They gradually grew comfortable with each other.
Using the excuse that he had rarely encountered spirits or ghosts, Lin Jue feigned immense curiosity about their magical arts and divine powers. He casually asked what spells they knew, saying he wanted to broaden his horizons.
The two gladly agreed.
However, the ghost surnamed Su was rather mischievous. Under the pretext of demonstrating his Transformation Art, he pulled the ghost surnamed Mo in front of Lin Jue. Suddenly, he morphed into a terrifying monster with a chunk missing from his head to expose the brains beneath, his face dotted with several dark red, bloody holes. He clearly wanted to scare Lin Jue.
As for Su himself, although the state he had died in wasn't pretty, he at least appeared as a complete human.
Yet Lin Jue had only just witnessed the dog demon's Transformation Art on the road. Having already been frightened twice, he was fully prepared. Combined with his mind growing numb in the dead of night, he showed little reaction.
If anything, he only felt it was a pity that he didn't sense anything extraordinary.
Afterward, the two demonstrated their abilities to pass through walls and perform Qi Exhalation.
But these were nothing more than the natural characteristics of ghosts. Lin Jue still felt nothing special.
Lastly, they showed off a carrying technique.
Just as Lin Jue was brimming with anticipation—having asked them to carry him in hopes of actually learning something—he watched the two ghosts walk over. One grabbed his head, the other hugged his feet, and they hoisted him into the air with sheer physical force.
Lin Jue fell silent.
"In the past, when monks from the temple sneaked up here to eat meat and drink wine, and fell asleep after they finished, this is exactly how we carried them out."
The two of them said with considerable pride.
What could Lin Jue possibly say?
He could only offer a few polite compliments and continue chatting.
These two truly loved poetry. Most likely, they had always amused themselves this way after death. They frequently discussed all sorts of poems, carrying themselves with a rather elegant air. Even when Lin Jue initially asked if they were spirits or ghosts, they didn't answer directly. They merely swayed their heads and recited a limerick in reply: "Meeting you by chance amidst the bamboo hills, neither a spirit nor an Immortal am I. You must know this is a burial ground, as the night owl's cry signals the fourth watch."
Later on, under their urging, Lin Jue spent ages discussing it with them, eventually cobbling together a disjointed couplet: "Light dust on a long road as dusk grows thick; night wind blows through a ruined temple on a barren peak." There were two more lines after that about fate and encountering immortal tracks, but he couldn't quite remember them.
His head was groggy in the latter half of the night, and he simply couldn't recall the rest.
He only remembered that it drew roaring laughter from the two of them.
If ordinary people had been able to hear such loud laughter clearly, it was likely no one in the entire temple would have slept peacefully that night.
In the end, he didn't know when he fell asleep.
While in a drowsy daze, he had another dream.
In the dream, he was still in the pavilion. The furnishings were largely the same, only the details had become illusory and ethereal. Before him were still Su Xiaojin and Mo Laifeng.
"Hahaha, Brother Lin gets sleepy too easily. You should know that when I was around your age while alive, I could stay up for several nights in a row composing poetry and playing chess with close friends without any problem," Su Xiaojin said with a smile.
Lin Jue glanced at his hair and believed him.
"Since Brother Lin is tired, we had no choice but to visit you in your dreams." Mo Laifeng's temperament was much gentler and steadier. "To tell you the truth, we were originally from Huizhou. Feeling that we had no hope of earning academic honors, and seeing that the nation was facing internal strife and foreign threats at the time, we simply enlisted in the army. That departure led to ten years among the yellow sands of the Western Regions. I unfortunately died in battle. Brother Su was righteous to the utmost; he carried my remains and traveled thousands of miles to bring me back."
Hearing this, Lin Jue couldn't help but feel surprised. He looked at the grinning ghost surnamed Su once again.
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What he hadn't expected, however, was that he would actually meet such a righteous and loyal person in reality.
Carrying a friend's remains across thousands of miles—in any dynasty or era, it would be celebrated as a beautiful tale.
"It is a pity..."
The ghost surnamed Su hijacked the conversation, still smiling playfully. "Although I managed to scrape by and keep my life on the battlefield, I was left with lingering wounds and illnesses. Over the past ten years, I had grown accustomed to the sandy skies of the Western Regions. When I returned to this ink-wash homeland, I surprisingly fell ill from failing to acclimatize to the region. Originally, the two of us agreed that no matter who died first, the survivor would help the other's fallen leaves return to their roots. I never expected that I would ultimately fail to fulfill that promise."
It was supposed to be a heavy topic, but after he finished, he clapped his hands, threw them up, and put on a scoundrel's face.
"I even dragged myself down with him!"
The ghost surnamed Mo stood by his side, looking as though he had long since grown used to this.
"We aren't here to ask Brother Lin for help right now. It's just that during the first half of the night, we heard you counting money upstairs, accompanied by a sigh. We guessed that since you are traveling to study, you must be short on travel funds. Furthermore, chatting with you earlier was incredibly enjoyable, and we deeply admire your character. Therefore, after you fell asleep, Brother Su and I discussed it for a moment..." the ghost surnamed Mo explained. "Before Brother Su died, he buried all of our wealth under a small hill in the bamboo forest behind the temple. We just dug a small pit over it. There should be more than a hundred taels of silver alone inside. If Brother Lin is short on money, you may take some."
Lin Jue was stunned for a moment.
'Could such a good thing really fall out of nowhere?'
He was just pondering whether to accept or politely decline, but upon careful thought—wasn't this still asking him for help?
It was merely a more tactful way of putting it.
If not, why didn't they tell him to take all the money? The two ghosts were already dead; who else were they keeping the money for?
"May I ask where you two brothers lived?"
"Su Village, in the north of Danxun County."
"Lao Village, in the south of Qiuru County."
"How far is that from here?"
"Only two or three hundred li."
"You two brothers protected your homes and defended the country, yet you halted your steps a mere two or three hundred li away from home. Being stalled here for over ten years is truly unfortunate."
"If Brother Lin is willing, please deliver a message to our families for us. Our remains are both buried in the north of the bamboo forest. As for the buried money, we only ask that you leave a little behind for our families."
"I will definitely deliver it."
Lin Jue spoke calmly and firmly.
The dream quietly dissipated.
When Lin Jue woke up, it was already broad daylight.
He packed his cloth clothes that served as a blanket, the pants that served as a pillow, and the books he had used as a cushion back into his scholar's book chest. Since there was nothing else left to take, Lin Jue shouldered the scholar's book chest and walked downstairs.
He pushed open the pavilion doors, and the outside sunlight immediately poured in, striking his face and leaving him in a daze.
He hadn't slept well, and his head was still somewhat groggy. His experiences last night, much like the previous incident at the Wang Family Ancestral Hall of Heng Village, felt so surreal and fantastical that they seemed like nothing more than a dream.
'Did I really just chat with two ghosts for an entire night?'
Lin Jue couldn't help but space out at the doorway for a moment.
By the time he walked outside, he found that the merchants and travelers who had lodged there had mostly departed. The temple, which had been bustling and crowded the night before, was now desolate. Only that middle-aged monk was sweeping the courtyard.
Seeing Lin Jue, he turned his head and smiled.
"Almsgiver Lin is awake? You were the latest to wake up. Breakfast time is almost over; I don't know if there's anything left."
"Thank you, Master."
"Almsgiver Lin looks to be in poor spirits. Could it be that you didn't sleep well last night? Yesterday evening, the monks and guests in the temple all heard voices coming from the pavilion, and quite a few people were awakened. Did Brother Lin encounter something?"
"You didn't tell me, Master, that although this pavilion had been vacant for a long time, I wouldn't be the only one staying in it," Lin Jue said, unable to hide a hint of complaint.
"There were many people outside last night, and our temple relies on the lodging fees from traveling almsgivers to make a living, so it was truly inconvenient to inform you," the monk said, stopping his broom and leaning on it to bow in apology. "Sometimes, two unusual almsgivers do indeed come to play in this pavilion. In past years, some of my senior and junior brothers have run into them. However, these two are not bad at heart, and they are half-scholars themselves. They've always enjoyed spending time with scholars and respect men of virtue. Previously, there have been bold guests or those fond of bizarre tales of spirits and ghosts who stayed in the pavilion and coexisted peacefully with them. Since you are a scholar and a man of virtue, there is really nothing to fear."
He paused for a moment and gave a faint smile. "Furthermore, since you aren't even afraid of the monsters and ghosts on the road, why fear those who have lived alongside us in this temple for many years?"
"..."
Listening to him speak, Lin Jue momentarily felt that this monk could probably be considered an "eminent monk."
'Who says one needs magic power or spells to be considered an eminent monk?'
"I hope you won't speak of this to outsiders."
"I understand, I understand."
At a loss for words, Lin Jue simply nodded and followed behind the monk to the dining hall.
The meals in the temple were simple. Breakfast was still a bowl of thin porridge, plus one vegetable dumpling per person. The temple monks lived leisurely and could make it to noon after eating that, but merchants and travelers had to hurry on their journey, so they had to supplement it with their own dry rations to last half the day. Right now, however, there were still several vegetable dumplings left in the bamboo basket, though the thin porridge was already gone. The monk simply gave all the remaining vegetable dumplings to him.
Lin Jue expressed his thanks. He asked for some clear water, washed up simply, and then sat down to start eating.
There were only a few people left in the dining hall. It was a group of unfamiliar merchants chatting in low voices about what they had heard yesterday. It was mostly about someone causing a commotion last night, or hearing that someone had encountered spirits and ghosts on the road, as well as what had happened afterward.
As they chatted, the topic drifted to mules.
They talked about the current price of mules, and from the rising prices, they transitioned to the wars in the west.
The wars in the west were intermittent—fighting and stopping, stopping and fighting. It had been this way for decades, and nothing had changed now.
They heard that their side had won a victory, slaughtering half the population of a small nation's city; they heard of a great defeat for their side, where an entire army was left behind in the yellow sands; they also spoke of a certain country invading their borders, entering the cities to burn, kill, pillage, and commit all sorts of atrocities, only to vanish like the wind by the time reinforcements arrived. How many people's white bones were buried in the sand? How many could never return home? These merchants exhausted the subject in just a few passing sentences over their meal.
As Lin Jue listened, he couldn't help but think of the two scholar-ghosts he had met in the middle of the night, who had returned from serving in the army in the Western Regions.
It still felt just like a dream.