Fucang felt that one day he too would be driven mad by this female ghost.

Those gold bars she had stolen from various money houses—he forced her to return them all. By the time everything was settled, dawn was nearly breaking, and he hadn’t been able to sleep all night. Fucang rubbed his aching temples and glanced at the female ghost sitting elegantly on the meditation cushion opposite him. She seemed even more helpless than he was, lowering her head to silently play with her sleeves.

“Who taught you to steal money?” He simply suspected she had popped out of a stone. To say she was innocent—yet her actions carried eight parts wickedness and willfulness. Why was she so strange?

Xuan Yi vigorously picked at the embroidered pattern on her sleeve cuff. She was most impatient with being lectured, her face stretched three feet long: “You said money could buy anything.”

Fucang was almost amused to anger by her: “Would anyone not know what money is? Didn’t your parents teach you principles of conduct when you were alive?”

She only knew how to be Zhuyin Dragon God—she really wasn’t very good at being human.

Fucang frowned at her. She might not be a female ghost. Ghosts were all transformed from humans, but she didn’t seem like a human at all, knowing nothing of the most basic common knowledge about people. Perhaps she was a demon? What kind of demon would be so bone-chillingly cold, draped in frost and bearing snow?

“Why are you so obsessed with my forgiveness?” No matter how reclusive and unworldly he was, he could still see that the forgiveness she spoke of definitely wasn’t something as simple as pestering him.

Xuan Yi’s head also ached a bit. She slowly tilted over and lay on the desk, her heart filled with either anxiety or fear.

He was impervious to persuasion, unmoved by both soft and hard approaches. Even this most powerful treasure of the mortal world that could buy anything—”money”—couldn’t buy his forgiveness. How could she obtain his forgiveness? How much longer must she stay with him? How long must this karmic bond continue to entangle them? Or was it that what he actually wanted wasn’t her apology at all?

“I’m asking you a question.” The youth opposite her scolded her with an old-fashioned stern face: “No proper sitting posture. Sit properly.”

This guy was still so troublesome even after becoming a mortal.

Xuan Yi glared at him without answering his question: “If I don’t appear, would you be able to forgive me then?”

Fucang suddenly fell silent. He discovered that even he didn’t know the answer to this question.

Xuan Yi’s heart was in turmoil. She quickly stood up and floated toward the outside of the room, saying in a low voice: “I won’t appear before you again. Don’t blame me anymore, and… don’t hate me either.”

Hate? Fucang was startled. He pushed open the door and chased after her. In the thin morning light, the pear tree’s branches and leaves were still trembling slightly. The courtyard was empty and desolate, without even half a person’s shadow.

Had she really left? He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. After standing in the courtyard for a long while, he turned around and saw something snow-white placed on the ground before his door. Fucang’s heart stirred. He bent down to pick it up and found it was a crystal-clear flower. The petals were translucent like ice crystals, covered all over with dense jade-like veins—very ethereal and beautiful. He had never seen this kind of flower before.

Fucang stood still for a moment, then couldn’t help calling out: “Are you there?”

No one answered him. All was silent.

From the moment this female ghost appeared, Fucang had an intuition that his peaceful days were probably over. Facts proved his intuition was far too accurate. Even after she disappeared from sight, she still turned his quiet reclusive life into complete chaos.

For over a month straight, every day when he returned from classes, there would be a small plaything made of white snow placed at his door. Now an entire shelf in his bookcase was filled with these things—from nine-headed lions to golden carp, from flowers with crystal-clear petals to an inexplicable white snow shrimp. He really couldn’t fathom what the shrimp was supposed to mean.

Where exactly was she hiding? His eyes were naturally gifted to perceive ghosts and spirits, yet searching heaven and earth, he couldn’t find her anywhere. This situation actually caused him to lose sleep night after night.

That night Fucang began having nightmares again. Countless bizarre images kept flashing before his eyes. Since childhood he had often had nightmares, yet he could never remember the circumstances in the dreams. Each time he woke up, he felt incomparably lost, and today upon waking, he felt this even more keenly.

He could no longer sleep. Putting on his clothes, he sat up, and suddenly saw something shining brilliantly on the desk—it was the golden ring she常wore in her hair.

As if pushed by a gentle force, Fucang couldn’t help but grasp that ice-cold golden ring in his hand. It was exquisitely crafted—no artisan in the mortal world could ever make such a hair ornament.

She was here.

The clamor in his heart suddenly quieted.

Fucang gently pushed open the room door. The moonlight was like frost, everything around bright as snow, all sounds hushed. That slender figure reclined on the pear tree, her long hair hanging down from the branches and leaves, misty and half-damp. One bare foot also emerged from beneath her elaborate skirt hem, using snow-white toes to tap the leaves beside her.

A banished immortal beneath the moon. Not a female ghost, not a female demon—could she perhaps be from heaven?

The slight sound of footsteps seemed to startle her. Xuan Yi turned her head and saw Fucang, immediately about to transform into a clear breeze and flee. He called coldly from behind: “If you run away, I’ll never forgive you for as long as I live.”

She abruptly stopped in her tracks. That sentence was too vicious—this guy was really too vicious. She sat back on the leaf with a stern face, staring at him most unfriendly.

Fucang slowly walked to beneath the pear tree and looked at her half-damp long hair falling in wisps and strands over the branches and leaves. He said softly: “…What are you doing?”

Xuan Yi said ill-temperedly: “Drying my hair.”

She had always been pampered and particular about her routine. This trip to the lower realm, she had thought it could be resolved quickly, but who knew she’d be stuck in the mortal world for over a month—in the divine realm, that meant two days had passed. She couldn’t stand going two days without bathing. Fortunately, the patrol spirit officials had introduced her to a mountain spring that was reasonably clean. She reluctantly washed there, though she still wasn’t very satisfied.

Fucang had originally wanted to ask why she no longer appeared, but at this moment felt this question would spoil the mood too much. Seeing her holding a mass of white snow in her hand, he asked: “What did you sculpt this time?”

She held it in her palm, completely serious: “A dragon.”

A dragon…? Fucang looked at that white snow—no matter how he looked, it was clearly a loach. He couldn’t help but reach toward the bare head of the loach: “Where are the dragon horns?”

In his subconscious, that smooth head should have two dragon horns like grains of rice, with a very nice feel.

But he heard her say: “They haven’t grown out yet.”

He subconsciously said in a low voice: “Then isn’t that a loach?”

Her body seemed to tremble slightly, and she fell silent. Fucang looked up at her face. Those eyes of hers darted around evasively, fearful and troubled. Finally, as if making some kind of resolution, her jet-black eyes quietly met his gaze. Their eyes crossed, and gradually her expression became gentle yet sad—he had never seen such an expression before.

Fucang slowly raised his hand, his palm pressing against her ice-cold cheek.

“Why are you always alone?” he asked gently.

Xuan Yi smiled and shifted her gaze away: “I just love being by myself.”

A lie.

Fucang bent down to pick up her shoe that had fallen to the ground. Wooden sole, shark silk, with eighteen orchid flowers embroidered on the surface—the mortal world had no shoes this exquisite either.

He grasped her ice-cold foot beneath her skirt hem. She trembled again and tried to pull free, but he said: “Don’t move.”

Her foot was properly fitted into the shoe. Fucang felt his palm was about to freeze—she was countless times colder than ice. He reluctantly released her feet, his ears burning somewhat, not knowing what to say.

After a long while, he heard her suppress a yawn with her sleeve. Only then did he remember that on the first day, she had sat by the bedside dozing. She also needed to sleep, didn’t she? Did she usually sleep on roof eaves or in grass?

Fucang pulled her down from the tree: “Come inside to sleep. I’ll give you the bed.”

Xuan Yi forcibly suppressed another yawn. Calculating the time, she had gone without sleep for roughly two days in divine realm time. Honestly, she was terribly sleepy. Tilting her head to think, this precious pampered princess showed a disdainful expression: “I don’t want to sleep on such a shabby bed.”

…He really didn’t know whether to strangle her or what to do.

“Then sleep on the floor.” Without allowing any argument, he pulled her into the room.

In the end, his bed was still occupied. As soon as Xuan Yi entered the room and sat on the bed, the moment her head touched the pillow, she fell into a deep sleep. He hadn’t even had time to blow out the lamp. He casually grabbed two blankets, spread them on the floor, and slept in his clothes.

Halfway through his sleep, he felt unbearably cold. Fucang opened his eyes with difficulty. Outside, the sky had already brightened considerably, but inside the room, the floor was covered with several inches of ice. He had slept on ice all night, shivering with cold. He wrapped himself in the blanket and got up, his head heavy and feet light, somewhat dizzy.

She was still lying quietly on the bed, obediently lying on her side, the blanket covering her shoulders, not moving at all.

Not awake yet? Fucang quietly approached the bedside. The cold air was even more piercing. He shivered but still extended his finger to gently brush aside the black hair covering her face. As the morning sun first rose, her full lips were half-parted, emanating a honey-like luster.

Fucang’s heart suddenly pounded. He slowly bent down and kissed her ice-cold lips.

It was like kissing a block of ten-thousand-year-old ice. The bone-piercing cold instantly penetrated his blood vessels, meridians, limbs, and bones. He shivered again.