Chapter 62
Chapter 62
After leaving Duke Du’s Mansion, Mu Tingting had been somewhat dazed and distracted.
Now, seated in the carriage, the Marquise, Lady Rong, noticed something was wrong and could not help asking, “Ximo, what’s the matter?”
“My lady… I’m fine.”
At the sound of the name “Ximo,” Mu Tingting instinctively tensed.
Although she had spent all these years trying to grow used to this name and doing her best not to give herself away…
A fake was still a fake in the end.
Would the day come when her deception was exposed?
Her hand, hidden inside her sleeve, quietly clenched. Her nails dug deep into her palm, sending up a faint sting.
“And you still say you’re fine? Your face looks awful.”
Worried for her, Lady Rong instructed the elderly maid beside her, “When we return to the residence, have Physician Zhang come and take a look at her.”
The maid acknowledged the order.
Mu Tingting forced a smile. “My lady, you needn’t worry about me. Perhaps I simply caught a chill from the wind by the garden lake earlier. Once we’re back, I’ll drink some ginger soup to drive out the cold, and I’ll be all right.”
Lady Rong stroked her head, her eyes full of heartache.
After they returned to the Marquis Mansion, Mu Tingting went straight back to her room. But when she saw the half-finished brocade sachet by the windowsill, she could not help wanting to pick it up again.
Back when she was at home, whenever something unhappy happened, she liked to sit quietly and do embroidery, stitching every worry in her heart densely into the needle and thread.
And then her heart would feel lighter.
Just then, Rong Shu, the Marquise’s personal maid, came in carrying a bowl of ginger soup.
“Oh, my dear Miss Xia, why aren’t you lying down and resting?”
“You’re clearly unwell, yet you’re still doing such taxing, painstaking work. If the Young Marquis saw this, he’d surely be distressed again.”
Hearing her mention Ren Fengjue, Mu Tingting’s hand paused. A strange feeling rose in her heart, and she hurriedly asked, “Rong Shu, why bring up the Young Marquis all of a sudden?”
“Miss Xia, you don’t know.”
Rong Shu set the bowl of soup beside her and said with a smile, “The Young Marquis came back during the day and even made a special trip here.”
“He told me that since he didn’t get to see you today, he would come another time specifically to visit you.”
At that, Mu Tingting’s complexion grew even worse.
She felt more and more that something was off.
That day, when she had first arrived at the residence and exchanged words with Ren Fengjue, she had already sensed that he was an extremely suspicious man.
Her explanation had been rehearsed countless times in advance and had seemed flawless.
But it seemed… it had not been enough to convince him.
Now he had suddenly returned to the residence and left such a message. It did not seem like concern or a polite inquiry after her health. Instead, it seemed more like… a test!
Mu Tingting’s heart began to tremble. Combined with what had happened at Duke Du’s Mansion, a faint, ominous premonition stirred within her…
Was she truly about to be exposed?
–
“What are you howling about?”
Xia Ximo had only just walked out of the Meng Family Mansion when Wuyou’s ghostly sobbing grated on her nerves and made her impatient.
“Don’t you find it moving?”
Wuyou wiped its tears as it said, “Lovers in this world all yearn to ‘grow old together, forever of one heart,’ but sadly, they either suffer ‘parting in life and death’ or end up ‘sharing a bed while dreaming different dreams’…”
“There are far too few people like Meng Zhiyuan and his wife, who could support each other into old age and remain of one heart until their hair turned white.”
“What a pity Meng Zhiyuan died a few years too early. Otherwise, the two of them could have gone hand in hand to the Yellow Springs. Truly worthy of song and tears!”
Xia Ximo glanced at it and said coldly, “You seem to want to be human quite badly. Why didn’t you ask the Earth Lord to let you enter reincarnation? Why choose instead to become a Lantern-Guarding Soul?”
Wuyou stopped crying and thought for a moment. “Ever since I gained consciousness, I’ve been guarding this Soul-Ferrying Lantern. I’ve never thought about becoming human…”
Then it added, “But I’ve come into contact with so many people who served as Soul Ferryman, and you are absolutely the least human of them all.”
“That said, I am rather curious. In those sealed-away memories of yours, could there be some grand, soul-stirring love story too?”
Xia Ximo’s steps halted.
Wuyou thought she had stopped to ponder it and actually felt a flicker of anticipation.
Then Xia Ximo shot him a cold sidelong look and asked, “Do you think there might be a talisman that can seal your mouth shut?”
“…”
Peace finally returned to her ears. Xia Ximo put away the Soul-Ferrying Lantern, yet she could not help glancing back in the direction of the Meng Family Mansion.
Madam Meng was still standing by the gate to see her off. When she noticed Xia Ximo looking back, she even waved.
After Xia Ximo had delivered Meng Zhiyuan’s message, the equally silver-haired old madam had smiled and said, “He never wronged me. To have been at my lord’s side-what great fortune that was.”
Xia Ximo withdrew her gaze. For some reason, she felt that the sunlight falling on her today carried a trace of warmth.
Just then, however, voices drifted over from the street nearby.
“It’s him again. Didn’t they say the authorities already closed the case? Why is he still making a scene about finding the killer?”
“He must have been hit too hard. Man’s gone wrong in the head!”
“How much reward is he offering this time?”
“Ten ingots of gold? Then he really has gone mad! I heard his house was emptied out by thieves ages ago. Where would he get that kind of money?”
…
At the mention of “ten ingots of gold,” Xia Ximo instinctively looked over.
She saw three or five men gathered around a notice board, enjoying the spectacle.
Below the board sat a haggard-looking man, his face blank and desolate.
Before long, two constables came over, tore the notice down from the board, dragged the man into a corner, beat him, and gave him a vicious warning.
“Zhou Zigui, if you dare cause trouble here again, don’t blame us for throwing you in a cell for a few days!”
The man seemed already numb to such treatment.
Even after being beaten, he did not make a sound. He merely sat there dully, muttering something under his breath.
The onlookers could not help pointing and gossiping, and only when the constables barked at them did they gradually disperse.
Only Xia Ximo walked straight toward the man in the corner.
“If I help you find the killer, are there really ten ingots of gold?”
Hearing that the voice belonged to a woman, the man seemed disinclined to pay her any attention. He did not even raise his head.
Xia Ximo frowned, suddenly feeling that her question was somewhat laughable.
She was just about to leave when she heard the man murmuring in a low voice.
“The real killer is someone else. My wife’s ghost said so. It wasn’t Ah Da. Ah Da was only a scapegoat… I have to kill the true culprit. I have to avenge my wife.”
Xia Ximo stopped, then turned back to study him carefully.
There was indeed a heavy aura of yin energy around him, but not the slightest trace of hostility or Baleful Qi.
And mortal eyes could not see ghosts.
At that very moment, Lantern Spirit Wuyou was floating beside him, yet the man showed no sign of sensing him at all.
That was enough to prove his eyes could not see through the boundary between yin and yang.
If so, then his wife’s ghost…
“You can see ghosts?” Xia Ximo asked coldly once more.
Only then did the man look up at her. A flicker of surprise actually passed through his originally numb, lifeless eyes.
It seemed he had not expected the person speaking to him to be such a young and beautiful girl.
“I…”
The man hesitated, then suddenly laughed at himself. “I know none of you will believe me…”
Then, clutching his injured places, he struggled to his feet as if to leave, only to pause again.
“I do have ten ingots of gold. But you can’t help me.”
With that, he staggered away, about to leave.