Chapter 237
Chapter 237
The boy did not understand what she meant, yet felt an inexplicable horror.
He hastily backed away and, just as in his dream that night, tumbled straight down the stairs.
His whole body struck the floor heavily, but he felt no pain.
A terrifying memory even surfaced in his mind: he saw his own corpse.
A frail boy lay dead in the streets of Liangzhou City.
The boy could not help screaming. Looking back, he saw the young lady slowly descending from the loft.
She seldom came downstairs.
Now she approached him with slow, light steps, her long skirt swaying gently over the floor.
He thought she would be angry, kill him, and turn him into fertilizer…
Instead, she slowly crouched beside him and asked, “You remember?”
The boy dared not answer.
The young lady said, “You are already dead.”
“You died in the streets of Liangzhou City. I brought your soul back here.”
The boy opened his mouth. “I… died?”
Instinctively, he looked down at himself.
At some point, his skin had become as white as hers.
Without a trace of color, it was almost translucent.
The young lady nodded, her expression calm. “Everyone dies.”
The boy summoned his courage. “What about you, young lady?”
“I will not.”
“Then are you like me?”
“No.”
He wanted to ask more, but heard a cough outside the door. The old man stood in the entrance and said respectfully, “Young lady, it is midnight.”
At midnight, the moonlight over Mingyue Villa was at its strongest.
That was when the white flowers in the garden beds had to be watered and pruned.
Any blossom the moonlight could not reach would quickly wither.
The old man said the young lady would be angry if she saw wilted flowers.
So they had to be removed promptly.
But the boy was distracted. The young lady’s words kept circling in his mind.
“You are already dead.”
So now he was a ghost…
He remembered that ghosts cast no shadows.
Yet beneath the moonlight, two shadows lay on the ground.
One was his, and the other belonged to the old man beside him.
“The shadows on the ground do not belong to us.”
The old man suddenly answered his unspoken question. “They are the young lady’s true servants.”
The boy was puzzled. “Who are her true servants?”
The old man smiled and took out a jade token hanging from his own neck. Two characters were carved on it as well: Uncle Zhong.
“Changsheng and Uncle Zhong.”
The boy stared.
Changsheng was his new name. Clearly, it had not been his name before…
The old man continued, “People die, and ghosts can lose their souls entirely. The young lady cherishes the past, so she kept one fragment of each of their souls.”
“We merely take their forms and continue keeping her company.”
“When our souls disperse, there will be a new ‘Changsheng’ and ‘Uncle Zhong.'”
For a long time, the boy could not speak.
“We are the young lady’s ghost servants. Our souls are bound to hers by a seal. Until they disperse completely, we will remain loyal to her, without a thought of betrayal.”
As he spoke, the old man placed freshly gathered flowers and dew into a jade cup. “Go. It is time for the young lady to eat.”
Dazed, the boy carried the jade cup to the loft as he always did.
From a distance, he could see the young lady’s solitary shadow cast against the window lattice, with a rabbit beside it.
Remembering the old man’s words, he wondered whether the rabbit’s situation might be the same as theirs.
Gradually, the boy accepted his “identity” and continued living in the villa, cold seasons passing without any sense of the years.
He did not know when his own soul would disperse. But not long afterward, Uncle Zhong quietly disappeared.
Before he had time to grieve, the young lady brought back a new “Uncle Zhong.”
There was neither sorrow nor joy in Mingyue Villa. Everything seemed to move in a cycle.
Life continued as before. Together, they repeated the same tasks.
Visitors almost never came. But every so often, the armored man, his entire being steeped in Baleful Qi, would return.
The boy had noticed that each time the man left, a fresh wound appeared on the young lady’s wrist.
He could vaguely guess that the man came to take something from her…
He dared not ask what it was. He merely rushed upstairs as soon as the man left to see how she was.
One night, there was another knock.
When the boy went to answer it, he was slightly surprised.
Two people stood outside.
They said they were passing through and wished to stay for one night.
Unable to decide, the boy went to ask the young lady.
To his surprise, she did not refuse.
“I allowed them to come. Give them a room. Tell them not to make any noise, and to leave on their own tomorrow morning.”
The boy relayed her words to the two visitors and brought them inside.
Early the next morning, they left.
That night, more people came. The young lady gave the same instructions.
But these “guests” did not obey her. The next day, they lay dead in the flower beds, turned into fertilizer.
After that, people came every night, but very few ever left safely again.
The white flowers in the garden began to take on color.
Pure white turned to pale pink, then gradually to light red, and finally to the color of blood.
The young lady’s skin also began to acquire a rosy tint.
She looked different, but the boy could not say exactly how…
Then the deafening knocking sounded again.
The man had returned.
He headed straight for the loft, but his gaze instantly darkened.
“Where is the young lady?” he demanded.
The boy and the old man immediately fell to their knees, unable to answer.
The young lady had suddenly disappeared. No one knew where she had gone. It was as though she had vanished into thin air.
No trace of her could be found anywhere in Mingyue Villa, or even throughout the entire area below Mount Yuebei.
The boy thought the man would fly into a rage and kill him and Uncle Zhong.
Instead, he merely walked to the flower beds and stood there for a long time, his face betraying no emotion.
At last, he asked calmly, “Has the young lady killed many people?”
The boy raised his head and gathered enough courage to meet his gaze.
That single glance made him tremble all over.
“Yes.”
The man gave a cold laugh. “So she does mean to betray me…”
“But it does not matter. She will return.”
He abruptly took two steps toward the boy, pressed a finger between his brows, and said softly, “From this day on, whoever enters Mingyue Villa shall never leave.”
He did not kill the boy. He turned and departed.
As the villa’s doors closed, every flower in the beds withered. They never bloomed again…
*
After hearing the third story, the expressions on everyone’s faces grew even more complicated.
Even Yu Lang, who had read it aloud, could not help scratching his head. “The villa’s young lady may not be the Marquis of Zhenbei’s daughter after all, may she?”
Yan Zhengchu scratched his head too and offered one word: “Uncanny.”
Ren Fengjue glanced at Xia Ximo, seemingly watching the subtle changes in her expression.
“At least we can now be certain who has been giving us the ‘clues,'” he said.
Following his reasoning, Yu Lang thought carefully, then asked, “Changsheng?”