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

Lian stumbled back a couple of steps, and Chongli caught her hand at once, offering comfort.

But the moment their hands met, Lian seemed able to see the hanged ghost as well. “I-I can see it too!”

The hanged ghost split its huge mouth in a grin. “Heheheh. First time I’ve ever met someone who isn’t afraid after seeing us ghosts. You two are really something.”

“Yun Ranran” suddenly struck from behind, slapping the hanged ghost on the forehead. Its whole head spun a full turn and snapped back into place, while its eyeballs flew out of their sockets.

In truth, it was not that frightening. Just a little tense, really. It was Lian’s first time seeing a ghost perform a full turn of the head; she had no idea whether there was any special meaning to it.

“Brazen!”

Once again, without any outside force, the hanged ghost’s body remained motionless while its head turned a half circle to face “Yun Ranran.” “You can see us too? Can people nowadays all see ghosts? Why didn’t I have such a power before I died?”

“Yun Ranran” restrained her hand, suppressing the urge to give it another punch, and directly displayed her Underworld identity token. “How many years have you lingered in the mortal realm? Speak truthfully, or I’ll throw you into the oil cauldron!”

The instant the hanged ghost saw the token, its entire appearance reverted to what it had been before death: a clean-cut young man.

“Please, my lord, do not throw me into the oil cauldron! I could not enter the Underworld after death, and I have been lingering in the mortal realm for fifteen years!”

Suddenly becoming handsome, “Yun Ranran” was a little slow to react. The ghosts she had interrogated before, aside from Black and White, all regained their predeath appearances as coarse-browed, big-eared, greasy-faced specters. Meeting such a refined-looking one again, she was still not quite used to it.

Back when she had first received her orders and gone to the Magistrate’s Office to question ghosts, the first pair she encountered had been Black and White.

Because the two ghosts were striking in appearance, at her request they were directly promoted to Underworld envoys and became the Black and White Wardens, all the while quietly serving in the Underworld.

To see more handsome faces, “Yun Ranran” had deliberately stayed in the Magistrate’s Office for two days. Yet after meeting Black and White, she never again encountered a ghost that looked good.

She was deeply disappointed, and from then on could no longer bring herself to sentence any ghost.

Fortunately, this hanged ghost did not disappoint her. With this face, sending him to the Underworld to serve would at least be easy on the eyes.

Lian noticed the subtle shift in “Yun Ranran’s” expression; what stood out most of all was approval. Could it be that this hanged ghost had been a great man of letters in life?

“Very well. Since you have lingered in the mortal realm without resentment and have conducted yourself properly, I shall send you to the Underworld to serve. Once you go below, someone will naturally take you in hand.”

“Yun Ranran” handed the hanged ghost a jade token to serve as proof.

The hanged ghost was overwhelmed with gratitude. No one in his family had known of his death; even the white burial robe on his body had been given by another ghost who took pity on him. He had never imagined that, after dying for more than ten years, he would still encounter such a stroke of fortune!

“This humble one is endlessly grateful, endlessly grateful! Many thanks for Your Highness’s great kindness!”

Upon hearing this, the hanged ghost dropped to his knees, though it was scarcely different from kneeling in midair.

“Yun Ranran” waved a hand, and a black door opened in the void. Above it were three large words: The Gate of Ghosts.

The hanged ghost looked at “Yun Ranran” gratefully, then at Lian, and stepped through. The door closed behind him.

Lian found it somewhat baffling. It was understandable that he would be grateful to “Yun Ranran,” but why was he looking at her too?

A voice beside her answered her unspoken question:

“Because he could see you. He followed along out of curiosity, so the two of you have, in one way or another, formed a thread of karma.”

Lian nodded. She understood karma. In spiritual cultivation, karma mattered deeply. Though her own part in it was slight, the hanged ghost had glanced at her in gratitude; sincere intent had naturally completed the cycle.

“Earlier, when there was no Yin-Yang Mirror, I could still see it. Was it because Chongli and I were holding hands?”

She was naturally asking “Yun Ranran.”

“Yun Ranran” turned slightly aside and mouthed an insult at Chongli, calling him frivolous.

The Yin-Yang Mirror indeed had this use: if one person held it, then another who wished to use it had to make physical contact.

Originally, she had intended for Lian to use the mirror alone. And there was another reason: she did not hope that the future husband of the Goddess Hall’s lady would be a mortal with a limited lifespan. Thus, she had not mentioned this particular function of the mirror.

But who would have thought! Chongli, this shameless rogue, had actually—actually used his lecherous hand to take the hand of the thirty-third heaven’s goddess who should have remained untouched by dust in her mortal reincarnation!

“Yun Ranran” did not change expression. “Oh? Is that so? That is the first I’ve heard the Yin-Yang Mirror has such a use.”

Lian believed her, but that old fox Chongli had already seen through everything and smiled in disdain.

As if such a petty trick could separate him from his precious Lian?

He placed the Yin-Yang Mirror into Lian’s hands. “She gave it to you, so keep it. If you need to use it again, just hold hands and I’ll be able to see.”

When he finished speaking, he gave “Yun Ranran” a provocative smile. The smile seemed like ten thousand years of ice suddenly melting, then a spray of winter plum blossoms blooming all at once, leaving Lian slightly dazed.

In “Yun Ranran’s” eyes, however, that smile was pure mockery, as if to say: See? The treasure you gave us is the red thread binding me and Lian together!

Caught between the two, Lian failed to notice that an invisible battle had quietly begun. She usually understood Chongli so thoroughly, yet at this moment she seemed like a lump of elm wood.

Having roughly understood the situation, the next step was to interrogate the one-eyed Daoist about the origin of the lanterns.

With the Underworld’s covert assistance, Lian and Chongli quickly found the one-eyed Daoist’s dwelling: a wooden cottage deep in the mountains.

After “Yun Ranran” handed the news to Lian, she returned to the Underworld. She needed to figure out this fellow named Chongli, his lifespan and his origins!

She went straight to the Magistrate’s Office and slapped both hands onto the magistrate’s desk. “Check someone for me!”

If one were to speak of where the Underworld kept the most complete records, it was unquestionably the Magistrate’s Office. Though “Yun Ranran” could investigate on her own, she could not obtain a complete picture.

Might as well do the job thoroughly and uncover every last detail, so she could persuade him to leave Lady Lian!

The magistrate held a fine wolf-hair brush in his right hand and looked at “Yun Ranran” with a cheerful smile. “Well now, what wind blew our little princess, who once refused to come to my office, all the way here today?”

“Yun Ranran” lifted her chin proudly. “Naturally, because I want to ask Uncle Magistrate to help me with something.”

The magistrate’s brows arched high, though his heart was uncertain. “Well now, don’t you normally call me Magistrate with such enthusiasm? Why are you being so obedient today?”

“Yun Ranran” no longer played coy. “I want you to help me investigate one person, a man named Chongli—his past and present lives, and everything he has done!”

The magistrate asked no more. He simply closed his eyes, and all the information recorded in the scrolls of the entire Magistrate’s Office floated into the air.

The two of them looked through page after page, determined not to miss even the smallest detail.

Half an hour later—

“How could there be nothing!? Impossible! Did we overlook it?”

The magistrate stared at the Book of Life and Death on the desk, deep in thought. “Has the little princess considered... that the person you mention may not belong to the mortal realm? Or perhaps, like the Goddess Hall’s lady, he comes from another world?”

Chongli’s origins were already all too obvious.

The end.