At 5:30 AM, while the other guests were still in their rooms applying makeup, Ye Lin’s hand trembled as she held her toothbrush. She stared fixedly at her ankle, unable to process what she was seeing.
She rubbed her eyes in disbelief and looked down again. There it was—a vivid red silk thread tied around her left ankle. She lifted her leg, and the thread moved with her. It shimmered faintly in the early light, nearly transparent as if the connection were brand new. Following its path, she saw the other end tied firmly to another pale ankle.
The owner of that ankle, Movie Queen Gu Li pushed her door open with a messy “bird’s nest” of hair. She let out a long yawn, her eyes glazed with sleep, showing absolutely zero awareness of her “National Goddess” status.
“Ah!” Ye Lin let out a strangled shriek. Her toothbrush and cup flew into the air as she clutched her head and bolted back into her room like a lightning bolt. The door slammed shut with a resounding bang, leaving Gu Li standing alone and bewildered in the morning breeze.
“It must be from yesterday, that promise,” Ye Lin sat on her bed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she sank into thought.
The clock rewound to midnight. A female spirit from an ancient dynasty had appeared to Ye Lin, begging for help.
The spirit’s name was Dijiu Li, a Talisman Master from a kingdom a thousand years past. She had once served a General who conquered the nine provinces. When the General fell in battle, Dijiu Li found this auspicious land—the mountain behind the village and built a tomb there, laying down a “Merit Array” to nourish the General’s soul.
Because of this, most villagers in Xiao Wang Village were people of great merit in their past lives, drawn here by the shifting Feng Shui of the array. The village’s collective merit fed back into nature, creating the purple mist that Ye Lin had observed—a sign of ultimate luck.
“Then why is the mountain peak shrouded in black fog? Why is malevolent Sha energy running rampant, even tainting the villagers?” Ye Lin had asked. This was the anomaly she had planned to deal with after filming, but the source had come to her first.
“How could a Merit Array produce Sha? You’d better tell the truth, or I won’t help you.” Ye Lin’s brow furrowed, her handsome face carrying an air of absolute authority. “There’s more to that mountain than a few leaks. What’s really happening inside that tomb?”
Dijiu Li wiped away non-existent sweat and nodded submissively. “As expected of a Master, you see through the secrets of heaven at a glance.”
“The one buried in that tomb is the Great General of the Yuanlu Era, Diwu Ju.”
“Diwu Ju? You mean the ‘Living Yama’ who swept through armies with only a few hundred men? The most badass Alpha in the ancient histories?” Gu Li’s eyes went wide. Meeting a ghost was strange enough, but hearing gossip about a legendary figure was on another level. Her worldview was being systematically dismantled and rebuilt, but more importantly—she was a huge fan of Diwu Ju!
As it turned out, the history books were wrong.
“From the start, General Diwu Ju hid her identity as an Omega. She used a certain method to release Alpha pheromones so she could lead armies and avenge her father and brothers.”
“What? General Diwu was an Omega?!” Gu Li was reeling. Even in ancient times, there were people “playing Alpha”!
“Yes,” Dijiu Li continued softly. “In that barbaric era of famine and war, Omegas were seen as mere breeding tools and Betas as labor. Only Alphas held power. To avenge her family, Ju had no choice. She lost her ability to bear children because of the methods used, but she proved that an Omega’s strength and intellect were second to none.”
A faint smile touched Dijiu Li’s lips, her eyes filled with tenderness. “Back then, she was so heroic leading thousands of armored cavalry through the north and south, making every enemy faction bow in submission. That was when she saved me. I was just an apprentice Talisman Master. I used charms to mask her pheromones and deceive the old foxes in the Imperial Court. In private, we were ‘good friends’ who drank tea and watched the snow together.”
“Good friends,” Dijiu Li murmured, looking up at the sky with a sense of profound loss. “Only good friends.”
“And so, you placed a Soul-Locking Array inside the Merit Array? You really were a ‘thoughtful’ friend,” Ye Lin interrupted mockingly.
The Soul-Locking Array was a vicious, sinister formation usually used by evil cultivators to refine spirits. For a Talisman Master to use such a thing on her own friend was the ultimate betrayal.
“You, you saw through that too!” Dijiu Li wasn’t entirely surprised; she knew Ye Lin was the one she had been waiting for.
“Soul-Locking?” Gu Li interjected, her anger rising as she grasped the meaning. “You trapped her?”
“I had a selfish heart,” Dijiu Li admitted bitterly. “I fell in love with Ju, a fellow Omega, but she rejected me. If she entered the cycle of reincarnation, we would never meet again. So, I used the Soul-Locking Array to trap her spirit. I planned to cultivate with her in the tomb after I died so we could be together forever. She didn’t resist, and a thousand years passed just like that.”
“She didn’t resist, or she had no choice?” Gu Li was fuming, her chest heaving with indignation. “You trapped her and you think you’re in the right? I hate people like you—doing horrible things under the guise of ‘love.’ I can’t tell if you love her or hate her!”
Ye Lin was surprised to see Gu Li this angry. In their short time together, Gu Li had always been poised and gentle. This was a new side of her.
Dijiu Li burst into tears. “I know I was wrong. I’m the one who harmed her. That’s why, when I calculated that a Master was coming, I waited here. Please, Master, save Ju! She, she’s about to be scattered to the winds!”
“How did it come to this?” Gu Li looked at Ye Lin, desperate for an answer.
“Can’t you break your own array?” Ye Lin asked Dijiu Li.
The spirit shook her head. “I am a Talisman Master, not an Array Specialist. I only studied the Soul-Locking Array when Ju’s health began to fail. I only learned how to set it up. I never learned how to take it down.”
“No wonder your thousand-year cultivation feels so weak,” Ye Lin noted. “You must have exhausted your soul just to force your way out of the tomb to find me.”
“I don’t understand,” Gu Li said, her eyes wide with confusion. “What’s going on?”
“This Talisman Master didn’t know what she was doing,” Ye Lin explained. “She used Diwu Ju as the ‘eye’ of the Soul-Locking Array, meaning the General can never leave. But a thousand years later, someone else discovered this auspicious land and set up a Sha-Refining Array over it.”
“A Sha-Refining Array uses souls as raw material to create ‘Sha-Pills’ for evil cultivation. The person who set this is powerful and malicious. Since Diwu Ju is the eye of the Soul-Locking Array, she has inadvertently become the sacrifice for the new array. Her thousand years of cultivation are the key ingredient. When the pill is finished, Diwu Ju’s soul will be obliterated. And Dijiu Li, the one who started all this, can only watch as her lover is consumed.”
Dijiu Li sighed. “It is as you say, Master. I could not break the array. I could only watch from within as the Sha-Refining Array took shape above us, watching helplessly while Ju was tortured. Later, I divined that a great calamity would befall Xiao Wang Village, but that there was a glimmer of hope—a sign that an expert with immense cultivation would arrive. I exhausted my remaining power to breach both layers of the arrays and escape. Finally, I found you.”
“I have a ten-thousand-year-old spirit stone stored within the tomb as payment. I beg you, Master, please save her!” Dijiu Li’s spirit knelt before Ye Lin, her voice trembling with desperation.
“Meetings and partings, life and death. I will break both arrays,” Ye Lin said, her voice cool and steady. “But as for your Soul-Locking Array—if I break it, I must send both of your souls into the cycle of reincarnation to be cleansed. After that, you will never meet again, through all eternity.”
Ye Lin’s words were like a steel blade thrust into Dijiu Li’s chest. Two streaks of ghostly, shimmering tears rolled down the spirit’s cheeks. From this moment on, her affinity with Diwu Ju would reach its absolute end.
Dijiu Li remembered a winter long ago, when the snow was heavy and the wind was biting. She was just a small apprentice, a mere child in an era of war and chaos. Her master had already starved to death, and she had no hope of survival. Clad in a tattered, thin tunic, she huddled by the entrance of a tavern to escape the wind. The proprietor, fearing she would bring bad luck to his business, kicked her into the middle of the road.
A luxurious carriage approached, the cabin as large as a small house. She remembered her master telling her that such “little houses” had warm stoves, cotton blankets, and all sorts of delicious snacks, it was a place for immortals.
As the carriage drew near, and the horses’ hooves threatened to crush her emaciated body, Dijiu Li closed her eyes. She thought that if she died, she might see her master again—she only hoped her master wasn’t as poor on the other side.
Being hungry was the worst fate of all.
With a sharp neigh, the carriage stopped. Dijiu Li would never forget that moment: the door of the “little house” opened, the thick curtain lifted, and a figure as exquisite as carved jade emerged. Dark, pool-like eyes scanned her.
After a long pause, the jade-like girl asked, “Are you hungry, or are you trying to extort me?” Her breath misted in the air, giving her an ethereal, celestial aura.
“I, I can’t walk anymore.” She was so starved she had no strength left.
“Do you have a craft? The Diwu family does not feed idlers.”
“I, I can draw charms. I am a Talisman Master.” She hadn’t finished her apprenticeship, but she knew the basics.
“Then get in.” With that, the figure vanished back into the cabin.
Dijiu Li stepped into the “little house” of her dreams, and the person inside stepped into her heart. Later, she learned that the girl was Diwu Ju, the only daughter of the renowned Diwu clan. Still later, Diwu Ju became the Alpha every Omega in the country dreamed of marrying, and Dijiu Li became her closest strategist—the only one who knew her secret.
Dijiu Li accompanied Diwu Ju on her conquests; Diwu Ju accompanied Dijiu Li to see the wonders of the world. Diwu Ju once said destiny was a strange thing: “I am ‘Fifth’ (Diwu) and you are ‘Ninth’ (Dijiu). These surnames are rare. We were destined to meet.” Sometimes, Dijiu Li would tease her while drunk: “If I weren’t an Omega, I would certainly take you as my wife.”
Their story was long—long enough to take days to tell—and yet so short, just two ordinary women huddling together for warmth.
“I leave everything to your arrangement, Master.” Dijiu Li bowed her head. The only thing she could do now was preserve Diwu Ju’s soul.
Ye Lin pulled out a piece of talisman paper and used her spiritual energy to catch the two ghostly tears. These were rare spiritual treasures, exactly what she needed to break the arrays.
Gu Li, who had been pondering in the corner, suddenly realized something was off. “Ye Lin, you said you’d break both arrays, but you mentioned a third one?”
“Yes. Didn’t I tell you that you were in danger? In this third array, you are the key to opening it.”
________________________________________
Author’s Note:
Ye Lin: I’m being kidnapped by a Red Thread freak! Ah! (Incredulous.jpg)
Gu Li: My wife doesn’t want to be tied to me? Where’s my whip? Where’s my forty-meter-long blade?