Chapter 28

"Mimi, are you trying to make us buy these melons?" Luo Huifang had the feeling that this was the case.

"Mimi?" Both Lai Meihui and Wu Jinjing were confused.

"That would be me," The ghost flick his beard. "I am Mimi."

"..."

Silence filled the room, before Lai Meihui and Wu Jinjing fell into a mess of laughter.

"Mimi?! As in secret? What a cute name! I thought only eldest brother, the Golden Crowned Lord, could think of an amazing name." Lai Meihui wheezed.

"Then the Golden Crowned Lord has a very exquisite taste." The ghost praised.

"Very exquisite name taste." Melon juice dripped down Wu Jinjing's mouth, she quickly wiped it.

"Ah, go on tell me about how the nine of you met the Golden Crowned Lord." Mimi, the ghost took some nuts and placed it on his plate.

Instead of eating the peanuts the ghost hovered his hand over it, slowly the peanuts turned ashy in appearance. One poke and it will turned to dust.

None of the women seemed surprised, least of all Luo Huifang. As a high achieving ghost cultivator she knew that this was how a ghost eat. Instead of eating the food physically, ghosts extract the essence from their food.

With his status, Mimi should have earned more than enough to buy food containing abundant spiritual energy that could help him sustain a more physical existence in the land of living. Luo Huifang was guessing that Mimi also consumed enough spiritual energy everyday, this wasn't the first time she saw the ghost eating some expensive food containing abundant spiritual energy. He should have the ability to physically consume these foods like a living human. Then the giant question mark appeared, why did Mimi still appear as a transparent weak ghost much like the ones wandering aimlessly out on the streets?

"The nine of us met eldest brother in different ways." Lai Meihui noticed how Luo Huifang was deep in her own thoughts, so she took the opportunity and covered her sister. "I met eldest brother while he was journeying through the borders of the human realms and the Devil realm. I was fourteen at the time and had saw him pass by, one thing led to another, and I ended up finding myself joining a dual cultivation sect with eldest brother's help."

"I grew up secluded with my parents thus my knowledge of the mortal realm was rather questionable. The very first time I went on a trip alone to the mortal realm, some man tried to trick me. Thankfully eldest brother had stepped in." It was a very memorable moment for Wu Jinjing, since it was the first time she ever felt the bitterness of the world. Yet she also met Ming Yongnian in exchange.

Clearing her throat Luo Huifang felt thankful to have reliable sisters at her side, sometimes reliable sisters. "As for me, eldest brother caught me performing ghost cultivation on my own. Instead of capturing me and turning me to the righteous sect, he pointed me to another ghost cultivator who was looking for an apprentice."

Mimi was listening to their stories attentively, his ghostly body leant forward. "What about the rest of you? What about Feng Delun? And how did he met Li Jiayi and Jin Liwei, those two men don't they spent most of their time in their sect?"

Wu Jinjing tried to recall the story of how Feng Delun met Ming Yongnian. "If I'm not wrong according to eldest brother, when he first met Delun, or elder brother, he was very arrogant. Showing off his skills nonstop in front of eldest brother, even challenging eldest brother to an array competition. Naturally eldest brother won."

Lai Meihui tossed a nut into her mouth, and nodded. "Ah, I really want to see elder brother in his youth. When I met him he was already like a stiff statue."

"Feng Delun was especially talented from a young age. Knowing how those righteous sects raised their children, they'll normally grow arrogant! So arrogant that anyone that did not fit their moral code will be labelled a devil! It made sense why Feng Delun had a stick up his ass." Mimi ranted to the three.

"I especially know how you feel Mimi, the first time elder brother met me he tried to toss me into prison. If eldest brother wasn't there I'd be dead by now." Luo Huifang shared her experience.

"This is the first time we've heard this!" Lai Meihui exclaimed, she grabbed a handful of nuts and threw them into her mouth.

"Why haven't we heard this?" Wu Jinjing questioned.

"Of course it's because he is too embarrassed to look back at the story." If Luo Huifang or eldest brother were to bring up the stories of the old Feng Delun, the array master would escape to the hills.

"What about Li Jiayi and Jin Liwei then? How did the Golden Crowned Lord met them?" Mimi took a melon for himself.

"Ahhh, it's pretty anti climatic actually." Lai Meihui began, "Jiayi really loves books and like collecting them, one day there was a book on display that he liked, but the owner was not willing to sell the book. So he kept on bothering the owner, enough for the owner to call in the city guards to drove Jiayi away. Then eldest brother stepped in to save the day. Eldest brother managed to convince the owner to let Jiayi copy the book for himself."

"As for Liwei, eldest brother met him while he was bargaining a weapon vendor down the drain." Wu Jinjing sighed. "If one must go out to shop, taking Liwei is the best course of action."

Both Lai Meihui and Wu Jinjing nodded to the statement. Jin Liwei was a shark when it came to money, anything that seemed impossible to buy, became possible to buy when he was around.

"I heard from one of my ghost that Liwei came from a long line of ministers of finance, from the Zhen Empire." Luo Huifang's ghosts loved to spend their time gossiping with her, since they had nothing better to do, they were dead after all.

"Zhen Empire… don't tell me Jin Liwei came from the Jin family of Zhen?" Mimi twisted his beard with his finger tips.

"Jin family of Zhen?"

"Jin family of Zhen had been occupying the position of the minister of finance, since the time emperor Zhen Lian ascended to the throne." Mimi told them.

"If I'm not wrong, emperor Zhen Lian had been on throne for three thousand years. He's the first emperor of a mortal realm ruler to live and reign for so long. Because of emperor Zhen Lian the other dynasty around the world started making it a must for the royal family to cultivate." Wu Jinjing recalled.

"And his reign ended a week ago." Mimi seemingly dropped an explosive array in front of them, sending the three women into chaos.

"Is he dead? I wonder if he would be willing to become my underling ghost."

"That's too bad, I heard he's very good in bed."

"Should I create a resurrection concoction?"

Mimi felt sweat trailing down his back, wait a minute, he was a ghost, ghost did not sweat! It must be because of these three, he wasn't expecting them to be so callous over the situation. Except for Luo Huifang. "No, no, he abdicated. Today is his son, Zhen Zhihao's coronation." The ghost took another melon. "Though I must say that the emperor and your Golden Crowned Lord were very… cheeky."

"Cheeky?" The three women questioned in unison.

"It's a secret, ho, ho, ho." The ghost teased.

"What a let down." The three women slumped. Here they thought they could learn more about the former elusive Zhen emperor.

"Next, tell me of Lan Jianhong, Jiang Xiaotong, and Jie Qiqiang. Especially Jiang Xiaotong, he seemed out of this world at times." Mimi said.

Which made Luo Huifang smile. "Because he is, Xiaotong is a transmigrator, and otherworlder. Mimi, you knew this correct? All you needed to do was seek validation."

The ghost chuckled. "Sharp, yes I had a feeling that he was an otherworlder — a reincarnated one. I had heard of how advanced his thinking and knowledge was that it seemed out of this world."

"Well if you're still curious, Xiaotong's otherworldly was what drew eldest brother's interest towards him. He knew the concept of cultivation from his original world, and tried to apply it into reality. He was stumbling and almost ruined his own meridians, that's when eldest brother came in and helped send him to the Yiwen sect." Lai Meihui said.

Mimi blew his beard. "So that was how it was."

Then Wu Jinjing continued to tell the ghost of Lan Jianhong, "Eldest brother met Jianhong while he was working on a construction site. Jianhong had just found his passion in building. To gather knowledge on how to build buildings, he threw himself into odd jobs. From one construction site to another. Of course, eldest brother noticed that Jianhong had a cultivation base, so he approached Jianhong and asked him why he was working in a construction site."