Wang Chengxuan’s pupils constricted as he stared at the four-character inscription.
The strokes were like silver hooks and iron lines, cut deep into the wood—the script was extremely ancient and complex. Compared to modern script, it looked like some kind of unknown talisman.
Neither Wang Chengxuan nor Fu Yang had ever seen such writing, yet they could inexplicably read its meaning—as if a deity had issued an oracle, imprinting it directly onto their minds.
Wang Chengxuan’s throat was bitter; he could hardly speak. He liked reading mythological novels, but those ancient legendary figures were too remote—they seemed to belong to a different world.
Fu Yang’s mouth opened and closed too. How had the group’s youngest become an ancient immortal deity?
The two stood frozen. Suddenly Wang Chengxuan grabbed Fu Yang’s sleeve, his voice trembling: “F-F-F-Fu Yang, do you remember what I said in the car earlier?”
He vaguely remembered talking to Ji Ling, but back then Ji Ling was just an ordinary boy-band eye candy, and Wang Chengxuan had been drunk, speaking without thinking. He couldn’t recall at all.
Fu Yang helpfully reminded him: “You asked who Ji Ling thought he was—what green onion he was.”
Wang Chengxuan: “…”
The weather was getting cold. Maybe the Wang family should go bankrupt.
They stood for a long time; Fu Yang’s sleeve was about to be clawed off by Wang Chengxuan. Fu Yang heard his own hoarse voice: “It might not be that actual guqin. Maybe it’s a replica? Or he’s a disciple or successor of the deity?”
At that moment, they finally reached the entrance.
The ghosts earlier had been forcibly drawn out of the tomb by Ji Ling and were fighting him among the bamboo tops. The moment Wang Chengxuan appeared, the black mist abruptly condensed, then split in two. One part continued to tangle with Ji Ling; the other spread into a five-claw shape, palm aimed at Wang Chengxuan’s face, racing for his brow.
Wang Chengxuan’s knees gave way; he crouched, covering his head, not even time to scream—
Two more clanging notes rang out. Not a melody, but carrying the force of thunder, dissolving the claws into nothing.
Ji Ling swept down from the branches, spinning with his guqin to land before Wang Chengxuan, shielding him behind his back. He sighed: “Ladies, why must you take a life the moment you appear? Can we sit down and discuss this properly?”
A woman’s voice snarled from the black mist: “Who wants to discuss anything with that conscience-less beast?”
As she spoke, the mist scattered, then dove at the three at the entrance all at once—a black mass blotting out the sky, about to swallow them whole.
Seeing this, Ji Ling held the guqin horizontally before his chest. Crimson-gold flames ignited along the instrument. He pressed his index fingers together, thumbs linked in a hand seal, and the flames, as if conscious, formed a ring around the three.
True Solar Fire was the purest, most yang flame under heaven. The black smoke vanished the instant it touched the flames, and the women’s shrill screams rang out.
Ji Ling stood before Wang Chengxuan, shielding him, frowning slightly: “Forgive my impertinence, but you ladies are all deities of some standing. What deep grievance could require a mere mortal’s death?”
Fu Yang was stunned: “Deities?”
This pitch-black blob that you couldn’t even tell what it was—that was a deity?
Ji Ling nodded: “If I’m not mistaken, these are the true form of the Lady Goddess.”
Compared to the distant, legendary Zither Sage Ji Ling, the Lady Goddess was the deity familiar to Jingnan’s people. Wang Chengxuan was completely stunned, his teeth chattering as he repeated in disbelief: “The Lady Goddess?”
He’d been virtuous since childhood, never even killed a chicken, and offered incense to the Goddess every festival—how had he offended her?
The black smoke heard Ji Ling’s question but showed no sign of stopping. It scattered, gathered, and morphed into needle-sharp shapes, as if trying to force through the flames.
Ji Ling warned in a low voice: “Think carefully, ladies. This is True Solar Fire.”
True Solar Fire burned all things—even deities would be burned. In all the world, aside from the three lords of sun, moon, and abyss, anyone who tried to pass through these flames would pay a heavy price.
The black smoke abruptly halted.
They were long-established deities and knew the power of True Solar Fire. The smoke paced for a moment, then gradually dispersed. One by one, figures slowly materialized—on the bamboo tops, at the entrance, and on the eaves of the service center.
Each was richly dressed and beautiful. The youngest was barely ten; the oldest no more than twenty. In the center stood a somewhat plump woman who bore a seventy-percent resemblance to the deity statue in the temple. Her brows were dark as she stared fixedly at the three.
She spoke coldly: “I see you are highly cultivated, sir. Why would you protect a brutal, inhuman tyrant?”
Wang Chengxuan hid behind Ji Ling, mouth forming an O, pointing at himself: “Brutal, inhuman… me?”
The Goddess gave a cold snort.
Wang Chengxuan’s knees gave way, and he thudded to the ground. Tonight’s events had exceeded his heart’s capacity. He wailed: “Milady, what are you talking about? I’m a good person! I’ve followed the law since childhood, respected my elders, cherished the young. The worst thing I’ve ever done is hire pretty young men from a no-name entertainment company to drink with me! Other than that, I’ve done nothing! Isn’t hiring drinking companions allowed?!”
“Shut up!” A green-robed woman to the Goddess’s right snapped. “You may not have done wrong in this life, but what about your past life? Are past sins simply forgiven?”
Wang Chengxuan started wailing again, but Ji Ling pressed him down and looked at the Goddess: “Could you ladies tell me what Wang Chengxuan did in his past life to earn such hatred?”
The Goddess was silent. After a tense moment, she said coldly: “You saw the sacrificial burial pits in this tomb.”
Ji Ling said: “I saw them. Horrific beyond words, utterly inhuman.”
The Goddess sneered: “What if I told you that those rotting skeletons with missing teeth and gaping jaws are the bones of me and my sisters?”
She stared at Wang Chengxuan, each word deliberate: “And what if his past life was the culprit behind all of this?”
Fu Yang sucked in a sharp breath. Silently, he edged away from Wang Chengxuan, looking at him with complicated disbelief.
Wang Chengxuan was at a loss.
The Goddess ignored him and looked evenly at Ji Ling: “Back then, I had just entered the palace three years prior.”
She drew a lavishly dressed girl close: “This child had been in the palace two months. She had just turned twelve.”
Human sacrifice in burials originated in the Shang and Zhou dynasties—one of the most inhumane institutions in ancient Chinese history.
These girls, in the bloom of their youth, were innocent and carefree. Although life in the palace wasn’t kind to them—they were often scolded by matrons until their fingers were red with welts, or exploited by eunuchs, washing clothes in icy water in the dead of winter—they still carried a small wish in their hearts: to reach the proper age, leave the palace, marry, and live a life of farming and weaving, free from serving others and reading their moods.
But that tiny, humble wish came to an abrupt end one day.
That day, they were working as usual when sudden wailing erupted from the bedchamber. The girls didn’t know what had happened, but surely it had nothing to do with them at the bottom of the palace. So they lived on as usual—until one day, several burly eunuchs, eight chi tall, burst into their quarters and, without a word, grabbed their hair and clothes, twisted their arms, and forcibly marched them to the bedchamber.
And the bedchamber was already laid out with white silk nooses and poisoned wine.
Surrounded on all sides by guards, there was no escape.
Those who accepted their fate drank the poisoned wine. The potent toxin burned down their throats and seared their stomachs, making them wish for death. Those who resisted were pinned down, forced to kneel, white silk wound inch by inch around their necks. The eunuchs tightened slowly. Eyes bulging, deprived of air, they drained the last breath from their lungs and died.
Even in death, they were forced to kneel toward the emperor’s coffin.
At this point, the Goddess’s face twisted. Her fair skin turned cyanotic purple—the classic mark of death by strangulation. Her features ghastly, she stared at Wang Chengxuan with grim menace: “He wanted us to die with him and serve him in the underworld. So I will find his reincarnation and make him taste what it’s like to die in utter terror!”
Wang Chengxuan trembled violently.
Fu Yang looked at him with a strange expression, as if saying: I deeply regret digging you out of the dirt. He retreated and moved beside Ji Ling, asking with his eyes: Should we save him?
Everyone present looked at Ji Ling, waiting for his judgment.
Ji Ling sighed inwardly: Human life truly is like straw.
The Goddess’s story wasn’t an isolated case. In his years walking the mortal world, Ji Ling had heard many similar tales. The most famous was Crown Prince Dan of Yan plotting Jing Ke’s assassination of the Qin Emperor. To win Jing Ke’s loyalty, when Jing Ke casually remarked that a young zither girl had beautiful, slender fingers, Crown Prince Dan cut off the girl’s arm and presented it to him.
Historians often sigh over this tale, praising the passionate heroes of Yan and Zhao, calling Jing Ke and the Crown Prince kindred spirits, leaving behind the immortal story of “The wind sighs, the Yi River runs cold.” But that innocent zither girl whose arm was severed—did it hurt when they cut it off? Where did she go after losing her arm? Did she bleed to death? Did the wound fester? Or did she survive by luck, barely clinging to life in the deep palace? Who cared?
These buried-alive girls—if they hadn’t become deities through a twist of fate, who would care about the pain and despair they suffered before death?
The Goddess said quietly: “Must you protect him? You have never experienced the agony of death throes, so you cannot understand our resentment, can you?”
Ji Ling sighed again, thinking: How could I not have experienced it?
He looked up at the Goddess: “Milady, I’m terribly sorry to hear this story—I can hardly bear to listen. But I must say: you may have the wrong man.”
He pulled Wang Chengxuan to his side: “I just read the inscription. Emperor Longyun, Liu Renjing, was lustful by nature, with three thousand beauties in his harem, wine pools and meat groves, revelry every night. But this Wang Chengxuan…”
Ji Ling paused briefly, his tone delicate: “He’s gay.”
—Thanks to Bai Ze’s education, Ji Ling’s meager modern vocabulary had gained the noun “gay.”
When a soul reincarnates, its fundamental nature generally persists. A past life given to womanizing might become bisexual in the next life, but the odds of turning purely gay were slim.
The Goddess’s brow twitched. Wang Chengxuan, meanwhile, felt an unexpected ecstasy.
He never imagined such a twist of fate. He usually hid his orientation carefully, never daring to reveal it. But now he nodded frantically, eagerly, bobbing his head like a chick pecking rice: “Yes, yes, yes! I’m gay!”
It was practically a clarion slogan. He might as well have been carrying a banner at a school sports meet, shouting with style and confidence.
He grabbed Fu Yang’s arm and presented him to the goddesses like a suspect showing police the key evidence proving his innocence: “When I hire people to drink with me, I hire him—him—a man! Ladies, think about it: if I weren’t gay, why wouldn’t I hire pretty girls instead?”
Fu Yang shook him off.
Ji Ling ignored them and added: “And another thing: this isn’t Wang Chengxuan’s first visit to the Goddess Temple. He’s been here before. If he were Liu Renjing, you would have noticed long ago, not only today. Right?”
Earlier at the temple, Wang Chengxuan had explained the procedure for offering the first incense on New Year’s Day. He couldn’t be that familiar unless he’d worshipped here before.
The Goddess frowned slightly. They hated Liu Renjing to the bone. If he had entered their domain, they would have known immediately and never let him go.
After a moment’s deliberation, the Goddess said: “It is indeed suspicious.” She looked at Wang Chengxuan. “But this man’s soul is unmistakably Liu Renjing’s soul.”
Ji Ling said: “May I examine Liu Renjing’s remains? I know of a soul-shifting, fate-replacing art that can swap a soul and fate for someone else’s, muddying the waters so thoroughly that even deities find it hard to distinguish.”
The Goddess said: “Granted.”
Ji Ling walked toward the coffin. The Goddess stood before him and spoke first: “The remains are no longer in the coffin. I’ll take you.”
With that, she floated down and walked into the burial pit. Ji Ling followed. Soon they found a ghastly skeleton. Its jaw hung wide; aside from a still-intact skull, all other bones had been crushed to powder.
The Goddess said: “There were Daoist-painted runes on his bones, so that he could enslave us and enjoy our service for life after life. But those talismans didn’t work. My sisters and I dragged his remains out of the coffin and ground them to powder.”
The tomb’s walls were covered in murals—the customary ascension-procession scene. The upper section depicted the Fusang Golden Crow, the toad, and the jade rabbit. The center showed the tomb owner with his vast procession: lantern-bearing maids stood on both sides, bowing their heads in servile obedience, symbolizing the tomb owner ascending to heaven while the maids served him as master for eternity.
Liu Renjing had truly believed that, with his imperial status, the maids he’d ordered poisoned and strangled would dutifully serve him even in the underworld.
Ji Ling knelt on one knee, his fingertip hovering above the skull’s brow, then moved to the coffin and pressed his fingers against it.
A moment later, he turned and sighed: “Milady, this man has been destroyed in both body and soul. And if I’m not mistaken, you destroyed him with your own hands.”
