"So where do we start, master?" asked Linghui Mei.

Qian Shanyi hummed. That was the eternal question, was it not?

"With the clients, I think," she finally said. "If we are lucky, we might find our victim right away - but I'd like us to be thorough. We'll make the full circle either way."

After their little discussion, they headed back to Song Bo's farm - partly to drop off their bags, but they had another reason as well. If the ghost was fixated on Tang Jisheng, then they'd likely known each other before - and Song Bo just so happened to be one of Tang Jisheng's clients.

Of course, just because the ghost knew Tang Jisheng didn't prove that it was a client. It could have been a friend, a colleague, a neighbor, a lover, a servant. It could have even been a complete stranger. In a crowd, a ravenous ghost would naturally pick out the cultivator - after all, their spiritual energy eclipsed ordinary people like the sun eclipsed the stars. But Qian Shanyi didn't think it was very likely. That ghost seemed to be acting with far too much direction for that to be the case.

There were many possibilities - but ultimately, clients were the easiest to investigate. A perfect place to start.

Linghui Mei snorted. "What if it won't even matter? The ghost can eat that bastard at any time."

Qian Shanyi shook her head. "If Tang Jisheng was completely helpless, the ghost would have killed him already. I think it struck when it saw an opportunity at the market - and now, it will seek another one. Its power will grow as the ghost festival approaches - it has no reason to hurry. With Tang Jisheng on guard, we should have at least a couple days to work with."

"And if you are wrong?"

Qian Shanyi turned back to Linghui Mei with a perplexed look on her face. "Then he dies?" she said, "What else do you expect me to say? But we'll still need to know who our ghost was. They all turn ravenous eventually. Within a month or two, it will come for its old family - and then, for everyone else. There is only one way this ends."

She tapped her sword for emphasis, giving Linghui Mei a meaningful look. Linghui Mei's eyes flickered down to it, but she had said no more.

Song Bo's house had changed in the week they were away. It bloomed like a flower, lines of hanging flags spreading from it and towards the fence; and, from there, all throughout the Green Leaf village, like roots through fertile soil. Little lanterns had been hung all across the streets - unlit, for daylight still shone - and warding talismans from windows and doors.

Even the people had somehow seemed prettier - all smiles and friendly faces. The celebration was still five days away, and yet, it felt as if it was already here.

Some of Song Bo's workers were still putting up decorations as Qian Shanyi and Linghui Mei returned to the estate, but even though they'd been gone a week, none came to ask where they'd been. These people already knew them - or at least, knew of them. No doubt they shared in the rumors, but none dared to approach a cultivator out on business.

Even the inside of the house had changed - new flowers were put up, the floors sweeped and freshly oiled, and an incense stick was burning happily at the entrance. As Qian Shanyi came to the doors of their room, she noticed that someone had even put up a ghost warding talisman upon their door. They never asked for it, but it was a nice gesture.

She pushed open the doors with a smile and entered their room - before stopping, just a few steps beyond the entrance. Something was off.

Song Bo's wife had passed away more than a decade ago, and so her chambers had long been without use - at least, until now. Qian Shanyi would have been happy to take another room - staying among the memories of a dead woman did not sit entirely right with her - but Song Bo insisted. They still tried to keep as much of it in place as they could.

It was, admittedly, a beautiful room - dark wood and scarlet silk, a wide bed, fit for two people to sleep together, and chests filled with old clothing. The one concession to practicality they made was to hang up some lines for drying herbs, right next to the window. Many of the plants they gathered could not be stored while fresh, and it was pointless to even try selling them before they fully dried. For most of the plants, they'd simply hung them out in a forest clearing - but for the most delicate of flowers, they brought them here, so as to keep a better watch over the process.

"That line was different when we left," Qian Shanyi finally said, gesturing towards one of the drying lines. "Closer to the wall."

Linghui Mei sniffed the air, coming over to the line Qian Shanyi had pointed out. She leaned closer, almost putting her nose on it, before turning back to Qian Shanyi. "Song Hexiang was here," she said. "Two days ago, I think?"

"The farmer's daughter?" Qian Shanyi asked curiously. She'd only met the girl a few times after that first night. The girl seemed to spend most of her time up in her room, or on the farm of some family friend - Qian Shanyi never bothered asking which.

Linghui Mei nodded. "Do you think it's… related? To this ghost?"

Qian Shanyi frowned. "I don't know," she said slowly. "But I do want to know what she did here. Help me check the inventory."

Before they left for Grasshopper Gully, Qian Shanyi made a list of everything they would leave behind - and, not being a fool, brought the list along with her, so nobody could mess with it. Even if Song Hexiang had taken something, they'd know.

"You think she stole something?" Linghui Mei asked as they were going through their clothes. They brought everything truly irreplaceable along with them, of course - but the second set of robes alone was worth far more than its weight in gold.

"I think she'd be awfully stupid to try stealing from a cultivator in her own house, mmm?" Qian Shanyi said, checking off items on her list. "But what other reason is there to poke her nose into our things?"

It took them twenty minutes to check everything - yet when they were done, everything still seemed to be in place, exactly as they left it.

So if not theft - what, then, was Song Hexiang doing here?

For now, Qian Shanyi filed the nosy farm princess into the back of her mind. Confronting her would only waste more time - they had a ghost to find.

How do you find a corpse without a trace?

"Tang Jisheng's other clients?" Song Bo said, scratching his balding head. "I know of a couple others, honorable immortal. The Lis, the Hans… Why is it you ask?"

You know not its face, nor name, nor place it lies, nor even when the man had perished. All you know is that somewhere out there, a corpse exists.

How do you find that of which you know precisely nothing?

"Farmhands?" Han Wuxing said, "Honorable immortal, of course we have missing farmhands. Every day some slacker gets too drunk to come in, another leaves to visit their family without telling me a thing - they are a menace!"

Every corpse was once a man, and no man that lives remains an island. A man has those he knows, and those who know of him - he is tied down, a link within a web. It follows, then, that a dead man makes a hole within society itself.

All that remains is how to find it.

"Death records?" the magistrate said, "of course we have them, honorable immortal. But if the death is recent, they might be out of date. Sometimes the news does not reach us for weeks - especially from the outer villages."

Yet the web itself is patchy. A gaping hole conceals itself among a hundred false ones. A mere glance will not reveal it.

So Qian Shanyi made her lists. She gathered hints. She painted a picture with ink distilled from the weave of evidence.

And one by one, the possibilities begin to fall away.

"It's a little disconcerting how good you are at this," Qian Shanyi commented.

Linghui Mei threw a glance at her master over her shoulder. "I am a jiuweihu," she replied tersely, "should it be disconcerting that you can follow where your eyes lead you?"

They were jogging through the forest together, on the trail of their latest ghost suspect, one Zhang Zhuangtian, an occasional farmhand on the farm of Han Wuxing. They visited his parents earlier today - and were told that even though he hadn't shown up in almost a week, this wasn't too unusual. He had an adventurous soul, they said, and would sometimes spend many days away from home.

What was unusual is that his trail led them deep into the swamp, far deeper than an ordinary person had any reason traveling.

"I am just saying," Qian Shanyi said, "we are essentially hunting a man. With a nose like that, have you considered a career… as a spirit hunter?"

Linghui Mei stumbled, almost slipping on the wet, swampy ground. She turned her movement into a spin, and snatched a thick branch off the ground just as she got her feet back under her.

She tossed it directly at Qian Shanyi's cackling face. It flew straight like a sword, but Qian Shanyi easily batted the rotten wood aside.

"I know where you sleep, Shanyi," Linghui Mei growled. "Do not test me."

"Fine, fine," Qian Shanyi said, coming down from her laughter. "I will endeavor to never test you the same way twice."

Zhang Zhuangian was not the first man they chased down through the forest - though none of the others had led them quite this deep. At first, they'd gone slow and careful - but time was of the essence. Three days had already passed since the attack at the market, and the ghost was still lying low. Still starving, growing ever more ravenous by the day.

Once, Qian Shanyi had spotted it around Tang Jisheng's house, lurking deep below the earth. It must not have counted on the range of her spiritual energy senses being quite that large - yet for all that, it still did not attack.

Smart, really. Best as she could tell, Tang Jisheng had barely slept since then. His spiritual energy control grew even worse.

They needed to hurry. Once they got far enough away from the village, pretenses fell away. Linghui Mei brought her ears out, and they sprinted along the trail, trees flickering all around them. If Linghui Mei transformed in full, she could have been faster still - but then even Qian Shanyi would have quickly fallen behind. In a straight line, she could never outrun a jiuweihu.

"I didn't say it just to joke," Qian Shanyi continued soberly, "I've been thinking of the Sapient Life Incompatibility Act again. The law is the law, but… How quickly the jiuweihu would get taken off would still depend on the influence we bring. Spirit hunters might be a lost cause, but ministry of the environment is a different question. They have their own tracking techniques - and jiuweihu would fit right in."

Linghui Mei slowed down just enough to give Qian Shanyi a good glare. "You want my people to sell themselves out like tracking dogs?"

"I am just being practical," Qian Shanyi said with a shrug. "Belief in the reformation is one thing, but if there is a practical benefit as well - it might get people moving faster. If you can think of anything else - please tell me."

"Can't expect your empire to ever do anything without some benefit attached to it," Linghui Mei growled, spitting on the ground, away from their path.

"I am a daughter of merchants. What do you expect me to say? Money and favor grease all wheels."

Linghui Mei stayed silent as they hopped over a collapsed tree trunk, before sliding down the side of a muddy hill to take a shorter path around. "I'll think about it," she said grimly, once Qian Shanyi had followed after her.

This region of the swamps had been especially humid - small lakes split up by long hills of clay-packed earth, and fields of solid-seeming grass that concealed the bog beneath. Even strong as they were, they had to move with a degree of care - stepping into the wrong spot could mean being sucked down into the mud, where few creatures could escape drowning. Qian Shanyi was confident she could pull herself out - but she'd still rather not test it.

Even demon beasts seemed keen to avoid these parts - aside from a few rattlescale wyrms, they hadn't seen any sign of wildlife.

So what would drive an ordinary person to head all the way out here?

Once they crested a small hill, covered in bright yellow flowers, Linghui Mei slowed down and sniffed the ground again, circling the top until she stopped in between a pair of short trees. "It's here," she said, pointing to some kind of burrow in the ground, hidden among the tall grass and flowers.

The opening of the burrow was dark, and led directly downwards, roots and grass sticking out of the earthen sides of a chimney-like hole. It was only a couple feet across - enough for a human to fit through, if only barely.

"The scent trail doesn't go anywhere else, and…" Linghui Mei breathed out, her ears flattening against her head. She crossed her arms on her chest, and looked back towards the village. "It's… strong."

Qian Shanyi frowned, picking up on what she meant. "I see," she said, coming closer. "Let me take a look inside."

From her waist, she pulled out a small glass bottle, and, circulating the Crushing Glance of the Netherworld Eyes, quickly filled it with the glowing powder. Tying it to her rope, she laid down in front of the burrow, and looked in.

The first thing she realized was that it could not be a burrow at all. It was a sheer, vertical drop that went deep, widening slightly the further down it went, before opening out into some kind of larger stone chamber - a cave, perhaps. Qian Shanyi had to reel out a good third of her rope before the bottle's light began to glint off the murky water down below. With the opening as it was, she could hardly see much else.

It smelled of wet earth and musty, stale air. It was such a dead smell that even the scent of flowers all around the hill seemed to vanish. Like looking into the mouth of a freshly dug out grave.

"Zhang Zhuangtian, are you here?" Qian Shanyi vainly called out into the hole, reeling her bottle back up. "Your family is worried about you!"

The hole was silent but for the slow drip of swamp water down below. Not even the scratch of some animal, fleeing for cover.

"I am going in," Qian Shanyi decided after a minute passed in silence, tying her light bottle to her waist and giving Linghui Mei the other end of the rope. "Help me tie this around that tree."

Linghui Mei sent Qian Shanyi a wary look but accepted the rope. "You don't even know what kind of danger might be hiding down there," she said.

"All the more reason to go in and look."

Linghui Mei breathed out, glancing off to the side. "Shanyi, we came here to answer a question, and… you already know the answer. We could just leave the rest for a magistrate."

Qian Shanyi rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous," she said, "A magistrate won't come this deep into the swamp without a cultivator escort, and by the time they could organise one, this hole would be already flooded. We do this now or it's never getting done." She paused, chewing on her lip. "Besides, I already have a suspicion that this isn't just a simple hole."

Really it was more of an inkling, a wild guess - but it would make all the other parts of this picture link up ever so neatly…

Linghui Mei shook her head again but tied off the rope as instructed. Qian Shanyi tested it - it held - and stepped backwards into the hole, slowly threading out rope to control her descent.

By the time the sky above her head had been reduced down to a small circle of light, Qian Shanyi's entire spirit had started to rebel against this decision. The mere idea of going any further into this forsaken, earthen hole was starting to seem more like a brief fit of insanity, but she pushed through anyway. Even if it was wide enough for her to pass, it still felt as if the walls were squeezing down on her chest.

Humans weren't worms. They weren't meant to squirm through holes.

She couldn't even hang from her rope properly, by her waist - the only way down was to pass it under one of her feet, and descend vertically, standing on top of it. With both her hands and one foot on the rope, all she had to anchor herself with was one knee - and there wasn't enough space to raise it high enough to do that. Her movement swung her around, spinning in place, bumping into the sides of the hole with her shoulders.

She tried to push the idea of it all collapsing down on her out of her mind. The earth shifting, crumbling, burying her alive, far faster than she could ever hope to climb back up, left to be forgotten in this swamp…

Qian Shanyi clenched her teeth. The earth was fine. The walls were so wet that they did not crumble even when she bumped into them - instead, they soaked completely through her robes, leaving dark clay marks behind on her knees and shoulders as she inched downwards. It was all in her head.

As she spun around the tight space, she froze up entirely. There were claw marks across one of the walls, long, thin burrows, going up to the surface, where some abominable ghoul had clawed its way free -

Those are not claw marks. You know this. Get yourself together.

She kept carefully inching downwards, listening for any sign of movement. It was the rational choice. It also made the descent excruciatingly slow.

Once she was past that chimney and down into the stone chamber below, Qian Shanyi breathed out most of the tension. At least here, she didn't have to feel so restricted. Pouring some of her spiritual energy into her flying sword, she sent it out to fly around the chamber, another bottle of glowing powder tied to the hilt.

The chamber was small, and almost completely spherical, the stone walls so smooth they reflected the light back at her, warping the reflections and making the space seem far larger than it truly was. The ceiling used to be as well, but looking upwards, Qian Shanyi could see where a section had cracked off, letting the earth collapse inwards - forming the very chimney she used to descend. There was a corresponding pile of dirt just below her, down on the flooded floor of the chamber.

At least the rest of it looked solid and without cracks.

There were two passages leading out of the room. One had collapsed entirely, but one was still open, like a black void contrasting with the shaft of light falling down around her. Around the room, she could see some dilapidated furniture - what must have once been a bed, a table, and some barrels - but it had all fallen apart decades ago into piles of rotten, dusty wood, before being further pulped by the falling earth and stone.

There was no sign of Zhang Zhuangian, or, for that matter, of any other living being.

Taking her time, Qian Shanyi descended down to the ground, testing the water with her sword before stepping off. It only went up to her ankles. "You can come down, I think," she called up to Linghui Mei, her voice echoing in the chamber. "It's safe enough."

The light vanished as Linghui Mei glanced over the edge of the hole. Qian Shanyi could only make out her silhouette. "Shanyi, is that a good idea?" Linghui Mei called back. "What if the rope unties, or… snaps? We'll be trapped."

"Don't be ridiculous. Why would a rope untie itself? It's not a living being," Qian Shanyi said. "Besides, I have two more, and can send my flying sword up to re-tie them around a tree if necessary. I can even do it blind. Don't worry about it."

"Nobody even knows we are here."

Qian Shanyi sighed. "Mei, I am going to need your help," she said directly. "Come down here. Please."

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"Help with what?"

"What do you think?" Qian Shanyi said, walking off to look at the open side passage.

The quiet squeak of the rope was Linghui Mei's only answer.

The floor was flat and completely flooded with murky water, so Qian Shanyi sent her sword ahead of her to drag through the water, just in case there was some hidden pit. The passage made a sharp right turn just a few meters past the chamber, the walls there looking just as smooth, the angles cut as if with a ruler. Qian Shanyi stopped before walking further, waiting for her partner to descend.

Linghui Mei was a far better climber than Qian Shanyi, and so it hardly took her any time. She didn't so much climb as slide, hugging the rope with her thighs. Her twin foxtails had helped her push away from the walls - whose appearance Qian Shanyi wisely decided to leave without comment.

"What even is this place?" Linghui Mei said once she could see the chamber in full, looking around at the broken furniture and rotting refuse.

Qian Shanyi directed her sword to fly around the chamber once more to help her see better. "Some cultivator's inheritance, I am guessing," she said, "These hills were once full of them."

"Who would hate their children so much to leave their inheritance in this musty swamp?" Linghui Mei said, accepting a steadying hand from Qian Shanyi as she stepped down from the rope and onto the waterlogged floor. "Surely even cultivators are not so heartless."

Qian Shanyi snorted slightly. "The terminology is a little confusing, I know," she said, hoping the explanation could help steady her own nerves, still a little shaken after that descent. "Most inheritances weren't really ever meant to be inherited. Call it a… polite fiction."

Catching Linghui Mei's confused look, Qian Shanyi gestured around the chamber. "Say you are an Elder of a sect," she said. "You hold no great loyalty to it, and things seem to be turning sour. You need an exit strategy, so of course you stash some pills, some spirit stones, materials for your cultivation, perhaps a spare sword or two off somewhere you can lay low if need be. But what if your fellow Elders find out you did this? Even if they themselves did the exact same thing, they will of course accuse you of cowardice, or even treason. The best you can hope for is that you will merely lose a lot of face - the worst, your life."

"So you lie and say it's for your children?" Linghui Mei said with a frown.

"For your direct disciples, but more or less," Qian Shanyi corrected her. "It's not necessarily a lie. After you have already prepared such a place, if you happen to never need it yourself, it would be a shame to let it go to waste. You really could send some disciple off to train here, or use it as a gift for someone you happened to meet on the road, or even the mere knowledge of its location as a bargaining chip that cannot be stolen from you. But in either case, I think it used to be something of a tradition to leave some advice for a junior in such a place, just as a polite cover."

She gestured towards the passage, and Linghui Mei nodded, following after her - though her ears were flattened against her head, nose all scrunched up. Even Qian Shanyi could smell something sharp in the air - for Linghui Mei, it must have been plain as day.

"Used to be?" Linghui Mei asked quietly.

"The times are more peaceful now," Qian Shanyi said, rounding the corner. "There hasn't been a large sect war in over a decade, I think. If cultivators can mostly expect to die in their beds - well."

She didn't get to finish the sentence.

Beyond the passage was a second, smaller room - some sort of storage. It was only a little better preserved than the main chamber, with strong, wooden shelves taking up most of the space. Much of what used to be on the shelves had long since rotted down into dust - Qian Shanyi could not even begin to guess if it had been paper, bags of rice, clothing, or something else entirely. The only thing she could truly make out were a dozen small boxes and chests that were still left whole.

Zhang Zhuangtian's corpse had laid propped up against one of the shelves, mouth half open, eyes rolled into the back of his head. Compared to his ghost form, he looked recognisable enough - if a few years older, gauntly, and not quite as striking.

Seeing him, Linghui Mei's face whitened as a sheet of paper. "I'm -" she said, covering her mouth with one hand. "I'm sorry, I just -" She gagged, and fled back into the main chamber. Sounds of retching came after her.

Qian Shanyi sighed, and turned back to the body. She couldn't say the reaction was unexpected - but not one she truly understood. She had never really thought of herself as squeamish, but it was things like these that really brought it into perspective. Whatever strange horror some people felt at looking at the death, at blood, at animal guts - she simply didn't feel it.

She never really understood why people felt the need to tiptoe around the subject either. Many had said that the dead looked as if they were sleeping - but that was far from the truth. Sleeping people breathed, they moved, they scratched themselves. The dead looked like only one thing - the dead.

Compared to other corpses she had seen, Zhang Zhuangtian looked the worse off by far. He must have died almost a week ago - his body had bloated, his stomach bulging outwards - and based on the way his legs curved, they must have been broken, likely when he fell down here. His skin was ashen, though under the artificial light of her bottle, hers looked no better.

A sad sight, but an expected one. Even the smell wasn't that bad. Perhaps the cold water had helped.

He must have dragged himself all the way over here, with broken legs. No wonder his ghost is still sane enough, with a will that strong.

Qian Shanyi turned around and went back to Linghui Mei. Zhang Zhuangtian wasn't going anywhere. Not anymore.

The jiuweihu had looked no better than when she ran off. She sat down on top of the remains of a wooden table, her knees pulled up to her chin, with tears streaming down her face. Her twin tails hugged her tightly.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Qian Shanyi said, mostly to break the silence. "You aren't used to seeing the dead?"

"He is not just dead," Linghui Mei snapped back, stifling a sob. "He was left here to die - all alone -"

Linghui Mei trailed off, shaking her head in despair. There was some long-buried hurt in her eyes.

Qian Shanyi came closer, and put an encouraging hand on her shoulder. One of Linghui Mei's tails curled up around her arm in response, pulling her a bit closer.

"I am sorry."

"It's not your fault. Just… Give me a minute."

Qian Shanyi did so, but soon enough, even that minute was gone. "Come on," she said, patting Linghui Mei on the shoulder again. "Help me move the body."

Linghui Mei pulled back from her as if struck by lightning. "What?"

Qian Shanyi raised an eyebrow at her. "We'll need to bring it back up?"

"I - no, you can't touch him!" Linghui Mei said, shaking her head emphatically.

"Whyever not?"

"He's dead," Linghui Mei continued, gesticulating wildly. "You aren't even his relative! It's sacrilege! We'll need - a priest, or a mortician, or - "

"Mei."

"We shouldn't even be here," Linghui Mei said, pulling her feet a little further away from the water. "This - this water, it's all unclean, I -"

"Mei." Qian Shanyi said, snapping a finger in front of Linghui Mei's eyes, until she could meet her gaze. "Zhuangtian's mother deserves to bury her son, not just a memory of him."

That stopped Linghui Mei. Her face contorted into a grimace, until she nodded quickly, as if trying to get ahead of her own thoughts. "I - yes. She does," she said, sniffling again. "I am sorry."

"She is an old woman. So is her husband. Do you expect me to bring them here, into this swamp? Make them crawl into this hole?"

"No, I suppose not," Linghui Mei muttered quietly.

Qian Shanyi looked back in the direction of the passage. Small mercy that they couldn't see the body directly. "Well, there is no rush anymore, so take your time," she said, patting Linghui Mei on the shoulder again. "I think we'll need to sew him into the sheet here, just so we could lift him back up - doing it on this table will be easiest."

Linghui Mei nodded, and Qian Shanyi left her to her own devices.

Somehow, these walls felt a little more stifling by the second.

It took them an hour of work just to pull the body up to the surface.

Qian Shanyi's rope technique had helped greatly. She brought a large canvas sheet with her, to wrap the body, but after thinking for a moment, decided against trying to sew it up right away. With her technique, she could simply wrap one rope around the canvas, and keep it tightly closed at the same time as evenly distributing the body's own weight.

"Lay it out here, on the grass," Qian Shanyi said, once they were back to the blessedly fresh air of the surface world, and Linghui Mei pulled up the corpse behind them. "I want to examine it."

Linghui Mei nodded and gently set it down, a good distance away from the hole. "Examine it how?" she said warily.

Qian Shanyi angled her head to the side. "Look for wounds, marks, anything like that? We need to know how he died, since he clearly survived the fall."

"You want to touch him more?" Linghui Mei said, aghast. "Will you undress him too?"

"I'd prefer not to, but if needs must…"

"Shanyi, no!" Linghui Mei hissed, getting in front of her and blocking her way. "This is already bad enough - but there are limits!"

Qian Shanyi breathed out an annoyed sigh. "Oh what is it now?" she said. "I won't do anything a mortician wouldn't."

"You are not a mortician!"

"One meatsuit examiner is the same as the other."

"Meatsuit?" Linghui Mei said, stepping back in shock. "You are talking about a person!"

"The person is gone," Qian Shanyi snapped. "All that's left is the meat. Meat that holds the key to this mystery of ours."

"How cynical can you possibly be?"

"I am not cynical, I am accurate," Qian Shanyi said, making a sharp gesture with her hand. "For a cultivator in the golden core stage, their soul is already most of what they are - and once they reach the nascent soul stage, they can leave their body behind whenever they wish. They could even swap them around if necessary. The body is, objectively, just a suit. A very expensive, important, valuable and no doubt sentimental suit - but ultimately, just a suit. So let me take a look at our ghost's discarded underpants!"

She kept stepping toward Linghui Mei as she talked, and Linghui Mei kept stepping back, her expression slowly breaking apart, until they were almost up to the body itself - where she turned around and stormed off to the other side of the hill.

Qian Shanyi sighed. Perhaps she shouldn't have snapped, but after having to crawl through that damnable chimney - twice - she was really not in the mood. But what was done was done. She put her disciple out of her mind, and kneeled down next to the corpse, carefully unwrapping the sheet.

Under the bright sunlight, the corpse looked far less ominous. Its waxy skin was far too different from that of a living being to ever confuse the two - closer to that of a mannequin. Its clothes were soaked through with mud, the pants ripped from the fall. As Qian Shanyi patted them down, she felt the bones shift - the legs were obviously broken, but so was one of the arms; there were scratches all over the skin, and dirt under the fingernails.

He must have grabbed at the sides of that chimney as he fell in.

Aside from the broken limbs, Qian Shanyi saw no other wounds. Nothing that should kill, at least - so how did he die?

If there are internal injuries, it really would be best to leave it to a professional. I could hardly identify anything subtle. Then again, out here, the one responsible for an examination might be Tang Jisheng himself…

On a hunch, she pushed open the corpse's mouth, and saw a bit of black, powdery residue on the tongue.

That is not blood. So what is it?

Not wanting to ever go through that chimney again, Qian Shanyi had gathered everything that seemed remotely valuable before they left that half-flooded grave. There wasn't much: twenty three spirit stones, some tarnished buckles, a bone comb - and two boxes of unlabeled pills. Qian Shanyi brought them out again: sure enough, there was a row of unfamiliar, charcoal-black pills in one of them. When she swiped a finger across one of them, it came out just as black.

So that's how it was.

Qian Shanyi sat back, staring at the corpse. Pieces were finally starting to fall into place. Zhang Zhuangtian must have fallen in and, unable to climb with broken limbs, knew his death was all but certain. Having found some pills, he ate one, on the off chance it was a healing pill and could save his life, and died instantly. These pills were likely meant to fortify the soul - it would explain why his ghost was so unusually powerful - but for an ordinary person, it was simply too much. Few cultivator pills were directly suitable for ordinary people, let alone ones that have been left forgotten for decades, and undergone unknown changes in the meantime.

Still. What were you even doing here?

Nothing on the corpse had shed any light on that particular mystery. Its pockets were entirely empty, not even a knife sheath on his belt. She doubted he knew about the inheritance, either - if he came to explore it, he would have brought a rope.

"Are you quite done?" Linghui Mei's voice came from behind her, just as Qian Shanyi was finishing up.

"Mostly," Qian Shanyi said. She wiped her hands on the grass, and stood up to face Linghui Mei. "Let's sew it up and get going."

"No," Linghui Mei cut back, a severe expression on her face. She was carrying several rocks and a small bundle of sticks, which she put down next to the corpse, and began to quickly make a small shrine. "I will say a prayer over the body first."

"A prayer?" Qian Shanyi asked. "A karmist prayer, I presume? How long is that going to take?"

"Half an hour."

Qian Shanyi looked up at the sun. It was almost midday, and her stomach rumbled slightly.

Linghui Mei met her eyes with a challenging glare. "You will simply have to wait," she said, "If you won't show any respect for the dead, then I must."

"Respect?" Qian Shanyi said, feeling morally obligated to argue. "How do you even know he's a karmist?"

"His mother was. They had a shrine."

"And that means her son must be? That's a stretch."

"Just let me pray in peace," Linghui Mei snapped back. "It's the least you can do after defiling him like that!"

Qian Shanyi sighed, and reached out towards Linghui Mei with one hand. "Mei -"

"Don't you dare touch me with those hands until you've purified yourself!" Linghui Mei snapped again, moving to bat Qian Shanyi's hand aside - not that she needed to, for Qian Shanyi already pulled back. "I saw you stick your fingers in his mouth. We are not haggling over hens at the market - I will pray, and you will wait, and that's that."

Out of her clothes, Linghui Mei took out a piece of flint, and a bundle of dried herbs, which she lit at one end, setting it atop her little shrine. Having done that, she demonstrably turned away from Qian Shanyi, closed her eyes, and began to mutter under her breath.

"Very well," Qian Shanyi said, stepping away. She could tell that trying to argue any further would help nothing. "Take as long as you need."

"Shanyi?"

Qian Shanyi opened her eyes and looked up at Linghui Mei. She had been lounging out on the grass, waiting for the prayers to end. "I take it you're finally done?" she grumbled.

Linghui Mei looked far calmer than before. Perhaps she was the one who needed that prayer, far more than the corpse. "Yes," she said, bowing deeply. "Heavens be merciful."

"They rarely are," Qian Shanyi grunted, and pulled out a yellow flower, showing it to Linghui Mei - the very same as the ones that covered this entire hill. "You are better at plants than me. Tell me - do you know what this is?"

Linghui Mei gave her hand a suspicious look, prompting Qian Shanyi to let out an irritated sigh. "I washed my hands, at least as best as I could manage in the swamp," she said, gesturing towards a lake that surrounded this small hill on three sides. "But if you wish for me to say a purification prayer to the Heavens on top of that - then it is simply not happening."

It's not like she liked being covered in corpse-gunk herself. It was disgusting. But sometimes, one had to do what needed to be done.

"I didn't imagine it would," Linghui Mei muttered. "Go to the baths once we come back to the village, and… I suppose it will suffice."

"Excellent. Now, the flower?"

Linghui Mei shrugged. "It's called a sunscythe," she said. "It's a very ordinary flower, but it doesn't grow well in this region - you only find it deep in the swamps. Why do you ask?"

The name called out to something in the back of Qian Shanyi's mind - something she heard years ago, long forgotten. She gestured back toward the entrance to the underground chambers while she tried to figure out what it was.

"I went back while you were busy," she said, "dredged through the waters - found his bag. He must have dropped it when he fell in. It's full of these flowers."

It was very easy to miss, which is why she didn't spot it the first time. The bag itself was brown, was submerged in equally brown, muddy water, and blended in perfectly with clumps of earth scattered all throughout the chamber.

"You… went back?" Linghui Mei said uncertainly, giving her an odd look.

"Yes. You didn't notice?"

"No, I was… too focused. Shanyi, I…" Linghui Mei said, speaking slowly, as if she had to pick every individual word lest some horrible disaster befell them both. "I don't know how to explain it, but what happens to the body after death - this is very important. It helps the soul move on towards the Heavens."

Qian Shanyi blinked twice. "Okay. What does this have to do with anything I said?"

"I simply mean that I will not stop being a karmist, even if you wish me to."

Qian Shanyi frowned deeply. "Okay?" she said, letting her incredulity seep into her tone. "Nobody asked you to? The Heavens aren't listening, so you are wasting your time - but I suppose it's your time to waste, at least until it gets someone killed. But once again, this has nothing to do with what I said."

"Doesn't it?" Linghui Mei said, wringing her hands. "I make a prayer, and you immediately decide to go back down into that grave? You hide it well, but I could tell how scared you were the first time."

"What?" Qian Shanyi replied indignantly. "I wasn't scared."

Not any more than was completely rational, at the very least. Her second time through the chimney went far, far smoother - once she knew how to deal with it.

"If you say so."

That brought out a scowl on Qian Shanyi's face. "I just don't like being confined - ah, no matter. And besides, so were you!"

Linghui Mei shook her head sadly. "I wasn't scared," she said quietly. "I knew how we'd find him. I just… didn't want to see. Dead, left to rot all alone in some hole - it's -" her voice caught for a moment. "It's how many of us jiuweihu meet our ends."

Qian Shanyi squinted at Linghui Mei with a mixture of suspicion and annoyance. "What are you saying, exactly? That I tortured myself as a distraction from my idiot disciple praying to the likely culprits of this man's death?" she scoffed, gesturing with the flower she still held in her hand. "I was just chasing down a clue, that is all. It didn't make sense that he would be out here with nothing - no knife, no rope, not even a packed lunch."

"It was merely a suggestion," Linghui Mei said, stepping back a little bit with a deep bow. "I apologise if I overstepped my bounds, master."

"No matter," Qian Shanyi scoffed again, glad to be past this annoying line of questioning. "This sunscythe - what is it good for? Zhang Zhuangtian clearly came here to gather it."

"You can make tea with it."

"That's it? No medicinal uses?"

Linghui Mei shrugged slightly and finally sat down on the grass next to Qian Shanyi. Qian Shanyi rolled over to her side, and propped up her head with one hand, tossing the gathered flower aside.

"If you brew it long, and a woman who is heavy with child drinks it, the child will be lost," Linghui Mei said, "But few do it that way anymore. Aside from that… They can help old wounds heal, but the effect is very weak. They also help with joint pain, but there are better plants for it. That's all I know."

Qian Shanyi nodded. That must have been where she heard it, years ago - but a cultivator had no need for such crude methods. Even ordinary people had far better pills these days.

"This doesn't make sense," Qian Shanyi said grimly. "If he died here, why attack Tang Jisheng? You didn't smell his scent on this hill, did you?"

"There was only one scent trail leading here," Linghui Mei said. "But if Tang Jisheng could walk on air…"

"Then he wouldn't necessarily leave one, just like Yonghao," Qian Shanyi concluded. "So we can't prove whether he fell in or was pushed in."

There were two people who would know for certain, of course - but questioning either of them was a last resort.

"Let's think of this from the other direction," Qian Shanyi continued. "Suppose he came here to collect sunscythes. Presumably he needed them for something. Why didn't he just buy some from a herbalist?"

"I doubt they would have had any. It's not the season for them, and few customers would even want to buy if it was."

"That tea is not tasty, I take it?"

"It is not."

"Alright," Qian Shanyi said, nodding. She gestured in the air - meaningless movements, but ones that helped her think. "So he goes to a herbalist, they don't have any. Maybe he asks where they grow, and the herbalist says deep in the swamp, not expecting our Zhuangtian to actually head in. He does anyways. So he needs these flowers, and he needs them badly enough to risk his life. For what?" She nodded towards Linghui Mei, who sat patiently at her side. "Throw some ideas at me. It doesn't matter how good they are."

"His wife was pregnant."

"He isn't married."

"Paramour, then."

"His parents didn't mention any, but they also said he was often absent," Qian Shanyi mused. "Perhaps they wouldn't know. Why not use a pill?"

A shadow passed over Linghui Mei's face. "Because his family is poor."

"Not that poor…"

"A man wouldn't even know to look for one."

Qian Shanyi grimaced. "That is true, but any midwife could advise him. So perhaps he didn't even ask a midwife. Why?"

Linghui Mei shrugged. "If he did, the midwife would know about the child. She might talk. Maybe he wanted to keep it a secret."

"So something like an affair…" Qian Shanyi said, before frowning. "It could work, but surely his partner would still know? Then again, perhaps not."

There were still too many possibilities - but they had a name now. Their search, once with little direction, could now focus on merely those who knew this one man.

But there was another factor to consider. It was an almost outrageous coincidence for Zhang Zhuangtian to become a ghost - after all, he had to decide to gather sunscythes himself, and decide to do so now, right as the ceiling in that underground chamber had given in - for if it had happened months ago, it would have already been completely flooded by the time he arrived on this hill. On top of that, he had to stumble on the right hill - and that the pills had transformed him into a ghost, instead of simply shattering his soul, was likewise down to luck.

Wang Yonghao's luck. They were on the right track - but simply knowing this proved little. If they were to understand it, they needed to know when it all began, how much it pushed things into place - anything to help them piece together a solid picture.

Qian Shanyi and Linghui Mei laid on the grass for some time, passing ideas back and forth, before Qian Shanyi shook her head and rose up to her feet. "I need more time to think about it," she said. "For now, let's just bring this wandering son back home."

"Of course, master."

"Will you at least help me sew up the sheet?"

"I will have to trouble the master to do so herself."

"If our ghost kills Tang Jisheng while we were busy here, I will make you do all the cleaning in the world fragment for six months."

"Of course, master."

Qian Shanyi snorted. "Petulant disciple," she said. "Now go and get me a pair of solid branches. We'll need to make a gurney later."

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