I Want to Die

"We hated that strange Li Shiyi, and all Transmigrators along with him."

The Red-Robed Judge's sleeves fluttered. In the wavering candlelight, he struck the Transmigrator named Lu Ziyou into dust.

His soul scattered, his bones vanished.

Outside the room, rain poured in sheets. The four figures of Ox-Head, Horse-Face, Black and White Impermanence disappeared from beside the window.

The room fell into a deathly silence.

Gu Baishui tightened his sleeves. Listening to the rain outside, he couldn't help feeling a chill in his body.

He had learned what had once happened in Luoyang City, and understood the "two Transmigrators" the little beggar had mentioned.

Li Xu was the first Transmigrator she had known, a young girl burdened with guilt.

Li Shiyi was the second Transmigrator she had met-or rather, someone who had been transmigrated into.

The story in Luoyang City had changed over the course of one long spring.

A strange soul had come into this world and taken over the body of a young man in Luoyang City.

The young man had grown strange and cold. He had killed the girl who recognized him with his own hands, then traveled to many places, living in the dazzling glory of the protagonists in novels.

What he didn't know was that people were watching him from the shadows, like wolves lying in wait. They were just waiting for him to show the slightest weakness before they would lunge from the dark and tear him to pieces.

On the day that "Li Shiyi" proved the Dao and became an emperor, the demons and monsters of the Old Ye Residence seized their chance, pulverized that despicable Transmigrator's bones, and dug up his grave.

Lu Ziyou had thought that Li Shiyi's followers lived in this Old Courtyard, protecting the Great Emperor's tomb on behalf of their senior.

But in reality, this Old Courtyard housed a pack of wolves and tigers—the true fiends who had killed Li Shiyi.

They searched the continent's history for one Transmigrator after another, then treated them just as they had Li Shiyi: pulverizing their bones and scattering their souls.

The fiends of the Old Ye Residence hated Transmigrators. From beginning to end, they had hunted down every one of them.

At this point, Gu Baishui suddenly realized something. He looked at the Red-Robed Judge and asked, "Li Shiyi wasn't the Decaying Great Emperor?"

The Red-Robed Judge calmly nodded. "Of course he wasn't. Li Shiyi was an emperor for less than half an hour before he died at our hands. How would he have had time to give himself an imperial title?"

"But the rumors say Li Shiyi was connected to the Decaying Great Emperor."

The Red-Robed Judge narrowed his eyes and said expressionlessly, "The rumors you heard started with us."

"Hm?"

"We did think Li Shiyi was connected to the Decaying Great Emperor, because it was the Decaying Great Emperor who created the Red-Haired Ominous Beings, and there was always a Red-Haired Monster following Li Shiyi."

Gu Baishui froze for a moment, then asked, "What happened to the Red-Haired Monster that followed Li Shiyi?"

"It died."

"It died?"

"On the day Li Shiyi became an emperor, that Red-Haired Monster died with him at our hands."

The Red-Robed Judge narrowed his eyes. After a quiet pause, he turned to Gu Baishui and said, "Over the years, we've discovered that every Transmigrator has a Red-Haired Monster following them."

"So we also want to know what kind of person the Decaying Great Emperor really was, and what purpose those Red-Haired Monsters serve."

Gu Baishui's eyelids twitched. He looked up and asked, "Who exactly are you?"

"What kind of people are we?"

The Red-Robed Judge fell silent for a long while, then suddenly let out a helpless laugh.

"We're just a group of down-and-out scholars. A little girl tricked us into a residence deep in the mountains, and then we went to Chang'an to sit the imperial exams."

"Some did so-so, while others did well. In my and Wu Tian's year, one of us became the top scholar in the civil exams, and the other the Martial Top Scholar."

"But it didn't matter much. After all, the young miss wouldn't like people like us."

Gu Baishui gazed at the wavering candle inside the room. He was silent for a long time before he finally understood the whole story.

The Ye Clan residence in Luoyang City was the Old Ye Residence. That also proved there was a new Ye Residence, in a distant mountain.

The Ye Clan Young Miss in the story had left Luoyang City and built a residence deep in the mountains.

She remembered some of the stories A-Xu had told her, and some of her strange ideas. So many passing scholars and martial artists fell into her trap.

But those scholars didn't resent her. They helplessly settled down in that remote mountain. Some took up cultivation, while others went elsewhere to seek immortality and the Dao.

Many years later, these scholars gathered together and planned something known only to them.

They killed a Great Emperor, pulverized his bones, and buried him in the Old Ye Residence.

Perhaps this was how the Ye Clan Young Miss from Luoyang City had taken revenge on Li Shiyi long ago. Gu Baishui still didn't know what had happened between that vengeful little beggar and Li Shiyi.

The night rain fell steadily. Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside the window.

"Creak~"

The wooden door swung open from outside, and a little head poked in.

Luo Ziwei looked at the Red-Robed Judge and Gu Baishui inside, then smiled sweetly, her eyes curving into crescents.

"I told you he wasn't a Transmigrator."

The Red-Robed Judge nodded silently. Looking at his young miss in the doorway, he gave a helpless smile too.

"I want to talk with him. A-Yuan, you and Father wait for me outside the city."

Luo Ziwei pointed at Gu Baishui and said this to the Red-Robed Judge.

The Red-Robed Judge seemed to obey the Linen-Clad Girl. He only glanced at Gu Baishui, then strangely vanished from the room.

The entire Old Ye Residence was still shrouded in heavy rain, but for some reason, Gu Baishui felt as if some people had left, heading for the eaves by Luoyang City's gate.

They were waiting for the young woman from the Mansion, and for a simple farewell.

Gu Baishui thought for a moment, but couldn't resist his curiosity. He asked the Linen-Clad Girl, "Your father is...?"

Luo Ziwei shrugged. "You've met him. That night, he even deliberately got up in the middle of the night to scare you."

Gu Baishui immediately thought of that rainy night at the ruined temple, and the Quasi-Emperor's old corpse standing at the door, trying hard to pee.

"That person was the Old Scholar you mentioned?"

"Mm. My father was actually quite talented at cultivation. He reached the Quasi-Emperor Realm so he could get revenge on that person."

Luo Ziwei tilted her head and said, "My father also holds grudges. To live longer, he refined his own body into a corpse."

"And you?"

"Me?"

Luo Ziwei wrinkled her delicate nose and thought carefully for a moment, then gently shook her head. "I'm actually all right. I hate that person, but I also know Li Shiyi left here long ago, so revenge doesn't mean much to me."

The candlelight wavered. Beneath its glow, the Linen-Clad Girl sighed with a heavy heart.

"I'm not good at cultivation, and I don't like it either. But Father and Wu Tian always try every way they can to extend my life. That's how I've managed to keep clinging on and live until today."

"But honestly, living this long hasn't made me very happy... It's tiring."

Gu Baishui lifted his eyes and saw the delicate, Linen-Clad Girl across from him smile brightly and freely. There was weary resignation in her, and a faint, secret delight.

"I'm going to die."