Qian Luo’s chopsticks had just latched onto a slice of sautéed mountain yam when the sentence hit her. Her hand spasmed, and the slippery yam slice shot off like a rocket, landing right in the middle of a bowl of fish soup with a loud splash. A spray of broth erupted; Ye, who was sitting closest, caught a face full of soup.
Strangely, Ye didn’t get angry. She simply wiped her face and extended a dainty pink tongue to lick the broth off her fingers with elegant poise, not even deigning to glance at the culprit.
This made Qian Luo even more terrified.
Under her Senior Sister’s piercing gaze, Qian Luo looked like a child caught red-handed. She set her chopsticks down as if afraid of waking a ghost, not making a single sound. She hunched her shoulders and cast another pleading look toward Ye.
Ye was calmly licking her paw, clearly having no intention of intervening.
Qian Zhen waited for an answer that didn’t come. Her brow arched. “What? Too guilty to speak?”
Seeing no way out, Qian Luo put on her most pitiful face and took hold of Qian Zhen’s arm, her voice small and wheedling. “Sister, I… I was really short on money. I had no choice but to take a case…”
Qian Zhen’s stern expression paled for a moment. It seemed she had already suspected as much but had been unwilling to admit it. Now that the truth was laid bare, she asked point-blank: “The Zhou Xiaoming suicide case?”
Qian Luo’s heart skipped a beat. Seeing that her sister already knew everything, she could only lower her head, nod, and offer a silent admission before peeking back up.
Qian Zhen was clearly angry, but her nature was gentle. “I saw the news while I was abroad and felt something was wrong. Later, I heard the Zhou family intended to find a ghost-tamer for help. I was afraid you’d jump into this muddy water, so I took the first flight back. I guess I was still a step too late… Luo, oh Luo, how could you be so reckless with the rules!”
Qian Luo muttered under her breath, “I needed the money. Besides, it’s obvious Zhou Xiaoming didn’t commit suicide. If I can prove it was murder, then I haven’t technically broken the taboo regarding souls of the self-slain…”
Qian Zhen had doted on this younger sister since they were children and couldn’t stay angry for long. She sighed. “Whether it was suicide or not, you should stay away from that child. You know why…”
She stopped abruptly, as if touching upon a forbidden subject.
Qian Luo looked up, arguing righteously, “Zhou Xiaoming is almost eighteen! She’s basically an adult. Does a day or two really matter? Besides, the poor girl died so tragically. If I didn’t take the case, and Yin Tong went to find someone else—one of those… those—”
She stopped herself, remembering something awkward, and gave a nervous laugh. “Sister, I don’t mean you! I mean the kind of people who would do anything for money…”
Qian Zhen’s face cooled. “And aren’t you doing exactly that right now?”
Qian Luo’s mouth snapped shut. All her arguments were rendered moot by that single sentence.
Qian Zhen frowned. “I’m not just worried about the taboo. As you said, if it’s murder, it’s not a violation. But I’ve heard rumors—” Her eyes lingered on the wound on Qian Luo’s shoulder. “The Zhou family seems to have hired more than one ghost-tamer.”
Qian Luo’s heart thudded. Oh no. What if it was one of her fellow disciples? If they ran into each other mid-exorcism, who would get the credit? Who would get the spiritual merit? Who would get the money? If she ran into one of the rivals she didn’t get along with, it would be an absolute nightmare.
As her thoughts raced, she heard Qian Zhen ask, “Have you heard of the Zhang family?”
Qian Luo’s heart skipped a beat for a different reason. The name sounded familiar. After a moment of searching her memory, it hit her, and her heart jumped into her throat.
“The sword sinks the stars of the nine heavens, shedding blood without mercy.” Was that not the description of the Zhang family of Chang’an?
Unlike Qian Luo’s sect, which rose to prominence during the Republican era, the Zhangs were an ancient lineage dating back to the Tang Dynasty. Their reputation was legendary—they were a family of professional ghost hunters who were famously cold-blooded. They killed every spirit they encountered without exception.
Their rules were draconian, including the “Seven Must-Kills” and “Four Never-Releases.” People from the Zhang family were so ruthless that not only did ghosts steer clear of them, but even fellow practitioners gave them a wide berth.
To the uninformed public, the Zhang family was as terrifying as the vengeful spirits they hunted. No one wanted to cross them.
Qian Luo actually had a run-in with them when she was a child. She had gone out with her Master for her first hunt, and the two families happened to target the same ghost. They chased it for miles. When they were just steps away from catching it, Qian Luo’s Master, wanting to maintain professional courtesy, was about to suggest splitting the credit. Before he could speak, the Zhang practitioner drew their sword—not to strike the ghost, but to strike at the Master’s head.
The sheer lethality of that strike had almost made the young Qian Luo cry. They were truly heartless.
Knowing the wealthy Zhou family had summoned these “Rakshasas” made Qian Luo feel even more uneasy. Her lip twitched. “The Zhous… why hire two different groups?”
Qian Zhen picked up a piece of food with her chopsticks. “In our trade, there’s an unwritten rule: practitioners shouldn’t overlap. You hire one, not two. But the Zhou family is likely fractured by internal factions. They are one family, but they don’t trust each other. One person hires one sect, and another person, unaware, hires someone else. You are low-ranking and unknown in our sect; as long as you don’t reveal yourself, no one will know who you are. If you run into them, just pretend to be an ordinary person. Do not get into a conflict with them.”
Qian Luo nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, of course!”
Conflict? She’d seen the Zhangs. Generations of wealth meant even a young girl’s sword was inlaid with gold. Qian Luo wanted to fight back, but she was too poor—if she broke something of theirs, she’d never be able to pay for it.
She thought mournfully of her old, battered peach-wood sword. We’re both ghost-tamers; why is the gap between us so huge?
Seeing that the interrogation was over, Qian Zhen couldn’t keep her stern face up. She sighed and went to get medicine. She returned with a small bottle and sat beside Qian Luo to clean the wound. The moment the alcohol-soaked cotton touched the skin, Qian Luo hissed in pain.
Qian Zhen flinched and pulled back, as if she were the one in pain. Then, she pressed the cotton down firmly and snapped, “You still know how to feel pain? If you know it hurts, why take such a case? If you’re out of money, why didn’t you ask me?”
Despite the stinging, Qian Luo grinned sheepishly. “I was thinking of making enough to support you…”
“Always with the sweet talk,” Qian Zhen grumbled as she applied the salve. “I was abroad for so long—did you ever once think of me?”
I thought of you every day! I missed you to death! But international calls are too expensive! Qian Luo thought. Life is already this hard, Sister, can you stop exposing me?
She was about to argue that Qian Zhen hadn’t called her either, but then she remembered her phone had been cut off for a long time. Who knew how many “unreachable” calls her sister had made? The thought made her heart ache with guilt.
Looking at her sister’s focused, gentle eyes as she tended the wound—just as she had when they were children—Qian Luo felt a surge of remorse.
She almost blurted it out: “Sister, actually, I… I let a—”
But in that instant, Zhou Xiaoming’s sorrowful, pure eyes flashed before her mind. The girl’s spirit, as beautiful as a deity, seemed to float past, making Qian Luo swallow the words.
Qian Zhen looked up. “What is it?”
Qian Luo opened her mouth, but couldn’t say it. Instead, she said, “I met a Vengeful Spirit today. Her name was Zhuo Zitong. She died in a very strange way.”
Qian Zhen lowered her head to continue the treatment. “Go on.”
Qian Luo described the building—the vast atrium, the unfinished floors, the lack of guardrails. “She fell from the third floor in the middle of the night. My employer is from an entertainment company and spent a lot of energy keeping it quiet. But I was stupid; I let two reporters trick me, and the information leaked. Did you see the Weibo headlines today? It’s all my fault. I don’t know how much money the company lost because of me…”
Qian Zhen frowned and looked up, confused. “What are you talking about?”
Qian Luo looked down, dejected. “The person who hired me, Yin Tong, put me in a data entry position so I could see the files quietly. But on my first day, two reporters posed as employees and tricked me into leaving my desk. They leaked the data while I was gone.”
As she spoke, she noticed Qian Zhen’s face turn deathly pale. Alarmed, she looked at Ye, who was equally confused.
“Sister, what’s wrong?”
Qian Zhen frowned deeply. “Luo, are you really that stupid?”
Qian Luo felt her face heat up. “I… I guess so…”
Qian Zhen’s voice quickened with frustration. “What kind of place do you think an entertainment company is? With so many stars and so much gossip, do you think their security guards are idiots? How could they just let strangers in? Furthermore, in a company with so many people and so much data, how would those reporters know exactly which file was the secret one?”
A lightbulb flickered in the back of Qian Luo’s mind, but the realization was fleeting, hard to catch. She stared, mouth agape.
Qian Zhen let out a cold laugh, her voice low and deliberate. “It wasn’t an ‘accidental’ leak at all. This news was carefully orchestrated from the start. They wanted to leak it, and they used your hands to do it!”