A Quiet Homecoming

Lin Qingyun narrowed his eyes slightly, studying He Zhuoming, but she was telling the complete truth.

He curved his lips into a smile. "You're welcome. We're good friends, aren't we? Taking care of each other is only natural."

He Zhuoming was once again moved by the male lead's kindness and sincerity, and she reflected on how she could have ever called him a villain—but as she reflected, the meal came to an end, and He Zhuoming finally realized something.

"Wait... Qingyun! You can talk now?!"

Lin Qingyun sighed helplessly. "How long did it take you to notice?"

He Zhuoming: "Right, you did talk to me last night... but your voice was hoarse then... Is your throat completely healed now?"

A hint of warmth faded from Lin Qingyun's smile, and he instantly lost interest in continuing the topic. "My throat was never the problem. I've always been able to speak clearly—what happened yesterday stays in yesterday, today belongs to today, and the day before that can be lumped into today..."

He Zhuoming dragged her stool closer to Lin Qingyun, scrutinizing his face carefully, then let her gaze trail from his cheek down to his neck.

Lin Qingyun paused mid-sentence, reached out to press a hand against He Zhuoming's forehead, and pushed her face away. "What are you doing?"

He Zhuoming answered honestly: "Looking at you."

Lin Qingyun: "...Looking at me?"

He Zhuoming: "Observing your complexion, your throat—why couldn't you speak before? Was it not an illness?"

Lin Qingyun: "It's a complicated reason, and even if I explained it, Xiao He wouldn't understand!"

He Zhuoming pushed his hand away and said seriously: "Then explain it first."

Lin Qingyun furrowed his brow slightly, feigning distress, and glanced at He Zhuoming—if she had any sense of the atmosphere at all, she would know to drop the subject.

He Zhuoming met his gaze.

He Zhuoming blinked, staring at Lin Qingyun with eager anticipation, waiting for his explanation.

Lin Qingyun: "...Because puppets can't talk!"

He Zhuoming: "Puppets?"

Lin Qingyun: "That's right. Puppets can't talk—that's the reason. Yesterday's me was a puppet."

As he spoke, Lin Qingyun feigned ease, but he was carefully observing He Zhuoming's every expression.

He was curious what Xiao He would make of it—with her head, would she realize that the "Lin Qingyun" who had been with her all day yesterday was merely a wooden puppet?

He Zhuoming scrunched up her face, thoroughly confused. "Yesterday you were a puppet, and today you're not?"

Lin Qingyun: "Today I'm not. Today it's just me—Xiao He, don't you think I'm better today?"

He Zhuoming didn't get it. "Huh?"

Lin Qingyun: "I mean..."

Just then, voices drifted in from outside the window, interrupting Lin Qingyun mid-sentence.

It was night again.

He Zhuoming jumped up in reflex, thinking another corpse had risen. She instantly forgot all about the puppet and nervously crept toward the window to look outside. After a few cautious steps, she remembered Lin Qingyun and turned back to beckon him.

Lin Qingyun came to stand behind He Zhuoming, and she grabbed his wrist. "There are a lot of people talking in the backyard. Are ghosts holding a meeting or something?"

Lin Qingyun was indifferent. "Let's take a look."

He reached out, his arm passing over He Zhuoming's shoulder, and pushed the window open a crack—He Zhuoming crouched low, pressing her whole face to the gap.

The moonlight split into a thin sliver, clinging to her eyes and the bridge of her nose.

Lin Qingyun looked down at her from a higher angle, but in his mind, he was stirring through the puppet's memories.

In fact, the wooden puppet was also a part of him. He observed its memories, naturally from a first-person perspective.

In the past, Lin Qingyun often casually made puppets and sent them out to handle matters. Sometimes, for fun, he would create a dozen puppets and have them active in different places simultaneously.

He acknowledged all those puppets as parts of himself, happily accepting their first-person memories—it felt like he was enjoying different pleasures all at once—before executing the wooden puppets, Lin Qingyun had always thought it amusing to casually create avatars and let them cause mischief.

That feeling of lying at home while churning the outside world into chaos, making everyone run around like headless chickens, was immensely satisfying.

Then came the wooden puppet.

It was just a fragment taken from him, the defective of the defective, the mud of a muddy pond—but it had only spent a day and a night by Xiao He's side. Why had it become—become...?

As if it had broken free from him.

Lin Qingyun was lost in thought, his mind wandering, not even granting a single sidelong glance out the window.

He Zhuoming nudged his chest with her elbow and turned to look into his eyes. "There are so many people!"

Lin Qingyun raised an eyebrow slightly, and only then directed a bit of attention out the window: The inn's backyard had suddenly become unusually lively. A group of people in dark robes and black boots, all of similar build, were gathered around the handcart carrying the corpse, discussing in low voices.

Because they were packed so tightly, He Zhuoming couldn't see what was on the handcart at all.

Lin Qingyun answered lazily: "They're wearing constable uniforms. They must be from Wen County, sent to collect the body."

He Zhuoming: "The inn is quite far from Wen County. Why would constables from Wen County have to come to collect a corpse?"

It was a question that showed a lack of common sense, but Lin Qingyun still patiently explained: "Because the dead man was a disciple of a cultivation sect. Major sects with established lineages keep a soul lamp for each disciple. When a person dies, the lamp goes out, and the sect extracts a memory of the disciple's final moments from the lamp to determine the cause of death."

"Also, the inn was built and maintained with government funds. When a cultivation sect disciple dies in an inn, it becomes a headache for the local government—see those constables' uniforms? They differ from ordinary constables. They belong to a provincial bureau under the local government, specializing in matters of the strange and supernatural."

"Most constables in such bureaus are selected from disciples of sects under True Deities. Though they're constables by position, their official rank starts at the sixth grade, and they answer only to their direct superiors or the emperor."

He Zhuoming listened intently, and at the same time, she finally recalled a bit of the original novel's setting.

True Deities would establish sects in their territories, though they rarely had time to manage them—the sects were usually run by their subordinates or disciples—but the nature wasn't as strict as in traditional xianxia novels. It was more like a cultivation school.

While studying, disciples had to pay spirit stones and a portion of resources gained from outings, and complete tasks assigned by the sect. Once they raised their cultivation to a certain level, disciples could freely leave the sect to find work elsewhere, or choose to stay and take positions within the sect.

Because cultivation depended on talent and opportunity, and both were rare commodities requiring luck.

A full ninety-nine percent of cultivators would end up with only a mid-to-upper level of cultivation, just enough to maintain their youthful appearance for a few extra centuries.

And the final one-tenth of one percent, the rare exceptions, would then tear at each other's hair and scheme against one another over those luck-dependent opportunities, vying for a position as a True Deity's follower; if they were unwilling to remain under someone else's thumb, they could also take the risk of becoming a temple Corrupted Deity, and as long as the True Deities didn't catch them, they could rule like little tyrants.

After all, Corrupted Deities might be unsafe, but their chances of granting wishes were high! Who could refuse a pie that fell from the sky with no effort at all!

When He Zhuoming read the novel, she could actually understand—because if someone told her that just by casually worshipping an unfamiliar deity statue, her final exams would all be perfect, she wouldn't have to go to enrichment classes this summer, and her summer homework would be done automatically without her having to pull an all-nighter in a hotel during a trip...

He Zhuoming really would want to try.

But she only thought about it while reading the novel. After transmigrating, He Zhuoming never considered it again—now, whenever she thought of Corrupted Deities, the image of that eerie deity statue from the mountain village automatically surfaced in her mind, along with the memory of her hunger for days. It was like her stomach had PTSD from that memory; whenever she recalled it, it would automatically start cramping, making her want to throw up...

He Zhuoming dry-heaved twice.

Lin Qingyun: "Why are you vomiting again?"

He Zhuoming lay against the window frame and answered in a weak voice: "Remembering when I was starving..."

"Who's there?!"

Suddenly, someone in the group of constables looked up and shouted, throwing a short knife!

The knife flew like a shooting star, but Lin Qingyun reacted faster, grabbing He Zhuoming's shoulder and pulling her back—the knife grazed past the hair flying behind the two of them and thunked into the wall.

The one who threw the knife followed right behind, kicking through the window and leaping into the room; the knife flew back into her hand, its blade pointing straight at He Zhuoming and Lin Qingyun.

He Zhuoming was still in shock, her expression blank—Lin Qingyun steadied her and whispered: "Stand on your own."

He Zhuoming: "I-I-I'm standing perfectly fine..."

Lin Qingyun chuckled: "Glare at her with the same spirit you used when you slapped my hand and declared our friendship over."

He was joking, but He Zhuoming actually put on a stern face, forcing a cold, expressionless look and glaring intently at the knife-thrower.

Though her grip on his hand was still trembling.

Lin Qingyun laughed quietly, covering his face with one hand, the beaded chain on his left ear swaying, his eyes completely curved into crescents.

A knife-thrower frowned and demanded loudly: "Who are you two?!"

He Zhuoming clenched Lin Qingyun's wrist tightly and raised her voice to match: "W-W-Who are you? You broke our window, you should pay for it, or else I'll call the police and have them arrest you!"

Knife-thrower: "...?"

What was this woman babbling about?

While the two sides were at a standoff, the other constables and the inn's old keeper came up through the front door and crowded into the room.

The old man quickly stepped between the two parties, bowing to the young woman with the knife: "We're all on the same side, we're all on the same side, don't fight—this young man is a musician from the Pear Garden, and the girl is his companion... Master Musician, this is Lady Xu Feixian from the Provincial Bureau of the Imperial Ministry for Subjugating Demons in Wen County."

"Lady Xu, the swordsman was already dead before the musician and his companion came to stay, so they shouldn't have anything to do with it."

At that, Xu Feixian finally lowered her knife, no longer pointing the blade at them, though her phoenix eyes still swept over them with sharp scrutiny.

Seeing that she had sheathed her knife, He Zhuoming felt less startled by her. When Xu Feixian looked her over, she lifted her head and looked right back—never back down in a staring contest.

But if Xu Feixian drew her knife again, He Zhuoming would immediately duck behind Lin Qingyun.

Fortunately, Xu Feixian didn't draw again. She just demanded coldly: "Did you not see the dead man?"

Lin Qingyun smiled: "We saw him. A corpse that big lying right there—I'm not blind."

He Zhuoming nodded along: "Yeah, yeah, the corpse had a white cloth over it, super obvious."

Xu Feixian's mouth twitched slightly, her gaze darting between Lin Qingyun and He Zhuoming—the man's constant smiling expression was irritating, but the girl spoke honestly; because her expression was so serious, it was hard to tell if she was being sarcastic or just slow on the uptake.

Taking a deep breath, Xu Feixian said: "I didn't ask if you saw the corpse! I asked if you saw the dead man before he died."

He Zhuoming thought for a moment, then asked: "Does he count as alive or dead when he rises as a corpse? I saw him rise last night."

Xu Feixian frowned, scanning He Zhuoming from head to toe. Finally, she looked at Lin Qingyun, pointed to her temple, and said: "Is your friend... off up here? If she's sick, then go get some medicine. Wen County is close by, and there are several good doctors there."

Lin Qingyun kept his smile: "Xiao He's head works just fine. If your comprehension is lacking, you should go get some medicine yourself. Also, you broke the window and haven't apologized to Xiao He yet. Didn't your mother teach you any manners? Or do you not have a mother?"

Xu Feixian drew her knife in a flash; He Zhuoming quickly hid behind Lin Qingyun and grabbed his arm: "S-S-S-She—"

Lin Qingyun pulled her out and set her beside him, sighing: "Xiao He, you're not usually like this with me. Is that the quality of a model student?"

The other constables surged forward, grabbing Xu Feixian and dragging her away. The leading man, a middle-aged man with a beard, sighed wearily.

His attitude was far better than Xu Feixian's, and he spoke politely to Lin Qingyun: "We'll fix the window. That we disturbed you just now was my subordinate's fault. Apologies."

"We'll be going now."

With that, he waved his hand, and the other constables hurriedly pulled Xu Feixian outside. Someone whispered in her ear: "That's a musician from the Pear Garden. If we really get into a fight, we're the ones who'll suffer. Little miss, just cause less trouble—let's go, let's go."

Xu Feixian's face remained grim, and she shot Lin Qingyun a few cold glances. "Pear Garden? Can disciples of the Pear Garden even be considered proper disciples?"

After tossing out that highly mocking and disdainful remark, Xu Feixian shoved aside her colleague's restraining hand and walked out on her own.

The other constables didn't refute her words. The bearded leading man even bowed to Lin Qingyun once more before leading the group out of the room in a flurry.

A gust of night wind passed through the broken window and blew out through the still-open door.

He Zhuoming said indignantly: "How rude! They didn't even apologize to us! Every single one of them is terrible!"

"That knife-throwing one is the worst. Look at her face, talking to people like she's got eyes on top of her head—what's wrong with Pear Garden disciples? Pear Garden... ugh, Qingyun, why aren't Pear Garden disciples considered proper disciples?"

Lin Qingyun said mildly: "Let go of my arm first, and I'll tell you."

Only then did He Zhuoming realize: she was still gripping Lin Qingyun's arm nervously, her fingers digging into it.

She quickly let go. "Sorry—is your arm okay?"

Lin Qingyun rolled up his sleeve to show He Zhuoming. There were clear fingernail marks on his forearm.

He rotated his arm casually. "Fortunately, Xiao He, your strength is small. Though that 'born with a mother, raised without one' was irritating, she wasn't wrong."

"The standard for a reputable sect is that it must enshrine at least one or more True Deities and receive their blessing. The Pear Garden only enshrines the Lord of Pear Palace..."

He Zhuoming gasped: "It enshrines the Lord of Pear Palace?!"

Her reaction was too large, and Lin Qingyun was a bit surprised. "You know of this True Deity?"

He Zhuoming gave a dry laugh, feeling her head spin.

When they first mentioned "Pear Garden," He Zhuoming hadn't had any impression. It wasn't until Lin Qingyun said the four characters "Lord of Pear Palace" that they finally triggered the faint memory from the original novel—wasn't the Lord of Pear Palace the title of the villain Tang Shuyu!

If the Pear Garden enshrined the Lord of Pear Palace, that meant the sect was the villain's territory. But the male lead was in the Pear Garden's camp... Wait, the villain was still in his youth now, destitute and shameless enough to make a fortune from selling people. How could he look like a True Deity...

He Zhuoming hugged her head and collapsed onto the bed, mumbling to herself: "Where's the plot now? Why doesn't any clue match up..."