"Are you alright, Rachel Lan?"
I slowly opened my eyes. Feeling the tears streaming down my cheeks, I quickly wiped them away. Lucille Xing supported me. My head was still spinning, so I shook it and said nothing. Lucille helped me over to a nearby pavilion.
"It's alright. As the saying goes, good things are worth the wait."
I looked at Lucille Xing in confusion. She shook her head, still unwilling to tell me why she knew everything. She must have known I used my own realm and Hell Imprint to travel to the Nether Syndicate just now.
"Miss Lan, please rest for a few days. Once we're ready, we'll begin."
Sure enough, Joseph Qiao knew as well. I didn't ask anything, but at this moment, Luo Yu seemed to understand something too. The confusion on his face vanished, and I responded with a simple hum.
"A long time ago, our cooperation with the Emperor Gods began because of an accident."
Luo Yu suddenly started talking. I looked at him in confusion. He seemed to know why the Emperor Gods could control everything about the Yinfolk, but he had never explained it before.
Luo Yu began to explain. A long time ago, after defecting from the Nether Syndicate for certain reasons, they accidentally arrived in this world of shadows. They came here chasing the Wraithshade, because Wraithshade had taken something extremely important from Luo Yichen. So they pursued him from the Living World to the Underworld Court, and to escape them, Wraithshade fled to the shadow world. After Luo Yu and Luo Yichen reached the Underworld Court, the trail went cold.
The two could only hide temporarily in some towns controlled by the Underworld Court, searching everywhere for Wraithshade's whereabouts. But there was no trace at all. What they did know was that Wraithshade hadn't left the Underworld Court, because Luo Yichen could still sense that what Wraithshade had taken was still in the shadow realm.
In the end, with no other options, the two of them arrived at the Bridge of Remorse. They intended to search around the Eternity Stone outside Lady Meng’s house, but Lady Meng discovered them.
Lady Meng did not blame them. Instead, she told them where the Wraithshade had gone. Afterwards, Luoyu and Luo Yichen fashioned a small boat out of Red Spider Lilies and sailed toward the Shadow Realm.
As soon as they set foot on this land, the two quickly realized that what was once a place where ghosts dissolved into dust after death now had inhabitants. These people resembled those of the Living World, except their bodies were formed entirely from Yin energy. Yet, when they first arrived, the world was anything but harmonious or happy.
The Shadow Realm was no different from the Living World—everyone fought for themselves, chaos reigned, and daily wars erupted. Each Yinfolk claimed their own territory, waging endless battles as if it were a game, committing all manner of evil as they pleased.
What shocked Luoyu and Luo Yichen most was that, although the Yinfolk would turn to ashes upon death, they would resurrect at a circular plaza after a few days, retaining all their previous memories. More and more Yinfolk were being reborn there.
After wandering this world for more than a decade, the two gradually realized that some Yinfolk possessed powers as formidable as their own. Yet even these were not the true rulers of the realm.
They continued searching for any trace of the Wraithshade, and finally discovered a clue at the central resurrection plaza controlled by the great factions. There, they encountered the three creators of this world: the Emperor God, Sylvia Yan, and Phantom Sage, who invited them to the upper layer.
Once in the upper layer, they finally confronted the Wraithshade. A battle was about to break out, but the three creators intervened. The Wraithshade handed over the item he had taken from Luo Yichen to the creators.
The three creators explained in detail the nature of emotions, saying that with the item the two had brought, they could even manufacture emotions and imbue them into the bodies of the two zombies, restoring their feelings.
The Emperor God and his companions succeeded in persuading Luoyu and Luo Yichen, and at that moment, the Wraithshade chose to leave.