Chapter 11

The weighing beam grew heavier in response, and Yu Zezhi’s hand was forced downward by the weight. Unconcerned, she carried it, watching Wu Yinyu light the lantern and answering, “I don’t know much, just a smattering, barely enough to get by.”

The red lantern bore no patterns at all. Once its flame was lit, it cast a light that made faces look as if they were drenched in blood.

Holding the lantern, Wu Yinyu secured the brocade pouch filled with copper coins to her waist, shot Yu Zezhi a sidelong glance, and snorted softly. “Others hide their wealth, but you even keep what skills you have a secret.”

“I know too little, so I won’t embarrass myself by boasting,” Yu Zezhi said. She looked out over the main road and frowned. “Are we walking just like that?”

“Afraid of getting tired?” Wu Yinyu glanced at the shoes on the other woman’s feet. They had a bit of a heel, but could more or less be considered flats.

“It’s fine. Let’s go.” Yu Zezhi showed no coyness whatsoever.

It was six minutes to midnight, but Wu Yinyu was in no hurry to leave. “Wait a bit longer,” she said.

She hadn’t brought her smoking pipe when she left, and now a craving for her mouthpiece set in, a strong urge to bite it. But with nothing to bite, she simply pursed her lips, took out her phone, and started scrolling through her social media feed.

By chance, she came across a message from the Lu family, saying an auspicious hour had been chosen.

Well, the Five Gates did everything according to auspicious timing.

At first glance, Wu Yinyu had no idea what favorable hour the Lu family was selecting. With Lu San and Lu Yi still in trouble, surely they weren’t holding any joyous event at this critical juncture.

“What is the Lu family planning?” she muttered offhandedly, her finger swiping down to see the replies others had left.

Yu Zezhi didn’t look at Wu Yinyu’s phone. She switched the weighing beam to her other hand, gazing straight ahead. “I heard that Elder Lu wants to hire someone to use the Maoshan Leaping method to summon the soul back this time.”

Wu Yinyu let out a derisive click of her tongue. If this got out, it would be utterly disgraceful. After all, the Five Gates themselves were practically Living Constables; needing to ask outsiders to seek a soul would make them a laughingstock.

She stepped a few paces aside, not wanting to be seen holding a red lantern at the hospital entrance. The scene was just too strange and eerie.

“Lu Yiqi already tried this Soul Summoning method, so why are you attempting it again?” Yu Zezhi followed her over.

Wu Yinyu set the lantern on the ground. “If I told you that I’m doing this tonight not just for the soul summoning, would you believe me?”

Yu Zezhi stood by impassively. Her wide sleeves caught the breeze, and the hair cascading down her back swayed with it, giving her an air of standing apart from the world.

Perhaps it was because the other was missing the red jade pendant at her waist, Wu Yinyu always felt Yu Zezhi’s appearance lacked a certain element. Her thoughts inexplicably drifted to the dream that had been tormenting her all this time, to the Red Lotus Karmic Fire within it.

Red lotuses, the eerie lotus patterns on the red jade, and the Questioner who never revealed her face…

Come to think of it, the red jade was fastened to that Questioner’s belt.

Wu Yinyu couldn’t help but suspect that Yu Zezhi might also be connected to her strange dream. She smiled, her outstretched hand pale as if not belonging to a living person, and poked a fingertip at the corner of Yu Zezhi’s shoulder. “Before returning to Wise City, what was Boss Yu doing? Have you ever received a Ghost Edict?”

Yu Zezhi was surprisingly candid. She looked at the finger poking her shoulder, her expression unchanged. “Managing company affairs in Tranquil Isle. Going underground? No, I haven’t.”

“So I wasn’t wrong to call you Boss Yu,” Wu Yinyu said. Her curiosity piqued, she asked with keen interest, “Do you speak this way to everyone? What do you like to do in your free time?”

“Nothing in particular,” Yu Zezhi said.

“Wouldn’t that be terribly dull?” Wu Yinyu folded her arms, smiling so that the hair at her cheeks trembled slightly. With her features seemingly brimming with emotion, she truly looked like someone with a notorious reputation for romance.

“No,” Yu Zezhi said again.

Seeing that the time was almost upon them, Wu Yinyu pushed open the matchbox, drew out a single match, and struck it with a ‘chk’. “Speaking of which,” she said, “why does Boss Yu want to do me a favor? You’ve just returned to Wise City, haven’t you? Surely you couldn’t have set your sights on me right after getting back.”

Yu Zezhi said, “It was a spontaneous decision. After all, the Wu Family is the Head of the Five Gates.”

That was hard to refute. Plenty of people wanted to curry favor with the Wu family.

Wu Yinyu stepped her right foot back, lifted the hem of her Qipao, and crouched down. She burned a single Gold Spirit Ingot before picking up the lantern and standing again.

As the flames licked the ingot clean, a gust of cold Yin wind swept in, carrying the ashes far into the distance.

“In the standard Soul Summoning method, it seems burning spirit ingots isn’t called for.” Yu Zezhi was somewhat puzzled.

“I’m luring ghosts,” Wu Yinyu said, half-jokingly. She raised the lantern high; her pale, stark face was illuminated in crimson, looking just like a Malevolent Ghost.

Yu Zezhi seemed to believe her. Her eyes shifted ever so slightly, yet she showed no surprise.

“Don’t worry, I won’t harm him,” Wu Yinyu added, shaking her head.

With her fair complexion and dressed in that Qipao with mountain-and-water brocade, if Yu Zezhi’s palette was solely red and white, then Wu Yinyu, like an Impermanence Envoy on patrol, wore only black and white.

“Using a ghost to find a person?” Yu Zezhi asked.

Wu Yinyu offered a meaningful smile and began walking straight down the long street. She didn’t follow the protocol of placing copper coins. Whenever she remembered, she would take out some paper money and burn it.

She burned a sheet every few steps, making sure every edge and corner was thoroughly consumed, after which the ashes would be swept up by the wind, leaving not a trace behind.

Yu Zezhi suddenly interrupted, “Where are your copper coins?”

“Unnecessary.” Wu Yinyu waved a finger and then called out slowly, in a swaying cadence: “Lu Sansheng, follow the path you came, return home now—”

No one answered from behind her, so she glanced back at Yu Zezhi.

Yu Zezhi was following behind, carrying the weighing beam. Under that sweeping glance, she had no choice but to answer: “Aye, I’m returning.”

After walking a stretch, Wu Yinyu called out again: “Lu Sansheng, follow the path you came, return home now—”

“Aye, I’m returning,” Yu Zezhi echoed indifferently.

“Lu Sansheng, follow the path you came, return home now—”

“I’m returning.”

The two walked one after the other, when suddenly Yu Zezhi’s step slowed. Because the shirt hanging from the weighing beam had moved.

It hadn’t been lifted by the wind, but as if something had flipped up a corner.

“Ms. Wu,” Yu Zezhi called.

Hearing this, Wu Yinyu looked back, pressed her index finger to her lips in a very soft “Shh,” and then continued calling out Lu Sansheng’s name.

Yu Zezhi had no choice but to look away from the weighing beam and answer without changing expression.

When Lu Yiqi and Feng Qingshuang had attempted this, they’d used a car halfway through. To walk honestly from City First Hospital all the way to Cuihui Eight Treasures Pavilion truly meant walking until the dead of night.

Wu Yinyu looked slender and frail, walked slowly as if lazy and unwilling to move, yet even after half the journey, she hadn’t complained of fatigue. The tone of her calls remained soft and drawn out, her pace never once changing from beginning to end.

At night, Cuihui Eight Treasures Pavilion was silent and eerie, only the lanterns under the eaves glowing, pitch blackness within all the windows.

Wu Yinyu remembered the place where Lu Yiqi and Feng Qingshuang had vanished. She stopped right where they had previously parked the car and spoke her final sentence: “Lu Sansheng, if you don’t come home soon, it’s going to rain. The skies are dark with Yin when it rains, your house will be swept away.”

Whoosh— a Yin wind swept close.

Yu Zezhi stood still. The hand holding the weighing beam remained motionless, but the scale pan was swaying left and right, the shirt hanging upon it fluttering precariously as if about to be snatched away.

Wu Yinyu turned her head and watched for a very long time, probably a full five minutes.

“Ms. Wu,” Yu Zezhi called.

Calmly, Wu Yinyu blew out the lantern, then burned three Golden Spirit Ingots in quick succession. Finally, she scattered a handful of glutinous rice over the weighing beam that Yu Zezhi held.

As the rice grains cascaded down, she reached out, snatched the spirit ingot resting on the scale pan, and burned that too.

After the golden ingot was completely burned, the beam quieted. The shirt that had been flipped up settled back down obediently.

Wu Yinyu exhaled, brushed the paper scraps clinging to her hands, and frowned. “That seems to have been completely useless.”

She picked up the matchbox she’d placed on the ground earlier and shook it. Not a sound came from within the box—it was entirely empty, not a single match remaining.

“This whole way, you were luring ghosts to try and possess his shell?” Yu Zezhi’s expression turned slightly grim. “You drew quite a few ghosts to catch Lu Sansheng’s scent, and they’re all heading toward City First Hospital.”

Wu Yinyu leaned lazily against a pillar of the Cuihui Eight Treasures Pavilion’s corridor, coughing lightly a few times. Her joints suddenly began to ache intensely, and she had to start rubbing her wrists. “When a soul leaves its vessel, if the ‘old house’ is coveted by strange entities, it will surely take fright. If Lu Sansheng’s soul was still around, it would follow the path we came to find its way back to the body. But… his soul is clearly no longer here.”

“This was dangerous. A moment’s negligence and his body could have been possessed.” Yu Zezhi put away the weighing beam and even neatly folded Lu Sansheng’s shirt for him.

The edges and corners of the garment were perfectly aligned, betraying a touch of obsessive compulsiveness.

Wu Yinyu had rubbed her wrists until they felt hot, and after recovering somewhat, she crouched down and burned the lantern too. Without the slightest concern, she said, “Didn’t I just send all the ghosts away? I was watching; nothing could have gone wrong.”