The mission clearly states that you absorb people's Yang energy, causing them to be listless and confused all day. Could that all be false?"

The white-clothed female ghost was almost in tears: "No, really, we are very careful when absorbing Yang energy. We only absorb a very small portion, which won't affect people. Besides, our absorption of Yang energy has already been registered with the town mayor."

"We also know that absorbing too much would harm people. Who would come back next time then? It's better to absorb a little multiple times than to drain it all at once; we understand the principle of not draining the pond to catch all the fish."

"Wait, the mayor knows about this?"

"Not just the mayor, travelers in the town can also testify!" the white-clothed female ghost declared solemnly.

Lu Yang and the other three were completely confused by the white-clothed female ghost's words.

"Really, we're not lying, just now we three sisters went knocking on doors at various inns, asking if services were needed, and we just got back after a round of services. When we saw you three heroes lying in the temple, we noticed your Yang energy was quite vigorous, so we thought we'd absorb some of your Yang energy as the grand finale for the night."

Lu Yang was dumbfounded. You even offer door-to-door service?!

The white-clothed female ghost said sheepishly, "Only with thorough service do we get repeat customers."

Qin Yanyan was even more shocked than Lu Yang. Was this the mortal world?