Yilier’s face showed astonishment. He Simu observed his expression and, as if realizing she had misspoken, smiled and said, “It seems you don’t know yet. Let’s pretend I didn’t say anything. Since the covenant between you and the Xu Ghost Palace Master still stands, you couldn’t nurture my ghost anyway.”

Yilier’s expression was unpleasant, but he still smiled and said, “I don’t intend to nurture him myself. With this ghost brother by my side, I naturally have a better place for him.”

Duan Xu thought it no wonder those nobles who had paid homage to the sacred object at the Yilier household all encountered good fortune afterward—it turned out he had been introducing evil ghosts to them.

He Simu continued eating while asking, “If you want my ghost, what do you have to offer in exchange?”

“Gold, silver, jewels…”

“Boring.”

“Then what does miss want?”

“I’ve heard Master Yilier has a garden filled with rare flowers and exotic plants. Now that it’s spring, the fragrances must be overwhelming.”

“That’s the rear garden of my mansion.”

“Then give me your mansion in exchange.”

Yilier was silent for a moment, then said, “We’ve been living there since arriving in Fujian City, for over thirty years now.”

“Oh, then give me this mansion where you’ve lived for over thirty years.”

He Simu said this smoothly and without any self-consciousness.

Yilier’s expression froze for a moment before he laughed and said, “Let me think about this. In the meantime, miss might as well stay at my residence. Whether this matter succeeds or not, consider it making a new friend.”

He Simu put down her chopsticks and looked at Yilier. She tilted her head and smiled, the silver tassels of her hairpins sweeping across her forehead.

“I don’t make friends. But the mansion, I can visit.”

Yilier’s expression changed several times. In Fujian City, he was accustomed to being flattered and not treated so dismissively by a Han commoner. He clenched his fist as he looked at He Simu, but ultimately smiled and said, “Very well. There’s one more thing I’d like to ask you, miss. You mentioned that the Xu Ghost Palace Master is in trouble. What exactly happened? Can you share some details with me?”

He Simu tapped her fingers on the table, and after a moment of silence, said casually, “He offended their king and has now fled in fear of punishment. He’ll probably be caught and executed soon.”

After a pause, she smiled and said, “You probably haven’t received any response when calling him recently, right? This is an undeserved calamity for you. I’ve heard that conflicts in the ghost realm often last for decades. If he flees for decades, not responding to your calls, and you can’t form a new covenant with another ghost, your life will pass by. If I were you, I’d hope for his quick annihilation so I could seek a new ghost.”

Yilier’s expression was already unpleasant, but after hearing He Simu’s words, it became even worse. Yet He Simu acted as if she hadn’t noticed, standing up with a smile, “Weren’t you going to invite me to your mansion as a guest? Let’s go.”

Then she snapped her fingers for Duan Xu to follow and leisurely walked out. Yilier, probably never having encountered someone so impolite, was stunned for a while before calling servants to lead the way.

Duan Xu lifted a corner of his veiled hat’s black gauze, glanced back at Yilier, then turned to whisper to He Simu with a smile, “I don’t think I’m a rat, but rather like bait. Commander Qin used me as bait, and you’re using me as bait too.”

He Simu glanced at him, smiled enigmatically, and said nothing.

Fujian City was renowned as a city of flowers. As the wealthiest household in all of Fujian City, the Yilier garden was naturally the finest, filled with famous flowers and rare plants. It was said that merely maintaining this garden cost ten thousand gold pieces annually.

As soon as He Simu arrived at the Yilier residence, she unceremoniously plunged into his garden, looking here and sniffing there, as if trying to identify every scent. Meanwhile, Duan Xu stood beside her, arms folded, gazing at the famous glazed pagoda in the center of the garden.

The pagoda was entirely emerald green, with bells hanging from each corner, crystalline and tinkling in the sunlight, entwined with fine threads of wind. Though merely a tower for sacred objects, if not explained, one might mistake the glazed pagoda itself for the sacred object.

“Yilier worships evil ghosts and also enshrines Cang God’s sacred objects. If the High Priest learned of this, Tianzhixiao would…” Duan Xu was saying as he turned his head, only to find the Ghost Queen crouching on the ground, cradling a cluster of precious white peonies called “Lingxielu Snow,” her face nearly buried in the flowers.

Duan Xu couldn’t help but smile, saying, “Stop burying your face. Even with the best nose, your method of smelling will ruin it. Go smell the firewood in the woodshed later to restore your sense of smell a bit.”

He Simu frowned, standing up and saying, “Mortals are truly troublesome.”

Duan Xu laughed heartily and brought the topic back: “The Xu Ghost Palace Master was also a Han person in his former life, right?”

He Simu said casually, “Han people outnumber Huqi people by more than three hundred times, and the same applies in the ghost realm. All twenty-four Ghost Palace Masters were Han people in their previous lives. The laws of the ghost realm have nothing to do with ethnicity, but Han evil ghosts, seeing their descendants suffering oppression while alive, naturally wouldn’t treat Huqi evil ghosts well. In the ghost realm, Huqi ghosts have a harder time.”

“The circumstances of life and death reversed—how interesting the world is.”

“Hatred breeds hatred, resentment breeds resentment. This is the natural order.”

“If the hatred of the living could be severed, would the hatred of the dead cease as well?”

He Simu smiled lightly. She walked toward the back door of the garden, saying, “The hatred of the living can be broken because the living die. After a few generations, the memories of pain dissipate, and hatred naturally ceases. But the dead remain for thousands of years, and here hatred never ends. Otherwise, why do you think becoming an evil ghost is considered a punishment for humans?”

Duan Xu gazed at her back and called out, “Where are you going?”

He Simu didn’t look back: “To the woodshed to smell the scent of fire.”

Duan Xu couldn’t help but laugh. She did seem to have come to the Yilier mansion solely to collect scents, rather than to search for traces of the Xu Ghost Palace Master. He said softly, “How adorable.”

Thanks to Duan Xu’s eyes, which could discern the yin and yang due to the Ghost King’s Lantern, he could see that the ghost energy in the Yilier mansion was well-contained. Unless one entered the glazed pagoda in the garden, it was almost imperceptible. Even the wandering souls often seen outside couldn’t be spotted within this residence.

He had heard that the glazed pagoda enshrined the Cang God’s sacred object, but he couldn’t detect any spiritual energy inside the pagoda. Instead, there was a faint ghostly aura lingering around it. It seemed that this tower was dedicated not to sacred objects but to the Xu Ghost Palace Master. Could the talk of sacred objects be false, or had Yilier enshrined them elsewhere?

As Duan Xu pondered this while following to the woodshed, he saw two old women at the door whispering about the strange guest the master had invited—a rather beautiful young woman who had run to the woodshed to smell firewood.

Duan Xu smiled, about to enter, when he heard one of the women say, “This young lady seems about the same age as Young Master Lu Da. If Young Master Lu Da were home, I’d think the master had found a daughter-in-law.”

Duan Xu’s steps halted.

The other woman said, “The young master hasn’t returned since he went to the capital at age ten. It seems the master doesn’t want him to come back.”

“What are you saying? With only two children left, how could the master not want…”

Duan Xu strode past them into the woodshed and asked He Simu, who was crouching and picking through firewood, “Simu, is Yilier’s younger son, the high official in the capital… Lu Da?”

He Simu picked up a piece of firewood, raised her eyes to look at him, and said, “What, another old acquaintance of yours?”

Duan Xu’s eyes flickered slightly. He smiled and said, “I could hardly claim acquaintance. The Dan Zhi High Priest’s prized disciple, Junior Priest Lu Da—who in the Dan Zhi royal court wouldn’t know him? Though he likely doesn’t know me.”

During his time as a death warrior at Tianzhixiao, he would occasionally accompany his master to visit the High Priest, and he would see Lu Da each time. Lu Da was three or four years older than him, elegant in appearance, with an otherworldly air, always sitting quietly beside the High Priest, looking down at parchments, seemingly reading earnestly yet also appearing mentally elsewhere.

Lu Da looked very “empty,” and it was said that this “emptiness” was the most important quality for communing with the gods.

Yilier’s younger son was Lu Da. The son of a family that nurtured small ghosts was a nation’s Junior Priest and possibly the future High Priest.

The world was truly absurd.

“If it’s Lu Da… what wouldn’t the High Priest be willing to give him if he asked? Perhaps Yilier does have sacred objects.” Comparing Yilier’s ball-like physique with the remembered elegant appearance of Lu Da, Duan Xu couldn’t help but exclaim, “Time is truly a butcher’s knife.”

He Simu sniffed the fresh scent of firewood and said flatly, “Time will butcher you as well.”

Duan Xu bent down and said, “Time should be kinder to me since I turn misfortune into fortune. Becoming ugly would be a great misfortune.”

His eyes appeared and disappeared through the gaps in the black gauze. Even though his expression wasn’t clear through the veil, the smile in his voice was evident.

He Simu looked up at him.

Sometimes her curse-bound man was quite obedient—when she instructed him to wear the veiled hat to conceal his presence in the human world, he never removed it in public. But at other times…

He Simu frowned, pushed him away, stood up, and said blandly, “Let’s go.”

As she walked out of the woodshed door, the two women hurriedly bowed, then whispered to each other after she turned away, discussing whether the young lady had just pushed at empty air, whether she had been talking to herself, and how odd she seemed.

Duan Xu laughed heartily and followed her out.

Yilier had massive business interests to manage and various social relationships to maintain, keeping him very busy. Yet he still found time to attend to his two guests, especially Duan Xu.

He was very interested in this obedient “evil ghost” and often indirectly asked Duan Xu how he had formed a covenant with He Simu. He also hinted at the various benefits Duan Xu would have by coming to his side, and how wealthy and powerful the nobles he knew were.

Duan Xu would express amazement at appropriate times but remained vague about his name, origin, and attitude.

This human and ghost pair seemed to have come to the mansion simply to enjoy free food, drink, and the garden.

Three days after they arrived at the Yilier residence, Yilier suddenly came to find He Simu and Duan Xu in a hurry, saying, “Miss Seventeen, there’s something I’d like to ask for your help with.”

He Simu weighed a sandalwood fan she had acquired from somewhere and said, “What is it?”

“My son Lu Da will be returning to Fujian City to visit me soon. Could you ask this ghost brother to intercept him and make him return to the capital?”