ATEG Chapter 92.1

“This place is quite remote and desolate, not at all suitable for receiving guests.” This was a gentle, clear voice, as if even sighs were slow and prolonged.

“This place certainly is not,” Li Chi replied.

“This is also not a good place to take shelter.”

“Indeed it is not.”

“I cannot think of anything here that would be worth someone making a special trip for and waiting seven hours. So I could only wait as well.”

“Cannot think of?” Li Chi suddenly smiled, his tone matching his steps as he walked unhurriedly toward the urn of ashes. “If I only used thinking, I would not understand either what there is here worth your making a special trip for and waiting twenty-three years.”

“You… what are you doing?!” Two small ghosts ran out from under the table, trembling as they blocked the urn of ashes.

More ghosts with pale greenish-white bodies silently blocked in front of the two small ghosts.

“Go about your own business.” A figure drifted out from the urn of ashes, his tone carrying quite a bit of helplessness.

His stature was tall and imposing, his shoulders thicker and more solid than ordinary people. If judging by normal human body structure, this thickness did not come from muscle, but rather his scapulae seemed to be thicker and broader than ordinary people—unusual yet harmonious.

Besides this, though his complexion was slightly paler than ordinary people, it did not show the greenish-white pallor of other ghosts. If one did not look carefully, mistaking him for a living person would not be impossible.

This was a ghost who had achieved success in cultivation, but the method he practiced was not the usual path taken by ghost cultivators. He had little yin energy about him, nor the resentment and malevolence common to ghosts. Instead, he emanated a gentle, warm aura.

A ghost like him had long since freed himself from the need to remain confined to temples out of fear that resentment would devour his consciousness. The compassionate thoughts that came with people’s offerings were no longer necessary for him either.

Therefore, his remaining here must have a certain purpose.

But regardless of why he remained here, the ghosts in this temple, having received his teachings and been freed from the suffering of resentment, respected and loved him, regarding him as their teacher.

The small ghost looked up at him in confusion. “…Teacher?”

“It’s all right,” he said.

The other ghosts looked at his expression, then one by one silently left. They drifted away from the temple, dispersing in unknown directions. The two small ghosts followed them out, but as they left, one’s foot passed through the threshold, the other’s hand brushed through a door crack—seemingly casual movements, yet they respectively left behind an eye and an ear to watch and listen to what happened in the temple.

The person who had drifted out from the urn of ashes looked even more helpless.

“Yang Cang,” he introduced himself.

“Li Quan,” Li Chi said, his gaze seeming able to see into the depths of souls. “Twenty-three years ago, with a carpenter’s help, you came here and told him this was your hometown temple.”

“But this is not your hometown.”

Yang Cang readily admitted. “My hometown is very far from here.”

“You have stayed here for twenty-three years, waiting,” Li Chi continued.

“But this place is quite desolate, with nothing worth waiting for.” Yang Cang followed. His gaze fell upon Li Chi, never leaving for a moment, as if both expectant and cautiously evaluating, yet not in a way that bred dislike.

“So what you are waiting for is something that does not yet exist here,” Li Chi said lightly.

Yang Cang stared fixedly at Li Chi and asked, “Then, do you know what exactly I am waiting for?”

People would stay in a place waiting either like waiting for a flower to bloom or a tree to bear fruit—waiting for something already certain to happen, but there was no such seed worth waiting for here; or like waiting for a pot of soup to warm or ink on paper to dry—waiting for something they themselves were making happen, but there was nothing here he must do; or else like waiting for a friend to arrive or a letter to be delivered—waiting for a future appointment, but he bore no such appointment.

“I do not know,” Li Chi said.

Yang Cang seemed to freeze for a moment, but then burst into laughter. His stunned expression held no sadness, his laughter no joy. “Yes, yes. Even I myself do not know what I am waiting for. Is it a person or an event? Is it an object or news? Even I do not know, so how can I expect others to give me the answer?”

“But I know why you are waiting here,” Li Chi continued.

Yang Cang fell silent, waiting for an answer he already knew.

“Someone guided you,” Li Chi said directly. “You did not quite believe her guidance, yet could not forget it. When you indeed met with a fatal calamity as she had said, you remembered what she said afterward and came here to wait.”

Yang Cang still did not speak, but his eyes grew brighter.

“This is not the first time I have encountered traces of this Heavenly Maiden,” Li Chi said, his eyes deep as an abyss.

Yang Cang suddenly felt a chill. He saw that gaze was fixed on him, yet also felt those eyes saw something deeper, more distant.

“Continue waiting. The time has not yet come.”

Yang Cang heard him say this, and then those eyes that had made his heart tremble closed.

……

Elsewhere.

Ding Qin and Bai Hong had been accompanying Liu Yetao, waiting to see what changes would occur during this night without lamps. During the first half of the night, nothing happened, but just as Liu Yetao was about to succumb to sleep, the soul of a Shijian suddenly flew in from afar.

“A Shijian’s soul?”

The white-headed, green-bodied bird soul flew rapidly toward them. Before entering the courtyard, it concealed its form, but Ding Qin and Bai Hong could both see it—it had been hovering nearby, refusing to leave. Its target was Liu Yetao!

Bai Hong frowned slightly and said, “I’ll go take a look.”

Ding Qin nodded. She remained in the room.

Liu Yetao asked in confusion, “What’s wrong?” Her hands clutched the blanket tightly, her whole body tense with nervousness.

“It’s nothing,” Ding Qin said. “Have you ever eaten a type of green bird? With a white head, yellow feet, whose call goes ‘quju, quju’ like that?”

“I… I don’t remember,” Liu Yetao said. Her voice was very timid. Though she did not yet know what had happened, she seemed to already feel she had done something wrong and hastily explained. “During that period when I was starving, I ate many things, whatever I could find. I don’t remember if I ate that kind of bird.”

“Think more carefully. You should remember. Not just eating it—you should have caught it, killed it yourself,” Ding Qin continued asking.

Liu Yetao hastily shook her head. “That’s impossible. I’ve never caught a bird.”

“Perhaps you didn’t catch it? But you killed it,” Ding Qin asked again.

Liu Yetao thought carefully for a long while, fine beads of sweat appearing on her forehead. “I truly have no such memory.”

Ding Qin’s gaze was penetrating, but she saw no signs of lying on Liu Yetao’s face. If what Liu Yetao said was true and she had not killed a Shijian, then why had this Shijian’s soul come?

Outside the residence, Bai Hong had already found the hidden Shijian soul.

“Shijian,” Bai Hong called.

The Shijian’s soul was hidden in a tree. It looked down at Bai Hong below and made no sound, its gaze wary. It could sense a very powerful aura from Bai Hong, but because it detected no hostility, it did not immediately flee.

“You cannot fly faster than me, and I don’t want to do anything to you,” Bai Hong said, tilting her head to look up at it. “I’ll ask you a few questions. Just answer them.”

The Shijian also tilted its head to look at Bai Hong. After a moment, it softly called out “quju.”

Bai Hong frowned slightly and made several crane calls. Strange beasts were not born understanding human speech either. Though the Shijian had the ability to remember and never forget, if it had rarely encountered humans before, not understanding human speech would be normal.

The Shijian still tilted its head, softly and confusedly calling “quju.”

Bird languages were not mutually intelligible, just as people from different places had their own dialects. But as long as spiritual intelligence had developed, learning the meaning of several other bird languages was not difficult. The Shijian’s language was very special. Bai Hong could roughly understand some of its meaning but could not speak its language. But as long as the Shijian could understand her meaning, that would be enough. She tried several other bird calls.

The Shijian blinked its eyes in confusion. “Qu, quju?”

Bai Hong narrowed her eyes dangerously. “If you still don’t understand, I can help you.”

“Qu, qu, quju! Quju quju!” The feathers on the Shijian’s body suddenly fluffed up, and its small head nodded twice reluctantly.

“Who harmed you?” Bai Hong asked.

“Quju.”

“You don’t know?!” Bai Hong asked in surprise.

“Quju quju…” the Shijian called out pitifully. The one who killed it had attacked from behind. It had not even seen who attacked before it lost its life.

Bai Hong was silent for a moment. “Then why are you following this person?”

“Quju, quju quju, quju quju!” The Shijian hopped and fluttered about, looking quite indignant.

Bai Hong half-guessed its meaning and asked, “You’re saying that after your soul left your body and your ghostly consciousness awakened, you saw them cooking your corpse, so you followed them?”

The Shijian nodded and continued calling, “Quju quju! Quju!”

It had not seen any other living beings nearby. The one who killed it must have been one of these two people, or perhaps both had a hand in it!

To be able to harm the Shijian’s life without it being aware at all—the one who acted should not be an ordinary person by any measure. Liu Chuanyu was the more likely possibility. But if she harbored ill will toward Liu Yetao, why would she share the Shijian meat with her? During the previous shortage of food, eating the Shijian’s meat was equivalent to eliminating countless possibilities of starving to death.

After the Shijian finished its indignation, it looked pitifully at Bai Hong, calling out weakly, “Quju, quju… quju quju…”

It was asking whether Bai Hong would protect those two people. Though it was a strange beast, it was not very old. While alive, its spiritual intelligence had not even fully developed. It could not compare with a great demon like Bai Hong, let alone after death.

The Shijian had died suddenly and painlessly. Before it could react, it had already lost its life. It felt no pain and harbored no deep resentment. Creatures in the wild preying on each other were common. Therefore, even after becoming a ghost, it had not gained any special abilities. If not for dying so confusedly, with some attachment to not knowing who killed it, it would likely have already entered the Yellow Springs to reincarnate.

If Bai Hong wanted to protect those two people, it had no recourse whatsoever.

“If I were to protect them, what would you do?” Bai Hong asked.

The Shijian thought for a long while, then called out twice in frustration. If Bai Hong insisted on protecting them, it could only try to let go of its attachment and reincarnate first.

Bai Hong was amused by this little creature. “You’re quite philosophical about it.”

“I won’t get involved in this matter,” she said. With a slight lift of her fingertip, a crane feather floated out from her sleeve and landed before the Shijian. “But I previously gave that young girl a crane feather, which would be unfair to you. I can’t very well ask her for it back, so I’ll give you one as well.”

Bai Hong spoke flatly, but when this crane feather landed on the Shijian, its blurred, unclear soul form immediately became clear. Every feather was distinct, its claws gleamed coldly. The white crane feather concealed itself among the white feathers on its head, and Bai Hong’s magnificent aura flared and retracted.

The dangers a soul faced wandering the world were no less than those of living creatures, especially for the soul of a strange beast. With this crane feather, it no longer needed to worry as before.

The Shijian was both surprised and delighted, calling out brightly. It flew in a circle through the air, then landed back on the tree, calling out to Bai Hong somewhat embarrassedly.

Though it had been very confused when it first died, it had now followed Liu Chuanyu and Liu Yetao for a long time and had seen many things. For instance, it had seen where Liu Chuanyu had been going recently, and the strange relationship between the two.

Bai Hong paused, then laughed and cursed. “Little thing, what else are you hiding?”

She had not given it the crane feather to extract information from the Shijian, but rather out of… feeling sympathy for its kind. So she truly had not expected this little creature to be holding something back.

“Quju quju quju!” The Shijian flapped its wings, its sharp beak pointing toward the residence.

When those nine lamps were lit, it had no way to approach Liu Yetao. The light from those nine lamps was like a resilient bubble, so it could only follow Liu Chuanyu. Though Liu Chuanyu seemed more suspicious, it had almost no opportunity to observe Liu Yetao, until tonight when it sensed a change in Liu Yetao’s aura and flew back wanting to take the opportunity to examine her more closely for any problems.

Bai Hong discerned the meaning in its calls, her gaze falling on the courtyard as she narrowed her eyes slightly.

Liu Yetao sat timidly on the bed, her eyes full of fear and unease about the unknown. The small lamp that Ding Qin had lit illuminated her face, breaking open a warm, bright space in the dark night.

All nine lamps were extinguished.

……