Punishment
Meng Wan admonished Old Xu to report the incident to the general and then expressed her intention to escort Xue Chenying and He Xiaoxiao back home.
He Simu wiped away her tears and pointed to a nearby courtyard, saying, “Captain, there’s no need to accompany us. We live right here.”
Meng Wan widened her eyes in surprise, looking at the courtyard and then at He Simu. “You live next to the governor’s mansion. Isn’t that arranged for…”
As she spoke, Meng Wan realized something. “Could it be that the woman who saved General just now was you?”
He Simu nodded, covering her heart.
“It’s indeed me, humble as I am,” she replied.
Meng Wan’s eyes sparked with fire. There was no longer any pity or concern in her gaze as she stepped forward and grabbed He Simu’s wrist. “So you have ulterior motives! Planning to get close to the general with such careful calculation, what do you intend to do? Pass information to your master? Plot against our general?”
He Simu chuckled twice, as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world, then whispered, “Master?”
Pausing for a moment, she continued, “Captain, rest assured, I have no acquaintance with any ‘Duke.’ If I intended harm to the general, I should have obstructed him when the assassin attacked and made him die obediently, shouldn’t I?”
Meng Wan’s eyes gleamed. “So you have other intentions!”
Indeed, she did.
Looking at Meng Wan holding her wrist, He Simu thought this young girl of barely fifteen was quite a handful. So she said, “I do have other intentions. Honestly speaking, ever since the general descended like a god and saved the people of Liangzhou from disaster, I’ve been enamoured with him. Thus, I wished to get close to the general.”
Xue Chenying exclaimed softly, his eyes brightening. The pale face that had been scared turned slightly flushed. It was clear that despite his young age, he already found gossip quite entertaining.
“You! The general comes from a prestigious background and can only be matched with noble ladies from Nan Du. How dare a countryside girl like you entertain such thoughts…” Meng Wan was both angry and disdainful.
He Simu suddenly approached Meng Wan, looking into her eyes. “But are you a noble lady from Nan Du?”
Meng Wan was taken aback, her face turning red. “I am not…”
“In that case, it’s settled. You’re not a noble lady from Nan Du, and neither am I. You can’t marry Duan Xu, and neither can I. But you like Duan Xu, and so do I. With such shared aspirations, isn’t it fate from heaven that we support each other? Wouldn’t you agree?”
He Simu smiled, patting Meng Wan’s shoulder. This young girl was choked up by her strange reasoning, unable to respond. He Simu then calmly turned around, leading the speechless Xue Chenying towards home.
Suddenly remembering something, she turned back to Meng Wan and said, “Captain Meng, thank you for your help today. But in the future, if you don’t have any talismans on hand, it’s best to run when encountering these fierce ghosts.”
She turned her head with a smile, the night deepening as snowflakes danced in the air. Under her veil, her face was faintly visible, like a lantern covered in black gauze.
“After all, even the bravest sheep shouldn’t fight with wolves, right?”
The long night returns to calm once again.
The calm in the eyes of mortals.
In the outskirts cemetery, a faint blue flame suddenly flashes, and within the flame, the figure of a woman appears vaguely. As the flame recedes, her flowing cloud-patterned headscarf and cloth shoes land on the damp soil.
She wears a rust-red curved hem triple-layered garment embroidered with cloud and honeysuckle patterns, a style popular roughly a century ago. Around her waist hangs a white jade pendant, intricately carved into the shape of a hexagonal palace lantern, emitting a faint blue light.
That small jade pendant, if seen in its true form, is the terrifying Ghost King Lantern that makes people tremble at the mere mention.
The woman’s complexion is pale, devoid of vitality, with slender willow-leaf eyebrows and phoenix eyes, and a mole at the corner of her eye. The so-called “skin like ice and bones like jade, stunningly beautiful,” is just like this. Even amidst a pervasive atmosphere of lifelessness, there emanates a silent beauty.
He Simu has inherited her parents’ beauty well, and her true form can also be tangible. Unfortunately, this body is revealed to be that of a dead person at first glance.
She twirls the jade pendant around her waist, lifts her pitch-black eyes, and lazily smiles, saying, “Come out.”
The woman in green clothes appears in front of her with a gust of green smoke, kneeling heavily on the ground, trembling like chaff.
“Your… Your Majesty, spare me…”
“Name?”
“Shao… Shao Yinyin…”
He Simu reaches out into the air, and amidst the shimmer of the jade pendant around her waist, a thick ancient book with curled pages falls into her hands.
She casually opens the ancient book and says as she flips through the pages, “Shao Yinyin, died on the seventh day of the third month of the Gengzi year in the town of Muli in Daizhou.”
“Yes… it’s me…”
Without waiting for her to finish, He Simu calls out, “Guan Huai.”
As she utters these two words, her tone is different from usual, as if her voice contains an invisible force, like a taut bowstring vibrating through the air.
Before the words have even settled, a gust of green smoke rises, and an old man descends from within it.
The old man is covered in wrinkles, hunched over, with all-white hair that reaches the ground, judging by human standards, he’s at least a hundred years old. It seems like he was in the midst of grooming his hair before being summoned, with half of it tied up neatly and the other half messily hanging down, not only comical but also obstructing his view.
“Your Majesty! Guan Huai is here!” He bows hastily, his voice too loud and out of tune, sounding like a broken gong.
“Ghost Temple Master, do I resemble this tree?” He Simu’s voice comes from behind him, and Guan Huai lifts his hair, only then realizing that he’s bowing to a dark locust tree, which seems to be mocking him with its gnarled branches. Guan Huai quickly turns around, narrowly avoiding tripping over his own hair.
“Your Majesty, forgive this old servant for his failing eyesight…”
“The Ghost Temple Master’s hair has grown to the point of causing trouble, why not cut it?” He Simu suggested.
Guan Huai immediately hugged his hair, saying incessantly, “Can’t do it, can’t do it. Your Majesty also knows, once we evil spirits cut off our hair, it won’t grow back.”
Below the Ghost King are left and right chancellors, along with twenty-four ghost ministers, each responsible for a ghost temple, and Guan Huai is the master of the Ghost Temple.
He Simu looked at him for a moment, leaning against a tombstone, tapping on the book lightly, and said lightly, “In the Thirty-Two Golden Wall Laws, what is the third rule of the fifth law?”
Guan Huai, trembling like a student who’s been called out in class by a teacher, stiffened for a while, then realized and exclaimed, “It’s… ah, it’s forbidden to consume children under the age of ten!”
He Simu closed the book with a slap and pointed to Shao Yinyin, who was prostrating on the ground, “The evil spirit in your temple, in my presence, wanted to consume an eight-year-old child. It seems that the law is nothing but a farce under the Ghost Temple Master.”
Guan Huai glanced at Shao Yinyin trembling on the ground and smiled apologetically, “This little girl has only recently become an evil spirit and doesn’t understand much…”
“Not understand much? Shao Yinyin, bring out your black and white jar and let the Ghost Temple Master see how little you understand.” He Simu looked down at Shao Yinyin, her eyes full of amusement.
Shao Yinyin stiffened all over, almost sinking into the dust, and shook her head pitifully, whispering, “I don’t have any jar…”
He Simu narrowed her eyes slightly and said word by word, “I said, bring it out.”
Suddenly, the jade pendant around her waist emitted a dazzling light, and Shao Yinyin screamed, trembling as she brought out a jar, large in the belly and small in the mouth, with baby play patterns drawn on it.
At the sight of this jar, Guan Huai’s face changed, and he immediately shouted, “Fang Chang! Fang Chang!”
Another gust of green smoke rushed over, and from it emerged a tall and thin white-clad scholar, kneeling palely on the ground and bowing to Guan Huai and He Simu.
“Greetings, Temple Master, Your Majesty.”
Guan Huai pointed at Fang Chang, his anger raging, “I trusted you, only entrusting the affairs of the Ghost Temple to you during my seclusion. How could you neglect your duties to this extent, not even noticing the evil spirits hoarding soul fires in the temple?”
This righteous accusation seemed to absolve himself, clearly knowing he couldn’t cover it up anymore, so he brought in a scapegoat. Earlier he claimed to have failing eyesight, but now suddenly his vision improved and he could instantly recognize what the jar was.
“You guys are like a string of candied haws.” He Simu smiled, took the black and white jar from Shao Yinyin’s hand, and on the jar were lively baby play patterns, vivid and full of amusement.
In this adorable jar were stored the soul fires of six children under the age of ten, weak but pure.
“Killing children under the age of ten, crime one; hoarding soul fires, crime two. According to the law, what should be done?”
The white and pure scholar knocked his head, saying sadly, “Please, Your Majesty, show mercy and spare Yinyin! She didn’t mean to disobey Your Majesty. Yinyin had four sons in her lifetime, all of whom died young, and she died in childbirth when giving birth to her fifth son. Yinyin harboured resentment in her heart, becoming a wandering ghost, and a hundred years later turned into an evil spirit. Her obsession in becoming an evil spirit is her children. She can’t control herself. Please, Your Majesty, consider her pitiful situation and spare her!”
Guan Huai immediately glared fiercely at Fang Chang.
He Simu scrutinized the scholarly-looking evil spirit for a moment and lazily said, “Her life is clearly written in the ghost records, why do you need to repeat it for me? Whether she disobeyed me or not, I don’t care, but in this position of mine…”
He Simu paused for a moment, her gaze turning cold, “My laws are not to be disobeyed.”
Fang Chang gritted his teeth, and He Simu approached him, bending slightly in front of him, and smiled, “Do you like Shao Yinyin?”
“Minister…” Fang Chang glanced quickly at Shao Yinyin.
“So you pity her, indulge her, and conceal her actions?” He Simu asked.
“Absolutely not!” Fang Chang replied firmly.
He Simu casually touched the jade pendant around her waist and said, “There’s a saying in the mortal realm, spoiling a child is akin to killing them. The same goes for relationships between lovers.”
Fang Chang seemed like he wanted to say something, but Guan Huai pre-empted him, scolding, “Your Majesty is right! Every grain of rice and every drop of water should be cherished. When living as a human, you remember these principles, but as a ghost, you forget? When eating rice, you should treasure it, but when eating humans, it’s okay to be reckless?”
Guan Huai gave Fang Chang a meaningful look, motioning for him to keep quiet, while also glancing at He Simu’s expression.
Shao Yinyin, still prostrate on the ground, murmured, “I hope Your Majesty will consider my first offense and be lenient.”
He Simu glanced at the upright Guan Huai with a smile, “This is the evil spirit in your temple, logically speaking, it should be you who deals with her.”
Upon hearing this, Fang Chang’s face lit up with joy, while Guan Huai trembled. As expected, He Simu approached Guan Huai, patting his hunched shoulder.
“You deal with her, I’ll deal with you, how about it?”
“Your Majesty…” Guan Huai began.
“And now that I’m resting, Jiang Ai and Yan Ke are supervising the Ghost Domain on my behalf. You can go and receive your punishment for today. You don’t need to report to me how you’ll handle her. If her name is still on the ghost records after seven days, we’ll discuss it then.”
He Simu didn’t even look at Shao Yinyin and Fang Chang on the ground, patting Guan Huai’s shoulder once more before disappearing in a burst of blue flame.
“Guan Huai respectfully bids farewell to Your Majesty,” Guan Huai bowed deeply, then heaved a sigh of relief, as if He Simu was a mountain pressing down on him, and with her departure, he felt a bit straighter.
He slowly turned around, lifting his comical white hair, and looked at Shao Yinyin and Fang Chang kneeling on the ground, angrily saying, “Fang Chang, oh Fang Chang, what have I said about you? It’s one thing to shield your lover, but dare to argue with Your Majesty? Even if you expose everything Shao Yinyin did, she won’t relent in front of Her Majesty!”
Shao Yinyin looked at Fang Chang with panic on her face, before she could plead, she received another scolding from Guan Huai, “Now you’re scared? You were so happy when hoarding soul fires and killing children!”
Though he was clearly a very old man with a voice like a broken gong, when he scolded, he was full of energy, and his beard was blown up a foot high.
Fang Chang’s slender hand comforted Shao Yinyin’s back as he showed a resolute expression, kowtowing, “Master, you are the eldest in the Ghost Domain, and Her Majesty always respects you. Fang Chang implores you to help Yinyin plead for mercy. I am willing to be a cow or a horse, never forgetting your kindness!”
Guan Huai looked at Fang Chang for a moment, then sighed deeply, “I may have lived for more than three thousand years, but so what? He Simu subdued the rebellion in the Ghost Domain and wiped out the twenty-four Ghost Temples when she was not even a hundred years old. Thirty percent of the temple masters were eradicated by her. Who among us can claim to be older than her?”
“If it weren’t for her temper softening a bit over the past hundred years, the words you just said would have obliterated you ten thousand times over.”
Fang Chang froze for a moment, understanding from Guan Huai’s words that Shao Yinyin wouldn’t be saved. He couldn’t help but feel disheartened as he prostrated on the ground.
“When this matter is resolved, you’ll go apologize to Her Majesty on my behalf. Remember to speak less; Her Majesty rarely seeks us out during her rest, and she dislikes being disturbed.”
Guan Huai patted Fang Chang’s shoulder, then glanced at the trembling Shao Yinyin on the ground, shaking his head as he departed. He Simu, capricious and talented, the strongest Ghost King in ten generations—she’s not someone to be trifled with.
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