Yan Baichuan had solved the problem of the large locust tree in Liu Village right before coming to Liu City, so his ghost power was currently abundant, and even the red blade of Duanming faintly flashed with light. Xin’er was fearful of that ferocious blade in his hand, so she showed restraint in her attacks, yet she was struck on the shoulder by one slash from Yan Baichuan, causing a great deal of ghost power to instantly scatter out from the wound.
Xin’er could tell Yan Baichuan had not used his full strength, so rolling her eyes, she fell to her knees to beg for mercy, “Xin’er did not mean to harm people, but everyone heard the evil deeds done by Liu Chengmian just now, yet he still turns around to make false accusations, I was truly unable to stomach it, I beg sir to let me go!”
Jin You watched coldly from the side, “Do not tell me that holding back means you are going to spare her.”
Xin’er rejoiced secretly in her heart, drooping her eyelids to hide the ruthlessness in her eyes, yet she did not expect that the moment she raised her head, the blade light split right through the front of her face. The surprise on Xin’er’s face had not even faded, “Why, why?”
Since you gave me hope, why kill me?
Yan Baichuan seemed to hear Xin’er’s unfinished words, holding his right hand suspended above Xin’er’s wound, absorbing all of Xin’er’s ghost power, “I never believe the words of ghosts, especially ones like you who love to play tricks.”
In a place noticed by no one, Jin You secretly drooped his eyes, his gaze showing a moment of desolation, but he quickly adjusted his emotions, his fingers once again rubbing the handle of his folding fan.
Everyone in the world knew that the path to reincarnation was sealed, and once ghost power scattered completely, the ghost’s soul would also dissipate.
As the ghost power gradually dispersed, the fierceness in Xin’er’s eyes gradually vanished as well. Her face, devoid of the wrapping black fog, faintly revealed the beautiful features the owner possessed in life. Xin’er’s frame began to turn transparent, just like a dandelion blown down by the wind, scattering the last bit of trace of her existence in the world bit by bit in the dark night, leaving behind only an imperceptible whisper of regret, “If there is a next life, I will never again.”
Whether it was never loving again, or never trusting again, only Xin’er herself knew.
“Ha ha ha ha, I thought how capable she was, but she ended up dead anyway! If she had not ruined my good matter, how could I have married this peasant girl!” Liu Chengmian clapped his hands and laughed loudly, never once looking directly at the peasant girl he spoke of from beginning to end.
Yan Baichuan gave a playful smile, putting away Duanming, “Aren’t you curious why your house was covered in arrays, yet she was able to move around unhindered, and even possess your wife?”
Speaking of this, Liu Chengmian’s expression turned ugly. Clearly, he had not only thought about this question, but had also found people to take a look, yet it was of no use, “It is all to blame on those useless Taoists!”
Yan Baichuan gave him a kick, kicking him straight to Jin You’s feet, “Weren’t you shouting in the illusion just now that you wanted to make them look good? That female ghost is gone now, so you can make do with using this one to vent your anger.”
Jin You remembered the “Liu Chengmian” who touched his face in the illusion, immediately snapping his folding fan shut and elegantly rolling up his sleeves, “Anyone else who wants to beat someone up better hurry, offer expires when the time passes.”
Right after he finished speaking, Liu Chengmian’s buttocks took two kicks. Before he could even cry out, Lingyun instinctively handed Jin You a handful of melon seeds, smiling brightly as she watched Jin You stuff the melon seeds into Liu Chengmian’s mouth, even clapping her hands like an instigator.
Of course, they were still with shells on.
Ruyi watched the group beat Liu Chengmian from the side. Even Ying Chuang temporarily pinched his nose and listlessly gave a punch toward his originally handsome face. Ruyi’s identity was special, so she felt a bit hesitant in her heart about whether to go and stop them, since Liu Chengmian had promised to save her family.
Yan Baichuan, however, suddenly spoke out, “What kind of person he is, you saw for yourself just now. Are you sure he will keep his promise to save your family?”
Ruyi suddenly snapped to her senses, looking at Yan Baichuan, who was smiling yet not smiling.
Indeed, Liu Chengmian kept saying ‘peasant girl’ with every breath, never calling her by name. Would such a person really take out silver to save her family?
Ruyi looked helplessly toward Yan Baichuan, only to see Yan Baichuan using his gaze to signal toward A’Nian, who was trying to escape on the side. Understanding the hint, Ruyi finally mustered her courage and walked over, “I-I ask you, did Liu Chengmian truly hire a doctor to cure my mother and take care of my younger brother?”
A’Nian looked at Liu Chengmian, who could barely protect himself, stuttering and unable to speak. Ruyi felt even more terrified in her heart, “If you do not speak, I will perish together with you!”
“Don’t, don’t, don’t, I will speak, I will speak.” A’Nian still wanted to live, saying with an embarrassed expression, “Young Master said since they are about to die anyway, why bother hiring a doctor and wasting medicine money for nothing, just bury them after a few days, and at worst tell her they could not be saved. As for her younger brother, he could still be sold for a few coins.”
Ruyi clenched her fists tight, large teardrops falling to the ground, rolling up her sleeves and rushing toward Liu Chengmian, so fast that even Jin You was bumped aside, “Liu Chengmian, I will fight you to the death!”
Seeing Liu Chengmian beaten black and blue, Yan Baichuan spoke up as if he had only just remembered something, “Oh my, I forgot to tell Young Master Liu just now. In your fate, you are destined to have only three wives, so Young Master Liu’s dream of carrying on the family line is probably going to shatter.”
Liu Chengmian shouted, “Impossible, this is clearly only the third.”
Only halfway through his words, Liu Chengmian suddenly remembered something, instantly like a duck choked by the neck, saying in a trembling voice, “It was that cup of nuptial wine, it was that cup of nuptial wine, right! No wonder that array was useless, how could it be like this!”
Gathering strength from who knows where, Liu Chengmian pushed Ruyi away with a shove and ran outward, yet accidentally stepped on his own messy robes, falling down to the ground all at once and letting out a heart-wrenching scream. Lingyun looked toward the place he was clutching, raising her delicate eyebrows, “Oho, fell right onto his ancestral root, now Liu Chengmian is going to become Liu Sleepless, let us see if you can still sleep at night. That father of yours too, still hiding secretly at a time like this, it seems compared to his son’s life, his own life is still worth more money. Makes sense, since you cannot produce offspring, he still can.”
Liu Chengmian was already panicked and flustered, and now hearing Lingyun’s cold, mocking words, he was actually so angered that blood surged to his heart, spurting out a mouthful of blood before fainting dead away completely.
Jin You let out a sigh, “Such a person was actually destined in his fate to harm three women.”
“You cannot put it that way,” Yan Baichuan pulled out a wine flask, which looked like the Peach Blossom Brew from Zhenwei Tower, “Good things are fate, and bad things are also fate. But if one only wants the good things in fate and does not want the bad things, then that is not fate, that is greed.”
Jin You thought about it and found it made sense, teasing him, “Oh, I could not tell you were actually someone who believes in fate.”
Yan Baichuan let out a ‘tsh’, “Believe my foot, if I truly believed in fate, I would be working as a ox-and-horse laborer under Qin Guang, rather than running out here in the middle of the night to listen to ghosts tell stories.”
Lingyun was somewhat curious about Yan Baichuan, leaning her head over to inquire, “Oh, I have not heard that you could tell fortunes for people, how did you know he only had three wives in his fate, and that he would be cut off from descendants?”
Yan Baichuan raised an eyebrow, “Nonsense, I threw that chicken bone, otherwise how could he fall so precisely.”
Lingyun nosily moved Liu Chengmian’s leg away, indeed seeing a tiny chicken bone lying underneath. Ying Chuang leaned over and sniffed it, “This seems to be the one I ate.”
Jin You burst out with a laugh. Fortunately, Liu Chengmian had fainted, otherwise he would surely have spat out another mouthful of blood.
Having resolved the matter before them, new troubles came again.
“How to handle the follow-up?” Lingyun let out a yawn, her words carrying a bit of sleepiness.
Jin You said thoughtfully, “Liu Yingfeng has not appeared until now, so Liu Chengmian should have been abandoned. The few of us can go anywhere, but what does Miss Ruyi plan to do, Liu Yingfeng does not dare to provoke us, but he will certainly not let you off.”
Ruyi immediately fell to her knees, her gaze firm, “Please, sirs, take me away from Liu City, before I was married, I always lived by my craft, and so I shall in the future, please assist me, sirs!”
Yan Baichuan hated troublesome matters, telling the three of them to discuss among themselves. Ying Chuang did not mind, and seeing that she was someone who could stand on her own feet, Lingyun also agreed, the three of them looking together toward Jin You.
“What do you mean by those eyes, if we take her then we take her, could it be that I look very difficult to get along with?” Jin You looked back at each of them. Among the three, those who looked at the sky looked at the sky, those who drank wine drank wine, and only that white-haired wolf foolishly nodded his head, “Indeed.”
“Alright, then it is settled like this. However, before leaving, we need to find some trouble for him, so he does not come chasing after us.” After Yan Baichuan finished speaking, he pointed at the arrays of the Liu Estate.
“Tsk tsk. Some people truly cannot be judged by their appearance, on the surface turning into a naive girl of thirteen or fourteen years old, while behind people’s backs adding a stroke to every single one of their forty-nine arrays, making them both dangerous and gathering yin energy, a fine place for raising ghosts.” Jin You shook his folding fan, unable to help exclaiming over Lingyun’s ruthless methods.
Lingyun slumped inside the carriage, sitting without proper posture, eating the hibiscus cake swiped from the Liu Estate in her mouth, “You are welcome, you are welcome, it cannot compare to Young Master Jin You’s great show of kindness, adding a reinforcing layer to these forty-nine arrays to ensure these little ghosts only make trouble in the Liu Estate, so as to avoid harming others. However, the cook of this Liu Estate is truly not bad, I do not know where that old man dug him up from, right, Brother Ying Chuang?”
Ying Chuang nodded earnestly, “Tastes better than the roasted chicken from Zhenwei Tower.”
Yan Baichuan sat outside the carriage, clutching the reins in one hand, “I see you people were not soft-handed in the slightest when dealing with the Liu family, why do you still have me drive the carriage, do you not even have the money to hire a carriage driver, tsh!”
Jin You let out a cold laugh, “You still have the nerve to speak. We merely tampered with the arrays, which can be repaired by finding a knowledgeable Taoist to remedy them, but you went and pulled out the node of their feng shui array. Ghost King, I see you look more like a living King of Hell.”
The Liu family had not made its fortune only in this generation, but to be able to safely be the local tyrant in Liu City for so many years, the feng shui array of the Liu Estate could be said to have contributed greatly. With Yan Baichuan pulling out the feng shui node, the Liu family could forget about having a good time for at least three generations.
At least given Liu Chengmian’s current situation, whether there would be a next generation was still hard to say.
“As for the carriage driver,” Jin You remembered when settling the bill at Zhenwei Tower, the bill read out by the shopkeeper made his face turn as black as if splashed with ink, “Twenty-one eight-treasure roasted chickens, seventeen sticky rice ducks, ten steamed groupers, eight plates of braised pork knuckles, five pots of Biluochun tea, six bottles of Peach Blossom Brew, plus fifteen plates of Longjing shrimp that Taoist Master Lingyun deemed too greasy and seven jars of jarred meat that lacked flavor!”
Inside the quiet carriage, the handle of Jin You’s fan tapped against his palm stroke by stroke, causing even Lingyun to feel a rare bit of guilt, “Why don’t you few tell me, where would the money to hire a carriage driver come from?” Could these people be reincarnations of starved ghosts, being so capable of eating! Jin You felt letting them sit in the horse carriage was still far too comfortable, and that they should be made to walk there.
Yan Baichuan rubbed the bridge of his nose, speaking unnaturally, “Well, it is just driving a carriage, why hire a driver, a waste of money.”
Lingyun also hurriedly chimed in, “I think what you said makes sense, if not, we can take turns driving it, right, Brother Ying Chuang?”
Ying Chuang nodded obediently, a bit of eagerness in his tone, “Oh, alright, I have never driven a carriage before.”
The two horse carriages bumped along on the road that was not quite smooth. Ruyi and her family sat in the front carriage, feeding water to her mother and younger brother from time to time. Before leaving Liu City, Lingyun had not only visited the kitchen of the Liu family, but had not spared their private treasury either, bringing out quite a few elixir pills, taking a suitable one and feeding it to Ruyi’s mother.
Lingyun had checked the markings on the bottle, finding it was an elixir pill refined by the Shangyuan Sect, which was difficult for ordinary people to imitate. It seemed the backing behind Liu Yingfeng mostly originated from there as well, but Yan Baichuan and the others all felt indifferent toward this.
If they come, let them come, could they possibly be afraid of him.