Chapter 19

As soon as they clashed, Xue Tong realized it was a malicious ghost.

It wasn’t particularly ferocious or unusual. The ghost’s resentment had been fully digested, making it impossible to extract with ordinary methods. Nor did it have an anchor object. Turning something like this into a lamp vessel was next to impossible.

Xue Tong hated situations like this. To avoid them, she had made a point of studying all the telltale signs of malicious ghosts. Even if one or two features could be concealed, it couldn’t fool her eyes.

In just a few short days, this tiny Soaring Firmament Mountain had produced so many malicious ghosts and resentful ghosts. Xue Tong had her suspicions, but the Infant Spirit couldn’t speak, and Chen Huaiyue had lost much of her memory. She seemed dazed and confused one moment, perfectly normal the next—impossible to get a straight answer out of her.

Seeing Xue Tong outside still able to spare a glance and chat with her mid-fight, Xun Ruosu knew the malicious ghost was no match for her.

She had heard Xue Tong say earlier that her name was recorded in Yama’s Palace, but it had been hard to grasp the concept. For years, Xun Ruosu had lived alone. Knowing her time was short, she didn’t want to burden others with grief or get too close to anyone. Even her friendships were superficial at best, and professional contacts were few and far between.

Over time, Xun Ruosu had even started to feel like she was the only person in the world diligently performing soul exorcisms.

Fortunately, Xue Tong had crawled out of that coffin and snapped her out of her model worker fantasy.

Outside, the Infant Spirit frantically tugged at the puppet strings. He had only meant to ambush Xun Ruosu, but she had grabbed hold and wouldn’t let go. The golden-red butterflies had already corroded most of the silk threads. Unable to withstand the pull from both ends, the trembling strings snapped with a bang against the doorframe, slicing out countless splinters.

The butterflies, formed from talisman paper ashes, had completed their task and scattered back into ash as the strings whipped past.

Xun Ruosu clutched the wooden doll in both arms. Its limbs dangled limply downward, but its eyes remained fixed on her. That soft neck was stiffly upright, holding a sickly posture.

It seemed to have a soul, yet also like an empty toy, tilting its head to stare right at her.

Xun Ruosu’s eyes were inconvenient at night, but for a diviner constantly facing danger, they offered many advantages. Few things could deceive them.

If the wooden doll were merely a simple puppet without a gathered soul, even if Xun Ruosu could see it, it wouldn’t appear so vivid.

To her, the mold growing on the walls was just a blurry patch, like a nearsighted person removing their glasses—the indistinct backdrop of a distant scene. That was what lifeless looked like.

Xun Ruosu brought the wooden doll to Chen Huaiyue. To her surprise, Chen Huaiyue recognized it immediately, snatching it up and cradling it close. She even whispered to it, “Where did you play today? Did my brother take you out?”

Her brother?

The former abbot of Soaring Firmament Temple?

And the figure in the mirror—she claimed complete innocence with her words, but her actions were utterly bizarre. A living soul should desperately want its host exorcised so it could return home. Why linger in that cold, empty well? Yet she kept obstructing Xun Ruosu.

Thinking it over, this living soul’s behavior made no sense. It was lying. But why lie?

A soul lingering too long in a fixed mold would lose its original appearance. Xun Ruosu suddenly recalled someone—a man who wanted to bind Chen Huaiyue to his side forever, treating her like a possession.

Collarbone marks weren’t common. Xue Tong had one, and so did Xun Ruosu—the legacy of her Xun Family ancestors, imprinted at the cost of their annihilation. The one on the mirror figure was something Xun Ruosu had seen before. It wasn’t nearly as refined, more like a cheap knockoff, not even a decent imitation.

Even so, it came at a price.

The caster was just doing a job for pay; no need to bear the cost themselves. They simply needed the client’s prior consent to transfer it.

What price had the client paid to create such a shoddy collarbone mark?

Xun Ruosu pulled a third yellow talisman from her sleeve. The cinnabar ink bled through the back—this one already bore writing. Perhaps sensing her intent, the figure in the mirror suddenly grew agitated, influencing Chen Huaiyue. A piercing scream erupted in the small room.

The scream was shrill enough to perforate eardrums in an instant. Chen Huaiyue scooped up the wooden doll and lunged toward Xun Ruosu. The conflicting aura about her intensified as she repeated over and over, “Save me, save me!”

“Since we’ve crossed paths and exorcism is my trade, of course I won’t abandon you.” Xun Ruosu smiled faintly. “Don’t be afraid. Come to me. No need to fight it by force.”

Chen Huaiyue looked dazed. Her memories were like a tattered spiderweb draped over a dressing table—shredded and incomplete. She couldn’t even grasp simple words like “crossed paths” or “abandon.”

The figure in the mirror twisted into a savage grimace. A gust of wind slammed the half-open door shut. The room’s lamps yellowed and dimmed. Chen Huaiyue clutched the wooden doll in one arm as the air turned frigid. Xun Ruosu’s recently regained warmth was sapped away again; her fingertips began to tremble.

The entire room filled with resentment. Those inside found their thoughts chaotic, long-buried worries surging unbidden. Yet Xun Ruosu remained unmoved, her mind like cold iron. She held the yellow talisman between her fingers before her eyes and murmured an incantation. A spark ignited at the tip, flaring blue-purple. In a flash, it swept toward her fingertips.

Controlled by the intruder, Chen Huaiyue knew the power of a diviner’s talismans. Ice crystals layered around Xun Ruosu, surging toward the flame to extinguish it with water. But the blue-purple fire burned even amid the ice. As the talisman turned to ash, Xun Ruosu vanished from her sight!

Chen Huaiyue blinked in confusion. A clear, cold voice spoke beside her ear: “With four souls and eight po, no wonder thirty years of forgotten memories brought no peace.”

Then, the mirror on the dressing table shattered into countless shards. One the size of a palm whipped past Chen Huaiyue’s face, splitting her reflection in two. Xun Ruosu stood behind her, red silk cords wrapped around her ten fingers. Something thrashed wildly within those cords.

The flying shards crashed to the floor, disintegrating into fragments finer than dust before they could retain their shape.

Xun Ruosu wasn’t particularly strong, but with the soul bound by her red silk, it couldn’t budge an inch. Its struggles proved futile. The soul, fused as one, was forcibly dragged out—

A person’s three souls and seven po weren’t truly unified. Extracting them was akin to taking a life. Chen Huaiyue, possessed by this living soul, hadn’t sensed the anomaly in her own four souls and eight po. Separating them was no simple task.

After thirty years, even an intruding soul had welded itself to the host. Xun Ruosu tightened the red silk on her hands, the joints drawing blood.

She even had the leisure to sigh. “Sure enough, being reborn brings bad luck. I’m deathly afraid of pain at the best of times.”

And she’d only known Xue Tong for a day—a few hours short of a full one—and now these hands were ruined.

“You’re not reborn,” Xue Tong called from behind, catching her badmouthing even amid the chaos. She rapped on the door. “You became my half-body while still alive.”

“…Eavesdropping will get you struck by lightning,” Xun Ruosu retorted coldly.

The voice from outside replied, “You said it loud and clear, so I listened loud and clear. Since when do lurkers chat back?”

The Infant Spirit hounded Xue Tong relentlessly. With her back against the doorframe, he lunged with arms outstretched. But upon touching the door, he was repelled by countless golden rays. A Buddhist seal formed a golden cage, enveloping the entire monk’s quarters—no one in, no one out.

“Did you do this?” Xue Tong asked.

“My situation here’s a bit complicated. Didn’t want to risk it escaping,” Xun Ruosu replied. “Can you… take it alive?”

Xue Tong’s silhouette on the door had tied her hair back. Xun Ruosu spared a stray thought: She’s still in a skirt—easy to fight in?

“Amitabha,” Xun Ruosu thought. Did we have a grudge in a past life?

The wounds on her hands clenched tighter. Blood seeped along the red silk, searing into the extra soul and po—distorted in agony, peeling away from its guise. It revealed a man’s face.

The man was in his forties or fifties, etched with profound sorrow. Few wrinkles, but deep ones. His eyes drooped at the corners, giving him an utterly ordinary look laced with cowardice and malice in the details.

He didn’t want to leave Chen Huaiyue. His hands clamped her neck desperately, but his eyes glared at Xun Ruosu with venom.

At his collarbone, the Sanskrit script for “return” shuddered under external force. A needle materialized from thin air, trying to stitch them back together. Chen Huaiyue screamed again. Man and woman unleashed a duet of wails in the cramped room, echoes assaulting the culprit from every direction.

Xun Ruosu: …I’m already blind. Why torment my ears too?!

Blood soaked the silk, dripping with a twist. Xun Ruosu fished out another talisman paper from her pocket. It slithered like a snake along the threads, drinking her blood before slapping onto the wooden doll’s smooth forehead with a smack.

The wooden doll sprang to life in an instant. It leaped onto the man’s shoulder, riding him and raining down slaps left and right—smack smack smack smack smack, a dozen or more. It stung Xun Ruosu’s own cheeks just watching.

Unsated, it clawed and kicked, yanking at the man’s hair next.

He was middle-aged with a severe bald spot. The wooden doll tore out clumps, sometimes ripping scalp with it. His screams drowned out Chen Huaiyue’s; Xun Ruosu’s eardrums felt ready to bleed.