Pearl
His voice was soft, with a lingering breath, like a sigh drifting past her soul.
This “Little He” made He Simu freeze. She was surprised for a moment before raising her eyebrows and asking, “Can you see me?”
But Duan Xu didn’t respond.
He Simu then realized that Duan Xu wasn’t looking at her; his gaze passed through her soul, looking into the distance behind her.
Following his gaze, He Simu saw a flock of black crows flying over the river.
The crows, like a black rain, excitedly cawed as they circled around the bodies of the unfortunate Huqi people, pecking at them. This scene was reminiscent of the day she arrived at Liangzhou Prefecture.
“Little He… has she arrived?” Duan Xu murmured softly, not intending for anyone to hear, evidently reminded of He Simu by the flock of crows.
He Simu turned to look at Duan Xu, into the depths of his eyes like an ocean. Various events from their first meeting to the present flashed through her mind. A smile slowly formed on her lips.
“Did you notice me from the very beginning?”
In the Liangzhou street filled with crows, she stood there holding a severed head. He had noticed her since then, which was why he associated the crows with her.
“So, that day at the cemetery, you deliberately came to find me?”
“And then arranged for me to live next door to you, asking about the wind, probing my senses, gradually probing into my details.”
He Simu shook her head, playing with the jade pendant-shaped ghost king lamp in her hand. Her eyes were pitch black, while Duan Xu remained quietly watching the flock of black crows above the river.
“You’re quite daring. A gentleman doesn’t stand under a leaning wall, yet you insist on standing beneath it. Are you betting that this wall won’t collapse?”
He couldn’t hear her voice, and she didn’t need him to answer.
Suddenly, Duan Xu took a step forward, walking through He Simu’s body. He said to his subordinates, “It’s time for us to wrap things up.”
At the moment their bodies intersected, the pearl in her arms suddenly began to tremble. The unusual tremor left He Simu stunned in place.
She turned back incredulously and saw Duan Xu’s silhouette forming a dark outline among the soldiers, amidst the myriad soul fires in the sky.
—”Si Mu, your aunt has prepared a gift for you. Look at this pearl; it will always follow your soul, and you can use it to contact me at any time. After my death, you can also use it to contact my bloodline.
—There’s also a special spell inside. Didn’t you ask what it feels like to be human? This spell allows you to borrow the five senses from the person who casts the spell. If it encounters someone who can bear the connection with you, it will naturally inform you.”
Her aunt’s voice seemed to traverse over three hundred years to whisper in her ear.
The person who could form a spell bond with her.
The person who could let her borrow the five senses.
Someone who hadn’t appeared in three hundred years.
Duan Xu, Duan Shunxi.
He Simu watched Duan Xu’s receding figure blend into the night, fading into the shadows of memory. In those memories, her parents and aunts and uncles were still alive, and all was well.
As time passed and the world changed, the pearl harboured the wishes she thought she had forgotten.
When the evil spirit Fang Chang went to report back to He Simu, their Ghost King was in a comfortable room of a wealthy merchant in Shuozhou, fiddling with a lamp and daydreaming with her chin propped up. Her gaze was vacant, lost in thought.
Although their Ghost King was young, she was always inscrutable and fearsome.
Seeing him arrive, He Simu’s gaze shifted slightly, and she asked indifferently, “What are you here for?”
“Your Majesty, Shao Yinyin has been executed, and Lord Guan Huai has been punished. However, I am also guilty for sheltering Shao Yinyin and have come to report back and accept my punishment,” Fang Chang knelt on the ground, bowing deeply.
“Guan Huai sent you, didn’t he? That old fox. You’re his subordinate, so why should I be the one to punish you?” He Simu glanced at Fang Chang and noticed his hands clenched into fists on the ground, trembling from the force.
She fell silent for a moment, then laughed disinterestedly, “What, you don’t agree?”
Fang Chang gritted his teeth and looked up at He Simu. There was too much injustice in his heart, and he couldn’t bear it any longer.
“Your Majesty, your subordinate just feels that you are too biased towards the living… Yinyin was originally transformed into an evil spirit by her obsession with children, inherently craving them. Asking her not to harm children under ten is simply impossible. Evil spirits hunt the living, just as the living slaughter sheep and cattle, isn’t it natural and justified? Why do you impose so many restrictions, it’s simply unreasonable.”
A young evil spirit dressed as a scholar, with a righteous and resolute demeanour.
Listening to his words, He Simu couldn’t help but burst into laughter. She stood up, leaned over to look at Fang Chang who was kneeling, and said, “Reason? I wonder, is it because I speak so convincingly that you all serve me as the ghost king?”
The ghost king lamp around her waist suddenly lit up brightly, and flames erupted from Fang Chang’s body. He screamed in shock, flailing and struggling on the ground, but to no avail.
He Simu squatted down to watch Fang Chang rolling on the ground, and slowly said, “Angry? Desperate? Why do I have the right to humiliate you like this, torment you, and play with you as I please?”
She snapped her fingers, and the flames suddenly extinguished. Fang Chang lay on the ground panting heavily with lingering fear. He Simu lifted his chin, looking into his eyes full of resentment and fear, and smiled charmingly.
“Those living people killed by you had the same thoughts before they died.”
Fang Chang was taken aback.
He Simu released her hand, casually saying, “Natural and just? What is natural and just? Whatever benefits you is considered natural and just?”
“Evil spirits harbour the strongest desires in this world. Jiang Ai loves wealth, Yan Ke craves power, Guan Huai clings to life, and you, in your life, repeatedly attempted but failed, yearning for fame. If evil spirits have no boundaries, desires have no restrictions, it’s like the deepest abyss in this world.”
Fang Chang remained silent for a long time, then prostrated on the ground, saying, “Fang Chang was short-sighted.”
He Simu turned away and walked to the table, gracefully sitting down and picking up a teacup, gently swirling it in her hand. She didn’t know how genuine his obedience was, but she had never been a monarch who relied on virtue to rule.
Playing with the teacup for a moment, He Simu suddenly asked, “Fang Chang, how long have you been dead?”
Fang Chang hesitated for a moment and replied, “Reporting to Your Majesty, it has been over five hundred years.”
“Do you still remember what it felt like to be alive? Compared to being a ghost?”
“The feeling of being alive… I can’t remember too clearly.” Fang Chang smiled bitterly for a moment and said, “But the feeling of death is quite profound.”
“Isn’t death just an instant thing?”
“No, Your Majesty. Death, in my view, is very prolonged. From the moment I first failed the imperial examination, I began to die slowly, and the speed of death increased exponentially. When I finally died on the way to the examination, that wasn’t the beginning of death, but the end.”
He Simu fell silent, the wind blowing in through the window crevices, causing the lamp flames to flicker, the light in the room alternating between bright and dim.
As the saying goes, there’s no joy in life, no hardship in death.
She spoke up, “You may leave, don’t come to disturb me for a while.”
Fang Chang bowed, got up, and left.
He Simu took out the pearl from her bosom, looked at it for a while, as if trying to find some answer from it. Suddenly, she laughed, saying, “Who cares, this is a rare opportunity.”
After a pause, she called out briefly, “Yan Ke.”
A puff of blue smoke wafted by her right side, and a man in black appeared within the smoke. He looked to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, tall in stature, with a complexion as pale as Fang Chang’s. His sharp eyebrows and starry eyes, along with his rugged features, gave him a stern and unapproachable appearance.
The Lord of Ghosts, Deputy of the Ghost Realm, Yan Ke.
“Your Majesty,” Yan Ke slightly bowed, saluting.
He Simu frowned and gave him a sideways glance. Yan Ke straightened up immediately and corrected himself, “Simu.”
Over three hundred years ago, when the Ghost King died and chaos erupted in the main states, Jiang Ai and Yan Ke, the two lords, assisted He Simu in quelling the rebellion. Now, with peace reigning across the four seas, these two were the pillars of the Ghost Realm.
They were the only two evil spirits in the Ghost Realm who could call He Simu by her birth name.
He Simu pointed to the chair beside her, smiling sweetly, “Ah Yan, please, have a seat.”
This young Ghost King was always capricious, quick to anger. None of the twenty-four Ghost Officials dared to be anything but cautious before her, even Yan Ke and Jiang Ai were extremely careful.
However, under normal circumstances, if He Simu called him Yan Ke, they were in a monarch-subject relationship. If she called him Ah Yan, they were friends.
Yan Ke relaxed slightly, the tightness of his lips softening as he walked over and sat in the chair beside He Simu.
“Ah Yan, have you been busy lately? Jiang Ai never likes to handle affairs. I’m afraid all the big and small matters in the Ghost Realm must fall to your shoulders. You must be tired,” He Simu said, seemingly carefree despite being the instigator, showing no signs of guilt.
Yan Ke frowned and looked at her. “How long are you planning to rest this time?”
“Half a year.”
“Half a year? What kind of place is the Ghost Realm? If you continue to be so lazy, those restless hearts might become uncontrollable!” Yan Ke said, his gaze piercing.
He Simu stared back at Yan Ke with intense eyes, a hint of complexity in her expression, her smile ambiguous.
“When have I ever kept them under control? Haven’t I always simply killed to solve problems? As long as they can’t defeat me in a day, they’ll have to serve me,” she waved her hand, cutting off Yan Ke’s sermon. “I remember Shun Prefecture falls under your jurisdiction.”
“Yes.”
“I want to find wandering souls. Among those who died under suspicious circumstances in the ancient town of Shun Prefecture in August of the fifth year of Tianyuan, are there any who have become wandering souls? Give me their names.”
Yan Ke gazed at He Simu for a moment before saying, “Alright. But what do you need this for?”
“What do I need it for? Just for fun, to pass the time,” He Simu said, fiddling with the pearl in her hand.
Yan Ke watched as this time, He Simu had possessed a petite and sweet girl. Judging by her relaxed and joyful expression, she was having a great time during this respite. It was only when she possessed someone that he would see such a relaxed smile on her face.
Suddenly, Yan Ke remembered the first time he saw her, dressed in white and mourning. The usually mysterious young master of the Ghost Realm, who grew up in the human world, raised her eyes slightly and smiled, “My father is gone, so they think I’m an easy target?”
Then she took the Ghost King lamp and, with her terrifying talent, slaughtered her way through the Ghost Realm, silencing all those with malicious intentions.
Indeed, she had the capital to be lazy.
The window behind He Simu’s room was open, allowing the wind to rush in, stirring the curtains. Outside the window, in the night, the bright soul lights that had shone all night finally came to a halt.
The surprise attack by the Danzhi resulted in heavy losses, but Duan Xu returned victorious, greatly boosting morale and relieving pressure on the Yuzhou battlefield.
However, at the same time, the Hulan army, supporting the Danzhi, also advanced into Shu Prefecture, quickly reclaiming the four cities of Shu Prefecture. The Tabai army hardly resisted, with some withdrawing to Liangzhou and blowing up the Guan River, while others converged on the prefectural capital of Shu Prefecture. The military strength in Shu Prefecture’s capital reached fifty thousand for a moment.
The capital of Shu Prefecture, the necessary passage for the Danzhi to reinforce Yuzhou, thus became an isolated island.
**Nomad: I’m planning on doing some renovations. I won’t have much time to translate, so instead of releasing 2 chapters a day, I will be releasing 1 chapter a day from Monday, March 18th, 2024, until April 8th. If all goes well and I don’t end up accidentally chopping off my fingers, I should resume releasing 2 chapters a day**
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