Classes at Duwang High were merely background noise for Su Yao. Her true lesson for the day played out in the crowded hallways. Her sharp, ancient eyes meticulously scanned for a specific signature of wealth and arrogance. As she expected, it took little time to find.
There she was: Li Xiu, the older sister of the boy she’d saved.
Li Xiu moved through the halls like a princess inspecting her domain, surrounded by a flock of sycophantic friends. Wafting from her, subtle but unmistakable to Su Yao’s enhanced senses, was the exact same cloying, expensive jasmine perfume that had been all over Zhang Wei.
Mei followed Su Yao’s intense gaze. Her eyes widened. “Ling Ling? Why are you staring at Li Xiu like you’re trying to set her on fire with your mind? She’s, like, untouchable. Her family could buy our whole school.”
Su Yao stayed unblinking. “Staring? I’m observing.”
“You’ve been ‘observing’ her for ten minutes. It’s getting creepy.”
Su Yao finally turned to Mei. A perfectly crafted mask of righteous indignation covered her face. “I have my reasons. She’s the one.”
“The one what?”
“The one Zhang Wei was cheating with,” Su Yao stated. Her voice was flat and certain.
Mei’s jaw dropped. “What?! How do you know?!”
“The perfume. It’s the same unique, overly-expensive brand. I smelled it on him yesterday. And now I smell it on her.” It was a complete guess. She had no idea if it was the same brand, only that the scent was identical. But it was a convenient, logical leap to make.
Mei’s shock immediately morphed into furious solidarity. “That snake! That explains everything! She’s rich, she’s popular. Of course he’d try to climb that ladder! I can’t believe he’d cheat on you with her!”
“Believe it,” Su Yao said, her eyes drifting back to Li Xiu. “Now I understand his desperation to ‘fix’ me yesterday. He was trying to cover his guilt.”
It was a perfect lie. Its truth remained uncertain, and it meant little to her. Zhang Wei was a triviality. She now had a socially acceptable, perfectly understandable reason to fixate on Li Xiu. No one would question a jealous girlfriend stalking her boyfriend’s suspected rich mistress.
Mei cracked her knuckles, a vengeful glint in her eyes. “So, what’s the plan? Egg her car? Slash her tires?”
Su Yao gave a dismissive wave. “Too crude. Too obvious.” She watched Li Xiu laugh at something a friend said, her head thrown back. “First, I observe. I learn her routines. Her habits. Her weaknesses.”
She needed to get close to the Li family to see if the bloodline of that righteous traveler ran through their veins. This spoiled, perfumed heiress was her perfect, unsuspecting entry point. Her indulgent upbringing was legendary, marked by an incident in childhood when she carelessly ruined 50,000 yuan bills without facing a single consequence.
Mei nodded, impressed by her friend’s sudden tactical genius. “Right. Gather intel. This is way more hardcore than just posting a video. You’re amazing, Ling Ling.”
Su Yao offered a thin smile. “I know.”
For three days, Su Yao observed Li Xiu with the patience of a predator. She tracked her through the halls, noted her lunch table, even lingered near the expensive car that picked her up after school.
The results were infuriatingly mundane.
Li Xiu was, by all observable metrics, a good person. The Li family’s heiress politely declined the expensive gifts boys tried to give her and helped a clumsy freshman pick up her scattered books. She even stayed late to help a teacher organize supplies. Her laughter was bright and seemingly unforced.
There was no sneering from the haughty heiress Su Yao expected. Either Li Xiu was a master manipulator of unparalleled skill, or she was exactly what she appeared to be: a kind, popular girl from a wealthy family.
Mei, who had been providing a running commentary of imagined slights, grew increasingly frustrated. “She’s so nice. It’s disgusting. She must be faking it, right? No one’s that perfect.”
This was a problem. A righteous, kind-hearted target was far more troublesome than a villainous one. There were no obvious levers to pull or flaws to exploit.
On the fourth day, the situation changed.
Su Yao was leaning against a locker, watching Li Xiu chat with friends by the water fountain, when Li Xiu suddenly turned. Her eyes went directly to Su Yao, meeting her gaze with a calm, unnerving precision.
Li Xiu excused herself from her friends and started walking straight toward Su Yao and Mei.
Mei stiffened. “Oh crap. She noticed us. Abort! Abort!”
“Be quiet,” Su Yao ordered. Her posture shifted from observer to acknowledged opponent.
Li Xiu stopped a few feet away. Her expression wasn’t angry. It was concerned. “Xiao Ling, right?” she asked. Her voice was gentle.
Su Yao remained silent, waiting.
“I couldn’t help but notice you’ve been… watching me for the past few days,” Li Xiu continued. Her tone was careful. “Is everything okay? Did I do something to upset you?”
Mei looked ready to bolt. Su Yao just smiled, a thin, sharp expression. “Upset me? Why would you think that?”
Li Xiu’s gaze flickered to Mei’s terrified face, then back to Su Yao. “Call it a feeling. Look, if this is about Zhang Wei, I can explain. I’m not interested in him. At all. The perfume he probably had on him was because he bumped into me in the hall and I was refilling my atomizer. It must have spilled on him.”
She offered a small, apologetic smile. “I’m really sorry if that caused any misunderstanding. He’s your boyfriend, and I’d never interfere.”
The explanation was perfectly logical, wrapped in genuine-sounding empathy that made it seem benign. It was the worst possible outcome.
This was deviating from the plan. Her justification for stalking was crumbling into dust, leaving her actions looking like those of a paranoid, jealous girl.
Just then, Li Xiu’s phone buzzed. She glanced at it and her face lit up with a warm, real smile. “Oh, that’s my mom. She’s taking me and my little brother out for ice cream to cheer him up. He’s still pretty shaken from… well, from the accident. Thanks again for what you did, Xiao Ling. Seriously.”
She gave a friendly little wave and walked away, leaving a stunned Mei and a silently fuming Su Yao in her wake.
Mei let out a huge breath. “Wow. She’s actually really nice. We had it all wrong, Ling Ling.”
Su Yao was too busy reassessing the entire battlefield to answer. The righteous bloodline was, indeed, frustratingly righteous. It seemed “kindness” was a family trait.
This changed everything. Infiltrating a den of wolves was easy. Infiltrating a flock of doves was far more complicated.
A dry, humorless laugh escaped Su Yao’s lips, startling Mei.
“What’s so funny?” Mei asked, still rattled by the encounter with Li Xiu.
“Nothing. Everything,” Su Yao murmured, her gaze distant. She looked at her own hands that had snapped steel and now held cheap school textbooks. The intense, singular focus that had driven her since awakening began to recede, leaving behind a strange emptiness.
What if I’m just chasing ghosts? she thought. The idea felt both blasphemous and liberating. What if the resemblance is a coincidence? What if that alternate ending is just bad fanfiction?
Her investigation had hit a wall made of pure, infuriating benevolence.
She was no longer the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox hosting eternal banquets. She was Xiao Ling, a high school student with decent grades and an aunt who finally looked rested. The past was a closed book. A frustrating, possibly inaccurate book she couldn’t change.
The past is the past, she told herself. The words felt foreign yet final. I am not her anymore.I am a human now. So... shouldn't I act like one?
The relentless drive to uncover the truth began to feel exhausting and pointless, especially as confronting the traveler meant reclaiming an identity she was no longer sure she wanted. What would it achieve? Another death? Another cycle?
“You’re being weird again, Ling Ling,” Mei said, poking her arm.
Su Yao blinked. The ancient light in her eyes dimmed, replaced by a more familiar, youthful uncertainty. She forced a genuine-looking smile. “Sorry. Just… thinking. You’re right. Li Xiu is… nice. I’m done wasting my energy on it.”
Mei beamed, hooking her arm through Su Yao’s. “Now that’s the Ling Ling I know! Come on, let’s go get those pork buns you like before cram school. My treat!”
The warm, greasy scent of the food stall wafted through the air, a stark contrast to the sterile hospital and tense school hallways. Mei proudly handed over a steaming pork bun. The fluffy white dough glistened.
“Here! The best in the city! You’ll love it!” Mei said, already taking a huge bite of her own.
Su Yao took the bun. The warmth seeped into her hands. She brought it to her lips. The aroma filled her nostrils. She took a bite.
The flavors exploded on her tongue. Savory, rich, perfectly seasoned. The texture of the minced filling was familiar in a way that made her ancient soul stir, bypassing all her conscious thoughts.
A soft, almost blissful sigh escaped her lips. Her eyes drifted shut for a second.
“They really are the best,” she murmured. Her voice took on a distant, dreamy quality. “So tender. So… flavorful. It reminds me…”
Mei grinned, her mouth full. “Told you! Nothing beats a good pork bun!”
Su Yao took another slow bite, savoring it. Her gaze was far away. “…It tastes just like human.”
Mei’s grin froze. She choked slightly on her own bite, coughing. “W-what did you just say?”
Su Yao’s eyes snapped open. She blinked. The ancient haze cleared from her gaze, replaced by momentary panic. She looked down at the bun in her hand, then at Mei’s horrified face.
“I—I mean!” she stammered. Her voice pitched higher, desperately grasping for a human excuse. “It’s so good it’s… to die for! You know? Like, it’s so good it must be made from people! Haha! A joke! It’s a joke!”
She forced a loud, nervous laugh, shoving the rest of the bun into her mouth to stop herself from saying anything else.
Mei stared. Her half-eaten pork bun was forgotten. “A… a joke. Right. Because that’s not creepy at all,” she said. Her voice was still shaky.
From behind the steamy counter, the old vendor, a man with a face like a wrinkled walnut, chuckled. He wiped his hands on a greasy apron. His eyes twinkled with morbid amusement.
“Ah, young lady,” he said, pointing a greasy spatula at Su Yao. “You should not make such comparisons so lightly. Pork and human aren’t the same. Not at all.”
Mei’s jaw dropped. Su Yao slowly stopped chewing. Her ancient curiosity was thoroughly piqued.
The vendor leaned forward conspiratorially. “You see, the meat of a creature that eats other meat is always tainted. Gamy. Unpleasant. The average person?” He shook his head with the disdain of a master chef. “Too much stress, poor diet, impurities. Tough and bitter.”
He then smiled, a gap-toothed thing. “But a lifelong vegetarian? A pure-hearted monk who has cultivated his spirit and eaten only rice and greens?” His eyes got a faraway, appreciative look. “Now that is a tender and succulent delicacy. A clean life makes for a clean flavor. No comparison to pork at all.”
The sizzle of the griddle was the only sound for a long moment.
Mei made a small, strangled noise. Her face had gone from pale to a distinct shade of green. She dropped her pork bun into the trash as if it were poisoned.
Su Yao, however, looked from the vendor to the bun in her hand, then back to the vendor. A slow, genuine smile of understanding spread across her face. It was the smile of a connoisseur who had just found a fellow appreciator of a rare art.
“Fascinating,” Su Yao said, her voice full of genuine respect. “I had never considered the dietary impact on the palate. That explains so much.”
The vendor nodded sagely. “It is a forgotten art. You have a discerning eye, young lady.”
Mei finally found her voice, a high-pitched squeak. “I’m gonna be sick! Ling Ling, let’s go! NOW!”
She grabbed Su Yao’s arm and yanked her away from the stall, leaving the old vendor chuckling to himself as he went back to his griddle, whistling a tune.
Su Yao allowed herself to be dragged, casting one last, thoughtful look back at the stall.
“Truly,” she murmured, “the depth of mortal knowledge never ceases to amaze me.”
Mei dragged her into a narrow, dimly lit alley between two cram schools. Her grip was like a vice. She finally stopped. Her chest heaved from some inner turmoil instead of the run.
She let go of Su Yao’s arm and turned around. Her expression was completely different. The bubbly, sometimes terrified demeanor was gone, replaced by a hollow, ancient weariness.
“This is the spot,” the thing wearing Mei’s face said. Its voice was flat and devoid of emotion. “This is where I died. A hundred and twenty years ago. A knife in the gut for a handful of copper coins.”
Su Yao tilted her head. Her expression was one of mild boredom. “So?”
The impostor Mei stared at her. Its confusion was evident. “Aren’t you… afraid? Curious? Anything?”
“Why would I be?” Su Yao replied, her tone dismissive. “The city is built on graveyards. Every patch of earth has a corpse under it. You’re not special for clinging to one. Do you think you are the only one with a backstory?”
The thing’s face twisted. Mei’s familiar features contorted into a mask of rage and resentment. “You living are all the same! Arrogant! You think you own the world—”
Its form blurred, shifting into a wraith-like thing of shadows and cold malice. Its fingers elongated into sharp claws aimed at Su Yao’s throat.
Her fingers, which had snapped steel, closed around the spirit’s ethereal wrist. There was a sound like cracking ice as her grip solidified on its form, holding it fast.
The spirit shrieked as its true form flickered. It was a pale, gaunt young woman in tattered clothes from a bygone era.
“You’re not a normal girl!” it screamed, struggling against her impossible strength.
“I never said I was,” Su Yao said calmly. With her other hand, she reached out and simply grabbed the spirit by the head. “And I’m still hungry.”
The spirit’s eyes widened in primal terror. It tried to shriek again, but the sound was cut off as Su Yao’s form seemed to blur for a microsecond. The very essence of the hundred-year-old ghost was pulled into Su Yao in a simple, brutal act of consumption. It was a quick, satisfying snack that settled the mild hunger the pork bun had only teased.
The alley fell silent, and the oppressive cold vanished.
Su Yao brushed off her hands as if she’d just handled something mildly dusty. She stepped out of the alley, back into the afternoon sun.
“Ling Ling! There you are!” a voice called out. “What were you doing in there? I turned around and you were just gone!”
The real Mei jogged up to her, holding two new cups of bubble tea. Her face was a mask of genuine concern. “You okay? You look… peckish.”
Su Yao looked at her real, living, breathing friend. She accepted the bubble tea and took a long sip.
“Just dealing with some leftovers,” Su Yao said. The ghost’s final screams were nothing but a faint, pleasant aftertaste. “Let’s go. Cram school awaits.”
The cram school was a place of rote memorization and nonstop pencil scratching. Su Yao, disguised as Xiao Ling, endured it with the patience of a mountain that had endured millennia of erosion. It was brutally dull, but she’d found a minor distraction:
Another ghost.
This one was old. Its energy was a faint, constant drain on the room, a chill that the students subconsciously attributed to the overzealous air conditioning. The ghost was tethered to the place, likely the land it was built upon. It was too weak to manifest but persistent enough to be a nuisance.
To Su Yao, it was a faint, buzzing gnat. And she was still a little hungry.
As the teacher droned on about quadratic equations, Su Yao subtly extended a sliver of her consciousness, a tendril of demonic intent invisible to mortal senses. She sought to snuff out the ancient spirit and absorb its meager energy.
Just as her will brushed against it, the ghost recoiled then surged forward in recognition. It let out a desperate, psychic cry that echoed only in her mind.
“You!? Su Yao!? Nine-Tails… it can’t be! After all this time… you live?”
The voice was raspy, frayed at the edges from centuries of existence, but horribly familiar. It brought back unwelcome memories of a petty official from a neighboring demon court who kept trying to win her favor with awful poetry and even worse wine. He’d been an insufferable bore.
Su Yao’s mental tendril froze. She inwardly scowled. Lord Poetic Blight. The one who composed odes to his own mediocrity.
“Great Fox! spare this humble servant!” the ghost wailed psychically. “I have lingered here since my unfortunate demise during the Great Heavenly Calamity! I meant no offense with my presence!”
Su Yao withdrew her consciousness back into herself with a mental sigh of disgust. She could consume him. It would be a trivial matter. But the thought of digesting his endless simpering vanity and the sheer annoyance of his being was deeply unappealing.
It would give her a metaphysical stomach ache.
“Cease your whining,” she thought back. The mental command brooked no argument. “Your existence is as tiresome in death as it was in life. I have no desire to taste the essence of a failed poet. Continue to haunt your quadratic equations. Be silent, and I may allow you to persist.”
The ghost’s relief was a wave of cold air that washed over the classroom, making several students shiver and look around confusedly.
“Thank you, Great Fox! Your mercy is as boundless as your beauty! Would you care to hear a sonnet I composed in your—”
“Silence,” Su Yao thought, putting enough ancient authority into the word to make the ghost’s form flicker violently. “Or I will reconsider my mercy and suffer the indigestion.”
The psychic presence instantly vanished and the oppressive chill in the room receded to its normal, barely noticeable level.
The teacher tapped the whiteboard. “Xiao Ling! Are you paying attention? What is the value of x?”
Su Yao blinked, refocusing her mortal eyes on the equation. The concerns of ancient ghosts and terrible poetry faded, replaced by the immediate, mundane problem.
“Seven,” she answered flatly.
The teacher, surprised she was correct, nodded and moved on.
Su Yao propped her chin on her hand. This mortal life was so strange. One moment, you were negotiating with a millennia-old nuisance spirit, the next, you were solving for x.
At least the ghost had good taste in choosing to remain silent.