I can push my cultivation progress to the end

Outside Stone Creek Town, in a desolate forest rarely visited by people.

Li Hai stood with his hands behind his back, sizing up the kind-faced old man before him, and sneered:

"Zhou Yugen, ah Zhou Yugen, you look like a decent human being, so why do you do such inhumane things?"

The old man… who was Zhou Yugen, looked at Li Hai in fear, forced a smile, and asked:

"Young hero, may I ask how this Zhou has offended you? Forcing you to destroy my gardens, kill my subordinates, and finally abduct me to this remote wilderness?"

Li Hai didn't seem to want to answer, but instead asked:

"Zhou Yugen, do you remember Qiu Fangzheng?"

"Qiu… Fangzheng?"

Zhou Yugen furrowed his graying brows, pondered for a long while, and then smiled wryly, "Young hero, please forgive this old man's age and frailty, even my mind has deteriorated a lot, I really can't remember."

"Forgot?"

Hearing this, Li Hai couldn't help but sneer, "In my opinion, you've harmed too many people, that's why you can't remember."

"Uh, this… hehehe." Zhou Yugen could only laugh dryly.

Then Li Hai asked again: "If you can't remember Qiu Fangzheng, what about his sister, Qiu Fanglan? Still can't remember?"

"Qiu Fanglan… Lan…"

Zhou Yugen recalled for a moment, then smiled wryly again, "Young hero, to be honest, this old man really doesn't remember anyone named Qiu Fanglan…"

"You're lying." Li Hai said suddenly, "Your heart skipped a beat."

Without waiting for Zhou Yugen to explain, Li Hai kicked his leg.

Crack!

Bone and flesh exploded, blood splattering everywhere.

"Ahhhh!"

Zhou Yugen screamed miserably, clutching his broken leg, the white bone exposed, and collapsed to the ground.

"How about it?" Li Hai asked leisurely, "Remember now?"

"I remember, I remember!" Zhou Yugen stammered, enduring the severe pain, "Qiu Fanglan… I sold her off."

Before he could finish speaking, Li Hai kicked and broke his other leg.

"Ahhhh!"

Zhou Yugen was in so much pain that he was almost driven mad, and he could no longer maintain his kind facade, roaring ferociously at Li Hai, "You little beast, I've already answered you, why do you still break my legs?!"

"Chaotic qi and constant lies." Li Hai shook his head and sighed, "I've lost patience with you."

With that, he took out a hemp rope and several knives from his interspatial storage.

"It seems I have to make you suffer a little."

Li Hai played with the sharp knife, looked at Zhou Yugen's terrified face, and said coldly, "Only then will you tell the truth."

Subsequently, a show of slow slicing, intertwined with blood and screams, was staged in the depths of this desolate forest.

And Zhou Yugen, as the 'actor,' finally began to tell everything he knew under the cuts of the knife.

It was from his words that Li Hai gradually understood what Qiu Fangzheng's sister had experienced.

After Qiu Fangzheng was killed, his sister Qiu Fanglan was impatiently kidnapped back to the Zhou residence by Zhou Yugen.

And in the following three months, he tortured her into a non-human form, nearly driving her insane.

Therefore, Zhou Yugen quickly lost interest in Qiu Fanglan and sold her to a group of human traffickers at a very low price.

As for where this group of human traffickers later sold Qiu Fanglan, Zhou Yugen was not very clear.

He only learned from those human traffickers in the years that followed that this woman, under constant displacement, seemed not to have lived past twenty.

Most likely, she should be dead.

"What a living beast."

Li Hai shook his head and sighed, "Your whole family are beasts."

Immediately, he turned the blade and chopped off Zhou Yugen's head.

… …

"Sir, are you… saying… my sister…"

In the depths of the Fish Platter Mountain, in that cavern, Qiu Fangzheng stared blankly at Zhou Yugen's head, and said excitedly, "Was… was rescued… rescued?!"

"That's right." Li Hai nodded, affirming, "After you died, Qiu Fanglan was rescued by a martial arts expert who happened to pass by just as Zhou Yugen had captured her into his residence."

"Then, what happened after that?"

For some reason, Qiu Fangzheng's speech became fluent, and he asked anxiously, "Sir, what happened to Xiao Lan… what happened to Xiao Lan after that?"

"She's doing well."

Li Hai said, "According to my investigation, not long after Xiao Lan was rescued by that expert, she fell in love and married that expert's son, and then left the Coiling Dragon Mountain and went to the Northern Great Jing Dynasty."

"The Jing Dynasty is good, the Jing Dynasty is peaceful and stable."

Qiu Fangzheng smiled rarely, "How should I put it, it's always much better than Coiling Dragon Mountain."

"If there are no accidents." Li Hai continued, "Your sister's grandsons and granddaughters should be adults by now."

"Yes." Qiu Fangzheng said contentedly, "My father and mother will be able to rest in peace if they knew in the afterlife."

Li Hai was silent.

"Sir." Qiu Fangzheng slowly stood up from the ground, "I will take you to the ancient sect ruins now."

"Good." Li Hai nodded and stood up from the ground as well.

Then the two ghosts… no, the two ghosts turned into two hazy phantoms and plunged into the pool, disappearing into the cavern.

… …

After leaving the cavern, Li Hai had been closely following Qiu Fangzheng, traversing through layers of mountains, turning east and west, heading towards the depths of Fish Platter Mountain.

It was also during this journey that he first learned… that the ghost's ability to traverse is not without limits.

Although any ghost can easily pass through closed houses and thick rock walls, this ability to etherealize oneself and traverse through solid objects cannot be used indefinitely.

To put it bluntly, just like how a person will eventually need to breathe no matter how long they hold their breath.

When a ghost traverses through solid hard objects, there is also a numerical limit to the thickness of the object it can pass through at one time, it cannot pass through endlessly.

For example, the lowest level of ghost, the Wraith-level ghost, has a maximum wall-passing thickness of ten zhang.

Once the thickness of a wall exceeds ten zhang, unless there are thick cracks or large holes in the wall, the Wraith-level ghost cannot penetrate and can only wander outside.

As for the higher-level Wraith-Spirit ghost, Li Hai discovered after testing that its wall-passing thickness is about a hundred zhang.

This value is neither too thin nor too thick, a little bit in between.

Once Li Hai is trapped in an underground cave where the upper, lower, front, back, left, and right all far exceed a hundred zhang in thickness, he can only sit in jail inside, with no chance of escape.

As for the higher level of ghosts, according to some information from the warehouse at the Demon Slayer Division outpost in Oxhorn Town, it should be called [Solid Ghost]. The wall-passing thickness of this type of Solid Ghost may be as much as a thousand zhang.

In other words, even in a thousand-zhang deep underground, a Solid Ghost can pass through in one go.

This level is considered very, very strong.

"Sir, that path has arrived."

In a strange cavern in the depths of Fish Platter Mountain, Qiu Fangzheng pointed to the dark cave on the rock wall in front and respectfully said to Li Hai, "As long as you keep walking along this cave path, you can reach the outer wall of the ancient sect ruins at the end."

Li Hai stared at the cave in front of him and said in a deep voice: "Very good, let's go then."

Immediately, the two ghosts turned into black smoke and flew into the cave with a whoosh.