Chapter 26 Part 3

“You’re all here for that murderous resentful ghost?” Zhong Li asked nervously.

“So you’re here for it too… You’re so young—your family actually let you come?” Since she was from a Zhong Family branch, that technically made her either a niece or a younger sister. Xun Ruosu softened her voice. “You didn’t sneak out, did you?”

The girl went quiet, her secret laid bare.

Zhong Li was thirteen this year, though she’d turn fourteen in just two more months. She was extraordinarily gifted and heaped with expectations, and she’d always lived up to them. Even during her grasping ceremony as a swaddled infant, one hand had clutched a cinnabar brush while the other gripped a yellow talisman tight.

Back home, any mention of Zhong Li marked her as the perfect “child from another family.” But precisely because of that, her bottlenecks came earlier than most.

At ten, she could perform exorcism on wandering souls. Now, nearing fourteen, she still struggled only with wandering souls. Any ghost fueled by resentment was beyond her, though her parents always reminded her that some people spent their whole lives dealing only with wandering souls. At times like these, they’d drag the Xun Family into it as a punching bag—the Xun Family trained the eyes but neglected the body, and more than a few ancestors hadn’t even been able to exorcise wandering souls.

But adolescents were competitive by nature. Zhong Li had no respect for the Xun Family’s incompetence, and she took no pleasure in hearing examples drawn from that crumbling, useless clan.

Sure enough, Zhong Li had heard rumors of a resentful ghost haunting the area. Desperate to improve herself, she’d snuck out to face it.

She’d only been here a little over an hour, but she’d already realized the vast gap between herself and the resentful ghost. Terrified, she’d unleashed her Protective Heavenly Thunder Talisman and huddled in the corner, tears streaming down her face. Half of it was pure fear—even a powerful heavenly thunder talisman had time limits. What if she actually died here? Her parents would be heartbroken.

The other half was self-loathing for her inadequate skills and reckless impulsiveness.

In her short time trapped here, Zhong Li had already engaged in some profound self-reflection. If someone handed her paper and pen right now, she could probably write a self-criticism no shorter than ten thousand words.

“You’re already pretty smart,” Xue Tong said as she folded away her half-burned umbrella. Her words sounded like comfort for Zhong Li, but her expression remained icy. Hands clasped behind her back, she circled the entire second floor. “There’s still traces of resentment lingering here. If you hadn’t timed your heavenly thunder talisman just right, what we’d be looking at now is a corpse.”

Zhong Li pursed her lips but didn’t argue.

Xue Tong continued, “Killing with a resentful ghost is different from a malicious ghost, though. It leaves a mark first, and once you’re marked, even I would struggle to remove it.”

“…Who exactly are you?” Zhong Li had been holding that question in for a while.

Truth be told, everyone in the business knew the Xun Family was hopeless. They could only compete on fortune-telling by seniority; otherwise, they were a running joke. Anyone willing to befriend Xun Ruosu was probably just as mediocre—a three-legged cat at best. Sadly, her own heavenly thunder talisman had been broken already, so she couldn’t count on much. If these three weirdos turned out to be all show, she’d have to fend for herself.

Suddenly, Zhong Li felt the weight of immense responsibility on her shoulders. She’d even have to figure out how to protect these three adults and the cat… People could be fools, but the cat was innocent. Why bring it to a crime scene?!

Xun Ruosu leaned back against a load-bearing pillar and coughed lightly. The clothes she wore weren’t bought with her own money anyway, so she didn’t mind the dust.

She’d been watching Zhong Li the whole time. When she saw the girl’s expression flicker through countless changes—finally settling into furrowed brows radiating murderous intent, as if ready to fight someone to the death—Xun Ruosu suddenly spoke up. “She’s Xue Tong.”

The name “Xue Tong” was legendary in their circles, shrouded in mystery and wild rumors. Zhong Li only knew that the main family had once collaborated with her, and that generation’s family head had nearly been killed by Xue Tong. No one knew the details anymore.

Afterward, Xue Tong cut off all contact with the Zhong Family. Even for major matters, they had to submit a formal visit notice in advance—or in modern times, book an appointment by phone.

Zhong Li had no concrete idea of just how powerful Xue Tong was, but the fact that she could kill a main family head had left a deep imprint on her young mind.

The main family heads across generations were all outstanding talents, accumulating vast merits through their own efforts.

But why was Xue Tong hanging around with the Xun Family? They seemed pretty familiar, too.

No one could tell that Xue Tong and Xun Ruosu had only just met.

Xue Tong quickly finished prowling the entire second-floor space. Though the crime scene had been cleaned up somewhat, this was an abandoned building site—the floors were rough concrete, impossible to scour completely, and no one cared about tidiness anyway. With careful inspection, traces of blood and hair were still visible.

“There are remnants of a soul here… The person who died on-site probably never made it to reincarnation. The resentful ghost ate it.” Xue Tong smiled, but it was a cold, detached expression that sent chills down the spine.

If a soul had gone on to reincarnate, it would have been intact. Even if damaged, it wouldn’t resemble the scattered crumbs of food left behind now—bits and pieces everywhere, impossible to gather.

Xun Ruosu toyed with a yellow talisman in her hands. Zhong Li watched as she flipped her wrists downward. The yellow talisman folded into a paper crane and fluttered away from her palm.

In the orthodox education Zhong Li had received, a mere sheet of yellow paper didn’t qualify as a “talisman.” It required a cinnabar brush to inscribe characters or drawings—and certainly not folding it like this.

“What a weirdo,” Zhong Li thought.

The paper crane suddenly hovered in one spot, flapping its wings restlessly. Xun Ruosu approached and discovered a symbol on the ground, concealed beneath the dust.

The symbol resembled a “mountain” character without its top and bottom strokes, or perhaps a trident. Add to that the fact that the abandoned building site’s developer was called Poseidon, and without the paper crane lingering, it could easily pass for the company’s logo.

Developer logos in abandoned sites weren’t common, but not unheard of either. Only Xun Ruosu knew her paper crane automatically sought objects connected to resentful ghosts. For it to stop here meant this symbol was more than just a logo.

Xun Ruosu coughed a few more times. Colds were like that—the first two or three days only got worse, medicine or no. They peaked before slowly improving. Her symptoms had only started last night; recovering in a short time was nothing but a pipe dream.

Zhong Li saw how badly she was coughing. As the junior here, she ought to show some concern, so she stepped forward. But the moment her hand brushed Xun Ruosu’s sleeve, Xun Ruosu shifted away. “Just a cold… Go stay with Yuan Jie.”

“…” By seniority, this aunt of hers was being awfully standoffish.

Zhong Li stomped her foot, then remembered how the Xun Family always seemed unwelcome wherever they went. Xun Ruosu’s aloof personality must have been shaped by constant rejection. In an instant, she forgave her aunt.

It was a classic case of how half-baked knowledge caused the most harm—Zhong Li still hadn’t realized Xun Ruosu was nothing like her imaginings.

Yuan Jie sat on the stairs with the cat. His earthy yellow monk’s robe wasn’t afraid of dirt. Wuchang squinted its eyes and pawed at his knee, seeming affectionate. But if Yuan Jie got ideas and tried to pet its head, it slapped his hand away.

For some reason, Zhong Li thought Xun Ruosu resembled that cat.

Xun Ruosu half-squatted beside the trident-like symbol. She brushed away the surrounding dust with her hand, revealing the full pattern. Xue Tong stood opposite her, staring at this ordinary-looking logo on the floor—

Once fully exposed, it was far more intricate and refined than expected. The shape remained the same, but it wasn’t a few simple strokes. This palm-sized character was filled with entwined flowers and plants.

Xue Tong took out the hyacinth again. Sure enough, several marks on the symbol resembled the flower.

“This isn’t just any symbol—it’s a character,” Xun Ruosu said. “‘Nie’ in clerical script.”

Her fingertip traced the tail stroke below. “If it were a trident, this part would be straight.”

“Nie” connoted the sprouting of plants, overlapping with the ornate style of this symbol.

Xue Tong had lived through the era when clerical script was written, so she understood Xun Ruosu perfectly. But she’d never heard of any religion using “nie” as its symbol—probably some foul-mouthed cult.

“We’ll find out by testing it.” Xue Tong placed the hyacinth on the symbol. Golden light suddenly radiated from it, shredding the hyacinth into fragments.

She nodded. “Definitely connected to the resentful ghost.”

The air here had never been clean, thick with floating dust. Now the hyacinth shards wafted past Xun Ruosu’s nose. She sneezed first, then broke into violent coughing. Her throat itched and ached, pulling at her lungs until she nearly hacked up blood.

Xue Tong watched coldly at first. Moments later, seeing no sign of it letting up, she grew concerned and reached to check Xun Ruosu’s left pulse. But Xun Ruosu shook her head to stop her.

Still coughing, she disassembled a hollow writing brush. Red cinnabar poured out onto the ground, snaking from beneath her feet to the other side and forming a thin red thread.

Half of this revealed red thread hung in midair, tethered directly to Xun Ruosu’s body. That life-threatening cough had been caused by this line… Her birth chart really was too weak, drawing in filthy things easily. With a baleful star like Xue Tong nearby to suppress them, some ghost still dared make trouble.

Xue Tong didn’t hesitate for a second. She pointed with her finger, and Wuchang shot out along the red thread. Moments later, Xun Ruosu’s coughing came to a stop. Her face grew even paler, a thin sheen of cold sweat beading on her forehead. Otherwise, no other effects were apparent.

Wuchang vanished for a short while before returning, a ghost clamped in its jaws—not a resentful ghost.

It had reverted to its enormous true form, its black fur resembling flames leaping into life. Its upper and lower fangs were sunk deep into the ghost’s chest. The ghost was a woman in her thirties, a hyacinth flower garland perched on her head.

The flower garland clung to her head in a bizarre fashion. No matter how vigorously Wuchang shook itself, the garland remained perfectly motionless, as if fused to her very body.

Wuchang threw its head back and jostled the prey twice, clearly preparing to gulp down the foul thing. Xun Ruosu and Xue Tong cried out almost in unison. “Don’t eat it! Spit it out!”

Rebuked, Wuchang let out a pitiful whine and dropped the soul it had been about to devour onto the ground.

It hung its head low in a piteous manner, shuffled forward two steps, then shrank back to its normal size. Wrapping its tail around Xun Ruosu’s calf, it yearned for her to scoop it up. But Xue Tong reached out and grabbed it first. “She’s still sick.”

Wuchang let out a meow and, sure enough, settled down without further fuss.

Xue Tong eyed the woman cradling a thermos cup and sipping water to calm her churning blood qi. After stewing in silence for a moment, she muttered glumly, “You gonna be okay? How have you even survived this long? The Tang Monk doesn’t draw half the trouble you do.”

Zhong Li was a living, breathing person, her flesh still tender and youthful as a teenager’s. Before the Heavenly Thunder Talisman had been unleashed, the ghost had countless opportunities to strike. Yet it had stubbornly waited until Xun Ruosu was on the scene, steeling itself to sneak attack even under the pressure of Xue Tong—this jinx of a woman.

What kind of resolve was that?