Chapter 5 - Punishment
Since both Chen Ying and He Xiaoxiao were visibly shaken, Meng Wan instructed Old Xu to report the matter to the General, then offered to escort them home.
He Simu dabbed away the last of her tears, lifted her arm, and pointed toward a nearby courtyard.
“Commander, there’s no need. We live just over there.”
Meng Wan’s eyes widened. She glanced from the courtyard to He Simu in disbelief.
“You live beside the Provincial Governor’s mansion? But isn’t that reserved for—”
Her words halted as realization struck.
“Could it be… the woman who saved the General today was you?”
He Simu pressed a hand against her chest and nodded.
“Indeed, it was my unworthy self.”
In an instant, Meng Wan’s pity hardened into fury. She seized He Simu’s wrist.
“So it’s true! You schemed your way close to the General—what is it you want? To send secrets to your master? To harm him?”
He Simu gave a low, amused laugh, as though she had just heard a child’s jest.
“Master?” she echoed softly. After a beat, she added, “Be at ease, Commander. I serve no Duke. If I intended the General harm, would I not have simply detained him during the assassination attempt and let him perish?”
Meng Wan’s eyes narrowed, burning with suspicion.
“Then your motives must lie elsewhere!”
“Well… that is true,” He Simu said lightly. She glanced down at Meng Wan’s hand still clutching her wrist and sighed inwardly at the girl’s stubbornness. At last she admitted, “I do have other intentions. To be honest, ever since the General descended like a celestial being to save Liang Province from disaster, I have admired him deeply. I only wished to be near him.”
Chen Ying gave a small gasp, his eyes lighting with mischief. The fear that had blanched his face faded, replaced by a child’s delight at fresh gossip.
“You!” Meng Wan snapped, her voice rising. “The General is of noble lineage. Only the ladies of the Southern Capital could ever be a match for him. How dare you—an obscure country girl—dream so wildly?”
He Simu suddenly leaned closer, her gaze meeting Meng Wan’s directly.
“And you? Are you a noble lady of the Southern Capital?”
Meng Wan faltered, her cheeks flushing. “I… not exactly—”
“Then there you have it. Neither of us are noble ladies, and neither of us can marry Duan Xu. Yet you like him, and so do I. With such common feelings, is it not Heaven’s will that we support one another? Don’t you agree?”
She smiled, patting Meng Wan’s rigid shoulder. The girl was struck speechless by her outrageous reasoning. With serene composure, He Simu turned away, taking Chen Ying’s hand and leading him home.
At the threshold, she paused and looked back over her shoulder.
“Commander Meng, thank you for saving us tonight. But remember—without talismans, it is wiser to flee from such ghosts.”
Her head tilted, her smile faint. Through the drifting snow, her face glimmered behind the black gauze of her veiled hat, like a lantern shrouded in silk.
“After all, even the bravest sheep should not throw themselves against a wolf.”
The night sank once more into silence.
Silence, at least, to mortal eyes.
On the outskirts, within a desolate cemetery, blue fire suddenly flared. From its glow, the figure of a woman emerged. As the flames died away, her embroidered, cloud-patterned shoes pressed into the sodden earth.
She wore a rust-red robe of ancient style, triple-layered and embroidered with honeysuckle. At her waist hung a white jade pendant carved into the likeness of a palace lantern, glowing faintly blue.
The Ghost King’s Lantern.
Her face was pale as frost, brows like willow, eyes shaped like a phoenix’s, a beauty so cold it seemed sculpted from death itself.
He Simu’s true form. Even when she chose to appear in flesh, one look would betray her as one of the dead.
She toyed with the jade pendant at her waist, her eyes bottomless pools of black. A lazy smile curved her lips.
“Come out.”
A curl of green smoke condensed into the form of the woman in green, who fell heavily to her knees, trembling.
“Y-Your Majesty… spare me…”
“Name?”
“Shao… Shao Yinyin…”
He Simu lifted her hand. The lantern at her waist shimmered, and in her grasp appeared a thick, timeworn book. She flipped its pages idly.
“Shao Yinyin. Died in Muling Town of Daizhou, on the seventh day of the third month, Gengzi year.”
“Yes… yes, this humble one—”
Before she could finish, He Simu called, her voice suddenly charged with invisible weight:
“Guan Huai.”
The name rang out like a bowstring released. A wisp of smoke thickened into an old man, stooped and wrinkled, his hair and beard trailing to the ground. Half his hair was still undone, dangling in his eyes.
“Your Majesty! Guan Huai is here!” he squeaked, bowing—only to realize he had been saluting a crooked locust tree. Hastily brushing aside his hair, he turned, nearly tripping.
“Your Majesty, forgive this old minister’s failing eyes…”
“Perhaps the Master of the Ghost of Plague Hall should cut off that hair of his,” He Simu said coolly.
Guan Huai clutched his locks in alarm. “That will never do! Once shorn, a ghost’s hair never grows back!”
He Simu tapped the book against a tombstone, her gaze indifferent.
“In the Thirty-Two Golden Wall Laws, Fifth Rule, Third Clause—recite it.”
He froze like a schoolboy put on the spot. At last, he stammered, “It is… ‘Do not consume children under ten years of age.’”
The book snapped shut in her hand. She pointed to the kneeling Shao Yinyin.
“Yet one of your hall’s ghosts tried to devour an eight-year-old before my eyes. Are your laws nothing but empty ink?”
Guan Huai grimaced. “This little one is newly turned, ignorant of the rules—”
He Simu’s smile chilled. “Ignorant? Shao Yinyin, bring out your jar. Let your master see your ignorance.”
Shao Yinyin shuddered, whispering pitifully, “I… I have no jar…”
“I said, bring it out.”
Light flared from He Simu’s pendant. Shao Yinyin screamed and, trembling, produced a jar painted with frolicking infants.
Guan Huai’s face darkened. “Fang Chang! Fang Chang!”
Another curl of smoke revealed a pale scholar, who knelt with grave courtesy.
“Greetings, Master, Your Majesty.”
Guan Huai rounded on him furiously. “I left the hall in your care, and this is the negligence you repay me with? To let ghosts hoard soul fires?”
He Simu turned the jar in her hands. The painted infants seemed to stir and laugh. Inside, six fragile soul fires flickered faintly.
“Killing children under ten. One crime. Hoarding their souls. Another. What is the punishment?”
The scholar pressed his brow to the ground. “Mercy, Your Majesty! Yinyin bore sons who all died; she herself perished in childbirth. Her obsession twisted her into what she is. I beg Your Majesty’s compassion—spare her.”
He Simu’s smile thinned. “Her story is written already in the ghost register. Recounting it to me serves nothing. Whether her sins were willful or not, I care little. But so long as I sit upon this throne—”
Her gaze sharpened.
“—my laws cannot be defied.”
Fang Chang lowered his head, jaw tight as his teeth ground together.
He Simu stepped closer, bending slightly so her cold smile hovered just above him. “Do you care for Shao Yinyin?”
“This minister…” Fang Chang’s gaze flickered helplessly toward Shao Yinyin.
“So you pity her, indulge her, and hide her crimes without reporting?”
“Absolutely not!”
He Simu let her fingers trace the jade pendant at her waist, her tone casual yet razor-sharp. “There’s a saying among mortals: spoiling a child is no different than killing them. The same holds true between lovers.”
Fang Chang opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Guan Huai cut him off.
“Her Majesty speaks the truth!” Guan Huai barked, his voice heavy with righteous fury. “Every grain of rice is precious. Did you forget the principles of life once you became ghosts? You cherish rice when eating it, yet dare to devour humans without restraint?”
His sharp eyes darted toward Fang Chang, silently warning him to hold his tongue. At the same time, he searched He Simu’s expression with anxious caution.
Shao Yinyin, face pressed to the ground, whimpered: “I beg Your Majesty’s mercy. This is my first offense—please, be lenient.”
He Simu’s lips curved faintly as she shifted her gaze to Guan Huai. “This is one of your hall’s evil ghosts. By rights, you should deal with her.”
At those words, Fang Chang’s face lit with relief, while Guan Huai’s body stiffened with dread. His fears were confirmed a moment later when He Simu stepped close, her hand landing on his hunched shoulder in a deceptively light pat.
“You deal with her,” she said, her smile cruel and quiet, “and I will deal with you. How does that sound?”
“This old minister…” Guan Huai faltered.
“I am currently on leave,” He Simu continued, her voice growing colder. “Jiang Ai and Yan Ke oversee the ghost realm in my absence. For today, you will accept your punishment first. As for her—” she tilted her head slightly toward Shao Yinyin without truly looking at her—“I don’t need to know what you do. But if her name remains in the ghost register seven days from now, we will revisit the matter.”
With that, He Simu brushed Guan Huai’s shoulder once more and vanished in a flash of searing blue flame, leaving behind only silence and the sting of her presence.
“This old minister bids Your Majesty farewell,” Guan Huai muttered, bowing low. When he straightened again, his breath escaped in a long sigh of relief, as though an entire mountain had been lifted from his back. His spine straightened, though the weight of her shadow lingered.
Turning toward the kneeling pair, his white hair wild and unkempt, Guan Huai’s face hardened with fury. “Fang Chang, what am I to do with you? Protecting your lover is one thing, but to defy Her Majesty? No excuse will soften her judgment. Shao Yinyin’s deeds are beyond forgiveness!”
Shao Yinyin’s eyes widened with terror, but before she could plead, Guan Huai roared again: “Only now do you tremble in fear? You felt no shame when hoarding soul fires, when slaughtering children for your own gain!”
Though his body was ancient, his voice—harsh as a cracked gong—rose with startling force. His beard flared wildly as though stirred by his own wrath.
Fang Chang, face pale, gently stroked Shao Yinyin’s back in comfort. His expression steeled, and he dropped into a deep kowtow. “Master, you are the eldest in the ghost realm, and even Her Majesty grants you respect. I beg you—plead for Yinyin. I will serve you as an ox, as a horse, for the rest of my days, never forgetting your kindness!”
Guan Huai’s eyes lingered on him, heavy with weariness. At last, he exhaled deeply. “Three thousand years I’ve lived, Fang Chang, yet what does that mean? When He Simu crushed the rebellion and drenched the halls in blood, she was not yet a hundred years old. A third of the hall masters perished by her hand—and each one older and stronger than you.”
His voice sank, grave and unyielding. “Were it not for her temper softening over the last century, your words just now would have earned you death—ten thousand times over.”
Fang Chang froze. The meaning was clear: Guan Huai would not save Shao Yinyin. His body crumpled as despair dragged him down, and he pressed his forehead to the ground.
“Once this matter is settled,” Guan Huai added, his tone slower, heavier, “you will go and apologize to Her Majesty on my behalf. Speak little. She despises disturbance during her leave.”
With a weary pat to Fang Chang’s shoulder, Guan Huai turned, his gaze flicking over the trembling Shao Yinyin. Shaking his head, he walked away.
For he, too, knew the truth: none could afford to offend He Simu, the Ghost King of unfathomable temper and unrivaled talent—the most dangerous being born in ten generations.