Chapter 15

This courtyard had not been open to the outside world for over thirty years. Thirty years prior, Yuan Jie had been merely a novice monk kneeling before the Buddha statue. Soaring Firmament Temple was then undergoing its first major expansion. The front mountain buzzed with activity, leaving the back mountain feeling eerily deserted.

During the construction, the temple was closed to visitors. Yet Yuan Jie’s master—the abbot at the time—had brought a beautiful young woman up from the foot of the mountain. She introduced herself as Chen Huaiyue, the abbot’s younger sister from his secular family.

The day Chen Huaiyue arrived, a heavy rain poured down. The abbot supported her as she made her way, her belly swollen with child and one leg lame. A jagged bloodstain marred her lovely face, running from behind her ear to the corner of her mouth. Though gruesome, it only heightened her air of pitiable fragility.

“That wound was from her husband,” Yuan Jie said with a sigh. “After Xiao Yue came to the temple, her emotions were unstable. Sometimes she wept in despair; other times, she shut herself away and smashed things. My master and Xiao Yue were separated by a wide gap in age. Going back another seventeen years—to the time of Xiao Yue’s birth—social welfare was far from comprehensive. Poverty in remote areas was utter destitution, where even basic sustenance was a struggle. People would fight tooth and nail for a scrap of food.”

Xiao Yue’s family had borne her in the hope she would be a girl they could sell off young, trading her for a lifeline for the whole household. Yuan Jie’s master, then just a teenager, refused. He nearly got beaten to death for it and broke ties with his family. After many hardships, he finally made his way to Soaring Firmament Temple and took the vows.

Yuan Jie lowered his gaze and murmured, “Amitabha.”

“Even as a newborn needing her mother’s milk, Xiao Yue was married off to a farmer nearly thirty years her senior. In exchange, her parents got a few ration coupons for grain and oil. Once they got a taste of that security, they developed an insatiable craving, counting on their son-in-law to keep providing. At first he did, but soon he began to see his in-laws as parasites. Resentment festered, and he turned on Xiao Yue with beatings and curses when she was not yet ten.”

“Those seventeen years passed in misery. Xiao Yue and that man were never properly married, so divorce was never an option. To escape her parents, he went to work in the city and moved three times. My master searched endlessly before finally tracking Xiao Yue down.”

“If her brother had found her and she had no legal ties to that man, with the abbot’s protection, why did she meet such a tragic end?” Xun Ruosu asked. The copper coin in her hand hummed with vibration. It bore too much resentment, and for a moment, it seemed on the verge of splitting in two.

Yuan Jie shook his head. “I do not know. Xiao Yue was pregnant at the time, and after years in that environment, her mind was fragile. My master let her stay in the courtyard next to the abbot’s quarters and had me live across from her to keep watch. That man came to the mountain once, but my master, I, and all our temple brothers shielded Xiao Yue. He slunk away in defeat and never returned.”

In other words, Xiao Yue’s death had no direct link to that man.

“No incidents in this courtyard for thirty years? Why has it targeted me today?” That was Xue Tong’s sole question.

“Soaring Firmament Temple has always been renowned for its spiritual efficacy. Not just within the temple grounds—even across the entire mountain and for dozens of miles beyond, nothing untoward has ever happened,” Yuan Jie replied, equally puzzled. “But these past three days have brought endless trouble: murderous resentful ghosts on the mountain, Xiao Yue’s sudden appearance, and now wandering souls gathering in droves… With my abilities, I can only perform exorcism on these wandering souls.”

Xue Tong’s brows furrowed slightly. She glanced instinctively at Xun Ruosu.

Her gaze skimmed across Xun Ruosu’s face in the dying light of the sun, but Xun Ruosu noticed. She turned and asked with puzzled curiosity, “Hm?”

Xue Tong ignored Xun Ruosu’s confusion entirely, and Xun Ruosu paid it no mind.

The two of them got along for barely two minutes before friction arose again, like enemies from a past life.

Yan Qing had grown accustomed to it. Yuan Jie, however, was still adjusting to their hot-and-cold dynamic. He fell silent, fingering his prayer beads.

“Take Yan Qing and leave first,” Xue Tong said, a touch of impatience creeping into her voice. Her fingertips toyed with the hyacinth flower. “If Chen Huaiyue truly appears later, I won’t be able to hold off both of you.”

Yuan Jie did not stand on ceremony. If Yan Qing had not insisted, “I’ve got legs; I can walk myself,” Yuan Jie might have bundled him up in his robe, chair and all, and carried him out.

The sky had darkened, though not to pitch black. The temperature plunged abruptly. The daytime swelter clashed with this sudden chill, conjuring a thin layer of white mist close to the ground.

The courtyard’s dampness grew heavier. The bedding on the bed could almost be wrung out like a sponge. Xun Ruosu sneezed violently.

“Really catching a cold?” Xue Tong looked down on the Xun family’s fragile constitutions, unable to endure the slightest hardship.

Xun Ruosu made no reply.

Xue Tong’s mind raced with calculations.

In their past verbal sparring, even a mere huff from Xun Ruosu’s nose would draw some attention. But now, Xun Ruosu’s eyes never strayed her way, treating her as if she did not exist.

Human nature is a peculiar thing. You might find me distasteful, but with a stunning beauty like me right in front of you, you cannot simply ignore me. Otherwise, I’d gouge out those eyeballs, bottle them in glass, and let them stare unblinking day and night.

Of course, Xue Tong would never actually gouge out Xun Ruosu’s eyes. She turned slowly, following the direction of Xun Ruosu’s gaze.

Tonight’s moonlight hung pale and ghostly. It filtered through the locust tree’s branches, falling onto the stone table at the courtyard’s center. The square table had shifted from white to gray, soaked through with moisture. The water no longer contented itself with seeping into the granite’s pores. Instead, it began bubbling over the edges, churning up mud.

Just minutes ago, the vapor had been mild. Perhaps frustrated by its slow progress, it suddenly unleashed a deluge, floodwaters bursting forth like an overflowing dam. The entire stone table heaved upward under some tremendous force from below. The incense burner welded atop it let out a sharp clang and cracked open.

“Something like a well beneath this stone table,” Xun Ruosu said first.

It was her first encounter with a ghost possessing the strength to lift a cauldron. A flicker of rare curiosity stirred in her.

The square courtyard housed a square well—a perfectly formed shape, sealed by the stone table. Whoever had designed it clearly knew their feng shui. Atop the square table sat a bronze cauldron, forming another interlocking “回.”

Rock for earth, bronze for metal—they suppressed the well water and the courtyard’s locust tree.

No matter what entity was buried here, the square courtyard became its inescapable labyrinth. It could wreak havoc within, but escape was impossible.

Yet now the bronze cauldron had cracked. The feng shui formation was not fully broken, but it had devolved into a stalemate.