Chapter 4 Part 2

Before closing the door, Mother Xu hesitated, studying her. “Liangdi… how is your foot injury?”

Luo Jiao smiled. “It’s nothing now.”

The woman’s eyes reddened, her voice thick. “I’m sorry. It’s Mother’s fault I didn’t protect you.”

Luo Jiao felt nothing stir in her own heart, but Xu Liangdi was moved to pieces, her voice trembling and catching. “Mother… it’s not your fault, Mother…”

Unable to replicate that depth of sorrow, Luo Jiao pinched her thigh hard and squeezed out a few tears. “Mo… ahem. It’s not your fault.”

Mother Xu smiled through her tears, nodding again and again. “Rest well, rest well.” With that, she closed the door.

Only when no one else remained nearby did Luo Jiao speak in a low voice. “Well? How do you feel?”

“Happy, of course. But… also full of sorrow.” Xu Liangdi said, “Back then, they were never this kind to me. It’s only that I remembered… I… I am already dead. If not for you, I would never have known any of this.”

Luo Jiao kept her eyes lowered and said nothing.

Xu Liangdi went on. “If I had truly scattered inside that wedding sedan chair, would I never have seen them again? Would they never have treated me like this?”

Luo Jiao’s voice came out cold. “Only once something is lost do they learn tenderness. Such is human nature.”

“Is it?” Xu Liangdi murmured. “I suppose… you’re right.”

Hearing how stifled her voice sounded, Luo Jiao felt an unexpected pang of guilt.

Her earlier irritation with this girl had come from the girl’s dullness, her foolish kindness, her foolish filial piety. As the saying goes, watch what people do, not what they say. Look at their deeds, not their words.

Xu Liangdi’s parents, desperate for a son, had named her “Liangdi,” a title for a consort. Then they had sold her to the Zou family in the bitter cold between winter and spring, leaving their daughter’s frostbitten feet improperly treated, only to offer afterward a single line: It’s Mother’s fault I didn’t protect you.

Clearly, they had never truly loved this daughter.

They had merely counted their abacus loudly.

Only after Xu Liangdi’s death did they put on the appearance of lowered guards and genuine affection. And at this very moment, if not for Luo Jiao occupying this body and allowing Xu Liangdi’s soul spirit to linger a while longer, she would never even have heard those words of “heartfelt tenderness.”

How could any of this not seem laughable to Luo Jiao?

And by extension, she could only scoff a little at Xu Liangdi’s dullness.

Yet if she searched her heart, Xu Liangdi had done nothing wrong.

All of these differences stemmed, in the end, from a gap in understanding. In her previous life, Luo Jiao had lived twenty-seven years, carrying the famed sword Bujue across rivers and mountains. This young girl was barely thirteen or fourteen, and had never once left Little Mo Fishing Village. Her only journey of any distance had been the road to her wedding. And she had died halfway along it.

Luo Jiao’s brow knotted with worry.

Then Xu Liangdi’s voice came again. “Are you worried about how to escape this fishing village? I know you must be someone capable, perhaps even a cultivator, one who ought to belong to a great sect like the Wind Grace Sect or be bound for Lanjie Prefecture, not lingering in a village this small. Don’t worry. I will help you get out. Three of the seven days have passed. In two more days, I will leave behind a Divorce Letter and hope they won’t grieve too much.”

“I was never meant to remain in this world. After the seven days, no one will remember I existed. Thanks to you, at least someone could hear my thoughts, my wishes. Before… I never had any friends, so there was never anyone willing to listen to me.”

Luo Jiao was quiet for a long while. Just as she opened her mouth, she hesitated a moment, and the memory of Xu Siwei’s warmth upon her arrival softened her. “What do you mean, no one listens to you? From what I saw, that little brother of yours clings to you dearly.”

“Siwei?” Xu Liangdi smiled bitterly. “Him? He only ever talks about himself. He has never once patiently listened to me.”

Luo Jiao gave a small “oh.”

Coming from Xu Liangdi of all people, the remark made Luo Jiao feel rather tongue-tied.

But in truth, Luo Jiao understood that loneliness all too well. The loneliness of being cast aside, of having no one to turn to. Even when the people around you laughed and bustled in crowds, each of them walked their own road. And so all those bright, easy voices had nothing to do with her.

At the thought, something else occurred to her.

“Three of the seven days have passed,” she said. “In two more, that only makes five. The last two days… is there any place you still wish to see?”

Xu Liangdi was taken aback, then laughed. “Only two days. Where could we possibly go?”

“No other Evil Ghost could help you. But congratulations. You’ve found the most capable Evil Ghost in all the world. I can not only fulfill your last wish from life, but your other wishes as well.”

Remembering what Luo Jiao had done at the Zou Manor, Xu Liangdi blinked, half believing and half doubting. “Can you truly?”

“Naturally,” Luo Jiao said, with no small pride.

“Mm. Other wishes, then…” Xu Liangdi murmured. “…I want to see the sea.”

Luo Jiao didn’t understand. “You were born in this little fishing village, with the sea all around you. What other sea could you possibly…”

“It’s not like that sea!” Xu Liangdi cut in sharply. “Not that dirty, gray, grimy near shore!”

But after a pause, her voice shrank small again. “What I want to see… is looking down from somewhere high. A stretch of clouds. A stretch of sea.”

Luo Jiao asked, “You want to climb a mountain and look down on a sea of clouds?”

“N-, not exactly…” Xu Liangdi explained. “It’s just standing somewhere high and watching the distant sea and the distant sky melt into a single color.”

Luo Jiao nodded slowly, uncertain.

On the road back to the village, she had at least gathered some sense of the world. For instance, the Thousand-Li Slope where she had died was now a hundred years in the past. Times had changed; dynasties had turned over twice. The capital’s location and the rankings of the great noble families had all transformed beyond recognition, never mind the names of small towns like this one.

Fortunately, the famous mountains had not moved. Following those threads, Luo Jiao could at least find her bearings.

Little Mo Fishing Village lay near the South Sea, not far from the capital, Qingdu. The nearest great family was the Tang Family; the nearest famous mountain, Sanqing Mountain.

After a long silence, Luo Jiao spoke again. “I’ll take you to Sanqing Mountain.” Her voice was unhurried. “It isn’t a tall mountain, and I know it well.”

Xu Liangdi, hardly any better at reading maps herself, agreed with a muddled “all right.”

Night fell, and the stars hung high.

Luo Jiao had expected this to be her first deep sleep since waking. But no sooner had she closed her eyes than a flare of torchlight burst to life outside the house.

“Here! She’s in here!”

“Officials, sirs, you must bear witness for us!” A woman’s voice, hoarse and ragged, rang out. “From the day our daughter was married off until yesterday, we truly knew nothing… Even if Liangdi must be taken into custody, we beg you not to drag the rest of us into it… There are only three of us left. We, we can’t afford another disaster!”

“It’s not true! She’s not my sister at all!” It was Xu Siwei’s voice. “Wasn’t it supposed to be an Evil Ghost’s possession? My sister was the one possessed!” he rushed on. “I heard it myself! She was, she was in her room muttering to herself all alone, like she’d lost her mind!…”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” It was the man’s voice now. “Sirs, we did come forward and report her ourselves. That whole silver ingot marked plainly on the notice, might we perhaps…”

Through the walls of the house, Luo Jiao heard every word with perfect clarity. Xu Liangdi, on the other hand, could make out nothing at all. She only gave a dazed, “Huh?”

“Liangdi.” Luo Jiao’s smile was utterly heartless. “Joy turns to sorrow. Your family has just sold you a second time.”

Xu Liangdi still didn’t understand. “What?”

But as she listened, she fell silent for a long while, until at last the whole shape of it became clear.

When she spoke again, no sound came out. The tears fell first.

Luo Jiao felt her own eyes sting with an almost frightening ache, and in an instant the tears spilled over.

She had rarely seen anyone weep like this. Rain-pour tears, dazzling and grieving, streaming without end.

Luo Jiao suspected it was because Xu Liangdi had finally untangled a certain thread of cause and effect.

Like the Zou family’s addled Young Master.

Frostbitten feet in the depths of a freezing winter. A jolting sedan chair. Perhaps all of that suffering had been quietly permitted by these two “merciful” parents.

And like the wedding itself.

Nothing more than a conspiracy of paternal authority and a husband’s claim, a transaction. Its form was a grand banquet. Its price tag was a bride.

Named “Xu Liangdi.”

Luo Jiao felt that even if Xu Liangdi hadn’t reasoned all of this out, some blurry shadow of it must have long lingered in her heart.

Otherwise, how could she weep so fiercely, as if her chest were being torn apart?

As if a dozen years of pent-up bitterness were pouring out of her all at once.

Luo Jiao suddenly felt unburdened. It was like the moment, a hundred years ago, when she had trained in the Sanqing Heart Method and broken through her bottleneck. Painful, yet clearer than ever.

She felt a lightness she had never known.

Feeling the warmth in her eyes, feeling Xu Liangdi’s release, the corners of her mouth curved up without her meaning them to.

And so, when several figures pushed open the door with lanterns raised, what they found was Xu Liangdi, laughing through her tears.

It seemed to confirm every suspicion the officials held, and it emboldened the Xu parents considerably.

“You, you demoness! Monster!” Mother Xu shrieked. “What, what did you do?!”

Luo Jiao felt a force rising within her body, driving her toward Mother Xu, urging her to embrace the woman. Perhaps it was Xu Liangdi’s heart.

And in the same instant, Xu Liangdi finally found her own voice. “Mother, it’s really me… Mother…”

“Get out!!”

A slap cracked hard across her face!

“Get out! Stop your lying!”

Mother Xu, furious and terrified in equal measure, was in the heat of rage and gave no thought to her own strength. She only kept cursing. “I know full well what evil you’ve done. You…”

But the “Xu Liangdi” before her rose to her feet.

And when she lifted her head, her bearing had changed entirely. “You refuse to believe your living daughter standing right in front of you, yet you believe the words of officials?” she asked coldly.

Father Xu’s voice was vicious. “Enough! Seven lives lost, and I don’t know how you have the face to come back! The Xu family has been clean for generations, how…”

Luo Jiao suddenly raised a hand.

Every flame in the room fell silent at once.

“Well then.” Luo Jiao’s voice was flat.

She answered with perfect candor.

“You’re not wrong. I am not Xu Liangdi. I have none of that great compassion.”

In the crumbling room, withered moonlight slipped in through the cracks of the window.

The girl stood tall amid her loose, unbound hair, draped in plain coarse cloth, poised weightlessly above the ground.

Her feet touched nothing, as though she were truly floating. Tear tracks still glistened on her cheeks, yet she pressed her lips together and smiled, radiant beyond measure. “I am nothing but a lone, wandering ghost.”

“And Evil Ghosts… they eat human hearts.”