Chapter 69: Drowning Sorrows in Wine (Part 2): Do You Want to Drown Your Sorrows Too? Part 2

It was probably a terrifying sight; Shang Shan shrank even smaller. “I saw that troublemaker squatting in front of me, smiling at me, talking to me.”

Mu Qian Tan said, “But she was dead, right?”

Shang Shan trembled as she said, “Yes, she was dead, but she still talked to me… She said…”

She gulped and whispered, “She said that at such a young age, I had a heavy killing intent, no remorse, fated with baleful aura, destined to bring death to those around me!”

The eerie tone was chillingly vivid, sending a cold wind behind the listener’s ears. She must have replayed it day and night to remember every inflection so clearly.

Mu Qian Tan somewhat understood why she was reluctant to kill. She was simply afraid the accumulated debt of lives would bring doom to those around her. She could not help sneering, “You believe that kind of talk?”

But Shang Shan acted as if she had suffered a great injustice, flailing her limbs. “But, but I have nothing left. I’m all alone now!”

Mu Qian Tan looked at her and asked in her mind, ‘What does she mean by that?’

Li Biyuan was probably slacking off. She put on her earpiece properly before asking again what happened. After learning about it, she flipped through the original story. ‘There is that incident. You’ve always skipped character backstory, missing a lot… Ah, no chit-chat. Let me see.’

A moment later, she said, ‘I’ll summarize it simply for you, Sister Tan. Bear with me and listen. When the Female Protagonist first bounced out of the mountains, she was in a completely uncivilized state, clueless about human relations, not even knowing she was human. In her early life, she met three especially important people.’

‘These three raised her and shaped her personality and worldview. They were her eyes, ears, and channels to understanding the world. And all three were good, righteous, noble people in the worldly sense, which is why the Female Protagonist is like this now.’

‘But why did the Female Protagonist leave there and end up in a small village, meeting you?’

‘It was because those three—one fell gravely ill, one died tragically, one died unjustly. None had a good end. Unable to face the empty homeland alone, she sneaked away.’

After hearing this, Mu Qian Tan said, ‘No wonder.’

Her reluctance to kill was not entirely out of pity for life but more out of fear of bearing that baleful aura.

Unfortunately, this Brain-Damaged Dragon did not understand. That troublemaker’s ghost was just an ordinary one, formed from a bit of fresh resentment after death, cursing the one who harmed her. But she had no power; her words had no effect, no impact. No one needed to suppress it—it would dissipate into nothing after a few steps in the sunlight.

To take a ghost’s words to heart and live by them in fear was because her friends had indeed died one after another.

She had been so young then, only three, unable to distinguish salt from sugar, let alone right from wrong. She knew no immortal arts, no ghost curses, so she believed it true—that she had killed and caused her friends to leave one by one.

Clutching her ears, Shang Shan said dejectedly, “If I do bad things and get bad results, I accept it. But if I do good things and still get bad results, what do I do? I didn’t want to say it, but the way you think of me makes me so sad. I had to tell you.”

“I’m not afraid of wronged spirits or ghosts, not afraid of anyone coming for revenge. But…” Shang Shan scooted closer and asked softly, “If those ghosts want to harm not me, but the people around me, what do I do?”

Mu Qian Tan was speechless for a moment.

Receiving the deepest harm at the most vulnerable time caused some people to carry childhood shadows they could never erase for the rest of their lives. A person’s various concepts were often established in childhood, profound and unforgettable, forming fixed patterns of thought that were not easily reversed or uprooted.

Before being pushed to the brink and encountering a specific event, they could not be swayed by words—no matter what was said, it was useless.

Her fingertips tapped lightly on her knee as she asked, “You catch rats to accumulate merit?”

Shang Shan nodded. “Yes, I’ve accumulated enough that I can do a little bad now. But more importantly, it’s to make money. I have to support myself.”

She patted her pocket and said with utter sadness, “Now I’m flat broke!”

Mu Qian Tan said, “Serves you right. Those bounties weren’t small. If you hadn’t given the money to that Old Granny, wouldn’t you have become rich overnight?”

Shang Shan replied, “But she needed it more than me. Even if I have no money, I still have you, Master. You wouldn’t let me starve, right?”

The woman drank her wine in silence. Shang Shan raised her voice. “Master, you won’t refuse to feed me, right?”

Mu Qian Tan said, “Go catch rats at the Tianyu Sect to earn money.”

Shang Shan drooped her head dispiritedly. “Fine.”

One bowl of wine reached the bottom, adding fire to her already warm stomach and driving away the chill from her limbs. Mu Qian Tan picked up the wine jug and poured the milky-white rice wine into her bowl. Her expression remained calm. “That ghost was talking nonsense. Killing someone won’t cause the deaths of those around you. There’s no such thing in the world…”

It was exactly one bowl’s worth. She took a sip, and her words halted. Impatient, Shang Shan finished for her. “There’s no such bad thing in the world?”

“No, there’s no such good thing in the world.”

Mu Qian Tan turned to look at her. “If there really was such a fate, then whoever you hated, you’d just make friends with them. Kill one enemy, and the rest would die off too. Use your brain—doesn’t that sound wonderful? The perfect revenge.”

She had been comforted before, but Shang Shan had never been able to convince herself. Yet facing this line of reasoning for the first time made her feel like her whole world had flipped. Her head spun dizzily. “Is that how it is?”

Mu Qian Tan said, “That’s how it is.”

Her limited thinking reached a deadlock. Shang Shan’s entire face flushed red, clearly her brain overloaded. She shook her head, not wanting to think anymore, and flopped backward, sprawling out her body.

After lying silently for a moment, she rolled over and poured herself a cup of rice wine. She stretched out her arm to clink glasses with Mu Qian Tan, but the woman ignored her, so she just clinked the air and took small sips from her bowl.

Her wandering thoughts drifted somewhere else, and she asked, “That Miss Wen from the Wen Family—why did she kill the Silver Snake? And why didn’t her mother escape earlier? Wouldn’t it have been easier to run before Miss Wen was around? And also, why was her mother so obsessed with that opera? Was it really that good?”

“Why do you have so many whys?” Mu Qian Tan said impatiently. “Wen Yu killed the Silver Snake purely because she went mad. Who understands a madman’s thought process? As for her mother, what else could she do? She’d sung opera her whole life and thought she was the character Yu Yan in the play, believing in love. But reality didn’t go as planned, her worldview collapsed, and she went mad too.”

“Oh, I see. But she’d been hurt so many times—shouldn’t she have seen long ago that Wen Wu wasn’t a good man?”

“Because she was deceiving herself.”

“Deceiving herself?”

“She’d already entered the marriage and invested so much. How could she stop there? She could only lie to herself that love was still great, that it could overcome any hardship, and she had to believe it. Otherwise, what had all her sacrificed emotions, youth, and self been for? Did she have the courage to deny her past life and admit total failure?”

“But in the end, she couldn’t keep deceiving herself, so she… gave up.”

The glow of dusk had long faded. No lamps were lit in the room, only a veil of moonlight. Mu Qian Tan’s voice was as cold as that moonlight. “If you don’t know to rein in at the brink of the precipice, you’ll shatter to pieces.”

Silence filled the room. Shang Shan licked the bottom of her bowl. After a moment, she spoke. “So what should she have done?”

“What else? She should have recognized that she’d misjudged the person and cut ties decisively.” Mu Qian Tan lifted her bowl, her tone suddenly turning icy. “But if it were me, and I reached that final step of certain death, I definitely wouldn’t go alone. I’d drag that Wen bastard down to Hell with me.”

Shang Shan pondered. “If it were me, I’d probably take Wen Yu with me.”

Mu Qian Tan said, “Unfortunately, we’re not her. Everyone can only grasp their own fate.”

“I think I get it.” Shang Shan raised her hand again. “I want to ask one more thing. When you went to that Azure Bamboo Garden, why did everyone listen to you? That was their turf, and there were so many of them. Even if you’re the strongest, you couldn’t beat them all at once. Why did they lie for you like that?”

Mu Qian Tan said, “You should ask fewer whys. Just listening to others without thinking for yourself won’t lead to understanding.”

Shang Shan said, “What I think might not be right.”

Mu Qian Tan glanced at her. “What I say is definitely right?”

Shang Shan said, “I like hearing you talk.”

Mu Qian Tan withdrew her gaze. “Do I owe you something? Because you like it, I have to talk?”

She had drunk half the wine in her bowl. Quick as a flash, Shang Shan grabbed the jug, bit her lower lip, and blinked as she refilled it, acting every bit the diligent follower who revered her. “You’ve talked so much—does your throat hurt? Cat Official is pouring wine for Master.”

Perhaps due to some secret, unspoken pleasure, watching the protagonist—who would one day trample the world underfoot and whom the author cherished—humbly serve her brought an indescribable thrill.

Mu Qian Tan took a sip to humor her before saying, “When dealing with elders, use ‘you’ formally.”

Shang Shan fawned diligently. “Cat Official is pouring wine for you!”

Mu Qian Tan chuckled derisively before drawling slowly, “You saw how many people were in the Azure Bamboo Garden—plenty of them, but their hearts weren’t united. Officials are officials, commoners are commoners. Mortals are mortals, rogue cultivators are rogue cultivators. Everyone has their own schemes and goals. Before figuring out what others think, who dares to step forward?”

“Those who go along with me might catch my eye, get taken under my wing, and soar to the heavens. What’s the benefit in publicly exposing my lies? Normal people wouldn’t put themselves in such a disadvantageous position.”

Shang Shan scrunched up her face, set down the jug, and scratched her head. “Fine.”

She swung her legs. Seeing the woman’s bowl empty again, she hurried to refill it and casually asked, “Why are you drinking so much? Do you want to drown your sorrows too?”