The young lady’s sneaky scheme to poach business didn’t last long. The two monks leaning against the tree began humming groggily in their sleep, on the verge of waking. Xue Tong dialed her phone and signaled Yan Qing to drive up for pickup. On the other end of the line, Yan Qing let out a miserable wail. Xue Tong winced and held the phone away from her ear, waiting for him to finish his howling before adding, “We’re coming down the mountain today.”
Only then did Yan Qing feel that his boss had a shred of humanity. He agreed reluctantly. “Got it. I’m on my way right now. Wait for me at the roadside.”
Xue Tong’s car was spacious enough, but it had accommodated four people on the way up without issue. Adding one, two, or three extras would make things cramped.
It was her car, so Xue Tong wielded absolute authority over it. She pointed at each person in turn. First to Yuan Jie: “Soaring Firmament Mountain is practically your backyard. And as a monk, you shouldn’t shy away from honest toil. Take your disciples and grand-disciples and hike back on your own.”
Her gaze shifted to Zhong Li. “You’re young. If you made it up the mountain, you can make it down. Consider it exercise.”
Finally, with great reluctance, she turned to Xun Ruosu. “Since you’re sick, I suppose I can’t just abandon you here. I’ll grudgingly give you a ride.”
Yuan Jie: “…”
Zhong Li: “…”
Xun Ruosu stroked the cat’s chin without even looking up. “Should I fall to my knees in gratitude?”
“No need,” Xue Tong replied brightly. “Just do what I say from now on—head north when I tell you north, not south—and we’ll call it even.”
Xun Ruosu wasn’t just sick; she was blind as well. Out of everyone around, she could only see Xue Tong. Even knowing that Xun Ruosu couldn’t see a thing and wouldn’t bump into anyone, Xue Tong still extended a hand toward her. “Come on.”
Yan Qing griped plenty over the phone but wasted no time. The moment Xue Tong hung up, he was already driving down from the mountain. She and Xun Ruosu had to trek through the old woods and past the abandoned building site to reach the road—a good ten minutes. As they passed Fang Youcai’s corpse, Xun Ruosu reminded Yuan Jie to handle the arrangements quickly and call the police soon, so the man wouldn’t be left to rot in the wilderness.
By the time they reached the roadside, Yan Qing pulled up right behind them. No one had kept the other waiting.
True to her word, Xue Tong showed no mercy. She bundled only her own half-body and the cat into the car and headed straight down the mountain, utterly indifferent to everyone else’s plight. Yuan Jie, ever the picture of compassion, turned to Zhong Li. “Why don’t you, little benefactor, come stay at the temple with me tonight? I’ll see you home first thing tomorrow morning?”
It was pitch-black out there, and with gods and ghosts nowhere in sight, Zhong Li was only thirteen. Even human traffickers couldn’t drag her off against her will. She could only nod in agreement.
Xun Ruosu nestled into the back seat, burying both hands beneath Wuchang’s belly. The creature meowed softly to her. Though Xun Ruosu was burning with fever, her hands felt unnaturally icy. Wuchang’s body temperature always ran hot, yet even it began to shiver with those hands pressed underneath.
It was the inescapable chill of a possessing spirit.
Back in the depths of the woods, when Xun Ruosu had scooped it up, she had cautioned Wuchang not to breathe a word of it to Xue Tong. Their connection ran deeper than mere master and servant. No matter what Xun Ruosu asked, it felt like an imperative carved into Wuchang’s very soul—one it could scarcely defy. So the little cat kept its silence, radiating warmth as best it could in a desperate bid to thaw her.
“Head straight to the hospital,” Xue Tong said, propping her head against her hand as she stared out the window.
Lamps lined the road, ancient and neglected. None had burned out, but their yellowish, dim glow served little purpose. The sky pressed down upon the mountaintop, the full moon shone overhead as ever, and stars glittered across the heavens. Xue Tong gazed at those scattered pinpricks of brilliance without focus, her thoughts swirling in a thousand directions, unsure where to settle.
Xun Ruosu stayed silent, her head against the glass as she closed her eyes slightly. In the Ten Thousand People Pit, countless karmic obstacles had crashed over her like a tidal wave. She was only flesh and blood, with a heart too soft for the onslaught. Those memories and miseries had pierced her through, leaving scars behind. Her own recollections were stirring back to life now, flickering past in disjointed fragments—ones that had nothing to do with Xue Tong.
The longer they spent together, the more convinced Xun Ruosu became of their ancient bond—a connection Xue Tong herself had acknowledged aloud. Her unwillingness to elaborate didn’t mean Xun Ruosu couldn’t piece it together.
The Xun Family Old Estate brimmed with old books filling three entire rooms. As a girl, Xun Ruosu had never been one to obey the rules; even forbidden volumes had tempted her into stolen glances. The ledgers of Yama’s Palace listed ten names, with Xue Tong’s at the very bottom.
Their line of work inevitably brushed against the Xun Family for most souls, leaving faint trails in those pages. Scattered amid the clues were notes on the ownership of karmic obstacles.
Everyone accrued them simply by living—even the purest soul couldn’t escape a few stray ink spots. They were unavoidable. Karmic obstacles didn’t simply fade away. Those who gathered merits inevitably shouldered them as well, the two locked in an eternal dance. Even so, such bearers could absorb only a fraction, perhaps one part in a hundred. Anything more, and they became ensnared themselves, like the Bodhisattva Statue they’d witnessed today, stripped of their true selves.
In the end, all those resentments, sorrows, hatreds, lusts—even simple madness—found one fixed repository: Ksitigarbha.
Hell stood empty more often than not; souls rarely lingered overlong. They sloughed off their burdens and moved on to fresh incarnations.
But then Xun Ruosu wondered… If she truly served as the vessel for karmic obstacles, why had the world not descended into chaos during these years amid reincarnation? No rivers of blood, no mass slaughter of the innocent. Who kept the scales in balance?
Xue Tong pondered the same question: who upheld that balance from the shadows?
Long before their encounter at the graveyard, Xue Tong had watched over her from afar. It had been irresponsible guardianship, driven purely by selfish longing. Only when nostalgia overwhelmed her would Xue Tong steal distant glances.
At first, Xue Tong had been certain: Xun Ruosu was the one. That sense of familiarity, that indelible mark—it could not lie. Yet today, doubt crept in.
Xun Ruosu could indeed dissolve karmic obstacles, yet she never quite matched the figure in Xue Tong’s heart. True compassion left no room for mortal sentiments. Such a one ought to embrace all sins but never weave fabricated happy endings for them. Bodhisattvas simply did not possess human hearts.
The atmosphere inside the car grew oppressively still, the silence unnerving. Yan Qing was usually full of chatter, but even he held his tongue now. He flicked on the radio instead. An old song drifted out—one Xue Tong had never heard before.
“Rain fell last night, winds will blow tomorrow, long I waited for my old love, but reunion never came… Rain in the past, winds in the future, our parting came all too swiftly…”
Two hours later, they pulled into the county hospital in Clear Canal County. Xun Ruosu had drifted off to sleep by then, with Wuchang dutifully warming her hands beneath its belly. Xue Tong had withdrawn her gaze, now resting quietly on Xun Ruosu’s profile. The air conditioning stayed off for once, and emotions did not trouble Xue Tong as she watched the faint rise and fall of Xun Ruosu’s chest. Two restless fingers prodded at it.
“A bodhisattva’s mercy is not the same as weakness of heart. If it had been her today, even if those karmic obstacles transformed into merits, it would have meant nothing to Zhang Yingniang, the Jade Statue, or even those implicated souls. A flawed soul is doomed to a wretched next life. Yet you, with your soft heart, bestowed merits upon them…”
Xue Tong muttered under her breath. “And left none for yourself? What was the point of all that?”
The radio droned on up front, Yan Qing oblivious to her soliloquy. He grew impatient with the wait and adjusted the rearview mirror. “Boss, shouldn’t we wake Sister Xun? We’ve reached the hospital.”
His words jolted Xue Tong out of her guilty reverie. Startled, she jabbed harder than intended, and her fingertip stung from the impact. Xun Ruosu’s eyes fluttered open languidly—and beheld someone groping her chest.
Xun Ruosu: “…The breasts are real. Poke them with a drill, and they still won’t deflate. But I might die.”
Xue Tong: “…” Damn moron.
“The hospital’s here. Out!” Xue Tong slammed the car door open.
The county hospital wasn’t the madhouse of a big-city ER, but night emergencies were few and far between, so it stayed moderately busy. No sooner had they stepped inside than a cluster of bleeding, battered patients was wheeled in from outside.
By comparison, Xun Ruosu—clear-headed enough to walk on her own—didn’t seem on the verge of collapse. She could hold out a while longer.
From afar, Xun Ruosu picked out Aunt Fang’s voice. Hours earlier, Xue Tong had messaged her to come provide backup… Their boss was a total disaster at self-care, and Aunt Fang dreaded that Yan Qing or Xun Ruosu might have gotten gravely injured on the mountain. With Xue Tong’s temperament, she’d probably turn “critical” into “cremains” by morning. Aunt Fang hadn’t dared dally.
“What’s happened to you, Miss Xun?” Aunt Fang hurried over to support her, first testing her forehead with a hand, then her wrist. “Burning up like this? Any other injuries?”
Xun Ruosu couldn’t see Aunt Fang and had nowhere to hide. She stood meekly as the woman inspected her from head to toe, twice over. Only then did Aunt Fang pat her own chest in relief. “You scared me half to death. Your face was so pale, I thought you’d lost a ton of blood… With a master around, how’d you end up in such a state?”
“She did this to herself. Got nothing to do with me,” Xue Tong said, washing her hands of it. “Better see the doctor first. Who knows how much longer she can hold out like this.”
Xun Ruosu might have looked steady, but she teetered on the brink of total exhaustion. Oddly enough, as long as a flicker of clarity remained in her eyes, she could cling to a measure of composure. It was only when Aunt Fang touched her that Xun Ruosu realized her body awareness was fraying—everything felt numb and sluggish, no matter where she was prodded.
She had no recollection of what came next. When awareness returned, her nostrils filled with the sharp tang of hospital disinfectant. Voices murmured nearby, laced with local dialect. Xun Ruosu had left Clear Canal County years ago, but she’d been over ten at the time, old enough to retain some of the accent.
It was Aunt Fang chatting with the patient in the next bed. “Your daughter’s a real beauty. What’s she got? How old is she? Dating anyone?”
“Not my daughter—friend of my boss,” Aunt Fang replied. “Just a bad cold. Hasn’t rested properly. Hit forty degrees last night; they kept her on IV fluids overnight, pulled the needle this morning. Needs another round today.”
“Forty degrees!” the neighbor exclaimed. “No wonder they gave her a bed. Spots are like gold here. Wait—you said ‘boss’s friend.’ You’re a nanny? They make bank these days, huh? No surprise you’re pulling an all-nighter at bedside.”
Aunt Fang: “…”
What a character. Every question either pried into private matters or landed with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Xun Ruosu cringed inwardly, coughed twice, and opened her eyes. “Aunt Fang, I’m thirsty.”
“You’re awake? Let me get you some water,” Aunt Fang said, wiping the cold sweat from their conversation off her brow. “The boss has gone home. She said to call her the moment you wake up… She’s not heading back to the country villa; she has an apartment nearby. Round trip won’t take even half an hour—she’ll be here soon.”
