Wei Xun asked quietly, "I looked everywhere for you last night. Why did you sleep in Thirteenth Son's room?"
Baozhu found the question baffling. "Wasn't that only natural? It was all your fault!"
Wei Xun stared. "My fault?"
Seeing that he did not understand, Baozhu complained with a touch of embarrassment and shyness, "Because of the pagoda tree!"
Because of the pagoda tree.
The pagoda tree.
Ah.
The greatest mystery unraveled in an instant. Wei Xun relaxed in both body and mind, leaning back against a veranda pillar as his shoulders sagged.
Of course it was because of the pagoda tree. Earlier, when they had bathed on opposite sides of the wall, he had become aroused and felt guilty, so he had used the hanging ghost in the tree as an excuse to frighten her away. Afraid that insects would fall onto her, she certainly would not return to her original room to bathe. She would have to find another room without a pagoda tree above its hot spring.
Besides, she had already exchanged her original room with Yang Xingjian. Deciding on a whim to swap with Thirteenth Son again was perfectly natural. Thirteenth Son had spent the entire night doing his devotions in the temple's Meditation Hall and had never returned to his room, while the room where she copied sutras had remained empty.
The most inconceivable mystery had the simplest answer.
Baozhu continued, "Yesterday I was so sleepy I could barely keep my eyes open. I told you I was going back for a nap. Don't you remember?"
Wei Xun thought dazedly that he must already have been ensnared by his heart demon then, and so had failed to notice. Afraid of coffins and corpses, Baozhu had never approached the place where the body lay in state. She