For the three hundred years Chu Zhao had spent inside the hairpin, she had mostly been asleep, save for the occasional time she appeared to snack on wild ghosts and vengeful ghosts. She truly hadn’t known that someone had gone so far as to change the sex of her title, King of Xuanzhao.
She strode toward the exit, her dark cloak stirring up snowflakes. As she passed Chu Chengbi, his eyes filled with terror, and his body followed her like a puppet on strings.
Chu Nanxing was waiting outside the courtyard. The moment he saw them emerge, he hurried over, only to hear Chu Zhao say, “Get a carriage ready. I’m leaving the residence.”
“Huh? Oh! Right!”
A short while later, a carriage left the Prince of You’s Residence and headed straight for Xuanzhao Temple in the Outer City.
Chu Nanxing drove from the outside, while Chu Chengbi sat inside the carriage, trembling with fear. Apart from his eyes, which he could still move, the rest of his body felt as though it had been shackled.
Chu Zhao held a book and flipped through it rapidly. They had just passed a bookshop, and she had sent Chu Nanxing in to buy it.
The book was called The Chronicles of Great Xuan, the most popular storybook in the capital at the moment. It told the story of Emperor Baisheng’s founding of the nation and unification of north and south.
In the book, she, King of Xuanzhao, was portrayed as a brainless northern black bear with nothing but dead muscle. She had used her brute strength to dominate the north, but was so obsessed with beauty that she died of a riding accident on the eve of crossing the river.
Her foil, Emperor Baisheng Yan Fuwei, was a heaven-sent star of imperial destiny: wise and perceptive, with the bearing of the sun in the heavens. Not only had he brought the age of chaos to an end, but after ascending the throne, he had also let go of old grudges and bestowed a royal title and a temple upon her, his defeated foe. A true case of heroes recognizing heroes!
The descendants of the Chu Family had also benefited from King of Xuanzhao’s protection. Her brothers had been made Marquises of Dingbei and had pledged themselves to Emperor Baisheng.
“What utter rubbish,” Chu Zhao sneered.
Halfway through the book, she snapped it shut. With a swift whoosh, blue flames sprang up, and the entire volume burned to ash in her hands.
Chu Chengbi watched, his heart pounding. He had read The Chronicles of Great Xuan too; it was clearly written with exquisite skill, and the image of Ancestress Xuanzhao as a mighty conqueror leapt right off the page.
This old ghost must have flown into a rage out of shame. Well, who else would she pretend to be but Ancestress Xuanzhao? She couldn’t even tell the Ancestress’s sex apart. She must have been a muddleheaded fool before she died, and she was still a muddleheaded ghost now… Ah!
Chu Chengbi felt an immense force drag at his knees. With a thud, he was on his knees again.
Chu Zhao stared at him ominously. “Who are you calling a muddleheaded ghost?”
Chu Chengbi was terrified. What…? He’d only cursed her in his thoughts! Could this old ghost read minds?
Chu Zhao couldn’t actually read minds. But when she was face-to-face with them, she could sometimes hear the “thoughts” of these unfilial descendants—especially when they were thinking about Ancestress Xuanzhao.
“Did you bring the Chu Family genealogy with you?”
Chu Chengbi shook his head. Who carried the family genealogy around for no reason?
“Send someone back to fetch it,” Chu Zhao ordered.
Chu Chengbi was too afraid to get angry or speak out of turn. He answered meekly, “E-Elder… what will it take for you to let my niece go? What has the Chu Family ever done to offend you?”
“Be quiet.”
Chu Zhao couldn’t be bothered to look at the fool anymore.
Chu Chengbi immediately fell silent. It wasn’t that he wanted to keep quiet; a seal had been placed directly over his mouth.
A short while later, the carriage stopped.
The noise outside and Chu Nanxing’s excited voice reached them together. “Older Cousin, we’re at Ancestress Xuanzhao’s temple!”
Chu Zhao lifted the carriage curtain and looked out. A temple of imposing, solemn grandeur came into view. Outside, carriages and people streamed past, and vendors of every kind lined the way.
Worshippers and common folk came and went in a steady flow. The rich scent of devotional incense could be smelled from far away.
The incense at Xuanzhao Temple was truly flourishing!
But the ridiculous thing was that she, the real person it was meant for, had never gotten a single bite of it.
Chu Zhao kicked Chu Chengbi, and he stumbled awkwardly out of the carriage. Seeing his father’s bloodshot eyes, Chu Nanxing looked at him as if he couldn’t live up to expectations.
The old man had been crying again? Honestly! He didn’t act like an elder at all. What a disgrace!
Chu Chengbi was crying on the inside, unable to voice his misery. He kept shooting Chu Nanxing meaningful looks.
Chu Nanxing asked, “Dad, did you get sand in your eyes?”
Chu Chengbi: “…” You idiot! You brute!
You have no idea what your father is going through!
Chu Zhao ignored Chu Chengbi’s little gestures. Once she had stepped down from the carriage, she went straight into Xuanzhao Temple. Chu Nanxing hurriedly pulled Chu Chengbi along after her.
Just inside the gate, in the center of the courtyard before the main hall, grew an enormous silk tree. Its trunk was only wide enough for two people to wrap their arms around, but its canopy spread out over half the courtyard, covering it in shade.
Many red ribbons hung from its branches, covered with the names of lovesick men and women.
Chu Zhao felt a weight clog her chest. Her face remained expressionless, but that boy Chu Nanxing, utterly oblivious, came over and said, “They say Emperor Baisheng planted this silk tree himself. Hehe. At some point, people started treating it as a tree of marriage. Whenever people in the capital get married, they like to come here and pray beneath it.”
He lowered his voice. “They say if you manage to toss a red ribbon with both your names written on it onto a branch, you’re destined to be together. If you fail three times, it means you’re ill-fated. That’s Ancestress Xuanzhao manifesting to warn you!”
Chu Zhao: What the hell did I ever warn anyone about?
“Fake,” Chu Zhao said flatly.
“Huh?” Chu Nanxing looked at her in disbelief, then instinctively glanced around. Lowering his voice even further, he said, “D-Did the Ancestress tell Older Cousin? Could the person who taught you in your dream really be…” He cautiously pointed toward the main hall, his eyes shining with excitement.
Chu Zhao smiled without humor. “Anyone who comes to King of Xuanzhao to pray for a match must have something wrong with their head. Doesn’t your family genealogy say that King of Xuanzhao specialized in killing lovesick men and women? She loved helping people get divorced, divorce their husbands, and become widows.”
Chu Nanxing was horrified.
He looked at his father.
Chu Chengbi’s eyes were red. Slander! Utter slander! Old ghost, you’re ruining our Ancestress’s good name!
The more Chu Zhao looked at the silk tree, the more she disliked it. She didn’t believe for a second that Yan Fuwei had planted it himself. That bastard had changed history outright and turned her into a man. Wasn’t that just disgusting?
A royal title and a temple? What a joke! Now that Chu Xuanzhao had been turned into a man, what the hell did the thing enshrined in this temple have to do with her?
Chu Zhao strode into the hall, her gaze sharp as lightning as she stared at the towering statue inside.
The statue was powerfully built, with tiger eyes that flashed like lightning. It wore a king’s robe and a ceremonial crown, holding a spear in its left hand and a sword in its right. It was truly imposing and majestic…
My ass!
Chu Zhao gritted her teeth. What was this black bear spirit supposed to be?
Her eyes grew redder and redder, and the ghostly energy around her was on the verge of bursting out of her body.
In Chu Zhao’s eyes, the countless streams of dense devotional incense all poured straight into the black bear spirit’s body on the altar!
That devotional incense was supposed to be hers! Hers!!!
No wonder she had been a wandering ghost for three hundred years without receiving a single offering of devotional incense. All this time, it had been fed into someone else’s mouth!
No wonder that even after she had become a Ghost King, she still couldn’t form a Ghost King’s body. Her soul and spirit were constantly splitting apart, and she was always on the verge of vanishing.
So all along, someone had erased Chu Xuanzhao’s very existence…
Everyone believed King of Xuanzhao had been a man. No one knew that Chu Zhao had been a woman!