Chapter 3: Guangzong

Duan Yien suddenly froze where she stood, but Wei Li paid no attention to the astonishment in her eyes and turned her head to look into the room.

In Wei Li’s eyes, what Li Sheng was holding was not a pair of embroidered shoes, but a female ghost dressed in a red wedding gown. Even from a distance, Wei Li could smell the heavy resentment emanating from the ghost. The female ghost slowly raised her head and, through the disarray of her tangled hair, looked at Wei Li. Her eyes were like two holes of blood as she let out a low growl and a cloud of musty smoke, reeking of a cellar’s dampness, surged toward Wei Li.

Yet Wei Li’s small face bloomed with a sweet smile. She slipped off her worn, unraveling embroidered shoes and walked over to Li Sheng, slipping naturally into the brand new red shoes. For the first time, the female ghost suffered such humiliation; her decaying face flushed red, nearly bleeding, her features twisted in desperation as she lunged at Wei Li.

Wei Li turned to look at the ghost, her deep, forbidding eyes as frightening as those of a bloodthirsty beast, cold and devoid of emotion. Startled, the ghost vanished in an instant.

This expression, however, was fully captured in Duan Yien’s gaze.

In the next moment, Wei Li’s face brightened with delight. “Beautiful sister, look how perfectly these shoes suit me,” she said.

Suddenly, Wei Li heard the sound of prayer beads being turned. Her delicate brows knitted together. “That wretched monk is already here!” She wanted to escape, but the monk’s cloth shoes had already stepped into the house.

He was the renowned monk Guangzong, admired and revered by all. He looked calmly at Wei Li. “The devotion you spoke of—was it only a ruse to deceive a monk?”

“Monk…” Wei Li’s face, normally clear as the sky, suddenly darkened with clouds, her smile vanishing. “When I awoke and found that you, sitting so serenely, had disappeared, I thought you’d abandoned me.” As she spoke, she ran toward Guangzong, and whether by intention or accident, she fell hard, sprawling to the ground and bursting into tears—though not a single tear fell.

Guangzong strode forward and gently helped Wei Li up, wiping the dust from her face. “I did not leave you behind. I simply saw your shoes were worn out and went to the market to buy you new ones.”

Hearing this, Wei Li stopped crying, gripping Guangzong’s large hand and rising to her feet. Inwardly, her expression turned cold. If not for the talisman nailed into her brow, that wretched monk would have died by her hand long ago—could she do anything but play along with his act?

And so, Guangzong led Wei Li by the hand and left.

As they departed, Wei Li looked back at Duan Yien, her lips moving in speech. No one else understood, but Duan Yien saw clearly.

She said:

“I will return.”

The old butler summoned a physician to examine Li Sheng, who diagnosed him with depleted vitality and prescribed a vast quantity of tonics.

These days, Duan Yien devoted herself tirelessly to caring for Li Sheng, yet every time she closed her eyes, Wei Li’s pure and untouchable face would appear unbidden in her mind. Wei Li would smile at her, but in her hands was a small blade, slicing off pieces of her own flesh. Duan Yien would awake drenched in sweat, staring out at the chilling moonlight beyond the window, her years of composure shattered completely by Wei Li’s sudden reappearance.

Upon waking, Li Sheng would often say that Wei Li had returned, unchanged from before, her smile just as captivating as ever. Duan Yien dared not tell him that Wei Li truly had come back.

Li Sheng began to search for Wei Li in a frenzy, nearly turning the entire town upside down—yet he found nothing.

Despondent, he sat in the courtyard, puffing on cigars, thick clouds of smoke curling around his nose. He imagined Wei Li walking toward him in those red embroidered shoes, imagined reaching out to touch her delicate face, imagined holding her in his arms and never letting her go.

But he had not dared then, nor did he dare now.

Suddenly, a girl skipped by, her silhouette catching Li Sheng’s eye. Twin ponytails bounced as she walked. He rose at once and gave chase, the moon flickering between shifting clouds above.

Hearing the soft steps behind her, the girl halted warily, scanning her surroundings with bright, guarded eyes.

But no one was there.

She hurried on, too frightened to look back, the footsteps behind her growing ever closer. At last, panicked, she broke into a run—only for Li Sheng to seize her wrist.

“Wei Li…” Li Sheng’s clear voice came to her ear, making the girl shiver. She turned around slowly.

“Commander…”

Li Sheng stared at her. The girl was plump, cheeks flushed, eyes large and dark but full of fear. Seeing it was not Wei Li, Li Sheng finally broke down, tossing the girl aside.

She whimpered in pain, shrinking back from him in terror.

Li Sheng reached for an iron rod from the trash bin. The girl cowered, inching backward, her face ashen, lips trembling uncontrollably.

“Commander, please…” She was so frightened her teeth chattered audibly.

With a dull thud, the iron rod crashed down on the girl’s left shoulder, drawing tears of pain from her eyes. Before she could cry out, the second blow fell squarely on her crown. She collapsed to the ground, crimson blood trickling from her head, pooling rapidly on the floor.

Her breathing grew shallow. She struggled to open her eyes, gazing at Li Sheng beneath the dim amber light. The once-gentle face was now shrouded in cold indifference, chilling to behold.

“Please… spare me…” Tears streamed down her face, blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, her pleading gaze fixed on Li Sheng.

The barefooted female ghost in the red wedding gown glided forward. Twin hollows where her eyes should have been wept blood, her whole face twisted like a landscape of jagged mountains and valleys before Li Sheng’s eyes.

“So long as you feed me with the evil in your heart,” the ghost’s thin lips curved slightly as she caressed Li Sheng’s neck from behind, breathing softly into his ear, “I can help you find that girl.”

Bewitched, Li Sheng stood motionless for a moment, then raised the iron rod once more and brought it down upon the girl.

This time, he used all his strength. The girl’s head was grotesquely distorted by the blow. Gazing at her body in the spreading pool of blood, both Li Sheng and the ghost began to smile.

Duan Yien, having hurried after them, arrived just in time to see the lifeless girl. Her normally composed features turned a sickly grey, and when she looked at Li Sheng, she saw a man transformed. He had always been domineering, but never before had his eyes held such chilling resolve.

“It’s done.”

With those three words, Li Sheng left in a daze.