Wen Yan had dealt with all sorts from every walk of life more than a few times, so he naturally knew what these people cared about most, and how to get along with them.

If you want someone's help, groveling and showering them with gifts might not work all that well—especially when the other party holds some power and you have no existing relationship. In such cases, that trick is even less effective.

If you go straight to throwing your superiors' weight around, odds are the thing gets done, but you'll piss them off in the process. Really, there's no need for that.

It's always better to stand in their shoes and think about what they want. Once everyone's happy and your business gets settled, that's as good as it gets.

Just like now, the guards at the Rakshasa Ghost Market easily handed over the Righteous Store's business register. In fact, the register kept up with the times: it even had photos and digital files.

Wen Yan immediately confirmed that one of the entries matched Mountain Lord's current appearance.

As for the identity of the prosthetic body's donor, Cai Qidong had already sent it over to him.

The Shopkeeper at the Righteous Store had also confirmed that this customer had a black-and-gray bird perched on his shoulder at the time, looked like a crow.

And all these sources of intel—Wen Yan hadn't asked any of them personally, nor had he made contact with anyone else in the Rakshasa Ghost Market.

So basically, it could be confirmed that Mountain Lord had come from that newly appeared Nether Soul Realm, brought the Rakshasa Bird into the Rakshasa Ghost Market, and then, ever so by the book, spent money on noodles—being all fussy about it, opting for Double-Headed Soup Noodles.

In the end, he used a Gold Leaf to buy a prosthetic body, and then thanks to the Ghost Market's special quirks, slipped into the present world under the pretense of a "delivery."

This more or less suggested that the channel inside Crouching Tiger Mountain that connected to the Nether Soul Realm had completely collapsed—it wasn't just a cave-in anymore.

But at the moment, the Scorching Sun Department's interrogation of those who crossed the line selling prosthetic bodies last time—and the ghosts—had nothing to do with Mountain Lord either.

They'd just stumbled upon a path by accident, got in deeper and deeper, and eventually went off the rails. That Crouching Tiger Mountain had always been like that, never changed.

Wen Yan speculated that Mountain Lord, like King Guilong, had only awakened last year or this year.

The difference, though, was that Mountain Lord didn't even have a body anymore. Way back a few centuries ago, he'd gotten the crap kicked out of him, and with the Last Dharma era actively on the decline at the time, Mountain Lord was finished off once, body and all, totally gone.

Wen Yan didn't even dare to imagine how terrifying the guy must've been at his peak.

But then, if at his peak he could still be forcibly beaten to death by Old Zhu… just how ruthless was Old Zhu?

King Guilong had been vague about it, as if he didn't want to say much—but Wen Yan didn't even need to think it over. King Guilong must've been talking about Old Zhu.

Wouldn't be surprising if King Guilong got caught up in it back then too—got a side helping of that beating.

There were only a handful of people in those centuries who could be so savage—Old Zhu was one of them.

The Lord Zhu of Guanzhong County was said to spend all day cursing everyone out. Everyone in Old Zhu's Family had pretty much been on the receiving end at least once, and only two or three ever managed to escape scot-free.

Especially, it was said, when Lord Zhu first awakened—he'd gotten hold of a history textbook—no idea from whose banquet he'd picked it up, someone who didn't mind a funeral feast. The man was so furious, he almost went off to dig up the Siling Mausoleum in the middle of the night.

He finally calmed down. The more he learned, the more he realized: by the end, Old Zhu's Family's empire had reached a total crisis point, disasters both natural and man-made, internal and external strife maxed out. No way one or two people could turn that around on their own.

Of course, the reason the rest of Old Zhu's Family stopped getting reamed out by Lord Zhu was mostly that, after another few chapters of that book, Lord Zhu got all his rage redirected elsewhere.

Word has it, in the first half-year when Lord Zhu was angriest, he nearly headed for the Capital several times, planning to smash a bunch of people's tombstones.

So, it's actually not by accident that the Rakshasa Ghost Market has spots with no entrances or exits.

Take the Capital, for instance—there's no fixed entrance to get into the Ghost Market from there.

The Scorching Sun Department is genuinely afraid of this big shot—if the mood ever turns sour, he could just drop by the Capital and crack open an emperor's tomb for fun.

In fact, even the one-use exits of the Ghost Market can't be activated inside the Capital.

That's all been set in stone for ages, and changing it would mean jumping through a fantastically convoluted round of meetings and approvals. Most crucially—not only would you need the General Director of the Scorching Sun Department's signature, you'd also need government sign-off and an official stamp.

Finally, the Holders of the Ghost Market would all have to agree together.

Now that this is confirmed—that Mountain Lord was probably somewhat connected to Old Zhu in the past, and even crossed through Lord Zhu's turf—Wen Yan mulled over whether, regardless of what the plan was, he ought to notify Lord Zhu first.

With this in mind, Wen Yan pointed out a specific person on the list to the ghostly guard who'd come to meet him.

"The guy with the Rakshasa Bird caused trouble in Nanwu County. Blinded someone in both eyes. Brother, you'd best report to Lord Zhu about this."

The White-faced Ghost's expression shifted. If it was just the Rakshasa Bird blinding someone, with no fatalities, it wasn't such a huge deal—but under the circumstances, Lord Zhu definitely needed to be told.

So that man was the real focus.

The White-faced Ghost scanned over the record and saw the signature: Hu Yuan.

If he wasn't an ordinary ghost but a Demon Kin, those surnamed Hu were mostly foxes, but sometimes monkeys or tigers in demon form also used Hu.

He'd settled his bill with Gold Leaf at the time, so it probably wasn't an ordinary ghost.

Still, if that's all there was to it—and if every little thing was reported to Lord Zhu—it might come off as being way too thorough. Lord Zhu didn't appreciate that kind of micromanagement.

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