Since both Chen Ying and He Xiaoxiao appeared severely frightened, Meng Wan instructed Old Xu to report the incident to the General, then offered to escort Chen Ying and He Xiaoxiao home.
He Simu wiped away her remaining tears with her hand, raised her arm, and pointed to a courtyard not far away: “Commander, there’s no need to escort us. We live right over there.”
Meng Wan widened her eyes in surprise, looked at the courtyard, and then back at her, saying: “You live next to the Provincial Governor’s mansion? But isn’t that arranged for…”
As she spoke, she realized something: “Could it be that the woman who saved the General today was you?”
He Simu nodded, clutching her chest.
“Indeed, it was my unworthy self.”
Meng Wan’s eyes immediately blazed with fire, all pity and concern vanishing. She stepped forward and grasped He Simu’s wrist: “So you do have ill intentions! Planning so meticulously to get close to the General. What are you trying to do? Pass information to your master? Harm our General?”
He Simu laughed twice, as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world, and softly repeated: “Master?”
After a pause, she said: “Rest assured, Commander, I don’t know any Duke. If I wanted to harm the General, wouldn’t I have detained him during the assassination attempt, letting him die obediently?”
Meng Wan’s eyes gleamed: “Then you must have other motives!”
Well… that was true.
He Simu looked at Meng Wan’s hand gripping her wrist, thinking this teenage girl was truly difficult to deal with, so she simply said: “I do have other intentions. To be honest, ever since the General descended like a celestial being to save the people of Liang Province from disaster, I’ve been smitten with him at first sight, so I wanted to get close to him.”
Chen Ying made a small “wa” sound, his eyes brightening, the deathly pallor of his frightened face regaining some color. Clearly, despite his young age, he already understood the pleasure of gossip.
“You! The General comes from a noble family. Only ladies from the Southern Capital would be suitable for him. How dare you, a mere country girl, presume…” Amid her anger, Meng Wan showed disdain.
He Simu suddenly moved closer to Meng Wan, looking into her eyes: “Are you a noble lady from the Southern Capital?”
Meng Wan was taken aback, her face reddening: “I’m not exactly…”
“There you have it. You’re not a noble lady from the Southern Capital, and neither am I. You can’t marry Duan Xu, and neither can I. But you like Duan Xu, and so do I. With such shared aspirations, isn’t it heaven’s will that we’re destined to support each other? Don’t you agree?”
He Simu smiled and patted Meng Wan’s shoulder. The young girl was so choked by her bizarre reasoning that she couldn’t speak. He Simu turned around leisurely, holding Xue Chen Ying’s hand, who had been too afraid to interrupt and walked toward home.
Suddenly remembering something, she turned back to Meng Wan and said: “Commander Meng, thank you for saving us today. But in the future, if you don’t have talismans, it’s better to run when you encounter these fierce ghosts.”
She tilted her head and smiled. In the deep night with snow flying, her face was faintly visible through the black gauze under the veiled hat, like a black gauze lantern.
“After all, even the bravest sheep shouldn’t fight to the death with a wolf, right?”
The long night returned to tranquility.
Tranquility in the eyes of mortals.
In the cemetery on the outskirts of the city, blue flames suddenly flashed. Within the flames, the silhouette of a woman appeared vaguely. As the flames receded, her cloud-patterned upturned cloth shoes stepped onto the damp, soft ground.
She wore a rusty red triple-layered crossed-collar robe embroidered with cloud and honeysuckle patterns, a style popular a hundred years ago. At her waist hung a white jade pendant carved into the intricate shape of a hexagonal palace lantern, emitting a soft blue glow.
If that small jade pendant revealed its true form, it would be the dreaded Ghost King’s Lantern.
The woman’s face was pale and lifeless, with slender willow-leaf eyebrows and phoenix eyes, with a small mole at the corner of her eye. The so-called “ice-flesh jade-bone, brilliantly beautiful” described her perfectly. Even amidst the pervasive aura of death, she exuded a deathly beauty.
He Simu had inherited her parents’ good looks well, and her true form could also manifest physically. Unfortunately, even if this body were shown to people, one look would reveal she was a dead person.
She twirled the jade pendant at her waist, raised her pitch-black eyes, and said with a lazy smile: “Come out.”
The green-clothed woman appeared before her in a wisp of green smoke, heavily kneeling on the ground, trembling like chaff in the wind.
“Your… Your Majesty, spare me…”
“Name?”
“Shao… Shao Yinyin…”
He Simu raised her hand in the air, and as the light from the jade pendant at her waist flickered, a thick ancient book with curled pages appeared in her hand.
She casually opened the ancient book, flipping through the pages while saying: “Shao Yinyin, who died in Muling Town of Daizhou on the seventh day of the third month in the Gengzi year.”
“Yes… this humble one…”
Before she could finish, He Simu called out: “Guan Huai.”
When she said these two words, her tone differed from usual, as if her voice contained an invisible power, like a fully drawn bowstring vibrating the air upon release.
As soon as she finished speaking, another wisp of green smoke rose, and an old man descended from it.
This old man had a face full of wrinkles, a hunched figure, with hair and beard completely white and long enough to reach the ground. By human appearance, he looked at least a hundred years old. He seemed to have been combing his hair when summoned, with half of it tied up and the other half hanging messily to the ground, not only looking comical but also blocking his vision.
“Your Majesty! Guan Huai is here!” He hurriedly bowed, his voice too high-pitched and off-key, like a broken gong.
“Master of the Ghost of Plague Hall, do I look like this tree?”
He Simu’s voice came from behind him. Guan Huai swept aside his hair, only to realize he had been bowing to a dark locust tree that seemed to be mocking him with its sprawling branches. Guan Huai quickly turned around, nearly tripping over his hair.
“Your Majesty, forgive this old minister’s failing eyesight…”
“The Master of the Ghost of Plague Hall’s hair has grown to the point of causing trouble. Perhaps it should be cut off?”
Guan Huai immediately hugged his hair, repeatedly saying: “That won’t do, that won’t do. Your Majesty knows that once an evil ghost’s hair is cut, it won’t grow back.”
Below the Ghost King was left and right ministers and twenty-four ghost officials, each official managing a ghost hall. Guan Huai was the Master of the Ghost of Plague Hall.
He Simu looked at him for a while, leaned against a tombstone, tapped the book, and said indifferently: “In the Thirty-two Golden Wall Laws, what is the fifth rule, third clause?”
Guan Huai was like a disciple in a private school being randomly questioned by the teacher. He stiffened for a while, then realized: “It’s… ah, it’s ‘Do not consume children under ten years of age!'”
He Simu closed the book with a snap and pointed at Shao Yinyin prostrating on the ground: “An evil ghost from your hall tried to eat an eight-year-old child right in front of me. It seems the laws are merely empty words to the Master of the Ghost of Plague Hall.”
Guan Huai glanced at the trembling Shao Yinyin on the ground and smiled apologetically: “This little girl has only been an evil ghost for a short time and doesn’t understand the rules…”
“Doesn’t understand? Shao Yinyin, bring out your black and white jar and let the Master of the Ghost of Plague Hall see how little you understand.” He Simu looked down at Shao Yinyin with a smile.
Shao Yinyin stiffened all over, trying to shrink into the dust. She pitifully shook her head and whispered: “I don’t have any jar…”
He Simu narrowed her eyes slightly and said word by word: “I said, bring it out.”
The jade pendant at her waist suddenly emitted a dazzling light, and Shao Yinyin let out a miserable cry, trembling as she produced a large-bellied, small-mouthed jar decorated with patterns of playing infants.
As soon as he saw the jar, Guan Huai’s expression changed. He immediately shouted: “Fang Chang! Fang Chang!”
Another wisp of green smoke appeared, and from it emerged a tall, thin scholar in white, with a deathly pale face. He knelt and bowed to Guan Huai and He Simu.
“Greetings, Master and Your Majesty.”
Guan Huai pointed at Fang Chang, furiously saying: “I trusted you and handed over all the affairs of the Ghost of Plague Hall to you while I was in seclusion. How could you be so negligent that you didn’t even discover the evil ghosts in our hall privately hoarding soul fires?”
This righteous accusation completely absolved himself, clearly knowing he couldn’t cover it up and was pulling in a scapegoat. Just now he claimed to have failing eyesight, but now his vision suddenly improved, immediately recognizing what the jar was.
“You’re like a string of sugar-coated hawthorns, one connected to another.” He Simu smiled and took the black and white jar from Shao Yinyin’s hands. The infant designs on the jar depicted children in bibs playing with cuju balls, lifelike and full of charm.
Inside this adorable jar were stored six soul fires of children under ten years old, weak but pure.
“Killing children under ten years of age is one crime, hoarding soul fires is another. According to the law, what should be done?”
The innocent-looking white-faced scholar kowtowed, pleading sorrowfully: “I beg Your Majesty to show mercy and spare Yinyin! She did not intentionally defy Your Majesty. In life, Yinyin bore four sons who died one after another. Finally, she died in childbirth with her fifth child. Yinyin became a wandering ghost due to her resentment, and an evil ghost after a hundred years. Her obsession as an evil ghost is with children; she cannot control herself. I beg Your Majesty to consider her pitiful situation and spare her!”
Guan Huai immediately gave Fang Chang a severe glare.
He Simu looked the scholarly evil ghost up and down for a moment, then said lazily: “Her life story is written in the ghost register. Why are you repeating it to me? Whether she intentionally defied me or not, I don’t care. But as long as I hold this position…”
He Simu paused, her gaze growing cold: “My laws cannot be defied.”
Fang Chang lowered his head, gritting his teeth. He Simu walked closer to Fang Chang, slightly bent over in front of him, and smiled: “Do you care for Shao Yinyin?”
“This minister…” Fang Chang quickly glanced at Shao Yinyin.
“So you feel for her, indulge her, and conceal her actions without reporting?”
“Absolutely not!”
He Simu stroked the jade pendant at her waist and said casually: “There’s a saying in the mortal world: spoiling a child is like killing them. The same applies between lovers.”
Fang Chang seemed about to say something but was preempted by Guan Huai, who rebuked: “Your Majesty speaks the truth! Every grain of rice should be valued. Did you forget the principles learned as humans when you became ghosts? You cherish rice when eating it, but can eat people indiscriminately?”
While signaling Fang Chang with his eyes to stop talking, Guan Huai watched He Simu’s expression.
Shao Yinyin lay prostrate on the ground, mumbling: “I hope Your Majesty will consider this my first offense and be lenient.”
He Simu glanced at the righteous Guan Huai and smiled: “This is an evil ghost from your hall, so by rights, you should deal with her.”
Hearing this, Fang Chang’s face showed joy, while Guan Huai trembled. Sure enough, He Simu walked closer to Guan Huai and patted his hunched shoulder.
“You deal with her, and I’ll deal with you. How about that?”
“This old minister…”
“Currently I am on leave, with Jiang Ai and Yan Ke overseeing the ghost realm in my place. To receive your punishment for today first. There’s no need to inform me how you deal with her. If her name is still in the ghost register seven days from now, we’ll discuss it further.”
He Simu didn’t even look at Shao Yinyin and Fang Chang on the ground. She patted Guan Huai’s shoulder again and disappeared in a flash of blue fire.
“This old minister bids Your Majesty farewell.” Guan Huai bowed deeply, then sighed in relief, as if He Simu had been a mountain pressing down on him. After she left, his back straightened somewhat.
He slowly turned around, lifted his comical white hair, looked at Shao Yinyin and Fang Chang kneeling on the ground, and said angrily: “Fang Chang, what am I to do with you? Covering for your lover is one thing, but daring to talk back to Your Majesty? No matter what excuse you make, Your Majesty won’t relent on what Shao Yinyin has done!”
Shao Yinyin looked at Fang Chang with a terrified expression. Before she could plead, she was subjected to another scolding from Guan Huai: “Now you know to be afraid? You were quite happy when hoarding soul fires and killing children!”
Despite being an extremely aged old man with a voice like a broken gong, he reprimanded them with great vigor, his beard blowing a foot high.
Fang Chang’s slender hand soothed Shao Yinyin’s back. With a resolute expression, he kowtowed and said: “Master, you are the oldest in the ghost realm, and Your Majesty still respects you to some degree. I beg you to plead for Yinyin. I am willing to serve you like an ox or horse and will never forget your kindness!”
Guan Huai looked at Fang Chang for a while, then sighed deeply: “I may be over three thousand years old, but what of it? When He Simu quelled the ghost realm rebellion and bloodily purged the twenty-four ghost halls, she wasn’t even a hundred years old. Three-tenths of the hall masters turned to dust at her hands, and weren’t they all much older than her?”
“If her temper hadn’t mellowed somewhat these past hundred years, the words you just spoke would be enough to make you turn to dust ten thousand times over.”
Fang Chang froze, understanding that Guan Huai’s words meant he wouldn’t save Shao Yinyin. Disheartened, he prostrated himself on the ground.
“Once this matter is handled, you will go apologize to Your Majesty on my behalf. Remember to speak a little. Your Majesty rarely summons us during her leave and dislikes being disturbed.”
Guan Huai patted Fang Chang’s shoulder, looked at the trembling Shao Yinyin on the ground, and left, shaking his head.
He couldn’t afford to offend He Simu, the unpredictable Ghost King with the strongest innate talent in ten generations.