Song Qian listened quietly as Wu Yizhi began to recount the tale of the Liuli Lantern. The instant he mentioned that “she fell in love with the Liuli Lantern,” she guessed the lantern must possess a spirit of its own. She turned to glance at Ji Wuxin, who was utterly absorbed in the story, hanging on every word.
Wu Yizhi gestured animatedly with his hands, his gaze distant and entranced. “How can I even describe that sensation to you? Crystal clear, utterly flawless—the Liuli Lantern was so exquisite that simply setting it down made you itch to touch it, to cradle it in your palm and toy with it endlessly.”
Perhaps noticing that Wu Yizhi was veering off track, Liu Changsheng cleared her throat softly. “And then what happened?” she asked coolly.
“At first, she treated the Liuli Lantern as nothing more than an exceptionally beautiful object. Back then, folks in the village often spotted her sitting under the Big Banyan Tree at the foot of the mountain, letting the breeze tousle her hair while she held the little lantern in her hands.”
“Who was she?” Qi Buyu raised her hand like an eager schoolchild.
“Her name was Yun Chu, an orphan who’d studied a few things under me.” Wu Yizhi lowered his eyes and stroked his right hand—missing its pinky finger.
Liu Changsheng eyed the gesture curiously. He’d always been short that finger, which earned him his nickname, Wu Yizhi, but he’d never seemed to care about it before. Why now…
Could that missing finger have something to do with this Yun Chu?
Wu Yizhi pressed on. “Over time, the Liuli Lantern developed a spirit. It took on a form as pure and beautiful as fresh snow, mirroring Yun Chu herself. Whenever no one was around, it stayed by her side.”
“Yun Chu grew up without any playmates, so Liuli became her first friend. By day, Yun Chu carried Liuli everywhere, regaling her with all the wonders and oddities of the world. At night, the two would curl up together and sleep.”
Someone let out a soft chuckle. Wu Yizhi paused and looked up, drawing everyone’s attention in that direction.
Ji Wuxin had shamelessly draped herself over Song Qian, murmuring to herself, “Sounds just like us.”
Song Qian squirmed under the sudden scrutiny from all those eyes and nudged Ji Wuxin with her elbow. “Quiet,” she whispered.
Ji Wuxin blinked at Song Qian’s flushed ears, then glanced up to find everyone staring at her. She hadn’t even been talking to them—what were they gawking at?
She shot a fierce glare at each of them in turn.
Liu Changsheng couldn’t help but inwardly call her an idiot.
Wu Yizhi collected himself and continued. “One day, a pair of lovers arrived in the village. Watching their interactions stirred something familiar in Yun Chu. After much thought, she realized what it was: the little gestures between them mirrored her own with Liuli. That’s when Yun Chu understood she harbored feelings for Liuli that went beyond friendship.”
“But a spirit is still just a spirit. Yun Chu didn’t know what like or love truly meant. No matter how she confessed her heart, Liuli never reciprocated. Disheartened, Yun Chu began avoiding her—not just during the day, but even at night, she rarely returned home.”
Ji Wuxin’s brows furrowed deeply. She leaned close to Song Qian’s ear and whispered, “What does he mean? Liuli stayed by Yun Chu’s side all that time—doesn’t that mean she liked her?”
Song Qian’s hand clenched tight. She turned to meet Ji Wuxin’s eyes, so innocently clear and brimming with confusion.
“Is staying by someone’s side always a sign of liking them?” Do you like me just because you’re always with me?
Ji Wuxin froze, pondering Song Qian’s words. Staying together… wasn’t that liking someone?
She bit back her response. Something felt off about Song Qian’s mood—like she was afraid of something.
“Night after night, Liuli waited for Yun Chu to come back. But Yun Chu was too scared to face a Liuli who didn’t love her. She fled alone to the mountains to pray to the gods, kneeling before the Mountain God Temple and begging for Liuli to fall in love with her.”
Liu Changsheng sensed something amiss. “The Mountain God? Did he grant her wish?”
Wu Yizhi shook his head. “Yun Chu never reached the Mountain God. She encountered a woman instead, who told her there was a way to make Liuli love her right away.”
“She believed that just like that?” Qi Buyu frowned. Anyone could tell that sounded like a scam—unless Yun Chu was some hopeless romantic.
“Of course she didn’t believe it at first. When she got home, she found Liuli frozen in the exact pose she’d been in when Yun Chu left, sitting silently. Liuli’s spirit depended on Yun Chu’s presence to maintain her form, and after so many days without her, she was fading. The moment Yun Chu appeared, Liuli collapsed, and the Liuli Lantern shattered on the floor. Liuli vanished.”
Qi Buyu clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my god…”
“Yun Chu couldn’t bear losing Liuli. She came to me and asked if I could perform spirit supplementing on the lantern…”
Liu Changsheng’s eyes sharpened. She shot Wu Yizhi a look, connecting it to the village’s oddities, and asked incredulously, “You told her how?”
Spirit supplementing always demanded a life for a life—often many lives for one. It failed nine times out of ten, yet desperate souls still gambled on that slim chance.
Wu Yizhi gave a cold laugh. “Is that what you think of me?”
“I didn’t tell her the method. It was that woman Yun Chu met at the Mountain God Temple. She instructed Yun Chu on spirit supplementing: collect finger blood and hair from seven infants.”
“The village had exactly seven newborns at the time, fitting the woman’s demands perfectly. Yun Chu couldn’t bring herself to do it. She shut herself away, refusing to see anyone, clutching the shattered Liuli Lantern fragments even as they sliced her hands.”
Song Qian listened, growing dazed. It felt as if she could truly see Yun Chu—hands drenched in blood, refusing to let go of the lantern; late at night, sobbing Yun Chu’s name over and over in grief.
Thud… thud… thud. Slow, rhythmic knocks echoed at the door. Song Qian watched Yun Chu lift her tear-streaked face. “Who is it?” she rasped.
Wait, wait, wait!
Song Qian snapped back to herself and looked down at her body. She was really standing in Yun Chu’s home now, living through her experiences.
Damn it… why did this have to happen again?
She cursed inwardly. Why did these bizarre visions, where she was the only outsider, always trap her alone?
But the next moment, she had no time for that. A voice from outside said, “Yun Chu, it’s me—Liuli.”
Liuli!?
Hadn’t Liuli vanished? The lantern was shattered!
Song Qian whipped around to the fragments in Yun Chu’s hands, stained with blood. Could the spirit survive if the lantern was broken?
Yun Chu looked equally baffled. She stared disbelievingly at the lantern, then at the door.
It really sounded like Liuli—but…
Yun Chu still went and opened the door. She stood there stunned as Liuli stepped in, rising on tiptoe to loop her arms around Yun Chu’s neck with a beaming smile. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“H-Happy.” Yun Chu’s face flushed. Liuli had never been this forward before.
“You’re… really Liuli?”
Liuli pouted as if offended, her soft hand balling into a fist to lightly thump Yun Chu’s shoulder. “It’s only been a few days, and you don’t recognize me anymore?”
Song Qian watched Yun Chu lose herself completely in this Liuli’s presence, blind to everything else—including the fact that the fragments in her hand had been swapped for fakes.
“Wake up! That’s not Liuli! She’s a fake!”
Song Qian shouted desperately, but it was useless. Yun Chu couldn’t hear her. She was lost in the tender illusions this fake Liuli wove.
Then Song Qian’s face turned beet red, and she spun away. The two had moved to the bedside—what the hell? Did she have to watch someone else’s intimate moment live? Was there no skip button for this?
The rhythmic gasps and moans rose and fell relentlessly. Song Qian clamped her hands over her ears. She’d seen plenty in books before, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed peeping at the real thing.
What surprised her most was that Yun Chu was the one on the bottom.
After the frantic breaths subsided, Song Qian heard the rustle of clothes and footsteps. She turned back to see the fake Liuli—now transformed. Her right cheek was marred by burn scars from fire, twisting across her face and down her neck.
She gazed at the unconscious Yun Chu on the bed with utter indifference, tinged with disgust.
She placed the fake lantern fragments in Yun Chu’s hand and slashed deeply. Crimson blood welled up, soaking the shards.
With that done, the fake Liuli produced the real fragments. They glowed with an eerie chill, as if sensing what had befallen Yun Chu—furious, roaring in rage, yearning to burst forth and shred this hypocrite’s facade.
“Hmph. What do you think you can do? You never understood human emotions in the first place. That’s why it was so easy for me to take you.”
Fake Liuli spoke as she produced a small, exquisite bell. She chanted an incantation, and it jingled merrily.
Song Qian stared at the bell, her mind reeling. That bell… it was identical to the one her Master had given her! Could Fake Liuli be after the Jade Spirit too?
As the bell rang, the glow from the Liuli Lantern fragments faded. Fake Liuli picked it up and departed, first restoring everything in the room to its original state.
Song Qian watched with a heavy heart. Yun Chu would be devastated if she learned the Liuli Lantern was a fake.
A flash of light streaked before her eyes. Song Qian squeezed them shut and flinched away. When she opened them again, she was no longer in Yun Chu’s home. She stood before a modest temple, dense gloomy clouds stretching endlessly overhead while rain pattered steadily on the lush leaves of the surrounding woods.
There knelt Yun Chu before the Mountain God Temple, cradling the shattered Liuli Lantern in her arms. A terrifying obsession burned in her eyes. Beside her sat a small bag, sodden with rain, several tiny bottles faintly visible through the wet fabric.
“You’ve come.”
Song Qian watched Fake Liuli step out from the temple, playing the part as she held an umbrella to shield Yun Chu from the downpour.
“Why kneel to me? If you wish to do it, I will help you.”
Yun Chu pressed her lips tight. With one hand, she shielded the Liuli Lantern from the rain; with the other, she opened the small bag.
Thunder crashed amid a blaze of lightning on the horizon, lighting up half the Mountain God Temple. The bag’s contents gleamed in Song Qian’s eyes.
Several vials of blood and a few tufts of hair.
“I’ve brought the fingertip blood and hair. How do I perform the spirit supplementing?”
