"Madam Liu, listen to your auntie's advice. Li Guanqi can't possibly come back! You should stop being so stubborn."
"Alas, our Li family simply has no official's fortune! Look at it—Guanqi, that name itself violates a taboo!"
"Exactly! There's nothing wrong with Li Dashuan. He's a little older, but he has a house and land. If you marry him, you won't have to worry about food or clothes. Isn't that better than suffering people's cold stares now?"
"Isn't that so? A widow's door breeds endless trouble. With Guanqi gone, those hooligans and scoundrels will only grow bolder!"
Within the Li clan stockade, a group of women surrounded Madam Liu, endlessly trying to persuade her.
Outside the courtyard, several timid women lingered to watch the spectacle, lowering their heads from time to time to whisper among themselves.
With their mouths opening and closing, who knew how many people's good names they had chewed to pieces?
From beginning to end, Madam Liu kept her head lowered and said nothing.
She was waiting—waiting for news of her husband.
She had not gone to the execution ground, partly because she did not dare, and partly because she wanted to protect the last of her husband's property.
She was slow by nature, but she also knew that once she left the house, the Li clan would surely seize the chance to occupy her husband's belongings and devour the entire household.
"Hey, hey, hey, Madam Liu, what, do you take us for air? We're kindly arranging a match for you, and you don't appreciate it?"
"That's right! Do you think we're so eager to find you a match? If it weren't for Li Guanqi's sake, who would bother?"
Madam Liu's silence finally completely enraged the women who had come to arrange her marriage.
One by one, sharp-toothed and sharp-tongued, they berated her harshly.
"I'll lay it out plainly now. If you won't marry Li Dashuan, then hurry up and get back to your mother's home!"
"You manless bitch! Our Li clan spent so many years painstakingly raising a scholar, and you cursed him to death!"
"Slut! Don't tell me some wanton fox demon cultivated into human form?"
Several Li clan women pointed at Madam Liu and cursed her viciously.
Faced with their biting, mean-spirited words, Madam Liu still kept her head lowered and remained silent.
The women cursed for half the day, yet found no pleasure in venting their anger. Their teeth itched with hatred, but there was nothing they could do.
"Fine, fine, fine! You're waiting for news of Li Guanqi, are you? When his head is delivered, let's see what you'll use to hire a corpse mender to sew your dead husband back into a whole body!"
Another woman spat out a vicious curse.
"If I can't hire one, I'll sew him myself!"
Madam Liu, who had said nothing all this time, raised her head and stubbornly retorted.
"Oh ho, you finally decided to open that golden mouth of yours. I thought you were mute!"
Instead of getting angry, the woman was delighted. Well, she wasn't afraid of being cursed at—what she feared was Madam Liu playing dead and refusing to make a sound.
"Hey, hey, hey, what are you crying for? Who are you crying for?"
The woman suddenly frowned.
Madam Liu, who had raised her head to argue, suddenly had reddened eyes, and streams of tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Husband—"
Looking at the figure standing at the courtyard gate, Madam Liu could no longer suppress the grievances filling her heart. She burst into loud sobs.
"H-Husband?"
The women arranging the match turned around in terror. Sure enough, at the entrance to the small courtyard, they saw a familiar young man.
"Li... Li Guanqi?!"
The women were flustered, ashamed, and terrified. How could they dare remain in the courtyard?
One after another, they fled the small courtyard in utter disarray.
"Wasn't Li Guanqi beheaded? How did he come back?"
"Could it be... His Majesty the Emperor granted a general amnesty?"
The women ran all the way to the open ground in the stockade. Gasping for breath, they began making uncertain guesses.
Just as they were wondering, they saw a group of young and strong men pouring in through the stockade gates.
Some sighed without end;
Some were so excited their faces were flushed red.
And the local hooligans among them could not wait to shout.
"Li Guanqi is dead! The magistrate is dead too!"
"Y-You said what? Li Guanqi is dead?"
The matchmakers went pale with shock.
"Of course he is! I saw it with my own eyes. The executioner raised that Executioner's Blade and chopped down in one stroke. Blood splashed more than a zhang away, and Li Guanqi's head flew straight off... You won't believe this, but when Li Guanqi was beheaded, the magistrate suddenly went mad. He even picked up Li Guanqi's head and tried to put it on his own neck. When he couldn't make it fit, he tore off his own head... Auntie? Auntie?"
The hooligan gestured wildly as spittle flew from his mouth.
But as he spoke, his expression suddenly turned hesitant and horrified, and he called out.
The women's increasingly fearful, twisted faces before him filled him with a bone-piercing chill for no reason, enough to make one shudder.
It was an expression even more horrifying than witnessing an execution.
"Li Guanqi is dead? Then what was that thing I saw? Ah—Li Guanqi, don't come looking for Auntie! It was all Li Dashuan's idea! All his idea—"
The woman suddenly screamed, frantically slapping and shoving at everything in front of her as she ran madly toward home.
Leaving behind a group of young men staring at one another.
"What happened?"
They looked toward the remaining pale-faced matchmakers.
"Li Guanqi... just went home!"
"What?"
"W-We saw it with our own eyes!"
A funeral procession, with pipes and drums sounding, passed before the waist-high Land God Temple. Paper money fluttered everywhere, blanketing the earth white.
Heaven refused to cooperate. Heavy dark clouds pressed down until the village stockade could scarcely breathe.
Old Earth God rarely revealed himself in daylight. With a face full of panic, he cupped his hands and said, "This old man failed to recognize the true face of an Immortal True Being. I hope Immortal will not take offense!"
Two figures stood before Old Earth God.
Both were very young.
The one in front wore strange, monk-like short hair and a patchwork garment resembling a monk's robe. Somehow, it gave him an air of carefree elegance.
Behind him stood none other than the central figure of the funeral procession—Li Guanqi.
At that moment, he stared blankly at the funeral procession, clearly not yet recovered from the shock of dying and becoming a ghost.
"No matter!"
Mo Chuan waved a hand. "However, this humble Daoist has a matter and hopes Earth Lord will agree to it."
"May I ask what matter Immortal speaks of?" Old Earth God did not dare make any promises, asking tentatively.
"It concerns Li Guanqi..."
The moment Mo Chuan broached the subject, Old Earth God's heart skipped a beat.
Could he be asking him to take in Li Guanqi?
He had enjoyed the stockade's incense offerings for more than a hundred years, yet possessed only half jiazi of cultivation. The root cause was, first, that he lacked cultivation methods;
Second, the stockade was too small, and its incense offerings were sparse.
How could he bear to share his incense offerings with someone else?
Even if it were his own clansman, he would be unwilling.
Sure enough, Mo Chuan's next words made his heart sink.
"...The paths of humans and ghosts are different. Since Li Guanqi has become a ghost, it would not be good for him to disturb Madam Liu. Since he is of the Li clan and once worshipped you, why not take him in as a junior to command, what do you say?"
As he spoke, Mo Chuan raised a hand, and a stack of Ghost Subduing Talismans appeared in his palm.
"A few talismans. I hope Earth Lord will accept them."
"Immortal must not! Li Guanqi is originally this old man's descendant. Looking after him a little is only proper."
Old Earth God hurriedly waved his hands, though his eyes could not help drifting toward the Ghost Subduing Talismans.
"Then I shall trouble Earth Lord to look after him!"
As Mo Chuan spoke, he still pressed the Ghost Subduing Talismans into Old Earth God's hands. Only then did he turn to the dazed Li Guanqi and say,
"Mr. Li, from this day onward, you will live here. While serving Earth Lord, you may also look after Madam Liu from time to time."
No matter how bewildered Li Guanqi was, he knew that his soul's return had been possible only because Mo Chuan had saved him. He hurriedly knelt and bowed. "Guanqi will remember his benefactor's words!"
After his words fell, there was no response for a long while. When he looked up, his benefactor had already vanished without a trace.
Old Earth God wore a face full of astonishment, secretly thinking,
"Coming and going as he pleased... what kind of immortal Daoist art was that?"
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