Chapter 501: 501
"The Ghost Realm is vast . It is so big that you will have to rely on teleportation arrays if you wish to travel from one end to the other . The realm is split into four regions, and these regions are always fighting one another .
"Each region is further split into counties . The Full Moon Region has ninety-six counties; the Twilight Sun Region has seventy-three counties . The Blood Star Region has eighty-nine counties, and last but not least, the Endless Abyss Region has ninety-nine counties . "
Although there were only four regions, the number of counties showed just how big the Ghost Realm was . These counties were also fighting against each other to become higher ranked on the county list of the respective region .
Some of the counties were even bigger than the continents back in Xue Wei's old world . The Ghost World was truly vast to house so many ghosts and souls . Even so, if not for the natural selection of only allowing the strongest to survive, the land would have been full to the brim with souls and ghosts .
Xue Wei listened intently to what the middle-aged ghost was telling him . He understood that searching for one specific soul would be much more challenging than he had ever thought, especially since the ghosts and souls had no memories of the time when they were alive .
The only way they would be able to recognize her would be if Lan saw her face, and could remember her appearance .
Xue Wei did not doubt that Lan could recognize her appearance; it was just that there were so many ghosts . How many lifetimes would it take them to walk from one end of the Ghost Realm to the other, and even if they did not do this, how could they be certain that they would not miss each other?
Arriving at the Ghost Realm, looking for one soul that might have been consumed was even more challenging than looking for a needle in a haystack, but they were not going to give up .
Lan looked thoughtful . He knew how difficult it was, so he began considering what options they had .
He had spent years alongside Li Zhiqing, and the two of them had shared the most intimate of relationships . They were lovers, confidants, and best of friends .
He had been an Overlord, so he knew what her soul imprint was like, and while he had never forgotten her, he also held a memory of how her soul imprint felt .
Could he use this as a means to find her? Much like how a metal detector would sense the metal under the ground, could he then use the soul imprint as a way to determine her location?
He was not sure how to do it . The soul imprint was locked inside his own soul . Taking it out would be much easier if he was an Overlord, but right now, he was merely a King ranked expert .
He narrowed his eyes, hiding half of the cat-like pupils behind his eyelids, and coiled up around Xue Wei's neck as he was deep in thought .
Xue Wei and Lan had a good rapport, and he knew that the snake on his neck was thinking about an easier way to locate the lost soul .
Xue Wei left Lan to think about how they might be able to solve it, and he continued to keep the conversation going with the ghost that had taken them in .
He had called himself Gui Mo . Ghosts gave themselves names when they reached a certain rank; before then, they just remained unnamed .
Xue Wei was curious as to why he chose precisely this name, but he did not ask . Instead, he tried to understand the ghost realm better .
When a person died in a world that was not connected to the Ten Courts of Hell, their soul would then end up in the Ghost Realm .
When a new soul appeared in the ghost realm, all their memories would have been wiped clean, and they would be like a newborn baby in the world of the living .
However, while they had to relearn everything that they had to know, they did not die instantly, but instead, they had certain instincts that told them to hide and bide their time .
The atmosphere was not only full of heaven and earth essence; it was also full of death energy and soul power .
Even the weakest soul would be nurtured by these energies and slowly advance . While they could not be considered genuine ghosts, some souls who had enough strength could even consume a ghost .
The world was very different from the one Xue Wei came from . He understood that ghosts were a completely different entity from that of the souls .
Although they were not considered living beings, they were not dead either . They were a mixture right in between the two .
They couldn't give birth to other ghosts . The only way to become one was to die and evolve from a soul .
Xue Wei was deep in thought . It turned out that although they could not reproduce, ghosts still had feelings, and that emotions such as love existed in this world of the dead .
However, most ghosts never dared to become lovers unless they unconditionally trusted their partners, as it was seen that beautiful female and male ghosts would end up consuming their partners .
Since the world was cannibalistic, it was hard to trust another person, but even so, the strongest ghosts all had partners .
Another good thing about being in the ghost realm was that monogamy was the way to go . You could hardly trust anyone, so finding casual flings was not very common .
Xue Wei could not help but worry . In case this Li Zhiqing had managed to become a ghost, she would be so old that she would likely be an ancient and powerful ghost by now . What if she had found a new partner?