The research I had in mind involved living subjects, like the little white mice in a laboratory.
I was a complete humanities student. The most I'd ever done was dissect a frog in high school biology. At home, the living things I'd killed while cooking were aquatic creatures like fish, shrimp, and crabs—nothing like people. My family had never slaughtered a live chicken or duck, and it had been years since the market had stalls that killed them fresh. As for people, that was even further beyond the pale.
Even if they weren't alive, but ghosts, the thought of such a scene still made me shudder.
Wu Ling seemed different from usual. She was a little less easygoing and a little more distant.
I couldn't imagine what kind of research Wu Ling had done or how she'd done it, and I fell silent.
"There's an entrance to an other space in the woods, in an area that hasn't been developed yet. Yezi and I both came here back then, and we left this place in the care of the underworld's ghost officials. After you mentioned Guangyuan Mountain, I guessed something had gone wrong over there. That ghost might not be there anymore, but it'd be best to seal the entrance to that other space. Your ability..." Wu Ling looked at me and changed the subject.
I thought back to when I'd dealt with the guide. I'd erased the enormous entrance to the other space in the Huixiang Mountain cave. I couldn't remember exactly how it happened, but Ye Qing must have used my ability to do it. In any case, it proved that my ability could destroy entrances like that.
I'd planned to go look around there anyway. Unlike Wu Ling, I didn't even know my way around. Having her