Chapter 7
Two months later, in Jinling.
I entered a tower overlooking the entire city: Jade Bone Tower.
Seven stories high and extravagantly luxurious, it housed the Jade Bone Sect’s greatest treasure at its summit—the Soul-Summoning Lamp.
A spirit lived in it, named Xiao Gu. She could call back the souls of the dead.
Not long before, the emperor had died suddenly. The sect used the lamp to summon his soul and, with its secret medicine, brought him back to life to enjoy immortality.
Overnight, the sect had become the most sought-after power in the land. It built this magnificent tower to attract followers.
I had come for the lamp, but met someone unexpected: Shen Du, magistrate of Qingya County.
He sat alone drinking tea. When he saw me, he showed no surprise.
“Miss Bai Zhi. It’s been a while.”
After I left Qingya, the deranged Madame Chen carried the lamb through the streets all day, trying to sell it.
Its eyes were crimson. It savagely bit anyone who stopped to ask the price. Even vicious stray dogs could not defeat it. No one dared buy it.
Seven days later, starving, Madame Chen could bear it no longer. She slaughtered it herself, skinned and bled it, and roasted it over a fire.
The supposedly tender meat gave off such a nauseating stench of rot that it spread for miles. Everyone in Qingya could smell it.
Ravenous, she gulped it down, weeping and laughing. After that, no one knew what became of her.
I listened to Shen Du’s account without a ripple of feeling, smiled indifferently, and asked,
“Have you come to arrest me, Magistrate Shen?”
He poured me a cup of tea. The rich jasmine fragrance drew a long breath from me.
“I’ve resigned,” he said lightly.
I was surprised.
He had been a good official. During the locust plague, he had personally led people to salvage the crops.
When I destroyed the locusts, he claimed no credit and insisted on submitting a memorial for me.
Even at the end, he had urged me to turn back.
He was a good man. But he did not walk my road.
A gong sounded. Elder Meng of the Jade Bone Sect brought out the Soul-Summoning Lamp.
Each day, one soul-summoning rite took place in the tower. The highest bidder won.
Profit, and power over people’s hearts.
The tower was packed. Everyone had brought money, and everyone craned their necks to see.
Yet lately, however much anyone offered, they could not outbid the eldest son of the Qi family in the east of the city.
The Qi family possessed wealth to rival a nation. Qi Boqing missed his late wife, He You. Every day, he offered mountains of gold and silver simply to spend two hours with her soul.
A Qi servant brought out two chests of gold and raised his chin, certain of victory.
Sighs rose all around. Would-be bidders gave up in the face of it.
Shen Du teased me.
“Are you here to summon a soul too? How much money did you bring?”
I beckoned. A curtained carriage stopped outside, and ten whole chests of gold were carried into the tower.
The crowd erupted. Only Shen Du, who knew what I could do, shook his head helplessly.
The servant’s expression changed. He hurried up to the second floor.
Soon he returned, laid down banknotes worth five hundred thousand taels, and glanced at me haughtily.
Without changing expression, I raised my hand. Another ten chests of gold arrived.
He gritted his teeth and added another stack of notes.
The sect’s members watched me eagerly, waiting for our contest to drive the price of today’s rite beyond all imagining.
Just as I was about to continue, Elder Meng interrupted.
“Wait!”
His gaze was sharp as a blade. Suddenly he poured a pot of wine over my twenty chests of gold.
The brilliant yellow faded at once. The gold became a heap of paper cutouts.
Even immortal arts had things that could overcome them.
Paper figures feared water and fire.
Elder Meng looked down his nose at me.
“A paltry trick, broken by water, and you dare make trouble in the Jade Bone Sect?”
I was not angry at having my magic broken. I threw a cup of hot tea over the lamp in his hand.
At once, it became a weightless paper cutout.
“The same to you,” I replied.
Appalled, he drew his sword on me.
“Monster! Where’s the lamp? Return it now, and I’ll spare your life!”
I scattered a handful of paper sparrows to stop the sect members attempting to surround me.
“I’ll return at midnight. Tell Sect Leader Xiao and all nineteen elders to wait here together. If even one is missing, I’ll smash the lamp!”
With that, I drifted away.
Late that night, before midnight, someone knocked softly on my door.
It was not a sect member. It was Qi Boqing.
He came straight to the point.
“I’d like to buy the Soul-Summoning Lamp from you.”
His visit did not surprise me.
I had heard that after losing his wife, he offered the sect all his holdings in an entire prefecture for the lamp.
But the lamp was a divine artifact. No amount of treasure could persuade the sect to sell.
It sat on the table. Unlit, it looked no different from an ordinary oil lamp.
Qi Boqing glanced at it and asked in puzzlement,
“Aren’t you going to use it to summon a soul?”
I sighed.
“I already did.”
I had lain low in Jinling for two months. Only yesterday had I found a chance to replace the lamp with a paper cutout.
I asked its spirit, Xiao Gu, to summon Master’s soul. But she could find him nowhere and only told me,
“Either his soul has scattered, or he has been reborn as a human. A living person’s soul cannot be summoned. Whether you meet again is a matter of fate.”
Like me, Qi Boqing was not someone who let fate decide for him.
He again offered his holdings in a whole prefecture, adding,
“All I want in this life is to spend my days and nights with my wife. If you’ll part with it, I’ll owe you forever. As long as I live, I’m yours to command.”
I shook my head.
“The lamp is useless to me. I’d give it to you for nothing. But not yet. I have a blood feud with the Jade Bone Sect. Tonight, I’ll use it to destroy them.”
He stared for a while, then smiled.
“It would be my greatest good fortune to help you.”