Chapter 13

Chapter 13

[Beside the River of Forgetfulness flow the waters of forgetting; atop the Home-Gazing Terrace, one gazes homeward again. Corpses lie buried underground, their bones worn away by mud – how could the living ever smell as sweet as the dead? Houtu grants you authority belonging to reincarnation. From this moment on, you possess the divine ability Soul Recall.]

[Beneath the vast earth lie remains buried for years and dead objects lost for countless millennia. New ghosts and old relics, corpses and bones – all things to which departed spirits cling shall bow before you as their sovereign.]

In an instant, Xie Qingling felt a force between heaven and earth surge wildly into her body and pour through every limb and bone.

Her body instinctively rejected this alien, overwhelming power, yet her marrow and muscles, her skin and flesh, naturally fused with and absorbed it. With every breath, her flowing blood carried the vast foreign energy through her until it swept across her entire body.

She had no idea how much time passed during the blessing. Xie Qingling felt as though her body had undergone a complete tempering.

When she opened her eyes after the Blessing Ritual, the first thing she noticed was the offering on the altar.

The silver liquid in the potion bottle had lost its dazzling, dreamlike radiance and become a pile of perfectly ordinary white powder.

An offering could only be used once. Now that this potion had been used, it no longer possessed any medicinal effect.

Xie Qingling picked up the bottle and examined it closely.

She thought the potion looked as though it had been made from some kind of bone ground into powder.

But she had no equipment on hand to analyze its composition, and there was very little she could observe with the naked eye. Analysis was pointless, so Xie Qingling casually tossed the bottle into the trash.

As she moved, Xie Qingling caught a strong stench.

It was coming from her own body.

This smell…

Xie Qingling lowered her head and looked herself over.

After receiving the blessing, she possessed the ability to control Spirit. Her sinews and marrow had been cleansed; she had been remade from the inside out.

The divine blessing had expelled the “impurities” from her body, causing a layer of black, sticky filth to seep onto the surface of her skin and cling there in a gummy coating.

She stank all over. It was disgusting.

“…”

So when that voice called her impure, it had meant literal impurities.

Xie Qingling had no time to explore her ability properly. Her scalp prickled, and she couldn’t bear it for another second. She ran into the bathroom to shower.

Warm water sprayed from the showerhead and fell across her skin, bringing a soothing warmth. Xie Qingling was about to relax and sigh in comfort when, with a sudden pop, the showerhead in her hand actually…

Burst!

Xie Qingling froze. She wanted to curse the piece of counterfeit garbage, but when her frantic attempts to restore it only made matters worse, realization struck –

She herself had probably caused this.

After the blessing, her body was no longer that of an ordinary person. Her strength, endurance, and everything else had reached the level of a Spirit Wielder. But after twenty-two years as an ordinary human, she wasn’t accustomed to her new body and couldn’t control her strength well.

Once she realized this, Xie Qingling knew what she needed to do.

She quickly drew a deep breath and closed her eyes, attempting to guide the energy within her body.

A moment later, the Spirit spilling and darting chaotically inside her was swiftly guided into order, becoming small streams channeled through separate waterways.

Like rivers entering the sea, every current had a course to follow.

Xie Qingling placed her hand on the showerhead and tried again.

There.

Now that she understood how powerful she had become, she wouldn’t break things for no reason anymore.

Fortunately, the first thing she had destroyed was only a showerhead. Her wallet could survive the damage. Otherwise, this job really would have put her in debt.

Xie Qingling exhaled happily and continued showering.

Only after washing herself three full times did she finally remove all the filth. Wrapping a bath towel around her body, she slowly stepped out of the bathroom.

Her clothes were too dirty to wear again. Xie Qingling ordered a new outfit online with her phone. While she waited for the store to deliver it, she intended to learn exactly how this Soul Recall ability worked.

Xie Qingling crouched on the floor, closed her eyes, and pressed her palm flat against the ground.

After gaining the divine ability Soul Recall, she used its power almost entirely by instinct.

A mental force followed her consciousness, passing from the floor beneath her palm through concrete and steel, traveling all the way into the earth.

It was as though an invisible palm and eye guided everything. Every place they passed came under her gaze and exploration.

Corners that rarely saw daylight were laid bare before her.

On the ground lay fish bones discarded after being gnawed clean, as well as a snake killed beneath the wheels of a car on the road.

Xie Qingling tilted her head and tried linking them with Soul Recall, commanding and driving them.

Just as she wished, the scattered fish bones began to move. The snakeskin pressed to the road flowed across the ground like water.

The “revived” fish bones and snakeskin traveled through the night along unseen corners of the road, racing madly toward Xie Qingling – they weren’t truly returning to life, of course. Their dead remains were merely being driven by her will.

In the end, however, they failed to reach her.

They moved only about ten meters before falling still again.

Xie Qingling frowned slightly.

– New ghosts and old relics, corpses and bones – all things to which departed spirits cling shall bow before you as their sovereign.

“Things to which departed spirits cling” – that was the limiting condition of Soul Recall.

Xie Qingling guessed that the amount of energy something possessed while alive would also affect the power of Soul Recall after its death.
Because they didn’t contain enough Spirit.

In that case, she would try some remains or old relics that had lain forgotten for a thousand years.

Xie Qingling continued probing deeper beneath the surface.

The underground world within a hundred-meter radius of the hotel was now being explored by Xie Qingling piece by piece.

There were chunks of flesh of unknown purpose buried in a heap of garbage, powdered bone ash mixed with lime, and also –

Hmm?

Wait.

Human bones?

A human skeleton lay quietly buried in the earth, with no grave mound to mark it, resting there all alone.

Having found what she wanted, Xie Qingling immediately used Soul Recall to command the human bones – the skeleton – and sent it charging toward the surface.

This time, everything went much more smoothly.

As the most spiritually endowed of all creatures, humans naturally possessed far more Spirit than other living things. Xie Qingling therefore commanded the skeleton with ease.

Like an earthworm, the skeleton broke through the soil at incredible speed, responding frantically to Xie Qingling’s summons.

But the skeleton appeared to strike something hard. It seemed to be a wall.

Xie Qingling froze, then stopped summoning it. Rather than make the skeleton keep rushing toward her, she sent it back to continue its long sleep.

She more or less understood how to use her ability now.

At the same time…

On a pedestrian street about fifty meters from the hotel…

A drunken, burly man tripped over a sudden depression in the pavement and crashed hard to the ground, the fall sobering him up.

“Fuck! Why’d the ground cave in here? Aren’t they repairing and blocking off this road every goddamn day? Fucking shoddy construction!”

The drunk staggered away, cursing under his breath.

No one knew what had just happened beneath this patch of earth.

–

The next day, Xie Qingling rose early.

She felt wonderful. Her entire body was full of life, and her eyes shone exceptionally bright.

This was the most direct sensation after receiving the blessing.

With every breath, she merged with the Spirit of heaven and earth, constantly tempering her organs, muscles, and bones.

As time passed, she would fuse more perfectly with her ability.

After checking the time, Xie Qingling changed into her new clothes and headed to 221 Central Street to report for work.

The ebony door at number 221 was still half open, with only the two qilin guarding the entrance.

Today was her first day at work.

As a newcomer, Xie Qingling was inevitably nervous. She drew a deep breath, then walked inside.

Ye Anran was the only person in the hall.

She held a cup of coffee and was reading through some documents. Hearing Xie Qingling’s footsteps, she looked up and greeted her with a sweet smile. “There you are, cutie. It’s my turn on office duty today. We leave one person here every day to handle routine affairs. Today it’s me. You’ll have to take shifts in the future too.”

Xie Qingling had thought she would meet the colleagues she would be working with today. She hadn’t expected Ye Anran to be the only person here.

The others were presumably all out on assignments.

They seemed so busy. Then again, this department had only six employees, Xie Qingling thought.

She asked, “Hello, Senior Ye. Ling Fang said you’d show me our procedures. What do I need to do now?”

“You can just call me Anran, but you can’t call Ling Fang by his name.” Ye Anran finished reading the document, casually closed it, and looked up at her with a smile. “He outranks all of us. You need to call him Director.”

“…Understood. I’ll correct that from now on.” Xie Qingling looked around. “Is there anything I need to do?”

“It’s fine. No big deal. There’s no rush to learn procedures. You’re still new and unfamiliar with a lot of things, so for now, just stay in the office on duty. The Director said to have you work as a Recorder first and see how you perform. We’ll discuss your other assignments later.”

Xie Qingling was about to ask what a “Recorder” did when Ye Anran walked right up to her, eyes shining.

Holding her coffee, Ye Anran circled Xie Qingling, looking her up and down as she kept saying, “Not bad, not bad. The Director really has a good eye. You received a divine blessing that quickly? Did the Director teach you?”

Xie Qingling nodded.

“Which deity blessed you?” Ye Anran asked.

Xie Qingling pressed her lips together, wondering whether this was something she could share. Before she decided, Ye Anran began chattering away. “I received the blessing of the Medicine God Benzhu, so my ability is healing. What about you?”

“Medicine God? Shennong?” With Xie Qingling’s meager mythological knowledge, the only deity she could associate with medicine was Shennong.

“How could it be?” Ye Anran shook her head and laughed. “Shennong is the ancestral deity of agriculture and medicine. Why would an ancestral deity like that casually grant a blessing? Of the people I know who have received an ancestral deity’s blessing, there are no more than five.”

Ye Anran held up five fingers. Taking advantage of Xie Qingling’s surprise, she continued explaining, “The Medicine God who blessed me is a Benzhu of the Bai people. Most of the Benzhu they worship are ancestors and historical heroes who made great contributions to their people. After receiving incense offerings for a long time, a human acquires divinity and is revered as a god. Folk belief has many, many deities.”

“So which deity blessed you?” Ye Anran steered the conversation back.

Xie Qingling thought, then said, “Her name is Houtu.”

The Mother of the Great Earth, Mountains, and Rivers, who transformed herself into the Six Paths and wielded authority over reincarnation.

That was all Xie Qingling remembered.

Beyond that, she knew very little.

To her surprise, the moment Ye Anran heard the name, she sprayed out a mouthful of coffee.