Chapter 22

Xun Ruosu and Xue Tong stood outside the courtyard. The round archway framed a picturesque scene all its own, the tip of the locust tree cradling a massive full moon. A young woman sat by the well, swinging her feet lightly. Her belly protruded somewhat, but her small, skinny frame—clearly malnourished—made the swell look weak and listless.

Any bystander could tell there was a stillborn inside, dead in the womb and no longer growing.

This moment captured Chen Huaiyue shortly after she had come up the mountain. Though seated, one of her legs was positioned awkwardly, as if it had been broken by someone and hastily reconnected. A strip of bandage peeked out from her loose clothes, and the wound on her face had not fully healed. The charred scar resembled a centipede, gruesome even on her pretty features.

They had imagined Chen Huaiyue in life as a moody, melancholic girl, but she seemed utterly normal now. Moonlight draped her shoulders, and a genuine smile lit her face—not the mask that Xue Tong wore, but heartfelt joy.

A fishy stench hung in the air. Yuan Jie—a young man in his early twenties—hiked up his monk robes and squatted on the ground to scrape scales from a fish. It was clearly his first time at such work; though the weather wasn’t hot, sweat beaded on his forehead. He muttered under his breath, “Buddha forgive me, Buddha forgive me. In my next life, I can be a fish for someone to eat.”

Chen Huaiyue was young, and from the look of her frail build, she likely struggled not just with getting enough protein and nutrition, but even with filling her belly. Thirty years ago, though most households weren’t in desperate straits, hunger still gnawed at some. Spotting half a sweet potato on the ground felt like a crime against waste.

Killing fish before the Buddha was for the sake of the pregnant woman and her child.

Xun Ruosu took two steps forward, stopping in the center of the courtyard near the well. She could now see Chen Huaiyue’s smiling face gazing up at her.

“Little brother, you’re so clumsy you can’t even kill a fish properly. Do you even know how to make fish soup?” Chen Huaiyue asked dubiously. “Monks eat vegetarian food. Killing living things is bad. I heard from the other senior brothers last time that devout monks who get blood on their hands have to endure frying in boiling oil and climbing a mountain of blades—so miserable.”

“Who told you that?” Yuan Jie chanted “Amitabha.” “Xiao Yue, you’re not a follower of the Buddha, so you don’t need to worry about such things. I’m just a novice monk, but I don’t fear pain.”

Chen Huaiyue tilted her head. “Not fearing pain is all it takes?”

The exchange was childish, like coaxing a little child. Yuan Jie kept his head down, wrestling with the fish. This tiny courtyard stood apart from the eerie Buddhist qi outside, forming a pocket of warmth all its own.

At that moment, black shadows crept in. The ground suddenly softened beneath their feet, and a pair of deathly pale hands seized Xun Ruosu’s ankle!

Xue Tong had once explained that the obsessions of the dead bound them tightly to the mortal world. When outside forces interfered, those obsessions would manifest to intervene. Zhang Yue had fixated on “resentment,” only to be dragged away by greater powers; after some futile struggling, he had bubbled up once and sunk. But Chen Huaiyue was different.

Thirty years could turn even a cat into a spirit. Her obsession ran deep, and within this lamp vessel, it had surely driven her mad.

The hands were piercingly cold. Xun Ruosu’s ankle turned blue in an instant. She snapped a yellow talisman in two, and the paper transformed into a delicate letter-opening knife. The blade sliced across the back of the hand, leaving a searing wound like firebrand, the edges everted and glowing like molten lava. The thing lurking underground recoiled in agony, retreating into the shadows.

If Yan Qing had been there, he would surely have howled about it defying the laws of physics. Physicists ancient and modern would claw their way out of the grave to shove such nonsense back underground.

Why bother haunting like this?

“You’re pretty handy yourself, aren’t you?” Xue Tong had settled by the well, just an arm’s length from Chen Huaiyue, her eyes narrowed. “People from the Xun Family really are the best liars.”

“What, did they trick you?” Xun Ruosu kept her expression unchanged. “Lying usually serves a purpose. What did my ancestors ever cheat you out of?”

Xue Tong’s gaze was cool and limpid. After a moment, she shook her head. “Who could trick me?”

“…” For some reason, Xun Ruosu caught a fleeting undercurrent of resentment in those words.

The fragments of memory in Chen Huaiyue’s lamp vessel didn’t connect into a whole, but most revolved around Yuan Jie. Immersed in them, the overriding sensation was one of gentleness. Chen Huaiyue’s lamp vessel was tender yet sorrowful; she had enshrined the Buddha in her heart, yet the Buddha regarded her merely as one among the masses.

The shadows surged from the darkness once more, blotting out the sky. The moon atop the locust tree dwindled to a thin crescent in an instant. A drenched Chen Huaiyue crawled out of the well, roaring, “Get out! All of you, get out!”

Yet the memories under her protection were so warm and beautiful that this rampaging obsession felt alien, a betrayal of her own original intent.

Yuan Jie sat beneath the locust tree with a lit lamp, carving a piece of wood. Thirty years prior, the mountain had gained electricity, but it was unreliable; every household still kept kerosene lamps and candles at the ready.

Yuan Jie clearly wasn’t skilled at it. His fingers were clumsy and stiff, and every so often, he held the work up to the candlelight to check his measurements… The wooden doll had only a rough body so far, smeared with flecks of blood. A towel hung by the well; Yuan Jie occasionally hissed in pain, wetting it to dab away the blood.

Chen Huaiyue sat in her room, the window half-open so she could see outside. Her belly had deflated; evidently, the child had been born.

She looked different now. Half her body lay in shadow, the candlelight flickering at the corner of her eye. Disgust and madness filled her gaze as she stared at Yuan Jie outside. She muttered under her breath, “My child is dead—all because you stinking monks stole Xiao Yue from my side, dooming my whole family to tragedy!”

It was Chen Huaiyue’s face, but the enunciation, accent, and expressions were all wrong. Xun Ruosu clenched her fingers; she could almost confirm this was the work of living soul possession.

This memory was far dimmer than the last, the surroundings themselves steeped in Chen Huaiyue’s despair. The people and troubles she longed to escape pursued her relentlessly, no matter where she fled, dragging her back into suffocating misery.

“Watch out!” Xue Tong yanked Xun Ruosu aside. A ghostly, sodden hand grazed past the latter’s face, scraping her thin skin and leaving a shallow cut beneath her eye.

It didn’t hurt, only itched faintly. Chen Huaiyue’s obsession dripped water steadily; the darker the memories it contained, the wilder it grew. It had started out somewhat reasonable, but now it hungered to gouge out the eyes of any onlookers—to crush their very brains.

Rain began to fall in the courtyard. It was deep winter, and the locust tree—which had stood only as tall as a man a few months earlier—had shot up a meter or two, foreshadowing the demonic chaos it would one day host.

The Chen Huaiyue who had crawled from the well grew even more soaked by the downpour, her face darkening like thunder—as if the deepest secret of her heart had been dragged into the light, leaving her humiliated and enraged.

“Xue Tong!”

The torrent pelted down without mercy. Whether sheltering under the eaves or retreating indoors, no one could escape it. Xun Ruosu was already half-drenched.

This rain was no mere water vapor. It carried every ounce of Chen Huaiyue’s emotions—extreme, overwhelming—like a dam bursting, impossible to contain.

Every drop encapsulated countless joys and sorrows. Bound by the rules, Xue Tong was compelled to shoulder the deceased’s tangled feelings; this deluge would affect her all the more.

Sure enough, when Xun Ruosu glanced her way, Xue Tong stood beneath the locust tree, one hand outstretched. Rain fell into her palm and soaked straight through her body. She was like a bottomless vessel, brimming with Chen Huaiyue’s every rage and rapture.

At Xun Ruosu’s shout, Xue Tong slowly raised her eyes, fixing them upon her.

Xue Tong’s eyes were the color of glass. For once, the power hadn’t gone out; lights glowed in the novice quarters, and the cold white illumination filtering through the window edged her pupils with faint gold. When she looked at Xun Ruosu, it was as if she saw the shadow of someone else upon her.

Xun Ruosu frowned slightly.

“Xue Tong!” Xun Ruosu called again. She snapped a yellow talisman between her fingers, drawing a black umbrella from it. The rain pattered against the brim and could not penetrate, no matter the wind.

Xun Ruosu hurried to Xue Tong’s side with the umbrella. At the same moment, the Chen Huaiyue in the memory snatched an umbrella from the corner and dashed outside. The two brushed past each other; the scene stretched and shifted, landing at the mountain gate.

Chen Huaiyue held her umbrella aloft, standing on tiptoe in eager anticipation, clutching the wooden doll to her chest.

“Are you all right?” Xun Ruosu reached out to feel Xue Tong’s forehead, but Xue Tong subtly evaded her touch.

“You were just grinding your teeth while staring at me,” Xun Ruosu said. “I’m starting to wonder if I offended you in some past life, and you’re nursing a grudge.”

Xue Tong let out a cold laugh. “No.”

“…” No, with an attitude like that?

“Even if there were something, I can tell the difference. Someone entering reincarnation has severed all ties to their past lives. Even if you were a mad dog bastard once, right now you’re just a vulnerable diviner from the Xun Family who can’t protect herself.” Noticing her own sharpness, Xue Tong added, “Rest assured, I won’t take revenge on you.”

Xun Ruosu considered for a moment before shoving the umbrella into Xue Tong’s hands and stepping back two or three meters. “We should probably keep our distance.”

The raindrops barely affected her. Xun Ruosu touched her chest cavity; a lively heart beat there. Strangely, though she could sense Chen Huaiyue’s pain, it stirred mostly pity in her—nothing like true immersion.