Legend had it the temple was founded to suppress grudge souls. Deep within Soaring Firmament Mountain lay the Ten Thousand People Pit, where countless rebel spirits had been buried across the ages—from the An Lushan Rebellion right up until just before the founding of the republic. The bones there were piled high, easily exceeding ten thousand.
To develop villas in a place like that, the builders either had to be blind, deaf, and illiterate, or they’d been royally duped.
What Xun Ruosu could find was all laid out in old news articles, though the local ghost stories spiced things up with plenty of exaggeration—only half of it could be trusted.
In the car, she’d gone over it with Yuan Jie and filled in some gaps. Sure enough, Soaring Firmament Temple had been built to suppress grudge souls. But it had endured two upheavals since then. The first came during wartime chaos, when artillery fire reduced most of it to rubble and killed countless monks. Besides the renovation thirty years ago, there had been basic repairs in the early post-revolutionary years too.
The second disaster was even worse: radical militants had bombed it, nearly wiping the place out entirely and necessitating the more recent overhaul.
By all accounts, if the problem stemmed from Soaring Firmament Temple, those two near-catastrophes should have come with ghost stories galore—rumors, hauntings, anything. But there were no such records anywhere, not even in folklore. Yuan Jie couldn’t make sense of it either, unless the deaths and disappearances were never linked back to Soaring Firmament Mountain.
When Xun Ruosu turned to ask Xue Tong about it, she discovered her companion had already dozed off, cradling the cat in her arms.
Wuchang blinked its round eyes and let out a tiny “mew.” Xun Ruosu lowered her voice. “Does your master still need to sleep?”
Wuchang’s throat rumbled with a purr, as if it wanted to say something, but in the end it just drooped its eyes and stayed silent.
Xue Tong stirred awake. She cracked her eyelids just a sliver, her gaze landing squarely on the back of Xun Ruosu’s head as she leaned down. Xun Ruosu had long hair too, but shorter than Xue Tong’s, and she usually kept it tied up—except for that one time in the coffin. Now, after taking her medicine, she was still coughing a bit. With the car’s chill, she’d let it down for warmth around her neck. Leaning close to speak softly to Wuchang, her nape looked unexpectedly gentle and docile—nothing at all like the woman who so often sparred with her.
Xun Ruosu sensed the stare and tilted her head up, their eyes meeting for the briefest moment. Xue Tong looked away first. “What, trying to steal Wuchang while I’m not paying attention?”
“…” Xun Ruosu sighed helplessly. “I was just asking it why you suddenly fell asleep. By your own account, you’ve had this cat for a hundred years. Even if it’s fond of me for the moment, its bond with you must run far deeper.”
“Is that so?” Xue Tong paused, momentarily lost in thought. “Can a century really forge a bond like that?”
Wuchang extended its tongue and delicately licked the palm of her hand, pulling her back from her reverie.
Xue Tong yawned. “Of course I can sleep. It’s just not like with you humans—more like something optional for me.”
But there was one thing Xue Tong left unsaid: the conditions for her to fall asleep were extraordinarily strict. The surroundings had to be comfortable and utterly safe, or she couldn’t even close her eyes.
She didn’t even want to admit it, but this was the first time she’d nodded off, however briefly, in several centuries.
The sudden awkwardness made it hard for Xun Ruosu to press further on anything. She straightened up and stared out the window at the blurring trees. They rode the rest of the way in silence until Yan Qing announced, “We’re here,” and shooed all three of them—plus one cat—out of the car. Then he punched the gas and vanished like a bat out of hell.
Xun Ruosu sneezed. Her cloth bag held simple ritual tools alongside cold medicine and a thermos. Traveling with Xue Tong had truly opened her eyes. Even if resentful ghosts proved too tough and they couldn’t make it back to the temple before nightfall, she could still take her meds on schedule.
The abandoned building site had gone untouched for ages. The wide driveway to the main entrance was choked with dead leaves, branches, and weeds. After the murder, detectives had trampled a narrow footpath—just barely wide enough for people to pass.
Xue Tong led the way under her umbrella. There was always something coldly desolate about her, a wintry bleakness. Deprived of sunlight for so long, even her fingers were whiter than a normal person’s. Gripping the black umbrella handle, she resembled a specter adrift amid the withered branches.
The Old Abbot deliberately brought up the rear. He still didn’t entirely trust Xun Ruosu to handle herself, and she’d admitted this was her first brush with grudge souls—not to mention her inexperience and current illness. Better to lag behind where he could lend a hand if things went south.
Xue Tong followed the cleared path straight into the half-built commercial complex attached to the development.
Of course, nothing here was finished. Most of the structures were just massive skeletons. The two-story buildings relied on a handful of load-bearing pillars; they hadn’t even gotten around to laying the walls. The staircases between floors lay fully exposed. Xue Tong had just set foot on one when she froze.
According to Yuan Jie, the monks he’d sent hadn’t gone upstairs at all. They’d simply sat amid the weeds, chanting sutras all night long. At the time, Xun Ruosu had marveled at their fortitude—summer meant swarms of mosquitoes, and somehow the monks hadn’t been carried off by the bugs.
Since no one had gone up and the crime scene had been cleaned, where had those wet footprints come from?
The prints weren’t large—around a women’s size six or seven, from sneakers or casual flats with clear anti-slip treads. They weren’t just damp; globs of mud clung nearby. The strides were short too, which—paired with the shoe size—suggested either a short adult or a child.
The footprints trailed all the way to the top of the stairs. There, Xue Tong spotted bloodstains on the floor.
In such a godforsaken wilderness—aside from the two missing Soaring Firmament Temple monks—who else would come here?
“Must be a little girl,” Xun Ruosu said suddenly. “And one with some real skill, at that.”
A faint fragrance hung in the air: shampoo from a popular brand. Xun Ruosu had used it once, but found the scent too overpowering and switched. It lingered beautifully, which made it a hit with teenagers.
As for the “real skill,” blood had dripped down from the empty second-floor landing—not much of it. Nearby lay the ashes of a burned yellow talisman.
Someone had drawn the talisman with their own blood.
But where was the person?
“Xue Tong!” Xun Ruosu’s heart lurched. She gripped her cinnabar brush in one hand and yanked Xue Tong back by the arm with the other. The brush tip hovered in the air, then jabbed at the topmost step. A crimson dot bloomed, spreading into a vast thunder net where the second-floor landing met the stairs.
The net erupted with tremendous force. Xue Tong’s umbrella rim caught the edge and charred instantly. Xun Ruosu shoved the brush in another two inches. The net shattered like a mirror, scattering lightning bolts that wriggled like snakes, crackling with purple light before winking out of existence.
Yuan Jie, bringing up the rear, broke out in a cold sweat. Even Wuchang, perched on his shoulder, had its tail straight up.
Xun Ruosu lowered her hand and stood still. After all that commotion, her cinnabar brush was only slightly singed. In a soft voice, she said, “This Heavenly Thunder Talisman has grown quite formidable. It doesn’t belong to a child your age… This must be something an adult in your family left you for protection, right?”
The vast, empty structure amplified her words with a faint echo. They waited a long time before a reply drifted from a distant corner. “Who are you? Why are you here? What… what’s your connection to that umbrella-wielding fierce ghost?!”
The voice wasn’t childish, but it belonged to someone young—a teenage girl.
“…” Xue Tong, mourning her ruined umbrella, went dark-faced at the words “fierce ghost.” “Little girl, who are you calling a fierce ghost? Don’t lump me in with trash like that!”
“Uh…” The girl sounded terrified.
Xun Ruosu tugged Xue Tong’s sleeve in exasperation, signaling her to calm down. Xue Tong instinctively tried to pull away but halfway through let her arm go slack, allowing the grip to remain. Xun Ruosu felt the shift in her palm and released first.
“I’m from the Xun Family,” Xun Ruosu said. “Since you have this Heavenly Thunder Talisman, you must know of the Xun family of diviners, right? We’re here because of the murder a few days ago. The abbot of Soaring Firmament Temple asked my boss for help… and the one with the umbrella is her.”
After a long hesitation, the girl spoke up. “I know the Xun Family. But my parents said you’ve all died out… Are… are you human?”
“When your family gave you that Heavenly Thunder Talisman, didn’t they tell you it can only be broken by flesh and blood? If I weren’t human, where would this flesh and blood come from?” Xun Ruosu had yanked Xue Tong back in a hurry precisely to keep her from getting hurt by it.
After all, Xue Tong couldn’t abide sunlight, preferred the cold over heat, and had never shed blood. She didn’t exactly scream “normal human body.”
Heavenly Thunder Talismans didn’t lie. The girl pondered awhile and seemed to buy it. “Then how do you prove you’re from the Xun Family?”
Xun Ruosu fished the pocket watch from her pocket. “This compass is an ancient heirloom, handed down through my ancestors. Only someone from the Xun bloodline can use it… From what you said earlier, your family has deep roots in the arts. You knew the Xun Family faced extinction risks, so you must recognize this compass too?”
Another long silence. Then came a rustling from behind the load-bearing pillar. Out stepped a girl of thirteen or fourteen.
The little girl must have cried earlier. The place was thick with dust, and once it mixed with tears, it smeared right across her face. She hadn’t brought any tissues, so she wiped haphazardly at her cheeks with her hands, which only made it worse—half her face was now streaked black with grime.
She spoke up timidly. “My name is Zhong Li. I’m from a branch of the Zhong Family.”
Though the Zhong Family was massive in scale, their genealogy had recorded only eight branches from ancient times to the present: one main branch and seven sidelines. When the main branch produced a second child requiring further division, one of the sidelines would mysteriously vanish on its own, ensuring they always numbered the Big Dipper.
Xun Ruosu had seen the genealogy. Most entries noted deaths from illness or grievous wounds sustained on missions, but the coincidences were always so convenient that they aroused suspicion.
The Zhong Family’s sidelines weren’t gathered in one place either. As far as Xun Ruosu knew, they were scattered across three provinces and four cities, so her great-uncle’s household was a thousand miles away. It was perfectly normal, then, for this self-proclaimed branch member of the Zhong Family to show up at Soaring Firmament Mountain.
Even as a branch member, someone from the Zhong Family knew a wide variety of skills and lore. This girl might have been young, but her knowledge wasn’t narrow by any means.
Zhong Li still didn’t dare get too close. She leaned against a pillar from a safe distance, her big eyes carefully scrutinizing the three people before her.
Xun Ruosu took a step forward on her own initiative. Zhong Li’s toes twitched hesitantly, but in the end, she stayed rooted to the spot without backing away.
The girl was intensely interested in Xun Ruosu, the Xun Family’s last remaining heir, while also curious about Xue Tong, who held an umbrella in broad daylight and exuded an aura of cold menace that kept everyone at bay. Then her gaze shifted to Yuan Jie and the cat at the rear of their group. For a moment, her two eyes weren’t enough to take it all in.
