YI Lier had originally taken four wives and fathered more than ten children, but only two sons survived to adulthood—both now serving as officials in the capital. Lu Da had been sent to live with his brother in the capital at age ten and had never returned to Fujian City since. After more than a decade of separation, when his father heard that his youngest son wanted to return home, his first instinct was to tell him not to come. Perhaps because he had been repeatedly dissuaded over the past ten years, this time Lu Da finally refused to obey and insisted on returning no matter what.
He Simu laughed, her voice carrying a note of mockery. "What's the matter? Is the master afraid his son will discover the ghostly aura permeating this mansion? You're his father—his wealth, glory, and even his life were all given by you. Are you afraid he'll put righteousness before family ties?"
An embarrassed expression crossed YI Lier's face.
Everyone in Fujian City knew that YI Lier's youngest son was an exceptional talent, his pride and joy. Even Huchi nobles of higher bloodlines would treat YI Lier with extra courtesy out of respect for Lu Da.
Yet he didn't even dare to see his own youngest son.
Duan Xu, gripping his sword, turned his gaze toward He Simu. She met his eyes and then snapped her fingers decisively. "Since we've already been staying at Master YI Lier's mansion for so many days, you might as well help him. Ghosts can travel quickly. Go intercept Lu Da and find a way to send him back to the capital."
Duan Xu fell silent for a moment, then said quietly, "But you…"
"Don't worry about me."
Duan Xu's gaze shifted between YI Lier and He Simu, lingering on her face before he smiled. "I understand."
Clutching his sword, he bid farewell to He Simu and YI Lier with a slight bow. "Take care."
The black-robed youth wearing a veiled hat turned nimbly and walked out of the mansion, his form melting into the brilliant spring scenery like ink dissolving in water.
Tonight's dream felt too real.
He Simu found herself in the small city where she had lived when she was very young—prosperous and bustling, with vendors calling out their wares in sing-song voices, steaming wonton stalls releasing savory clouds of fragrance, and sunshine so bright it seemed to paint everything gold.
She had grown very slowly as a child, taking a hundred years to reach what resembled adulthood, after which she stopped growing entirely. Like her body, her mind had matured at an agonizingly gradual pace.
It seemed to be when she was around twenty years old, though she still appeared as a five or six-year-old mortal child. She was fishing in the river with a group of children, the water cool against her legs, when a little girl—whose face she could no longer recall clearly—asked her amid the beautiful spring scene: "Why is your body so cold?"
Before she could formulate an answer, a boy nearby piped up knowingly: "Don't you know? She's a celestial child! She's a child brought by the Star Lords from the Star Palace."
She tilted her head in confusion. "What is a celestial child?"
"A celestial child is an immortal who looks like a small child, who can command wind and rain and never grows old! When we all grow old and die, you'll still be young."
"Celestial children also help us defeat demons and catch evil spirits, just like those adults at the Star Palace."
Various explanations tumbled from those children whose faces had blurred in her memory over the centuries, describing her and her mother, aunt, and uncle with a mixture of awe and affection.
Actually, at that time, she didn't know what she was. She only possessed a vague awareness that she was different from other children, and that these people could never see her father. Her father had also forbidden her from telling others about his existence, which struck her as strange.
So she ran to find her father and asked him what death was.
Her father stood tall in the brilliant sunlight, his silhouette sharp against the sky. Hearing this question, he seemed somewhat surprised and crouched down, his peach-blossom eyes studying her with uncommon seriousness. He said, "Death is when one transforms into a bright lantern rising into the sky, temporarily leaving this human world, and then starting over as another life."
"If one starts over… is that person still the original one?"
"Yes and no. The original person can never truly return."
"Will I also become a bright lantern?"
"No, only living people who die become lanterns. Simu…" Her father's voice dropped, hesitant. "You're already dead."
She was already dead—what did that mean?
Stunned, she asked in bewilderment, "I haven't even lived yet, and I'm already dead. Why haven't I started over?"
Her father appeared to contemplate this seriously for a long time, as if this was an overly complex question. He didn't seem to know how to explain it to her, or perhaps how to explain it without making her sad. In the end, he simply held her shoulders and patted her back gently, saying, "I'm sorry."
In her memory, her father often apologized to her mother, but that was the first time he had apologized to her.
She didn't understand why her father said this, nor did she grasp what she needed to forgive.
She thought she was quite happy—with her parents, aunt and uncle, and all these friends surrounding her. If life could continue like this forever, what difference did life and death make?
Not understanding the meaning of this apology was truly a blessing.
Later, when she left that small city with her father, mother, aunt, and uncle, the entire population came to see them off. She had originally been holding her mother's hand, but soon her mother's hands overflowed with gifts from people, unable to clasp hers anymore. Even her own pockets bulged with candies, and her hands gripped a basket laden with pastries.
She asked her uncle in confusion, "Why are they doing this?"
Her always gentle and strong uncle smiled warmly and said, "Because they love us."
These mortals loved their relatives, lovers, friends, and this vast world. If you allowed them to love and be loved peacefully, then every bit of that love became connected to you somehow.
Perhaps they didn't know you, didn't know your name, and weren't even aware of your help.
But they loved you.
She didn't fully grasp these words at the time; she just turned her head in a daze and spotted those friends who had played with her in the crowd. Those children laughed joyously and waved frantically at her, so she raised her pastry basket high and waved back at them.
She called out, "Goodbye."
She thought life stretched long ahead, and there would always be time to meet again. She didn't know then that she had already seen these people for the last time in her existence, and that "see you again" would remain an unfulfilled promise echoing across the centuries.
She also didn't get to say goodbye to her aunt and uncle.
When her aunt and uncle passed away, it was a scene of devastating grandeur. Shocked by the intense spiritual power fluctuations rippling through the air, she rushed out the door to witness that in the September autumn weather, heavy snow had begun to fall—impossible, unseasonable flakes fluttering down to blanket the ginkgo trees, maple leaves, and osmanthus branches.
Others told her that the snow was red, like New Year's firecracker fragments dancing in the sky, but she didn't know what red looked like. She simply stood there, transfixed, watching those two bright lanterns slowly ascending into the sky, nestling close to each other amid the wind and snow, suddenly not knowing where to go or what to do.
Her aunt would no longer slip her little trinkets, and her uncle would no longer present her with books. They would no longer come to shield her when her mother punished her. They might be reborn into this world, but being reborn meant that she would have no connection with them anymore—they would be strangers wearing familiar souls.
Her father told her that her aunt's family had a predetermined fate, and her aunt had already lived the longest in their lineage.
"One day your mother will also leave us, and finally only us father and daughter will be left, which is a bit desolate." Her father sighed and smiled as he stroked her hair with infinite tenderness.
Her father said they would depend on each other—he had promised.
But her father broke his promise too.
That year, she wore mourning clothes adorned with white flowers, sitting beside her mother's coffin in the hushed stillness of grief. Her mother lay quietly in the coffin, as if merely sleeping. Due to her cultivation, when her mother passed away at over ninety years old, she still appeared as a young woman, with no trace of aging to mar her features.
He Simu held a jade box filled with ashes.
Or rather, this box contained her father.
She gently stroked the coffin made of sturdy, fine nanmu wood threaded with gold that her mother had personally selected while still alive. Her mother had always maintained that birth, aging, illness, and death were the natural way of the human world, and one shouldn't be overly concerned about them. Indeed, her mother had passed away naturally after reaching her appointed age.
She didn't know whether she should care or not. She thought she should have the right to grieve, or refuse to accept it.
But she was no longer a child with both parents who could throw tantrums and act spoiled.
So she climbed into the coffin, lying beside her mother, and stretched out her arms to hold her mother tightly as she had done in childhood, still clutching the jade box containing her father's ashes.
She whispered softly, "Look, I can now hold both of you with one arm."
"You said you loved me, but you all left one by one, leaving me behind. You liars."
She had matured enough to comprehend her fate fully.
Born already dead, a ghost ever since, eternally unchanging. All she loved was as fleeting as smoke, as temporary as morning dew, while only the abyss would accompany her—as enduring as the heavens, as permanent as the stars.
In the silent afternoon, she curled up in her mother's coffin, making herself small. No one answered her soliloquy; only the Ghost King's lamp jade pendant at her waist gave off a faint, eerie glow. She removed it and held it up, examining it repeatedly in the dim light.
"Left me… with this thing," she murmured.
The sunlight pierced intensely through the Ghost King's lamp, refracting into prismatic colors. At that moment, she vaguely perceived a strange and subtle sensation she had never experienced before, as if another presence lingered beside her.
It was a scent.
This word materialized suddenly in her mind, as if it had manifested from nowhere. She froze—the concept of scent was something foreign and distant to her, seemingly existing only in others' descriptions, never her own experience.
What is a scent?
Why did she instantly determine that this was a scent, this lingering, crisp essence that floated like threads of wind, wrapping around her nostrils and heart, making something within her chest constrict?
This was… sandalwood, amber, styrax, mint leaves, baiji, benzoin…
This was…
This was…
Duan Xu's fragrance.
His sachet.
He Simu's hands stilled as she held the Ghost King's lamp. In a silence as long as the changing of seas into mulberry fields, she methodically tidied away her bewilderment and sorrow, folding them into distant corners of her heart, then softly laughed: "Trying to browse through my memories to find my vital point, Lord of the Yao Ghost Palace, you've gone to great lengths."
The sunlight, coffin, jade box, and Ghost King's lamp all vanished at once, dissolving like mist. When He Simu opened her eyes again, she saw a full moon hanging in the sky like a watching eye. She sat in YI Lier's garden, surrounded by an intricate magical formation. Before her, a crystal pagoda surged with intense ghostly energy, as if shrouded in writhing black mist, while YI Lier stood beside the crystal pagoda, nervously watching her with barely concealed anxiety.
He Simu smiled gently, her expression serene despite what she'd just experienced, and addressed the ghostly energy within the crystal pagoda: "Lord of the Yao Ghost Palace, it's truly difficult to meet you."
Far away near the capital, Lu Da entered his room at the post station and closed the door behind him. Sensing an unusual atmosphere permeating the space, he frowned and turned around to discover his window standing wide open. In the silver moonlight, a black-robed youth wearing a black veiled hat leaned casually against the window frame.
An evil ghost—an evil ghost holding a spiritual sword.
That evil ghost stepped closer to him, seemingly wanting to speak. Lu Da frowned and extracted a bone flute from his sleeve—a flute fashioned from eagle bone, carved with strange Huchi text that seemed to writhe in the moonlight. When the bone flute sounded, its shrill noise cut through the air like a blade. The ghost symbols on the evil ghost's veiled hat became visible, glowing briefly, then suddenly shattered and fell away.
As the veiled hat tumbled to the floor, the youth's features became fully visible. His eyebrows and eyes were deep-set, his features distinct and refined—handsome and bright, with rounded, upturned eyes containing a layer of light that seemed almost alive.
Lu Da lowered his bone flute in surprise and said, "Seventeen?"
The youth appeared even more surprised. He remained silent for a moment, then smiled warmly and said, "The Young Priest recognizes me?"
Lu Da stepped forward and placed his hand on Duan Xu's arm, immediately feeling the cold ghostly energy emanating from it—unmistakable, undeniable.
"You've been missing for many years. So you're already dead?"
"…"
Duan Xu nodded and said with grave seriousness, "Indeed."
"Then why have you appeared here?"
"To be honest, your father sent me to drive you back to the capital." Duan Xu paused, then his expression shifted into a bright smile. "Of course, that was just an excuse your father used to send me away."
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