Chapter 50 Part 2

No one in the distance, just a row of houses, most of them buried under the snow. Such dwellings couldn’t possibly be inhabited, and logically, no one should be inside. Yet she unmistakably heard a voice coming from one of them.

Yinyu pressed a finger to her lips. Step by crunching step through the thick snow, she approached and tentatively pushed against the door.

The door was half-buried, impossible to push open easily.

“I thought after living twenty-some years in the Wu Family residence, you’d look down on roadside white walls and black tiles.” Lian Sheng held the umbrella, her tone dry and teasing. “Thinking of roughing it here?”

Yinyu felt startled. Hearing Lian Sheng say that, she knew she’d encountered another strange phenomenon.

She stopped pushing the door and tried the window instead. Only after several attempts did she remember that windows here weren’t modern ones—they had to be propped open.

A hand reached out and propped the thin wooden window open directly.

“Like this,” Lian Sheng said.

Yinyu leaned in for a look, but saw no sign of anyone.

Inside, tables, chairs, chests, and cabinets were all in disarray. A shattered bowl was still sitting on the bed—clearly, the place had been looted clean.

What was strange was that a painting hung on the wall, completely blank.

Lian Sheng followed her gaze. A flick of her finger, and the painting was swept over by the wind.

It hung in midair as if held by invisible hands. It was indeed completely blank, front and back, without a single mark. Startlingly white.

Yinyu ran her hand over the painting. A peculiar sense of familiarity rose from within her heart. She frowned and said, “Could this be one of my painting scrolls too? Could it be that this place turned into what it is now because of me?”

She turned her head with a look of seeming innocence, then let out a chuckle. “Then I truly am guilty of heinous crimes.”

Lian Sheng flicked her finger again, and the painting was sent back to the wall.

After Yinyu withdrew from the window, Lian Sheng lowered the wooden shutter, her expression unreadable. “There’s no need to take everything upon yourself.”

“I thought,” Yinyu leaned faintly against the wooden window, extending a finger to brush Lian Sheng’s cheek—lighter than a dragonfly touching the water’s surface, “that even if I didn’t, someone else would push the blame onto me. Besides, didn’t Dark Snow Heaven only become like this after the deity left?”

Lian Sheng’s chin was grazed by that cold fingertip. She lifted a hand, grasped it as if to warm it by rubbing, gently kneading it twice with slight pressure before letting go. “I’ve been away from Wisdom Water Red Mountain for twenty years too. I truly don’t know what happened here.”

“You left so openly and weren’t afraid of raising suspicion?” Yinyu pressed her now-warmed finger to her lips, seeming to bite and not bite, holding the lingering warmth.

Lian Sheng looked at her steadily. A flicker of movement stirred in the hand hanging at her side as she forcibly calmed her boiling heart. “I left a puppet to oversee matters in the heavens in my stead.”

“Breaking the rules,” Yinyu said with a smile.

Lian Sheng raised an eyebrow. “They were broken long ago.”

Yinyu lowered her hand and turned her head to look at the window behind her. She raised her arm to pinch the edge of the umbrella, using it to guide Lian Sheng elsewhere. “But I genuinely heard a voice.”

The window of the next house over was broken. Through the torn paper, the interior was visible.

Upon seeing an identical painting scroll, Yinyu first thought they had encountered a ghostly maze. But a second look showed the furnishings were different. The only thing the same was that blank scroll on the wall.

Every house had such a blank scroll hanging, as if it were a strange local custom.

Yinyu placed both hands on the windowsill and frowned. “Do you see anything suspicious?”

Lian Sheng didn’t bother with such a timid, careful inspection. A raise of her hand, and she tore the window paper off completely.

Wind gusted into the room, causing the painting on the wall to sway erratically.

Lian Sheng stared intently but found nothing suspicious. “It’s an ordinary painting scroll.”

“Has Boss Yu been to Dark Snow Heaven before? Were blank scrolls hanging everywhere then too?” Yinyu grew more astonished the more she thought about it.

“Scrolls were common back then too.” A trace of subtle melancholy flickered in Lian Sheng’s eyes, that complex sentiment vanishing in an instant. “But then, all the scrolls had landscapes and figures painted on them.”

Darkness fell quickly in Dark Snow Heaven. As the sky dimmed, the temperature dropped sharply. With things looking the way they were, further investigation in the snowstorm would likely yield nothing, so Yinyu gave up on the idea and suggested finding a place to stay first.

In the snow, Yinyu’s entire body ached from the cold. Her wrists and ankles were close to losing all feeling. She breathed into her palms, rubbing them vigorously, her voice even trembling. “Can you help warm me up?”

Lian Sheng’s clothing, though layered, was thin. Yet she didn’t shiver in the slightest. Even when the wind burrowed into her sleeves and collar, she remained unfazed.

Yinyu recalled the red-robed immortal interrogating her in the dream—each step of hers kicked up a fire lotus. How could she be afraid of the cold? She smirked. “Someone like you certainly doesn’t need a bed-warmer.”

“Give me your hand.” Only then did Lian Sheng lift a palm, her voice devoid of emotion.

Yinyu placed her hand upon it. The moment it touched that warm palm, she couldn’t help but let out a soft, comfortable sigh.

She couldn’t help but lean into Lian Sheng, all slouched and slouching again. “Your hand is so warm. Is your heart warm too?”

Lian Sheng thought to herself, Warm? And whose fault is that?

She didn’t argue, even going along with Yinyu’s words with a soft “Mm,” and said, “A warm heart—wasn’t that your doing?”

“True enough.” This brief warmth was sufficient. Yinyu withdrew her hand and instead gripped the umbrella handle, tilting it in the other’s direction.

She said, “Even without divine protection, this place shouldn’t have become like this. Those who later built the Altar of the Abandoned and hung the Blessed Bells of Little Enlightenment Ruins must have played a significant part.”

Lian Sheng gave another neutral “Mm.”

“Yet it all happened after I left.” Yinyu’s voice was lazy as she eyed Lian Sheng. “It looks like someone was hoping I’d leave all along.”

The “someone” in her words naturally referred to others, yet Lian Sheng fell silent, her lips tightly shut for the rest of the way.

Not a single house along the road was an exception; blank scrolls hung on every wall. There was no spirit, no evil within them. Where that earlier voice had come from was unknown.

Yinyu’s hands and feet were still in pain, this time so severe that moving was excruciating. She bumped her shoulder into Lian Sheng, gritting her teeth and unable to speak for a long moment.

Lian Sheng had long since tilted the umbrella back. Colliding with her, the snow on Lian Sheng’s shoulder scattered. She stopped abruptly, standing perfectly still.

Then, something was pressed into Yinyu’s palm—the now-warm umbrella handle. She saw the person beside her lower herself and crouch down by her legs.

Her skirt hem was lifted. The cold wind showed no mercy, lashing against her legs mercilessly.

Yet being lashed by the wind, her ankles felt no discomfort at all. Encased by those slender five fingers, the chill was driven away, and the pain subsided considerably.

Yinyu bent over, shifting the umbrella to cover Lian Sheng’s back. Her ankles warm, that lazy sensation spread along her meridians. She didn’t want to move at all.

“Better?” Lian Sheng asked without looking up.

“Better,” Yinyu replied, perfectly content being served. She drawled, “Boss Yu lowering herself to such a role—I owe you a few more points.”

Lian Sheng stood up and shot her an indifferent sidelong glance, taking back the umbrella. “So you won’t complain endlessly.”

Yinyu reflected that she hadn’t really cried out much, but now playing weak was crucial to avoid being abandoned on the roadside. She nodded repeatedly: “Indeed, Boss Yu is truly a great benefactor.”

The heart of the city in Dark Snow Heaven seemed like a completely different place from its outskirts. Outside, there were starving, freezing refugees everywhere. Inside the city, lanterns blazed, and not a single beggar could be seen.

As they searched for an inn, a distant sob reached them, like the wail of ghosts. Listening again, it wasn’t ghost wails at all—it was the clear sound of a conch horn being blown.

Blowing a conch at this late hour was far from wise; it would attract ghosts.

Yinyu looked toward the source of the sound. She didn’t understand—with ghosts everywhere in Dark Snow Heaven, who would dare blow a horn at this time?

Before she could make it out clearly, a pair of warm hands covered her ears.

Who else could it be but Lian Sheng?

Yinyu turned her head, shooting a puzzled glance.

“Don’t listen.” Lian Sheng leaned close to her ear, her warm, moist breath carrying a hint of dampness.

Yinyu felt as if her earlobe were being held in a mouth. Though untouched by a single drop of water, it was already drenched, and along with it, her heart became sodden.

She was pulled to lean against the wall, forced to tilt her head and look into the distance. A line of people was approaching, their steps light and eerily rhythmic—like a Nuo dance.

But it clearly wasn’t. The group wore white clothes, their style somewhat resembling mourning garments. They wore no Nuo Masks, but their exaggerated, swaggering strides made it look like they were dancing.

The person at the head held a lantern in the left hand and a conch shell in the right. That ghostly, sobbing wail came from him.

What was peculiar was the light in his lantern—not a bright flame, but a cluster of ghostly blue fire.

To Yinyu, this scene was not unfamiliar. It had been documented in her previous world as well.

This was called Lantern-Bearing and Conch-Blowing, a method for finding a substitute death.

The living finding a substitute for the sick was no honorable affair. In their previous world, it would have been universally condemned.

Yet this group made a grand spectacle, not only moving late at night but brazenly blowing the conch on the main road.

It seemed in this world where anyone could cultivate, no one was unaware of what this ritual was for. But the procession had blown the horn all this way without a single person stopping them.