Chapter 124: The Workshop

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Gong Jiu?

“We should go to the hospital and see them. I just wonder whether those three groups will start fighting there.”

When Sui Yi learned that Gong Jiu and his companions had been bundled together and sent to the nearest town hospital, the corners of her lips curved slightly. There was hardly anything to pack. She merely wrapped the Demon Gate in a long strip of cloth, slung it over her back, and walked out of the house.

They were going to town?

Several cars were parked along the road. Jiang Yunxiu cautiously glanced at Yi Chilian, who had kept his eyes closed as though resting.

Normally, Jiang Yunxiu was not afraid to joke around with Yi Chilian, but whenever the man exuded an aura like this, it meant he was not to be disturbed.

It was precisely because they knew him so well that they understood which boundaries could not be crossed.

The last time Jiang Yunxiu had seen him like this seemed to have been three years earlier, when one of his closest relatives had died...

No one dared say a word.

At that moment, countless thoughts flickered through Yi Chilian’s mind—business, academia, family...

Amid all that turmoil, he deliberately dwelled on those matters. The more he thought, the more thoughts arose, yet they soon receded... In the end, he could not prevent a sentence he had once read in a book from surfacing again.

One meeting is fate. A second encounter is destiny. Three meetings mean you are meant to be.

This was their third meeting.

She had come from the water and appeared before him.

His grandfather had once said that, when Yi Chilian was born, a learned monk had given this prediction: Born of water, a lotus blooming in shallow purity; fate begins and ends in the space of a single thought.

Yet Yi Chilian had been born lacking water in the five elements.

That was why his name contained both “pool” and “lotus,” signifying an endless cycle of life.

He had never really believed in such things, but now he seemed to have no choice.

And yet, when she once again rejected him and remained distant and unfailingly polite, he felt as though he had caught hold of a stream, only for it to slip away between his fingers in an instant, impossible to grasp.

She was like wind and water.

Should he reach out and seize her?

Or was it all merely his own illusion? After all, they were not familiar with each other, were they?

He needed to think it through carefully.

“Drive.”

Yi Chilian suddenly spoke.

Jiang Yunxiu stared at him in surprise. “Er... We’re not waiting? She might come out in a little while...”

“There’s no need. Since she said she would leave on her own, then she intends to do so. Waiting longer would be pointless.”

Besides, he needed to figure things out.

——

Bowl Kiln. The Workshop.

Lush green trees stretched endlessly into the distance. In the past, Sui Yi had thought this place gloomy and damp. Seen now, however, it seemed quaint and secluded.

The door was unlocked, as it apparently always was.

When the wind blew, it creaked, as though anyone could simply push it open and enter. Inside, the desolate workshop was filled with pottery jars. There were quite a few on the tables, yet they still seemed lonely and forlorn.

The moss on the walls had grown ancient, turning a deep black.

Many of the pottery jars seemed not to have been tended for some time; dust had settled over them.

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Behind the pond in the courtyard where the great banyan tree stood, the jade-green water still reflected the verdant mountains and the tree’s ghostly silhouette.

Only the cold wind circled through the courtyard. On the rear mountain, even the cries of birds were exceedingly rare.

Suddenly, the water splashed. A dark-yellow hand emerged from the pond and seized the stone ledge. A man’s head broke the surface. He gasped for breath, struggling to crawl out of the water before collapsing onto the ground and breathing slowly.

His chest was bleeding.

The blood would not stop.

Had he survived? But had he ever truly lived?

The thought made him want to cry again.

Yet he could not.

It was as though his tears had run dry many years ago.

“Where is he?”

The soft, quiet voice drifted through the air, clear and cool, even crisper than the mountain woods.

His moist eyes blinked several times. His body stiffened, and he slowly turned toward the doorway.

The door had been closed before. At some point, it had opened. A figure stood there with a long object wrapped in blue cloth strapped across her back.

She stood in the doorway wearing black trousers, a white shirt, a thin black-brown leather jacket, and simple canvas shoes—a familiar style of dress.

She was a very beautiful young woman.

“It’s you... Did you guess from the beginning that it was me? Or did you simply come here to see your grandfather?”

Sui Yi looked at the man sprawled on the floor, resembling a catfish caught between life and death. A faint bitterness rose at the tip of her tongue.

“Would you prefer me to call you Master Shen, or Ye Luanyun?”

Ye Luanyun was silent for a moment before giving a low laugh.

“Ye Luanyun. I used to hate that name. But now, when you call me that, perhaps he would be a little happier.”

“Seventh Grand-Uncle... I am sorry about what happened to him. But if I had to do it all over again, I would still make the same choice.”

Sui Yi stepped over the threshold and raised her head toward the great banyan tree.

“After all, what he did was not something I could forgive.”

Lying on the ground, Ye Luanyun looked at Sui Yi. The resentment in his eyes was gone, replaced by a faint melancholy.

“I know you didn’t kill him. Your dagger pierced his abdomen. The fatal wound was the arrow in his chest.”

He had discovered that when he obtained the body.

After saying this, he paused.

“As for what he did... I once had a child. He was my father’s grandson.”

A grandson?

Sui Yi thought for a moment before saying, “He told me. He said that...”

“That he was killed by those corpse-men, yes? You certainly don’t believe that anymore. I created those corpse-men myself. How could they possibly have killed my son?”

Ye Luanyun pushed himself upright and rolled over on the ground, as though he had only just found a more comfortable position.

He looked up at the sky and closed his eyes, as if recalling the past.

“He died of natural causes. He was very young then, barely reaching my knees. We all called him Little Radish Head. My father loved him dearly and took him running all over the mountains every day... But life and death are decided by Heaven. When Heaven decrees it, nothing can be done. A serious illness came without warning. We spent everything the family had. You cannot imagine that our Ye family, guardians of such a vast palace, could not even scrape together ten thousand for an operation...

“We were too poor then—so poor that not even a single coin could be found. I once considered taking something from the palace and selling it. My father refused. I ignored him and took out a jade cup to sell. At last, I received thirty thousand. We had the money for the operation, and even though my father still objected, there was nothing he could do...”

“Only, no one expected the operation to fail. Little Radish Head still died. Not long afterward, my mother and my wife also died for no apparent reason. They died horribly, as though it were a curse. Theft by the guardian himself—Heaven was cursing us...

“My father suffered terribly and regretted everything, but I was consumed by hatred. I hated this palace. I hated the so-called duty of guarding it. Then, by chance, I found some texts among your grandfather’s belongings and learned that a mysterious treasure existed within this palace—one capable of bringing the dead back to life.

“I was tempted...”

Once temptation took hold, the inner demon came with it.

“I secretly learned the Ye family’s forbidden sorcery and raised corpse parasites. And because I missed my son, I raised a Bitter Ghost Child...”

So Ye Luanyun had done everything?

Then Seventh Grand-Uncle...

“I even used your grandfather’s corpse. I did it because I hated him for stubbornly refusing to let me leave the village to earn money. That was what led to...”

Ye Luanyun seemed to find the words difficult to say, yet beneath them lay years of accumulated resentment. His gaze twisted with ferocity as he spoke.

Sui Yi rapidly sifted through his words in her mind, then glanced at him again.

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“The reason Seventh Grand-Uncle later took your place was that he feared the curse would continue to haunt the palace. He wanted to bear it for you. So he became the Masked Ghost and helped you complete the remaining tasks—including all those countless killings.”

“Yes. He imprisoned me precisely so he could take my place.”

Ye Luanyun remembered how, not long ago, his father had drugged him unconscious. Just before he slipped into sleep, the old man had bent his aged body and stroked his head with a withered hand.

“Yun, don’t be afraid. Your mother, your wife, and Little Radish Head will all come back safe and sound... Don’t be afraid. You must never cry again...”

Then his father had left, never to return.

He had awakened too late.

Ye Luanyun closed his eyes.

Afraid? There was indeed nothing left for him to fear.

Everyone who could die had already died.

Perhaps the curse from those years had not ended with his wife or his mother.

Perhaps it had continued on to his father as well.

Would he be next?

Ye Luanyun said nothing, and Sui Yi remained silent for a while.

The wind descended from the rear mountain, carrying the faint fragrance of leaves. There was something bitter and astringent in it.

Ye Luanyun kept his eyes closed. After a long time, he heard Sui Yi speak.

“I’m not going to kill you.”

He opened his eyes, and a faint light flickered in them.

“Shouldn’t you be happy?” Sui Yi looked down at him, her voice cooler than the pond water.

“After saying so much, wasn’t your purpose to make me pity you, so that I would let you go?”

Ye Luanyun’s expression contorted with fury. He roared in a low voice, “If that were the case, I could have blamed everything on my father instead of—”

“That would have been too obvious. You knew I wouldn’t believe it. Half-truths are more convincing. But I believe most of what you said is true. Only one thing is false: you have not abandoned your desire for revenge. In other words, you have never given up on killing me, even though you know I wasn’t the one who killed Seventh Grand-Uncle.”

Sui Yi was very good at reading people—or, more precisely, at probing the human heart. Ye Luanyun was repressed and gloomy by nature, as well as extremely stubborn. Once he fixed his mind on something, he would never give it up easily.

Whether she had killed Seventh Grand-Uncle or A Gu had done it did not truly matter.

Ultimately, she had played a part in his death.

Therefore, Ye Luanyun would never forget his desire for revenge.

That alone was enough reason for Sui Yi to kill him.

But earlier, she had said...

Ye Luanyun’s expression changed several times in an instant. At last, he asked in a hoarse voice, his gaze icy cold, “Then why did you say you would let me go?”

Sui Yi stood there, hands in her pockets, her figure luminous and poised.

“You heard me correctly.”

Ye Luanyun found it impossible to believe. Yet Sui Yi had no reason to lie to him, so he asked, “Why? Do you pity me?”

His expression grew savage.

Sui Yi tilted her head and said indifferently, “Does it matter? If I say I pity you, can you refuse my pity?”

Her expression was utterly impassive, her tone detached and unmistakably disdainful.

Talk about being rendered completely speechless!

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