Chapter 61

“Xue Tong!” Xun Ruosu’s voice was hoarse. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” came Xue Tong’s faint reply from behind the half-open, dilapidated wooden door. “My clothes just got scorched. It’s a bit indecent right now.”

“…” Xun Ruosu didn’t buy it. “You’ve got form on this. You took double the damage for me behind my back, trying to shield me from that heavenly thunder. Everything you say right now is suspect.”

Xue Tong fell silent for a moment. “Then stick your head out and take a look.”

She hadn’t lied. Taking double the damage back then had been unavoidable. Heavenly thunder showed no mercy—if it had all struck Xun Ruosu and shattered her to pieces, even though Xun Ruosu was her half-body and the main body would survive to grant immortality, Xue Tong wouldn’t dare claim that Xun Ruosu could recover from being blasted to nothingness.

Beyond that, Xue Tong had no reason to break taboos by taking the hit for her. Substituting for someone’s punishment violated the rules, after all.

Xue Tong had no idea what sort of ordeal she’d endured. Her original dress had been torn into top and bottom halves, the organza skirting charred unevenly—one side still hanging below her knee, the other baring her thigh.

Xue Tong despised looking disheveled above all else, or any damage to her image. Xun Ruosu was half an acquaintance; she could always gouge out her eyes later if she saw. But these two little girls were total outsiders from a world away. Xue Tong had no intention of stepping inside in this state.

Xun Ruosu poked her head out and looked Xue Tong up and down. She couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Pretty sexy.”

“Pah!” Xue Tong snatched up a pebble from the ground and chucked it at her.

“I brought a coat. Put it on to cover up for now… Later, if the gray mist clears and the sun shines in, you can use an umbrella to hide your face.” Xun Ruosu was still chuckling as she tossed the coat that had been draped over the table outside.

“I hate you.” Xue Tong obediently slipped the coat on over her ruined clothes.

Fortunately, the coat was quite long and loose-fitting. Wrapped tightly, it reached her calves. Otherwise, with Xue Tong’s pride, she’d camp outside all day without stepping foot indoors—or letting a third person lay eyes on her.

That “I hate you” hadn’t sounded like a real curse. Xun Ruosu’s heart softened a touch. She knew all of Xue Tong’s fiery outbursts weren’t aimed at her, but this one—with its hint of a bite—had been genuine.

Zhong Li’s episode had calmed considerably. Cold sweat soaked her from head to toe. When asked what she’d seen, she couldn’t put it into words. In the end, Zhong Li summed it up. “It was like a nightmare. Scared me half to death in the dream, but now that I’m awake, I can’t even remember what happened.”

“What do we need you for, then?” Xue Tong jabbed.

Zhong Li’s idol had just roasted her, and she deflated like a punctured balloon.

Huang Xiaoran had stayed clear-headed the whole time. She was just too young for her memories to stick reliably. After that scare, she finally recalled why Zhong Li terrified her so much. Beyond the instinctive dread of the Zhong Clan bloodline, it was because she’d already encountered Zhong Li once before.

Xun Ruosu carried half Zhong blood too, yet Huang Xiaoran never trembled at the sight of her.

The little girl pointed at Zhong Li, her face full of terror. But then she caught Xun Ruosu raising a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture. Xiao Ran let out a whimper and shrank even smaller.

So far, Zhong Li had acted like any normal young woman. For one thing, what Xiao Ran had glimpsed might not have been Zhong Li herself. It could have been a puppet the Zhong Family crafted as a mascot, modeled after their prettiest new-generation member. It wasn’t right to voice unconfirmed suspicions.

For another, Zhong Li might not handle the blow—a perfect duplicate puppet hidden away in the main family’s sealed chambers? The thought was downright chilling.

Xun Ruosu couldn’t let Zhong Li find out, but she had to tell Xue Tong. While passing the coat outside earlier, she’d whispered everything she’d witnessed in her dream vision. Even Xue Tong found it odd.

The Zhong Family assisted the Tenth Hall in managing reincarnation, so the hall kept a Name Roster with every living and deceased Zhong Clan member. Xue Tong had no interest in it, but she’d lived so long that a few years back, bored out of her mind, she’d flipped through it a few times. Still, she couldn’t think of anyone matching Xun Ruosu’s description.

The roster listed only names. Photography was a modern invention; the Xun ancestors were depicted like apes in their portraits. The underworld didn’t torment its own eyes with such abominations, so physical appearances were unverifiable.

“The fourth heavenly thunder was already much weaker—nothing like the full force of the previous ones. It doesn’t look like the fifth will strike Huang Xiaoran. Even if it does, this house is sturdy enough to hold.”

Xue Tong glanced at the sky outside. “What I want to know is where the rest of it went.”

A natural spectacle this rare—once in decades—would surely be caught on camera and posted online. Articles had already popped up about the crash on Highway 302 followed by the thunderstrike. They were all short, templated clickbait from marketing accounts.

Where there was internet, there were no secrets. As long as the heavenly thunder kept falling, they could soon track down exactly where the remaining bolts had landed and on whom.

They couldn’t let their guard down around Huang Xiaoran, though. Heavenly thunder might play tricks—lull them into complacency before dropping a big one. True, she was a fierce ghost who killed without blinking, but under heavenly thunder, she was frail and helpless. No chance of survival.

On top of that, the old man Xun Ruosu had glimpsed kept insisting, “I’m cultivating you.”

The last subject he’d “cultivated” was huddled in the corner right now, shivering with the weight of her sins.

“What I saw were memories—frozen events from the past. That means on the day Huang Xiaoran approached the old man, he was really standing right in front of me, saying those exact words.”

It seemed synchronous, but on closer inspection, the old man would have thrown out that feint regardless of whether Xun Ruosu had been there.

Xun Ruosu continued, “To pinpoint my location so precisely and deliver those words, he must have performed divination beforehand.”

The Zhong excelled at exorcism, not divination. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have experimented with every method imaginable, dying off in droves, only to discover that side branches couldn’t exceed “seven.” And no matter the approach, anyone listed on the genealogy counted—male or female, specific surname irrelevant—unless formally disowned and struck from the records.

A Zhong Clan member skilled in divination was exceedingly rare, which only made this one more terrifying.

Divination foretold the future and leaked heaven’s secrets. The Xun Family had always met early graves for that reason. What price had this old man paid for his gift?

In that instant, Xun Ruosu felt a pang of sympathy for her kin.

“Let’s drag him out and kill him quick,” she suggested, sorrow mingling with resolve. “If he’s behind all this, he’s a massive threat.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Xue Tong rubbed her temple in frustration.

The Xun Family’s divination was outrageously powerful. Without the daily limit of three readings, not even the ten lords of Yama’s Palace could touch them. Once they predicted your moves, there was no need for direct confrontation—you could be provoked, evaded, bought off, or caught in an “accident.”

Talk of “unalterable fate” was just an excuse. Otherwise, what was the point of seeking fortune and avoiding calamity? Predict great luck, and the whole family lounges around waiting for gold to rain from the sky. Foresee doom, and you just wait to die.

But the Xun stuck to their rigid traditions. Most had side gigs beyond fortune-telling. Sure, their lifespans were brutally short, but they took it in stride—dead was dead, off to roll the dice on the next life. No attachments.

That made souls willing to reincarnate into the Xun Family a rare breed, cherry-picked slackers through and through. Any with real ambition spelled unforeseen disaster.

Heavenly thunder would soon track the hidden culprit by scent. If he truly wielded divination, he’d be fully prepared. Meanwhile, they were flying blind.

Xue Tong’s eyes narrowed as she stared at Xun Ruosu. Xun Ruosu knew that look—she was being sized up for some scheme.

To head off any pitfalls, Xun Ruosu spoke first. “I’m too young, my skills too ordinary. I might not pull it off. But I can try.”

Xue Tong had grown used to these lines of hers—“I can’t do it,” “I’m weak and pitiful,” “I’m humble and helpless.” She was starting to suspect the Xun had an ancestral manual titled One Hundred Ways to Play the Victim.

Zhong Li’s eyes were wide as she leaned against the brick wall. Bored out of her mind and tired of standing, she’d squatted down to play with the dirt. When she heard Xun Ruosu mention setting up an altar, curiosity piqued.

The old saying in their circles went: “Worst fate is rebirth into the Xun Family. When ghosts show up, their best trick is screaming for help. With a fellow practitioner nearby, they might dodge disaster. Alone? Captured and done. Ever wonder why every Xun generation dies young?”

And now this Xun was going to set up an altar?

Slander was one thing, but cultivators had their own strict hierarchy of disdain.

Conditions here were too poor for anything fancy. Zhong Li had once witnessed a Spiritual Treasure Sect altar raised by their patriarch—lavish, complex, costing six figures easy.

Xun Ruosu rummaged under the table in the little tiled room and pulled out two one-inch candle stubs used to honor Elder Guan. She took the incense burner from Elder Guan’s doorstep, stuffing three yellow talismans inside in place of sticks. Copper coins circled the candle stubs in a ring, while a red thread dangled another coin from her fingertip.

Xue Tong lit it for her herself. At first, nothing happened. The room filled with the acrid smoke of burning yellow paper. They waited a good ten minutes. Zhong Li, young and impatient, was on the verge of yawning and tuning out when the red thread on Xun Ruosu’s hand suddenly twitched. The copper coin trembled chaotically.

Xun Ruosu promptly tipped the ash from the incense burner through the coin’s hole. Soon, disjointed words formed on the floor: “What is fated will come; what isn’t, don’t force.”