Let the Doubtful Eyes of Others Be Like Lamps of Ghost Fire

How could someone go to sleep and wake up as a different person?

I couldn't make sense of it.

I'd heard Granny say that some cultivators of profound realms could possess another person when they were on the verge of death, taking over a new body to escape calamities and enemies.

When cultivators performed possession, they used their powerful Divine Sense to wipe out the possessed person's soul, turning the body into a clean shell and inheriting everything that had never belonged to them.

Family, friends, even lovers.

I hadn't liked cultivation since I was little, so I didn't know much about the affairs of cultivators.

But I still felt that, for an innocent person with no power to resist, having a stranger's soul take over all the karmic ties they had painstakingly built over a lifetime was truly too cruel and helpless.

Granny said that in the eyes of some cultivators, mortals were no different from pigs and livestock.

Mortals raised pigs and poultry to slaughter and eat, while cultivators raised mortals to destroy their souls and take their bodies. In essence, there wasn't much difference.

Back then, I had a very strange thought: could there be something that looked at cultivators the way cultivators looked at mortals, and mortals looked at pigs and poultry?

Looking down from on high, cold and cruel.

A strand of white Willow Catkins drifted beneath the Willow Tree. I came back to myself and looked at the girl in white beneath its shade.

A-Xu furrowed her pretty brows, still muttering strange and unusual things.

She asked me, "Isn't this terribly unfair to the innocent person whose body has been taken over?"

A-Xu gazed at me intently, but I turned my neck away, uncomfortable, and didn't answer her question.

Because on that warm summer afternoon, beside the rippling little lake, for some reason, a thought suddenly surfaced in some corner of my mind-the thought that had frightened and shaken me more than anything else in my life.

It had revealed only the faintest outline before I ruthlessly crushed it deep within my soul.

But later, that thought became reality.

And the final outcome was far more terrifying, more horrifying, and even more... helpless, deep in my soul, than I had imagined.

"I think, well, you have to consider the different circumstances."

Half a month after A-Xu asked me that question, I came up with an explanation that seemed fairly reasonable.

A-Xu was poring over a book at the time. Hearing my voice, she looked up in a daze.

"Different circumstances?"

"Mm. When each person is born, they're just a muddled baby. A clean, pure soul settles into the baby's body, and a new life is formed."

I explained very earnestly, as if I were trying to convince myself, too.

"If the baby hasn't yet developed feelings or awareness, and a mature soul moves in, then it can't really be called a magpie occupying a dove's nest. It's just... that the soul forgot to drink Meng Po Soup."

A-Xu's already clear, pure eyes lit up. Pressing her lips together, she asked seriously, "Then what if you don't know whether there's already a young soul inside the baby's body?"

I fell silent for a long time. In the end, I still shook my head. "I don't know."

"You don't know..."

A-Xu seemed a little downcast. She lowered her head and softly parted her lips. "That's right. Who could know something like that?"

I was silent for a long time, then told A-Xu another very far-fetched explanation.

"A-Xu, what if it's like this? Maybe there isn't any foreign soul at all. Maybe... before the baby was born, she had a very, very long dream."

"She lived an entire lifetime in the world of her dream. By the time she woke up, her life had only just begun."

"She... doesn't need to feel so guilty."

The girl in white beneath the Willow Tree froze for a moment, then raised her head, looking lost and bewildered.

Orange sunlight passed through the gaps between the leaves, casting dappled shadows across the girl's spotless cheeks. She was as beautiful as a painting.

After a long while, A-Xu lifted her head and smiled foolishly, giggling for a long time.

But it was only much later that I learned I hadn't been the first to know about this question.

On a clear night, a father and son sat on the roof of the Li Residence. They had actually talked about this long ago.

"Son, this continent is much larger and more complicated than you imagine. Your grandfather-my old man-discovered some strange people in the continent's history a long time ago. He wanted to see what lay beyond the starry sky, and he asked if I wanted to go with him."

"Then what did you say, Dad?"

"I told him I had a wife, and only one wife. Your grandfather beat me up and said I'd forgotten him after getting married. But after that, he never asked me about it again."

"Oh."

"Last time I went to the capital, your grandfather asked me to pass on a message. It wasn't for me, though. It was for you."

"For me?"

"Mm. He said traveling alone was too lonely, and asked if you'd want to go out and see the world with him someday, so you two could keep each other company."

Li Shiyi sat silently for a long time on the roof tiles. The night wind blew past. The boy looked up at the bright moon and gave a silly little laugh.

"I have my parents to look after, too. When you get old, I'll have to stay in the city and take care of you."

The old farmer grinned, but still couldn't help asking a rather ominous question. "Your parents will leave you someday. By then, you won't have so many ties keeping you in Luoyang City."

The boy on the roof shrugged and smiled even more brightly, noisier than the stars flickering and dancing in the night sky.

"I still have my little sister, A-Xu. When the Willow Catkins fill the air each year, I have to celebrate that girl's birthday."

"Tsk, what a hassle. You'll have to celebrate her birthday for many years to come..."

"Our A-Xu should be healthy and live a long life..."

[That night, A-Xu furrowed her brows by the lakeside and thought hard for a long time. In the end, she used a trembling brush to write down a short line that didn't look very good.]

[She showed those words to only me, and I've always remembered them.]

"Let the doubtful eyes of others be like lamps of ghost fire; boldly walk your night road."

The Green-Robed Youth inside the room filled in the blank space on the rice paper with his brush. His lips moved ever so slightly, as though he were silently saying something.

Outside the courtyard, the night rain pattered down. After a moment of quiet, a tall, slender white figure walked beneath the eaves and pushed open the wooden door.

"Creak~"

White Impermanence brought in a cool night breeze. Gu Baishui yawned and handed over the rice paper in his hand.

White Impermanence lowered his head slightly and looked it over, his eyelids shifting. Then, without a sound, he put the paper away.

"Come with me."

Gu Baishui rose and followed behind White Impermanence. They walked along the familiar corridor toward the third courtyard.

White Impermanence still had no intention of speaking to Gu Baishui. But after furrowing his brows and thinking for a moment, Gu Baishui suddenly asked, "Have we met there before?"

White Impermanence paused, but still showed no reaction.

"I have a pretty good memory. That night, there were six corpses lying in the woodshed of the Abandoned Temple."

"One of them was you, right?"