Chapter 190: Chang Xi
Xuan Xia inwardly grumbled about Yan Wentao, but instinctively raised her eyes to look at the night sky.
It had to be said, without the cover of lights, the stars in the night sky were brilliant and truly captivating.
But had she really come out to look at the stars?
Xuan Xia withdrew her line of sight and turned her head to Yan Wentao. “Close the window and get back to your work. The leader is having a meeting; do you want to eavesdrop too?”
Yan Wentao: “……Sorry to disturb.”
He immediately closed the window and drew the curtains tightly.
Soon after, Xuan Xia saw a shadow reflected on the curtains.
Yan Wentao sat down at the desk by the window, lowered his head, and began working, doing data entry from the notebook.
During the days he was hospitalized, the data entry work had been on hold, and now that he was discharged, the work he was supposed to do naturally still had to be done by him.
Yan Wentao was also very self-aware.
Retracting her gaze from the curtains of Yan Wentao’s room, Xuan Xia looked at Daoist Master Qin beside her, who hadn’t joined in talking to Yan Wentao, and suddenly asked tentatively, “Daoist Master Qin, are you done with your work?”
Daoist Master Qin said, “Done.”
Hearing him say he was done, Xuan Xia asked more freely, “What have you been busy with these past few days?”
Daoist Master Qin took out a thing from his body and placed it on the stone table.
Xuan Xia glanced at him and picked up the thing.
It was a small pendant with a knotted cord.
The pendant was about the size of a fingernail, shaped like a petal, clearly in its natural, unpolished state. It felt warm and smooth to the touch, probably jade.
“What is this?” Xuan Xia rubbed the surface of the jade with the pads of her thumb and forefinger.
Daoist Master Qin said, “I couldn’t keep letting her reside in the bell, so I found another item to serve as her new residence.”
That bell had been salvaged from the pond and always looked old and grimy.
“……Ah.” Xuan Xia immediately placed the jade pendant back in its original spot.
Seeing her action, Daoist Master Qin couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Now I want to discuss her situation with you.” Daoist Master Qin glanced at the jade pendant he had taken out.
“Discuss what?” Xuan Xia asked.
Daoist Master Qin said slowly, “Whether to leave her at the temple or have you take her with you.”
Xuan Xia: “……”
Looking at the jade pendant on the table again, Xuan Xia suddenly understood Daoist Master Qin’s intention.
What choice between two options—he had probably decided from the start that he wanted her to take that woman with her.
Otherwise, why would he have changed the woman’s residence to something so nice-looking?
Changing from a broken bell to a jade pendant was like moving from a thatched hut to a villa—a qualitative leap! Xuan Xia was even a bit jealous of that woman.
That said, since Daoist Master Qin had given her such a nice new residence, Xuan Xia’s acceptance had increased quite a bit.
Still, she had some concerns. “You really want me to take her with me? Can I really bring her to work?”
Xuan Xia thought about how she would soon join the film crew, surrounded by so many people—what if the woman was like that ghost in the previous crew?
It wouldn’t scare her, but she was afraid it would scare others.
Regarding Xuan Xia’s concerns, Daoist Master Qin had clearly considered them long ago.
He calmly told Xuan Xia that over these past few days, he had refined the woman anew, purging all her yin energy, so now she was more accurately described as a prophecy spirit rather than a lost soul.
Whether a lost soul or a wild ghost, they both carried unstable yin evil.
Spending time with ordinary people would inevitably affect them.
But a spirit was different—it had no yin evil aura and could do good deeds to accumulate merit, cultivate merit, and the more complete the merit cultivation, the more possible it would be for her to reincarnate or even become a deity.
After hearing Daoist Master Qin’s explanation, Xuan Xia was stunned for a good while, thinking, it could be like this?
Daoist Master Qin added, “She can also be a prophecy spirit; maybe she can even help you out.”
“Prophecy spirit? What’s that?”
Daoist Master Qin said, “Divination of fortune and misfortune.”
After all, Daoist Master Qin had cast the spell to cleanse the woman and refined her into a spirit, so she had inherited a bit of his ability.
The scope of divination depended on spirituality. Spirituality came not only from inheriting the caster’s but also from the spirit itself. For example, since the woman had just become a spirit and her level was low, the scope she could divine was certainly limited.
But as cultivation increased and merit accumulated, the scope of divination would expand accordingly. Maybe in the future she could even divine very distant events.
After hearing Daoist Master Qin’s explanation, Xuan Xia’s acceptance of the woman grew even higher.
She picked up the jade pendant again and suddenly sighed, “She went to such great lengths just to see that worthless scumbag.”
At these words… Daoist Master Qin didn’t know how to respond.
After a moment of silence, Daoist Master Qin changed the topic. “Her original name is Chang Xi.”
“You even know her name?” Xuan Xia widened her eyes.
Daoist Master Qin: “……”
Xuan Xia curved her eyes. “Which two characters?”
“The chang from ordinary, the xi from morning light.”
“Oh, nice name.” Xuan Xia said, “She’s beautiful, and her name is beautiful too.”
Daoist Master Qin raised his eyes to look at her, only curving his lips slightly before dropping the topic.
After waiting a bit and letting the matter of Chang Xi’s name pass, Daoist Master Qin told Xuan Xia Chang Xi’s story.
–
According to Chang Xi herself, she was from Shuzhou.
Her family ran a private school.
Upon hearing this, Xuan Xia said she hadn’t expected her family to run a private school; she thought it was an opera house.
Because Chang Xi always spoke and sang in that drawn-out way.
Daoist Master Qin couldn’t help laughing again, then continued.
As for the person Chang Xi was determined to find, he was called Ruan Lang.
Daoist Master Qin said Ruan Lang was Chang Xi’s name for that person, not his actual name.
That person was surnamed Ruan, but Chang Xi couldn’t remember his specific name.
The Ruan and Chang families were neighbors, and Chang Xi and he were childhood sweethearts. By the normal script, they should have become a devoted couple.
Chang Xi thought so too, but the plot didn’t go that way.
Her Ruan Lang left her and went to Bianjing for certain reasons.
“Bianjing?” Xuan Xia interrupted. “She remembers correctly—that he went to Bianjing?”
“Yes.”
The timeline was established.
Xuan Xia told Daoist Master Qin to continue.
The other party didn’t go to Bianjing and never return; not long after, he came back to Shuzhou, but this time it was to break up with her.
Ruan Lang, who had promised to stay with her forever, suddenly changed and told Chang Xi to forget him and find someone else worthy, while he had decided to become a Daoist priest and devote himself to the Dao from then on.
Chang Xi naturally couldn’t accept his sudden decision to become a monk.
Chang Xi was stubborn too and unwilling to be dismissed with a few words forgetting their bond. After he left Shuzhou again, she followed him to Bianjing to find him.
But in the end, Chang Xi didn’t find him and lost her own life.
Chang Xi drowned in an unnamed river and stayed at the river bottom for an unknown number of years. When Chang Xi’s consciousness cleared, she was already in Ren Yaozhe’s hands.
