CH 37

The “ghost” that’d climbed onto the bed in the middle of the night truly had great luck. 

At first, Wu Xingxue was sort of pretending to be a frail scholar, but in the blink of an eye, he probed the room and found that Tianxiu Immortal wasn’t here at all. 

Xiao Fuxuan really wasn’t present.  

Indeed. Were he present, there was absolutely no way this ugly thing could have made it this far into the room. 

As Wu Xingxue thought as much, he promptly lost his inclination to play frail scholar. With no one present, who was he playing for?

That thing lurking beside the bed was just about to move, but his speed was even faster than it—in a wink, the bed was empty as anything, with no trace of Wu Xingxue. 

That pair of deathly-white-suffused eyes blinked. They rapidly scanned the bed, swept both sides, and even looked under the bed… but couldn’t find the slightest hint of Wu Xingxue anywhere. 

Its eyes rotated extremely quickly, lids nearly unable to hold them in, and rims suffused with black, as though slightly rotten. If they’d moved even a slight bit faster, they’d probably even fall right out of their sockets.  

Just as it was about to look up, a voice emanated softly behind it: “I’m behind you.

It suddenly froze, blanched eyeballs unable to move. Just then, its fingers arched to attack! However, it felt the vital part where the nape connected to the scalp was being seized.  

That hand was cold as ice, colder even than a dead person’s.

After a peal of the sky and ground twisting around, it was hauled and flung violently to the floor. Those hands clamping its nape had already moved to its throat.  

It put up a violent struggle, with strength so great even the floorboards were smashed with a tremendous banging, cracking open several holes.  

But that spotless white, slender hand moved not a hair.  

On that hand, it sensed a fuming killing intent. 

“Your luck is truly bad. The only moves I remember are killing moves. You’d best behave yourself, and not make any sudden movements,” Wu Xingxue said gently.  

This was its first time being unable to haunt someone successfully—on the contrary, it was held down so strongly it couldn’t even move, cowering under the might.  

In that instant, a chill wind buffeted over, knocking open the shutters.  

Wu Xingxue again spoke in the darkness. He bore a mild smiling tone, yet his words were humorless: “You lurking out the window, my temper can’t be considered very good right now. You’d best roll on into the room now and light the lamps.”  

“……”

The person outside the window had perhaps never heard a request such as this, and was rendered speechless.  

After a long while, someone at last tremblingly pushed open the door and cautiously felt around beside the table.  

***

The long-extinguished oil lamp lit anew. The little flame illuminated the room’s interior quite clearly—

The one who’d lit the lamp was the innkeeper.

Wu Xingxue clenched his fingers around that thing, which was half-kneeling in plain white clothing, that had crawled onto his bed in the middle of the night…  

To be precise, it wasn’t a thing, but a human. 

A human who looked like he’d already been dead a long while. 

His head, face, and neck were somewhat swollen, not due to fat, but more like he’d been soaked awhile in some sort of juice, making his flesh all deathly white—to be even more precise.  

It reminded Wu Xingxue of coffin fluid— 

The common folk had a few places that, in order to guarantee corpses wouldn’t decay after death, would ask the immortal sects for some special spiritual medicine to pour into their coffins. 

Wu Xingxue’s face went promptly wooden.

He glanced around his surroundings, seeing that there was actually a narrow sword at the corpse’s waist.  

Hence, he released his grip on the other’s neck, drew that sword, and stood up.

The corpse was hoping to take the opportunity to struggle up, just to have the sword tip pressed against its forehead.  

“Did I allow you to get up?” Wu Xingxue asked.  

His tone was never this threatening, always light, like he was just chatting. But that killing intent had not yet dispersed. It got to the point that neither the corpse under the sword nor the innkeeper beside the table dared move.  

“Innkeeper, hand me that clean rag,” Wu Xingxue said. 

Massive bags hung beneath the innkeeper’s eyes. Staring at him in dread, he cautiously extended the cloth, passing it over from more than a pace away.  

He didn’t dare move or speak, just watched as Wu Xingxue took the rag and wiped his fingers.  

He watched as the other party kept wiping and wiping without doing anything else, eyes lowered calmly to examine his wrists. 

Those wrists were long, even, and clean, not dirty at all. What could be worth examining?  

The innkeeper thought. 

Even more terrifying was, as he examined them, he still frowned, indeed appearing not to be in a good mood. 

The innkeeper cautiously retracted his body. 

An outsider naturally wouldn’t know—it was because his wrists were totally spotless that Wu Xingxue was frowning.  

Last time, at the Hua sect, when Xiao Fuxuan had done spirits projection to handle things on his own, he’d tied a thread with a little bell onto his wrist. 

If Wu Xingxue tugged at it a few times, the other person would come right back. 

This time there wasn’t even a bell to call him, and he couldn’t find any trace of Xiao Fuxuan’s aura in the entire inn. 

Where’d he gone? 

Wu Xingxue tossed the cloth back onto the table and raised his head to stare the innkeeper down.  

The innkeeper’s scalp tingled at that look, and a shiver went up his spine. Just as he was about to wave his hands and explain, however, he heard Wu Xingxue asking him: “Where is Xiao Fuxuan.”

The innkeeper was at a loss, almost not hearing clearly: “Ah? Who?” 

In that brief instant, plenty of affairs Wu Xingxue might have asked about flashed through his head—

What’s going on with this corpse on the floor? Why did it appear in my room in the middle of the night?! And why would you be lurking by the window? What manner of things are you trying for like this?  

Anyone who’d just met danger in the middle of the night would most want to ask these questions, yet Wu Xingxue asked the most neither-here-nor-there thing. 

“I’m asking.” Wu Xingxue spoke lightly, “Where is that person who came here with me, have you seen him?” 

The innkeeper shook his head. 

Wu Xingxue’s complexion went colder at once. 

When he wasn’t wearing an expression, the slight downward lilt at the ends of his eyes would be suffused with a sense of disdain. That ever-present killing intent grew stronger. 

Like this, the innkeeper was truly scared. His throat made a gulping motion as he swallowed back saliva: “I… I really haven’t seen him.”  

“Weren’t you just spying outside the window?” Wu Xingxue’s voice grew lighter.

“I, I, I’d just come up. When I came up, when I came up…” The innkeeper seemed not to know how to explain, but nevertheless let out: “I hadn’t been up there for a while, I just heard you say ‘I’m behind you,’ and then… and then everything else that happened, you ought to know already.”  

Wu Xingxue listened, his complexion growing more unsightly: “And I’m supposed to believe what you say?” 

The innkeeper was in distress: “It’s all true! It’s true! If there’s a word of falsehood, may, may heaven strike me with lightning!” 

It wasn’t that Wu Xingxue didn’t believe him.

Before he’d even opened his mouth to ask, he’d guessed this outcome—for the innkeeper to be intimidated to this state of terror, there was absolutely no way he could have done something to an ascended immortal.

So Xiao Fuxuan’s disappearance shouldn’t have had anything to do with him.  

Wu Xingxue figured.

It was just that he couldn’t find the man, and was feeling a bit edgy. 

“Then what about you?” He held the sword behind his back to stick it down—

The corpse suddenly shut its eyes, just feeling the sword’s point trailing along its scalp. He could even feel the long, slender opening being cut into it. Were he still alive, there’d definitely be gurgling blood gushing out from the laceration.

He wouldn’t die, but he’d be terrified to the point of tears streaming down.  

“And what are you? When did you come into the room, and what about the other person in the room?” Wu Xingxue half-squatted down. 

The corpse’s deathly white eyeballs stared at him without turning. It opened its mouth, but its lips were tightly sealed. After that, it shook its head.

Wu Xingxue, however, knit his brows.

His thumb and index finger pinched the corpse’s cheeks and applied force.  

After a couple “gahhhs, the corpse’s taut jaw loosened a little, and its mouth naturally opened like a cavern’s maw—

He had two rows of fine teeth, but lacked a tongue.  

Wu Xingxue pressed further down, finding that there was something bulging below his throat bone. Pressing against it, it appeared that the inside had even been sealed by a nail.

Both the lack of tongue and the sealing nail were probably like this so he’d have no way of talking. 

If Xiao Fuxuan were here, they’d definitely have a way to make this corpse speak even without a tongue. 

But he was not here.

Wu Xingxue was on edge as ever. He swiped a cup of tea, sloshed it beside the corpse’s hand, and said in a low voice: “Write.”

But the corpse’s fingers shivered. Within the tea stains, he made a series of meaningless slashing motions.  

“This thing, he… he can’t reply.” The innkeeper couldn’t bear it anymore, and added this to the side.

“Then can you reply with anything?’ Wu Xingxue spoke without lifting his head: “Before, someone had said something…”  

Xiao Fuxuan had said, this place was an illusion realm, and it was best not to make too much noise lest it have an effect on the illusion realm, as it was unknown what incidents might proliferate from there.  

“He said, it’s best not to make too much of a disturbance here.” Wu Xingxue turned to look at the innkeeper, “Now he’s disappeared, and I’ve no one to ask. In your opinion… What counts as a disturbance? Beating? Killing?” 

The innkeeper’s face withered at this, and hastily blurted out: “No no no, it can’t be like this, it can’t be like this. I—Ahh! I’ll speak, I’ll say everything.”  

The innkeeper said it was a long story, and he didn’t know how to tell it dearly other than starting from the beginning.

***

“I’d opened this inn in Falling Flower Mountain Market for several years, and it’d always been just fine without incident. Before, I’d even gotten immortal sect people to check it over for me, and they said I’d picked the best place in Falling Flower Terrace, a treasure site that gathers fortune. And then one day, in a crack in a rock behind the inn, a branch of jade appeared. Although it was only a wee bit…”  

Fingers trembling, he carefully gestured them less than an inch apart, saying: “I thought, could this be a manifestation of the treasure site? So I asked an immortal sect to come to look again, but they said it wasn’t a good omen. They said that my treasure site’s fortune had already dissipated, that flourishing would turn to decline, that its luck would turn vicious. They even advised that I’d best switch to another place…”  

Naturally, he didn’t believe that ill omen. Clearly, before they’d been saying that he was occupying a treasure site, so how could it suddenly turn into a site of misfortune? Hence, he put feelers out everywhere, made inquiries, and lost count of how many books he’d consulted, some understandable, some impenetrable. He flipped through them all; not sparing even those legends of Heavenly Law’s origin. 

In the end, he found a conclusion for himself.  

“I thought, it had to be a bit of extremely rare jade essence,” the innkeeper said. Hearing this lade essence” Xiao Fuxuan had brought up, Wu Xingxue raised his eyes. 

“Supposing that it was real jade essence, that legendary material, then it’d have to be very lucky. How could flourishing turn to decline!” The innkeeper said: “So I didn’t listen to those immortal sects’ words, and didn’t plan to move out either. In the end… Ai, it wasn’t long before something happened.”

Spying Wu Xingxue’s expression, the innkeeper said: “There was a guest staying here who disappeared without any trace whatsoever.

“He’d taken his daughter along. The little girl was still so young, and couldn’t even speak very well. Who could just stand aside and watch her cry? Of course I had to ask, so I called for an immortal sect. There were a lot of types around Falling Flower Mountain Market, and I was afraid too big a disturbance would cause trouble. Those immortals all stayed at my place and stealthily went scouting, but in the end…” 

The innkeeper peeped at Wu Xingxue, wanting to speak but hesitating, as though he didn’t dare spit it out.  

Wu Xingxue stared at him, saying: “And?”

With a gulp, the innkeeper closed his eyes and accepted his fate, saying: “In the end, those immortals looked all over Falling Flower Mountain Market, but still couldn’t find that guest. He just disappeared into thin air, never to be seen again.”