Zhou Zixi finally stopped obsessing over becoming “human.”

He began to live in this world as a ghost.

Qiu Lang led Zhou Zixi and the girl away from the western state city overnight to avoid pursuit. The Martial Supervision Alliance wouldn’t suspect these two young ghosts for the time being.

Zhou Zixi changed into clean clothes and washed his face with water by the river. Qiu Lang crouched beside him and pointed to the white-caped girl behind them: “Her name is Wu Liangli. I picked her up from the roadside. What’s the name of the one you picked up?”

“Don’t know,” Zhou Zixi plunged his head into the water, then emerged, shaking his head, splashing water all over Qiu Lang’s face.

Qiu Lang stood up, moving away from Zhou Zixi with a look of disgust.

Wu Liangli cupped her face and looked curiously at the girl: “My name is Wu Liangli. What’s your name?”

The girl leaned against a large tree, hugging her knees. She shook her head upon hearing the question, burying her head fearfully in the crook of her arm.

Zhou Zixi looked back and said to Qiu Lang, “She has some mental issues. Her Heart Meridian is unstable, sometimes better, sometimes worse.”

Qiu Lang looked at him with curiosity: “So you finally have a day when you say someone else’s mind isn’t good?”

Zhou Zixi didn’t answer.

Qiu Lang could guess what Zhou Zixi had gone through in captivity, having experienced it himself. He didn’t question Zhou Zixi’s silent withdrawal but conversed with him naturally.

“Not having a name is problematic. Even when forging identity passes to cross checkpoints, we’ll need a name,” Qiu Lang nodded toward the girl, telling Zhou Zixi, “Since you brought her back, you’re responsible for her.”

“You can’t just pick her up without taking care of her.”

Zhou Zixi looked at him in confusion: “What am I taking care of?”

Qiu Lang pointed at the girl with perfect justification: “Her, of course!”

Zhou Zixi also raised his hand to point at Wu Liangli: “Then you have to take care of her too?”

Qiu Lang looked at Wu Liangli, who also looked up at him. Just as Qiu Lang was about to answer, the girl leaning against the tree sobbed quietly: “I… I want to go home.”

The three people present who had no homes: “…”

Zhou Zixi wiped the water droplets from his face and lowered his head to ask: “Where is your home?”

The girl also wiped her tears and said, “In the Ice Desert.”

“Where is the Ice Desert?” Zhou Zixi turned to ask Qiu Lang.

Qiu Lang lowered his head to ask Wu Liangli: “Have you heard of it?”

“I think I’ve heard people mention it. Many ghosts live there, with ghost towns,” Wu Liangli recalled seriously. “Because the environment is harsh, ordinary people can’t survive there, so it became a place where ghosts live.”

Qiu Lang reached out to pat her head: “As expected of you.”

Zhou Zixi: “You still haven’t said where it is.”

Wu Liangli blinked and said: “I’ve only heard about it, never been there, so of course I don’t know where it is.”

Qiu Lang: “…”

He silently withdrew his hand.

“I know,” the girl raised her head, her eyes red from crying, as she looked at Zhou Zixi. “I remember how to get back.”

Zhou Zixi’s expression was cold: “Then go.”

Upon hearing this, the girl cried: “I’m scared… wuwuwu…”

Zhou Zixi: “…”

Qiu Lang said he wouldn’t take care of her and left everything about the girl to Zhou Zixi, including forging her identity pass.

Zhou Zixi asked the girl: “What do you want to be called?”

The girl timidly asked: “What options are there?”

She’s even picky about names?

The forger suggested they pretend to be siblings to pass checkpoints more easily, so they gave the girl the surname Zhou and the single character Xiang for her given name.

Because the girl smelled strongly of blood from being tortured in prison, Wu Liangli helped wash her for several days before the smell faded.

The girl also wanted to be clean like Wu Liangli, with a pleasant fragrance.

Zhou Xiang held her identity pass, staring at the characters for a long time without speaking.

Zhou Zixi saw through her thoughts at a glance: “Can’t read?”

Zhou Xiang nodded pitifully.

“You’ll learn gradually,” Zhou Zixi said.

*

The four youths embarked on a journey to the Ice Desert to take Zhou Xiang home.

They traveled very discreetly, using countless fake identities to avoid pursuit by the Martial Supervision Alliance, though sometimes they were still unlucky enough to encounter them.

The four honed their skills through various encounters with pursuers. Each time they faced death, they survived and counter-attacked, driven by their desire to live.

Days filled with injuries and increasing pursuit only made Zhou Zixi more rebellious about taking Zhou Xiang to the Ice Desert.

If you try to stop me, I’ll make sure to do it.

Once again forced to take mountain routes to avoid pursuit, the four sat around a fire at night, roasting fish and chatting.

Zhou Zixi and Qiu Lang were bandaging each other’s wounds. Wu Liangli was roasting fish, while Zhou Xiang tended the fire, her expression full of remorse and guilt.

Zhou Xiang said: “I’m sorry, it’s all because of me…”

Before she could finish, Qiu Lang interrupted: “It’s not your fault, why apologize? After we send you home, remember to treat me to meat, definitely fresh beef!”

Zhou Xiang nodded: “Okay.”

Qiu Lang asked Zhou Zixi: “What meat do you want to eat?”

Zhou Zixi was applying medicine to his shoulder, looking somewhat displeased as he said: “Human meat.”

Wu Liangli burst into laughter.

Qiu Lang rolled his eyes: “Disgusting!”

Zhou Xiang said with difficulty, “Eating human meat would be a bit challenging…”

Zhou Zixi: “…”

She couldn’t possibly be considering it, could she?

The three looked at Zhou Xiang in unison, momentarily feeling that the girl’s innocence was eerily strange.

The river fish was cooked, its aroma filling the air. Zhou Xiang, filling her stomach with roasted fish, said: “Where are your homes? In the future, I can send you delicious things I find in the Ice Desert.”

Qiu Lang, who had been wolfing down fish, paused upon hearing this. His eating pace unconsciously slowed.

Zhou Zixi suddenly remembered what the beautiful woman had told him in the tower. Every word became clear, impossible to forget even if he wanted to.

The sudden silence made Zhou Xiang pull back her head, her heart pounding as she quickly reflected on whether she had said something wrong.

Wu Liangli shook her head, picking out fish bones methodically: “I don’t have a home.”

“Why wouldn’t you have one?” Zhou Xiang asked, puzzled.

Wu Liangli said, “Because I’m a ghost. When my mother found out, she put me in a coffin, nailed it shut, and buried me. Then she left with my brother and father. When I got out much later, I couldn’t find them, so I no longer have a home.”

Zhou Xiang was stunned by this.

“I don’t have one either,” Qiu Lang said softly. “My mother died of illness, and my father was killed by inspectors who came to capture me while trying to protect me.”

Becoming a ghost was just a matter of probability.

Children born to ghosts had a high probability of being ghosts, but it wasn’t absolute.

Zhou Zixi ate his fish in silence.

Qiu Lang looked at him: “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Zhou Zixi: “Say what?”

Qiu Lang asked: “What about your family?”

Zhou Zixi calmly replied: “None. They’re all dead.”

Zhou Xiang spoke with a choked voice: “I’m sorry… I didn’t know you all… wuwuwu…”

She hadn’t intended to bring up painful memories; she truly just wanted to share with her friends.

“Hey, it’s nothing, I’m used to it.” Qiu Lang looked at Zhou Xiang with narrowed eyes. “Rather, tell us about yourself. Who’s in your family? What do they do? Why were you captured by the Martial Supervision Alliance?”

Zhou Zixi glanced at Zhou Xiang. He had found it strange earlier—if Zhou Xiang had family, why hadn’t anyone come to the Martial Supervision Alliance looking for her?

Zhou Xiang wiped her tears with her hand, her voice trembling: “My mother took me to find my father. My father lived in a very beautiful building. He let my mother and me stay there and prepared many beautiful clothes for me, and very sweet candies.”

“Mother told me to live there from then on and play with the uncles in the building.”

Now it was Wu Liangli’s turn to be stunned.

Qiu Lang, who was eating fish, coughed: “That building where your father lived, did it have many red lanterns that only lit up at night, with screens everywhere and many girls?”

Zhou Xiang nodded.

Wu Liangli also asked her: “The clothes they gave you to wear, though beautiful, were very thin?”

Zhou Xiang nodded with “mm-hmm”: “It was winter then, and I was shivering with cold. I wanted to wear more layers, but the uncles wouldn’t let me. I was very scared and wanted to find my mother. Because I didn’t listen, my father beat me.”

During that beating, she died, revealing her ghost identity, and was subsequently captured and imprisoned by the Martial Supervision Alliance.

“I don’t want to find my father, so I want to return to Ice Desert to find my mother,” Zhou Xiang said softly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up going home and make you all sad.”

The three: “…”

You’re not in a much better situation yourself!

Qiu Lang looked at Zhou Xiang, wanting to speak but hesitating.

Zhou Zixi was quiet for a moment, then raised his eyes to look at Zhou Xiang, his gaze cold. Zhou Xiang fearfully moved closer to Wu Liangli, hearing the young man across the fire say, “Those weren’t your parents. You were just sold by a strange woman to a strange man. Remember that, okay?”

Zhou Xiang didn’t dare defy him and nodded repeatedly without question: “I remember!”

Wu Liangli stroked her head lovingly: “Forget about parents and such, just forget about them.”

That night, after Zhou Xiang fell asleep, the other three couldn’t sleep. The atmosphere was somewhat depressed.

They had all thought themselves so unfortunate, but at least Zhou Xiang was lucky—she had a home, a family. Even after being locked up in the Martial Supervision Alliance for over two years, she hadn’t forgotten the way home.

Zhou Xiang’s disappearance for so long meant her family must be very worried, and they would surely be overjoyed to see her return.

But they were wrong.

Zhou Xiang, like them, was also a child without a home.

A child abandoned and buried alive by her parents, a father who was abandoned by the world for trying to protect his child.

All because these children awakened life meridians and were treated as ghosts to be expelled and eliminated.

This world was so cruel to ghosts.

*

Although Zhou Zixi, Qiu Lang, and Wu Liangli knew no family was waiting for Zhou Xiang in the Ice Desert, they continued toward it.

No one exposed Zhou Xiang’s fantasy.

But the journey wasn’t easy. Shortly after entering a city, they were pursued. Multiple teams of inspectors scattered them, forcing each to flee separately.

Zhou Zixi’s wounds hadn’t healed, and this time the pursuing inspectors were formidable—each at Six Meridian Mastery or even Seven Meridian Mastery, unlike the inspectors from smaller places before.

It happened to coincide with a bustling fireworks festival in the city. People crowded every street and alley. The inspectors had increased patrols for the festival’s order, never expecting to encounter their targets.

Zhou Zixi ran along a dark hillside street, too exhausted even for Shadow Step, and hid behind a low wall to catch his breath.

Next to the hillside stood a small house with a giant banyan tree beside it. The tree had lush branches and leaves. Seemingly to match tonight’s citywide fireworks festival, it was decorated with various ornaments.

Blessing tablets hanging from red cords, glowing beads, wind chimes, and flower lanterns—everything was there.

Zhou Zixi held his breath, focusing his attention. Just as he was about to leave, he heard footsteps and immediately tensed, not daring to move rashly.

“You two, slow down, did you hear me? Slow down!” A young man carrying a lantern shouted at two people running wildly ahead. After chasing a few steps, he turned back to shout at a young woman behind him: “Can’t you walk faster?”

“I’m not in a hurry,” the young woman, arms full of fireworks and firecrackers, walked leisurely at the back. “Just tell my brother to slow down.”

The young man smiled without humor: “Isn’t that what I’m shouting? Look at him running ahead like a mad dog.”

Dong Yeyun, who had stopped running ahead, turned back to shout: “Who are you calling a mad dog?”

Chen Zhou caught up, preparing to properly educate the two wild runners. If they got lost and were kidnapped, he would have to find them.

The young woman, Ming Li, walked leisurely until she suddenly stopped. From the corner of her eye, she looked toward the huge banyan tree. The evening breeze gently rang the wind chimes in the tree.

She also saw inspectors searching in various places ahead.

The scattered star power brought back clear information—someone was behind that tree.

Most likely, someone is being pursued by the inspectors.

Behind the tree, Zhou Zixi keenly sensed that the person on the hillside had stopped. His heart trembled. Why had they stopped? Had he been discovered?

Ming Li withdrew her sidelong glance and continued walking forward.

Forget it, it’s none of my business.

Chen Zhou grabbed Dong Yeyun and Qing Ying to stop them from running, while turning back to shout at Ming Li: “Hurry up!”

“I know,” Ming Li responded lazily.

Chen Zhou: “Then would you please hurry up?”

Ming Li: “I already said I know!”

Dong Yeyun and Qing Ying: “…”

*

Fireworks continuously exploded in the night sky over the city. Ming Li watched with satisfaction as the fireworks she had lit faded away.

In the same city, Zhou Zixi had died several times. He didn’t know how many times he had opened his eyes to see the flowers of fire in the night sky—so beautiful, yet so brief.

The moments of happiness in Zhou Zixi’s life were also like these fireworks, fleeting.