Shu Yu was sleeping soundly—he rarely slept this deeply. Since he often did shady business and mixed with the lowest dregs of society, the people he called “friends” had little loyalty to him; they would slit his throat at any moment if a split of loot didn’t go their way.
Yet for some reason, he was exceptionally drowsy tonight and was sleeping soundly.
In his sleep, he vaguely felt a dull ache in his left ear.
Shu Yu instinctively reached up to scratch his left ear, but he didn’t grab an ear—only hot, thick liquid flowed all over his hand.
He struggled suddenly from the bizarre, dark, sweet dream and looked down at the hand he had used to scratch his ear: his hand was covered in blood, and an ear with a long pendant lay in his palm.
The pain woke up along with his vision. Shu Yu screamed, threw the ear away, and clutched his agonizingly painful left ear; his hand met nothing but the smooth, severed surface of the wound.
The left ear he had thrown away in a panic rolled forward a distance before bumping into the toe of a boot and stopping.
Naturally, Shu Yu saw those boots.
He had spent years mixing among the riffraff; though young, he had a sharp eye. Even in this bizarre situation, he instinctively recognized that the boots were exquisitely crafted from top-grade kidskin—he shifted his gaze upward and saw a handsome youth in red robes over white, watching him with a smile.
To be honest, Shu Yu was quite confident in his own appearance, believing that even young masters from wealthy families would find it hard to surpass him in looks.
He had been able to swindle and deceive in Wen County for so many years, succeeding time and again, mostly thanks to his delicate, refined face. Young girls who hadn’t seen much of the world would see him dressed cleanly and simply, with a handsome face and polite speech, and immediately lower their guard.
But seeing the smiling face of the youth in red with those pear dimples, a feeling of inferiority welled up in Shu Yu’s heart.
He had never seen anyone who could smile so beautifully, gently, harmlessly, and full of kindness—the youth’s benevolent aura made him suddenly realize that not only was he inferior in appearance, but his character was also lowly and wretched.
Shu Yu’s mind drifted, thinking of many things, and in that moment, he actually ignored the excruciating pain in his left ear.
The youth in red took a step forward, his boot stepping on the ear on the ground—Shu Yu heard a sound similar to rotten mud being crushed.
“What is your name?” the youth asked.
“Shu Yu…” he answered, dazed.
As he answered, he dipped his fingers in the blood and wrote his name on the ground.
The youth in red lowered his eyes to look at the two characters on the ground and smiled. “Oh, so it’s ‘Shu Yu,’ not Tang Shuayu. Tell me about He Zhuoming; how did you meet her?”
Shu Yu looked blank, repeating the name “He Zhuoming” twice before finally remembering the person associated with the name.
“I… I met her half a month ago…” Shu Yu began.
“That day, I was strolling on the street and saw her looking unfamiliar. She wasn’t a local, was wearing strange clothes, and was wandering around… Although her behavior was odd, anyone could see she was a child from a wealthy family… The fabric of her clothes was extremely fine—neither silk nor linen, but a material I had never seen before…”
He spoke slowly, his memories gradually sharpening. The encounter with the strange girl became as clear as if it had happened just yesterday.
“The hair ornament on her head and the bracelet on her wrist were all exquisite… she didn’t have a single callus on her fingers, and her teeth were so straight and white that there wasn’t a single cavity… I figured she must be the apple of her family’s eye, never having done any rough work, eating only fine, soft food.”
“So, I found two friends to stage a good play of ‘a hero saving the damsel’ right in front of her… on the way to bring her home, we met my neighbor, and they called me by my name. She heard it and asked if I was called Tang Shuayu in an excited tone. I guessed she might have mistaken me for that so-called Tang Shuayu—so I admitted to the name, wanting her to trust me quickly and reveal more about herself.”
“I originally wanted to use the opportunity to hook up with her parents and demand benefits according to her family background… but after I tricked her home, my creditors suddenly showed up… I had no choice, I desperately needed money, and I couldn’t wait for her parents who were far away—at first, I wanted to sell her. She was so cute; whether I sold her as a maid or a concubine, she should have been worth quite a lot…”
At this memory, Shu Yu’s face twisted slightly, as if trapped in agony. “I… I don’t know why… suddenly someone came to the door, saying they wanted to buy a bride from me…”
Shu Yu had connections for selling kidnapped girls, and a corrupt villager who desperately needed a bride found him according to the instructions—the residual influence of the Corrupt Deity made him afraid to recall this memory too much, but he couldn’t resist the youth’s questioning. Between the two, his head throbbed like needles.
The youth moved his boot, casting a glance down at the ear and long earring he had crushed into a puddle.
The cheap beads had shattered into powder, mixed into a puddle of thin flesh and blood.
After he looked away, Shu Yu suddenly woke up—realizing the situation was wrong, he endured the pain in his left ear and lunged at the other, smashing his head into the youth’s abdomen.
He rammed into him hard and fast, while a thin dagger slid out from his sleeve and stabbed into the youth’s abdomen, twisting it with force.
However, the youth in red still stood there; his body neither swayed nor collapsed. Blood flowed from his mangled abdomen, and as the blood touched Shu Yu’s hand along the dagger, his hand began to dissolve.
Skin, flesh, bone—all rotted away, falling to the ground along with the dagger. As the dagger hit the ground, Shu Yu fell and screamed, rolling on the ground while clutching his cleanly severed wrist.
The youth in red bent down to pick up the dagger. The wound on his abdomen had completely healed, leaving only the bloodstains on his clothes—he stepped on Shu Yu’s chest to pin him down, forcing him to gasp for air as he met the youth’s gaze.
The youth remained smiling, bright and gentle, leaning over to gaze at him. “You’ve said everything you were supposed to say; now it’s my turn to speak.”
Pinned down, Shu Yu’s chest heaved violently. His eyes were wide enough to split; he no longer felt the youth was gentle, only that he was as terrifying as a ghost.
“You speak so unpleasantly. Don’t speak ever again.”
The youth smiled to himself, and as he finished the sentence, Shu Yu felt the tongue and throat inside his mouth melting—melting into blood and flowing back into his lungs.
He couldn’t help but cough violently, his face covered in blood, trying his best to open his mouth, but he couldn’t utter a single sound.
His eyes drifted from the excruciating pain, his mouth—unable to speak—opening and closing, silently screaming, begging, and uttering meaningless words like why.
The youth lowered his eyes with a smile. “Begging me? That’s boring. Then I’ll beg you, beg you to go die—hmm, dying directly isn’t fun, is it? Let’s play an interesting game.”
“Let’s play hide and seek! The moment Xiao He finds you, you can die~”
The youth didn’t care what Shu Yu was saying, only concerned with his own words, speaking only what made him happy. As he spoke, his eyes curved into crescents, and the long bead chain hanging by his left ear swayed slightly, casting a shadow in the moonlight that snaked from his profile down to his neck.
The shadow of that bead chain didn’t look like a chain at all, but rather like a string of tiny heads.
He Zhuoming woke up early—waking up to breathe in the east where the sun hadn’t yet risen, and then practicing swordplay.
While practicing, she kept thinking of Xu Feixian.
Xu Feixian’s blade was truly terrifying; how could she use it so well? If I could practice swordplay that well, the next time I ran into her drawing her blade, I wouldn’t be such a coward.
But if she were to master swordplay like Xu Feixian’s blade, she felt she should at least have a real sword—thinking this, she practiced her swordplay even harder.
It never occurred to her that she might not be able to master swordplay to that degree.
Because even though she had tripped badly and nearly lost her life when she first arrived, recognizing the reality that she was just a passerby—He Zhuoming was still young, a time when it was easy to forget pain.
In less than half a month, she hadn’t suffered any setbacks, and the narrow perception of a youth led her to naturally and once again believe that she could do anything.
After skillfully finishing the set of swordplay and sheathing her sword in a fluid motion, she felt incredibly satisfied with herself and went jumping and bouncing back to her room, covered in sweat.
The room she had slept in yesterday was spacious, the bed big and soft, with a folding screen and an especially large incense burner behind it. Incense was burning in the burner, and the scent wasn’t unfamiliar to He Zhuoming—it was the same fragrance Lin Qingyun carried.
A particularly natural, sweet floral scent.
Having slept in the room for a night, she was saturated with the same fragrance.
Entering the room, she found Lin Qingyun there too; he was sitting by the window, holding a thick white candle, which was burning.
Confused, she glanced out the door: it was clearly daytime.
She walked a few steps and hopped in front of Lin Qingyun. “The sun is up, why are you still lighting a candle?”
Lin Qingyun held the candle in one hand and beckoned to her with the other, smiling in a good mood. “Take a close look at this candle.”
He Zhuoming was confused. She simply pulled over a chair, sat opposite him, and peered closely, not blinking once.
But no matter how she looked at it, it was just an ordinary candle; it didn’t even have a scent when it burned. If she had to say what was special, it was that the wick wasn’t cotton, but a tiny paper person.
The paper person had facial features drawn on it, though they were crudely and sloppily done, and one ear was missing.
As the candle burned, the little paper person shivered in the pale blue flame, as if trembling.
“This paper person is so ugly,” she said.
Lin Qingyun nodded. “His soul is ugly, so he’s ugly when drawn.”
“Did you draw someone you hate?”
Lin Qingyun thought for a moment, then said with a smile, “I do hate him, because he looks a little like me, but he’s so inferior to me. Seeing him makes me feel as disgusted as a thoroughbred horse seeing a mule.”
“Who is it?”
“Guess. If you guess right, I’ll give you something fun.”
He Zhuoming racked her brains for a long time—but she knew too few people, and her memories related to the original novel had been wiped clean. She couldn’t come up with any names to guess, so she had to regretfully forfeit.
Lin Qingyun didn’t mind. He placed the candle on an empty candlestick to the side. “Let it burn here; you can blow it out when you guess.”
“I might not even be able to guess it by the time it burns out!”
“Don’t worry, this candle is very long-lasting.”
“The candle is secondary. I came to tell you something else—I’ve found the place where ‘Tang Shuayu’ lives. We can go over there now.”
Hearing that they were going to look for the villain, though he was only a youth right now, she immediately grew nervous.
She brought her wooden sword along and repeatedly exhorted Lin Qingyun: they had to act according to circumstances, observe first, and if things went south, they would run away.
After all, this grudge wasn’t a must-win.
Although she really wanted the police to come and shoot that bastard dead, it was a pity this wasn’t a society ruled by law—even though the male lead seemed strong now, who knew if the villain was just “playing the pig to eat the tiger”…
Lin Qingyun was her savior and her good friend; she couldn’t let the male lead’s career come to an end halfway through for the sake of her own grudge, letting him become a little ghost before even becoming a True Deity.
With Lin Qingyun leading the way, the two walked out of the paved stone roads, along dirt roads that became increasingly remote, finally stopping in front of a row of low mud-walled houses. As they reached this point, she felt the scenery growing more familiar, and she quickly recognized the villain’s dwelling.
She had even been invited in to drink water by the young villain back then.
She turned her head to tell Lin Qingyun, but he had already stepped past her and pushed open the mud-walled shack’s door—the crooked wooden door wasn’t sturdy, and as Lin Qingyun pushed it, it fell right off the doorframe.
The sound of it hitting the ground startled her, and she hopped forward to Lin Qingyun’s side, grabbing his sleeve.
Lin Qingyun looked back at her, smiling with a light tone: “No one inside.”
Her eyes widened. Hearing this, she cautiously peeked out, peering into the room through the gaping wooden door.
The interior was a mess, with all sorts of clutter thrown around in disorder; it was indeed empty.
She popped out from behind Lin Qingyun and went inside, probing every place that looked like it could hide a person with her wooden sword. Seeing that there was indeed no one there, she finally dared to walk in and look around, muttering, “Actually empty… could he have gone out?”
As she mumbled, she spotted a large, dried bloodstain on the floor.
It wasn’t just on the ground; there was a lot on the straw-piled bed as well.
“Could he have been slashed by someone seeking revenge?” she asked.
Lin Qingyun leaned lazily against the door. “Perhaps.”
“It would be best if he was slashed to death by someone seeking revenge!” she cursed.
She rummaged through everything, poking the room into a mess with her wooden sword—nearly poking a hole in the mud wall—and finally found her schoolbag under the bed.
She weighed it in her hand, feeling it was quite heavy, and hurriedly opened it: the books were there, the test papers were there, and even her coat was rolled up and stuffed inside.
She was overjoyed. “I didn’t expect to be able to find it all!”
Lin Qingyun smiled. “It seems he hasn’t been doing well lately and didn’t have time to fence the items.”
“Serves him right! Trafficking women—he should be sent to be shot!”
She took out the rolled-up coat and shook it out. With a clatter, the bus card, meal card, keys, and other items rolled out—along with He Zhuoming’s health watch and the golden Guanyin necklace tied with a red string.
The health watch was out of power, its screen black. She fiddled with it, saw it wouldn’t turn on, and set it aside to properly put on the Guanyin necklace.
Seeing her put on the necklace, Lin Qingyun walked over to her with interest and squatted halfway, staring at the golden Guanyin image swaying at her neck. “Which True Deity is this? How come I’ve never seen it?”
The patterns for worship were mostly similar, and it was popular in this world to wear small gold, silver, or jade images of True Deities to ward off evil and avoid disaster.
She tucked the necklace into her collar, lowering her head to continue rummaging through her bag. “It’s from back home… different from the True Deities here. My mom said it was consecrated by a master and is very effective—sigh, my mom and dad must miss me so much now. I miss them too…”
Speaking of sad things, her eyes blinked and tears began to fall.
But the two tears had only reached halfway down her face when she found what she was looking for and immediately started smiling. “I found it!”
She pulled a smartphone from a compartment in the schoolbag.
She was terrified that the phone was out of power, so she carefully held down the power button.
In school, He Zhuoming always turned off her phone except during break times. But due to her fuzzy memory, she couldn’t remember if she had turned it on while on her way home from school the day she transmigrated.
If she had turned it on then, the phone had been on standby for so long, it definitely would have been dead.
As if luck was finally turning, He Zhuoming, who had been unlucky for so long, finally encountered something good: following the familiar animation, the phone screen lit up.
Battery remaining: 60%
He Zhuoming jumped for joy. “I really never turned it on!!!”
I wanted to update more too… but this humble servant cannot do it. Every year’s wish is to pray that I can write ten thousand words a day…