Karmic Burden Sharing — Is This Not One...

Tang Shuyu glanced at the line of white figures, but his gaze quickly returned to He Zhuoming's tangled hair. He answered casually, "Something like that."

He Zhuoming said, "What do you mean, 'something like that'? Are they ghosts or not? Wait, this is a Divine Palace—can ghosts even enter a Divine Palace?"

"Back in my hometown, people generally believed that ghosts and demons couldn't set foot in the temples of immortals..."

By the end, she was muttering to herself, lost in her own rambling.

Tang Shuyu seized the moment and tried to pull the ribbon free from her tangled locks, but he failed. The coarse cloth ribbon wasn't silky enough—one section had wound itself around a knot in He Zhuoming's hair.

He Zhuoming's head jerked to the side, and she let out a small yelp of pain.

Her voice was soft, but the line of white figures, which had been crawling forward at a snail's pace, suddenly stopped in perfect unison and turned their heads toward He Zhuoming in a neat, synchronized motion. They were all the same height, and their blurry, featureless faces were eerily similar in size—almost no difference could be picked out among them.

He Zhuoming startled, spun around, and pressed herself behind Tang Shuyu, gripping the fabric of his back. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, terrified that the white figures might suddenly morph into something with a bloody face and lunge at her.

"Th-they're looking this way!"

Tang Shuyu paid the white figures no mind. He tilted his head back to ask He Zhuoming, "Is your hair all right?"

She smacked him on the back. "At a time like this, who cares about hair?"

The slap was hard—probably because her cultivation had improved recently. Her strength had grown considerably, and that full-force blow left Tang Shuyu's back tingling.

Tang Shuyu turned his head back around, expressionless. The white figures, whose heads had swiveled in unison, slowly lowered them again in a perfectly coordinated motion.

Though their faces showed no visible eyes, their intent to avoid meeting Tang Shuyu's gaze was unmistakable.

One white figure at the back of the line didn't lower its head like the others. It continued staring directly at Tang Shuyu and He Zhuoming.

It differed from the rest in subtle ways, too. The mist over its face was thicker, murkier. As it stared for a long moment, the haze where its nose should have been twitched slightly, as if it were sniffing.

It was indeed sniffing.

A faint, sweet floral fragrance drifted through the air, but the white figure couldn't smell flowers. What it was scenting was "vitality."

The "vitality" that radiated from the living—the perfect union of soul and body. To a white figure that had long lost a fixed physical form, this vitality was more delicious than any food.

It was too young, too inexperienced to resist the allure of that vitality. Without realizing it, it broke away from the line and drifted toward the crabapple tree where He Zhuoming was hidden. But the moment it left the formation, its entire body melted like ice cream in the sun.

Within moments, a small patch of the corridor steps was soaked, and the gap in the line was quickly filled. The white figures turned their heads back around and continued moving forward at their even pace, as if nothing had happened. The only difference was that all of them now kept their heads lowered—compared to their earlier casual demeanor, they now seemed exceptionally polite and humble.

Tang Shuyu tugged at He Zhuoming's sleeve. "It's fine now."

She poked her head out from behind him and cautiously glanced at the corridor. Seeing that the white figures were indeed no longer looking their way, she let out a relieved breath.

He Zhuoming said, "They're all walking up the steps. Where are they going?"

Tang Shuyu leaned against the tree trunk, arms crossed. "To the end of the steps, to share the Earth Immortal's karmic burden. Though with their abilities, they can only share a drop in the bucket. But it's better than nothing—consider it a form of offering."

He Zhuoming was puzzled. "Offering? So they're followers too? Ah, are they lesser deities?"

Tang Shuyu felt like he'd just heard an excellent joke and couldn't help but laugh. "To be a lesser deity, you'd at least need to be a deity first... those things are barely worms at best."

His tone carried a casual, self-assured contempt, and even when he spoke dismissively of others, there was a condescension that implied 'this is a privilege.'

He Zhuoming was too busy peering at the group of white figures to even notice how Tang Shuyu was speaking—she wasn't even really listening to what he said.

He Zhuoming said, "Didn't you say there's a vicious ghost locked in the room at the end of the steps? How can they go share karmic burden there?"

Tang Shuyu said, "The room at the end of the steps is a shrine, originally a chamber prepared specifically for True Deities. It has many uses; it isn't fixed."

He glanced down and saw that He Zhuoming had twisted the corner of his robe in her nervous grip. She was scared to death, but her curiosity wouldn't let her stop peeking at the line of white figures.

Tang Shuyu explained, "Those white figures are souls who refused to go to the Abyss of Return for reincarnation and voluntarily sold themselves to the Earth Immortal. Every night at midnight, they pass through here to the shrine and share part of the karmic burden as repayment. Haven't you been staying here for a few days? Haven't you run into them at night?"

He Zhuoming looked up, meeting his eyes directly. "I've been keeping you company in the shrine every night for the past few days. I haven't come out in the middle of the night, so how would I have run into them?"

Tang Shuyu froze, the faint smile on his face stiffening. He Zhuoming didn't notice. After speaking, she shifted her gaze away and went back to curiously observing the line of white figures.

He Zhuoming said, "But wait—did their movements change? Earlier I saw them with their heads up, but now they've all lowered them."

Tang Shuyu said, "...You've been spending the night in the shrine every night these past few days?"

He Zhuoming said, "Yeah. You said you couldn't go out and your eyes couldn't see, so you'd get bored alone in there... you didn't forget again, did you?"

She looked up at him once more. Tang Shuyu smiled—a smile that clearly didn't reach his eyes. "Oh, I just remembered."

He Zhuoming was worried. "I've noticed your memory's gotten pretty bad... is this some kind of brain condition?"

Tang Shuyu said, "A person's memory is limited. Things that aren't important naturally have no need to be remembered."

He Zhuoming scrunched up her face, lost in thought.

Tang Shuyu tugged her arm. "They've already moved on."

He Zhuoming snapped back to attention and looked up at the corridor, seeing that the white figures had indeed all vanished.

Tang Shuyu walked He Zhuoming to the door of her bedroom. She couldn't help but grip the doorframe and peer toward the steps at the end of the corridor. It was too far to see clearly.

Tang Shuyu pushed her head back around. "Aren't you tired?"

He Zhuoming covered her mouth and yawned, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. "I am, but that scene just now was too much like a horror movie. I can't stop thinking about it..."

Tang Shuyu reached out to her. "Give me that necklace of yours."

He Zhuoming was confused but obedient. She took off the Guanyin pendant and placed it in Tang Shuyu's palm.

Only after handing it over did she think to ask, "What for?"

Tang Shuyu rubbed the small golden Guanyin figure, bit his index finger, and smeared a streak of blood across it.

Tang Shuyu said, "There are many wandering souls appearing in the Divine Palace lately. You shouldn't leave your room at night. Don't take off the Guanyin pendant—I've placed a seal on it to ward off evil."

As he spoke, he hung the pendant back around He Zhuoming's neck.

He Zhuoming looked down and turned the pendant over in her hands. The blood Tang Shuyu had smeared on it was still there—a vivid smear of crimson—but it dried quickly. Barely ten or fifteen seconds had passed from when Tang Shuyu wiped the blood on it to when he returned it to her, and by the time she reached out to touch it, the blood was already dry.

Tang Shuyu continued, "You can go play with Xu Feixian, or with the other musicians, but don't leave the Divine Palace. If something chaotic happens... just remember this: no matter how terrifying something looks, no matter what it says to you, as long as you're within the Earth Immortal's Divine Palace, it's all just posturing. They can't actually hurt you."

He said so much that even someone as slow as He Zhuoming sensed something was off.

She released the pendant and asked hesitantly, "Why..."

Tang Shuyu said, "I need to leave for a few days—I won't be able to see you for a while."

He Zhuoming said, "—What?"

Tang Shuyu smiled. "Just treat these days as a break. Wander around the Divine Palace, have some fun. If you run out of money, ask one of the brothers and sisters in white for more—they'll give it to you. Once the Day of Divine Celebration is over, we'll head to the Abyss of Return together and see if that fellow countryman of yours is reliable."

*

The last white figure drifted to the end of the steps. The crabapple trees that had served as cover scattered, and the pure white room stood with its doors wide open.

This room no longer had anything to do with the word "pure white." Red threads cascaded, sprawled, and intertwined from every direction, making it look like a giant spider's nest.

All the red threads eventually wound around a single point—around the body of a youth whose head had been severed from his torso.

His head was suspended at a slightly higher position by the red threads. The threads across his face were relatively sparse, allowing his features to be made out: an extremely gentle, harmless smile.

It was a face that made it impossible for anyone to feel hostility toward it. Just seeing him smile made one certain that this head must belong to someone kind and cheerful.

But there was a single flaw at the brow.

The brow area was a smooth, blank expanse, with only two pitch-black eyeballs embedded in the pale skin. Those eyeballs were spinning constantly—one moment peering at the wood grain inside his own head, the next gazing outward at the white figures filing in one after another.

He now had eyes, and he could see through the mist to make out the faces of those souls.

But he felt neither wonder nor joy. With every unfamiliar face he saw, the irritation in his heart grew sharper.

Once, as the puppet that stood in for the original and guarded the Divine Palace, he could command every crabapple tree in the palace as an extension of himself. Now, that power had been taken back by the original.

The original hadn't taken back the eyes he'd stolen, but if he could only stay in this shrine, staring at those ghostly faces every day, what meaning did these eyes have?

The white figures dared not enter the shrine, nor did they dare look up at the puppet's suspended head. They knelt outside the door and cautiously reached out to touch the doorframe. A thin wisp of red drifted out from within the threshold and seeped into the white figure's body.

The white figure writhed in pain on the steps, curling up like a shrimp.

After a long while, the wisp of karma was gradually digested. The white figure felt the pain subside and scrambled up to leave.

It was the last white figure to receive its burden of karma. When it drifted back to its quarters, it found that all the bodies in the room had already been occupied by other souls. The flesh body that should have been its own now had rosy cheeks and long, even breaths—clearly, something else had moved in.

With a roar, the white figure lunged forward, grabbed the body by the hair, and yanked hard. Another white figure tumbled out of the body with a roll.

It wasn't the body's original occupant, so the union between flesh and soul wasn't secure.

The expelled white figure was equally enraged, shrieking as it scuffled with its rival. The swollen specters writhed and swayed across the walls and rafters, tangling together. The others in the room slept on, serene smiles on their faces, as if nothing at all were happening.

When Tang Shuyu stepped into the shrine, the puppet's eyes locked onto him at once. The headless body, wrapped in red threads and strewn across the floor, immediately scrambled toward Tang Shuyu.

It had barely gotten close when Tang Shuyu kicked it away.

The kick wasn't light. The puppet flew across the room and split down the middle, its arms and legs crawling in separate directions, its eyes still glaring at Tang Shuyu with rancor.

The puppet had never imagined it would one day hate its original self so much.

"I never thought you'd be so selfish, so hypocritical and vicious," the puppet said, its mouth opening and closing as words squeezed from its throat. "You found such a good friend—Xiao He—outside, and you get to see her every day, but you won't even let me see her—"

"The shrine is the place for True Deities. It should be you staying here! Dealing with all this karma!"

The puppet kept shrieking, but Tang Shuyu couldn't be bothered to pay attention.

It was just a puppet. If it weren't for the impending gathering of the True Deities, and the fact that his karmic burden needed the puppets to share, Tang Shuyu would have had it melted down and rebuilt long ago.

It was something he rarely even glanced at, and today he wouldn't spare it a thought either—because Tang Shuyu was in a very good mood today.

He thought for a moment, then changed his mind and turned to smile at the Blind Puppet.

He walked back to the suspended head, gently stroked the two eyeballs with a touch that was almost tender, and said with a bright, cheerful smile, "Oh, how pitiful. Where did you dig up such disgusting eyes and stick them into your own head?"

"You must have suffered a lot to force those eyes into your skull. What a shame—for all your effort, Xiao He still hates you. The moment she saw you, she burst into tears and said it was all my fault, that I'd been gone from her for so long and left her almost eaten by some monster..."

"Oh, right~" Tang Shuyu snapped his fingers, eyes curving into crescents. "You're a puppet, not too bright, and I'm a man who respects his inferiors, so allow me to explain: the monster Xiao He was talking about is you!"

The eyeballs embedded in the pale skin trembled and spun, and blood began to seep from them in unstable streaks.

The puppet's discarded torso, kicked far into the corner, began heaving violently at the mere sound of Tang Shuyu's words.

"You're lying! Xiao He would never treat me like that!"

"Xiao He said I was her very best friend in this world!"

"You don't understand Xiao He at all! People like you only care about your own happiness—it was me—I was the one taking care of Xiao He!"

"You derelict True Deity! You contemptible monster!"

Tang Shuyu listened to its shrill cursing with a smile, and the more it cursed, the happier his smile became.

In a fantastic mood, he turned and left the shattered, screaming puppet behind him, offering a single parting remark: "Even your insults are so subpar. The only thing you can attack me with is your own existence."

"After all, having used such a stupid, low-grade puppet to guard the Divine Palace is a genuine stain on my record."

*

Today, Li Shui remembered to help He Zhuoming comb her hair, but even she couldn't untangle the knot in He Zhuoming's locks.

She stood behind He Zhuoming, working up a sweat over the stubborn tangle.

Seeing this, He Zhuoming said, "If you can't untie it, just leave it and tie it up as is."

Li Shui could barely keep her smile in place and said awkwardly, "In the evening, I'll bring some fragrant oil to help loosen the hair."

He Zhuoming had already stopped caring much about that one tangled strand and nodded along absently.

After breakfast, she slung her bag over her shoulder and ran off to find Xu Feixian. Xu Feixian was practicing with her blade, and He Zhuoming didn't mind. She sat down on a stone bench in the courtyard, pulled out her scriptures, and continued copying them.

She'd already copied a great deal. Since she'd done all that work, she might as well seek some peace of mind and burn them all together when she finished.