Chapter Ninety: Yun Ranran of the Nine Provinces Academy

Zhongli and the others carried the unconscious Lotus back to the inn.

Seeing a guest who had gone out return lying in someone’s arms, the innkeeper grew uneasy and was just about to send a waiter to fetch a doctor when Yun Ranran stopped him. “Thank you for your kindness, Innkeeper. My little sister only suffered a touch of heatstroke. A physician has already seen her.”

The innkeeper nodded repeatedly. “Then... all right. If you need anything, just tell us. We’ll do our best to prepare it for you.”

“Thank you, Innkeeper. I wish your business prosperous!”

Smiling broadly, the innkeeper waved them off and then instructed the waiter to bring some hot water to Lotus’s room for later use.

Zhongli had only just laid Lotus on the bed when there was a knock at the door. Yun Ranran opened it at once; it was the waiter.

“Honored guests, the innkeeper asked me to bring you some water.”

At the sight of Yun Ranran wearing a mask, the waiter’s voice trembled. The mask was carved with the fierce likeness of a divine beast; though said to be the sacred creature beneath Ksitigarbha, it still wore a green-faced, fanged expression, looking like a white dog only when calm.

With that mask on, Yun Ranran looked so frightening that the waiter nearly scared himself straight into the King of Hell’s hands. And wasn’t that beast said to have been borrowed by the underworld too? By that logic, wasn’t he practically on his way to be fed to it?

The waiter sidled into the room, set down the hot water, and fled faster than a rabbit, leaving Yun Ranran alone at the doorway in a daze.

After closing the door, Yun Ranran pointed to herself. “Am I... that scary?”

She, the dignified princess of the underworld, had made a rare trip to the mortal realm. That should have been a blessing for any human!

The waiter’s inner voice: Princess, Princess! There was no need for that! I’m still young!

Zhongli gripped Lotus’s hand tightly, his whole heart fixed on the unconscious girl. Everything around them had become mere background.

Yun Ranran shook her head at Zhongli. “I really don’t understand. In just two days, what on earth did you do to attract a ghost infant?”

Zhongli froze. In his memory, they had not gone anywhere inappropriate in those two days, except... the lantern festival.

Yes.

Ever since the night they released the lanterns, Lotus had begun to act strangely. He should have realized earlier that the room’s chill meant something was wrong. Regret surged in his chest, and he stood there as still as a stone, rooted in place and unable to move.

Yun Ranran rolled her eyes. “What use is regret? If regret actually worked, the world would have long since been selling regret pills, okay? Fortunately, Lotus’s true form has resistance against malign spirits. That ghost infant did not directly turn into a fetal spirit and enter her womb. If it had been delayed by another two days, once the child became fully spiritual and was carried to term, the underworld would have had far more work on its hands!”

The corners of Zhongli’s eyes turned red, his thin lips pressed into a straight line, and the tear mole at the edge of his eye made him look painfully forlorn.

Seeing one person unconscious and the other mute with worry, Yun Ranran found it hard to say more. After all, when Lotus returned to the divine realm in the future, her rank would be higher than Yun Ranran’s.

“Don’t worry. She won’t be in any danger now. Her body has simply been overdrawn, and she’s a little exhausted. She needs rest. That ghost infant won’t come back. I need to ask a few questions before I can handle this properly.”

The ghost infant had lingered in the human realm too long and had already been sent into the underworld by her. In due course, the ghost officers would guide it into reincarnation.

Yun Ranran considered herself unlucky. With her left hand she formed a seal and with her right she drew up a formation. An ethereal, icy aura spread out from the spell array.

Centered on Yun Ranran, a separate space took shape.

A voice, as if rising from the bottom of a well several dozen feet deep, shrilled with a chill that seemed to pierce the bones: “Who dares summon the underworld’s spirit officers without permission?”

A ghastly white pointed face, tongue lolling out, with a man’s ghostly head topped by a tall white hat, poked through the opening, a strand of something like noodles hanging at the corner of its mouth.

“It’s me.”

The male ghost was still pretending to be dead with his eyes shut, only thinking that this voice sounded vaguely familiar. “Oh? You’re quite bold, aren’t you? Come, let your grandpa see which little ghost you are!”

The moment he opened his eyes, the pale pointed face shot back into the black hole.

Then another male ghost with a white face and a tall black hat leaned out. Not only was he not frightening, he even possessed a certain handsome, cool elegance, like a dream lover among ghosts. He respectfully bowed to Yun Ranran. “Black Sentinel greets the Little Princess.”

Black Sentinel’s clothes were suddenly tugged, and he naturally stepped out of the black whirlpool. Another handsome face appeared from within the vortex. Who else could it be but the first male ghost who had just come out?

White Sentinel copied Black Sentinel’s cold expression and also bowed to Yun Ranran. “White Sentinel greets the Little Princess!”

Alas, they were not the same kind of person. No matter how hard one tried to imitate, something of the original charm always remained missing.

Yun Ranran looked speechless. “Little White, do you think you’re not dead thoroughly enough and need a lesson in the eighteenth level oil cauldrons?”

White Sentinel held a straight face. “Little Princess, Little White knows he was wrong. Little White won’t slack off again. Please forgive him!”

In the underworld, Black Sentinel and White Sentinel were exceptionally handsome compared with ordinary ghost officers, and Yun Ranran had happened to fall for that. She liked pretty faces, male or female alike; if someone was good-looking, they were qualified to negotiate with her.

White Sentinel had figured out this troublesome little princess’s preferences long ago.

He understood that however much the Little Princess might refuse to give him face, she would never ignore his face itself.

As expected, Yun Ranran relented. “Fine, enough nonsense. I called you here to ask what has happened in the thirteen years since my father, mother, and I were absent from the underworld.”

These past two days, Yun Ranran had been extremely busy. Many resentful spirits, unable to bear their grievances, had taken advantage of the underworld’s leaderless state to slip out and wreak havoc upon the mortal world.

The last one they had caught, Yu Cui, was among them. Her ghostly power was formidable, though fortunately she had not yet caused too much damage.

After repeated judgment, the magistrate took pity on her miserable fate. Since her hands had not been stained with blood, he not only promised to find her unborn child but also to let mother and child reunite in the next life.

Yu Cui was overwhelmed with gratitude, and the resentment in her heart gradually dissolved. She had already been sent to reincarnation the night before. Though her next life would be poor, she would have a good marriage, a husband, children, and blessings, with a modest and somewhat tight life serving as her punishment.

Yun Ranran felt that this was the best judgment of all. Some people lived in poverty, yet their lives were steady and happy.

When Yu Cui left, she had also told Yun Ranran that in her next life she would accumulate good deeds. For her, poverty itself would become a kind of enjoyment: raising chickens and ducks with her child, planting a yard full of flowers and greenery, and living peacefully and joyfully with her husband and child as a family of three. That, she said, was the life she longed for.

As for reporting the matter, Black Sentinel was more reliable. But White Sentinel immediately volunteered. “Little Princess! Let me speak! Let me speak!”

Black lines seemed to drop across Yun Ranran’s forehead. “Go back. Let Black speak!”

White Sentinel looked aggrieved, but he did not say so. With a tearful face, he reluctantly stepped into the black whirlpool. “Little Princess, this subordinate is leaving...”

Seeing that Yun Ranran truly had no intention of keeping him, White Sentinel plunged headfirst into the vortex. Hmph! He was going to the eighteenth level to keep an eye on those evil spirits stirring up the oil cauldrons, lest they try anything deceitful!

“All right, now that my ears are clear, you speak. Focus mainly on Anning City.”