The Second Reincarnator

"Hm?"

The instant he heard the voice, Hu Ma jolted awake.

"Awake" wasn't quite right. He was still asleep; he had simply slipped out of that hazy state and into the dream with the strange little temple.

Looking up, he saw his own incense burning in the censer before him, its smoke curling upward.

In the dark red mist in the distance, an almost imperceptible wisp drifted through, then floated lightly around him.

"White Wine calling from Old Yin Mountain..."

The other party had already called a second time. The voice sounded hoarse, with a hint of huskiness.

"Found someone else?"

Hu Ma steadied himself, certain that this wasn't a hallucination. Excitement surged through him.

He had been unable to find anyone for so long, and now he had suddenly encountered the second Reincarnator he'd met in this world?

"You..."

He immediately opened his mouth, then stopped himself. His thoughts raced as he cautiously replied, "Old Bai Gan receiving your call. Who am I speaking to?"

The moment Hu Ma responded, the wisp that had slipped in from beyond the blood mist seemed to find its target. It suddenly curled around his incense smoke.

The voice that had just called fell briefly silent, then sounded again, tinged with surprise.

"Are you the child who came from that village?"

"..."

"?"

Hu Ma was startled and blurted out, "How did you know?"

"Your voice."

The hoarse voice paused, then said quietly, "When you connect with people, don't you ever change your voice?"

That left Hu Ma bewildered. "How do you change your voice?"

The other party fell silent again. After a long while, she said, "There are too many ways. I don't even know how to answer you."

"But if you don't even know how to change your voice, that means you haven't connected with that many other Reincarnators before?"

"That..."

The other party was so quick-witted that, from just that brief exchange, she had guessed so much—even figured out who he was. Hu Ma felt a faint pang of alarm.

Still, meeting the second Reincarnator in this world had him excited. He had no idea how many questions he'd been saving up to ask his kind. Now they were all piled in his throat, so he decided to ask them at once.

He paused briefly, then hurriedly asked, "What were you in your previous life?"

"..."

The hoarse voice fell silent, then sighed. "That's a rather unusual opening question."

"Now that we've fallen into this world, what use is it to worry about that?"

"Whatever we were in our previous lives, in this one we're just miserable creatures struggling to survive in this bizarre world."

"..."

"Are you miserable?"

Hu Ma said, "You seem to have it pretty good. They even carry you into the woods in a sedan chair."

The other party suddenly fell silent. When she spoke again, her voice was full of suspicion. "You guessed who I am too?"

"It wasn't hard to guess..."

Hu Ma let out a quiet sigh and said, "There aren't many Reincarnators in Old Yin Mountain. If one suddenly shows up, they're bound to be an outsider."

"A group of outsiders just arrived at the village today, and every one I saw was a man."

"Your voice may have been deliberately altered to sound hoarse and unpleasant, but anyone could tell you're a woman. How could I not guess which one you were?"

"..."

"Can you tell from my voice that I'm a woman?"

The other party seemed taken aback. Suddenly, her voice turned gentle and clear. She had changed it back, and spoke softly.

"Seems my skill still isn't good enough. In theory, no one should be able to tell."

"..."

"This..."

Hearing her words, Hu Ma was also taken aback. He suddenly realized something.

Her voice just now really had been hoarse and rough, impossible to tell apart from a man's. If anything, it had sounded more like an old man speaking.

But for some reason, the moment he heard her voice, he'd known she was a woman.

It didn't feel like he had figured it out. It felt more like instinct.

Could it be...

He suddenly thought of how fiercely his stove burned. The hotter it burned, the more it craved women.

Could that instinct be a side effect of this trait of his?

Tsk...

How was that...

"Forget it."

Though the woman seemed a little surprised that Hu Ma had recognized her, she didn't say much. She spoke coolly. "It doesn't matter that you figured out who I am."

"You know who I am, and I know who you are. That should make it easier for us to exchange information."

"You seem to have grown up here in Old Yin Mountain, so you should know the area fairly well. Have you heard the legend of the 'Hundred Corpse Mound'?"

"Hundred Corpse Mound?"

Hu Ma was briefly taken aback. The name sounded vaguely familiar, then a light suddenly dawned on him.

Hadn't the first Reincarnator he'd spoken with mentioned the Hundred Corpse Mound?

When he met the second Reincarnator, he had already remembered that man's request.

Even if she hadn't asked, he'd planned to tell her about it and ask her to go save the man.

Unexpectedly, the thing she was looking for was the very place that man had found.

As Hu Ma was recalling all this, the other party continued:

"In return, you can ask me for one piece of information of equal value, or exchange three pieces of information of lesser value."

"..."

"Exchange?"

Hu Ma said nothing for a moment, his thoughts racing.

This was only his second time speaking with a Reincarnator, and the first one had been in a desperate situation, leaving no time to say much.

He was unfamiliar and lost in this world, and just as unfamiliar with the circle of Reincarnators.

From the woman's words, he got the vague sense that Reincarnators didn't necessarily draw their blades to help one another in a crisis. Even information had to be traded?

"Your silence tells me you do have information about it," the woman said calmly. "That saves me a lot of trouble."

"You can ask your questions or make your request first. After all, in terms of our standing in this world, I have a few more advantages than you."

"If you want some other kind of payment, you can say so, though we'll have to discuss how to provide it."

"..."

"...All right!"

Hu Ma hadn't expected her to read so much into his silence.

But regardless, if she was willing to trade, that was good.

Ever since arriving in this world, he'd been accumulating questions and had long prepared what he wanted to ask. He had been waiting for the chance to get clear answers from another Reincarnator.

He asked at once, "First question: what kind of world is this?"

"A world of calamity, demons, and chaos."

Her voice was soft, yet laden with a crushing weight. She continued quietly, "No one in this world knows exactly what happened, let alone us."

"All we know is that this place was once in an era called the Yi Dynasty. But at some point, the Great Year descended, and the world fell into chaos. Strange things appeared everywhere, demons and monsters emerged, and at dusk they divided the world with the living."

"Now the land is ravaged by war, with dragons and serpents rising everywhere. You're in Old Yin Mountain. Though it's remote and barren, at least you can scrape by in relative peace."

"Beyond Old Yin Mountain, the land has long been in turmoil, with war and supernatural horrors everywhere. Just staying alive in peace has become an impossible dream."

"..."

As Hu Ma listened, he could hardly imagine what the world beyond Old Yin Mountain was like.

He was silent for a long while, taking it in, then slowly asked, "Second question: what's the deal with people like us?"

"Heh..."

To his surprise, the other party gave a faint laugh at his question.

"Sure enough, you've wasted one of your chances on a useless question. But this is generally considered the easiest question to waste an opportunity on."

"All I can tell you is that we don't know what's going on either."

"When I was three, I suddenly broke through the mystery of the womb and remembered my previous life. I've met a few Reincarnators, and they were just like me."

"We reincarnated here for no apparent reason. After discussing it with one another, we discovered that the only thing we had in common was that we'd been reborn with the same names and the same birth dates as in our previous lives, and that we all had the ability to find and connect with each other through our Natal Spirit Temples."

"But no one knows why we came here or what will happen in the future."

"Everyone just keeps their secrets, survives carefully, and exchanges information whenever they encounter another Reincarnator, so they can improve their chances of staying alive."

"..."

"Awakened at three?"

Hu Ma listened carefully to every word she said, then suddenly realized there was a crucial problem.

From what she said, they had been born into this world and grown up here?

But he was different. His former body had already died, and he had come to this world because the Old Woman had accidentally summoned the wrong soul...

He vaguely sensed that something was off, and suddenly understood. "Why does it sound like..."

"...the others were simply reborn through reincarnation, but I'm more like an evil spirit that possessed someone?"

"..."

The thought made him uneasy, but he held back and didn't say it aloud.

From this brief conversation with the woman, he had already sensed that every Reincarnator had secrets of their own.

Besides, from the moment he woke up, he had treated guarding his own secrets as the most important thing. By now, it had become a habit.

"It's time for your third question," the woman said calmly. "But let me remind you: you've wasted your first two chances."

"I have no intention of taking advantage of you. Think carefully about your third question."

"..."

"I see..."

Hu Ma understood that his first two questions were very important to someone who had only recently woken up, but to Reincarnators who had been living in this world for a long time, they really did seem like wasted opportunities.

He drew a deep breath and slowly said, "For my third question, can I make a request instead?"

The other party fell silent, then said, "Go ahead."

"I want you to help me find someone."

Hu Ma spoke at once. "She's very important to me. All I know is that she's somewhere in these woods, but I don't know whether she's alive or dead."

"I need to find her as soon as possible..."

"..."

After saying that, he held his breath and waited for her answer.

The woman fell distinctly silent for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Are you looking for a relative from this world?"

Hu Ma thought about it, then said, "More or less. She was very good to me!"

"That's rare."

The other party answered slowly, as if mulling over something, then said, "This won't be difficult for me. I can help you."