Chapter 65

The embrace was heartfelt yet proper. Xun Ruosu’s hands never strayed to her waist; she merely patted Xue Tong’s back. “Poor Miss Xue.”

Xue Tong had half a mind to mock her for “misunderstanding her intentions,” but that simple pat stirred up a wave of genuine grievance. Amid this torrential downpour, she had to outwit some half-human, half-ghost monstrosity in the middle of nowhere. Xue Tong nearly cursed the heavens. “The heavens are blind!”

The thing on the ground was tone-deaf, choosing this moment to speak up. “That was only the sixth heavenly thunder. Have you given thought to how you’ll block the remaining three?”

His aged, raspy voice chuckled again. “Even if it shatters the dam, what of it? The towns along both banks of the Ji River will suffer—that’s all. Before this dam was built, every rainy season saw fields and homes along the Ji River drowned. In bad years, thousands died, mere numbers on a page. You hail from that era. How can you still harbor such misplaced mercy?”

Drawing on Xun Ruosu’s support, Xue Tong finally hauled herself to her feet. Her legs were numb and unsteady; she still needed Xun Ruosu’s arm to steady herself.

She sneered. “No, you’re the one who’s so desperate to survive. You’ve lived God knows how many years and you’re still clinging to life by any means necessary. You’re not just miserly with your lifespan—you’re shameless about it. What, out of everyone under heaven, you’re the only one with brains who knows life’s worth living? Everyone else is just idiots without a shred of survival instinct?”

“And anyway, this isn’t mercy. I’m just saving myself the trouble.”

“The rain’s too fierce here. Let’s find somewhere with a roof.” Xun Ruosu had an enviable figure—curvaceous yet toned, sleek without an ounce of excess fat. She couldn’t handle grueling physical labor, but one hand gripping the red thread that bound him and the other supporting Xue Tong? Effortless. Holding the umbrella, however, fell to Miss Xue.

Miss Xue could normally punch malicious ghosts like it was a game. Right now, though, she couldn’t lift her shoulders or her hands. She managed the two-pound umbrella while draping most of her weight onto Xun Ruosu, all while whining. “I’m exhausted.”

Xun Ruosu shot her a sidelong glance. “Come on, then. Let’s switch.”

Xun Ruosu, who had always made freeloading her creed and laziness her guiding principle, now dragged and hauled both the old man and the young woman all the way to the staff dormitory beneath the dam gate.

The area was remote, and shifts ran through the night, so they’d built a row of simple flat-roofed dorm rooms—eight in total, arranged around a tidy courtyard. To the left was a row of faucets for washing up and drawing drinking water. Next to them stood separate restrooms for men and women. On the far right were the showers, big enough for four people at once and also gender-separated.

The staff had handed the dormitory keys to Xun Ruosu. This storm was a once-in-a-decade monster, with thunder crashing louder than ever. Even the boldest couldn’t help but worry about something getting struck. For now, they pinned their hopes on the experts dispatched from above to handle natural disasters.

When Xun Ruosu appeared at the door looking like some drowned water ghost, the workers crammed into the control room jumped out of their skins. Then they heard one of them was injured and needed a bath and fresh clothes. They pooled together a few changes of spare attire and surrendered the keys.

The staff stayed put in the dorms. The rain hadn’t let up outside, and the distant rumbles of thunder continued. It wasn’t safe to venture out.

The clothes scraped together from the dorms were clean enough, if plain and unflattering. Xun Ruosu had been toughened by Aunt Fang’s tastes—she’d wear anything, no matter how garish. Xue Tong, though, was picky. It took all of Xun Ruosu’s sweet-talking to coax her into a knee-length white button-up shirt paired with straight-leg trousers.

The rain poured, but summer nights stayed mild. Xun Ruosu took a hot shower, driving off the chill and swallowing her medicine. Her cold wasn’t gone, but compared to the ordeal in the Ten Thousand People Pit, she brimmed with energy now.

The seventh heavenly thunder should have struck long ago, but unexpectedly, it brewed for ages. Xun Ruosu did the math on her fingers: more likely than not, it would hold off until nightfall. They had hours to kill, watching the old man whose face was hidden behind his mask.

The masked man lay bound. Serious effort might let him break free, but he was still banking on Xue Tong to shield him from the thunder. Even if they cut him loose and chased him out, he’d cling to her side.

He was cautious to a fault. Aside from his clothes, he carried nothing that could reveal his identity—no yellow paper, no cinnabar, not even a single copper coin.

Xun Ruosu pondered. “How about we strip him and check for birthmarks or moles? I can’t shake the feeling he’s connected to my great-uncle. Any identifying marks, and I can call him to ask.”

Stripping someone naked in the wilderness would make even a cold-blooded killer hesitate. These two, however, saw no issue with it. They set to work without delay, leaving the masked man in nothing but his underwear.

“…”

The masked man, for all his years, had never endured such humiliation from youngsters.

Though, to be fair, Xun Ruosu barely qualified as young, and Xue Tong was older than sin.

A thorough search turned up no obvious birthmarks. There was, however, a black mole—technically a wart—near his right shoulder, edging toward the spine, complete with two stiff hairs.

Xun Ruosu snapped a few close-ups and fired them off to everyone she knew in the Zhong Family, plus her contacts in the business. Xue Tong went bigger: all nine of her siblings, who managed Yama’s Palace day-to-day, got the photo at once.

Only four replied amid the nine. The rest were either slacking off, buried in work and cursing the Heavenly Dao as “inhuman,” or—like Jiang Changting—even more old-school.

Jiang Changting rarely used his smartphone for news, preferring papers, but he kept one for calls. Among the nine siblings, though, some still rocked feature phones or landlines and went radio-silent for ages.

Of the four replies, three were wildly off-topic. One read: “Xue Tong, stripping someone in broad daylight? Find a private spot. If the cops catch you, no one’s bailing you out—we can’t show our faces.”

Another: “Just a wart, and you didn’t get the whole body? You think I’m an encyclopedia with live updates? How should I recognize it? I can’t even tell it’s human—looks like pigskin.”

The last: “Read. Wasn’t gonna reply. Advice: go easy on yourself.”

Xue Tong shot Xun Ruosu a look of deep resentment. Everyone listed in Yama’s Palace had been personally trained by her. What the hell had she taught them?

Jiang Changting, who’d followed the situation from start to finish, was at least somewhat reliable. He asked what the photo meant, promised to alert the First Hall and Tenth Hall to investigate—and stopped there. Identifying a man from a patch of warty skin? Beyond him.

His message: “You’d have better luck asking me to dig up a talking ginseng spirit.”

One by one, they strutted like they owned the heavens and earth. When it came to real problems, useless.

Xun Ruosu’s side broke through first. Zhong Li replied that she’d seen this mole by the spine, hairs and all, but couldn’t place where. Give her time to think.

Two more from the Zhong Family chimed in that they’d seen it too. One pinpointed it: “Looks like the old family genealogy. Every head of the household gets examined and recorded after a bone-reading. There’s one with a wart right there by the lower right shoulder and spine—the illustrator dotted it huge, so it stuck. Which one, though? Forgotten.”

But Zhong Cangyun, Xun Ruosu’s great-uncle and current head of the Zhong Family, stayed silent for ages.

Xun Ruosu couldn’t tell if he hadn’t seen it or had and chose not to reply. If the latter, given his usual warmth toward her… that spelled trouble.

“Looks like you used to be head of the Zhong Family. Somehow you fell to this state,” Xun Ruosu said, waving her phone in front of the masked man’s face. “Your lifespan’s up. You can’t linger in the mortal world alone—you needed outside help. Is Zhong Cangyun aiding you from the shadows?”

The masked man didn’t answer. He laughed in fits and starts. The dorm was cramped; his voice bounced and amplified inside the mask, venomous and bitter to the ear.

A man like him wasn’t truly alive, nor a proper ghost soul. Huang Xiaoran served as a vessel for the sins of his killings, sparing him transformation into a fierce ghost. He’d gamed the Heavenly Dao’s perfect fairness, forcing a judge to fetch Xue Tong for repairs.

But Xue Tong wasn’t his goal. Nor was mere survival under the thunder. It was Xun Ruosu. Five years ago, when Huang Xiaoran first fell into his hands, he’d fixated on Xun Ruosu. Something deeper lurked.

“Rest up,” the masked man said once his laughter ebbed. “Today’s the hard part. Still hours to go.”

Xue Tong glanced at Xun Ruosu’s face, then hauled the masked man to the corner. She burned two yellow talismans, sketching a rough half-circle ward for him to stand in—simple stuff. “Feel free to test it.”

Xue Tong’s words carried weight. She and Jiang Changting reined in their power in the mortal world to avoid mass destruction. Even these mere ashes from two talismans daunted him; arrogant as he was, he wouldn’t risk antagonizing her.

Xun Ruosu, drowsy from the cold medicine, chatted a bit more with her rowdy friends before drifting into deep sleep.

She’d hauled Xue Tong with one hand and the masked man with the other for miles, dead on her feet. Now in this cozy little room, with a dim bedside lamp glowing, fresh from her shower in loose clothes, she sprawled on the bed. The AC hummed at seventy degrees Fahrenheit, under a fluffy comforter. Rain hammered and thunder boomed outside, but sleep crashed over her. She hadn’t even turned off her phone; the screen glowed, slid to her side.

Xue Tong sat at the head of the bed, locked in a fierce war of words with Jiang Changting. The entire room rang with nothing but the constant chime of message notifications. Her face held a picture of perfect calm and kindness, but the texts she sent had already erupted into full-blown chaos—they had escalated to cursing each other’s ancestors.

Xun Ruosu: “……” It’s all my fault.