"Huohuo, what did Lu Qing mean just now?" Li Moyan didn't understand what Lu Qing had said.
Ye Huohuo's expression turned serious, which was rare. "She just said that the ghosts in this painting must be sent away before midnight tonight. Ghosts can only wander outside for a maximum of seven days. During these seven days, they are unattached souls, and they don't know they are dead yet.
After the seventh day, they will return to the place they care about the most. For most people, that place is their home, so people usually go home seven days after death.
This is what people call the first seven.
After the first seven, ghost messengers from the underworld will come to take them to the underworld. Based on what they did in their lives, they will be assigned to which level of hell to suffer which torture and repay their sins from their previous lives.
Only after repaying their sins will they have a chance to reincarnate. As for those who did good deeds in their lives, it is very likely that they will be directly reincarnated. The more good deeds they did, the more merit they accumulated, the better family they will be born into.
Their lives will be smooth sailing, without worries about food or clothing."
Ye Huohuo looked at Li Moyan as she said this. "Young Master Li San, you must have done good deeds in your past life to be born into such a wealthy and noble family. Although your parents have passed away, you have an elder brother who can shield you from the wind and rain."
Li Moyan smiled indifferently. "Is that so? I don't think so. What about you? Did you do good or bad deeds in your past life?"
Ye Huohuo smiled bitterly. "My master said that I was a good person in my past life and the life before that, and I did many good deeds. I should have a good destiny in this life too.
It's just that...
I was framed, and all my luck was stolen. I was also put into a 'sha-warding goldfish' formation, which made me suffer all sorts of hardships since childhood, living on the edge of life and death every day, in constant fear."
Ye Huohuo rarely spoke about her background to outsiders. Perhaps after being connected by the marriage line with Li Mohan, she had started to consider herself part of the Li family, and also considered Li Moyan as family.
Therefore, she no longer had so many reservations and simply explained her background.
"What? Luck can be stolen? And what is this sha-warding goldfish formation?"
Ye Huohuo sighed and briefly explained, "Luck can not only be stolen but also borrowed, but this requires extremely complex operations, and only those with profound Daoist skills can achieve it. As for the sha-warding goldfish formation, have you heard of sha-warding goldfish?
If your luck is bad, you can keep a few goldfish, and some of your bad luck can be transferred to those fish, making your luck a little better.
And this formation used me as those goldfish.
Using goldfish can only transfer a part of bad luck, but with this sha-warding goldfish formation, all the misfortune on me could be transferred to me, which is why I experience bad luck five times a day."
Li Moyan finally understood. "You experience bad luck five times a day. You are too pitiful. If it were me, I might not have been able to survive."
Ye Huohuo shook her head. "I'm used to it."
"By the way, you mentioned reincarnation just now, but you haven't finished explaining the rest," Li Moyan asked.
"Yes, whether they were good or bad people, they would be taken to the underworld seven days after death. If they were not taken back after the time limit, they would become wandering souls. If they had a strong malevolent aura in life, they might become fierce ghosts.
Unable to reincarnate and not accepted by either the human or ghost realms, they would wander eternally in the void."
"Is that ghost named Lihua unable to reincarnate?" Li Moyan asked.
"Although she has transformed into a fierce ghost, she has not killed anyone and her hands are not stained with blood. I can think of a way to help her transcend. This is also why I have been preventing her from seeking revenge.
Once she kills someone, she will be unable to reincarnate and will end up with her soul scattered."
"Are all the ghosts in this painting within the seven-day limit? I counted more than a dozen just now!" Li Moyan was a little shocked. So many people had died in these few days?
Ye Huohuo shook her head. "No, the oldest one here is the one we captured in the hospital before. That one should be at least... five hundred years old. It's already a fierce ghost. Moreover, it has already caused human deaths, and these ghosts in the painting were all harmed by it.
If I hadn't stopped it the night before yesterday, Grandpa would have also fallen victim to it.
It has long been unable to reincarnate, which is why it remains in this painting, harming people.
As for the others..."
Ye Huohuo carefully looked at the ghostly figures in the painting. "The earliest ones are also three to four hundred years old."
"This is too detestable! Just destroy them all!" Li Moyan's blood boiled upon hearing that his grandfather was almost harmed, wishing he had the means to destroy them.
Ye Huohuo shook her head. "No, the only one who harmed Grandpa is the fierce ghost in this painting with five hundred years of cultivation. It has nothing to do with the others. They are ordinary ghosts, all drawn into the painting by that fierce ghost.
They have not harmed anyone and can reincarnate."
"Didn't you say that after seven days it's no longer possible? All the ones in here have passed the seven-day mark, and the oldest ones are centuries old. How can they reincarnate?"
"I said that's under normal circumstances, but the current situation is not normal. They were forcefully drawn into the painting, and their souls have not appeared in the human world, so the underworld has no record of their deaths, and the ghost messengers have not come to apprehend them.
As long as they are released from the painting before midnight tonight, the ghost messengers will take them back to the underworld, and they will re-enter the cycle of reincarnation."
"But why must it be tonight?" Li Moyan thought of what Lu Qing had just said, that time was running out and they had to send them away tonight, but he couldn't understand why.
Ye Huohuo sighed. "Tonight is destined not to be peaceful. What is the date according to the lunar calendar today?"
Li Moyan was stumped. He could easily state the Gregorian calendar, but who would bother to remember the lunar calendar? He took out his phone and looked, his mouth agape. Was it such a coincidence?
"Today is the fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month. Midnight is when the Ghost Gate opens, and ghost messengers will be very busy. They will take any ghost that is not a wandering soul to the underworld without carefully verifying the identity of the new ghosts. These ghosts in the painting can blend in with them and enter the underworld.
If it were usual times, ghost messengers would meticulously record the identity of new ghosts, and it would be easy to discover that they were not recently deceased, and they might not be allowed into the underworld.
"So, if they can't enter the underworld today, they have to wait until next year?" Li Moyan asked.
"No, if they cannot enter the underworld today, they will never be able to enter the underworld again, because once they leave this painting, the underworld will have a record.
If they cannot enter the underworld, they lose their qualification. Therefore, tonight is their only chance. This is also why they asked Lu Qing to deliver the message."
Ye Huohuo looked at the ghostly figures in the painting, her brows furrowed unconsciously. She secretly calculated with her fingers, and tonight's matter might not go smoothly, and might even be extremely perilous!