Chapter Ninety-Two: Yun Ranran of the Nine Provinces Academy

When Hei returned to the underworld, he did not find Bai in the Office of Underworld Discipline, so he casually asked a nearby imp, “Where has White Minister Bai gone?”

“Reporting to my lord, White Minister Bai has gone to the Eighteenth Level.”

“The Eighteenth Level?” Hei arched a brow. That fellow was still as vengeful as ever; though he said nothing aloud, he had likely gone there to take his anger out on evil spirits.

“Hey! Brother Hei, what brings you here?”

“Here to find you.” Hei’s expression did not change.

“?!”

All around them, fire blazed across the sky, mixed with the howls and cries of malevolent ghosts, and the two spirits simply stared at one another amid the chaos.

“The young lord told me to bring you a message: next time you eat noodles, remember to call her along.”

Bai was struck speechless and clapped a hand over his mouth. “My ghostly dignity is ruined, oh dear…”

Hei looked at Bai with indulgent fondness. They had worked together for a hundred years, and no one understood Bai better than he did.

When the underworld was busy, that fellow was forever slipping away to loaf around. As for today, when summoned to the mortal realm by the little lord, the wretch had been happily slurping down a bowl of plain noodles. Interrupted, he had secretly felt displeased and even intended to frighten the other party in return, only to discover that the one who got frightened was himself.

The days of the underworld were dull and tedious; luckily, with that fellow around, they were made much more amusing.

“Hey, Hei, you stay here and watch them. I’m going to find Sister Meng. She asked me yesterday to bring some pastries, and I’m taking them to her now!”

See? In the blink of an eye, that fellow was gone again, off to skip half a day’s work. Alas, all the dirty, exhausting labor always falls to me, Hei. Such a hopeless life for a ghost...

...

Inside the inn, Lian bent low at the waist, holding the Yin-Yang Mirror as she opened a crack in the door and pressed herself against the frame, eager to catch a glimpse of a ghost’s true form.

According to Yun Ranran, when she entered the inn, she had seen a hanged ghost dangling on the first floor. First, she had never actually seen a real hanged ghost; second, she wanted to test whether the Yin-Yang Mirror was simply out of repair after all these years.

One eye rolled wildly at the gap in the door. Just as she was about to ask Yun Ranran whether something seemed wrong with the mirror, she saw it.

A long, protruding tongue. Blackened rings around the eyes. Bulging eyeballs that seemed ready to pop. A strip of white cloth hung from its neck, hair disheveled, a white burial robe draping its body. It had suddenly floated up from the first floor, and now it was hanging right there on the second-floor railing.

“Ah—!”

Lian lost her voice for a moment and clapped a hand hard over her mouth, but the cry still spilled out onto the second floor.

She felt that as she screamed, the hanged ghost glanced her way, its look seeming to say: So you can see me...

With a snap, she shut the door and pressed herself tightly against it, gulping down the air inside the room in great breaths. Tonight, she was almost certainly going to have nightmares.

Chongli stepped forward and gently patted Lian’s shoulder, then pointed comfortingly at Yun Ranran. “Don’t be afraid. With her here, it’s fine.”

Indeed, when facing ghosts, hiding behind Yun Ranran was the wisest choice. Of course, if Yun Ranran were not here, Chongli would surely have stood in front of Lian first without hesitation!

Yun Ranran wore a professional smile. “Heh. When you’re showing affection, you ignore me; when you meet a ghost, suddenly I’m the most capable one. How very double standard of you.

Holy Maiden, you should dump him. I know a much better man, one more suited to you!”

Lian had just swallowed a mouthful of saliva when she saw Chongli about to erupt in anger and fight Yun Ranran. She hurriedly said, “Ahem! This Yin-Yang Mirror works wonderfully. Are you really going to give such a precious thing to me?”

Yun Ranran immediately lost interest in bickering with Chongli and turned to Lian with a pleasant expression. “Of course. We people of the underworld don’t need this thing anyway. Besides, to catch the one using sorcery from now on, we’ll still need your help, Holy Maiden... and that lump of wood.”

The “lump of wood” was clearly understood by all three.

Chongli silently made a note of it in Yun Ranran’s debt book: sowing discord between me and my precious Lian.

Lian suddenly realized something. “You all know that my past life was in the heavens?”

Yun Ranran instantly rolled her eyes. “My Holy Maiden, how else do you think I, a perfectly good princess of the underworld, ended up abandoning my rightful place to become some lame instructor at that academy? And having to endure that old hag Puyu making me sick every single day...

“This was all arranged by fate. Though I don’t know why you suddenly reincarnated back then, I’m sure there was a reason. The world we’re in now has no standing to question it.

“But it seems that since the Holy Maiden came here from another minor world, that too must have been arranged.

“And from my deduction, every body you have used before could well have been a mortal body after reincarnation from the divine realm or some other plane. The purpose was probably to prepare a vessel for you.”

Seeing the unbelieving look on Lian’s face, Yun Ranran lifted a hand to her forehead. “Then let me ask you this: isn’t it true that every body you have used in each world fused perfectly with you, and that all of them died before you arrived?”

Lian immediately thought of Bai Ruo from the Xuanming Continent and Jiang Jiu from the Kingdom of Jiang. But if Yun Ranran’s words were true, then how was the ancient painting to be explained?

“Judging by your expression, you believe most of it already. But there are always one or two exceptions. After all, the other three gods who were born alongside you and the heavens can also alter certain paths of history and destiny!”

Yun Ranran pointed out this key detail. If Lian still did not understand, then she truly deserved a bolt of lightning.

Lian smiled. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. I just don’t dare believe it, or perhaps I do not wish to.

“I won’t speak of how formidable I may have been in my previous life. As for this life alone, if not for wanting to live so many more years, I might never have met you. The honorific is a little distant; just call me Lian.”

Lian’s words left Yun Ranran somewhat bewildered. Still, if she were placed on equal footing with the Holy Maiden by virtue of her identity, that would be overstepping—and that would also bring down lightning upon her. She just did not know whether the reincarnated Holy Maiden possessed such power...

Chongli seemed to suddenly understand something, yet at the same time not understand at all.

He himself knew nothing of his origins. His first entrance into the world had been two hundred years ago, when he found Lian on the snowy mountain.

That voice deep in his heart had urged him insistently to take her as his disciple, and he had obeyed.

Only much later did he slowly understand that his inborn mission was to protect his little disciple, Lian, and then follow her until she successfully obtained her true body.

During that time, the years passed in the blink of an eye. Lian grew into a graceful young woman, and she learned what to avoid.

He did not know from which day or hour it had begun, but within Chongli’s heart, a seed had quietly begun to sprout. Only later did he understand that seed’s name was love.

Suddenly, Lian stammered and pointed toward the doorway. “Th-th-there! Ranran! There!”

Chongli looked over, but saw nothing. He knew that there should have been an unseen spirit there; he could feel a chill drawing near.

A pale, delicate hand reached out in front of him. Chongli froze, then took the Yin-Yang Mirror from the little hand.

The world around him seemed to change all at once. Chongli opened his eyes again and saw that vile thing actually crouched right in front of his precious Lian, its voice icy. “Get lost!”

Having lost the mirror, Lian was still trying to figure out where the hanged ghost had gone when she suddenly heard Chongli shout “Get lost!” and felt the air around her turn sharply cold.

It seems it was right in front of me...

End of chapter.