Scare You to Death

At that moment, Yi Shuyuan found reality both absurd and perfectly reasonable. How did that saying go? Every grievance had its source, every debt its debtor. This wronged creditor certainly kept a close watch!

But He Xin showed no trace of ferocity today. Even the blue tinge of her face had faded. At first glance, she could have passed for a delicate White-Clad Woman, merely a little pale—provided one ignored the blood running down her forehead.

With the jailer watching beside him, Yi Shuyuan refrained from greeting He Xin aloud for fear of frightening him. He merely nodded lightly, then looked at Jia Yuntong. Apparently, Jia Yuntong could at least sense He Xin's presence under these circumstances, which explained his terror.

The jailer was already slapping the iron door.

Bang, bang, bang!

"Jia Yuntong, get out here! Someone's come to see you! Jia Yuntong, get out here!"

Ordinarily, the jailer's word was law in this dungeon. One roar from him would make every prisoner tremble three times over. Jia Yuntong was certainly trembling nonstop today, but he paid the jailer no heed whatsoever.

Feeling rather awkward, the jailer could only turn to Yi Shuyuan.

"Mr. Yi, as you can see, this is the state he's in. There's really nothing to be said."

Yi Shuyuan watched for a while, then spoke.

"Jia Yuntong, do you know who I am?"

Yi Shuyuan's voice sounded calm, but it carried considerable volume-no less than the jailer's earlier roar.

Hearing Yi Shuyuan's words, the shivering Jia Yuntong suddenly froze. The voice sounded somewhat familiar, and he soon realized who it belonged to.

The next instant, Jia Yuntong threw aside the straw mat and loose straw, rushed straight toward the iron door, and slammed against it with a bang.

It happened so quickly and abruptly that even the jailer instinctively stepped back in fright. Yi Shuyuan, however, remained motionless before the door.

Jia Yuntong reached out, his face bearing the contradictory emotions of delight and panic.

"I know you're Mr. Yi! Mr. Yi, who can see ghosts! Sir, save me! That ghost, that ghost is right here! She's right here! I can feel her! She wants to strip off my skin, drink my blood, and suck out my marrow! Save me, sir! I'll give you untold riches-"

Jia Yuntong waved his hands through the bars, his still-swollen fingers vainly trying to touch Yi Shuyuan. Yi Shuyuan stood barely three inches beyond their reach, looking past him at He Xin inside the cell. The young woman had probably given Jia Yuntong quite a few scares.

As though she had realized what Yi Shuyuan was thinking, He Xin turned her face aside in slight embarrassment. Even after becoming a ghost, some of her maidenly habits and mannerisms remained unchanged.

Yi Shuyuan smiled. A sense of shame was a good thing; it meant He Xin was far from becoming a vengeful ghost. As for Jia Yuntong... Yi Shuyuan drew his gaze back and lowered his head slightly, looking at the man pressing his face against the bars as he strained to reach him.

Smack!

A scabbard struck the back of Jia Yuntong's hand hard, making him withdraw it in pain. It was the jailer beside them who had struck.

"Pah! Behave yourself, you bastard!"

"Save me, sir..."

Though he had withdrawn his hands, Jia Yuntong still looked at Yi Shuyuan with desperate hope.

Yi Shuyuan simply watched him. As he continued staring, perhaps because his attention was so focused, he seemed to glimpse strands of black vapor gathering around Jia Yuntong. Even his complexion carried a dark, gloomy cast.

Something stirred in Yi Shuyuan's mind. Was a fatal calamity approaching?

Being sentenced to be cut in half at the waist certainly counted as a fatal calamity, but Yi Shuyuan could not help frowning slightly. Something still seemed off.

Would He Xin kill Jia Yuntong before then?

Yi Shuyuan looked at the White-Clad Woman. She lowered her head slightly, but not out of a guilty conscience. It was merely the instinctive reserve of a woman from this region, and there was no particularly heavy aura of malice about her.

Seemingly embarrassed by Yi Shuyuan's repeated glances, He Xin floated lightly out of the cell and came beside him. With her head lowered, she spoke in a voice as faint as a mosquito's hum.

"Mr. Yi, I only wanted to frighten him to vent my anger. The more frightened he is, the more I want to scare him. He may look like he can't take it, but you really can't scare him to death. As the saying goes, a scourge lives a thousand years. Look, he's only pretending to be mad..."

Yi Shuyuan turned his head and gave a crooked smile, then returned his attention to Jia Yuntong.

Could this fellow die of illness?

With that thought, Yi Shuyuan looked toward another cell, where someone had been coughing softly all along. Now that he deliberately focused his gaze, he could faintly make out a hazy gray mist over there. When he looked back at Jia Yuntong, however, there was only the aura of death.

Could there be some other unforeseen turn?

After this brief train of thought, Yi Shuyuan had formed several guesses.

"Mr. Yi? Didn't you have something to ask him?"

Seeing that Yi Shuyuan had remained silent for so long, the jailer could not help asking.

Yi Shuyuan nodded, temporarily set aside his thoughts, and spoke in a clear, strong voice.

"Jia Yuntong, do you repent?"

At Yi Shuyuan's words, Jia Yuntong's face filled with remorse.

"Yes! I bitterly regret everything! Please save me, sir! Please save me! Speak to that ghost for me, sir. Tell her to stop haunting me-"

Watching Jia Yuntong's terror-stricken frenzy, Yi Shuyuan merely gazed at him in silence. This was not true repentance-not in his eyes, at least.

"Indeed, you regret it. But you don't regret profiting from your evil deeds. You regret being caught. You regret that wronged souls really do come to claim lives, that you failed to prepare beforehand, failed to pray to gods and Buddha. You regret failing to protect yourself!"

Jia Yuntong seemed less frenzied than before. He stared blankly at Yi Shuyuan, as though his innermost thoughts had been laid bare. His lips trembled, but he said nothing.

Beside them, the jailer looked from Yi Shuyuan to Jia Yuntong, inwardly marveling. Mr. Yi truly was an extraordinary man. A few words from him, and the prisoner could no longer even keep up his act of madness.

Somewhat displeased by Jia Yuntong's reaction, Yi Shuyuan considered briefly, glanced at the jailer, then calmly met Jia Yuntong's eyes.

"Jia Yuntong, I can tell you this: Miss He Xin, whom you murdered, is standing right behind you."

Jia Yuntong shuddered violently and shrank against the door, trembling so badly that he did not even dare turn around.

"Hss..."

Even the jailer, Sixth Master, sucked in a breath and instinctively retreated two steps. He peered into the cell in alarm and uncertainty. Though he could see nothing, whether it was his imagination or not, he now felt waves of sinister cold inside that made his skin crawl.

He Xin stared blankly at Jia Yuntong's and the jailer's reactions, then looked at Yi Shuyuan. She was clearly standing right beside Mr. Yi. Soon, however, a faint smile appeared on her face. Mr. Yi liked playing tricks on people too.

"S-sir, save me..."

Those words had nearly scared Jia Yuntong out of his wits. He felt waves of icy cold behind him that made his hair stand on end, and he huddled his entire body against the door.

Yi Shuyuan gave a cold laugh.

"You've already been sentenced. Just wait to be cut in half. If she truly intended to lay hands on you, why would she have waited until now? But don't harbor any false hope that your backers will come to save you. Once they learn of this, they'll probably be the ones most eager for your death. Even after you die, the Netherworld Court won't let you off lightly..."

The first half of Yi Shuyuan's words was a reasonable inference. The latter half, however, came directly from what he had learned from the various netherworld deities. His words reduced Jia Yuntong to an even more pitiful state of terror.

After all, coming from the man before him, such words seemed especially credible.

"Better to rely on yourself than beg others; better to save yourself than beg to be saved. That holds true in the mortal world, and in the Underworld as well. If you possess even a shred of genuine remorse, you must let others see it and hear it, rather than wailing and lamenting here!"

Jia Yuntong fell silent. He stared blankly at Yi Shuyuan. How could he not have considered these things? He had merely clung to a little hope. After all, it was not as though he had never been arrested and then fished out again.

But when it came to things beyond ordinary human power, there was no relying on luck. Only after a long while did Jia Yuntong ask quietly.

"Does the Underworld Office really exist?"

"Hahahaha..."

Yi Shuyuan laughed.

"I hear you worshiped both Buddha and gods aboard your Tower Ship, yet now you ask me whether the Underworld Office exists? How utterly laughable!"

"Th-then why doesn't the ghost go to the Underworld Office?"

Jia Yuntong's voice carried a faint tremor.

Yi Shuyuan shook his head and spoke plainly, following his thoughts.

"Because you turned her into a homeless, wandering ghost. More importantly, because you're still alive. She's waiting-waiting to watch you die! Would you believe that Netherworld Officials already have their eyes on both of you?"

Hearing this, even He Xin, who was already a ghost, instinctively looked around.

"What are the punishments in the Underworld like?"

Jia Yuntong pressed the question, struggling to breathe. Even the jailer listened closely, his face full of alarm.

"How would I know? I've never seen them myself. But even without seeing them, I know that with the sins you've committed, Jia Yuntong, you'll likely face punishments at the Underworld Office far more terrifying than those in the mortal world..."

As he spoke, Yi Shuyuan paused again, leaving Jia Yuntong a little time to imagine them. Only then did he fix his eyes on Jia Yuntong with the hint of a smile.

"Do you believe me?"

Watching cold sweat stream down Jia Yuntong's bloodless face, Yi Shuyuan laughed inwardly. I'll scare you to death, you bastard!

The White-Clad Woman beside him grew thoughtful. Tonight, I'll scare this scoundrel in his dreams just as Mr. Yi described! But what do the Underworld Office's terrible punishments look like? If I ask Mr. Yi, will he tell me?

Naturally, no one else could know He Xin's thoughts. Jia Yuntong, meanwhile, was completely immersed in terrifying imaginings of the Underworld.

"Is... is there any way to make amends?"

As soon as Jia Yuntong asked this, Yi Shuyuan sighed softly. Someone truly repentant would not have asked that. In the end, it was still fear driving him.

"I've already told you: you can only save yourself. I, Yi Shuyuan, am merely a minor clerk who writes documents. How could I save you?"

Yi Shuyuan's interest had already shifted to filling in the details of the County Gazetteer. Jia Yuntong was rather like a dead pig that no longer feared boiling water. It seemed he could only leave the punishments of the Underworld to teach the man how to behave as a human being-or, by then, as a ghost.

Who could have guessed that, as soon as Yi Shuyuan finished speaking, Jia Yuntong would draw a deep breath and suddenly say:

"I have something important to say, but I'll tell only you, sir! Please come inside!"

Yi Shuyuan was slightly startled. Had he actually managed to shake something loose? He looked at the jailer beside him.

The jailer's expression was deeply conflicted. Was this a possible breakthrough in the case? Should he open the door or not? Wretched though Jia Yuntong was, he still weighed over two hundred jin. He certainly could not let Mr. Yi, a frail scholar, go in alone.

After much hesitation, the jailer chose to open the cell door.

"I must stay beside you and watch. That rule absolutely cannot be broken!"