Jiang Bailan could no longer remember how many years he had been a wandering spirit.
After his death, he drifted lightly through the world, neither cold nor warm, feeling no pain, floating for many years.
Compared to being a concubine at the Ning residence, this felt almost free.
In his youth, he had been the son of a humble village herbalist family, helping his father gather medicinal herbs. Life was poor but content.
When he came of age, his father planned to marry him to a local family so that he wouldn’t have to be separated from kin.
He thought life would continue quietly, following its ordinary course. But one day, while heading to the city’s grand apothecary as usual, he was struck unconscious by thugs.
When he woke, he was lying naked on the bed of a pleasure house, beside a young man with the face of a celestial being.
Before they could make sense of it, people rushed in and caught them in the act. From that moment, his life changed completely.
Two weeks later, a sedan chair brought him to the Ning family estate—larger than most servant quarters.
Villagers who didn’t know the truth called him lucky. A coarse village boy chosen by a high-ranking city household, even as a concubine, was considered blessed.
At first, Jiang Bailan thought the villagers were just jealous. But they weren’t entirely wrong—though a concubine, he was in one of the city’s most prestigious households, whose members had served in government for generations.
The young master of the Ning family was not only handsome but also the eldest son of the main branch. Even on the bustling Suzaku Street, there was no comparable young man.
Not only that, but he was also the top scholar, desired by countless girls and sons of wealthy families, yet fate had somehow given him to Jiang Bailan.
But the longer he stayed in the Ning residence, the more he realized that life rarely hands out such gifts.
Once inside, he was placed in a small courtyard in the rear of the estate, attended by two servants. The Ning household had many rules, and his movements were limited to that courtyard. In a year, he might only leave the estate three or five times—and saw his husband even less often.
In the first two years, before Ning Muyan married his official wife, Jiang Bailan was the only concubine.
His husband, austere and self-restrained, lived almost like a monk. Even the household’s maids were unused, and elders worried that the boy might disrupt his studies. Seeing that Jiang Bailan was already available, perhaps he pitied him enough to speak a few kind words.
But Jiang Bailan, a simple village boy, could not converse on equal terms with a top scholar from a learned family. His ignorance often made him misunderstand everything.
Gradually, Ning Muyan stopped letting him serve directly. After the official wife joined the household, Jiang Bailan almost never saw him.
The official wife, proud and haughty, had little understanding of the man’s ambitions. Ning Muyan was focused on his career, not on concubines or children. With her frustration unchecked, she often vented her anger on Jiang Bailan.
After that, not having to see his husband every day and being free from the constant harassment of the official wife, Jiang Bailan felt that each day was like a bright, sunny day.
He lost track of how long such quiet days lasted, thinking he might grow old and die in that small courtyard. But then, disaster struck the Ning residence.
All at once, the household fell into ruin.
His husband was thrown into prison.
Panic spread through the estate. The official wife was the first to absolve herself, abandoning the family with a divorce letter and fleeing for safety. The house descended into chaos; some senior servants stole the family fortune and fled. The mansion teetered on the edge of collapse.
Everyone thought only of themselves, forgetting that the man who had once provided for them all was now in a prison cell.
Jiang Bailan considered fleeing as well, but his father—his only family—was already dead. Besides this husband he had stumbled upon, he had no one else.
Clinging to that small bond of past affection, he gritted his teeth and, together with loyal servants, ran from place to place, delivering money and smoothing relations. Finally, he was able to see his husband in the prison.
Once a confident and handsome statesman, he had overnight become a prisoner, filthy and bloodied from punishment. His eyes, upon hearing the news of his family’s ruin, were like stagnant water.
Jiang Bailan felt a pang of sympathy—perhaps for that flawless jade-like face.
He carefully cleaned his husband’s body and urged him to survive, for if he died, Jiang Bailan would have no one left.
Jiang Bailan used all the money he could access from the estate. During the days his husband was imprisoned, the two of them met more frequently than in all the time previously spent within the Ning residence.
Even in the cold, damp prison, the strong-willed statesman endured, a testament to his resilience.
Eventually, the emperor decreed the Ning family’s property confiscated and exiled them three thousand miles south to Lingnan.
No matter what, surviving prison without being sent to the execution grounds was already a stroke of luck.
Yet during the exile, the young master’s health, already weakened in prison, deteriorated further. The journey was grueling. Fortunately, Jiang Bailan’s medical knowledge allowed him to tend to his husband, and he made sure the young man did not die along the way.
But Jiang Bailan never expected that it would be he himself who would die on the journey.
The once-mighty Ning household dwindled to only a dozen exiles. Fewer and fewer survived the long trek. By the time they reached Lingnan, a severe drought had struck. This region’s climate was harsh, and coupled with the famine and plague, Jiang Bailan became infected.
Shortages of medicine made his situation grim. Half a healer as he was, he knew he was beyond saving—but he accepted it, glancing at the Ning young master who had come to rely on him more and more. He wondered, with a sigh, if his husband could manage without him after he died.
One day, having completed the day’s chores, he locked the room from inside, barred the door, and propped a heavy weight against it. Rather than risking infecting others, or being thrown into a mass grave to rot, he chose to leave quietly and cleanly by setting himself ablaze.
He thought death would bring freedom—no more looking at faces, no more caring for anyone.
But even as a ghost, freedom eluded him. His legs floated as if on air; he was like rootless duckweed on a pond. If the wind blew strong, he could be carried hundreds of miles in a night. If the wind was still, he could drift for days, going nowhere.
He struggled and raged in vain.
Years passed. He could not go where he wished, could not see the people he wanted. In the end, he remained a helpless wandering spirit. Day after day, year after year, his will eroded. Gradually, he let the wind carry him, his mind becoming hazy.
One day, he heard low, muffled sobbing. He opened his eyes and realized he had somehow been blown back to the city where he had spent his youth. He did not know which household he had drifted into.
The wind had stopped. He landed by a window, seeing a flickering candle inside. In the main hall of the rear residence, ten or so figures stood around, heads bowed over the bed. Female attendants dabbed at their eyes with handkerchiefs, letting out soft sobs.
The atmosphere was heavy and gloomy.
Jiang Bailan had died in solitude and quiet, and while he had seen many deaths as a ghost, there was nothing new about life’s end.
Glancing briefly, he prepared to continue drifting. But that fleeting look made his heart skip: the old man on the bed seemed incredibly familiar.
He drifted closer, heart pounding as he approached the bedside.
The elderly man lying there was near the end of his life—skin clinging to bones, flesh dwindled—but beneath it, the structure of his youth could still be seen.
Jiang Bailan’s heart tightened. Even aged and frail, he recognized him at once.
He stared intently, looking at the old man, then at the crying family members in the room. He let out a soft hum: Ungrateful soul… lived so long and still left a family behind!
The old man’s once-clouded eyes brightened. He fixed his gaze on where Jiang Bailan stood. It was as if he had seen him again after a long separation. Slowly, tears welled in his eyes.
Jiang Bailan was slightly surprised—he felt as though the man had truly seen him.
He opened his mouth to speak but did not know what to say. The old man’s lips moved faintly, as though he too had countless words he could not voice.
They gazed at each other in silence.
Suddenly, a strong gust of wind swept through. Jiang Bailan was lifted off the ground once more. As he rose, he heard a cry: “Grandfather has gone!” followed by wailing that grew louder.
Jiang Bailan felt an inexplicable pang of grief. He strained to see if the man’s soul would rise with him—but the wind was too strong, his eyes could not open. He felt violently pulled, as if battered by unseen hands, and the old house seemed to ignite around him—crackling and tearing at his very being.
Jiang Bailan was startled—he was already a ghost! How could he feel pain?
Even if it was just imagined, decades of drifting as a spirit had long erased any memory of what pain felt like. Yet somehow, it felt incredibly real.
He snapped his eyes open and was instantly blinded by white light, instinctively raising a hand to shield them.
A chill ran through his upper body. Looking down, he realized the hastily tossed blanket that had covered his chest had slid down to his waist as he sat up—he was completely naked!
Panic surged through him. He hurriedly grabbed the blanket to cover himself. But as he did, another arm revealed itself from the bed—bare and unexpected.
“Ah!”
Jiang Bailan screamed, his legs kicking reflexively. The person beside him groaned and slowly sat up.