Xin Hexue looked at the solitary grave before him. “So this is the one from last night…”
He recalled Li Erhu’s final shout before being swallowed by the ghost.
Li Erhu had called that woman…
“Xiao Feng?”
Ren Ke was surprised and asked, “Xin gongzi, how do you know?”
Since Ren Ke had already found this place, Xin Hexue exchanged a glance with Du Zhi. After Du Zhi silently nodded, Xin Hexue told Ren Ke about what happened last night.
Including how Li Erhu encountered a woman while walking at night, and how he was swallowed into her bloody mouth.
“Du Zhi and I…”
Xin Hexue suddenly remembered that he had initially lied to Ren Ke by claiming to be Du Zhi’s junior brother who had taken vows but still kept his hair, and then smoothly changed his words with a natural smile. “Senior Brother Du Zhi and I spent a night in the bamboo-fenced cottage where that woman lived.”
Xin Hexue looked around. The bamboo-fenced cottage from the previous night was nowhere to be seen. All that remained was a grassy, weed-covered mound and a single handful of yellow earth forming a solitary grave beside it.
When Du Zhi heard Xin Hexue call him “senior brother”, his gaze paused slightly, then he calmly explained, “The house from last night was an illusion constructed by the drought demon. When the sun rose, the illusion dispersed. The ground beneath our feet is the grave of that drought demon.”
Ren Ke had never encountered such bizarre supernatural things before, and he was speechless. “But… this is Xiao Feng’s grave. How could she be a drought demon?”
Sensing that he seemed to know more, Xin Hexue asked directly, “You knew her?”
Ren Ke hesitated for a while before finally nodding.
“Xiao Feng was an orphan. Since my family and hers lived nearby, and my parents pitied her for losing both parents, they took her in as an adopted daughter.”
“Two years ago, my parents were returning to the village at night from a trip delivering cloth. On the way, they heard Xiao Feng’s cries for help from behind the bamboo forest. They rushed over, but by the time they pulled her from the river behind the bamboo forest, it was too late.”
“My parents found a man’s belt by the riverbank. It looked like the kind Li Erhu usually wore and they believed Xiao Feng didn’t fall into the water by accident. We reported the case to the county office through the village head and submitted the belt as evidence, but both the evidence and the case were never resolved…”
Ren Ke lowered his head, his expression bleak. It was clear the incident had deeply affected him.
“Helpless and with nowhere to seek justice, my parents and I had no choice but to bury Xiao Feng here.”
The hands hanging at his sides suddenly clenched into fists. His voice was filled with hatred toward the shameless person. “Now it seems Li Erhu really was lawless and caused Xiao Feng to drown! No wonder he kept targeting my family, he was afraid we’d spread the story again!”
Du Zhi quietly listened to everything. There were no ripples on his face or heart, and he just asked, “Do you have a shovel at home?”
Ren Ke didn’t expect that after hearing all this, Du Zhi would still want to dig up the grave. He quickly defended Xiao Feng. “Master, if Xiao Feng swallowed Li Erhu last night, then their grievances are already settled. Xiao Feng wouldn’t harm others. Can you let her rest in peace?”
Xin Hexue didn’t say anything and observed Du Zhi’s reaction. He found that this monk seemed to be completely devoid of the seven emotions and six desires, lacking both empathy and the ability to sense other peoples’ feelings.
Xin Hexue turned to look at Ren Ke. He first expressed sorrow for Xiao Feng’s story, then gently persuaded him, “Ren xiong, I’m afraid that the one in the grave is no longer Xiao Feng, just a drought demon who had borrowed a corpse to return to life.”
Du Zhi affirmed Xin Hexue’s words by nodding toward him.
Only then did he seem to remember to explain, “Drought demons are formed from the essence of mountains and rivers and the types differ slightly. This particular kind of drought demon can also act through a borrowed corpse. As long as we dig up the grave and check whether there’s a white-haired zombie inside, we’ll know.”
Xin Hexue slowly said to Ren Ke, “Last night, the zombie just happened to encounter Li Erhu, and you assumed it was Xiao Feng taking revenge. But if we let it continue, who knows who the next victim will be.”
Ren Ke looked at the two of them. Thinking of Du Zhi’s powerful performance the previous day, which didn’t resemble the tricks of a charlatan who was traveling around to cheat people, he gritted his teeth and quickly went home to fetch a farm shovel.
When the grave was dug open, there was indeed a white long-haired zombie with its closed eyes. Its body was shriveled like a skeleton, and its face was pale blue and ashen.
When it was exposed to sunlight, its bluish skin started to emit wisps of white smoke.
Xin Hexue didn’t see clearly what kind of treasure Du Zhi pulled from his kasaya. A gust of wind blew through, the bamboo forest rustled, and a small flame was thrown into the grave. Perhaps due to the hot wind, the flame suddenly surged high and burned fiercely.
Only a patch of bluish-gray ash and a sulfur-like smell remained.
………
Xin Hexue and Du Zhi bid farewell to Ren Ke.
The drought demon along the great river had been eliminated, and Shuzhou finally welcomed a long-overdue rain. They stayed at Ren Ke’s house to wait out the rain for two or three days, then Du Zhi once again carried Xin Hexue and set off on the road.
But this time, they no longer headed east.
Instead, they turned north.
“Stinky monk,” Xin Hexue turned his head and asked, “are you really going to suppress me in the An Ning Tower?”
This time, Du Zhi didn’t nod. He lowered his gaze and stared at the dirt road beneath his feet.
It had just rained. The places they walked left behind footprints, but it was only those of Du Zhi. After all, Xin Hexue was on his back.
Where one set of footprints passed, another would soon cover it. Then when the sunny days came, wind and sand would sweep over and conceal them, or the next rainfall would wash them clean.
And there would be no trace left.
Moreover…
Xin Hexue looked up, just as a withered yellow leaf drifted down and landed on top of Du Zhi’s head, covering the incense scar on his scalp.
He plucked the dry leaf and tossed it to the ground.
Looking back, the sandy road was already littered with fallen yellow leaves, and the path they had come from was no longer visible.
The cool wind rose, sweeping the leaves into swirling piles.
Autumn had arrived.
Xin Hexue saw the boundary marker by the post road, its surface mottled with water stains from sun and rain.
They had entered the territory of Xuzhou.
Past Xuzhou, they would reach the capital.
“Du Zhi,” Xin Hexue said, “are you really willing to take me to the An Ning Tower?”
Du Zhi’s footsteps came to a halt.
Xin Hexue turned his gaze slightly and noticed Du Zhi’s jaw was clenched and the lines were stiff, as if he was bearing some unspeakable burden.
Xin Hexue wasn’t in a hurry.
After all, aside from that time when he had just been captured and Du Zhi had said that demons and spirits that couldn’t be destroyed on the spot had to be taken to the capital’s An Ning Tower, Du Zhi hadn’t brought it up again along the way.
From Shuzhou to Xuzhou, they encountered many demons and spirits and since Du Zhi had the responsibility of subduing evil, the journey that was supposed to take at most two months took nearly four months as the two of them often stopped many times.
Xin Hexue lost his memory many times in between. Every seven days, he had to re-enter the water.
Each time he came ashore again, he would be captured by Du Zhi.
Every time, Xin Hexue had to go through the process of searching for the red thread, discovering that it was on the stinky monk, and being caught.
Fortunately, Du Zhi never hid anything about their past and always told him everything.
He would repeat the journey’s events from the beginning every time.
However, whenever Xin Hexue asked for information about the poor scholar, although Du Zhi could not lie, he would always choose to remain silent.
Xin Hexue felt frustrated several times.
He had raised Du Zhi’s love value to seventy-five points.
This time too, Xin Hexue did not wait for Du Zhi to answer the question about An Ning Tower. He had already decided, once they reached the borders of the capital, if Du Zhi didn’t release him on his own, he would find a way to escape.
He had already made all the calculations. According to what Du Zhi said about their earlier journey, they had come all the way from Jiangzhou. Add the information from the script, and the great drought…
Since all the drought-affected provinces this year were in the Great River basin, as long as he could find a xianggong coming from areas near the Great River basin…
At most, there would only be eighteen.
There are eighteen poor scholars, but he was a lucky koi fish. How could he fail to repay the favor in time?
Xin Hexue was confident in himself.
His gaze inadvertently swept across the surrounding mountains and forests, and he caught sight of something unusual on the hillside.
Narrowing his sharp eyes, Xin Hexue grabbed Du Zhi’s jaw and turned it toward that direction. “Look… is someone hanging from that tree over there?”
Du Zhi followed his gaze. It was a tall osmanthus tree, and it was unknown how old it was. The branching limbs were thicker than an adult’s man’s arm.
Sure enough, there was a man hanging there, dressed in the common scholar’s long robe. A three-foot-long white silk hung around his neck, and his feet dangled in the air.
When the autumn wind blew past, the body swayed twice.
His face was already pale and bluish, and he looked like he had been dead for a long time.
Xin Hexue only took two glances. He was somewhat taboo about death and thus stayed at a distance. It was mainly Du Zhi who stepped forward to examine the situation.
A woodcutter passed by carrying firewood on his back. When he saw the hanging corpse, he was so frightened he shouted;
“A dead body! Another dead body!”
………
The rest of the matter was handed over to the local yamen.
Xin Hexue and Du Zhi merely waited until the authorities arrived. The county bailiff who came to examine the body seemed accustomed to such things and simply went through the motions, asking a few questions to nearby witnesses.
Du Zhi exchanged a few words with the county bailiff.
Xin Hexue asked the passing woodcutter, “Why did you say ‘another dead body’?”
The woodcutter looked honest and simple. He explained to Xin Hexue, “The last time I passed by here, there was also a scholar who hanged himself.”
The woodcutter: “Come to think of it, in the past two years, quite a number of people have hanged themselves…”
The woodcutter: “But what I don’t understand is, they’re all scholars, and they all come to hang themselves on this osmanthus tree. I say, one really shouldn’t study too much. Study long enough and you’ll go silly!”
“Look at me, contentment brings happiness. At least I’m still alive in this world…”
He shook his head and slowly left with the firewood on his back.
Xin Hexue fell into thought. When he turned back, he saw Du Zhi already returning to his side, saying, “Let’s go.”
Xin Hexue glanced at the county bailiff still examining the body under the osmanthus tree.
The bailiff sighed and had already instructed the minor officers to cover the corpse with a white cloth and prepare to carry it away.
Xin Hexue asked Du Zhi, “What did you say to the bailiff just now?”
Du Zhi: “He said this is already the third case of suicide by hanging at this spot this year.”
Xin Hexue’s cultivation was insufficient, and his ability to detect the supernatural was not as specialized as Du Zhi’s. “Does that osmanthus tree have demonic energy?”
As they walked, Du Zhi said, “I didn’t sense anything.”
On the way, Xin Hexue was still puzzled. “Why are they all scholars who hang themselves?”
Du Zhi’s gaze darkened. He shook his head and honestly said, “I don’t know either.”
“But it’s very likely demon interference…”
“Those who hang themselves are mostly scholars, and scholars have always the favorite food for demons and ghosts.”
Du Zhi stated calmly.
Xin Hexue asked, “Why?”
He was genuinely curious about how Taichu Temple came up with this theory.
As they walked, they had already entered the city.
A bustling crowd surged toward the notice board to check the posted results, and suddenly someone shouted excitedly, “I passed! I passed!”
Du Zhi said to Xin Hexue, “Because scholars are often young adult men, full of knowledge and sharp minds. If they’ve not yet lost their yuan yang, then their flesh and blood are pure and refined. Demons who eat it will gain great cultivation benefits.”
Xin Hexue blinked. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
It’s not like he eats scholars!
