Yilier's face transformed into a portrait of astonishment, the carefully maintained composure cracking like fine porcelain under sudden pressure.
He Simu observed his expression with the detached interest of a scholar studying an insect specimen. As if suddenly realizing she had revealed too much, she arranged her features into an apologetic smile. "It seems you don't know yet. Let's pretend I didn't say anything. Since the covenant between you and the Xu Ghost Palace Master still stands, you couldn't nurture my ghost anyway."
The words should have soothed, but they only deepened the furrow between Yilier's brows. His expression was distinctly unpleasant—like a man who had just discovered his favorite wine had been diluted—yet he still forced his lips into a smile. "I don't intend to nurture him myself. With this ghost brother by my side, I naturally have a better place for him."
Ah. Duan Xu felt the pieces clicking into place like a well-constructed puzzle. No wonder those nobles who had paid homage to the sacred object at the Yilier household all encountered such remarkable good fortune afterward. The wealthy master hadn't been showing them sacred relics at all—he had been introducing evil ghosts to them, brokering deals between the living and the dead like a merchant trading in supernatural favors.
He Simu continued eating with the leisurely air of someone who had all the time in the world, selecting choice morsels with her chopsticks while asking casually, "If you want my ghost, what do you have to offer in exchange?"
"Gold, silver, jewels…" Yilier began, his tone suggesting these were merely the opening gambit.
"Boring." She dismissed the offer without even glancing up from her meal.
"Then what does miss want?" A hint of frustration colored his words, quickly suppressed.
"I've heard Master Yilier has a garden filled with rare flowers and exotic plants." He Simu's voice carried the dreamy quality of one describing paradise. "Now that it's spring, the fragrances must be overwhelming."
"That's the rear garden of my mansion." Yilier's response came cautiously, sensing a trap but unable to see its shape.
"Then give me your mansion in exchange."
The words landed in the space between them like a stone dropped into a still pond. He Simu delivered this outrageous demand as smoothly and naturally as if she were asking for a cup of tea, without the slightest hint of self-consciousness or awareness of its absurdity.
Yilier was silent for a long moment, his expression cycling through disbelief, calculation, and something approaching respect for her sheer audacity. "We've been living there since arriving in Fujian City, for over thirty years now."
"Oh." He Simu's tone brightened with false understanding. "Then give me this mansion where you've lived for over thirty years."
The logic was nonexistent. The entitlement was breathtaking. Duan Xu had to suppress a laugh.
Yilier's expression froze completely before shattering into forced laughter. "Let me think about this. In the meantime, miss might as well stay at my residence. Whether this matter succeeds or not, consider it making a new friend."
He Simu put down her chopsticks with deliberate care and looked at Yilier directly. She tilted her head, and the silver tassels of her hairpins swept across her forehead like falling stars, catching the light in a way that was almost hypnotic.
"I don't make friends." Her smile was a blade wrapped in silk. "But the mansion, I can visit."
Yilier's expression changed several times in rapid succession—like clouds racing across a stormy sky. In Fujian City, he was accustomed to being flattered and fawned over, his every word treated as gospel. To be dismissed so cavalierly by a Han commoner, and a young woman at that, was an insult he was unaccustomed to swallowing.
He clenched his fist beneath the table where she couldn't see, his knuckles whitening with suppressed anger. But ultimately, pragmatism won over pride. He smiled, though the expression looked painful. "Very well. There's one more thing I'd like to ask you, miss. You mentioned that the Xu Ghost Palace Master is in trouble. What exactly happened? Can you share some details with me?"
The question emerged carefully measured, but He Simu could hear the desperation lurking beneath.
She tapped her fingers on the table in a rhythmic pattern—one, two, three—as if counting down to something. After a moment of calculated silence, she said with studied casualness, "He offended their king and has now fled in fear of punishment. He'll probably be caught and executed soon."
The words hung in the air like an executioner's blade.
After a pregnant pause, she smiled with false sympathy. "You probably haven't received any response when calling him recently, right? This is an undeserved calamity for you, truly. I've heard that conflicts in the ghost realm often last for decades—time moves differently for the dead, you understand. If he flees for decades, not responding to your calls, and you can't form a new covenant with another ghost while the old one still technically exists, your mortal life will simply... pass by."
She let that sink in before continuing with devastating gentleness. "If I were you, I'd hope for his quick annihilation so I could seek a new ghost without delay."
Yilier's expression had already been unpleasant, but after hearing He Simu's words, it became positively grim—like a man watching his fortune literally crumble to dust before his eyes.
Yet He Simu acted as if she hadn't noticed the darkness settling over his features. She stood up with a bright smile, smoothing her robes. "Weren't you going to invite me to your mansion as a guest? Let's go."
Then she snapped her fingers imperiously for Duan Xu to follow, as one might summon a particularly well-trained dog, and strolled out with the unhurried grace of nobility.
Yilier, who had probably never encountered someone so thoroughly impolite in all his years of accumulated wealth and power, stood stunned for a long moment. His mouth worked soundlessly before he finally recovered enough to call for servants to lead the way.
Duan Xu lifted a corner of his veiled hat's black gauze, glancing back at Yilier's troubled expression. He turned to whisper to He Simu with a smile threading through his voice, "I don't think I'm a rat in this scenario, but rather like bait. Commander Qin used me as bait to catch you, and now you're using me as bait too."
He Simu glanced at him sideways, her smile enigmatic as a cat's, and said nothing—which was answer enough.
Fujian City was renowned throughout the empire as a city of flowers, where every season painted the streets in different colors and filled the air with competing fragrances. As the wealthiest household in all of Fujian City—perhaps in all the southern provinces—the Yilier garden was naturally the finest specimen of horticultural artistry. It was filled with famous flowers and rare plants collected from across the known world, some so exotic they required specialized care and specific conditions to survive.
It was said that merely maintaining this garden cost ten thousand gold pieces annually, a sum that would feed entire villages for generations.
As soon as He Simu arrived at the Yilier residence, she unceremoniously plunged into his garden like a child let loose in a treasure house. She moved from plant to plant, looking here and sniffing there with single-minded focus, as if trying to catalog and memorize every scent in this vast collection.
Meanwhile, Duan Xu stood beside her with arms folded, his attention drawn to the famous glazed pagoda rising from the garden's center like a jewel thrust toward heaven.
The structure was entirely emerald green, constructed from glazed tiles so perfectly crafted they seemed to glow from within. Bells hung from each corner of every tier, crystalline and musical, tinkling in the sunlight like captured laughter. They were entwined with fine threads that caught the wind, creating an almost ethereal symphony.
Though supposedly merely a tower for housing sacred objects, if one didn't know better, they might mistake the glazed pagoda itself for the sacred object—such was its beauty and craftsmanship.
"Yilier worships evil ghosts and also enshrines Cang God's sacred objects. If the High Priest learned of this hypocrisy, Tianzhixiao would…" Duan Xu was saying thoughtfully as he turned his head, only to discover the Ghost Queen had abandoned all pretense of dignity.
She was crouching on the ground like a peasant girl, cradling a cluster of precious white peonies called "Lingxielu Snow" in her hands, her face nearly buried in the blooms.
The sight was so unexpectedly endearing that Duan Xu couldn't help but smile. "Stop burying your face in them. Even with the best nose in the world, your method of smelling will ruin it through overstimulation. Go smell the firewood in the woodshed later to restore your sense of smell a bit."
He Simu frowned, standing up with visible reluctance, petals clinging to her hair like snow. "Mortals are truly troublesome."
Duan Xu laughed heartily, the sound carrying genuine amusement. He brought the topic back to safer ground: "The Xu Ghost Palace Master was also a Han person in his former life, right?"
He Simu brushed petals from her sleeves with casual grace. "Han people outnumber Huqi people by more than three hundred times, and the same ratio applies in the ghost realm. All twenty-four Ghost Palace Masters were Han people in their previous lives."
She paused, considering how to explain the complexities of death politics to the living. "The laws of the ghost realm have nothing to do with ethnicity in theory, but Han evil ghosts, seeing their descendants suffering oppression while alive, naturally wouldn't treat Huqi evil ghosts with any kindness. In the ghost realm, Huqi ghosts have a significantly harder time."
"The circumstances of life and death reversed—how fascinating the world is." Duan Xu's voice carried philosophical wonder.
"Hatred breeds hatred, resentment breeds resentment. This is the natural order of things." He Simu's tone was matter-of-fact, as one might discuss the weather.
"If the hatred of the living could be severed, would the hatred of the dead cease as well?" The question emerged quietly, weighted with implications.
He Simu smiled lightly, the expression tinged with something that might have been sadness had she allowed herself such mortal emotions. She walked toward the back door of the garden, her voice drifting back to him. "The hatred of the living can be broken because the living die. After a few generations, the sharp edges of memory soften, the specific faces of enemies blur, and hatred naturally dissipates like morning mist. But the dead remain for thousands of years, their memories crystallized and perfect, and here hatred never ends."
She paused at the threshold, glancing back. "Otherwise, why do you think becoming an evil ghost is considered a punishment for humans rather than a reward?"
Duan Xu gazed at her retreating back, something complex moving through his expression. "Where are you going?"
He Simu didn't look back, her voice carrying a hint of dry humor. "To the woodshed to smell the scent of fire, as you so wisely suggested."
Duan Xu couldn't help but laugh. She did indeed seem to have come to the Yilier mansion solely to collect scents for her damaged senses, rather than to search for traces of the Xu Ghost Palace Master or investigate the sacred objects. He said softly, though she was already too far to hear, "How adorable."
Thanks to Duan Xu's eyes—enhanced by their connection through the Ghost King's Lantern—he possessed the rare ability to discern yin and yang energies, to see the invisible architecture that underlay the mortal world. He could perceive that the ghost energy in the Yilier mansion was remarkably well-contained, controlled with expert precision.
Unless one entered the glazed pagoda in the garden directly, the supernatural presence was almost imperceptible. Even the wandering souls that he commonly observed drifting through the streets outside—lost spirits seeking resolution or simply too confused to move on—couldn't be spotted within this residence.
Someone had gone to considerable effort to make this place appear clean.
He had heard that the glazed pagoda enshrined the Cang God's sacred object, yet he couldn't detect any divine spiritual energy emanating from within the structure. Instead, there was a faint ghostly aura lingering around it, like incense smoke that refused to fully dissipate.
Curious. It seemed that this tower was dedicated not to sacred objects but to the Xu Ghost Palace Master. Could the talk of sacred objects be entirely false, mere rumor to explain Yilier's success? Or had the master enshrined them elsewhere, in some hidden location?
As Duan Xu pondered these mysteries while following He Simu to the woodshed, he overheard two old women stationed at the door. They were whispering to each other with the conspiratorial delight of servants discussing their betters, talking about the strange guest the master had invited—a rather beautiful young woman who had inexplicably run to the woodshed to smell firewood, of all things.
Duan Xu smiled beneath his veil, about to enter, when he heard one of the women say with wistful nostalgia, "This young lady seems about the same age as Young Master Lu Da. If Young Master Lu Da were home, I'd think the master had finally found him a daughter-in-law."
Duan Xu's steps halted abruptly, as though he'd walked into an invisible wall.
The other woman sighed deeply. "The young master hasn't returned even once since he went to the capital at age ten—can you imagine? A child, sent away and never coming home. It seems the master doesn't want him to come back."
"What are you saying?" The first woman's voice dropped to a scandalized whisper. "With only two children left after the others died, how could the master not want…"
Duan Xu strode past them into the woodshed with perhaps more force than necessary, cutting off their gossip. He found He Simu crouching among the neatly stacked firewood, picking through the pieces with the focused intensity she brought to all her scent-gathering endeavors.
"Simu, is Yilier's younger son, the high official serving in the capital… Lu Da?"
He Simu selected a particularly fragrant piece of firewood, raising her eyes to look at him with mild curiosity. "What, another old acquaintance of yours? How many people do you know?"
Duan Xu's eyes flickered with something complex—recognition, calculation, perhaps concern. He smiled, though the expression felt slightly forced. "I could hardly claim acquaintance. The Dan Zhi High Priest's prized disciple, Junior Priest Lu Da—who in the Dan Zhi royal court wouldn't know of him? Though he likely doesn't know me, or wouldn't remember if we passed in a corridor."
The memories surfaced unbidden. During his time as a death warrior stationed at Tianzhixiao, he would occasionally accompany his master to visit the High Priest for consultations or ceremonies. He would see Lu Da each time, a constant presence at the High Priest's side.
Lu Da was three or four years older than him, elegant in appearance with refined features that seemed almost too perfect—like a painting of what a holy man should look like. He possessed an otherworldly air that set him apart from common mortals, always sitting quietly beside the High Priest in perfect stillness. He would be looking down at ancient parchments, seemingly reading with deep concentration yet also appearing mentally elsewhere, as though his spirit walked in realms others couldn't perceive.
Lu Da looked very "empty," and it was widely said that this quality of emptiness—this ability to void oneself of earthly attachments and desires—was the most important qualification for communing with the gods.
Yilier's younger son was Lu Da. The realization settled heavy in his mind. The son of a family that nurtured small ghosts and trafficked with the dead was simultaneously the nation's Junior Priest and quite possibly the future High Priest—the holiest figure in the entire Dan Zhi religious hierarchy.
The world was truly absurd in its contradictions.
"If it's Lu Da… what wouldn't the High Priest be willing to give him if he asked? Sacred relics, rare artifacts, anything." Duan Xu's mind worked through the implications. "Perhaps Yilier does have genuine sacred objects after all, gifts from a grateful High Priest to his favored disciple's family."
Comparing Yilier's current ball-like physique—round and prosperous from decades of rich living—with his remembered image of the ethereal, almost painfully thin Lu Da, Duan Xu couldn't help but exclaim with dark humor, "Time is truly a butcher's knife, carving us all into unrecognizable forms."
He Simu inhaled the fresh, clean scent of the firewood—pine and cedar, honest smells unmarred by complexity—and said with perfect flatness, "Time will butcher you as well."
Duan Xu bent down until he was level with her crouching form, bringing his veiled face close to hers. "Time should be kinder to me since I turn misfortune into fortune at every turn. Becoming ugly would be a great misfortune, after all."
His eyes appeared and disappeared through the shifting gaps in the black gauze like stars glimpsed through moving clouds. Even though his full expression wasn't clearly visible through the veil, the smile in his voice was unmistakable—warm, teasing, affectionate.
He Simu looked up at him, meeting his partially obscured gaze.
Sometimes her curse-bound man was remarkably obedient—when she had instructed him to wear the veiled hat to conceal his presence from mortal eyes in the human world, he had never once removed it in public, maintaining the disguise with perfect discipline.
But at other times... at other times he stole kisses from sleeping Ghost Queens and pushed every boundary she set with the persistence of water wearing down stone.
He Simu frowned, pushing him away with both hands against his chest, and stood up in one fluid motion. "Let's go," she said blandly, her tone revealing nothing.
As she walked out through the woodshed door, the two old women hurriedly bowed with exaggerated respect. After she passed and turned the corner, they immediately resumed their whispering—now discussing whether the young lady had just pushed at empty air, whether she had been talking to herself, and how peculiar and possibly unhinged she seemed.
Duan Xu laughed heartily at their confusion and followed He Simu out into the garden's afternoon light.
Yilier, despite being the wealthiest man in Fujian City with massive business interests to manage and an intricate web of social relationships to maintain, still found time to personally attend to his two unusual guests. His attention, however, focused particularly on Duan Xu.
He was deeply, almost obsessively interested in this obedient "evil ghost" who followed the young woman's commands so docilely. He would often approach Duan Xu when He Simu was distracted by flowers, asking indirect questions about how exactly he had formed a covenant with Miss Seventeen, what the terms of their agreement were, what price she had paid for his service.
He also dropped increasingly heavy hints about the various benefits Duan Xu would enjoy by coming to his side instead—how wealthy and powerful the nobles he associated with were, what opportunities existed for a ghost willing to serve the right masters, how much more prestigious his position could become.
Duan Xu would express amazement at appropriately timed intervals, making sounds of interest and surprise. But he remained frustratingly vague about his name, his origin, his history as a human, and most importantly, his attitude toward Yilier's offers.
The human and ghost pair seemed to have taken up residence in the mansion simply to enjoy free food and drink and the spectacular garden, with no apparent ulterior motives beyond collecting pleasant experiences.
Three days after they arrived at the Yilier residence—three days of eating expensive delicacies, wandering through exotic gardens, and generally behaving like particularly entitled houseguests—Yilier suddenly came to find them in obvious agitation.
He discovered He Simu and Duan Xu in the garden pavilion. He Simu was examining a sandalwood fan she had acquired from somewhere, testing its weight and balance with the critical eye of a connoisseur.
"Miss Seventeen," Yilier said with poorly concealed urgency, "there's something I'd like to ask for your help with."
He Simu continued weighing the fan, watching it balance on one finger. "What is it?"
"My son Lu Da will be returning to Fujian City to visit me soon." Yilier's expression was troubled, almost pained. "Could you ask this ghost brother to intercept him and make him return to the capital immediately?"
The request hung in the air, laden with implications neither He Simu nor Duan Xu fully understood.
Yet.
Previous/Next
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)