Everyone has times when they’re in a bad mood.
Not wanting to talk to people—that’s perfectly normal too.
The ghost infant never really mentioned it out loud, but she had always been preoccupied with her name.
She was never just a bundle of someone’s lingering resentment.
It was different from what I had originally assumed.
For her to ascend to the level of a Ghost Queen, the amount of dead-infant resentment she carried wasn’t something even tens of thousands of bodies in a mass grave could compare to.
These baby girls all had one thing in common.
Born during wartime, in an unstable society, they were abandoned cruelly the moment they came into the world.
Those who have never known love are the ones who fall deepest when it comes to love.
Now, she may be a vicious ghost so violent she wants to kill everyone she sees…
But once—she was a person too.
“You rotten thing, let me tell you a story.”
Behind a particularly thick tree, two young girls in the prime of their youth were sneakily peeking their heads out.
“Are you sure—” I hesitated.
“Are you sure we won’t be spotted?”
My mood was hard to put into words.
Su Liumeng shook her pale, slender wrist.
She had already taken off her bracelet.
Her porcelain skin was like the finest mutton-fat jade.
“Relax.”
“This move is called ‘Dragon’s Shadow.’”
“As the name suggests, if you stand within the dragon’s shadow, you won’t be noticed. The only flaw is—it doesn’t allow you to move or attack while it’s active. But right now, that works in our favor. Anyone who can see through my illusion would have to be at least one realm higher than me. There’s no way someone like that would be lurking around North Qing campus.”
Su Liumeng grinned, but didn’t show her teeth.
“Hey, Si,” came the ghost infant’s voice, suddenly irritated.
“So busy chatting with your little lover you’ve forgotten about me, huh?”
“Is she more important than I am?”
She was already teetering on the edge of a breakdown, bloodlust rising—and once she reached that point, no one could talk her down.
“No, you’re more important!”
The overwhelming ghostly aura made my heart skip a beat.
I wiped away nonexistent cold sweat from my forehead.
I must’ve been too nervous earlier and hadn’t heard her say anything.
“What are you mumbling to yourself about now?”
Su Liumeng raised an eyebrow and stole a glance at me.
She wasn’t confused for the first time—
Seriously, who mutters to themselves at the floor so frequently?
“It’s… nothing…”
With my biggest secret standing right in front of me, I denied it almost instinctively.
My slightly panicked explanation nearly made the ghost infant blow her top.
“What do you mean ‘nothing’?!”
The more she spoke, the angrier she got.
Her chubby little face scrunched into a scowl, her voice rising so sharply it nearly cracked the air.
“Why can’t you just tell her you’re talking to me?”
Suspicion in Su Liumeng’s heart only grew stronger.
I had no choice but to steel myself, ignore the stare from the side, and whisper back to the ghost infant as quietly as I could, “I just don’t know how to explain it…”
“I don’t even know how to tell her who you are.”
“Who I am?!”
The ghost infant spun around angrily in place.
“Oh, who am I, you say?”
She repeated that question several times, each time sounding more indignant.
“You’re seriously asking me who I am?”
“I’m literally inside your womb!”
“So tell me—who do you think I am?”
The words I’d intended to say stalled in my throat.
I was just a conveniently suitable vessel—how could I shamelessly claim any moral authority over the ghost infant?
Frustrated, she crossed her chubby little arms like an adult and turned her back, facing away from the silver-tinted mental sea that rippled endlessly behind her.
The invisible barrier between us left her simmering in silence, not knowing how to handle it.
She’d been trying, really trying, to learn how to interact with people.
*****
“Xiaoyan.”
Su Liumeng leaned closer to me. The light, natural scent of a girl wafted over.
“We’re about to get to the important part. Why are you still spacing out?”
“Can you please focus a little? I’m doing this for you, you know.”
“I know.”
I gave her an apologetic smile.
“I’m not talking to myself—I’m talking to the baby that hasn’t been born yet.”
Deep within my mind—
The ghost infant, who had been struggling to modify a cultivation technique, paused, her tiny hands holding an illusory scroll.
She casually flipped to the next page, pretending not to care.
Fine. She was a dignified Ghost Queen—why should she argue with a pregnant woman?
The slight upward curl of her lips showed that her mood had already improved from earlier.
Even though what I’d said didn’t exactly match what she was hoping for, those were just things she blurted out in an emotional outburst.
Before she fully emerged into the world, she still just wanted to pretend to be a baby.
*****
At a quarter past noon—Li Mei finally arrived, slowly, carrying a large box in her arms.
I gently pressed my lips together, not daring to move a muscle—I even nearly forgot to breathe.
Su Liumeng quietly tightened her grip around my hand.
I stiffened, confused, and turned to look at her.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to make you less nervous.”
Her five slender fingers were like a nimble little snake, wriggling persistently between mine.
My body tensed even more.
Seriously, if you want to hold my hand, then just do that.
Why are you… weaving your fingers in like this?
Five hundred thousand.
Five hundred thousand… and on top of that, it’s a special situation.
I quickly convinced myself to calm down.
Su Liumeng appeared composed on the outside.
But inside, her heart was pounding like crazy.
She was dying to rush home and write a few thousand-word long post on her personal Weibo, excitedly documenting this new step forward in their relationship.
So this is what falling in love feels like—
Sweet like candy.
And with just a hint of coolness.
*****
At the same time—
A girl draped in a black robe was making her way toward the peach grove, her face twisted with a sinister gloom.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t expected betrayal.
It’s just that, by now, she could no longer be considered a normal person.
Arrogance. Pride.
All the darkest traits of humanity found a home in her.
A mere woman with no strength to even truss a chicken?
She had never once taken someone like that seriously.
Even the peerless genius of the Su family had almost perished at her hands.
Li Mei clutched the now-empty box tightly.
She recalled Sì Xinyan’s warning, forcing herself to stay composed.
*****
Fifteen minutes later—
Suyi, who had been watching from the shadows for quite a while, lowered her head and tightened the pitch-black hood around her face.
Then she stepped out from the darkness.
“Did you bring everything I asked for?”
The girl’s voice was hoarse and murky, almost impossible to distinguish whether it was male or female.
I furrowed my delicate brows into a deep frown.
Looking at the figure beneath the black robe up ahead, I could barely make out their gender based on their height.
Just as I was still hesitating, Su Liumeng had already come to a firm conclusion.
“Stop staring. Flat front, flat back—it’s definitely that little bitch Suyi.”
“I’d recognize that smell anywhere.”
“Even if she turned to ashes, I’d still know it’s her.”
Su Liumeng released my hand, which she had been holding tightly, and only had time to quickly say one thing to me:
“Don’t run off. Just stay right here and wait for me.”
Before her voice had even finished echoing, she transformed into a beam of golden light that shot straight into the sky.
I stared at that streak of light slicing through the heavens, a look of awe lingering in my eyes long after it had faded.
So… people really can fly?
Su Liumeng, are you sure you didn’t lie to me?
You told me that even powerful cultivators could only hover briefly at most…
Little did I know, my understanding of flying and Su Liumeng’s understanding of flying were two completely different things.
Floating just a few dozen meters off the ground didn’t even count as flying in Su Liumeng’s eyes.
What she considered “flight” was true sky-traversing—breaking through the heavens, both in speed and altitude, rivaling the latest generation of fighter jets.
*****
At this moment
Having fully unlocked the power of her bloodline, Su Liumeng was bathed in the near-boiling blood of a True Dragon.
Surrounded by crackling golden lightning, she now possessed the ability to walk through the air.
All around the peach grove—
A formation silently activated on the ground, enveloping the mysterious figure completely.
I gripped a protruding branch on the tree beside me, listening to the dragon’s roar echoing through the air.
It was powerful enough to shake the heavens—stirring something deep inside the hearts of all who heard it.
“Jealous?”
“Yeah.”
I had never experienced anything so mystical or fantastical.
Young hearts will always harbor their own dreams.
“Hmph. Then just keep being jealous.”
Though she insisted she wouldn’t fuss over it, the ghost baby still said the exact opposite.
“Mm, okay.”
I slightly lowered my head, my fingers gripping the tree bark even tighter.
Had she… given up on helping me modify my cultivation method?
*****
Deep within my sea of consciousness…
The ghost baby was holding a thick book in her hands, grappling with one difficult problem after another, scratching her head in frustration.
Modifying a cultivation method—it was an unimaginably complex task.
From the trajectory of yin energy flowing through the meridians to the internal coherence of the method’s entire logical framework, not a single aspect could afford the slightest mistake.
Her expression was one of absolute seriousness.
As with all things, difficulty is relative.
And as a former Ghost King, she did have the credentials to be confident.
After a brief moment of confusion, her tightly furrowed brows gradually began to relax.
*****
After a few seconds of emotional turmoil, I had already sorted through all my thoughts.
I accepted my current position more clearly and slowly lifted my head, trying to show the brightest smile I could manage as I turned to watch the battle unfolding outside.
The mysterious figure was momentarily startled by Su Liumeng’s sudden appearance, but quickly recovered and returned to their usual sneering tone.
“So it’s you, huh?”
“You won’t be escaping today.”
The activation of the formation had not gone unnoticed.
Standing in the center of the six-pointed star, Suyi’s normally calm face showed panic for the first time.
Just who was this mysterious person who had been stalking her all this time?
That had always been a mystery buried in my heart.
To be fair, ever since I’d changed my identity, I’d kept a low profile and never offended anyone…