Spirit Reaper - Chapter 32

Chapter 32: Yu Xin — Humans are complicated; perhaps she just had a momentary lapse…

“You bastard! You’d pass up a perfectly good boy from the Zhang family just to be with some stray girl of unknown origin and be… be a lesbian!”

“Yu Xin, if word of this gets out, you might not care about your reputation, but I care about mine!”

“How are the neighbors in these ten miles of villages going to look at us? Can you stop being so selfish?!”

“We raised you for twenty years—is this how you repay us?”

In a cramped, simple worker’s dormitory, two women and one man were squeezed onto a sofa. The man sitting in the middle slammed his thermos down on the table, shouting at the young woman standing by the coffee table.

“Old Yu, calm down. Xiao Xin must have just been confused for a moment…” The older woman beside the man called Old Yu grabbed his arm, trying to smooth things over. “It’s all that stray girl’s fault! Who knows what kind of soul-stealing soup she fed Xiao Xin to make her so obsessed…”

“Enough! Don’t talk about her!” Yu Xin clenched her fists, the veins on the back of her hands bulging. “Isn’t it enough that you’re berating me? You have to drag Li Yuan into this too?”

“A ‘stray girl of unknown origin’? If we’re really talking about that, Auntie Wang, you’re the one of unknown origin… the one who shoved her way into our lives not long after my mother passed away, right?”

“You! You brat! You’re trying to kill me!” The woman, her sore spot poked, grimaced and clutched her heart.

“You’ve really grown up, haven’t you? Your wings are hard now, and you dare to talk back!” The father’s anger flared even more as his thick eyebrows shot up, his eyes filled with resentment. “Look at you! A woman liking another woman—what kind of decency is that?”

“A woman should act like a woman. Find a good man, stay at home, and raise children.” Father Yu pointed at Yu Xin from head to toe. “And look at you now. Your hair is so short, you’re dressed in rags—what kind of image is this? I’ll give you one last chance: break it off with that ‘Yuan’ girl immediately, and we’ll pick an auspicious day to go to the Zhang family…”

“Are you done?” Yu Xin let out a cold laugh, interrupting her father’s unrealistic fantasy.

“If you love Zhang Dabao so much, my dear father, why don’t you marry him yourself?”

“If I recall correctly, Zhang Dabao’s late father was two years younger than you… It must be quite stifling to call someone younger than yourself ‘Dad,’ right?”

Without waiting for the two pale-faced adults to respond, Yu Xin turned her gaze toward her younger sister, who hadn’t uttered a word.

“Yu Zhu, if you don’t want to become the next puppet who has to obey their every command, you can come with me.” Yu Xin reached out her hand. “Leave this family that exists in name only.”

“I…” Yu Zhu lowered her head deeply, not daring to meet Yu Xin’s eyes. Sensing the gaze of her parents beside her, she finally shook her head and whispered, “No… if I leave too, there will be no one left to take care of them.”

Hearing this, Yu Xin seemed to have expected it. She gave a faint, mocking scoff. “It’s hard to persuade a ghost determined to die. Yu Zhu, this is your own choice.”

She picked up the burlap sack beside her. It contained her entire life’s savings: the keys to a heavy-duty truck—her capital for her future livelihood; a well-preserved notebook; a sketchbook; some clothes; and daily necessities. She turned and strode out the door.

“Yu Xin! If you dare step out of this house today, we’ll consider ourselves to have no daughter!” Seeing that Yu Xin was truly leaving without a trace of lingering attachment, Father Yu lunged up from the sofa, his eyes bloodshot, his speech punctuated by fits of coughing.

BANG—

The only answer he received was the sound of the door slamming, echoing inside and out.

…

“So, you are Yu Xin’s sister, Yu Zhu?” Yu Wuyi’s eyes widened as she looked at the woman before her. The woman exuded an air of elegance and nobility—a world of difference from Yu Xin’s rugged aura.

“That’s right.” Yu Zhu nodded, taking a sip of the cooling herbal tea. She frowned slightly at the bitterness. She smiled at Yu Wuyi, but to Wuyi, the smile felt as bitter as the tea itself.

“My sister took her belongings and Li Yuan and came to Lincheng. We are three years apart; she was twenty and I was seventeen when she left.”

“I didn’t dare defy my parents, so I didn’t follow her. I didn’t see her or Li Yuan again until the following year, after I finished the College Entrance Examination.” Yu Zhu stared at the bitter tea, her thoughts drifting back to that summer.

“Sis, Mom and Dad want me to stay in Shancheng for vocational school. I said no, and they said they’d make me marry Zhang Dabao!”

“Sis, can you take me away? Please take me with you. As long as I can go to university, I’ll go anywhere. I can endure any hardship!”

Yu Zhu had sat at the table back then, her nails digging into her palms, weeping. The thought of staying in Shancheng made her future look pitch black. She knew then she should have left with Yu Xin long ago instead of being so cowardly and holding onto unrealistic fantasies about those two people.

Yu Xin was her last straw for escape. She had to hold on.

“Alright, stop crying.” Yu Xin had handed a bowl of cooling tea to Yu Zhu and taken a tissue from Li Yuan to wipe her sister’s tear-stained face.

“Li Yuan and I came back specifically for this. We both know what kind of people those two are. if you follow their wishes, your life will be ruined. We can take you to Lincheng, but…” Yu Xin paused. “Life won’t be easy. Can you handle it?”

“I can! I can!” Yu Zhu had nodded repeatedly. “As long as I can leave and go to university, I can take any hardship.”

Yu Xin hadn’t said much else, only pushing the bowl of tea closer. “Then drink this tea first.”

That was the first time Yu Zhu had ever had herbal tea. It was the most bitter thing she had ever tasted, but also the sweetest. That summer, the old Yu Zhu died, and a new Yu Zhu was born.

…

“With the help of my sister and Li Yuan, I filled out my college applications according to my own heart and secretly ran away to Lincheng to settle down with them.”

“Tuition wasn’t cheap. My sister drove trucks and Sister Li Yuan sold paintings at a stall—the money was barely enough for daily expenses. I didn’t want to be a burden to them, so after my life stabilized a bit, I intentionally picked a fight and left them.”

“I was busy with school and making money, and my sister was overwhelmed herself, so our contact gradually faded. By the time I wanted to reach out again, I found they had changed all their contact information.”

“Until now… after all this time, the first and last time I saw my sister again was in the morgue of the Lincheng Public Security Bureau.” At this point, Yu Zhu’s voice began to choke, and her eyes reddened.

“She drove her truck straight into the sea. When they pulled her out, her body was bloated and bruised, barely recognizable… The police called it a suicide.”

“A perfectly healthy person… why would she commit suicide?”

And not just once.

“No one knows.” Yu Zhu shook her head with a bitter smile. “Humans are complicated; perhaps she just had a momentary lapse. So, little girl, regardless of your purpose for finding her, you’ll have to return empty-handed today. The person you’re looking for is long gone from this world.”

“I have a meeting in a bit, so I won’t stay.” With that, Yu Zhu finished her tea in one gulp, grabbed her handbag, and stood up.

“Wait, Auntie Yu!” Yu Wuyi stopped her. “If Auntie Yu Xin has passed away, what about Auntie Li Yuan? Is there any news of her?”

“Li Yuan? I’m not sure. She probably broke up with my sister long ago. Otherwise, how could she have left my sister alone in that cold morgue for half a month? Little girl, go home while it’s early.”

Yu Zhu checked her watch, gave Yu Wuyi an apologetic look, and hurried away.

At first glance, it seemed Yu Wuyi hadn’t gained any information to help catch the ghost, but she had actually learned a lot. At least now it seemed Yu Xin was frequently appearing at Fuhua Gardens because she couldn’t stop worrying about her sister, Yu Zhu.

Yu Wuyi searched the name “Yu Zhu” online. It turned out she was a famous entrepreneur in Lincheng with assets worth over a hundred million. She was single, with no partner or children, devoted entirely to her career—a true “Iron Lady.”

She was likely busy with work and rarely home, which was why Yu Xin hadn’t been able to find her yet. In that case, Wuyi decided to play the “lazy farmer waiting for the rabbit”—she would stake out the person and wait for the ghost. No matter why Yu Xin had escaped the Underworld, Wuyi had to bring her back.

“Ugh, this tea is way too bitter! Ptooey—” The bitterness spread from her tongue to her brain. Yu Wuyi’s vision went dark for a second, and she quickly ordered a glass of warm water.

“Once I solve Xu Li’s problem tomorrow, I’ll start staking out the nearby streets. Maybe I’ll run into both the woman in black and Yu Xin.”

“If only this map had a notification function… like an automatic detection within a one-kilometer radius,” Yu Wuyi muttered, looking at the map floating in her mind. When she returned to the Underworld, she would have to ask Qin An to consider upgrading the features. It was already high-tech; a few more functions wouldn’t hurt.

As she strolled back from Fuhua Gardens, she passed a snack street. Thinking of the two ghosts and one immortal at home, she smirked, a mischievous idea forming.

…

“I’m back!”

“Wow! What smells so good?” As soon as the door opened, the “Tuan-Yu” ghost duo floated over, following the scent. Their eyes lit up when they saw the bags in Yu Wuyi’s hands.

“Sister Yu, is this for us?”

“No! You two are ghosts; you don’t need to eat. This is for me, obviously.” Yu Wuyi dramatically shook the bags of “junk food.”

“This fried chicken frame is for our Great Immortal Huang Tianying. You two move aside.” Seeing the ghosts practically glued to her, Yu Wuyi dodged them, placed the chicken on the altar, and lit three sticks of incense.

The smell of food mixed with the incense made the ghosts’ eyes turn green with envy. Yu Wuyi was determined to tease them, but while she was distracted, Tuan Tuan and Xiao Yu shared a telepathic look—they had a plan.

In the end, Yu Wuyi—whose mischief backfired—found herself facing a table of food that was tasteless.

“The food has no flavor!!”

“Xiao Tuan! Xiao Yu! Was this your doing?!”