Locust Trees in the Mortal World [Infinite]

The second installment in an ancient-world infinite-flow series

Part II of The Soulless World, set in the same era and with the same worldbuilding. The protagonists have changed: this is a new story about two seasoned powerhouses, so you can read it without having read The Soulless World.

Characters from The Soulless World will make guest appearances.

The protagonists of this story appear as guests in Sugar Jar I, where they are introduced.

A powerful, capricious, wickedly charming shou × a killer indifferent to love, life, and death gong

Prince / master of Huaihua Pavilion × bounty hunter

Heaven's favored son × fugitive

A prodigal who turns over a new leaf × a cold on the outside, warm-hearted romantic

Jiang Danxing (xing) (shou) × Gu Jiu (gong)

Power couple, devoted to each other, 1v1, HE

Set in Huaihua Pavilion, a gathering place in the mortal world for those who can enter the Ghost Realm.

Every character is a weirdo, and a lunatic. (The shou is the sort who gives the Ghost Realm's torment right back to it.)

Ghost Realm: A scenario. A detailed introduction is at the end of the blurb.

[Includes, but is not limited to, ancient military affairs, ancient commerce, wuxia, palace scheming, feng shui and the occult, ethics and social norms, love and hate, ancient philosophy, ancient qi theory, ghosts and spirits, escort agencies, life and death, good and evil, and religion (with the editor's permission).]

Jiang Danxing watched the man sitting in the corner.

The room was filled with the clamor of people and their panic, fear, helplessness, worry, and anxiety. Yet the man was as still as an ancient well. His gaze rested on no one; he stood apart from it all. Whether they could solve this Ghost Realm scenario and make it back seemed like none of his concern.

Jiang Danxing had been traveling through Ghost Realms since he was nine. Now, more than sixteen years later, he had seen all kinds of people, every extreme emotion, and every kind of madness. He prided himself on being able to read anyone at a glance, and this time he understood the man, too: he had an overwhelming will to survive, a demon who could fight his way through hell and live.

People like him never cared what kind of place they were in, much less whether the people around them lived or died. All they thought about was surviving.

Stay away.

Jiang Danxing marked Gu Jiu as someone to avoid.

But when those unruffled eyes looked at him over blood and death, Jiang Danxing felt that perhaps he had been a little presumptuous.

The human heart was so complicated.

[Ghost Realm]: A world of resentful ghosts. When people die, they become ghosts. If they have unfinished wishes, resentment clings to them, giving rise to a Ghost Realm detached from the mortal world. Each Ghost Realm constructs a story based on the resentful ghost's subjective thoughts and the objective circumstances of the events, and contains supernatural phenomena. Resentful ghosts cannot control the Ghost Realms themselves.

Living people with a yin-heavy birth chart will, at some point in their lives (different for everyone), begin to be drawn into Ghost Realms by resentful ghosts. This continues until death. They must fulfill the ghost's last wish inside the Ghost Realm to return to the mortal world. If they die in a Ghost Realm, they die in the mortal world as well.

Time spent in a Ghost Realm passes in an instant in the mortal world.

"A Ghost Realm is formed from a resentful ghost's subjective thoughts, understanding, resentment, last wishes, and clues and objective circumstances from real events. It binds the resentful ghost and prevents it from passing on. In a sense, both the resentful ghost and the living are victims of the Ghost Realm."

[Huaihua Pavilion]: A vast organization in the mortal world. Its members are all living people connected to the Ghost Realms. They come from every field and investigate the origins and eventual end of the Ghost Realms. (In modern terms, it's an institute for the study of psychology, philosophy, animals and plants, medicine, chemistry, astronomy, and geography.)

Its master is Jiang Danxing, a powerful madman.

[Special Notes]

1. Thanks to [@A Certain Day in June] for the cover lettering!

2. This is an alternate history. It isn't meant to be historically accurate. The story's own setting takes precedence and has no connection to real history.

3. The shou is a "prodigal who turns over a new leaf." At first, he lusts after all sorts of beautiful people, but eventually realizes who he truly loves.

4. ...

Weibo: @Ru Lei Guan Er-

Blurb screenshotted on June 18, 2022.

The outline has been sent to my editor, so I won't abandon this story. Trust me!

Theme: Expressing people's pursuit of making their beautiful wishes come true.