After Swapping Identities With My Archenemy - Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Master

Though it seemed impossible, the thought sprouted wildly in her mind and wouldn’t stop growing.

Her Master had been dead for decades. Since this place archived so many souls, was there a chance she could find information about her Master here? Even though she hadn’t seen a single record of reincarnation among the scrolls she’d flipped through, perhaps… just perhaps?

Maybe something had happened to her Master, some unforeseen change that prevented her from saying goodbye. Although Wandering Masters (You Shi) focused on their own cultivation, who was to say she hadn’t acted on a sudden whim?

Jiang Huaiyi’s pace didn’t slacken. The ground quickly receded far below her. Looking at the increasing height, her heart hammered against her ribs. The stairs here had no handrails or fences; they weren’t particularly wide. One careless step and she would plummet.

She stole a glance downward. Beyond the staircase lay an endless black abyss, dotted only by the distant, pinprick flickers of candlelight on the opposite side. Up and down were both a vast, featureless black; for a moment, she couldn’t distinguish between heaven and earth. This inverted world, filled with unknown terrors, sent a chill straight to her marrow.

She instinctively rubbed her arms and turned back to the bookshelf, continuing her search. The years here were clearly marked. She ran up another dozen flights before she finally saw the archives from thirty years ago.

The scrolls were arranged chronologically by month. Glancing sideways, she realized she could no longer see the floor she had started on. She had no idea how many levels remained above her. When she first entered, she thought the building was only six or seven stories tall—it turned out her perspective from the ground was just severely limited. Any higher, and the candlelight was insufficient to pierce the gloom.

The Senior Sister who had been nearby earlier was now lost somewhere several floors below. The air was unnervingly silent. This was like a gargantuan library consisting only of shelves; once you were far enough apart, even the smallest sounds vanished.

She stood alone in the endless dark. Though surrounded by specks of candlelight, there wasn’t enough light to truly illuminate her position. With the floorboards of the level above pressing down, she could only see a fraction of the opposite side. She guessed she could go up several more floors if she chose.

Jiang Huaiyi held her breath, confirming she could no longer hear the rustling of paper or the quiet muttering from the others. A wave of belated fear washed over her. If she couldn’t hear them, it meant someone else could be standing right next to her in the darkness without her realizing it. The dark felt like a physical barrier, isolating every pocket of space.

She wanted to call out to the others, but she didn’t dare raise her voice, fearing she might attract something malevolent. Finding no other solution, she turned back to the search for her Master’s scroll.

Finding the wide sleeves of her hemp garment cumbersome, she rolled them up, exposing her snowy-white forearms. They seemed to shimmer in the gloom as she focused entirely on the records.

As she neared the date of her Master’s passing, her heart rate spiked. The dates were recorded according to the lunar calendar, but fortunately, her memory was sharp. It took only a few moments to find the correct month. The categorization on these shelves was remarkably efficient. The bamboo slips noted birthdates, ancestral homes, death dates, and names. She only had to check a few dates to narrow down the section.

As the specific date approached, her emotions became difficult to describe. Though she had long accepted her Master’s death, seeing it written down made her heart ache. Seeing a name recorded here made it feel as though the person she had lived with day and night truly no longer existed in the human world.

Her dreams were always so vivid. Her Master’s appearance and personality which hadn’t changed since Jiang Huaiyi was a child were etched into her mind. To suddenly accept that she was just a single stroke of ink among millions was a bitter pill to swallow.

She traced the pages, the paper making a soft shashasha sound. Soon, she found the scrolls from thirty years ago. Her hand hesitated, then slowly began to scan for the first month.

It was during the first lunar month. Her Martial Uncle had told her that shortly after the New Year, her Master had passed away. She had dressed herself neatly and sat peacefully in her chair to soak up the sun. Martial Uncle had called out to her with incense in hand, but when there was no answer, she assumed her Master had fallen asleep. She had quietly returned with a felt blanket to cover her, only to touch her ice-cold hand and realize she had been gone for some time. Even the warm sun couldn’t bring a spark of heat back to her body.

Whenever Martial Uncle spoke of it, her face was clouded with a sorrow that words couldn’t express. Jiang Huaiyi hadn’t understood as a child; she saw her Master every day, or rather, every night. Her Master didn’t seem to come out during the day, but once Jiang Huaiyi fell asleep, she would appear in her dreams to teach and guide her. Under this day-and-night tutelage, her knowledge and talent had skyrocketed, far surpassing her peers.

Others always told their children to “be like her,” but only Martial Uncle felt bad that she had no time for play as a child.

Jiang Huaiyi’s fingers brushed against the scrolls, trembling uncontrollably. She picked one up, her heart a tangle of emotions. The records were sorted by region, from South to North. She scanned them—her Master’s ancestral home was in this region.

She flipped through quickly, her hands shaking as she reached for the next volume. She tried to comfort herself: Maybe this is just an insignificant place. It probably doesn’t have records of real souls. Most of the ones here were just tricked into coming. How could a bootleg Underworld have a real Book of Life and Death?

I’m just looking, she told herself. Just looking.

Her pale fingertips slid across the paper. She was extremely careful now; she had reached the section for her home city, Rong City. She used her thumb to push the edge of the page until it bowed, then slid her index finger through the gap to flip it a slow but safe way to handle the fragile paper.

She skimmed the entries. It turned out a surprising number of people had died in Rong City that day. Some names were even repetitive, differing only by surname. In those years, while the preference for sons wasn’t extreme, names like Zhaodi (Bring a Brother) or Pandine (Hope for a Brother) were still common. Names like Chunyan (Spring Swallow) or Qiuping (Autumn Duckweed) showed a bit more parental effort. Most were elderly dying of natural causes, illness, or old age.

But there were also young women—suicides by drowning or hanging. Some souls couldn’t be collected; they were bound to the place of their death. Jiang Huaiyi couldn’t help but think of the feet she had seen dangling from the rafters at Sanguan Temple. Shen Wensi had later told her she had “driven that female ghost away”—questioning how she dared to show up there. She wondered where that ghost was now. Had she been taken away during the last soul-sending?

Her thoughts drifted, her fingers pausing before resuming their rustling. Reading Ghost Script was mentally exhausting; the moment she relaxed, the characters became illegible. She had to cast aside her stray thoughts and focus entirely on the linguistic translation to read faster.

Soon, she found her rhythm again. The earlier stumbling vanished.

She read on, but still, there was no sign of her Master. Her Master’s name was Jiang Younian a name that stood out among the sea of common sibling-themed names. Of course, there were records of noble ladies passing away, but she didn’t have time to study those. Whenever she saw a surname that wasn’t “Jiang,” she skipped it, increasing her speed.

However, the language barrier meant she couldn’t simply scan a page at a glance. Because there were so many names, her meticulous search eventually bred a sense of irritability. The nearby candlelight began to sting her eyes. She rubbed them, flipped to the next page, and persisted.

She felt a twinge of regret. Her decision had been too hasty; she should have brought Shen Wensi up with her. Two people would have been much faster. She wouldn’t be here suffering through this tedious list of names alone.

Fortunately, the silence was absolute, broken only by the turning of pages and the occasional pop of a candle wick. Her restlessness gradually settled. She took a deep breath, adjusting her state of mind.

Reaching the final page of one volume, she checked the addresses and found them to be near her own home. Her excitement flared again. She replaced the volume and pulled out the next one.

Flipping open the dark cover, her eyes landed on a name that was both familiar and strangely distant: Jiang Younian.

Her heart lurched. Her hands shook so violently that the text blurred into double images. Seeing the sharp, forceful brushstrokes, Jiang Huaiyi could hardly contain her surging nerves. She struggled to steady herself, took a deep breath, and rubbed her fingers together, preparing to read the details.

Suddenly, a familiar, eerie voice whispered right in her ear:

“I suggest you don’t flip to the next page.”

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