Chapter 66

According to Jiang Changting, the two little girls were both on their best behavior. Zhong Li’s mother had popped over to a nearby supermarket to grab her some bread, and now she was busy fixing dinner. Xue Tong hadn’t fed the child a thing all day, leaving the poor little girl starved half to death.

Huang Xiaoran’s condition was much better by comparison. Though she was still a fierce ghost, she wasn’t in any immediate danger. Later, Jiang Changting checked in on Xue Tong’s side of things. Xue Tong shared a few harmless details to pass the time and idly asked, “The Zhong Family has had over a dozen hall masters up to now. Has any one of them ever failed to undergo exorcism for their soul?”

The great clans affiliated with the Tenth Hall received special attention—not just because they had earned their keep through generations of hard work, but because their skills were so formidable. If one of them rejected reincarnation or got shrouded in resentment and turned into a malicious ghost, they were several times harder to deal with than an ordinary soul.

That was why records had been kept since the very first judgment. Only after two peaceful reincarnations would the files be archived away. Even though Jiang Changting was swamped with endless duties, he paid special attention to these cases. After all, he oversaw the First Hall. If he set a dangerous precedent, it would pile extra work on all his younger siblings down the line.

In Jiang Changting’s memory, the Zhong Family’s records were the most complete of all. The Xun Family had one blemish—Xun Jian’s three souls and seven po had scattered into nothing—but the Zhong Family files filled an entire wall on their own, with not a single gap so far.

After the two hall masters—one from each hall—mulled it over for a while without reaching any conclusions, Xue Tong changed the subject. “Let me ask you something.”

Jiang Changting: “Shoot.”

Xue Tong: “…”

Xue Tong: “When Teacher entered reincarnation back then, were you involved?”

Without the slightest hesitation, Jiang Changting replied based on the information at hand. “Yeah. Jealous?”

Xue Tong ground her teeth for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jiang Changting: “I didn’t want to keep it from you at all. Hell, I wanted to drag you over and show you the mess you’d made. Heavenly thunder split her in two—one half went with the thunder into reincarnation, shielded by the Heavenly Dao. The other half showed up on my doorstep, covered in wounds. Every inch of her skin looked like it’d been scorched by flames, Xue Tong. Every inch. Put your hand on your heart—how much do you think that hurt?”

Sometimes when Aunt Fang was cooking, Xue Tong would lean in to peek at what was for dinner. With the fire roaring high and water bubbling in the wok, hot oil was bound to splash. Even Xue Tong—a battle-hardened veteran of a thousand years—would yelp if it hit her. After hearing Jiang Changting’s description, her own heart ached.

Her Bodhisattva had a heart full of compassion. She neither betrayed the world nor abandoned herself.

After calming down a bit, Xue Tong asked again, “Why didn’t she tell me?”

Jiang Changting: “Oh, my silly little sister. How could she? First off, this was her tribulation. Even without your teasing, she would’ve had to enter reincarnation and bear the world’s suffering—it was her duty, nothing to do with you. Plus, she’d already been split in two. With your temper back then, would you have chosen the main body or the battered half?”

“You always wanted it all or nothing—and if you wanted it, you wanted the best. You wouldn’t have given a damn about the half that came from you. You’d have chased straight after the main body. In your eyes, Xun Ruosu would’ve been damaged goods.”

Xue Tong hurriedly typed back three words: “I wouldn’t!”

“Wait till I’m done.”

“Also, the half born from that ‘love’ was her karmic obstacle. You’ve followed Xun Ruosu for several lifetimes—you know how every one of hers was short and miserable. Only by grinding away those obstacles in reincarnation could she finally meet you for real. Otherwise, you’d have had to face her tribulation too, and you two would’ve met a bad end. She couldn’t bear for you to go through it. Said you had a fragile heart—one crack, and it’d never mend.”

Sure, the siblings sniped at each other every time they met, and even when apart, they’d badmouth one another behind backs. Xue Tong had even spread rumors that the “First Hall Master was a short little runt with a dwarf’s stature, dim-witted, and only rose to power thanks to Judges wiping his ass and changing his diapers.” Jiang Changting, meanwhile, would sigh to anyone who’d listen that Xue Tong’s “romantic entanglements spanned five thousand years up and down—enough to fill three museums if you wrote it all down.”

But if anyone knew her, it was Jiang Changting. He’d raised her like a father.

Xue Tong stared at the rows of message bubbles on her phone screen, lost in thought for a long moment before replying, “I never saw Xun Ruosu as damaged goods.”

In every one of Xun Ruosu’s lives, Xue Tong had watched from the sidelines. Different upbringings led to slight shifts in personality, but her soul was always resilient and gentle, tolerant and open-hearted. So when they met in the Xun Family graveyard, Xun Ruosu felt like an old friend to Xue Tong—someone she’d known forever, and the soul she’d longed for but never quite grasped.

Jiang Changting: “Things are different now. If you’d known about the main body, you never would’ve given yourself a chance to get to know Xun Ruosu—let alone watch over her in secret for centuries. The main body’s under Heavenly Dao protection—you couldn’t touch that if you tried. So quit fretting over it and figure out how to live up to Teacher’s feelings instead.”

With that, Jiang Changting went quiet. There was a third person in the room besides Xue Tong and Xun Ruosu, but this third party—the Masked Man—was in the middle of facing the wall in reflection. He was racking his brains for a way to escape his current predicament, but the results didn’t look promising. Frustrated, he picked at his fingers, still calculating away.

Xue Tong set her phone aside and lowered her gaze to quietly watch Xun Ruosu.

Xun Ruosu was still deep in sleep. She was usually a light sleeper, but these past few days she’d strained her muscles and bones, caught a cold, and run a fever to boot. The hospital meds had sleeping aids in them too, so she was out cold—oblivious even if someone poked and prodded her.

Xun Ruosu slept like an angel, lying on her side without a twitch, her eyelashes only fluttering faintly from whatever dreams she chased. Xue Tong reached out and brushed Xun Ruosu’s eyelid. But that tiny bit of skin-on-skin contact wasn’t enough. She switched from fingertip to fingertip pad, one finger to two, tracing lightly and slowly from the corner of Xun Ruosu’s eye down to just before her lips.

Xun Ruosu’s breaths came long and steady, and Xue Tong could feel the feathery warmth of them against her fingers. For the moment, though, she grumbled that it was all too quiet. “Why couldn’t you be one of those people who talks in their sleep?”

A moment later, Xue Tong leaned down and whispered in Xun Ruosu’s ear, “Can I get to know you all over again?”

“Sure,” Xun Ruosu murmured, already awake without Xue Tong realizing. A smile played in her voice. “I slept deeply this time, but I felt something brush my eyelid.”

“…” Xue Tong met those eyes, hesitating. “Really? My feelings for you built up over centuries. But Xun Ruosu—you’ve only known me a few days.”

Xun Ruosu let her finish, then slipped a hand out from under the covers. She tugged Xue Tong’s collar and propped herself up to meet her gaze head-on. For hundreds of years, her heart had been sealed tight—until those eyes shattered every defense.

“You’ve loved me for ages. I’ve fallen just as hard. Xue Tong, from the first moment I saw you, I thought, sure, you’re proud and arrogant with a rotten temper, but I can handle all of it. I didn’t even rush back to my coffin. I wondered why at the time, but now I get it—I was born to love you.”

To ensure she’d die completely, Xun Ruosu had made endless preparations beforehand. A trouble-hater like her had sealed her coffin airtight, guaranteeing her three souls and seven po would rest in peace after death. Yet the instant Xue Tong appeared, she’d mustered the will to fake being a ghost and let herself get whisked away home that very night.

It took Xue Tong a beat to recover. She leaned down and kissed Xun Ruosu’s eyelid. “You’ve only been asleep an hour or so. Rest more. Once you’re fully awake, I’ll come collect my due.”

Mischief sparkled in her eyes, but she reached out to tuck the covers around Xun Ruosu more snugly. Somehow, in the sticky summer heat that always left her irritable, Xue Tong felt her mood ease. She asked, “Want me to crank the AC higher?”

Xun Ruosu didn’t reply. She’d burrowed back into the blankets and shut her eyes. A brief moment of wakefulness had given way to crashing exhaustion, leaving her half in dreams already.

Deeply satisfied, Xue Tong turned to the Masked Man, who was muttering to himself on the floor. “Let’s talk somewhere else.”

The dorm keys Xun Ruosu had brought opened a row of four rooms. Xue Tong dragged the Masked Man to the one next door—close enough to be separated by just a wall, but far enough not to disturb her rest.

The Masked Man hadn’t changed out of his soaked clothes. In the twenty-degree chill of the air-conditioned room, he stood there in a shirt that could still wring water from, and Xue Tong had to wonder how long that elderly frame could hold out.

The neighboring room looked lived-in. A hot water kettle and induction cooker sat on the desk, and against the wall was half a case of instant noodles stacked up. This was a remote spot—if you lived far away and commuting was a hassle, dorms made sense. Eating out was the problem, though. Cooking meant trekking ten li to the nearest tiny market, and delivery? The closest eatery was a farm-style place five kilometers off.

On the nightstand sat a photo: a group shot of the sluice gate staff. Xue Tong hauled the Masked Man in here but didn’t jump straight to interrogation. Instead, she picked up the photo and studied it closely.

There weren’t many workers at the sluice gate. Clear Canal County’s reservoir wasn’t some massive eco-farm—it linked straight to the gate, built back in the early days of reform and opening. It had some years on it now. Sure, they did periodic maintenance, but compared to those grand infrastructure projects on TV, it was downright shabby and small-scale. The whole staff numbered just six.

The photo was stiffly official, everyone posed ramrod straight in matching uniforms. In the middle stood what had to be the director—the boss. Everyone else was young, mostly in their twenties, few pushing thirty.

In a backwater like this, folks saw it as a stepping stone. Serve your time, transfer out, move up. Nobody wanted to spend their life where even grabbing a meal was a chore.

But on this photo, the eldest person’s face had been scratched off clean. From the neck up, only a shock of white hair remained.