After Swapping Identities With My Archenemy - Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Past Lives

Jiang Huaiyi was surprised by the changes in her body, but she also found it extremely bizarre.

Although anything could happen inside the “Enchantment,” she still felt it was a little unbelievable.

Perhaps it was the scientific life of the past twenty years that made her break her inherent understanding of the mystical life of the past few days.

Those strange and bizarre things rarely happened to her. When they did, she felt that they were both reasonable and unexpected.

The little girl in front of her spoke: “It’s delicious.”

Jiang Huaiyi quickly handed her a bottle of water. The little girl looked quite lively. She had big, beautiful eyes.

She watched her quietly, and drank a mouthful from the bottle that she had opened.

Jiang Huaiyi let out a sigh of relief. It seemed that not all ghosts were difficult to get along with. As long as the other party didn’t deliberately scare her, she would just treat it as a child’s mischief.

The little girl quickly finished her food and crawled out of the box. Although her posture was still a little strange, it was much better than her terrifying appearance before.

And she wasn’t aggressive towards the two of them.

The little girl observed Jiang Huaiyi and found that the expression on her face had obviously relaxed. There was no look of disgust or calculation.

Thinking about the other person’s cowardly appearance in the illusion just now, she knew that Jiang Huaiyi was completely different from the people who had come in before.

This person wasn’t very good at hiding her emotions. People were often the most authentic when they reacted subconsciously.

A ‘Xuanmen’ cultivator who was afraid of ghosts, it was really funny to think about.

Seeing that the other person was not hostile, Jiang Huaiyi carefully helped Shen Wensi sit down.

Her condition was really not good. Her face was very pale. She wondered if it was because of her “punching and kicking” just now.

Shen Wensi closed her eyes and whispered in her ear: “I’ll leave the rest to you. I’ll rest for a while.”

Jiang Huaiyi nodded. The three of them then fell into a long silence.

Her hand in her pocket was almost torn apart, thinking about how to speak without offending the other person.

Ghosts generally had bad tempers. If she said something wrong, the cute little girl in front of her might turn back into that terrifying appearance from before.

Before she could even prepare her words, the little girl in front of her spoke.

“Why did you come down here?”

Jiang Huaiyi looked at her cold eyes and answered honestly: “We came down to get a scroll. Do you know where the scroll is?”

The little girl’s expression changed. She was no longer as friendly as she seemed just now.

“A scroll? What kind of scroll?”

Jiang Huaiyi smiled awkwardly: “I can’t describe it.”

The fine silk cloth didn’t specify it. She thought it looked like a scroll, but it could also be a fragrant, roasted loaf of bread that looked like a scroll.

In such a serious atmosphere, she really shouldn’t have been daydreaming at this time. Her mind was full of fragrant, roasted bread.

But this was like when a song’s melody inexplicably appeared in her mind during an exam.

The more she tried to control it, the louder the song would play, and all her problem-solving thoughts would be interrupted.

The little girl looked at her strangely and repeated what she had said: “You can’t describe it? Why can’t you? Do you not even know what you’re looking for?”

Her expression was a little wary. As long as Jiang Huaiyi said something that she was even slightly unhappy with, she would start tormenting the two people in front of her.

The evil thoughts after becoming a ghost couldn’t be suppressed. Especially since she had the thing that Jiang Huaiyi was looking for.

Jiang Huaiyi’s mind was still replaying the fragrant roasted bread when she was suddenly asked the question.

Looking at that very oppressive face, she subconsciously stammered: “It’s… like a long loaf of bread.”

The air was eerily quiet. The little girl in front of her looked at her with a complicated expression.

Jiang Huaiyi turned her head in confusion to look at Shen Wensi. She saw her frowning, and the corners of her mouth seemed to be uncontrollably turning up.

She looked like she was trying to hold back a laugh.

The little girl in front of her, however, seemed to have completely relaxed. It seemed that these two didn’t know what was hidden here.

She sat opposite Jiang Huaiyi and drank a few more sips of the water she had just opened.

She asked, “Do you want to know what happened down here?”

Jiang Huaiyi shook her head and then nodded. In fact, what happened below had already been summarized in that short sentence.

The long-ago war destroyed the air-raid shelter and buried many lives.

“Tell me about yourself. You seem to be different from them.”

A ripple appeared on the girl’s calm face: “I am the ‘Core of the Array,’ so I can move freely within the ‘Enchantment.’ This is what the people who came in before told me.”

Jiang Huaiyi keenly caught the meaning of her words: “Have people been in here before?”

The little girl sneered: “Of course. There were many people who came for it.”

Jiang Huaiyi had a gut feeling that what the other person was talking about was the same thing she was looking for.

She glanced at the fine silk cloth. Sure enough, the location of the scroll and their location overlapped.

No wonder she couldn’t find the scroll. She must have had it with her.

She didn’t know how she could take it out. Jiang Huaiyi thought for a moment and asked, “Did they all get out?”

The little girl showed a strange smile. On her cute face, it looked a little ferocious.

She said slowly: “They all died.”

Jiang Huaiyi instantly grabbed Shen Wensi’s arm, causing her to frown even more.

The little girl glanced at Jiang Huaiyi’s hand without a change in expression and tilted her head slightly.

“But you don’t have to worry. I’ll let you go.”

After all, she was the first person who came down here and was so accommodating and had no malice in her heart.

Her remaining rationality told her that not everyone deserved to die.

Some people had also shown her a little kindness in that tumultuous home.

Even if it was just a little, she wouldn’t harm someone else’s life.

Jiang Huaiyi was completely relieved when she heard her promise. She couldn’t help but ask:

“What’s your name? When I send off the souls and break the ‘Enchantment’ later, I’ll give you more paper money for the afterlife.”

“I’m afraid it will be very difficult. Do you know how many people died here?”

The little girl raised an eyebrow, interested in the paper money for the afterlife she mentioned. As the ‘Core of the Array,’ she naturally knew how difficult it was to break the ‘Enchantment’ here.

Jiang Huaiyi glanced at the bottomless passage and nodded calmly.

What she was best at was sending off souls. It was just that before, because she was afraid, she would usually do it and leave the same day, never staying at the main house overnight.

Her uncle said that she was a good seedling for the ‘Xuanmen’ school. As long as she overcame her timid personality, handling all matters would be a piece of cake.

Looking at her calm and relaxed appearance, the little girl in front of her seemed to fall into her past memories.

She spoke with a hint of melancholy, with a sense of vicissitude that didn’t match her age.

From her narration, Jiang Huaiyi learned her name, Xu Zhaodi, a name with a heavy feudal leftover of preferring sons over daughters.

She was a poor person who had fled from the south, with her parents and eight-year-old brother.

A child born in a time of war was destined for a tragic ending from the moment she was born.

When they arrived, their family was so poor they couldn’t even afford food. They could only huddle in a dilapidated temple with beggars.

They would also shout and scold her, taking out their resentment on her.

If it were just that, life would be manageable.

She didn’t lose hope in life in those days filled with despair.

No matter how tired or hard life was, she wanted to live, for herself and for her will to live.

God did not let her have her way. After half a year of living a hard life, she was sold by her parents to a local wealthy man as a concubine in the early winter when her father found a job and her mother could also help with the household income.

Even when the family could barely make ends meet, she had grown up a little and could go out to work and run errands to help the family.

Her parents still sold her. They sold her to a fifty-something-year-old man to be his mistress.

“Zhaodi,” “Zhaodi,” to attract a younger brother, she sold herself to support him.

She, who had always been submissive, rebelled for the first time. Looking at the wedding dress sent by the family, she was not as excited as she had imagined. She just asked the same question she always did, “Why?”

Why, after being a slave at home, were they so heartless that they were not even willing to give her a mouthful of food?

Why were they in such a hurry to sell her when she was still so young?

They didn’t even give her a chance to resist. When she was still dependent on the family and unable to leave, they heartlessly cut off all her escape routes.

She calmly accepted this fact. Her miserable life of more than ten years made her lose all hope of living at this moment.

She quietly held the wedding dress. It was made of good material that she had never touched before. The red and white contrasting colors were not what a proper family would wear. She returned to her small bed in the corner of the kitchen.

In the evening, when it was time to eat, she stole some rat poison from the large restaurant where she often ran errands.

She put it in the family’s food, thinking they could all die together.

But the family didn’t give her a chance. Her fierce father took the rice bowl from her hand.

He told her to get out of the way and gave all the rice in her bowl to her brother.

He didn’t let her eat her last meal, saying that a married daughter was like water that had been poured out.

She should never eat her family’s food again and should never return to her family.

Xu Zhaodi held the empty bowl and stood there in a daze.

Watching her family eat the meat that they rarely had, she smiled.

Soon, the family, who had devoured the meat, began to show obvious symptoms.

They felt nauseous and tried to dig at their throats, wanting to spit out all the food they had just eaten.

They cursed her viciously. She, wearing the red and white wedding dress, slowly walked to the familiar stove.

She lit the firewood inside. The fire spread. She walked to the door and slowly closed it.

After doing all this, she saw an old sedan chair being carried from a distance.

A person came out of the house next door. It was her neighbor’s older sister. The two of them were in the same boat.

She was tightly clutching a paper-wrapped package in her hand.

She said: “Xiao Zheng, this is the pastry I got from an old master’s birthday celebration. Take it with you on the road and don’t go hungry.”

She had given herself a name, hoping to be as free as a kite. Once the string was cut, she would never be treated as a beast of burden again.

In private, a few unfortunate girls in the same boat would call her that.

Unfortunately, that day never came. Her immature wings were broken and she was crushed into the mud.

The sedan chair got closer. It was a simple sedan chair with a single curtain. She had seen it before. It was the kind that only local famous prostitutes would ride in.

When the wind blew, the sedan curtain would lift, and the person inside could be seen clearly.

A blank-faced butler told her to get in.

Her inescapable family and trapped thoughts were taken away by a dilapidated sedan chair.

She ran from one cage into another bottomless abyss.

It started to rain on the way. The sedan chair bearers outside cursed incessantly.

The butler urged them on. The top of the sedan chair had a small hole in it at some point. The rainwater poured in, hitting the paper-wrapped package she was holding.

She opened it, and the white and red pastries inside had long turned into a sticky mess, just like her terrible life.

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