Wenren Lian had already been staying at the Lian family home with his classmates for two days.
With the three-day deadline approaching, they could no longer stay and grew anxious.
Early in the morning, Lu Youyi looked at Zhuo Zhongqiu and Wenren Lian returning from the Lian family’s senior brothers and asked first, “Are they still making us wait for Jiang Luo to come down the mountain?”
Zhuo Zhongqiu nodded expressionlessly, “I’ve asked them several times, but only the juniors are here. The elders have vanished without a trace. Two days ago, they said Jiang Luo would come back within these two days, so we could wait in peace. But two days have passed, and Jiang Luo still hasn’t returned. Wenren and I went to ask Daoist Wei He’s place on the mountain, but they were vague, only saying to keep going up the mountain. We don’t know the exact location. I suspect there’s a formation on the mountain, and we need Lian family people to guide us up.”
But after several days of heavy snow, the mountain foot is blocked, and no Lian family members were willing to risk going up.
Lu Youyi nervously paced in circles, “What should we do? Should we just climb up ourselves? I’m going crazy waiting here.”
“There’s no other choice,” Wenren Lian said gravely. He gently brushed his chest, where the earring he treasured was carefully kept inside his clothing pocket. “There are many places on the mountain where people can stay, but if we search one by one, we’ll eventually find Daoist Wei He’s residence. Waiting here for Jiang Luo to come down is too passive. Let’s just go straight up the mountain.”
Ge Zhu hesitated a little, “But I’m afraid if we go up the mountain, Jiang Luo might just come down at the same time and we could miss each other.”
That possibility was not impossible — it was exactly why they hesitated for two days.
“Then leave one person here to wait,” Ye Xun stood up, looking at Wenren Lian resolutely, “I’m going to find Jiang Luo.”
***
Without delay, they grabbed their gear and hurried to the back mountain. At the foot of the mountain, snow piled almost half a person’s height.
Fortunately, Lu Youyi and the others had physical fitness beyond ordinary people, so it wasn’t too difficult.
After climbing for about two hours, Zhuo Zhongqiu looked up and saw nothing but a vast expanse of white. She licked her dry lips, suppressed her impatience, and kept moving forward.
There would definitely be protective formations guarding Daoist Wei He’s residence. If they wanted to find Wei He’s place in such a large mountain, now it depended on their effort and luck.
“Zhongqiu, you’re familiar with the Lian family, and you’re especially good friends with Lian Xue,” Lu Youyi, sweating heavily and panting, asked, “What kind of person is Daoist Wei He? Would Jiang Luo face danger going to see him?”
They could only guess from the funeral home owner’s words that Jiang Luo would encounter danger, but they didn’t know what kind of danger.
“Daoist Wei He? He’s an extremely protective elder,” Zhuo Zhongqiu’s expression turned strange. “When I was in high school, I already had my own ideas. Others went teasing handsome men and beautiful women, but I was different—I purposely flirted with female ghosts. I was wild back then, and to prove I could get along with both humans and ghosts, I did quite a few things that almost cost me my life. Once, I met a female ghost wandering around the dorm building. She looked very pure, and I couldn’t resist talking to her, so she started following me.”
She showed a cringe-worthy look of memory, “That female ghost chased me all the way home, insisted on being my girlfriend, and was very jealous of any girls around me. Lian Xue almost got killed by that ghost. When Daoist Wei He found out, he stormed into my house.”
Zhuo Zhongqiu shuddered, “He shoved that ghost into the toilet, and every time she crawled out, he’d flush it down… again and again… Eventually, he caught the ghost and brought her to the Lian family. Using water from the Tianbi Pool, he bathed the ghost every day, carefully controlling the amount so it wouldn’t kill her but would make her suffer. Do you think it ended there? No, it wasn’t over.”
“Three months later, when I visited the Lian family to see Lian Xue, I found the ghost still alive, looking almost like she was about to ascend. I saw her run into the sunlight to sunbathe herself, saying she wanted to destroy herself for world peace. Vengeful ghosts only harm the living world; she was willing to die to remove one more malicious ghost from the world.”
Ye Xun perked up and after listening thought for a moment, “Sounds like brainwashing.”
Zhuo Zhongqiu shrugged, “I’ve always thought the Lian family’s holy water has brainwashing effects — even ghosts get turned into mindless fools.”
She usually didn’t dare say this to Lian Xue.
Teng Bi silently listened to their conversation, then suddenly twitched his nose for a moment and looked northwest.
“Lu Youyi,” he said, “there’s a bloody smell.”
Everyone immediately became alert and stared at him. Lu Youyi quickly asked, “Where? Where?”
Teng Bi said, “Follow me.”
He walked ahead, and soon they arrived at a patch of snow.
The snow looked ordinary on the surface. Teng Bi brushed aside a layer of clean white snow, and beneath was snow stained dark red with blood.
Teng Bi had already recognized whose blood it was. To confirm, he rubbed some red snow and put it in his mouth. Then he stood up and said, “It’s Jiang Luo’s blood.”
Lu Youyi gasped.
How badly must one be injured to lose so much fresh blood?
He suddenly panicked, “Then quickly smell again, find out where Jiang Luo is now!”
Teng Bi was already smelling the air.
Low temperatures reduce the spread of scent. Down the mountain the wind was weak, but in the bare mountain it blew fiercely. This environment affected Teng Bi’s sense of smell, so he carefully sniffed every wind direction, then briskly headed down another path.
Those behind him followed closely.
Teng Bi thought in his mind: “Huali.”
Huali was a fox spirit formed from the vengeful spirit of an abused and killed fox. One of his abilities was to communicate telepathically. Soon, Huali’s voice came cold and indifferent: “What do you want?”
Teng Bi didn’t know whether to tell his master this news, because he wasn’t sure how his master currently regarded Jiang Luo. He actually did not want his master to kill Jiang Luo while he had the chance.
This was wrong, but Teng Bi tentatively asked, “Are you with Master?”
“We are with Master in the ancient tomb,” Huali’s tone turned bad, “That human said something to Master, but Master has been zoning out several times today. The longest one was for a whole hour. When we entered the tomb owner’s cave, Master looked at the coffin and muttered ‘Jiang…’—even though he didn’t finish the word, I knew he was saying that human’s name. Whatever that human put in Master’s head, Master has become a different person.”
Judging by this, Master probably wouldn’t kill Jiang Luo.
Teng Bi seemed to breathe a little easier, “Tell Master that Jiang Luo is injured.”
Huali was annoyed hearing about that human but became conflicted hearing Jiang Luo was hurt. He couldn’t help but ask, “How badly is he injured?”
“I don’t know,” Teng Bi said, “I’m still searching for his trail.”
Huali didn’t speak anymore.
Teng Bi thought the conversation was over, but after a couple of steps, he suddenly heard Huali’s voice again, full of panic and urgency, speaking quickly, “Teng Bi, once you find Jiang Luo, you must notify me immediately!”
“I understand.”
The wind direction changed.
The bloody scent grew stronger in the cold wind, and Teng Bi quickened his pace. As they got closer, not only did the blood smell intensify, but clearer footprints appeared. Lu Youyi looked up from the footprints on the ground, a heavy worry weighing on his heart. He gazed into the distance and suddenly froze, “Is that someone collapsed up ahead?”
Ye Xun squinted and looked, his face turning pale, “It’s Jiang Luo!”
The group broke into a sprint toward the collapsed figure, covering dozens of meters in just a few seconds. Five or six of them ran side by side, none slower than the others, arriving together beside the fallen man.
It was indeed Jiang Luo.
He was curled up in a ball, the side of his clothes touching the ground soaked with snowmelt. His face was flushed red, his messy hair covering half of it, but his lips were pale and blue, as if drained of blood. Lu Youyi carefully helped him up, took off his own down jacket and covered Jiang Luo with it. They whispered, “Jiang Luo? Jiang Luo?”
Jiang Luo’s eyelids twitched.
Zhuo Zhongqiu cursed softly, “If only we’d let Ge Zhu come with us earlier—he knows medicine and healing. At least he’d know how to take a pulse.”
Wenren Lian raised his hand to touch Jiang Luo’s forehead, “So hot.”
Jiang Luo’s eyelids twitched again. He opened his eyes and, to everyone’s relief, propped himself up on his hands and sat up. “It’s you guys,” he said.
He hadn’t actually fainted—he sensed someone chasing him from behind and, with nowhere to hide, pretended to be unconscious, trying to figure out what those pursuing him wanted.
When he woke up, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Wenren Lian quickly said, “Hold on, we’ll take you down the mountain.”
“I can’t go down,” Jiang Luo said weakly. “I just walked around the summit. There’s a formation—like fighting a ghost wall. You can get in but not out. The furthest down you can go is this spot. If you go forward, you’ll just return to the snowy peak again.”
“What do we do then?” Ye Xun asked anxiously, “Should we let Little Pink try?”
“Let’s go back. I know where Daoist Wei He lives,” Jiang Luo gestured for Lu Youyi to help him up. Scanning the faces of Zhuo Zhongqiu and the others, when his eyes landed on Teng Bi, they flickered slightly. “Why did you come looking for me?”
Wenren Lian said, “The funeral parlor owner asked us to bring you something.”
He took out the wheat-ear earring from his chest pocket and told Jiang Luo what the funeral parlor owner had said. Jiang Luo took the pendant, squinting thoughtfully—did the funeral parlor owner mean that he had anticipated Jiang Luo would be cleansed of desire by the Tianbi Pool water?
But could the funeral parlor owner’s words really be trusted?
Could this earring harm him?
Jiang Luo did not act rashly. He put the earring away and said thoughtfully, “He told you the trial is in ten days. How many days remain now?”
Wenren Lian replied, “Seven days.”
Seven days.
If he could endure these seven days, Jiang Luo could use this as an excuse to openly come down the mountain. Maybe even turn the tables and see what the Lian family and the Fated One wanted to do.
But how to survive these seven days?
The funeral parlor owner’s words were vague, and Jiang Luo was suspicious. He couldn’t place all his hopes on an uncertain earring, especially since he didn’t know Ji Yaozi well either. So Jiang Luo needed a safer plan.
His eyes flicked toward Teng Bi again.
Jiang Luo had long noticed Teng Bi had recovered his memories. He was no longer the foolish Dead Ghost who had blindly trusted others. But Teng Bi was still lurking among them, pretending to be that Dead Ghost. Without Chi You’s orders, Jiang Luo couldn’t believe it.
Jiang Luo’s other plan was to have Teng Bi lure Chi You here, so he could use Chi You, his enemy, to keep himself alert.
But dealing with a malicious ghost was like dealing with a wild beast—it was a lose-lose scenario.
Jiang Luo’s feelings were strange and complicated.
He felt irritated, but also had a restless desire to suppress the malicious ghost. He was somewhat dissatisfied, yet also had a desire to conquer.
He understood that if he used the malicious ghost now, there was a high chance they would end up “in bed” together.
After all, Chi You’s condition in the Mirror World was… to sleep together.
Jiang Luo thought about this and walked all the way to the manor’s gate.
On one hand, his body could no longer bear the threat of death, nor could he use extreme methods to keep his sanity. On the other, since he still couldn’t leave the mountain, he might as well investigate why Ji Yaozi gave him the earring, what Daoist Wei He and the Fated One intended, and what role he himself played.
The only thing that could awaken his desires and malice while in a state of detachment was the malicious ghost. Dealing with the malicious ghost seemed the best way to keep his self intact.
Torn between reason and temptation, Jiang Luo gradually leaned toward the malicious ghost’s path.
But he had once told Chi You himself, “Only that one time.” Originally, Jiang Luo planned to turn cold and ruthless once he left the Mirror World and teach Chi You a lesson for daring to suggest a “second time.”
But now…
Jiang Luo clicked his tongue.
He wasn’t someone who couldn’t adapt. If he was, he wouldn’t have found the malicious ghost to “sleep with” when he was drugged before. The essence was that it gave him pleasure and excitement—he could accept that. But he really didn’t want to make things too easy for the malicious ghost.
Fighting was one thing. If they really had to “sleep together,” Jiang Luo would never offer himself willingly just to let the malicious ghost gloat too much. But he feared the effect of the Tianbi Pool water.
If he really became completely free of worldly desires, wouldn’t he lose all motivation even to trouble Chi You?
That would be terrifying.
After much thought, even if he had to do intimate things with the malicious ghost, Jiang Luo wasn’t willing to lower himself. He wanted to lure Chi You to come to him instead—make Chi You be the one to actively ask for it.
That way, Jiang Luo could maintain his high ground while subtly keeping his own clarity of mind.
After all, it would be the malicious ghost who made the first move, not him offering himself. He could still justifiably use Chi You and then discard him, right?
Jiang Luo didn’t know what exactly he was trying to convince himself of by saying all this, but after saying it, he definitely felt a lot better inside.
Next, he just needed to subtly attract Chi You’s appearance.
The Fated One looked strong, and Chi You and Dead Ghost might not even be able to get to the mountain peak. Also, sex in reality often left marks on the body. Jiang Luo felt that meeting Chi You in a dream was the best option.
Everything was prepared. So how to draw Chi You out?
Jiang Luo squinted and came up with an idea.
Author’s note:
Jiang Luo: Don’t make me lower myself—this is all you asking me first.jpg
Tool character Chi You appears for the third time
