Chapter 94

"What are they doing here?" Lin Yu asked.

"They say... they've come on the Xianzun's orders to rescue the Divine Maiden," the ghost messenger stammered. "We hadn't even been back for the time it takes an incense stick to burn before they were already at the Yellow Spring Road. So fast—that Xianzun must have secretly issued the order before he left. But we have no Divine Maiden in this underworld, do we? They've come all this way for nothing."

Ting He froze. "She is one..."

The ghost messenger looked puzzled. "I... I know you're good at disguising yourself as others, but the ones outside are senior disciples who've spent every day with the Divine Maiden. If you interact with them, won't you be exposed?"

Ghost messenger: "A similar appearance alone won't fool those who know her well. They'll see through it and make trouble for us."

Lin Yu was caught between laughter and tears. "But I really am the Divine Maiden..."

The ghost messenger's jaw nearly dropped from shock. He wondered if he'd misheard. "You... you're really the real one?"

"Genuine, no substitutes."

The ghost messenger said, "Th-then hurry back with them! A whole crowd of them is standing at the entrance to the Yellow Spring Road, radiating righteous aura—it's terrifying us ghosts."

"The ghosts on the Yellow Spring Road don't even dare to go near them. It's causing a panic. They're blocking our path for reincarnation."

Lin Yu raised an eyebrow, continuing to flip through the Book of Life and Death. "Didn't you say they radiate righteousness? What's there to fear from righteousness?"

The ghost messenger was distraught. "We're ghosts! What ghost isn't afraid of righteous cultivators?!"

Lin Yu looked up. "Oh... is that so? Then why don't you just drive them back? It's hardly fair for them to snatch a hostage before the deed is done. They're the ones in the wrong."

"Really fight them?" The ghost messenger swallowed nervously. "Lord Di Ting has left, and the Judges are underground—it's the middle of the night, their busiest time, so they won't be able to come help anytime soon. And we can't let the various Yama Kings learn that the Ghost King's Palace is unguarded."

His voice grew quieter and quieter. "Right now, the Ghost Realm only has us ghost messengers."

Then the ghost messenger suddenly remembered something. "Oh right, there's also Granny Meng. But with her white hair, she can barely walk without trembling. All she'd do is hand them soup. How are we supposed to fight them like this..."

Lin Yu mused thoughtfully. "Ghost messengers can't die, can they?"

"Th-that's right," the ghost messenger said, dread creeping in. "We're already ghosts. If we die, we just sink straight down three levels, and the Judges will send us right back up. It's only three levels up and down—we die fast and come back fast."

Lin Yu sat languidly on the Ghost King's throne, chin propped on her hand, smiling at the ghost messenger. Last time on the Yellow Spring Road, she'd marveled at how endless the ghost messengers seemed, surging toward them without stop. Only later did she learn they were the same group of people, dying and reviving over and over.

The ghost messenger's mouth twitched. "Wh-what would you have us do?"

"Since you can't die, just trade a hundred rounds with them first," Lin Yu said with a smile. "Don't worry, that's just how Heaven's Mandate Tower is. They only look imposing—they're paper tigers. A couple of hits and they'll drop dead. Frail things."

The ghost messenger said, "? Really?"

Lin Yu soothed him gently. "Would I lie to you? Go try it yourself and you'll see. Go on, stall them for as long as you can. If anything changes, don't forget to send me a message."

The ghost messenger accepted the order and walked out with the resolve of a man marching to his death. Ting He slapped Lin Yu's shoulder, howling with laughter. "What if they actually kill your senior disciples and such?"

Back then, Ting He—a mere escort with no cultivation—had managed to cost Heaven's Mandate Tower so many lives. Ghost messengers would surely do even better.

Lin Yu thought for a moment. "Then let them die. Anyone the Xianzun sends to rescue someone won't be a good sort."

The regular disciples who bought their way into Heaven's Mandate Tower with money and connections only learned flashy, empty forms every day. The Xianzun would never send them on missions anyway, because sending them out would just be sending them to their deaths.

Those he dispatched were all closed-door disciples from deep in the Divine Mountain. And those people—Lin Yu would be glad to see them dead sooner rather than later.

Ting He chuckled. "No wonder everyone thinks you're faking being the Divine Maiden. If I hadn't met you before, I'd think you were a fake too."

Lin Yu smiled as well. "So tell me—do I pull it off or not?"

"You don't." Ting He thought for a moment, then said seriously, "The real Heaven's Mandate Tower folks have heavier killing intent than you."

"True." Lin Yu flipped a few more pages of the Book of Life and Death, listening to Ting He. "Let's worry about killing intent later. Who knows how long those ghost messengers can hold out—we need to find their names fast."

"Oh right, right. The real business matters."

The two of them worked in perfect harmony. There were simply too many names on each page of the Book of Life and Death, and flipping back and forth was a hassle. But since they were flipping through it anyway, it would be a waste not to do more than just take revenge.

Whenever Lin Yu spotted a familiar corrupt official or tyrant, she'd casually cross out the name too. Ting He would occasionally point at a name, and without her even needing to speak, Lin Yu would cross it out for her.

Ting He had once been a bodyguard—an escort—so she knew plenty about the rich and powerful. Coincidentally, the names Lin Yu crossed out were mostly infamous officials, with a few court ministers thrown in.

As she kept crossing, Ting He suddenly noticed something off. "If you cross out all these people, when the emperor holds court tomorrow morning and sees several officials drop dead at once, won't he get a fright?"

Lin Yu thought about it. Fu Ming probably wouldn't be frightened. But now that the matter had come up, she found herself oddly curious to see Fu Ming's reaction at tomorrow's morning court. He ought to be able to guess it was Lin Yu who'd done it.

Lin Yu coughed lightly and sidestepped the question. "Are you done crossing them all out?" she asked instead.

"Not yet. One's missing." Ting He shifted position, resting her chin on her hands and leaning over Lin Yu's head. A shadow had no weight; Lin Yu could only feel wisps of cold air drifting over her scalp.

"Who's missing?"

"His name... is Zhao Cheng."

Lin Yu's fingers, which had been pinching the paper, stopped. She looked up at Ting He. "What did you say his name was?"

Ting He repeated it. "Zhao Cheng. What, you know him?"

Hearing that name again, memories came flooding back like a tide. Lin Yu sensed something was off. "Is he a man in his early twenties with one blind eye?"

"Yes! You really do know him? Don't all of you in Heaven's Mandate Tower carry a waist token to show your identity on missions? The one I picked up back then was his. Tracing the name Zhao Cheng, I managed to track down the rest of the killers."

Lin Yu lowered her gaze. "Zhao Cheng..."

Ting He detected the shift in her. "Friend or foe?"

Lin Yu's finger rested on the densely packed names in the Book of Life and Death. "Probably a foe."

"How can you not be sure?" Ting He muttered. "Wait, that's not right. We've searched this whole book. Why isn't his name in it?"

"Because he's already dead," Lin Yu said, gripping the cinnabar brush as she crossed out a name on the final page, the blood-red ink spreading. "Three months ago, there was a great fire at a medicine shop in the city. All seven people inside burned to death. Not even their bones remained."

Ting He frowned. "I think I've heard of this. It was tragic. I heard the shopkeeper had an exceptionally auspicious birth date, so someone coveted it. He was captured by a highly prestigious family and burned to death as a sacrificial offering."

"Which ritual was it..." Ting He struggled to remember, racking her brain. "Three months ago... it was..."

Lin Yu closed the Book of Life and Death and said flatly, "The Moon God Festival."

"Right, the Moon God Festival! Look at my memory—I can't even recall what happened three months ago." Ting He laughed. "Is this connected to Zhao Cheng?"

"Yes. Very much so. And it's not just connected to him."

"I was the owner of that medicine shop," Lin Yu said. "And Zhao Cheng was my shop assistant."

A hint of an unreadable emotion crept into Lin Yu's voice. "I escaped and became the Divine Maiden of Heaven's Mandate Tower. He escaped too and became a disciple of the tower. After all our wandering, we ended up meeting here. What a coincidence, truly."

Ting He grew wary. "Even if you know each other, I won't let him off just because of you. He led men to kill my two younger sisters. He has to pay with his life."

"Of course not." Killing intent flickered in Lin Yu's eyes, and some things she hadn't been able to piece together before suddenly fell into place. "Don't forget what he does."

Lin Yu continued, "His job is to find sacrificial offerings for Heaven's Mandate Tower. It was by matching birth dates that he found your sisters." Her gaze settled on the crimson brush tip. "Likewise, the reason I became a sacrifice was also my birth date. Don't you think that's a coincidence?"

Since the age of ten, when Lin Yu's parents had died, Hu Sheng had changed her name, and she'd been called Lin Yu ever since.

The name Lin Jiyue had been buried for ten years. Her birth date had never been known to anyone else. She was just an insignificant medicine woman—how had her birth date ever reached the ears of the general's daughter? The only explanation was a leak on the part of someone close to her.

Round and round it went, and now every thread of evidence lined up.

"You're saying... he deliberately leaked your birth date, which is why you were targeted for elimination? He betrayed you for his own gain?!"

Lin Yu's voice was icy. "He'd never had any contact with cultivation matters. An ordinary man with no money, no status, and one blind eye—why do you think Heaven's Mandate Tower accepted him?"

Ting He shook her head. She didn't know the ins and outs of Heaven's Mandate Tower, nor the criteria for choosing disciples. "Why?"

Lin Yu asked, "Do you know who the original sacrifice for that ritual was supposed to be?"

"If it was the Moon God Festival, I remember that general was the one who organized it? He's the Moon God's most devoted follower; every year on the Moon God Festival, he pays a fortune to hold the ritual. As for the sacrifice he'd chosen... I couldn't guess that."

Lin Yu took a deep breath. She could faintly hear noise from outside the hall. "It was the general's daughter."

"Is he insane?" Ting He was shocked. "Doesn't he only have one daughter? He was willing to send his own daughter to be sacrificed?"

Ting He sighed. "Ugh, I always said the Moon God's followers are the craziest. They all dream of attaining immortality and joining the Moon God's ranks. And after meeting the Moon God today, he's just so-so—shifty-eyed, honestly. I don't know what they see in worshipping that thing."

"The general's daughter didn't want to be the sacrifice, but as the most important offering of that ritual, she couldn't simply pick anyone to replace her," Lin Yu said. After all this, she finally understood what had happened back then. "So she spread her own birth date, hoping to find someone with an identical one to stand in for her. Unfortunately for me, I was that stand-in."

"Zhao Cheng sold me out for the reward the general's daughter offered. That's how I got targeted. One great fire at the medicine shop, and everyone inside was consumed by the flames, while I was locked in a cage, waiting for the day of sacrifice."

Having uncovered the truth, Lin Yu's emotions didn't surge or plummet. On the contrary, she was very calm—her heart was as placid as still water.

"After the general's daughter captured me, she gave Zhao Cheng a hefty reward and a chance to enter Heaven's Mandate Tower as a disciple. The first deal Zhao Cheng ever made was helping the general's daughter find a suitable sacrifice, and from then on, all his tasks in the tower were the same kind."

"He found many sacrifices for Heaven's Mandate Tower. Among them were me, and your sisters."

The more Ting He heard, the angrier she grew. "How can there be people like this in the world? So vile! If I ever lay eyes on him, I'll tear him limb from limb!"

Lin Yu didn't reply. She only felt the noise outside growing louder, which made her somewhat irritable.

"Your Eminence! We can't stop him... Someone's heading your way!" Just then, a ghost messenger relayed the news to her. "Their leader broke through the Yellow Spring Road and is charging toward the Ghost King's Palace. Just one person. Be on your guard—we've already sent people after him, and we'll catch him as soon as we can."

The messenger also reported on the battle. "As for this batch, only that one has any real skill. He slipped past us and barged in. The rest have been half annihilated already. Within the time it takes a cup of tea, the other half should collapse too. We'll have won in no time!"

"Leader?" Lin Yu wasn't concerned about how the fight outside was going. She asked unhurriedly.

She remembered that when they'd killed the Ghost King, besides herself, the most important leader had been a disciple named Yan Yi, who'd seemed moderately capable. Unfortunately, she'd never fought Yan Yi head-on. She was rather curious who the leader would be this time.

The ghost messenger's voice came mixed with the chaotic sounds of battle, sounding distant and indistinct. "It's a young man with one blind eye."

"We don't know his cultivation level yet, but he's very focused—he seems determined to see you. He even sacrificed a dozen or so of his fellow disciples to draw away the other ghost messengers' attacks, and only then found an opening to break through our defenses and rush in."

"You must be careful of this man."

TL Note:

"Yellow Spring Road (黄泉路)" is the road to the underworld in Chinese mythology.

"Book of Life and Death (生死簿)" is the supernatural record of every soul's lifespan in the underworld.

"birth date (生辰八字)" refers to a person's fate calculated from their birth time, used here to match sacrifices.

"Granny Meng (孟婆)" is the old woman in Chinese mythology who serves soup of forgetfulness to souls before reincarnation.