The Ghost Insists on Giving Me a Beautiful and Powerful Wife! - Chapter 48.2

Her gaze lingered on Jiang Huaining’s face. Jiang Huaining hadn’t expected Ying Zhu to be so absurd, treating a girl like a toy. Feeling Yu Ruoyin’s gaze, she was afraid Yu Ruoyin would categorize her with Ying Zhu. She quickly said, “Ruoyin, I am different from Ying Zhu.”

“Huh?”

Yu Ruoyin blinked. she hadn’t originally thought of it that way. But now that Jiang Huaining mentioned it, she remembered.

She was indeed different from Ying Zhu. Ying Zhu split one person into two to test Zhuang Huaishu, while Jiang Huaining gave one heart to two separate people.

No, not entirely. Ying Zhu and Kang Shuying were the same person. Jiang Huaining and that girl might not be the same person—at the very least, their personalities were completely different.

Yu Ruoyin’s gaze darkened slightly: “Auntie Ning, I know.”

Yu Ruoyin turned her gaze out the window, preventing Jiang Huaining from spying on the emotions in her eyes. She felt a bit “sick”—becoming increasingly narrow-minded.

Her gaze momentarily drifted, but Zhuang Huaishu’s voice quickly brought her back to focus: “Boss Jiang, can you tell us about Ming-shan Village now?”

Jiang Huaining did not speak immediately. Instead, she first offered an apology on Ying Zhu’s behalf: “Zhuang Huaishu, Ying Zhu was in the wrong for what happened. I apologize to you for her. The next time I see her, I will—”

Before she could finish, Yu Ruoyin snapped her head around. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot as she stared intently at Jiang Huaining: “Are you two that close? You’re apologizing for her?”

“…”

It wasn’t even a question; the fact that Jiang Huaining and Ying Zhu were close was common knowledge.

Sitting behind the passenger seat, Zhuang Ciyue couldn’t help but lean forward, tilting her head to study Yu Ruoyin’s expression: “Xiao Yu, what’s wrong?”

Yu Ruoyin couldn’t quite explain it. Hearing Jiang Huaining apologize for Ying Zhu just now had ignited a nameless fire within her. Unable to provide an answer, she bit her lip hard: “It’s nothing.”

Yu Ruoyin turned her head back toward the window. Before Jiang Huaining could even try to soothe her, Zhuang Huaishu’s urging voice rang out: “Boss Jiang, I didn’t tell you all that just to get an apology for Ying Zhu. I want to know about Ming-shan Village. You don’t need to feel guilty for her either—she certainly doesn’t think she did anything wrong. You’re just her friend; you don’t need to take responsibility for her mistakes.”

Exactly.

That’s right.

Yu Ruoyin felt that Zhuang Huaishu had voiced her exact thoughts. Just now… that was probably how she felt. While she secretly made excuses for herself in her heart, she pricked up her ears to listen for the story of Mingshan Village.

Since Jiang Huaining had decided to be honest, she didn’t stall, getting straight to the point: “Ming-shan Village was the source of the chaos that tore the world apart four thousand years ago.”

Four thousand years ago, Mingshan Village wasn’t a deserted ruin. With three hundred households, it was a fair-sized settlement. In the village lived a girl named Zou Ruolian. Her parents had passed away when she was young, and she was raised by the kindness of the entire village; though she had no blood relatives, everyone in the village was her family. By the time she turned sixteen, she had grown into a graceful young woman. One day, while gathering herbs on the mountain, she encountered a mountain demon.

Most demons are beautiful and skilled at deception, and the mountain demon fell in love with her at first sight. Zou Ruolian soon fell for the demon as well.

However, the mountain demon had a terrible memory. By the following year, she had forgotten Zou Ruolian entirely.

But the story didn’t end there; fate was kind. Zou Ruolian met the mountain demon again. Even though the demon no longer recognized her, she was willing to believe the girl’s words. Zou Ruolian took the demon to the places they had visited before, helping her piece back her memories until they would never be forgotten again.

Yet, demons live long lives while humans are fleeting. They still could not stay together forever.

As the years passed and fine lines began to appear on Zou Ruolian’s face, the mountain demon finally panicked. She couldn’t bear to see Ruolian’s beauty fade, and she certainly couldn’t bear to let her die. The demon took her away from Mingshan Village and shared her own demonic essence with her. From then on, Zou Ruolian stopped aging and never fell ill.

Twenty years passed in a flash. Having been raised by the whole village, Zou Ruolian couldn’t help but worry about the aunts and uncles who had cared for her. She missed the village chief especially. She asked the mountain demon to check on Mingshan Village, and the demon returned with news of the chief’s death. Zou Ruolian begged the demon to take her back so she could pay her respects.

The mountain demon agreed, but she had urgent business to attend to, so she entrusted the task of taking the girl home to a close friend.

The friend was faithful and brought Zou Ruolian back to the village, but she forgot to take the girl away from Mingshan Village again.

At first, it was fine. But as time went on, the villagers noticed that Zou Ruolian’s face was exactly as it had been twenty years ago. No matter what injury she sustained, she healed instantly, and she never got sick. A rumor began to spread: “The Zou girl who came back is a demon.”

The villagers were ordinary people; they were terrified. They invited a Taoist priest to exorcise the demon. The priest claimed that Ruolian’s body had been possessed by an evil spirit and that the only way to end it was to burn her.

Terrified, they bound her that night. Some found it strange that a “demon” would be so weak, but those voices were too few. Zou Ruolian was sent to the pyre. The priest specifically chose a villager with a “hard” fate to light the fire, but the man, fearing the demon’s revenge, hesitated. He proposed that they all “share” her flesh so the kill wouldn’t be on his head alone.

The priest, thinking that a demon’s flesh must be a spiritual treasure that could increase his cultivation, agreed.

Zou Ruolian was eventually boiled into a vat of meat broth and consumed by the people of Mingshan Village. Except for the children, everyone took a sip. They were all murderers, and naturally, they drew the mountain demon’s wrath. All four hundred and twenty-one people in the village died at the demon’s hand. But even after killing them all, the girl could not return.

The most shocking part was that the priest actually had some skill; he had sealed Zou Ruolian’s soul within her body beforehand. As her flesh was scattered, her soul was shattered with it, until not even a single complete spirit-shard could be found.

The mountain demon broke ties with her friend and embarked on a path to gather the girl’s soul. She allied with many practitioners of the dark arts, using cruel methods to strip others of their souls and lives to find traces of Ruolian’s remnants. She used the souls of others to patch Ruolian’s soul. Though she ultimately failed, that era of chaos saw the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Both the Underworld and the mortal realm were thrown into turmoil, and many lineages of Yin-Yang practitioners were severed forever.

This was why Xia Yu questioned the authenticity of the distress signal from Xing Ruoyuan and the others. Ming-shan Village had long since been a dead place.

Zhuang Huaishu leaned forward, questioning the story: “Boss Jiang, was that demon really a ‘mountain demon’?”

Most practitioners had heard a different version—no mountain demon, no Zou Ruolian, only an evil priest who committed endless atrocities.

Yu Ruoyin had heard the “evil priest” version too. Yan Xihong had told her, and Xia Yu and Jiang Huaining had supplemented it. Thinking back, when Jiang Huaining had said the priest’s methods were unforgivable, Xia Yu’s reaction had been strange. She hadn’t shown annoyance toward the “evil priest,” but rather anger toward Jiang Huaining’s words.

Was it really a mountain demon?

Yu Ruoyin shared the same doubt. She turned to look at Jiang Huaining. It wasn’t hard to tell if she was lying. Jiang Huaining had beads of sweat on her forehead, but her expression was relatively normal, with no signs of vomiting blood.

It seemed she had indeed told a lie, but likely only a very small part of it was false.

Was it as Zhuang Huaishu guessed—the identity of the “mountain demon” was wrong?

If so, which part? If it wasn’t a mountain demon, what was it?

Bad memory, a close friend… the Four Spirits?

A bold guess surged in Yu Ruoyin’s mind. She remembered Jiang Huaining saying that the Four Spirits had no souls; they were born only to protect the seasons. Their most beautiful memories would only last three months; once they entered their slumber, they would forget everything except the other three spirits and Jiang Huaining.

Lu Qingzhen had also told Zhuang Ciyue that to facilitate their guardianship, each spirit would inherit the three months of memory from the previous spirit in rotation. But Xia Yu’s memory had become “fixed.”

Yu Ruoyin had asked about Xia Yu’s memory once, and Jiang Huaining had said there was an “accident.”

An accident? What kind of accident? The obsession of a lover?

The trait of only remembering things for three months matched the “bad memory,” and the “forgetting by the next year” also fit… But wait, was it really Xia Yu?

When Xia Yu and Jiang Huaining discussed the “evil priest,” she didn’t sound like a participant. If the spirits inherit the previous one’s memories, then Xia Yu would inherit the memories of Chun Chen (Spring). Could it have been Chun Chen?

Xia Yu’s memory was fixed, but what about Chun Chen?

Yu Ruoyin realized she knew almost nothing about the other spirits besides Xia Yu. Jiang Huaining had only mentioned that Qiu Luo (Autumn) was easy to get along with, and Lu Qingzhen had said the same. The most complete description came from Xing Ruoyuan: Chun Chen was a mute who disliked dealing with Soul Reapers; Xia Yu was a drunkard who didn’t want to get involved in anything; Qiu Luo was like a Bodhisattva, willing to help anyone; and Dong Yan (Winter) was a crybaby who was soft-hearted.

But this wasn’t enough to determine their connection to Mingshan Village. However, if the chaos of four thousand years ago really involved the Four Spirits, then what role did Jiang Huaining play?

Yu Ruoyin didn’t want to think the worst of Jiang Huaining, but could a spirit that destroyed the balance of Yin and Yang still be called a guardian spirit?

Yu Ruoyin stopped her theorizing, but Zhuang Huaishu refused to let it go: “Boss Jiang…”

The sweat was dripping from Jiang Huaining’s brow. If she answered further, it would definitely be a lie. If the lie was significant enough, she wouldn’t just be sweating—she might vomit blood or become dangerously weak.

Seeing the sweat on that fair skin, Yu Ruoyin felt an intense, inexplicable irritation. She turned around and swept a cold, piercing glare toward Zhuang Huaishu: “Grandma Zhuang, if you don’t want to believe her, why bother asking Auntie Ning at all?”

They had faced life and death together, after all. Furthermore, because of Zhuang Ciyue, Yu Ruoyin had always respected Zhuang Huaishu. But today, she had turned hostile twice, and the look in her eyes right now was practically sharp enough to cut.

She was acting very out of character.

Zhuang Huaishu didn’t have a great temper to begin with. After telling the story of Ying Zhu, she had begun to let go of her composure. She didn’t care about the dignity of an elder or the calm of a top Yin Painter anymore. she was willing to let herself bicker with a child: “Boss Jiang’s words are layered with hidden meanings; am I not allowed to ask? She isn’t even angry, so why are you?”

Seeing them on the verge of a fight, Zhuang Ciyue quickly pulled Zhuang Huaishu back and nudged Yu Ruoyin’s head to face forward: “Great-aunt, I think that Reincarnation King is a total jerk. How about I help you curse her for a while to vent? Xiao Yu, do you think we should have stayed with Xia Yu? Hearing Boss Jiang talk about Mingshan Village, I feel like that place is so dangerous. Xia Yu’s temper isn’t great, but at least she’s strong!”

She was soothing her great-aunt one moment and her best friend the next, but neither ignored her. Not one to be easily embarrassed, Zhuang Ciyue leaned over to Nan He: “Nan He, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Nan He, being a gentle spirit, responded quickly.

Jiang Huaining, however, disagreed. She shook her head seriously: “No, if she were with us…”

She trailed off again, suddenly shifting the topic: “I wish it were Autumn right now.”

One could hear the longing for Autumn in her voice.

Who was in Autumn? Qiu Luo.

There was a faint note of reliance on Qiu Luo in Jiang Huaining’s voice.

Yu Ruoyin’s hand unconsciously moved up to her chest, pressing against her heart where a sense of jealousy was overflowing.

What was so good about Qiu Luo?

Qiu Luo…

Too loud. My heart is too loud.

Yu Ruoyin’s hand pressed down harder. She couldn’t help but whisper to herself in her mind: Yu Ruoyin, be quiet.

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