AU Extra: A Young Man’s Illusory Dream (13)
The room fell terrifyingly silent for a moment.
After a long while, Gu Mang slowly said, “You mean… Miss Su had already passed away before we arrived?”
Mo Xi nodded slightly. “Suicide.”
Gu Mang was silent for a while before asking, “Do you know why?”
“The innkeeper said something happened to her family. Her parents died one after another, and they thought she had been so devastated that she took her own life,” Mo Xi said. “They originally had a son as well, but that son got married a long time ago. After that, his connection with them became very distant. Even when his parents fell ill, he never returned home to visit.”
“…So Miss Su actually had an older brother…”
“Yes. But they weren’t blood relatives. Miss Su was adopted. The two old people hadn’t been in good health these past few years, and after their biological son established his own household, she was the only one left to support and care for them. This family had no other relatives. Once Miss Su died, there was no one left in the house. It was the neighbors next door who took care of her body.”
Gu Mang lowered his lashes, his expression subdued. After a while, he said, “But when we went there that day, everything in the house clearly looked like an ordinary household. It didn’t look like a mourning house where someone had just died.”
“Because an empty house where someone committed suicide is considered unlucky, the neighbors buried her immediately without leaving her coffin there,” Mo Xi said. “No one was willing to deal with the things in the house either. The silks and fine fabrics ordered by those officials and their wives were still piled inside. They knew the embroiderer had died halfway through her work, and they were afraid of bringing bad luck upon themselves, so no one wanted any of it.”
This was probably the longest stretch of speech Mo Xi had given since they met, but Gu Mang had no mood for jokes. Instead, his brows drew tighter and tighter.
Gu Mang still shook his head. “That night, we clearly saw her. And I didn’t sense anything wrong with her at all. What about you? Did you feel that anything was strange about her?”
“No.”
“Then that really is strange. Even if she was a ghost, even if neither of us was using magic at the time, how could we have felt absolutely nothing? We can’t possibly be that useless.”
“I thought of several possibilities,” Mo Xi said.
“Let’s hear them.”
“First, the person we saw that night wasn’t actually Miss Su. Someone else was pretending to be her.”
“And the second?”
“Second, Miss Su isn’t actually dead. For some reason, she created the illusion that she had committed suicide, knowing that no one would come to clean up the house after her death, and continued hiding there.”
“Third?”
“Third, Miss Su really is dead, and no one else has infiltrated the house. What we saw late that night really was her ghost. But because of some magic we don’t know about, she was able to conceal her sinister aura extremely well. If we didn’t examine her carefully, we would have taken her for an ordinary living person.”
Gu Mang nodded as he listened. “Any fourth possibility?”
“No.”
Mo Xi said, “There’s one more thing I have to tell you.”
Gu Mang sighed. “Sure. You’re such a poor little injured thing, yet you can lie in your room recovering and still manage to dig up all sorts of things. Go ahead. What else?”
“Regarding the missing couple Elder Qianling ordered us to investigate—Lin Yun and Bai Rouxia.” Mo Xi paused, his expression becoming solemn. “That Lin Yun is Miss Su’s older brother.”
“What?!”
This time Gu Mang was genuinely stunned.
“How do you know?!”
“The innkeeper told me,” Mo Xi said. “The embroidery shop where we stayed is called Linxiu Pavilion. It used to be run by a married couple surnamed Lin. Lin Yun was their biological son, who had already married and started his own family. As for Su Qiao, she was originally the daughter of a butcher’s family who had been close with them.”
He paused.
“Do you remember Su Qiao saying that there were so many miasmas in this village that people easily contracted illnesses and died?”
Gu Mang nodded. “I remember.”
“Her biological parents died for that reason when she was four or five years old. The Lin couple couldn’t bear to leave her alone, so they adopted her as their daughter. So, as I said before, the two siblings aren’t related by blood. Strictly speaking, Lin Yun should be her adoptive older brother.”
At this point, Mo Xi closed his eyes briefly before continuing.
“Lin Yun and his wife disappeared this month, and Miss Su Qiao also died this month. I don’t believe that’s a coincidence.”
Gu Mang muttered, “Neither do I.”
Mo Xi raised his eyes.
“Also, I don’t believe you really went out earlier just to ‘take a stroll.’”
“Yeah, I don’t—”
Gu Mang answered absentmindedly halfway through before suddenly stiffening.
His dark lashes trembled, and he hesitantly looked toward Mo Xi.
Mo Xi had his arms folded, his long legs crossed as he stared at him with an intimidating gaze.
“Bring out the ghost puppet you’re hiding in your Qiankun Pouch.”
Gu Mang’s expression changed several times like a Lantern Festival display before finally settling into a shameless grin.
His feet nervously rubbed against the floor as he began pretending not to hear.
“What?”
“The ghost puppet. The one containing the resentful spirit sealed beneath the old peach tree. You don’t need to hide it anymore. I already knew you were lying to me when I woke up.”
“……”
At this point, there was really nothing left to say.
Gu Mang gave a dry laugh.
“Junior Brother, you really are something. How come nothing can ever get past you? Ahaha… ahahahaha.”
Mo Xi said coldly, “It possessed my body for so long last night. Do you really think I wouldn’t have sensed it?”
Gu Mang had no choice.
He picked up the Qiankun Pouch and dumped it onto the table. A chaotic pile of talismans and hidden weapons spilled out, along with a pile of milk candies and empty wrappers from wheat-stalk candy.
But there was no sign of the little wooden man.
Gu Mang sighed, lifted the corner of the pouch, and shook it twice more.
“Hiding won’t help. You’d better come out and perform seppuku to apologize to Young Master Mo.”
The little wooden man had no choice.
It finally loosened its tightly clenched hands and dropped out of the Qiankun Pouch with a plop, lying lifelessly on the table.
After a while, it rolled itself upright and began furiously banging its wooden head against the table.
Bang, bang, bang!
“Please spare me, Young Master! I don’t want to go to the first or eighteenth floor of the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda! We can negotiate about the other floors! Young Master, you’re young and handsome, a brilliant man with a bright future, dressed in fine clothes—”
“Stop,” Mo Xi said.
The little wooden man had no intention of stopping.
It firmly believed that if it could survive by kowtowing a thousand times, or ten thousand times, or until the end of time, then it would kowtow until its life was spared.
It became increasingly enthusiastic, the bang, bang, bang soon loud enough to wake the people in the guest room next door.
Something came flying from the neighboring room and slammed into the wall with a thud.
“You two horny bastards! Don’t you know to keep it down?! Your own bed is shaking like that and you’re not even afraid it’ll collapse?!”
Gu Mang: “……”
The little wooden man: “……”
Black fury seemed to swirl around Mo Xi’s face.
He slammed his bandaged hand heavily against the table.
The little wooden man was so frightened that it fell onto its butt and trembled on the tabletop.
For a moment, its gaze flicked toward Mo Xi’s injured hand, blood seeping through the snow-white gauze. Then it looked at Mo Xi’s gloomy face again.
His eyes were like blades tempered in fire, so intimidating that it instinctively shrank back.
Mo Xi gritted his teeth.
“Do you not understand human speech?”
“I understand, I understand, Young Master! I was wrong!”
Mo Xi didn’t want to waste any more words on it, so he looked up at Gu Mang.
“What has this thing told you?”
“Actually, it’s nothing much…”
Meeting Mo Xi’s gaze, Gu Mang hesitated for a moment before sighing.
“Fine. Okay. It’s like this. I originally wanted to hide it from you and investigate Lin Yun and his wife’s whereabouts with it myself.”
Mo Xi’s gaze was sharp as a blade, a faint danger flowing through his dark-brown eyes.
“Why?”
Gu Mang froze.
“…Do you really need to ask? I got you dragged into this and you were seriously injured. If I still made you run around with me and act all carefree, wouldn’t that make me a complete asshole?”
Mo Xi stared at him silently for a long while.
Only then did his tense back slowly relax.
He turned his head away, his tone somewhat gentler.
“My injury has nothing to do with you. I was the one who was careless.”
His profile was cold and hard-edged, his expression stubborn, a trace of wintry chill seeming to settle between his brows like falling snow.
Looking at him, Gu Mang thought with a sigh that this man was made of iron.
Never mind that he was already investigating on his own now—even if Gu Mang really had gone behind his back to investigate the embroidery shop, he probably would have ended up offending this Young Master Mo anyway.
“Sigh. Fine, I didn’t think it through. I’ll tell you everything. Just stop making such a cold face. You’re honestly creepy when you do that.”
So Gu Mang told Mo Xi everything they had learned earlier, one detail at a time.
At the end, he turned to the little wooden man and asked, “Where exactly have you seen the name ‘Lin Yun’? Still can’t remember?”
The little wooden man dejectedly shook its head, but promised, “I’m trying my hardest to remember!”
Mo Xi said coldly, “Then you’d better hurry up.”
The little wooden man was literally made of wood, yet it couldn’t help shivering.
Gu Mang said, “Oh, right, Junior Brother. I’m planning to go to the embroidery shop again tonight after dark. Come with me, but this time, don’t act rashly. Can you promise me?”
“…I can.”
“Then let’s make a pinky promise.”
Mo Xi gave him a cold glance.
Gu Mang froze.
The hand he had already started extending downward stopped halfway. He scratched his face twice, curled the corners of his lips, and gave an awkward little grin.
He was just about to say something else to Mo Xi when the little wooden man suddenly shouted beside them,
“Ah! Oh my heavens!”
Gu Mang’s bright, gentle black eyes and Mo Xi’s cold black eyes turned toward it at the same time.
Under the two gazes, one warm and one cold, the little wooden man first choked.
Then it cautiously said, “Um… you two Immortal Masters, I just remembered where I saw the name ‘Lin Yun.’”
The Mass Grave Slope.
It was a hillside where several nearby villages and towns buried their dead together.
The name said it all. Graves were scattered all over the hill, filled with unidentified bodies who had died far from home, the remains of criminals who had received severe sentences, and lonely beggars who had no ancestral graves to return to.
“When I died, the people from Xingxiang City dumped me here and dug a pit to bury me,” the little wooden man said as it hurriedly climbed and ran along the mountain path. “Later, my bones were moved beneath the ancient peach tree. But whenever I had nothing to do, I would come wander around this area. The yin energy here is strong, and I find it especially comfortable.”
Mo Xi asked, “Where is Lin Yun’s grave?”
“We’re almost there. It’s just ahead. His grave only appeared this month. Very few people come to the Mass Grave Slope, and it’s even rarer to see a grave with a marker. His is only a little wooden plaque, but that already makes it a rare thing around here. I’d been curious and looked at it many times before. I even sat on his grave mound and basked in the moonlight for an entire night.”
The little wooden man rambled on.
“Damn it, how did I forget?”
Before long, they arrived beneath a crooked jujube tree.
The soil there had clearly been freshly turned not long ago. At the front of the mound, a crooked wooden plaque had been stuck into the earth.
It bore only four simple characters—
Grave of Lin Yun
Gu Mang and Mo Xi exchanged a glance.
Mo Xi bent down, braced one hand against the grave mound, and closed his eyes to sense it.
Then he stood.
“How is it?”
He shook his head.
“No signs of transformation into a vengeful spirit. I can’t sense his soul.”
Generally speaking, the spirits that cultivators could sense and summon were either vengeful ghosts or newly deceased spirits. Other souls would drift toward the underworld after the seventh day, where they would reincarnate.
Since Mo Xi said this, Lin Yun’s soul should already be gone from this mass grave.
But Gu Mang thought for a while before saying,
“How about this? Let me try.”
Seeing the faint confusion in Mo Xi’s eyes, Gu Mang explained, “After a person has been dead for seven days, although their soul is already gone, the corpse retains fragments of memory. There’s a spell at Yanbie Hall specifically used to trace those residual memories.”
He paused before continuing.
“Of course, it depends on the person. If the deceased was unwilling to let anyone know about certain things while they were alive, we won’t be able to read those secrets.”
“But if there are things Lin Yun didn’t mind people knowing while he was alive…”
Gu Mang’s gaze fell upon the tiny wooden plaque.
He didn’t finish the sentence.
Instead, he sat down on the grave mound.
“I’ll try first,” he said. “But I haven’t completely mastered this spell yet, so I’m not very proficient with it. If you wake me up arbitrarily, I might become confused and mix up my memories. So unless I open my eyes myself, don’t call me.”
After Mo Xi agreed, Gu Mang sat cross-legged and formed hand seals, slowly closing his eyes.
“Today I cast aside this worn-out body, and all things return to emptiness. I knock upon the gate beyond a new grave, idly recounting the life once lived. Tell me, what do you ponder? What do you remember? If your bones beneath the springs still hold regrets, do not let them be buried beneath the wild, overgrown grass.”
As the final word drifted from his lips, a faint breeze suddenly stirred across the Mass Grave Slope.
It was as though countless whispered voices were murmuring beneath the earth, surging toward Gu Mang.
A layer of eerie blue spiritual fire enveloped Gu Mang’s body.
After a moment, the flames completely merged into him.
There was light.
The surroundings gradually brightened.
Gu Mang found himself standing inside the remnants of Lin Yun’s memories.
It was dusk.
A boy of about seven or eight came running back to the embroidery shop, crying. His entire body was covered in mud, like a skinny monkey that had just rolled around in a rice paddy.
“Dad! Mom! Waaaah!”
The woman weaving cloth beside the loom hurriedly stood up. A man busy in the inner room also poked his head out.
Seeing the miserable state of the boy, he laughed and scolded, “You useless little thing. Did you get into another fight with Su Qiao?”
“I didn’t fight with her! I just wanted to take her into the city to watch the monkey show. Who knew she wouldn’t listen to me? And then she said—she said…”
The boy sobbed for a while before bursting into tears.
“She said watching monkeys wasn’t as fun as watching me! Then she kicked me into the rice paddy and threw rocks at me!!”
Thinking of what Mo Xi had told him, Gu Mang thought, This boy must be Lin Yun. And these two must be Lin Yun’s father and mother.
Lin Father laughed loudly.
“You’re older than her, and you’re a boy, yet she chases you around and beats you every day. And you’re still crying? I’m embarrassed for you!”
As he spoke, he rubbed two fingers against his cheek in a teasing gesture.
Lin Mother turned around and glared at her husband.
“All right, can you stop making fun of him? Come here, Yun’er. Go with Mom to the backyard and take a bath. Look how filthy you are. Su Qiao really is too much. A girl her age is wild as a bandit. Once her mother gets better, I’m definitely going to have a word with her family. How can you raise a girl like that? Who would dare marry her in the future?”
The father was still smiling cheerfully. He winked at Lin Yun.
“As long as she’s pretty, that’s all that matters. Right, son?”
Lin Yun choked.
A snot bubble flecked with mud blew from his nose, and he said nothing.
Gu Mang saw the skin at the base of the boy’s neck, the only part not covered in mud, turn bright red.
Mother and son walked hand in hand toward the backyard.
The father suddenly remembered something and shouted after them, “Hey, wife! Has your younger sister-in-law still not recovered?”
“Not yet. I just went to see her yesterday. She’s still bedridden at home. If she were well, would Su Qiao be running around everywhere like a wild monkey on the mountain? I’ll kill a chicken and stew it later. Take it over to their family to help them recover. I think Su Qiao’s father has been exhausted lately too. He keeps coughing whenever he talks. If both husband and wife fall ill, that’ll be a real problem.”
Lin Father laughed happily.
“My wife may have a sharp tongue, but she has a kind heart. All right. Tell me when the chicken’s ready, and I’ll take it over to them.”
After a pause, he suddenly shouted to his son.
“Hey, Yun’er, why don’t you take it over to Su Qiao’s family?”
“I…”
Lin Yun’s face turned so red it practically showed through the layer of mud.
Finally, he hesitantly said, “I’ll go. It’s not like I’m afraid of her.”
After saying that, he followed his mother into the backyard and disappeared beyond the doorframe.
The surroundings gradually darkened.
When the light returned, Gu Mang realized that he was no longer inside the embroidery shop.
He was standing on the outskirts of Liansheng Town.
Not much time seemed to have passed. Lin Yun’s family was still dressed in summer clothes, standing beneath the blazing summer sun.
But this was now the scene of a funeral.
A little girl even younger than Lin Yun was dressed in mourning clothes.
It was Su Qiao.
The mourning clothes were far too large for her, making her look like a child wrapped in a cloth sack. She knelt before the grave, wailing loudly as her thin little shoulders shook with every sob.
The villagers who had come to help stood nearby, sighing and whispering.
Some women wiped away their tears. Others looked at the girl with sympathy, shaking their heads repeatedly.
“How pitiful. She’s so little, and both her parents are gone. How is she supposed to live from now on?”
“Sigh, what can you do? They caught that plague… Fortunately, the girl was still young and didn’t help with the slaughtering and butchering. Otherwise, if she’d been exposed to the blood of the diseased animals, all three of them would be gone.”
“That poor little girl…”
Amid the crowd, Lin Yun raised his face and quietly tugged at his mother’s sleeve.
“Mom.”
Lin Mother stroked his head, moved her tearful eyes away from the girl, lowered her gaze, and wiped away her tears.
“What is it?”
“Mom… why don’t we… why don’t we bring Qiao-mei home to live with us?”
He spoke cautiously.
“Otherwise… where can she go?”
“This…”
“Yesterday, you and Dad were discussing it. I heard you. Mom, our family isn’t wealthy, but if we leave Qiao-mei alone in her old house, it’ll be so empty. Her dad and mom are both gone. That would be so sad.”
Seeing the hesitation on his mother’s face, Lin Yun continued,
“Let her live with us. She’s quick with her hands and feet. She can help you and Dad. If you… if you’re worried there won’t be enough food, I… I can eat less.”
Tears shimmered in Lin Mother’s eyes as she looked at him.
Lin Yun was practically begging now.
“You really don’t have to spend extra effort taking care of her. I’ll do everything…”
His voice gradually faded.
The light dimmed once again.
Yet Gu Mang was deep in thought.
How strange.
According to what the innkeeper had said earlier, after Lin Yun married, he had almost no contact with his parents. He sounded like a cold-blooded, heartless, unfilial son.
But from this memory, Lin Yun was not heartless at all.
If anything, he had an exceptionally kind heart.
He even seemed to have quite a fondness for his little sister Su Qiao, although Su Qiao clearly didn’t care much about him.
So what happened afterward…?
Gu Mang didn’t have time to finish thinking.
The light around him began twisting and churning again.
But this time, the scene did not settle quickly.
All he could see were blurry fragments, flashing past one after another—