After this string of moves, Huo Wei was completely dumbfounded.
She couldn’t seem to say anything at all, so she slowly raised her hand and gave Fu Sang a thumbs-up.
Qi Changying, sitting nearby, didn’t quite understand, so he asked, “What does ‘my favorite character’ mean?”
**For context, the original word was “Wotui”, which is fandom slang for “fav character” or “idol”.
Fu Sang closed his laptop: “Don’t worry about it.”
He obeyed and fell silent for a moment, but still couldn’t help saying, “…It’s not good to swear lightly on such things, Fu Sang. A thousand years is a very long time. That person didn’t do anything wrong; they shouldn’t suffer such torment for something unrelated to them.”
“…” Fu Sang looked up at him, his gaze indifferent and unruffled.
He stared at Qi Changying for a moment, then looked away, packed his computer into his bag, and stood up. As he did, he let out a scoff and left him with a cold assessment: “The number one holy father of Great Li.”
“Fu Sang! Don’t talk about him like that!”
Huo Wei had already gotten into the habit of activating her Spirit Communication spell as soon as she saw Qi Changying, so she’d naturally heard the whole conversation.
She shoved Fu Sang as he passed by, “Kindness is a precious and wonderful quality, okay? If you don’t have it yourself, don’t mock others for it!”
“No matter how wonderful and precious it is, it’s useless. It won’t outlive me anyway.”
With that, Fu Sang opened the door and left, leaving Huo Wei and Qi Changying, one human and one ghost, staring at each other.
Qi Changying watched Fu Sang’s figure disappear from view, falling into a daze for a moment before asking Huo Wei:
“Did I upset Fu Sang just now?”
“No… don’t mind him. That’s just his personality, sunny one moment, stormy the next. It’s not aimed at you.”
Huo Wei actually thought Fu Sang’s anger was a bit uncalled for.
She offered some comfort, then looked at Qi Changying, hesitated, and couldn’t help asking, “Young general, you…”
“Mm?”
“Are you really a seventh-rank evil ghost?”
Huo Wei really didn’t think so.
When a living soul turns into a ghost, it only retains its purest emotions, love and hate.
Every spirit she’d seen, as long as their rank was even slightly higher, was always full of extreme resentment and hatred, wanting to tear the whole world apart.
Huo Wei used to go on missions with her seniors and thought she’d seen plenty of strange ghosts and bizarre things, but Qi Changying was a first.
That wasn’t an insult, it was mainly that this ghost… really didn’t seem much like a ghost.
Huo Wei even felt he was more human than Fu Sang.
She couldn’t help but think back to what Fu Sang had said before:
If Qi Changying had been this gentle and soft-hearted, without a temper, in life and after death, then how did he become the evil ghost that was said to have nearly destroyed the entire nether path, sealed away for a thousand years with ominous talismans and formations?
…
Fu Sang’s task for Huo Wei was to dig into the students at Jingda University. Naturally, that meant dropping Huo Wei into the campus so she could be most effective.
Fu Sang often felt that whoever created Huo Wei must have maxed out her social stats at the factory, to the point that she could chat for ages with a cat on the street while out buying something. Of course, if she didn’t have that ability, she wouldn’t have been able to befriend Fu Sang, who was aloof and kept everyone at arm’s length.
So he loved giving her the parts that involved getting close to people and gathering information. But this time, Huo Wei worked hard all day, chatting from the teaching buildings to the sports field, and ended up shaking her head as she came back to Fu Sang.
“I can’t find anything. Even people who’ve heard about it are few and far between. It was four years ago after all. Four years…a whole cycle of undergraduates has already passed. The people who knew the details have already graduated and scattered far and wide. Even if we could find them, they’d have mostly forgotten by now. If we want to ask, we’d probably have to find people who knew that girl back then, that’s the most promising approach. But it’s too hard. Normally, only third-year philosophy graduate students might know, but they’re about to graduate…it’s hard to catch them on campus…”
Huo Wei took a sip of water to moisten her throat and sat down with Fu Sang.
Fu Sang listened and nodded: “The girl fell into the lake in her junior year. Four years later, anyone in her year who did a master’s would have graduated by now.”
“Exactly.” Huo Wei sighed, but then heard Fu Sang add:
“Wei Luyuan is in her third year of graduate school.”
“So what?”
“That further proves the possibility that the two people and two events are connected.”
“I know… but aren’t you suspicious of her? Why bring her up all of a sudden? Are you thinking of asking her?”
“No.”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly, “Students change every year; teachers don’t. Change direction, ask the professors or counselors, especially the counselor who oversaw Wei Luyuan’s undergraduate studies.”
“You think they’d be willing to talk to me about that? You’re overestimating me.” Huo Wei hesitated.
Fu Sang nodded: “That’s up to your skills.”
“You…”
“Fu Sang!”
Huo Wei’s unfinished sentence was cut off by a voice from another direction. She instinctively looked over and saw Fu Sang’s roommate, the one covered in yin energy.
He was quite decent-looking, but his expression didn’t look too good.
“Was it fun messing with me?!”
Fang Zehao stormed over angrily and first threw something at Fu Sang.
Fu Sang didn’t dodge, letting it bounce off his collar and fall to the ground.
Huo Wei glanced at Fang Zehao, then quietly bent down, picked up the crumpled yellow paper, and unfolded it.
She shot another surprised look at Fu Sang.
“I’m busy. I don’t have time to mess with you. Stop with the self-important delusions.”
Even though the person had come right up to his face, Fu Sang remained calm and unruffled, which only added fuel to Fang Zehao’s anger.
“Then tell me, what was the point of giving me this? Why did you say all that stuff on purpose? Yuanyuan is a perfectly normal person, but you insisted she’s a ghost and even urged me to test her? Do you know how hurtful that is?! Do you know how upset she is?!”
“I don’t know.”
Fu Sang sighed, “Please face the facts. I only suggested you bring it along. I didn’t hold your head down and make you press the talisman against her and get caught.”
“Besides, if you truly trusted her, shouldn’t this talisman have ended up in the recyclables bin in Teaching Building A by now? What…you listened to my words, got suspicious, tested her, messed up, got caught, and made her angry. But you don’t want to blame yourself, so you circled around and pinned it on me? I have no respect for that, and I don’t understand it. If you want to throw a tantrum, go find your mom and dad, not me. They’ll coax you and say ‘poor baby,’ but I won’t. I’ll just think there’s something wrong with you.”
After Fu Sang finished, not only Fang Zehao, but even Huo Wei was stunned. She kept nudging him with her elbow, but it was to no avail.
She nervously watched Fang Zehao’s face cycle through shades of green and white, genuinely afraid he’d throw a punch at Fu Sang right there and then.
If that happened, should she intervene or not? If she did, well, Fu Sang’s mouth was indeed infuriating. If she didn’t, that would be disloyal to a friend.
What a dilemma.
“Today I said she wasn’t human and you believed it. If someone says she’s a demon tomorrow, will you believe that too? If not that, what if they say she’s cheating on you? Don’t you see the problem? Before any of this starts, a firm choice on your part could have prevented all these problems. So if you made a mistake, admit it. If she’s upset, go comfort her. What are you coming to me for? Are you expecting me to apologize for you? Fang Zehao, do I need to teach you how to date too?”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow at Fang Zehao.
As expected, Fang Zehao was completely speechless.
After Fang Zehao stood there dumbfounded for a long time, shot Fu Sang a fierce glare, and turned to walk away, Huo Wei’s mouth was hanging open.
The conflict she’d been both worried and slightly hoping for never materialized…all that anxiety was for nothing.
She asked sincerely, “How do you manage to always find a way to take the moral high ground and shut people up, no matter how tough the situation?”
Fu Sang shrugged, “The moral high ground just found its true owner.”
“?” Huo Wei rolled her eyes and handed the crumpled talisman paper back to him, “From what he said, it sounds like he already used the talisman on Wei Luyuan? But this Reflection Talisman didn’t turn black either. So Wei Luyuan should be fine, right?”
“She has a shadow, and even Qi Changying can’t tell if she’s human or a ghost. So why would it be strange that the Reflection Talisman was ineffective on her?” Fu Sang’s tone was flat.
“…” Huo Wei hesitated for a long time, but still couldn’t help saying, “I actually think you’re being a little unreasonable right now. She has a shadow, the Reflection Talisman didn’t work, and she doesn’t smell like a ghost… isn’t it possible she’s just human? She’s a nice girl, gentle and kind. I feel like targeting her like this really isn’t right.”
“If we had even a shred of evidence, I wouldn’t say anything. But so far, everything’s been based on your instinct. And guess what…your ghost-hunting experience combined with mine equals zero. I’m not sure how reliable that instinct really is. What if your instinct is wrong? What if she really is human?”
“There’s no ‘what if.'”
Fu Sang frowned slightly, “Evidence and truth won’t kick down your door and hand themselves to you. If you don’t have it, go find it. Women, men, birds, mules, dogs, cats…all living things in this world are no different to me. I only care whether she’s human or a ghost.”
He pulled the talisman paper back from Huo Wei’s hand, “Don’t worry. If there really is a ‘what if’, I’ll atone with my death.”
