Chapter 5

Xue Tong stood off to one side, watching as the cat she had raised for centuries—without ever forming any real attachment to it—kept sticking out its tongue, eager to lick Xun Ruosu.

The aunt reached out several times, trying to pull the cat from Xun Ruosu’s arms, but she failed every time. The cat clung desperately to Xun Ruosu, yowling as if it had lost its parents whenever anyone tried to take it away.

Other people lived in the neighborhood too, so to avoid any misunderstandings about animal abuse, they had no choice but to let it nestle in Xun Ruosu’s embrace. This was a cat that Xun Ruosu could see, and one that had terrified Zhang Yue into curling up into a ball.

Two yellow talismans were pasted on the back of the villa’s front door. Zhang Yue had only been able to enter because he was invited, and the chill of yin energy clinging to him—like a thin layer of clothing—had sloughed off outside the door. Only then did Xun Ruosu start to feel warm again.

She threaded her fingers through the cat’s fur and looked calmly at Xue Tong. “This cat of yours and I are fated.”

She put heavy emphasis on “you” and “I.”

Xue Tong huffed. “Some beasts just can’t be tamed.”

Hearing this, the cat gently licked the palm of Xun Ruosu’s hand.

“What’s its name?” Xun Ruosu asked.

“Its big name is Yama, and its pet name is Wuchang,” Xue Tong said, glaring at the top of her black cat’s head, which looked like a lump of coal. “But I just renamed it Rebellious Son.”

“…” Xun Ruosu ignored the thick jealousy in Xue Tong’s tone. “With its black-and-white coloring, Wuchang suits it pretty well.”

Zhang Yue huddled off to the side, trembling and not daring to speak. The cat carried an aura of Buddhist qi that was several times stronger than Yuan Jue reciting the rebirth chant. Just getting close made him feel like he could be exorcised on the spot. He wasn’t ready for reincarnation yet; a single obsession bound him tightly to the world of the living.

The cat showed no signs of tiring of its affection toward Xun Ruosu, purring contentedly from its throat. But when it glanced back at Zhang Yue, its golden pupils contracted like those of a wild beast. If not for its small size, it probably would have leaped up and carried him off in its mouth.

At that moment, Xun Ruosu raised her gaze and frowned at the little ghost before her. “Your obsession runs a bit too deep.”

Terrified of being sent away, Zhang Yue felt his attachment to his unfinished business surge to its peak in an instant. Fine red bloodlines spiderwebbed out from around his eyes, spreading across his entire face. His limbs rattled with a clanking sound—black chains covered in golden runes locked around his wrists and ankles. They didn’t hinder his movement much, but he was rooted to the spot like a carrot planted in the ground.

A faint bloody scent hung in the air.

“Oh?” Xue Tong sprawled back on the sofa and crossed her legs. “You’re so young, yet you have the potential to develop into a malicious ghost. Sending one of those into reincarnation is a huge merit. I really want to keep you around, let you go out and kill a few people, then cash you in for my merits.”

Xun Ruosu set the black cat down on the coffee table. With one hand, she took out her pocket watch and turned to Xue Tong. “Do you have any old-style copper coins? Other copper items would work too.”

“You think I’m just going to give you what you ask for?” Xue Tong turned her head away. “You’re sabotaging my big merit, and now you want my help too?”

Xun Ruosu paused for a moment before withdrawing her hand. She sat down beside Xue Tong, her posture even lazier than her companion’s. She practically half-reclined on the sofa, and the cat even scooted over on its own to warm her hands.

Right between these two spectators was Zhang Yue, who was putting on the real show.

Zhang Yue had no idea what was happening to him. The moment the thought “I have to stay here no matter what” crossed his mind, the chains had wrapped around his limbs. No matter how he struggled, he remained trapped. Even his thoughts wavered, and he suddenly felt an urge to leave this place, to stop relying on anyone.

There was a thread of karma connecting him to Xun Ruosu after his death.

Two months earlier had been the anniversary of his father’s death. According to the customs in Clear Canal County, families had to invite the soul on that day. They burned two items from the deceased’s life on the main road in front of the grave—usually clothing. But Zhang Yue’s father had been a teacher, and the house was full of textbooks. Paper items burned more thoroughly than nylon or cotton clothes, and with Zhang Yue still so young and no one to help at home, he took the easy way out.

While clearing out the bookshelf, a sheet of yellow paper fluttered down from the top shelf. The front bore Zhang Yue’s own birth chart, written in ink that hadn’t faded. But it was covered in a thick layer of dust, as if it had waited in some corner for many years before finally revealing itself on this day.

The back of the paper listed Xun Ruosu’s name and address.

Zhang Yue couldn’t figure it out. He had never met Xun Ruosu, so why was this paper in his house? And why had it fallen at just that moment?

After his death, the yellow paper had become a road guide. Somehow, it lured him in. By the time he snapped out of it, he was already mixed in with the debt ghosts.

His memories shattered into fragments, one scene after another devoured by flames before his eyes. His sanity was a fragile little boat on the verge of being swallowed by towering waves. Soon, Zhang Yue would remember only one thing.

One matter that filled him with burning resentment, refusing to let him move on.

The red patterns covered nearly every inch of his face. His skin cracked open, ready at any moment to birth a “malicious ghost.”

Suddenly, a copper hairpin nailed straight into the center of Zhang Yue’s forehead. Xun Ruosu stood before him, her fingertips deathly pale from the plummeting temperature in the air. Her pocket watch pressed against his chest, the hands on it crawling backward at an excruciatingly slow pace.

“Dawn is breaking,” Xun Ruosu said.

Dawn was breaking. The stars couldn’t compete with the pale streak of white on the horizon. Even that lofty moon began to fade. The faint morning light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows and fell across Zhang Yue. Xun Ruosu spoke again. “You’re already dead. What is there left to cling to?”

A layer of frost formed over the chains, rattling loudly throughout the hall. The noise was tremendous, but this place had long since separated from the mortal world. Aside from the three people trapped there, no one could hear the little ghost’s wails.

The copper hairpin pierced through Zhang Yue’s skull. The scarlet bloodlines were yanked by an immense force. The hairpin twisted clockwise from left to right like a weaver’s beater, drawing layer after layer of the lines onto itself. Soon, Zhang Yue’s complexion returned to normal. Xun Ruosu pinched the hairpin between two fingers and tugged it free. As the red lines detached from his skull, they left a faint dark-red mark at the healing wound.

Xun Ruosu was a fortune-teller. Tortoise shells, yarrow stalks, and copper coins were her usual tools. Piercing the head with a pin, pulling threads like silk, and leaving a mark behind was more akin to planchette writing—a skill the Xun family didn’t excel at. She had simply followed the instructions in a book and given it a try.

That try had nearly broken her back.

The red bloodlines writhed restlessly along the copper hairpin. But when they touched Xun Ruosu’s fingers, they jerked back violently, accompanied by Wuchang’s sharp, warning meow.

Xun Ruosu tossed the copper hairpin to Xue Tong on the sofa. “Your big merit.”

Xue Tong’s hair—which she had loosely pinned up with the copper hairpin—had come completely undone. It was even longer than Xun Ruosu had imagined, cascading down to her waist like a misty veil. She was a beauty, to be sure, but one with a black heart. She picked up the hairpin, and the bloodlines swarmed toward her like kin. Yet Xue Tong grabbed one end, holding them fast. “You Xun family folks really aren’t any good.”

The thing coiled around the copper hairpin was called “resentment.” When a soul’s obsession reached a certain level, it formed clumps of karmic threads like this. They usually came in three colors: red, black, or white. White and black were stable; once attached, a ghost’s nature was fixed, and no external force could change whether it turned toward good or evil. Red was fickle, however—amenable to persuasion and release, but easily inflamed into something more, with the potential to become one of those rare, thousand-in-one fierce ghosts.

Resentment was useless to Xue Tong. Obsessions weren’t living entities; she needed to exorcise the souls themselves for major merits. And yet the Xun family always ruined her plans.

“Exorcising a malicious ghost is a tedious process,” Xun Ruosu said righteously. “I’m not skilled in it. You’d have to drop everything to teach me. Better to cut the workload off at the source.”

Xue Tong shot her a disdainful glance. “It’s attitudes like this—slacking off—that keep the Xun family plagued by disasters, unable to accumulate merits, and dooming your line.”

Xue Tong spoke the truth. Fortune-telling families peered into the Heavenly Dao and often dealt with things, which wore down their lifespans easily. Without great compassion, they couldn’t sustain it. But the Heavenly Dao maintained balance; it didn’t demand sacrifice without reward. Exorcising souls and guiding them to reincarnation built up merits—nothing guaranteed immortality, but living to seventy was no problem.

The Xun family, however, faced a great calamity every ninth year. Few made it to thirty, and in centuries, only Xun Ruosu’s mother had nearly survived past forty.

Their conversation reached its end there. From meeting in the graveyard to now, it had only been a few short hours—not even enough time to call each other acquaintances. Xun Ruosu didn’t truly know Xue Tong. And yet something invisible seemed to be pulling her along: first the mark, then the little ghost and the cat…

These things bound her inextricably to Xue Tong, forcing her to tolerate their clashing personalities.

With a shift in her thoughts, Xun Ruosu turned her gaze back to the little ghost. He seemed detached from the story, yet the timing was too perfect to be coincidence.

That earlier ordeal had exhausted more than just Xun Ruosu. As the main culprit behind the chaos, the little ghost had suffered the worst of it. Now he lay sprawled on the floor, legs stuck straight out, panting for breath.

The memories that had burned away were gone for good. Fortunately, Xun Ruosu had acted in time. Zhang Yue had only lost the trivial details of his thirteen years—like whether the fried dough shop near home was any good. When he came back to himself, he found Xun Ruosu studying him.

After causing such a commotion, even Zhang Yue felt a little embarrassed. He hadn’t been a ghost for long, but he’d been through everything there was in that short time. Tucked in the little ghost’s arms was still a suona. When he had sunk into chaos, seeing only grudges before him, that suona had felt like an icy brand on his heart, delaying the consumption of his memories.

“Little Ghost,” Xun Ruosu said, growing more suspicious the more she thought about it, “did I borrow money from you and never pay it back?”

Everyone in her line of work believed in karma. If she hadn’t owed a debt, why would trouble come waddling up to her door on its own stubby legs?

Zhang Yue was dirt poor. His parents’ inheritance was modest, sitting in a bank account gathering interest year by year. His father had been well-liked, with plenty of friends, and other teachers at school looked out for Zhang Yue so he could keep studying. But he had no spare cash to lend anyone. There was truly no connection between him and Xun Ruosu.

“You should think it over yourself,” Xue Tong said nonchalantly. “Maybe you owe this kid an emotional debt? Material debts only tangle for one lifetime, but emotional ones are the trickiest knots on the karmic threads. Who knows—maybe you were a heartbreaker in a past life, loving ’em and leaving ’em, and this kid reincarnated to settle the score.”

“…” Xun Ruosu picked up a peeled apple from the table and shoved it into Xue Tong’s mouth.