Unable to replicate that depth of feeling, Luo Jiao pinched her thigh hard and squeezed out a few tears. “Mo—ahem. It wasn’t your fault.”
Mother Xu laughed through her tears, nodding again and again. “Rest well, rest well.” Then she closed the door.
Only when they were well and truly alone did Luo Jiao speak quietly. “Well? What do you think?”
“Of course I’m happy. But… I feel it keenly, too.” Xu Liangdi said, “Back then, they were never this good to me. I just keep thinking—I… I already died. If not for you, I would never have known any of this.”
Luo Jiao kept her eyes lowered, saying nothing.
Xu Liangdi went on, “If I had truly scattered inside that bridal sedan… would I never have seen them again? Never been treated this way?”
Luo Jiao’s voice came out cold. “Only once something is lost do people learn tenderness. It’s the nature of the human heart.”
“Is it?” Xu Liangdi murmured. “I suppose… you’re right.”
Hearing how muffled her voice had grown, Luo Jiao felt a pang of guilt.
Her earlier irritation at the girl had come from the girl’s obliviousness, her foolish goodness and foolish filial piety. The old saying goes: watch what they do, not what they say. Look at deeds, not words.
Xu Liangdi’s parents had craved a son so desperately that the girl had been given the name ‘Liangdi.’ Then they had sold her to the Zou Family, in the coldest turn of winter to early spring; her injured feet were never properly treated, only to be answered afterward with ‘Mother failed to protect you.’
Clearly, they had never truly loved this daughter.
They had merely clacked their abacus loudly.
Only after Xu Liangdi died did they put on the guise of lowered defenses and genuine affection—and by then, had Luo Jiao not occupied this body and let Xu Liangdi’s soul linger a while longer, Xu Liangdi would never have heard a single word of those ‘heartfelt’ sentiments!
How could all this not strike Luo Jiao as absurd?
And by extension, at Xu Liangdi’s obliviousness too.
Yet, asking herself honestly—Xu Liangdi had done nothing wrong.
All the difference between them came down, most likely, to the gap in what they’d seen. In her last life, Luo Jiao had lived twenty-seven years, sword Unending at her side, crossing rivers and mountains the length of the land; and this girl was only thirteen or fourteen, had never once left Mo Fishing Village, and the only journey of her life had been the road to her wedding… which had killed her halfway.
Luo Jiao’s brow knotted with gloom.
Then Xu Liangdi asked, “Are you worried about how to get out of this fishing village? I know you must be someone capable—perhaps even a Cultivator, one who ought to belong to a great sect like Fengyi Sect or be of Lanjie Prefecture—not stuck in this little village. Don’t worry; I’ll help you get out. Three of the seven days are gone. In two more days, I’ll leave behind a letter of farewell. I only hope they won’t grieve too much.”
“I was never meant to remain in this world. After the seventh day, 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 no one was ever willing to listen to me.”
Luo Jiao was silent a long while. Just as she made to answer, she hesitated a moment—then, recalling Xu Siwei’s affectionate manner when she’d first arrived, she offered comfort instead. “What do you mean, no one listens to you? That little brother of yours clings tight enough.”
“Siwei?” Xu Liangdi smiled bitterly. “Him? He only ever talks about himself. He’s never once patiently listened to me.”
Luo Jiao gave an “Oh.”
Coming from Xu Liangdi, that remark left Luo Jiao the clumsy one.
But in truth, Luo Jiao understood perfectly well that lonely feeling—of being sidelined, of having no one to turn to. Even amid bustling crowds, everyone has their own road to walk; and so all those bright voices and laughter simply have nothing to do with you.
At the thought, something else suddenly occurred to Luo Jiao.
She said, “Three of the seven days are gone; two more makes only five. Those last two days… is there anywhere you still wish to go?”
Xu Liangdi blinked, then laughed. “Only two days? Where could I even go?”
“No ordinary ghost could help you—but congratulations, you’ve found the most capable Evil Ghost in all the world. Not only can I fulfill your final wish from life, I can fulfill any other wishes you might have too.”
Recalling Luo Jiao’s doings at the Zou Manor, Xu Liangdi blinked, half believing, half doubting. “You really can?”
“Naturally,” Luo Jiao said smugly.
“Mm… other wishes…” Xu Liangdi murmured. “…I want to see the sea.”
Luo Jiao didn’t understand. “You were born in this little fishing village—the sea’s on every side. What sea could you possibly want to see…”
“Not that kind of near sea!” Xu Liangdi cut in suddenly. “Not this dirty, gray, murky near sea!”
But after a pause, her voice shrank smaller. “What I want to see… is the kind you look down on from somewhere high—one sheet of cloud, one sheet of sea.”
Luo Jiao said, “You want to climb a mountain and watch the Sea of Clouds?”
“N-not exactly…” Xu Liangdi explained, “just standing somewhere high, 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, Luo Jiao had at least picked up some sense of the world. For instance: since her death at Qianli Slope, a hundred years had passed. Times had changed and dynasties had changed twice over; the capital’s location, the ranking of the great families—all had transformed beyond recognition, never mind the names of little towns and cities.
Fortunately, several famous mountains had not moved. Following those threads, Luo Jiao had managed to find her bearings.
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, Mount Sanqing.
Luo Jiao was silent a long while before speaking again. “I’ll take you to Mount Sanqing.” She said it lightly. “The mountain isn’t tall, and I know it well.”
Xu Liangdi, for her part, couldn’t read a map to save her life, and swallowed the answer whole: “Okay.”
Night fell, stars hung high.
Luo Jiao had thought this would be her first sound sleep since waking. But the moment her eyes closed, a burst of torchlight flared outside the house.
“—Here! She’s in here!”
“Your honors, you must bear witness for us!” The woman’s voice was hoarse. “From the day we married our daughter off until yesterday, we truly knew nothing… Even if Liangdi truly must be taken into custody, please don’t let it fall on the rest of us… our—our remaining family of three can’t suffer anything more!”
“It’s not true! She’s not my sister at all!” That was Xu Siwei’s voice.
“Wasn’t it an Evil Ghost’s possession? My sister is the one who was possessed!” he babbled on. “I heard her! She was—she was in the room all alone, muttering to herself, like she was possessed!…”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” That was the man’s voice. “Your honors, consider this our own report against her—that whole silver ingot marked plainly on the notice, might we perhaps…”
Through the walls, Luo Jiao heard it all distinctly. But Xu Liangdi could not see clearly at all.
Xu Liangdi only muzzily went, ‘Eh?’
“—Liangdi, joy begets sorrow.” Luo Jiao laughed without a shred of sympathy. “Your family has sold you a second time.”
Xu Liangdi still didn’t understand. “What?”
But listening closely, she fell silent for a long, long while before grasping the whole of it.
When she tried to speak again, no sound came out—only tears.
Luo Jiao felt her own eyes sting unbearably, and in an instant the tears burst forth.
She had rarely seen anyone weep like this—a downpour of tears, torrential and glittering, grief upon grief.
Luo Jiao guessed it was because Xu Liangdi had finally untangled some knots of cause and effect.
Like that idiot young master of the Zou Family.
Feet frostbitten in the depth of winter, the jolting bridal sedan… perhaps every last suffering had been quietly permitted by these two ‘merciful’ parents.
And the so-called wedding itself.
Nothing but a conspiracy of paternal and marital authority—a transaction; its form, a grand wedding feast; its price tag, a bride.
Namely: “Xu Liangdi.”
Luo Jiao felt that even if Xu Liangdi hadn’t reasoned through all this, some vague shadow of it must have been in her heart all along.
Otherwise, how could she cry so wrenchingly?
As if over a decade of pent-up bitterness were pouring out of her all at once.
Luo Jiao suddenly felt unburdened—like the moment, a hundred years ago, when she’d broken through a bottleneck cultivating the Sanqing Mental Cultivation Method: painful, but clearer than ever.
She felt a lightness she had never known.
Feeling the warmth in her eyes, feeling Xu Liangdi’s outpouring, the corners of her mouth curved up without her willing it.
—And so, when several people pushed the door open with oil lamps raised, what they saw was a Xu Liangdi laughing and crying at once.
It was as if this very sight confirmed the officials’ suspicions, and it emboldened the Xu parents considerably.
“You—you demoness! Monster!” Mother Xu shrieked. “What—what have you DONE?!”
Luo Jiao felt a force rise inside her body, driving her toward Mother Xu, wanting to embrace her—perhaps it was Xu Liangdi’s heart.
And at the same moment, Xu Liangdi finally found her own voice. “Mother, it really is me… Mother…”
“—GET OUT!!”
A slap cracked hard across her face!
“Get out! Stop your lying!”
Mother Xu was furious and terrified, in the full heat of rage, with no thought for her own strength. She only cursed on, “I know your evil deeds now, you…”
But the ‘Xu Liangdi’ before her rose to her feet.
—And lifted her head, transformed entirely. “You won’t believe the living daughter standing before you, but you’ll believe the officials’ words?” she asked coldly.
Father Xu snarled, “Enough! Seven lives—I don’t know how you have the face to come back! The Xu family has been clean for generations, how…”
Luo Jiao abruptly raised her hand.
Every torch in the room fell silent at once.
“How very good.” Luo Jiao said flatly.
Her answer was utterly composed.
“You’re not wrong. I am not Xu Liangdi. I have no great compassion.”
In the ruined room, withered moonlight filtered through the cracks in the window.
The girl, hair loose and unbound, draped in plain coarse cloth, stood weightless on high.
Her feet touched no ground, as if she truly floated in midair; tear tracks still streaked her cheeks, yet her lips curled into a smile of dazzling brilliance. “I am nothing but a lonely, wandering ghost.”
“And Evil Ghosts… eat human hearts.”
