"Oh? What have you brought?"

  Making a seal of protection behind his back, Qiu Yunru held out the brocade spirit-holding bag with one hand. "I thought Fu-shijie might need this."

  As Fu Qiuyue opened the bag to look inside, her expression abruptly snapped from a grin to a blank stare. She blinked at the contents for a long time.

  Though, to anyone else, the contents would look like dust and dirt with a bit of strange energy surrounding them, Fu Qiuyue saw a glowing blue powder and heard a faint voice calling out to her.

  Shijie!

  Shijie, come to the dining hall with me!

  Shijie, let's go and train together! I'll definitely beat you this time!

  Ah...shijie!

  "Guo-shimei...?" She muttered, taking some of the ashes in her hand. Her eyes had filled with tears and begun to spill over.

  A mournful smile crossed her lips, and she looked up at Qiu Yunru.

  "That's right," She murmured. "Guo-shimei is dead. I am, too, aren't I?"

  Qiu Yunru nodded apologetically. He must be very careful to not mention the method of Guo Mei's death, or it might trigger a rage. "Shijie is correct."

  Tears of spiritual energy dripped from Fu Qiuyue's lips and onto the glowing blue ground, sizzling out in wisps of smoke. "I see. This shijie thanks you."

  With that, her spiritual form dissipated into a thousand shards of smoke and blew awake in the cold and foggy cavern. He rotted corpse, to, disintegrated into ash and scattered about until every trace of it was gone.

  Qiu Yunru at last sighed in relief.

  He had finally helped this spirit move on and release its vengeful energy. It was commonly known that if one helped a vengeful spirit reduce their greatest regret, they might have a chance to move on to the afterlife. In this case, he hadn't been entirely sure if bringing Guo Mei's ashes would work. But in the end, it seemed he had thought correctly: Fu Qiuyue's greatest wish and most painful regret was being separated from her shimei. With her ashes in hand, she had finally been able to move on.

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  After doing a rite for Fu Qiuyue's soul, Qiu Yunru got up and dusted himself off.

  He thought he would feel more satisfied with his work. Instead, he felt a pervasive sense of melancholy.

  Fu Qiuyue had been younger than him when she was murdered. Guo Mei had been even younger still. And for what reason?

  A sudden notification dinged on his game menu, bright and blinding in the dim glow of the cave:

  CONGRATULATIONS! +50 Ghost Realm Reputation Points!

  What was this? Ghost Realm Reputation Points...?

  In the base game, there had been no 'Ghost Realm' to speak of, so of course there had naturally been no 'Ghost Realm' Points. The system was again making up whatever it wanted on a whim! A rogue AI with too much creative energy was truly a strange thing!

  Although, didn't this mean that he had only 50 points in the Ghost Realm? If he had to guess, the rest of his Reputation Points must have only gone into some sort of Mortal or Human Realm category.

  Checking the tabs of his menu, he saw that he was correct. The menu had rearranged itself and added a 'Ghost Realm' section to his Reputation Points. In addition, it had even added a Demon Realm Reputation Points bar!

  This bar was at -108.

  Qiu Yunru wept a little inside at seeing this. Yes, it was true that he had indeed killed some demons on his missions, and he had petrified that scholar demon back then at the Li Mansion--but it had been out of self-defense! He couldn't really be blamed for it. It was his life or hers!

  In the end, he sighed and closed the menu, rubbing his face exasperatedly.

  It was true that in the worlds of Spring Blososms, Autumn Fruits, demons were just as they were portrayed in popular media: vicious, cruel, and without a proper sense of morals and value for life. Thus, to them, hearing "It was out of self-defense!" was probably as good as hearing, "I had no good reason, all that matters is I killed a high-ranking demon!"

  If one's Human Realm Reputation Points dipped too low, he would be chased down by the authorities. If his Demon Realm Reputation Points dropped too low, would demons crawl out of the earth to hunt him out?!

  Qiu Yunru shivered at the thought. Perhaps he would just have to be more merciful in the future! Or make a demon friend? What could a person even do within reason to have a good reputation among demons?!

  He sat down to mediate some more, pondering his options. However, it wasn't long before he was shaken out of his qi circulation again.

  This time, someone had let out an ear-piercing shriek!

  Quickly, Qiu Yunru jumped up with his sword in hand and hurried out of the cavern to find the source of that noise.

  He didn't have to look long; suddenly, shoving past him in the hallway, was a panicked Li Chenyuan!

  His hair was wet with sweat, and his face was ghostly pale, eyes wide with fear. He grabbed Qiu Yunru's sleeve as he ran past, yanking him violently along at a sprinting pace.

  Qiu Yunru stumbled and almost fell on his face, but managed to keep up.

  "Li-shidi! What's going on?!"

  Was this some sort of massive fight between him and Pan Fa? Had they burrowed through the walls to get at each other while he had been cultivating and talking to Fu Qiuyue?!

  "Corpses!" Li Chenyuan yelped, his voice high-pitched. "A fucking horde of corpses is chasing me!"