Chapter 14: Luminous Pearl
His voice was soft, his breath lingering like a sigh drifting through her very soul.
This whispered "He Xiao Xiao" made He Simu freeze. After a moment of startled surprise, she raised her eyebrows and asked, "Can you see me?"
But Duan Xu offered no response.
Only then did He Simu realize that Duan Xu wasn't looking at her—his gaze passed through her ethereal form, focusing on something far beyond her.
Following his line of sight, she turned to see the black crows swarming the sky above River Pass. The dark birds descended like black rain, cawing excitedly as they discovered their grisly feast, surrounding the pitiful Hu Qi corpses to peck at flesh and bone. The scene was identical to her arrival at Liang Province's capital—death announced by wings of shadow.
"He Xiao Xiao… has she arrived?"
Duan Xu's whisper wasn't meant for any mortal ear. The sight of the crow flock had conjured memories of He Simu in his mind.
She turned to study the depths of Duan Xu's eyes, dark as ocean trenches. Every moment from their first encounter until now flashed through her consciousness, and slowly, the corners of her lips curved upward in realization.
"From the beginning, you noticed me?"
In those crow-filled streets of Liang, she had stood holding a severed head like some harbinger of doom. Because he had paid attention even then, he now associated the black carrion birds with her presence.
"Then, that day in the cemetery, did you deliberately seek me out?"
"Then arranged for me to stay beside you, asked me about the wind, tested my five senses, step by step probing my true nature."
He Simu shook her head with something between admiration and disbelief, playing with the jade pendant-shaped Ghost King's Lantern in her palm. Her eyes were pitch black as midnight while Duan Xu continued his quiet vigil over the crow-darkened River Pass.
"How bold you are. A gentleman doesn't stand beneath a dangerous wall, yet you deliberately position yourself there. Are you betting that this wall won't collapse upon you?"
He couldn't hear her ethereal voice, and she required no answer from him.
Duan Xu suddenly stepped forward, his solid form passing directly through He Simu's spectral body. "We should go finish mopping up," he told his subordinates with military crispness.
The moment his mortal flesh crossed through her soul, the luminous pearl nestled against her breast began to tremble with unprecedented intensity. That strange, urgent pulsing froze He Simu in place like lightning striking twice in the same spot.
She turned back in profound disbelief, watching Duan Xu's figure move among his soldiers—a stark silhouette against the sea of soul fires painting the sky.
Her aunt's voice seemed to transcend three centuries, echoing with crystal clarity in her ears:
"Simu, your aunt has prepared a gift for you. Look at this luminous pearl; it will always follow your soul, and you can use it to contact me whenever needed. After I die, you can also use it to reach my bloodline."
"There is also a special spell woven within. Didn't you ask me what it feels like to be human? This enchantment allows you to borrow the five senses from the person with whom you cast it. If it encounters someone who can bear spiritual connection with you, it will naturally reveal itself."
A person who could be bound to her by ancient magic.
A person from whom she could borrow human sensation.
A person who hadn't appeared in three hundred years of searching.
Duan Xu. Duan Shunxi.
He Simu watched his retreating figure, that silhouette blurring into night's embrace, dissolving into the shadows of memory. In those distant recollections, her father, mother, uncle, and aunt still walked the human world in vibrant life, and all had been well with her existence.
Time had transformed everything, and stored within this luminous pearl lay a wish she had believed forgotten—the desperate desire to feel truly alive once more.
When the evil ghost Fang Chang came to deliver his report, their Ghost King occupied the luxurious chambers of a wealthy merchant in Shuo Province. She sat trimming a lamp wick with delicate precision, chin resting elegantly upon her hand, lost in contemplation that seemed to span centuries. Her gaze held that empty quality of minds dwelling in distant places.
Their Ghost King, though appearing young, remained perpetually inscrutable and terrifying to her subjects.
Sensing his arrival, He Simu's attention drifted languidly back to the present. "What brings you here?" she asked with studied carelessness.
"Reporting to Your Majesty—Shao Yin Yin has been executed, and Lord Guan Huai has received punishment. However, I am also guilty of sheltering Shao Yin Yin, so I have come to confess and accept whatever consequences you deem fit." Fang Chang dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead to the floor in submission.
"Guan Huai sent you, didn't he? That calculating old fox. You serve under him; why should I be the one dispensing your punishment?" He Simu's glance took in Fang Chang's hands pressed against the ground, clenched into trembling fists from suppressed tension.
Silence stretched between them before she smiled with hollow amusement. "What, are you harboring discontent?"
Fang Chang bit his lip hard enough to draw ghostly blood, then raised defiant eyes to meet He Simu's gaze. His heart churned with perceived injustice until he could no longer contain his rebellion.
"Your Majesty, I believe you favor the living far too much... Yin Yin became an evil ghost due to her obsession with children—craving them is simply her fundamental nature. Ordering her not to harm children under ten years old is essentially impossible. Evil ghosts hunt living mortals just as the living slaughter sheep and cattle. Isn't such behavior only natural and justified? Why impose so many arbitrary restrictions? It defies all reason."
The young evil ghost, dressed in scholarly robes, struck quite the pose of righteous indignation and moral superiority.
Listening to his passionate speech, He Simu couldn't suppress a burst of genuine laughter. She rose gracefully and leaned down to study the kneeling Fang Chang with predatory interest. "Reason? Was it because I argued persuasively that you all accepted me as your Ghost King?"
The Ghost King's Lantern at her waist suddenly blazed with malevolent brilliance, and ghostly fire erupted across Fang Chang's form. He screamed in shock and agony, flailing desperately as he struggled and rolled about the floor, but finding no escape from the supernatural flames.
He Simu crouched down to observe Fang Chang's writhing with clinical fascination. "Are you angry? Desperate? By what authority can I humiliate you, torture you, hold you captive in my palm, and toy with your existence at will?"
She snapped her fingers with casual precision, and the ghostly fire instantly extinguished. Fang Chang collapsed, breathing heavily while terror still coursed through his spiritual form. He Simu lifted his chin, forcing him to meet her eyes—now filled with equal measures of hatred and paralyzing fear—and smiled with deceptive sweetness.
"Those living people you murdered harbored identical thoughts before their deaths."
Stunned comprehension dawned across Fang Chang's features.
He Simu released her grip and spoke with deliberate nonchalance, "Natural and justified? What exactly constitutes natural behavior? Is whatever serves your desires automatically righteous?"
"Evil ghosts harbor the most consuming desires in all existence. Jiang Ai covets wealth beyond measure, Yan Ke thirsts for absolute power, Guan Huai clings desperately to his form of existence, and you—having failed the imperial examinations repeatedly—hunger for recognition and fame. If evil ghosts acknowledge no boundaries, if desires know no limits, they become the most unfathomable abyss threatening this world."
Fang Chang remained silent for an extended moment before prostrating himself completely. "I was... shortsighted in my understanding."
He Simu returned to the table with fluid grace, settling herself with refined elegance before lifting a delicate teacup, swirling its contents in thoughtful patterns. She couldn't gauge how much sincerity lay behind his submission, but she had never been a ruler who governed through virtuous example alone.
After caressing the porcelain for some time, she suddenly inquired, "Fang Chang, how long have you been deceased?"
The unexpected question startled him. "Reporting to Your Majesty—over five hundred years have passed."
"Do you still remember what it felt like to be truly alive? How does that compare to your current ghostly existence?"
"The sensation of living..." Fang Chang's expression grew wistful and bitter. "I cannot recall clearly. But the experience of dying remains vivid and profound."
"Isn't death merely an instant?"
"No, Your Majesty. For me, death proved exceedingly prolonged. From the moment I first failed the imperial examination, I began dying by degrees, and the pace of that dissolution accelerated exponentially thereafter. When I finally perished on the road to yet another examination, it wasn't death's beginning—it was death's merciful conclusion."
He Simu fell into contemplative silence. Wind whispered through window gaps, making the lamplight dance and casting shifting shadows throughout the chamber like restless spirits.
It's said there exists neither joy in life nor bitterness in death.
"You may withdraw," she said finally. "Don't disturb me for some time."
Fang Chang bowed deeply, rose with careful dignity, and departed.
He Simu withdrew the luminous pearl from her breast, studying its ethereal glow as if seeking profound answers within its depths. Suddenly, she smiled with reckless abandon. "Who cares about consequences? This is a once-in-a-millennium opportunity."
After a pregnant pause, she called out briefly, "Yan Ke."
Blue smoke materialized to her right, coalescing into the form of a man garbed in midnight black. He appeared to be in his late twenties, tall and powerfully built, with the same deathly pallor as Fang Chang. Sword-like eyebrows framed penetrating eyes, his features carved with stone-like precision, lips pressed in perpetual sternness that warned against casual approach.
Master of Kui Ghost Hall, Right Chancellor of the Ghost Realm—Yan Ke.
"Your Majesty." His bow carried respectful but measured deference.
He Simu frowned and cast him a sideways glance of displeasure. Yan Ke straightened and corrected himself smoothly, "Simu."
More than three centuries past, when the previous Ghost King met his end, suspicion poisoned the young leadership and rebellions erupted like wildfire. The two hall masters, Jiang Ai and Yan Ke, had helped He Simu crush those uprisings with ruthless efficiency. Now, with hard-won peace stabilizing the realm, these two had ascended to become the left and right ministers of the Ghost Domain.
They alone among all evil ghosts in the realm possessed permission to address He Simu by her given name.
He Simu gestured toward the chair beside her with gracious warmth. "A-Yan, please sit."
This young Ghost King remained perpetually unpredictable, her moods shifting like storm winds without warning. All twenty-four ghost ministers trembled in her presence, and even Yan Ke and Jiang Ai exercised extreme caution around her volatile nature.
However, experience had taught them that when He Simu used his formal name, they functioned as ruler and subject. When she called him A-Yan, they were friends—or as close to friendship as immortal beings of darkness could achieve.
Yan Ke relaxed marginally, his habitually stern expression softening as he approached the indicated chair and settled beside He Simu.
"A-Yan must be overwhelmed with responsibilities lately. Since Jiang Ai despises administrative duties, I fear all matters great and small fall upon your capable shoulders. Thank you for your dedicated service."
The primary instigator spoke these words with a relaxed smile, displaying absolutely no guilt about her deliberate negligence.
Yan Ke frowned at her with long-suffering patience. "How long do you intend to rest this time?"
"Half a year, perhaps longer."
"Half a year?" His voice carried sharp concern. "Given the volatile nature of our domain, if Your Majesty continues such extended idleness, I fear you won't be able to suppress those increasingly restless hearts among our subjects!"
He Simu studied Yan Ke intently, her eyes swirling with complex emotions and wearing an enigmatic smile that danced between genuine affection and calculated manipulation.
"When have I ever bothered with suppression? Haven't I always simply eliminated threats entirely? As long as they cannot defeat me for a single day, they must serve me for that same day." She waved her hand dismissively, cutting off his lecture before it could fully form. "I recall that Shun Province falls under your jurisdiction."
"Correct."
"I require information about wandering souls. Among those who died unnatural deaths in Ancient Tai of Shun Province during the eighth month of the fifth year of Tianyuan, are there any who became wandering souls? Provide me with their names and circumstances."
Yan Ke observed her for a long, calculating moment. "Very well. But what purpose does this serve?"
"What purpose?" He Simu caressed the luminous pearl with tender fascination. "I'm simply bored and seeking something interesting to occupy my time."
Yan Ke noted that she currently inhabited the body of a petite, sweetly beautiful young woman. Her relaxed and cheerful expression suggested she was thoroughly enjoying her current sabbatical from royal duties. Only when possessing human form would he witness such genuinely peaceful contentment on her features.
Suddenly, he remembered their first encounter—she had been dressed in white mourning garments, this eternally mysterious young mistress of the Ghost Realm who had been raised in the mortal world. She had lifted her gaze and smiled with deadly calm, saying, "My father has been utterly destroyed, and they believe I'm easily intimidated?"
Then, carrying the Ghost King's Lantern like a banner of war, she had carved a crimson path through the Ghost Realm with her terrifying supernatural gifts, permanently silencing all who harbored treacherous intentions.
She indeed possessed the absolute power to indulge in idleness whenever she pleased.
The chamber window behind He Simu remained open to the night air, and gusting wind lifted tablecloth and curtains in ghostly dance. Outside in the darkness, the brilliant soul fire lights that had blazed throughout the night finally began their inevitable dimming.
The Dan's sneak attack had suffered catastrophic losses, and Duan Xu had returned wreathed in triumph. This decisive victory significantly boosted Great Liang military morale while simultaneously relieving crushing pressure on the Yu Province battlefield.
Yet simultaneously, Dan reinforcements—the formidable Hulan army—had penetrated deep into Shuo Province, rapidly reclaiming four strategic cities. The Taibai forces had barely managed resistance; some withdrew toward Liang Province and demolished River Pass in retreat, while others concentrated at Shuo Province's capital, swelling its garrison to fifty thousand troops in a desperate last stand.
The capital of Shuo Province, that essential corridor for Dan reinforcements reaching Yu Province, had thus transformed into an isolated island surrounded by enemy territory—a fortress waiting for siege or salvation.
Previous/Next