Chapter 58
Chapter 58
Unease fluttered in Qiao Ying’s chest. She tugged Shen Qingyu’s hand. “Do you hear someone crying?”
“Is someone crying?” he asked.
He heard nothing.
Qiao Ying looked toward Yan Yanchi, who was fighting the dead bandits with sword in hand. He was entirely focused on the battle and clearly had not noticed the faint sobbing.
Sensing something, Qiao Ying raised her face. A black droplet fell directly into her eye. She reflexively closed it, but she was too late. Covering her eye, she swayed with dizziness.
Shen Qingyu caught her. “Yingying.”
Qiao Ying opened her eyes, but he cast no reflection in their empty depths.
Time and space reversed within her pitch-black pupils. What appeared before her was everything seen through another person’s eyes.
“Cousin, I don’t want to go boating. I’m afraid of the water.”
The boy of about ten responded coldly, “You’re my fiancée. How can you be so timid? I want to go boating. If you don’t, then don’t follow me.”
He turned and left without the slightest mercy.
Watching his back, she clenched her skirt and summoned the courage to follow.
Qiao Ying closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the scene had changed.
Her small hand touched the temple’s ancient wall.
“Where am I? Why am I here?”
“Brother! Cousin!”
She lifted her skirt and ran outside, stumbling as she went. But it was as though a ghost had raised a maze around her. Every time she tried to cross the temple threshold, an invisible wall forced her back.
She tried again and again until her strength failed. Curling into a corner, she hugged herself and wept helplessly.
“Brother, Cousin, come find me. I want to go home.”
Qiao Ying’s eyes felt dry, their light trembling.
The scene shifted once more.
She crouched beside a vegetable patch. The hand pulling weeds was no longer the short, adorable hand of a child, but the long and slender hand of a grown woman. She spoke to herself as she worked.
“I’m amazing. I grew such a large garden from the seeds the birds brought me.”
Her gaze lifted to the gray sky.
“It’s going to rain. I hope everyone returns home early and no one comes to the temple for shelter. Strangers frighten me. I don’t want to speak to them.”
“Even the birds make it back to their nests in time.”
“I hope the little ants’ homes don’t flood.”
“I wish the osmanthus tree in front of the side rooms could bloom a little longer.”
She must have grown accustomed to talking to herself, for once she began, she did not stop.
But when the rain came, every bird and beast returned home. She was alone again.
She sat beneath the eaves, scooped up a handful of wet earth, and molded it into a human figure.
“Why hasn’t anyone come to take me home?”
“Has my brother forgotten me?”
“Has my cousin forgotten me too?”
“Mother said I would marry at sixteen. I’m grown up now. Isn’t my cousin in any hurry to marry me?”
She placed the finished mud figure on the ground beside the others.
Every figure belonged to a pair.
The children held hands.
The adults leaned against one another.
There were elderly figures too, supporting each other. They must have been a loving couple who would remain together until their hair turned white.
She lowered her head onto her knees and poked the little figure with one finger, murmuring, “When will everyone come to take me home? It should be time for my wedding.”
Sword light tore through the barrier of black mud. A tremendous crash shattered the darkness. The dilapidated Buddha statue crumbled into dust, exposing the figure hidden behind it.
Yan Yanchi held the Demon-Subduing Sword, its point aimed directly at the disheveled figure.
Sword wind lifted the black hair trailing across the floor. Lightning revealed a pale, weeping young woman. Her eyes were red, and tears streamed down her face to gather at her chin and fall in heavy drops.
Yan Yanchi’s expression grew even tenser.
So the rumors were true. A female ghost used her beauty to bewitch people here before devouring their souls and vital essence.
Judging by her affected display, her cultivation must be considerable.
“Monster,” he said coldly, “you must be destroyed.”
“Wait!” Qiao Ying suddenly rushed between them, shielding the disheveled girl. “Daoist Master, spare this person… No, spare this ghost.”
Yan Yanchi frowned and looked toward the Youth in Blue.
Shen Qingyu merely smiled. His fingers stroked his Blind Staff with idle carelessness. He looked rather helpless, but his indulgence toward Qiao Ying was obvious. He had no intention of interfering.
Yan Yanchi was certain, however, that if he attacked Qiao Ying, Shen Qingyu would immediately lose that disinclination to meddle.
“You would obstruct me from destroying evil,” Yan Yanchi said harshly. “Are you her accomplice?”
Qiao Ying had met people who dedicated themselves to ridding the world of demons and defending the righteous path. Xue Heting, for example, considered it his lifelong creed. Yet compared with this Daoist Master, Xue Heting clearly understood flexibility.
Qiao Ying said, “I didn’t know her before this. But when you destroy evil, Daoist Master, surely the ones you kill should be wicked. This young woman has been trapped here for years and has done nothing wrong.”
“An aberration is an aberration. None are innocent.” Yan Yanchi was rigid in his convictions. “Move aside, or I will treat you as her accomplice.”
Shen Qingyu laughed softly.
Yan Yanchi tightened his grip on his sword.
Qiao Ying felt someone tug the hem of her dress and looked back.
The hunched young woman’s hair cascaded like a waterfall. Her pale fingers clutched a corner of Qiao Ying’s skirt, and her tear-filled eyes peered up timidly.
For the first time in her life, Qiao Ying felt a fierce desire to protect someone. Her expression grew resolute. “Daoist Master, she may be different from us, but she is certainly not the monster you claim.”
“On what basis are you so certain?” Yan Yanchi asked.
“Because she grew such a beautiful vegetable garden!”
Yan Yanchi stared at her in silence.
The entire temple abruptly fell quiet.
“She isn’t an Evil Ghost. Don’t kill her!”
“That’s right! She has lived in the temple for ten years and never done anything evil!”
The two Stone Lions at the entrance had come alive. Though they feared the renowned Yan Yanchi, they courageously stepped forward.
Their voices sounded familiar to Qiao Ying.
Had her memory not been repeatedly reset, she would have recognized them as the voices outside her room that once proposed kidnapping her.
Yan Yanchi said, “Someone at the foot of the mountain clearly claimed that a female ghost stole men’s souls. I also saw a scholar whose mind had been bewitched.”
The Stone Lion on the left explained, “That scholar wandered into the temple on a rainy night. She kindly gave him food, but he fell in love with her at first sight and insisted upon marrying her. We were the ones who drove him away!”
The Stone Lion on the right added, “He was heartbroken because she didn’t love him back. That had nothing to do with her!”
Yan Yanchi seemed to choke on his response. He looked again at the figure crouched on the ground.
She trembled all over, moved closer to Qiao Ying, and hid behind her while clutching her skirt.
“And the dead bandits…” Yan Yanchi began.
The Stone Lions interrupted before he could finish.
“The master broke the precept against killing when he slaughtered those bandits, but afterward he lacked the power to deliver their souls. He could only seal them here so they would have no chance to escape and harm others.”
“After the master’s soul dispersed, no one remained to suppress them. Then she happened to appear and made her own soul the core of the formation. That is the only reason those dead souls could not leave Guang’en Temple.”
“If you hadn’t attacked everyone on sight and terrified her until she lost control of the formation, those spirits would never have escaped!”
In other words, it was all his fault.
Yan Yanchi’s face remained rigid. “Was it not her doing that this young woman was trapped on the mountain for days? Do you still claim she had no wish to harm anyone?”
The Stone Lions stamped their feet anxiously.
“She didn’t want to hurt anyone!”
“She hasn’t seen another person in ten years!”
“She had certainly never met a girl her own age!”
“She was too curious!”
“She couldn’t help watching and copying her!”
“She only wanted to make a friend!”
Yan Yanchi looked again at the girl trying to shrink into the smallest possible ball.
She remained crouched on the floor, afraid to show her face, one hand gripping Qiao Ying’s skirt and refusing to let go. Her trembling body and occasional gasps revealed that she was still crying.
Stiff-necked, Yan Yanchi said, “You are her accomplices. Why should I believe you?”
“I believe she never intended to harm anyone,” Qiao Ying said.
“You know nothing of monsters. They have deceived…”
“I may know nothing of the monsters you speak of, but I do know Shen Qingyu.” Qiao Ying glanced to the side, her tone meaningful. “If this young woman had truly meant us harm, I suspect he would have razed this entire place to the ground.”
Yan Yanchi paused and also looked at Shen Qingyu.
Shen Qingyu offered an innocent smile, gentle, friendly, and perfectly approachable.
But Yan Yanchi had already exchanged one move with him. He knew how dangerous Shen Qingyu was.
Qiao Ying ground her teeth. “So however many times I was trapped in this cycle, the reason it continued was that he deliberately let it happen.”
The corners of Shen Qingyu’s mouth twitched. He could no longer summon his warm, spring-breeze smile.
Qiao Ying had no idea how many liberties he had taken over the past few days by exploiting her constantly resetting memory.
“Shen Qingyu,” she said through gritted teeth, “I’ll settle this with you later.”
Every trace of cunning and composure vanished from his face. His throat bobbed. In the end, he could only turn his head guiltily away from Qiao Ying’s gaze.
This great God of Death appeared flustered for the first time in his life.