Chapter 63: A Quiet Homecoming

There was no time to think. Lin Yu dashed out first, Fu Ming close behind her, and the two raced toward the source of the wailing.

When she saw what lay before her, Lin Yu's pupils contracted and her breath caught for an instant, but she quickly steadied herself and walked forward.

Outside the barrier of Bushou Hall, an altar had been erected. Strange symbols were painted on the circular platform, and around it knelt a ring of formal disciples—men and women alike—their bodies plastered with talismans Lin Yu couldn't decipher. More talismans covered their foreheads, the bright red paper hiding their faces entirely, making it impossible to tell who they were.

On the high altar itself, Yun Chi was bound to a wooden stake at the center. Her mouth was gagged, and only muffled sobs escaped her. The cries Lin Yu had heard earlier came not from Yun Chi but from the disciples kneeling around the altar.

Lin Yu had seen platforms built for living human sacrifices, and she had seen funeral altars erected by wealthy families, but this altar before her resembled none of them. It wasn't a sacrifice, and it wasn't a burial offering. What else could it be?

She studied the altar wrapped in talismans and symbols, and then her heart gave a jolt as understanding dawned. This was a soul-snatching altar.

The Xianzun had confirmed her death and intended to resurrect her by seizing Yun Chi's body.

Which meant the Frost Star had already fallen last night. Lin Yu thought of Fu Ming, then. If the Frost Star had fallen, the Purple Star must have fallen alongside it. Piecing it together, Lin Yu could roughly guess what had happened.

She had told Yun Chi that if anything happened to her, Yun Chi only needed to say she had never seen Lin Yu. But Lin Yu hadn't expected her and Fu Ming to fall at the same time. When Yun Chi saw both stars plummet, she panicked and ran to report it to the Xianzun. The Xianzun flew into a rage, bound Yun Chi, and prepared this soul-snatching altar to revive himself.

Lin Yu's gaze swept to the front of the altar. The Xianzun sat in a wide chair before it, flanked by several old cultivators she had never seen before—the elders of Heaven's Mandate Tower, by the look of them.

Lin Yu steadied her breathing and walked over with composure. "Disciple greets the Xianzun."

"May I ask, Xianzun… what is all this? Such a grand display—are we making another sacrifice to some heavenly god?"

The Xianzun's brows were tightly knit as he listened to an elder beside him speak, but at the sound of that familiar voice—soft, yet carrying over the noise of everyone around—he jerked his head around, leaped off his chair, and turned to see Lin Yu. At the same time, the weeping disciples fell silent, having also heard her voice.

Everyone froze in place and stopped wailing, though the talismans covered their eyes and none dared turn to look at the source of that voice. They knelt in silence, unmoving.

The noise that had filled the grounds moments before vanished, replaced by a strange, eerie quiet.

The Xianzun stared at Lin Yu in disbelief, scrutinizing her twice over, then demanded harshly, "Where were you last night?" No sooner had the words left his mouth than he sensed something wrong—he felt a trace of ghostly energy emanating from her.

Suddenly, he wondered if the person before him really was Lin Yu.

With that thought, the Xianzun flicked his fly whisk at her, the whisk carrying a powerful banishing spell that could cripple half a lifetime of cultivation for whoever it struck, be they human or ghost. But Lin Yu stood her ground, not moving, not even flinching to dodge.

Just as the whisk was about to touch her, the Xianzun withdrew his power, and the soft whisk merely brushed across her shoulder.

If the person before him were a ghost, it couldn't appear in broad daylight. But Lin Yu had a long shadow stretching behind her. She wasn't dead, nor was she some vengeful specter wearing her face. The Xianzun felt inexplicably reassured.

Lin Yu played dumb, smiling as she asked, "What is the Xianzun doing?"

...

A quarter of an hour later, Lin Yu knelt in Bushou Hall, with Fu Ming and the Xianzun seated on either side before her. Outside, figures bustled about, cleaning up the mess in the courtyard.

Lin Yu found it somewhat absurd. She had shot Fu Ming several looks telling him to leave first, but he either hadn't caught on or pretended not to—he had appeared right behind her, exchanged a courteous nod with the Xianzun, and then calmly taken a seat as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Lin Yu stared at Fu Ming for a long moment, wondering what he was up to, until the Xianzun cleared his throat and snapped her back to attention.

Before the Xianzun could speak, Lin Yu preempted him. "Xianzun, your disciple has an urgent matter to report."

The Xianzun had been about to demand answers, but her words cut him off, and his anger only flared hotter. She knew full well he wanted to ask what had happened, yet she dodged it directly. What could possibly be more important than both stars falling from the sky?

The Xianzun had no interest in her report and was about to interrupt to question her, when Fu Ming spoke first. "An urgent matter? Do tell."

"Wait, stand up. No need for such a formal bow." Fu Ming extended a hand toward Lin Yu, and she took it to rise to her feet.

The scene the Xianzun had concocted—even going so far as to set up a soul-snatching altar—had to be nearly impossible to explain or resolve. So Lin Yu had entered with a show of weakness, kneeling in a slipshod disciple's bow. The Xianzun was too irritated to tell her to rise, and she didn't take the liberty of standing on her own.

The Xianzun couldn't very well rebuff Fu Ming's request, so he grudgingly said, "Speak, then. What is it?"

"Reporting to the Xianzun: your disciple accidentally wandered into the Ghost Realm and discovered that the Earth Immortal had fallen two months ago. Since then, the Ghost King, Zhu You, has taken his place, impersonating him and receiving the people's worship at the Earth Immortal Temple."

Lin Yu kept her eyes lowered, as if studying the cold floor, but in truth she was watching the Xianzun from the corner of her eye. She clearly saw his body stiffen.

The Earth Immortal might not hold a high rank, but he was still a god. By all established beliefs, gods were immeasurably nobler than mortals, while the Ghost Tribe were of lowly status, not even fit to be compared with cultivators like themselves.

She wanted to see exactly how the Xianzun would react when he learned that the god he had believed in his whole life had been killed and replaced by a member of a race he looked down upon.

A pin could be heard dropping in the hall. All three were silent. Fu Ming rested a hand on the armrest, propping his chin on it, and began studying the Xianzun with obvious interest. Both he and Lin Yu were waiting for his reaction.

"Ridiculous!" The Xianzun finally ground out the words through his teeth, his whole body trembling as if struck by some great blow, not raising his head.

"This matter is beyond doubt. Your disciple wouldn't speak carelessly without certainty. Last night, I encountered a few lesser ghosts who lured me into the Ghost Realm…" Lin Yu continued, each word landing like a hammer on the Xianzun's mind.

She turned to Fu Ming. "His Majesty can vouch for me. I nearly fell for those ghosts' tricks, and it was only because I met His Majesty on the road that I was saved."

Lin Yu put on a look of lingering fear. "Fortunately, His Majesty sensed something was off. That's how we discovered the Earth Immortal had been replaced by the Ghost King. If not for that, once the Ghost King had firmly established himself, he would surely have used the Earth Immortal's identity to commit evil, and then it would have been beyond saving."

She had shifted all the blame onto Fu Ming. In the eyes of others, Fu Ming was a sword cultivator of no small skill. If he ran into ghosts blocking his path, sensed something wrong, and made a trip into the Ghost Realm to get to the bottom of it—that was entirely plausible.

But Lin Yu was different. She was a newly arrived Divine Maiden, and the Xianzun knew she had never learned anything about cultivation or the spirits and gods. She was utterly ignorant, so the cause of all this could never have been her initiative.

A Divine Maiden of high status but no real power, waylaid by lesser ghosts—that made perfect sense. And the Divine Mountain backed onto the Temple of Ten Thousand Gods, so Fu Ming appearing there at midnight and happening upon Lin Yu under attack was just as plausible. Then Fu Ming noticed something was wrong, and the two were taken down to the Ghost Realm by the ghosts. The falling stars, all of it—it fit together neatly.

Fu Ming let out a light chuckle. "So that's what this is about." He turned to the Xianzun. "I was just thinking how to broach this subject with you, Xianzun, worried you might not be able to handle it all at once."

His words sealed the matter completely, leaving no room for doubt. The Xianzun knew it had to be true, but how could he accept it? How could he stomach such an outrageous travesty?

The Earth Immortal had been replaced by the Ghost King. If that scandal ever got out, what would become of the Nine Heavens' authority? The Xianzun clenched his fingers unconsciously, silently cursing the Earth Immortal for being a useless fool—defeated and killed by a ghost, of all things. A disgrace to the heavenly realm!

Seeing the Xianzun still stunned, Lin Yu called out tentatively, "Xianzun?"

"Go back for now. I'll have someone look into this," the Xianzun said, as if suddenly waking from a dream. "Ah, and starting tomorrow, I'll arrange for someone to teach you to read the ancient texts. Your senior brother mentioned it to me—you're unfamiliar with the tales of gods, ghosts, and mythical beasts, and you can't even use many of the magical implements. That simply won't do. I was so focused on having you build your cultivation first that I neglected the books."

Lin Yu nodded. "Yes, thank you, Xianzun."

"You may go." The Xianzun rubbed his temples and waved her off.

As she was leaving, Lin Yu noticed Fu Ming made no move to rise, and quickly realized he still had matters to discuss with the Xianzun. She gave him a small nod and took her leave, heading straight out.

Lin Yu walked quickly and soon reached her residence. As she approached the courtyard gate, she heard a cat's mew. Pushing the door open, she found Chen Lu cradling the big white cat, giving it a bath.

At the creak of the door, Chen Lu looked up to greet Lin Yu, but the plump cat wriggled free and bolted, its fur plastered wet against its body. Chen Lu chased it for a while but couldn't catch it.

Lin Yu told Chen Lu to stop and go play outside for a bit. As soon as Chen Lu left, the big cat padded over to Lin Yu, shaking its head and flinging water everywhere.

"Come inside," Lin Yu said. The cat obediently followed her into the room. Lin Yu turned, shut the door, and when she looked back, the cat had already transformed back into the Snow God.

He sprawled on the low couch and started complaining. "That maid of yours treated me like a plaything while you were gone! Didn't you tell her to take good care of little old me?"

Lin Yu: …A kitten the size of half a child?

She didn't bother bantering with him and cut straight to the point. "Do you know about the immortal who had a dream ten years ago, and after waking, ordered his people to hunt down ten-year-old children?"

Lin Yu had nearly forgotten all those things until she saw her name already crossed out in the book of life and death, and the dusty memories had surged back to the surface—the old cultivator she'd met all those years ago.

The old cultivator had seemed kind at first, but when he'd heard the two children were surnamed Lin, he'd suddenly tried to kill Lin Yu and Lin Zhao. That was why she suspected the cultivators' quarry was targeted not only by appearance but also by name.

That so-called immortal had dreamed that he would be killed ten years later, and upon waking, he had drawn a portrait. But trying to find a person using only a painting from ten years ago—the odds were impossibly small.

Ten years was a long time, long enough for a little girl to grow into a woman, with her face, height, weight, and temperament all transformed. Any girl could have grown to resemble the person in the painting. Wasn't that just what they said—that every ten-year-old girl in the world was guilty?

The Snow God replied, "Of course I know. That scoundrel—it was just a bad dream, but he went and drew a portrait of the person he'd seen. Later, he realized he'd never find someone by a portrait of a woman in her twenties, so do you know what he did?"

"What did he do?"

"He went and got the Immortal Si Ming drunk, and swiped the book of destinies right out from under him."

Lin Yu began to guess. "He saw in the book who would kill him."

"Sharp as ever. He wrote down the name he saw in the book and gave a second order, telling his people to find whoever bore that name. If you ask me, he'd done so many bad things he was afraid of getting his due."

"Whose name did he see?"

"What was it… Lin, something?" The Snow God frowned, trying to recall. It had been so long that he couldn't quite remember. "Lin… what yue?"

"Lin Jiyue?"