Su Yuqing let out a quiet laugh to herself.
She was a true Daoist disciple, born with the ability to see spirits.
The moment that wicked woman Zhu Chunjuan had stepped inside, Su Yuqing had spotted a little resentful ghost, dripping wet, clinging to her shoulder.
A quick calculation with her fingers had laid bare every last detail of the woman’s past.
She’d always known Zhu Chunjuan was a terrible person, but she’d never imagined the woman had been so cruel since childhood that she’d pushed her own older sister into a river and drowned her!
“Slap! Slap! Slap!”
Su Yuqing showed no mercy. She rained heavy slaps down on Zhu Chunjuan’s face as if they cost nothing.
After only a few, Zhu Chunjuan’s face had swollen like a risen bun, and blood bubbled from the corners of her mouth.
“Mm—mm…”
The beating left Zhu Chunjuan’s head ringing, and she couldn’t stop wondering what was going on.
For some reason, Su Yuqing’s vicious expression looked exactly like that of her older sister Zhu Xiuxiu, who had drowned!
Especially those eyes, rolled back like a dead fish’s and glaring fixedly at her, filled with a chilling, sinister coldness…
Panic mounted in Zhu Chunjuan. Cold sweat soaked her back, and she was so frightened that, for a moment, she forgot to struggle, simply letting Su Yuqing’s slaps land on her face.
Only then did Su Dawei and his son, Su Hongqing, standing nearby, snap out of it.
“What do you think you’re doing? You dare hit your mother!” Su Dawei roared. He and Su Hongqing lunged at Su Yuqing and grabbed her arms. “Let go of her this instant!”
Su Yuqing turned her head and fixed Su Dawei with a vicious stare. She wrenched her wrist free and swung backhanded, landing two resounding slaps.
“Smack! Smack!”
“You…” Su Dawei was stunned. He clutched his face, unable to believe it.
“She owes me her life. Are you going to pay it back for her?” Su Yuqing shouted, her voice wavering and shrill.
“Ghost!” Su Hongqing screamed at her eerie words. He immediately let go of her, scrambled behind Zhu Chunjuan, and shook like a leaf.
After taking a beating, Zhu Chunjuan finally came to her senses. She scrambled toward the corner and snatched up the battered broom leaning there.
She vaguely remembered the village shaman saying that a broom used to sweep the floor was especially good at absorbing earthly energy, making it useful against unclean spirits that possessed people!
“You!” She raised the broom in both hands and pointed it at Su Yuqing, trembling. Her voice cracked as she shouted, “I don’t care what kind of god or wild ghost you are! Get out of her body right now! Otherwise… I’ll use this broom on you!”
Su Yuqing held back a laugh. Seeing that she’d taken the act far enough, she gave a shudder, as if snapping out of a trance. When she lifted her head again, the sinister, terrifying look in her eyes had turned clear and innocent.
Frowning like a startled fawn, she looked at the three people facing her as if braced for a fight, utterly confused.
“Huh? What… what’s going on?” Su Yuqing blinked her big eyes. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”
“Ow~” she said, then pouted and lowered her head to rub her reddened palms. “Why do my hands hurt so much?”
Zhu Chunjuan: “…”
She swallowed hard, too scared even to breathe loudly, and frantically signaled to Su Dawei with her eyes.
Su Dawei was unnerved too. He cleared his throat to bolster his courage, then scowled and snapped, “N-nothing… The rope was tied around your hands just now, so your blood wasn’t circulating properly… Anyway, there’s nothing for you to do here. Go straight back to your room!”
“Oh.” Su Yuqing answered with feigned innocence. Looking full of confusion, she dusted off her backside and headed for her little room.
As she passed Zhu Chunjuan, she suddenly stopped and gave her a chilling sideways glance.
That one look made Zhu Chunjuan shudder all over. She gripped the broom so tightly that her nails nearly broke.
Only after watching Su Yuqing enter her room and hearing the click of the door shutting did Zhu Chunjuan seem to have all her strength drained away. She let out a shaky breath and collapsed to the floor.
“Mom…” Su Hongqing poked his head out from behind her, staring at her in confusion. “Why didn’t you hit her with the broom just now? Look at you—she really went all out. Your face is swollen!”
“Hit her, hit her—what’s the point of hitting her!” Zhu Chunjuan covered her pig-like face and glared at her son. “If we mess up that face and leave a scar, will Old Wang still want her? If he returns her and asks for the bride price back, what are you going to use to find yourself a wife?”
“Oh…” Su Hongqing pursed his lips.
He was a little disappointed that he hadn’t gotten to see Su Yuqing beaten, but when he thought of her marrying an old man soon, that disappointment faded.
Despite all her scolding, Zhu Chunjuan was still badly shaken. Her heart pounded.
“All right, stop jawing here,” Su Dawei said, not taking any of it seriously. He impatiently urged Zhu Chunjuan, “Get cooking. I’m so hungry I can feel my ribs touching my backbone!”
“I know.” Zhu Chunjuan covered her face, tossed aside the broom, and went into the kitchen, grumbling as she went. “I got beaten up, and nobody even cares…”
In the kitchen, she picked up the cleaver and began chopping vegetables.
But for some reason, she couldn’t settle down. A creeping chill kept running through her.
Su Yuqing’s eerie expression just now hadn’t looked the least bit fake.
Especially that look in her eyes—even after all these years, Zhu Chunjuan couldn’t forget it!
Those eyes had been filled with shock, then turned to despair and venom. It was as if her dead older sister were standing right in front of her, appearing before her again and again.
“Ah!”
Distracted, Zhu Chunjuan brought the cleaver down on her own left index finger. The cut went deep, and blood spurted out at once.
If the pain hadn’t snapped her back to her senses and made her jerk her hand away, she might have sliced off half her finger, which would have fallen right onto the cutting board!
She clutched her hand and hurried out of the kitchen, then rummaged through a cupboard for iodine to dab on the wound.
The medicine stung like a knife. She grimaced, her face twisting with pain. The movement tugged at her swollen cheeks, making them hurt even worse, until tears sprang from her eyes.
“Ow, that hurts like hell…”
“You’re useless. You’ve been chopping vegetables for years, and you still manage to cut your hand? You stupid pig!” Su Dawei came over, cursing as he went. He took a clean rag and wrapped it around her hand haphazardly.
Zhu Chunjuan burned with resentment at his scolding. She felt uncomfortable all over.
But cowed by Su Dawei, she gritted her teeth and went back to the kitchen. Fortunately, the dishes were nearly done; all she had to do was serve them.
…
Meanwhile, as soon as Su Yuqing returned to her little room, she quietly locked the door from the inside.
To be safe, she also shoved a heavy, battered wooden stool against it.
Only after that did she go to the bed and dig around inside the yellowed pillow. She pulled out several crumpled letters and a jade bangle wrapped in scraps of cloth.
Her older brother, Su Yibei, had taken the bangle off Zhu Chunjuan’s wrist and given it to the original owner a few years ago, when he’d come home and raised hell.
Afraid Zhu Chunjuan would snatch such a valuable item back, the original owner had carefully hidden it in her pillow and slept with her head on it every night.
Su Yuqing held the jadeite bangle up and examined it. It felt warm and smooth to the touch. The whole bangle was translucent and lustrous. It wasn’t the finest icy-clear jade, but the cloudy inclusions inside had dissolved, leaving it bright and gleaming.
Even better, several vivid patches of sunny green adorned the bangle.
Those touches of green brought it to life. In the dim room, a faint spiritual glow seemed to shimmer within it.
“This bangle’s pretty good. There’s spiritual energy inside it, so it should make a handy magical artifact.”
Su Yuqing nodded with satisfaction.
She was a woman of action. At once, she took an embroidery needle from the sewing basket, pricked the middle finger of her left hand, squeezed out a few drops of bright red fingertip blood, and let them fall straight onto the jadeite bangle.
Blood-Drop Recognition.
The moment the blood touched the jade, a dazzling white light flashed.
When Su Yuqing came to and opened her eyes to take in her surroundings, she gasped in astonishment and stared wide-eyed.
She had appeared out of nowhere inside an enormous space.
And standing right in front of her was the Daoist temple she owned back in the modern world!
There was even a notch in the large stone stele by the temple entrance, where she’d mischievously hacked it with an axe when she was little.
“Holy crap!”
Thrilled, Su Yuqing shoved open the door and ran inside.
It really was exactly like her family’s Daoist temple. Even the bricks and tiles were unchanged!
The altar in the main hall still stood intact. Even the few stacks of high-grade talisman paper she hadn’t used up before transmigrating were neatly arranged on the table.
A thought flashed through her mind, and she dashed to the rear hall.
Sure enough, her huge snack cabinet had come along too!
On the shelves sat row after row of self-heating hot pots, self-heating rice meals, konjac snacks, spicy gluten sticks… Their colorful packages looked as if they were lined up to blow her kisses.
“Grrr…”
The sight made Su Yuqing’s stomach growl disgracefully.
The original owner had been mistreated every day in the Su household, leaving her frail and weak to begin with. Then she’d gone and dealt harshly with Zhu Chunjuan, which had taken plenty of effort. She was starving.
“At a time like this, the first thing I’m treating myself to is my self-heating rice.”
Unable to wait, she tore open a box of her favorite beef stew with mushrooms and added water to heat it.
A little over ten minutes later, she lifted the lid.
The first bite of tender beef, rich with savory sauce, went down, and Su Yuqing let out a contented sigh. She was so happy she could almost cry.
Seated on a cushion stool, she swung her legs contentedly as she polished off the self-heating rice in no time.
Then she made herself a cup of milk tea and took a long, slurping sip. Now this was the life~
After eating and drinking her fill, Su Yuqing wiped her mouth, went over to the nearby altar, and pulled out a blank yellow talisman.
She picked up a cinnabar brush and, without hesitation, wrote Zhu Chunjuan’s birth date and name on it.
Looking at the name on the talisman, Su Yuqing formed a hand seal and smiled like a little fox.
…
At that very moment,
Zhu Chunjuan, seated in the main room outside and eating with her head bowed, shivered violently for no reason. A cold draft seemed to rise at the nape of her neck.
She cautiously lifted her head and glanced toward Su Yuqing’s closed bedroom door.
She hadn’t dared call that wretched girl to eat, and Su Yuqing had been quiet, not coming out to cause a fuss.
At the sight, Zhu Chunjuan let out a long, quiet breath of relief.
She didn’t know why, but deep down, she no longer wanted to face Su Yuqing—indeed, she was afraid to.
By the time she’d finished eating and cleaned up the kitchen, which was a complete mess, it was already evening.
Still shaken, Zhu Chunjuan returned to her room to find Su Dawei already undressed and lying in bed.
He was slowly rolling dry tobacco in his hands, preparing to smoke this one last bit before putting out the light and going to sleep.
The dim light in the room flickered. Zhu Chunjuan had the constant feeling that a pair of invisible eyes in one of the dark corners was staring straight at her, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Frightened, she hurriedly took off her outer clothes and climbed into bed, wriggling straight into Su Dawei’s arms like a loach. Her body trembled slightly, beyond her control.
“What’s wrong with you? What’s gotten into you? You’ve been out of sorts all evening.” Su Dawei’s hand jolted when she bumped into him, scattering some of the tobacco. He frowned in annoyance.
“Husband…” Zhu Chunjuan hadn’t even noticed her husband’s displeasure. Her hands clamped around Su Dawei’s neck like iron pincers, and her voice trembled. “D-do you think… that wretched Su Yuqing… was acting a little strange today?”