Zhong Buman’s methods had always been ruthless. Otherwise, Huang Xiaoran wouldn’t have woken from nightmares so many times, and Qin Yu wouldn’t have died once at the age of one or two, again at five or six, and yet again at eight or nine—reincarnating countless times over the course of more than twenty years before finally growing to her current age.
When he left the Xun Family, the scene must have been ugly. That was why the genealogy had not only removed him from the records but also omitted any mention of his life or the reasons behind the deaths of his closest kin. The man had been thoroughly erased from the Xun Family’s history.
“But even if the sins return to him, he’ll still be struck by thunder. This time, the heavenly thunder won’t even hesitate,” Xun Ruosu said, her expression tinged with worry for Xue Tong. “There are only a few hours until the eighth bolt. How’s your cage holding up?”
“It’s just slightly damaged. It’ll recover after some time,” Xue Tong replied. She wasn’t too concerned about her own condition. Trapped in the role of Tenth Hall Lord for countless days and nights, she had endured double the suffering that any fierce ghost might face. Such pain was nothing to her now.
Even long ago, before entering reincarnation, Xun Ruosu hadn’t truly understood what Xue Tong’s self-imposed confinement meant. Only now, bound by chains that sent piercing pain through her with every step, her body wracked by bone-deep weakness and exhaustion, did she grasp it. How much time and effort must Xue Tong have expended to face it all with such calm indifference?
A single roof eave separated the two candidates for the Tenth Hall. In the rain, the ambitious ones scrambled desperately to claim Xue Tong’s share of suffering. Yet Xue Tong herself saw through it all and even seemed willing to yield her position—perhaps for a “one-day experience” as Tenth Hall Lord, letting all those power-hungry schemers taste her “joyful life.”
Unfortunately, the responsibility was too grave. If she did, the human world would descend into chaos: the wicked thriving while the virtuous perished, and those with rotten hearts paying no price at all.
Xun Ruosu thought for a moment. “I’ll stay by your side from now on. No matter when or what happens, if anything upsets you, you can always act spoiled with me.”
“…” Xue Tong stared at her with wide eyes. “At my age, let’s skip the acting spoiled.”
“Then… you can borrow my embrace to cry in?” Xun Ruosu opened her arms. “Don’t be shy.”
“You’re the one who’s—” Xue Tong’s peripheral vision caught sight of the two little girls. She swallowed the curse that had been on the tip of her tongue. “When did you get so corny? Did Qin Yu teach you that?”
“I didn’t! Don’t make things up. I’m just a little girl—a bit over seven but not yet eight. I don’t understand all this lovey-dovey stuff.” Qin Yu even reached out to cover Huang Xiaoran’s eyes.
You don’t look like someone who doesn’t understand at all.
Complex matters required step-by-step solutions. Now that the masked man’s identity was known, Huang Xiaoran had been rescued, and all the sins returned to Zhong Buman himself, most of the tangled branches had been severed—though the heavenly thunder showed no signs of letting up. The only remaining issue was Zhong Li, which was proving difficult to resolve.
Her situation was somewhat like a failed suicide attempt, but Zhong Li had indeed died… The intricacies involved were overly complex, perhaps even more vexing than the heavenly thunder Zhong Buman had stirred up.
“Zhong Buman’s matter is urgent. We deal with him first, then handle Zhong Li,” Xun Ruosu declared with finality.
The messes Zhong Buman had created affected Xue Tong in the short term and the ownership of the Ten Halls in the long run. Xun Ruosu felt she was being eminently reasonable: other matters could wait, but Zhong Buman had to die.
“What did you say to Zhong Buman to make him stand there silently in the rain for so long?” Xue Tong peered out the window. The rain was thin as mist, dense but falling lightly. Faint light was breaking in the distance, heralding the approaching dawn.
The light seeping from under the eaves didn’t reach far. Zhong Buman stood like a silent statue forged from black iron. Though he wore a mask and his hair was streaked with white, his posture showed no sign of the stoop that came with age.
Xue Tong couldn’t see his face, and even if she could, the mask revealed no trace of emotion. It fit him perfectly—at least up to this point, no one could fathom what was going through his mind.
“I simply asked him if he truly understood what he wanted,” Xun Ruosu replied. “Was it to vent his spleen and settle the score for not being chosen as Tenth Hall Lord back then? Or was it to seize control over the reincarnation of all living beings? The motivations behind those two are fundamentally different.”
The former was just a fleeting moment of triumph, with no long-term plan. The latter carried a sense of responsibility, but did Zhong Buman really grasp the sheer workload of managing reincarnation as Tenth Hall Lord?
People died every day, and human hearts were unfathomable depths. Today, Zhong Buman schemed against Xue Tong; tomorrow, others would scheme against him. Anyone with even a slightly narrow mind might choose to wipe out all living souls just to avoid fraying their own nerves.
Xun Ruosu reached out and patted the top of Xue Tong’s head. “You might seem petty—returning ten insults for one—but when it comes to true kindness and gentleness, I can’t compare to you.”
Xue Tong shot back, “Are you deliberately picking on me? Have you lost your mind?”
Her struggles were futile. She grabbed Xun Ruosu’s fingertips where they rested on her head, trapping them in her palm. Grits her teeth, she muttered, “I’ll settle this with you later.”
She blamed Xun Ruosu for making her lose face in front of the little girls, but she couldn’t fool her own ears—they had quietly turned red.
Qin Yu: “…” Amitabha. She pulled the blanket down further, covering her own eyes as well.
Xun Ruosu had grown accustomed to this tsundere side of hers and held back accordingly. She gently curled her fingers, scratching lightly in Xue Tong’s palm. Xue Tong’s face paled further, but her ear tips flushed an even deeper red, nearly dripping blood. Xun Ruosu, ever serious, continued, “To resolve the issue with Zhong Buman, we either sever his connection to the dam or let him have his wish fulfilled.”
The latter was utterly out of the question. The former, however, presented considerable difficulty. Even if all ten halls were present, they had to respect the basic laws. Zhong Buman had spent years laying this formation—it couldn’t be dismantled in a few moves, or it would be a devastating blow to cultivators everywhere.
“I do have a method,” Xue Tong said slowly. “What if we let him take my place?”
Huang Xiaoran immediately poked her head out from under the blanket. “No!”
She was an ordinary soul caught in reincarnation, unlike the other supernatural beings in the room. Yet she had the most to say on this matter. This strand of her soul had already gone through reincarnation multiple times, and barring any mishaps, she still had centuries or even millennia ahead of dealing with the Tenth Hall. If Zhong Buman replaced Xue Tong and gained control over life and death, Huang Xiaoran would rather step out and face the thunder herself right now.
“Don’t worry. Him replacing me would just be a process, not the end result,” Xue Tong said, her eyes gleaming with sly amusement. “To kill a pig, you fatten it up first.”
“…” A chill ran through Huang Xiaoran in that instant. She silently burrowed back under the blanket and tried to tuck in all four edges, forming a protective barrier around herself.
After speaking, Xue Tong propped herself up on the bed for another look outside. Zhong Buman remained like a statue, motionless amid the steady drizzle. “Once he’s done pondering the meaning of life, call him back. The whole affair hinges on him. We probably can’t resolve it without his involvement.”
It would be more accurate to say he was the root of the entire problem. Involving the culprit in plotting his own demise was, in a way, a stroke of genius on Xue Tong’s part.
Xun Ruosu’s mind blanked for a moment. Remarkably, she actually walked to the door and beckoned Zhong Buman inside. “Come in.”
Zhong Buman was a peculiar man—even from an adversary’s perspective, Xun Ruosu thought so.
On one hand, he slaughtered the innocent without mercy, devoid of humanity. On the other, he remained calm and rational. Even in a disadvantaged position, he retained a measure of dignity: no begging for mercy, no raging fits, and no visible signs of a hidden countermeasure to turn the tables.
Zhong Buman inclined his head slightly and stepped in from the rain. Fortunately, the rain was light, more like mist than a downpour. After standing in it for so long, he was merely damp rather than chilled. He paused under the eaves to scrape the mud from his shoes, then entered the room—but only as far as the doorway. He ventured no farther inside. Maintaining distance, he said, “I’m soaked through with dampness. I won’t come any closer.”
If not for his determination to kill Qin Yu and his schemes against Xue Tong, just this veneer of civility alone would make him a fine guest.
“Now that your identity is exposed, can you take off the mask?” Xun Ruosu asked.
Zhong Buman shook his head. “I’ll keep it on. I’m used to having it with me in front of others.”
Xun Ruosu had actually glimpsed Zhong Buman’s face in Zhong Li’s memories, but at that time, he had been alone—surrounded only by four walls, a puppet he had crafted himself, and Huang Xiaoran, soon to serve as the vessel for his sins.
Since Zhong Buman preferred to keep the mask on, Xun Ruosu didn’t press the issue. She pulled some bread from her pouch and handed a portion to Qin Yu. Then she set water to boil, and the room’s hungry occupants slowly sated themselves.
After a while, with everyone tending to their own affairs and ignoring him completely, Zhong Buman was the first to grow restless. “You called me in. Is there nothing you want to discuss?”
The cage still loomed in the room—visible to the naked eye yet intangible, like a phantom one could pass through at will. To Zhong Buman, however, it was a massive threat, liable to yank him inside at any moment and transform him into a true fierce ghost.
“There is something,” Xun Ruosu said after finishing her bread. She turned the question back on him. “By rights, your condition should be similar to mine: forcibly clinging to life in the mortal world. You feel cold, you get hungry, and too much rain can make you sick… You haven’t eaten a thing since last night. You need to replenish your strength.”
Her tone shifted. “Unfortunately, I’ve eaten all the bread I brought.”
Zhong Buman: “…”
So why mention it?
Xun Ruosu truly seemed in no hurry, leaving Zhong Buman increasingly on edge. Besides the looming cage, Xun Ruosu and Xue Tong occasionally prodded him, and even Qin Yu edged closer to his line of sight. Zhong Buman had hunted Qin Yu for decades, killing the little girl in gruesome ways several times. In a twisted sense, it had forged a bond—now, just seeing her face made his hands itch.
![I’m Faking, But She’s Really Crazy [Quick Transmigration]](https://i2.wp.com/dobytranslations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/qui.jpeg?resize=151,215 "I’m Faking, But She’s Really Crazy [Quick Transmigration]")