Unlike the accidental touch just now, this was a deliberate kiss, with no misunderstanding involved.
Fu Sang was doing this for the first time and was somewhat unskilled.
But his mind wasn’t really focused on the act itself…
More than the kiss, he was focused on the long lost, gradually reviving excitement within himself.
He didn’t know what magic Qi Changying possessed, but touching him made every pore on Fu Sang’s body tremble, just like the first time he’d jumped off that abandoned high-rise and fallen into the wind.
This was how it should be.
Fu Sang thought to himself.
Qi Changying was born to belong to him.
He closed his eyes completely, instinct driving him to seek more of it.
The ghost’s lips were cool and soft. Fu Sang let go of his collar and cupped his face instead.
Qi Changying came back to his senses and tightly grabbed his wrist, his whole body resisting as he tried to pull away, but Fu Sang gave him no chance.
He had confirmed it…this was indeed much more stimulating than pain, and far more satisfying.
He rubbed against Qi Changying’s lips, but just as he was about to follow instinct and go further, Qi Changying pushed him away forcefully.
The ghost was visibly flustered. He stumbled back two steps, the chain at his ankle dragging across the floor with a harsh scraping sound.
His long hair was disheveled, and there was a rare flash of anger on his face.
‘How novel.’
Fu Sang took a deep breath, leaned back lazily in his chair, and licked the corner of his mouth with the tip of his tongue. It was a completely unconscious move, but it made him look extremely arrogant.
“You…” Qi Changying couldn’t manage to form a complete sentence for a long time, perhaps stunned speechless, or perhaps genuinely at a loss for words.
“What? You’ve never kissed anyone before? Why are you putting on such an innocent act?” Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly, striking first.
Even though it was his first time too, he acted like a seasoned veteran of the dating scene, taking advantage of the ghost and then teasing him provocatively.
“…” Qi Changying didn’t answer.
It seemed he really hadn’t kissed anyone before.
And so Fu Sang’s mood improved a little more.
“…You can’t do that, Fu Sang.” Once he finally composed himself, Qi Changying said with a frown, his tone unusually heavy.
“What?”
“It’s not right.”
“What’s not right?” Having found a new source of pleasure, Fu Sang was in such a good mood that he became much more patient with Qi Changying’s lectures. He even actively threw out a leading question:
“Because I’m not a woman? Do you find it disgusting?”
“The problem isn’t gender.” Qi Changying frowned:
“I shouldn’t have approached you so quietly just now. I also didn’t expect you to suddenly turn your head. Touching you was an accident; it was my fault. I’ll apologize for offending you. But you shouldn’t have… we’re not in that kind of relationship. You didn’t ask for my consent either. You suddenly…”
He probably didn’t know how to continue, so he fell silent.
After a pause, he summarized his words, “I’m very angry.”
“?” Fu Sang really wanted to ask him not to make him laugh.
“You cling to me and sniff me every day. Did you ask for my consent?”
“I did.” Qi Changying prided himself on understanding propriety and restraint. In such matters, he wouldn’t be in the wrong, so he had never felt guilty.
But Fu Sang’s next question was:
“And did I agree?”
“…”
Qi Changying fell silent again.
Because indeed, he hadn’t.
Fu Sang was not good at talking, so he could only judge Fu Sang’s willingness from his mood and body language. On this matter, Fu Sang had always acquiesced or not refused. He had indeed never said “agree” or “okay.” This was not a big deal at the time, since Qi Changying never imagined this would become a trap, a boomerang that had come back to hit his self-proclaimed indestructible moral high ground.
“Nothing to say now?” Fu Sang scoffed, seizing the opportunity to decisively retake the initiative:
“You’re my ghost. If I remember correctly, you just said that half an hour ago, right?”
“…”
“Since you’re my possession, why do I need your consent to do anything to you?”
“…”
“Even if you weren’t my ghost, even if you were an independent individual…so what?”
“…”
“I can do whatever I want. I can kiss whoever I want. Whether you agree or not isn’t within my consideration. I simply don’t care. If you’re not satisfied, you can choose to kill me.”
Fu Sang picked up the folding knife and threw it at Qi Changying’s feet:
“Kill me.”
“…”
Qi Changying’s hands, hanging at his sides, slowly curled into fists.
He was probably truly angered. He turned his head and looked away, but he didn’t say anything harsh either. After taking a moment to compose himself, he said stiffly:
“…You know I won’t.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Fu Sang stood up from the chair and walked closer to him.
With each step forward he took, Qi Changying stepped back.
“Haven’t you understood it yet? Either kill me, or obediently endure it. You have no other option.”
Qi Changying subconsciously looked at Fu Sang, met his aggressive gaze, and quickly looked away.
Then, he used practical action to prove to Fu Sang that he was wrong.
He did have a third option.
Because in the next moment, his entire ghost form dissolved into wisps of smoke and hid inside the Snake Bone Nail.
Before, he couldn’t be driven in no matter what, insisting on staying outside and clinging to Fu Sang. Now, he was quite self-aware.
Fu Sang looked down at the long nail hanging from his waist and swaying slightly. After a moment, he let out a light scoff:
“Deserter.”
Fu Sang bent down and picked up the folding knife from the floor.
He sat back in the chair, took a piece of paper to wipe the blade clean, and absently twirled the knife between his fingers.
After a moment, as if thinking of something, he flicked the blade open, rolled up his sleeve, pressed the blade against the clean skin on the inside of his forearm, and forcefully dragged it downward.
Blood soon welled up along the cut, and pain instantly spread from the wound throughout his body.
However, Fu Sang showed little interest in this.
It wasn’t even half as effective as it had been before.
Fu Sang frowned, grabbed a few more tissues to hastily wipe the blood off his arm, pulled his sleeve back down, tossed the knife aside, and picked up his phone.
There was a push notification from his email on the screen.
Fu Sang tapped it and saw the email subject was a brief “Detailed Explanation of Demon Spirits,” with a PDF attachment. The sender was Chen Wuyue from Spirit Path Bu Wangzhou, whom he had added on the forum a few days earlier.
After turning on the computer and downloading the file, Fu Sang opened the anonymous forum private message page in the internal app of the Spirit Supervision Bureau.
AAA Pillar Sister Yue: [Sent, please check. Sorry, I’ve been busy lately, so I sent it a few days late. I hope you understand.]
.: [Received. No problem.]
AAA Pillar Sister Yue: [When you have time, confirm if the file content is what you wanted. Feel free to contact me with any questions. As for the exchange I mentioned, I may need your on-site assistance with a case, but not now. I’ll contact you when needed. So can we add a more convenient way to get in touch?]
Fu Sang sent his phone number, accepted Chen Wuyue’s WeChat friend request, tossed the phone aside, and opened the email Chen Wuyue had sent on his computer desktop.
It was clear that Chen Wuyue was a very meticulous person. The article she wrote had a very standard format, and even the illustrations had annotations.
This made Fu Sang’s impression of her even better.
After reading through the whole thing, it was evident that Chen Wuyue had put thought into it. The content explained demon spirits in great detail, and even a layman like Fu Sang could easily understand it.
Unlike underworld spirits, which formed from negative emotions like resentment, demon spirits formed through “Wu” (enlightenment).
This was a completely new concept for Fu Sang.
What they realized could be the meaning of existence, a thorough understanding of life, or a pure and profound emotion. In short, after “Wu”, life would enter a higher level, and this was their transformation into a demon.
After transforming, a demon spirit would possess at least one innate ability. There was currently no pattern found in the formation and inclination of these abilities. It was only known that the abilities were extremely diverse, generally linked to the elements of heaven and earth, such as wind, rain, thunder, fire… and so on.
However, there were also relatively special or abstract abilities, like emotion, fortune, space…
The “space” that Fu Sang had specifically requested a detailed explanation of happened to be one of the most well documented categories.
This could be traced back several thousand years, when demon spirits and humans still lived on the same plane. The innate abilities of demon spirits had caused considerable trouble for ordinary humans at that time.
At that time, the founding ancestor of spirit masters was still alive. After a prolonged tug-of-war with the demon spirits, both sides discovered that continuing to wear each other down was not a viable strategy; the outcome would only be mutual destruction. Humans and demons had to find a way to coexist.
After both sides reached a consensus, the founding ancestor and the Demon King of that time established a peace contract. The founding ancestor would assist the Demon King in creating a new world, and the Demon King would take all demon spirits to move there. From then on, no demon spirit was allowed to cross the border and harass humans on their own; otherwise, spirit masters had the right to sanction the transgressors, and the Demon King could not hold them accountable.
Among the many abilities the Demon King possessed at that time, the most powerful was “space.” With the founding ancestor’s assistance, the Demon King created a world identical to the human world, which was generally called the “Inner World” in the Spirit Path.
The ecology and architecture of the Inner World were exactly the same as the Outer World. The only difference was that there were no humans inside, only demon spirits. Spirit Path spirit masters played a role similar to “administrators,” responsible for traveling between the Inner and Outer Worlds to maintain order, fulfill commissions for demon spirits, or pursue demon spirits who had illegally entered the Outer World and caused trouble.
From this perspective, life on the Spirit Path was indeed very different from that in the Nether Path. It even made Fu Sang feel like he was reading a xuanhuan novel. Though, to be fair, things on their Nether Path weren’t exactly normal either.
After roughly reading through it once, Fu Sang replied to Chen Wuyue on WeChat.
.: [The file is fine. Feel free to contact me whenever you need. If you don’t need me anymore, let me know too. I’ll pay, to settle the karma.]
Chen San: [[OK] [fist bump] [OK]]
The transaction with Chen Wuyue thus came to an end for the time being. After that, there was no further word from Chen Wuyue’s side, as if Fu Sang had never added such a person.
But that was understandable. By the end of December, all industries were busy, wrapping up the old year and welcoming the new. Even Fu Sang had business for several days straight…regular customers asked him to look at their fortune for the new year, and others came seeking his services to adjust feng shui.
Amidst this busy schedule, he also managed to finalize his thesis topic and successfully complete his thesis proposal defense before the winter break.
[From General to Legend—A Study on the “Layered” Image Construction of Qi Changying’s Northern Campaigns]
Fu Sang sat in the dimly lit shop, staring blankly at the thesis title on the computer screen.
He stared at the screen for a while, then finally raised his hand to close the laptop. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples.
“What’s up with you?”
Huo Wei was sitting nearby, touching up her black lipstick with a small mirror:
“Hurry up and write. I’m waiting for you to finish so we can go drink. Ugh, so annoying. I have to go to this plastic friends gathering, and if I don’t go, I’ll have to listen to all that passive-aggressive nonsense. Today, I’m hiring you, so you better make me proud. The whole place is full of superficial friends. Don’t save face for anyone. If anyone tries to mess with me, just hit back hard!”
“I’m not writing anymore. Let’s go.”
“Oh? The research maniac Zhuge Fu Sang doesn’t want to write his thesis?”
“The law-abiding citizen Fu Sang also wants to kill people sometimes. Do you want to see it?”
Fu Sang replied coolly, then said:
“Find someone else to go with you on your shop visits next week. I’m going out.”
“Where are you going?” Huo Wei asked: “Did you get another new job? How much are they offering to get you to travel so far?”
“No, going for research.”
“Research? Where to?”
“The three northwestern provinces. Qi Changying’s northern campaign route.”
“Northwest…” Huo Wei thought for a moment: “When are you leaving?”
“Probably next week.”
“Then let’s go together! I’ve always wanted to go to Guizhou.”
“?” Fu Sang looked at her like she was an idiot: “That’s the southwest.”
“I know! Do you think I can’t tell north from south? What I mean is, don’t go alone on your hard-seat green train. We can go to Guizhou first, then drive all the way to the northwest, see everything we need to see. What do you think? If it works, we can leave right after the New Year’s holiday, avoid the crowds, and have a great time!”
“I’m going for research.” Fu Sang reiterated.
“Fine, I’ll have a great time, you’ll have a great time learning!”
Huo Wei always came up with ideas on a whim, and traveling was no exception…she was always ready to go.
Since someone was willing to save him from long hours on hard seats or even standing-room-only trains, Fu Sang had no objections.
And so a two-person road trip was hastily decided. Huo Wei was in an excited pre-travel state, chattering nonstop:
“Do you know why I want to go to Guizhou? They have those Miao villages there. I’ve seen so many beautiful girls doing the Miao Gu Witch makeup and styling there, and it looks amazing…like a femme fatale. I said I had to try it when I had the chance. But the people I wanted to go with didn’t have time, and the ones who had time had too many issues to make plans with, so I could never get a group together. Finally, I’ve got you.”
“Hey, I think we two are practically made for the Miao vibe. We are childhood sweethearts, have a deep bond, and are perfect partners. You can be the scorpion and venomous one, and I’ll be the beauty! I’m serious, I have faith in you. I believe that all the gu in the entire Miao village combined aren’t as poisonous as Zhuge Fusang alone!”
After her daily dose of trash talk, Huo Wei found herself laughing uncontrollably.
After laughing for a while, she suddenly heard Fu Sang ask softly: “What did you say?”
“Huh? What?” Huo Wei was a bit confused.
“Childhood sweethearts? Deep bond?”
“Yeah, what about it? Aren’t we? We’ve known each other for so many years.”
“…”
Fu Sang remained silent.
This struck Huo Wei as unusual, and a strange unease grew in her heart.
She adjusted the angle of her mirror until Fu Sang’s face appeared in it.
She noticed that Fu Sang wasn’t speaking because he was staring at her, his gaze somewhat deep, the specific emotion in it unclear, but he looked contemplative.
Okay, now she was terrified.
With a “smack,” Huo Wei snapped her mirror shut, turned around, and flashed what she hoped was her gentlest and most beautiful smile:
“Alright, I’m done touching up my makeup. Let’s head to the dinner party now! Your hourly rate starts now. Is three hundred an hour okay with you?”
Fu Sang didn’t move.
He didn’t say yes or no either.
He only tilted his chin toward Huo Wei: “Come here.”
“?” The bad feeling in Huo Wei’s heart grew larger.
‘Why?’
‘Why is Zhuge Fusang calling me over?’
‘Please, please, this is really, really too terrifying!’
“Come here.” Fu Sang repeated.
Huo Wei swallowed hard, stood up, and shuffled over.
As she shuffled, her mind raced with random thoughts: Fu Sang’s expression was actually fairly pleasant, right? He probably wasn’t calling her over to kill her, was he?
She had no idea what this person was up to, and could only silently pray that the road ahead would somehow be longer.
But no matter how long the road, it always has an end, especially since this dump Fu Sang called a shop was tiny to begin with.
Huo Wei finally stood across from Fu Sang, with a counter of moderate width between them.
Fu Sang sat in his chair, twirling the bone coin in his hand, and quietly looked up at her.
Huo Wei couldn’t stand this torture anymore:
“Can you just say what you have to say and get it over with? Stop torturing me with that ghostly, gloomy silence. My heart really can’t take this, I can’t take this kind of scare.”
Fu Sang still didn’t speak.
He only stood up from the chair, propped his hands on the counter, tilted his head very slightly, still staring into Huo Wei’s eyes, and then his gaze slowly moved downward.
“?”
This was too weird.
A thought more terrifying than being killed suddenly occurred to Huo Wei, making her scream in terror:
“What the hell, San You, what do you mean?! Do you want to kiss me?!!”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly: “Do you want the truth?”
“?”
“I really don’t.”
Huo Wei let out a long, long sigh of relief.
She even dramatically pressed a hand to her chest:
“Thank goodness, thank goodness, you scared me to death. I thought you actually liked me, hahaha, I thought our pure mother-son bond had just taken a turn. That really scared me.”
Then her tone shifted:
“So if you don’t like me, what was that look and move about? Were you considering whether you want to kiss me or not?? And then you concluded that you really don’t want to??? Why are you thinking about that stuff when you have nothing better to do? Did a donkey kick you in the head??? I cherish my brother, but then this brother treats his sister like this???”
There was actually a part of this that Fu Sang couldn’t understand:
“If I don’t like someone, I can’t kiss them?”
“?” Huo Wei’s heart, which had just settled, rose again: “What do you mean by that?”
“The literal meaning.”
“If you don’t like someone, what’s the point of kissing them? Isn’t that just being a pure hooligan?”
“It makes me happy.”
“?”
“Really.”
Once upon a time, Huo Wei had asked Fu Sang another question…Are you sick? What’s the point of jumping off a building, turning yourself into a pulp, and then recovering? Isn’t that just pure masochism?
Fu Sang’s answer to her then was the same: it makes me happy.
The conditions for this guy to be happy were truly terrifying.
“Then I still suggest you choose jumping off a building as a way to be happy…it only harms yourself and not others.”
“Kissing makes me happier.”
“?”
Huo Wei knew Fu Sang all too well.
She immediately realized that if Fu Sang could say that, it meant there was a victim already.
“Who is it?”
Huo Wei really wanted to strangle him:
“You’ve already tried it? You kissed someone? Who did you ruin?! You beast, I’m really going to report you to the authorities!!”
Fu Sang shrugged and didn’t answer.
He was still exploring the previous question: “You kiss your dog too.”
“What the hell, a dog is a dog and a human is a human, okay! Besides, I don’t kiss dogs on the mouth either!”
“I didn’t kiss a human either.”
“?” A name vaguely emerged in Huo Wei’s mind.
She asked cautiously:
“…Qi Changying?”
Seeing Fu Sang nod, she nearly passed out on the spot.
“How is that any different from kissing a human, please tell me?”
“The ghost is my pet.”
“Brother, do you really have to insist on classifying such a human-like being as Qi Changying, who has way more humanity than you, into the pet category? I kiss my dog because I have overflowing maternal love. If you were kissing someone as tiny as Wu Renshuai, I could spin it as paternal love awakening, a medical miracle. But you kissed Qi Changying? On the mouth? Are you sick? Can’t you just say you like him? Honestly, I sort of expected this and I’m not that surprised. Anyway, sister is open-minded, I won’t look down on you for a cross-species, same-sex relationship, okay?!”
Huo Wei was utterly devastated.
Even more devastating was that, after her heartfelt and lengthy argument, her opponent’s response was still just simple words:
“I don’t like him.”
Huo Wei had had enough.
She changed her approach: “Have you ever thought that since you don’t like him, why are you happy kissing him?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“So since you can kiss without liking him, why don’t you want to kiss me and be happy too?” Huo Wei was really throwing caution to the wind, saying all sorts of disgusting things.
“I’m allergic to living people. Ghosts are okay.”
“?” Huo Wei took a deep breath and barely squeezed out a smile:
“So, was the young general happy after you kissed him?”
“Why should I care if he’s happy?”
“.”
‘Very well. So he wasn’t happy.’
Honestly, Huo Wei really felt sorry for Qi Changying.
He probably hadn’t suffered this kind of grievance even when he was alive. Now, he has been dead for a thousand years and a ghost, but he still got taken advantage of by a scoundrel. And after taking advantage, the scoundrel says ‘I don’t like him’, ‘I just treat him as a pet’, putting him in the same category as cats and dogs.
Even worse, this scoundrel is damn powerful, and he can’t escape even if he had wings!
How was this any different from forced love!
Oh, there was a difference.
Because Zhuge Fusang had only the force, and none of the love.
The more she thought about it, the more tragic it seemed. Huo Wei asked: “Where is he? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
‘Was he okay?’
“Home.”
Ever since that time he got upset with him, Qi Changying had hidden back in the nail and rarely showed himself.
Fu Sang had been busy lately and couldn’t be bothered with him. He didn’t even bring the nail anymore, just left it at home every day, letting the ghost stew in his own anger.
He had originally thought this ghost was an easy-to-bully cotton ball, but now it seemed he wasn’t that easy to handle after all.
It turned out that he didn’t gently accept every harsh word thrown at him. When it touched his principles and bottom line, he would still get angry. It just wasn’t a very intense anger…no matter how angry, he couldn’t say anything harsh or do anything bad. He only hid in his little dark room, using silence to express his dissatisfaction and resistance.
“…If the young general weren’t a ghost, but a human, he’d drag you down to the police station for tea.”
Huo Wei really didn’t want to deal with Fu Sang’s messy affairs anymore, but after thinking it over, she still couldn’t rest easy about this tragic story of a lamb entering the wolf’s den.
So she tentatively asked one more thing:
“You’ve only forced him to kiss, right? You haven’t done anything more beastly, have you? I’m begging you, just say yes.”
“Otherwise? What else could I do?” Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly and let out a light scoff, “He’s a chaste and virtuous ghost.”
“?”
‘Meaning if he weren’t so chaste, you really would have done it, right?’
Huo Wei closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands.
She had originally thought someone like Fu Sang would never awaken in matters of love in this lifetime. Otherwise, with his nature of getting whatever he wanted without caring about anyone else’s feelings, Huo Wei didn’t dare imagine the bloody, tragic mess he could create if he ever liked someone…it might even get him punished by the law.
And now, the thing she had worried about most had actually happened.
The only good news was that the victim wasn’t human. As everyone knows, ghost safety wasn’t protected by law. No matter how beastly Fu Sang acted, he didn’t have to worry about jail time or a bullet.
…But did that really count as good news?
As a friend, Huo Wei had to consider Fu Sang’s side, but as a human being with normal values, she really wanted to speak up for Qi Changying.
Who said the end of life’s tragedy is death?
Friendship and morality were at war, and Huo Wei rubbed her carefully styled hair in distress:
“I’m really begging you…”
