Chapter 20

The man released Chen Huaiyue and reached with both hands for the wooden doll. The mark on his body truly lived up to its shoddy quality. Sensing the shift in its master’s mindset, the needle hesitated for a moment before launching into an utterly idiotic maneuver—

Sewing the man directly to the wooden doll.

With the obstruction gone, Xun Ruosu stepped back two paces, her heel pressing against the dressing table. Then she yanked hard, and at last, the man staggered free from Chen Huaiyue’s body.

He had worn the mask on his face for far too long and didn’t dare confront his own features just yet. Glass shards littered the floor, however, reflecting every inch of him in stark clarity. He stepped on his own left foot with his right and tripped himself to the ground. Staring at his reflection in the mirror-like fragments, he suddenly lost all reason. His hands clawed into his cheeks, as if desperate to rend his face into unrecognizable pulp.

A living soul differed from a ghost. No matter how many years passed, as long as the body endured, the memories remained intact. This man knew exactly who he was.

Xun Ruosu released her grip, and the red silk thread coiled automatically around the man’s body, binding him tight.

Though fine as a hair, the thread was saturated with Xun Ruosu’s blood, brimming with merits. In an instant, the man thrashed as if rolling over a bed of nails, unleashing squeals like a stuck pig.

Once she’d grown accustomed to the racket, Xun Ruosu kicked him under the bed without a second thought, clearing him from her sight.

A living soul could not be exorcised. In the end, he had to return to his original body. Chen Huaiyue mattered far more.

The wooden doll sat slumped on the ground, its legs lame from the yellow talisman pasted to its head. It had tumbled from the man’s body—a thing less than half a meter tall that had thrown its weight around impressively. Now it stood with hands on hips, waiting for praise.

Xun Ruosu picked it up from the floor, dusted it off, and handed it back to Chen Huaiyue. Chen Huaiyue cradled it like a precious treasure and whispered softly, “Did it hurt when you fell?”

The wooden doll’s mouth was far too rudimentary for speech. It lifted its equally simplistic eyes—mere “×” marks without so much as pupils—and fixed them on Xun Ruosu. Yet she could sense the pleading gaze.

“It says it doesn’t hurt,” Xun Ruosu said at last, unable to resist those two pairs of puppy-dog eyes. “It also says the fight felt pretty damn good… but you don’t need to know that part.”

Xun Ruosu let out a belated “oh.”

“I knew Xuanxuan was amazing,” Chen Huaiyue said, settling back into her chair with the doll on her knee. “But no more randomly hitting people from now on.”

“…It says it understands.” Xun Ruosu played the dutiful translator. Amid the mother-son exchange, she slipped in her question. “You’re Chen Huaiyue’s child, so who’s the one outside?”

The wooden doll tilted its head and fell silent for a long moment before Xun Ruosu received the answer. “That’s me too.”

“Stuck in the temple too long, have you? Picking up Zen koans now?” Xun Ruosu made a show of reaching for the yellow talisman on its forehead. The doll dodged away in a hurry.

Without that talisman, it was nothing but a limp pile of humanoid wood, limbs useless, even struggling to relay a few words through Xun Ruosu’s voice.

“The one outside is my child too.”

Xun Ruosu had directed the question at the doll, but Chen Huaiyue was the one who answered.

Xun Ruosu had assumed that after thirty years wandering the human world, much of Chen Huaiyue’s memory had faded to ash. If she couldn’t break free of the courtyard and become a true malicious ghost, enduring a bit longer would erase every last recollection. Even if she refused to let go, oblivion would force her hand.

Without memories or mind, a soul became blank paper—pure and unsullied. She might even attain Buddhahood. Then, even if neither Xue Tong nor Xun Ruosu intervened, Chen Huaiyue would have exorcised herself.

But she remembered things after all.

“This wooden doll—Yuan Jie carved it for you?” Xun Ruosu didn’t care who answered.

Soaring Firmament Temple had a custom of ringing the bell at midnight, located on the front mountain. From this distance, only faint echoes reached them, but the timings were precise. The previous toll had marked the end of the first watch—around nine at night. It had just rung again. Xun Ruosu’s pocket watch wasn’t accurate, and her phone lay abandoned in the opposite room, but she knew it was nearing eleven now.

One more hour, and the day would end.

In life, days felt endless, ripe for squandering in idle bliss. But for souls trapped on earth after death, every day chipped away at their memories—

Joys and sorrows alike dissolving into darkness until nothing remained but an insatiable “wanting what couldn’t be had.” Then obsession twisted into raw desire.

Chen Huaiyue was a hotbed for desire. Dragging out her living soul had been a key step toward exorcism, but it made her even more unstable.

“You figured it out?” Chen Huaiyue stroked the wooden doll. “My little brother was handy with crafts. I loved these things. When he went down the mountain for supplies back then, he even brought me a crystal ball filled with snowflakes and a little house inside. He said a family of four lived there, happy as could be.”

Snow globes like that weren’t rare thirty-odd years ago, but ordinary folk rarely splurged on them—just admired from afar. The monks at Soaring Firmament Temple drew modest wages, yet Yuan Jie had happily bought her one so ornate and frivolous.

“I’ve met Yuan Jie,” Xun Ruosu said, leaning against the dressing table as she spoke to Chen Huaiyue. “His hands are covered in scars from years past, healed over but leaving pale white marks… The telltale signs of an amateur carpenter or engraver.”

Chen Huaiyue’s lips curved in a smile. “My little brother was all thumbs, but he insisted on carving me a wooden doll anyway.”

“Did you love your little brother?” Xun Ruosu asked abruptly.

Chen Huaiyue’s arms tightened around the doll, making its joints rattle. Xun Ruosu let out another “oh.” “It says you did.”

So the word “love” had taken root here.

No wonder Yuan Jie couldn’t exorcise her. How could the one who planted the heart demon uproot it?

“Do you want to see him?” Xun Ruosu pressed.

Chen Huaiyue shook her head slowly, almost imperceptibly. “He’s a monk now. I’m a married woman—we can’t meet.” She patted her chest with care. “Keeping him here is enough.”

“That’s not enough.” Xun Ruosu gave the tiniest shake of her head.

If it were, “love” wouldn’t bind her so.

Chen Huaiyue had been sold into marriage as a girl. In the impoverished backwaters of four or five decades ago, no one shielded a little girl’s childhood. Legal notions were weak; marriage was just trafficking goods, devoid of mutual consent or even a certificate bearing two names.

Her seventeen years had been a prison, blind to the outside sky, ignorant of the world’s changes, companioned only by suffering—until her birth brother found her and brought her to Soaring Firmament Temple.

The temple’s monks shunned worldly dust yet harbored gentle, compassionate hearts for all beings.

Chen Huaiyue had found her Buddha.

Yuan Jie lived in the cell opposite hers, his care exceeding even the abbot’s. She’d never known such patience; inevitably, feelings bloomed.

The man’s living soul stirred restlessly under the bed. He saw Chen Huaiyue not as a person but as purchased property, branded by him. A heart turned elsewhere was betrayal, defilement. His screams mingled with filthy curses.

“…” Xun Ruosu found it intolerable. This man was a relic of backward times—haunting and spiteful, always lurking to spew venom.

With a twitch of her finger, she tightened the silk thread. Then, to the wooden doll: “Go sew his mouth shut.”

Buoyed by Xun Ruosu’s backing, it laid into him with lefts and rights, slapping a dozen more times.

Lacking a malicious ghost’s savagery, its blows still packed a punch. The man under the bed whimpered and groaned, falling silent at last.

Xun Ruosu’s ears rang with blessed quiet. Outside came the thudding impacts—like chopping wood. Separated by a door, she couldn’t see Xue Tong, who had tangled with the Infant Spirit for ages. Who had won?

Becoming a malicious ghost demanded harsh conditions; a naturally spawned one was rarer still. Xun Ruosu had never witnessed one, nor did her family’s tomes record them.

She and Xue Tong were mere acquaintances—”first time awkward, second time easy”—but Xun Ruosu was fiercely protective. If her own cat picked a fight and lost, she’d grab a megaphone and cheer it on. She wouldn’t let Xue Tong take a loss.

As she pondered, a knock sounded at the door. It started polite, then grew impatient. With a resounding “bang,” splinters flew from the panel. It swung wide, ushering in a gust laced with snow and dust.

Sure enough, Xue Tong sported a high ponytail, her skirt torn in multiple places like a ragged beggar who’d trekked a thousand miles for alms. In her hand dangled a jumble of parts—the shriveled husk of the Infant Spirit’s body.

The Infant Spirit looked far from defeated. If not for its poor gestation in the womb and its eyes still fused shut, it might have glared daggers.

Xue Tong dumped the mismatched limbs, head, and torso onto the floor. They began reassembling into a rough humanoid shape. It lunged to bite her, but turning revealed a golden bird cage around it—half a meter tall, forged of talismans and incantations, topped by yellow paper still wet with Xun Family blood.

Beaten senseless by Xue Tong for two hours, it couldn’t even break free of a simple slip of paper.

The courtyard’s cast was fully assembled now, great and small accounted for. Xun Ruosu’s gaze settled on Xue Tong, appraising her briefly… Her face was taut, the usual mirth in her brows vanished—enough to make everyone in the room wonder if they owed her money. Otherwise, no issues.

It made sense. Xun Ruosu’s own half-body had suffered under her influence yet stood whole; Xue Tong was unlikely hurt.

Having pummeled its blood-related father, the wooden doll didn’t return straight to Chen Huaiyue. Instead, it paced on short legs to the cage and peered through the bars at the withered Infant Spirit inside.

The Infant Spirit huffed and turned its face away, every bit the sulky child after a spat: “I’m never talking to you again!”