The tower-jumping girl

Seeing Huang Qingyun, as frail as a willow swaying in the wind, all three men took her for a sickly beauty.

But her words held a firmness at odds with her appearance. "Grandpa, the one I dreamed of was a heavenly general, not a ghost! I'm fine. I've just been a little tired these past few days!"

The girl spoke quietly, but her tone was resolute.

In that respect, she was very much like Huang Huaji.

Beside her, Huang Liufeng sighed mournfully. "Sister, you don't know anything! Oh, Grandpa, she'll be all right, won't she? I won't let anything happen to her. Grandpa, say something. Hurry up and say something..."

"Speak properly," Huang Qingyun said, her expression stern. "In front of outsiders, show some of the backbone expected of a Huang family descendant. Sniveling and weeping like a woman-do you call yourself a man?"

Huang Liufeng folded his arms, turned away, and pouted. "Hmph."

Huang Qingyun slapped the table. "Act like a woman again and I'll break your ribs!"

The three men gaped.

Wang Qilin's eyes had truly been opened. No wonder people said every older sister was her little brother's tribulation.

Huang Qingyun looked as though she couldn't twist the cap off a water bottle, but she could certainly twist the top off her brother's skull!

Madam Huang née Yao said gently, "Yun'er, put your temper aside for now and tell these three gentlemen about your dream."

Huang Qingyun took two delicate, panting breaths. "What's there to tell? A bunch of ghosts surrounded me in my dream, and a heavenly general rescued me and brought me home. Haven't I told you dozens, hundreds of times? Cough, cough."

After just a few sentences, her body was already struggling to cope, and a flush rose to her cheeks.

Xie Hama stood. "General Huang, Madam Huang, from what this old Taoist can see, evil energy has invaded your granddaughter, severely depleted her yang energy, and left her soul adrift. That is why she has become so weak."

Huang Liufeng nodded hurriedly. "Yes, my sister is very weak now. She used to be strong. A fifty-jin stone lock..."

"Cough, cough." Huang Qingyun coughed.

Huang Liufeng hastily covered his mouth.

Xie Hama took out a talisman and flicked it into Huang Qingyun's teacup.

The talisman ignited without a flame, and once it entered the cup, a pattern of the eight trigrams appeared in the clear tea.

Wang Qilin marveled inwardly at the sight. If the old Taoist went to Earth, he could make a fortune as a barista with that trick alone.

A trace of pride appeared on Xie Hama's face. "Please drink this tea, young lady. Allow this old Taoist to bolster your vital energy, dispel the evil, and temporarily replenish your yang energy!"

Huang Qingyun glanced at the tea and shook her head. "Whoever wants it can drink it. I'm not drinking that dubious stuff."

Just as he was about to show off, Xie Hama was left dumbfounded.

Wang Qilin smiled. "Are you afraid we've poisoned the tea, Miss Huang? Is that why you don't dare drink it?"

Huang Qingyun smiled demurely, picked up the cup, and drank it down.

To prove she feared nothing, she even swallowed the tea leaves!

Wang Qilin truly wanted to cup his hands and say, "A true hero."

As the tea entered her stomach, color immediately returned to Huang Qingyun's pale face. Where she had needed the chair back and table to remain seated, she could now stand on her own. She exclaimed in amazement, "What did you give me?"

Xie Hama sneered. "Whoever wants to tell you can tell you. I'm not telling you about that dubious stuff."

Huang Liufeng secretly gave him a thumbs-up, his face full of admiration.

You're such a badass!

Wang Qilin thought Huang Qingyun would fly into a rage. Instead, she widened her eyes, held her temper, and said, "You said earlier that this tea could bolster vital energy and dispel evil. So evil energy really has entered my body?"

Xie Hama stroked his beard. "Entered your body? It has reached your very vitals! Your yang energy won't gather, and yin energy fills your body. A ghost has harmed you. Unless someone saves you, you have only a few days left to live!"

Huang Qingyun blurted out, "Then Su Lang lied to me?"

Huang Huaji abruptly looked at the steward beside him. The steward asked, "Miss, who is this Su Lang?"

Huang Qingyun fell silent for a while before slowly saying, "About half a month ago, I started having a strange dream. At first, I appeared somewhere completely dark, and then I would walk in one direction, unable to stop myself..."

"I had the same dream seven nights in a row. On the seventh night, I saw a door and pushed it open."

"I shouldn't have opened that door!"

"Behind it was a world I should never have entered!"

"When I opened the door and walked out, I found myself on a street lined with businesses. It was a ghost market."

"Some people in the ghost market sold candied hawthorn skewers, some sold flatbread soaked in bone broth, some sold stir-fried offal, and some performed tricks..."

"But the candied hawthorn skewers were made from human eyeballs, the broth was stewed from human bones, and the offal they sold was human hearts, livers, spleens, lungs, and kidneys. One performer took off his own head and replaced it with a dog's..."

Huang Liufeng gave an awkward laugh. "You carry on. I have something to do, so I'll be leaving."

Huang Qingyun caught him by the neck like a chick and pressed him back down, her expression unchanged. "Nothing happened when I first entered the ghost market. But after wandering around for a while, I saw two big ghosts bullying a little ghost in ragged clothes. It made me furious, so I went over to reason with them!"

Xie Hama sucked in a breath. "You knew they were ghosts, and you still dared provoke them?"

Huang Qingyun said calmly, "So what if they were ghosts? Should I be afraid of them?"

"Shouldn't you?"

"Of course not. If people turn into ghosts after dying, the worst they could do was kill me and turn me into one too. Then I'd just keep fighting them! And if I couldn't beat them, I still had all the loyal martyrs of the Huang family. Who doesn't have a few friends and relatives in the underworld? We'd all charge them together. Why fear a few stray ghosts?"

Huang Liufeng applauded. "What spirit, Sister!"

Huang Qingyun glanced at him. "If I still couldn't beat them, I'd come up and drag you down to fight them with me!"

Tears filled Huang Liufeng's eyes.

Huang Qingyun slapped the table. "Have some backbone. Even as a ghost, I'd still protect you!"

Huang Liufeng said, "I knew you would. That's why I was moved to tears in advance."

The little exchange between the siblings made Wang Qilin and the other two chuckle, but Huang Huaji's face was livid. "Su Lang?"

The steward nodded. "Su Xin'an, perhaps? How did he become involved?"

Huang Qingyun said, "I was getting to that!"

"I started fighting those two big ghosts, and suddenly every ghost on the street crowded around us. Those bastards took their side and ganged up on a weak woman like me!"

"Then Su Lang appeared, pulled me out of the ghost market, and anxiously asked how I'd come to be there."

"How was I supposed to know how I'd ended up there? Su Lang said it was the underworld, and living people shouldn't be there. Then he took me on another long trek..."

"Didn't you ask why he was in the underworld?" the steward asked.

Huang Qingyun said, "I did. Su Lang said he was a reincarnated heavenly general, entrusted by the Yama Kings of the Ten Courts with watching over the ghost market..."

Huang Huaji slapped the table and sprang to his feet. "Utter nonsense!"

The steward hurried over to rub his back and calm him.

Wang Qilin looked at him.

Why was the old general so agitated?

Huang Qingyun continued on her own. "Su Lang also said my soul had entered the underworld by mistake, and if I stayed too long, I wouldn't be able to return. So he took me to a Buddhist pagoda."

"The pagoda was a passage between the underworld and the world of the living. He took me and jumped from it. Once we reached the bottom, my soul would return to the living world."

"But strangely, after we jumped off the pagoda, we didn't fall straight to the bottom."

"Instead, we fell slowly."

"We could only fall one floor each night!"

"Falling was like climbing stairs. It was difficult and exhausting. The reason I've grown weaker and weaker these past few days is that jumping down the pagoda has worn me out!"

"Now we've already fallen to the sixth floor."

"There are still five floors below..."

At this, Huang Huaji snorted. The steward gave a bitter smile. "Miss, why didn't you mention this a few days ago?"

Huang Qingyun said, "Why bother telling you all that? I'm almost at the bottom anyway. I'll be back in five days."

Xie Hama gave a cold laugh. "In five days, you'll be dead! And after you die-"

"You'll never be reincarnated!"

Huang Liufeng burst into loud sobs.