Chapter 46: Spirit Body Part 1

Ying Zhu and Xia Yu got into a fight because of Zhuang Huaisu.

Jiang Huaining had told Ying Zhu from the start that the injury on Zhuang Huaisu’s body had something to do with Xia Yu.

When Ying Zhu had just been talking to Zhuang Huaisu earlier, Xia Yu was right there beside them. She suddenly remembered, so she forced Xia Yu to apologize to Zhuang Huaisu. However, that matter wasn’t entirely Xia Yu’s fault, and with Xia Yu’s personality, she wasn’t one to yield easily, so of course she refused.

Truth be told, Ying Zhu wasn’t all that invested in Zhuang Huaisu’s affairs. The real conflict was that Ying Zhu, in her high position, was very overbearing toward everyone except Jiang Huaining, while Xia Yu was a spirit of equally strong will.

Their deeper conflict stemmed from mutual defiance, not Zhuang Huaisu.

Zhuang Huaisu saw this most clearly. So after Yu Ruoyin and Jiang Huaining came downstairs to pull Xia Yu and Ying Zhu apart, the first thing she said was a cold, mocking jab at Ying Zhu: “Congratulations on neither winning nor losing. Oh, wait, I remember you saying that anything without a clear victor counts as your loss.”

“You!” Ying Zhu’s face had taken a heavy punch from Xia Yu, and the injury hadn’t healed yet. Her speech came out distorted as her whole face twisted. She tilted her head to glare at Zhuang Huaisu, who was still sitting in the wheelchair and hurling barbs at her: “I said that to you, not to Xia Yu. Why should that count as my loss? Zhuang Huaisu, you really have no conscience. I only fought her for your sake.”

“Oh, is that so.” Zhuang Huaisu kept her head lowered, fiddling with her fingernails: “Then I really don’t feel honored at all.”

Zhuang Huaisu’s every word was laced with barbs, and even Yu Ruoyin worried that Ying Zhu might suddenly lash out.

Ying Zhu did not look to have a good temper.

Fortunately, no matter what Zhuang Huaisu said, Ying Zhu actually took it in stride, at most firing back with a couple of her own: “Zhuang Huaisu, can’t that mouth of yours say something nice for once?”

“Of course I can.” Zhuang Huaisu lifted her head with a smile directed at her. The moment Ying Zhu perked up her ears to listen, she coldly tossed out four words: “Meddling busybody.”

Ever since meeting Ying Zhu, the wrinkles on Zhuang Huaisu’s face had bunched together, making her look even fiercer.

Yu Ruoyin found it hard to read any love story between Ying Zhu and Zhuang Huaisu; it was difficult to imagine they were once wedded wives who had bowed before the hall together.

Zhuang Huaisu read the skepticism in her expression and turned an even less friendly gaze toward Ying Zhu: “What did you say?”

Ying Zhu leaned obliquely against the sofa, rubbing her swollen face: “Of course, our fond memories of love.”

“Great-Aunt!” Zhuang Ciyue listened with her mouth agape in shock. She wanted to ask, but Zhuang Huaisu had no time for her right then.

“Heh.” Frost filled Zhuang Huaisu’s eyes: “Your Ladyship, you’d best hurry back to the Netherworld.”

Yu Ruoyin felt that if Zhuang Huaisu had the ability to fight, Ying Zhu would have been shattered into pieces by now.

Zhuang Huaisu’s hatred for Ying Zhu was plain as day on her face, yet Ying Zhu acted like she hadn’t seen it at all and circled right up to her: “Can’t you improve that attitude of yours? The thing I gave you is something most people couldn’t even dream of in their lifetime. I don’t expect your eternal gratitude, but at least give me a smile.”

“Take it back.”

The gentle and dignified image of her senior that Zhuang Huaisu had held in Yu Ruoyin’s mind was utterly shattered. She practically flung the bone brush at Ying Zhu in a fit of rage.

Ying Zhu caught the bone brush and pointed at her own face: “You can have the bone brush back, but what about my face?”

Mentioning the face made Zhuang Huaisu’s complexion turn utterly ugly.

She had only been trading barbs verbally before, but the instant Ying Zhu brought up the face, she truly harbored killing intent.

A chill flickered in Zhuang Huaisu’s eyes. With a flick of her wrist, a small peachwood sword appeared in her palm. She leaped up from the wheelchair and pounced fiercely at Ying Zhu, thrusting the peachwood sword toward Ying Zhu’s neck. The moment ghostly qi wrapped around it, the sword’s color actually changed.

On closer inspection, the peachwood sword had been wrapped in a thin layer of wood veneer. The ghostly qi shattered the veneer, revealing the sword’s true form.

It was actually a blackish-purple peachwood sword, and on closer look, faint strands of lightning coiled around it.

“Millennium Thunderstruck Wood.” Zhuang Ciyue immediately grew tense and rushed up to Zhuang Huaisu: “Great-Aunt, calm down!”

Millennium Thunderstruck Wood sounded like a treasure just from the name, yet Zhuang Ciyue’s reaction made it seem like she was the one in danger.

Yu Ruoyin didn’t quite understand, but Jiang Huaining explained: “For a Painting Yin Master of her level, most of her body has already undergone ghostification. She can’t use this.”

On closer look, after the wood veneer peeled away, the Thunderstruck Wood’s attack range was no longer limited to Ying Zhu.

The sword hilt was actually devouring Zhuang Huaisu’s skin, and even faster than it was devouring Ying Zhu.

“Auntie Ning!”

Before Jiang Huaining could intervene, Ying Zhu had already seized Zhuang Huaisu’s wrist and forcibly pried the Thunderstruck Wood from her hand, tossing it to Jiang Huaining.

Her gaze turned colder: “You really are vicious enough. Out to take my life, even digging up something like this.”

Zhuang Huaisu’s injuries weren’t healed yet, and they’d worsened in Yin City. She had charged over on a burst of sheer willpower, but once that burst faded, she had no strength left. She couldn’t even stand, and it was Ying Zhu who held her and placed her back in the wheelchair.

Ying Zhu pointed at the Thunderstruck Wood now in Jiang Huaining’s hand and said coldly: “Zhuang Huaisu, you haven’t been able to use that thing for a long time.”

Seeing that Zhuang Huaisu still didn’t react, her tone actually softened a bit: “Use this instead.”

She stuffed the bone brush back into Zhuang Huaisu’s hands: “I don’t want this one back, and you don’t need to return the face either.”

“Scram!” Zhuang Huaisu threw the brush away again. The bone brush spun in midair and circled back into her palm. She grew even angrier: “Scram!”

“Don’t be ungrateful.” That was what she muttered, but she still moved away from Zhuang Huaisu’s side.

She circled over to Jiang Huaining: “Huaining, I really do have to go.”

Yu Ruoyin stood right beside Jiang Huaining and heard her ask: “What wicked deed did you commit, exactly?”

“Good deed. A great one—saving a life.”

Ying Zhu was definitely lying. If it were truly a good deed, Zhuang Huaisu wouldn’t despise her to this extent.

She surely didn’t think everyone else here was a fool, did she?

Before Yu Ruoyin could press Ying Zhu further, she vanished from the Four Spirits Shop. Before leaving, she shot a vicious glare at Xia Yu.

Xia Yu was an old acquaintance of hers too, and her annoyance with Ying Zhu wasn’t a day or two old.

She and Zhuang Huaisu had no real bond to begin with, but at this moment, she actually felt a bit of sympathy for her: “Zhuang Huaisu, how did you end up provoking that lunatic?”

Evidently, no one believed Ying Zhu’s words except herself.

Xia Yu voiced the question everyone was curious about, but as Jiang Huaining had anticipated, Zhuang Huaisu had no intention of answering.

She sat in the wheelchair, her emotions calming to the stillness of dead water.

Even when Zhuang Ciyue spoke to her, she turned a deaf ear.

There was still some time before the Four Spirits Shop opened for business. The most curious ones, Yu Ruoyin and Zhuang Ciyue, didn’t dare ask. Nan He was still immersed in grief, and Xia Yu and Jiang Huaining weren’t the type to pry. Of all times, Lu Qingzhen, the one who loved to chat most, wasn’t there.

After Xia Yu’s injuries had mostly healed, Lu Qingzhen had left the Four Spirits Shop, saying she was going to help Xing Ruoyan with a small errand.

Jiang Huaining wrapped up the Thunderstruck Wood and returned it to Zhuang Huaisu.

Zhuang Huaisu finally reacted a little: “Your Ladyship.”

She called out to Jiang Huaining: “Are all you long-lived ones this bored?”

Zhuang Huaisu’s gaze lingered on Yu Ruoyin for a moment before slowly withdrawing: “Liking to tease little maidens for fun.”

At this particular moment, she saw Yu Ruoyin as a fellow pitiful soul bound by the same fate.

Jiang Huaining shook her head: “I don’t know what Ying Zhu did, but I’m not like her.”

“Didn’t she say it herself?” Zhuang Huaisu mocked with a curl of her lips: “A great deed—saving a life.”

It didn’t sound like the truth at all, and Jiang Huaining had no desire to meddle in their grudge.

Besides, with neither side telling the truth, there was no way to intervene.

She quietly stepped back. Her gaze brushed against the anxious Zhuang Ciyue nearby, and she still asked: “Is there something wrong with your face? Perhaps I can help.”

It was affection by association, but Zhuang Huaisu didn’t appreciate it.

The sarcasm at the corner of Zhuang Huaisu’s mouth grew more pronounced: “What could be wrong with it? It’s healing unnaturally well.”

Zhuang Huaisu gripped the bone brush tightly and drew a half-moon pattern on her right cheek. Yu Ruoyin and the others watched in astonishment as the skin on Zhuang Huaisu’s face began to peel away gradually. That layer of aged, deeply wrinkled skin turned to black flakes and vanished, replaced by smooth, fair skin—flawless and supple, surpassing even that of a girl in her prime.

That sixty-year-old lady transformed before their eyes into a young woman in her early twenties. Zhuang Ciyue had once said her great-aunt was stunningly beautiful in her youth, and now they saw it was true.

Her features were exceptionally refined, especially her eyes. Without even trying to charm, they carried a heavy air of allure.

Her hair was streaked with white, yet her face was youthful.

No matter how you looked at it, something was off. Only the ever-optimistic Zhuang Ciyue exclaimed repeatedly: “Great-Aunt, you’re so beautiful!”

Yu Ruoyin had noticed back in the paper sedan in Yin City that Zhuang Huaisu’s face seemed layered. Sure enough, there was a problem with her face. She had used that aged skin to conceal the fact that a sixty-year-old hadn’t aged. Thinking back on Ying Zhu’s and her words, it wasn’t hard to guess that Ying Zhu had tampered with her face.

Xia Yu also saw through the situation. She examined Zhuang Huaisu’s face closely: “She really has some nerve, granting you an ageless visage like that. If it reaches the Nether King, she won’t be able to account for it.”

“You think this is a blessing?” Zhuang Huaisu lowered her lashes, a veil of loneliness and desolation enveloping her: “I see it as a curse. Can a living person who never ages even be called alive?”

Zhuang Huaisu’s thinking was overly extreme. Immortality in appearance was the dream of countless people, but everyone’s views in this world differed.

Zhuang Huaisu had gone to great lengths to cover up this youthful face; she had never wanted it to begin with.

Zhuang Ciyue gazed at that youthful, beautiful face and touched her own: “Great-Aunt, eternal youth isn’t a bad thing. From this angle, the Wheel-Turning King was quite considerate of you.”

“She did it for herself.”

Zhuang Huaisu couldn’t stand hearing a single good word about Ying Zhu, especially from her own family.

Yu Ruoyin and the others didn’t know Zhuang Huaisu’s past. One was Zhuang Ciyue’s great-aunt, the other Jiang Huaining’s friend. Between taking sides or reconciling, Yu Ruoyin chose the latter first: “Granny Zhuang, is there some misunderstanding between you and Her Ladyship Ying Zhu?”