Chapter 48: She is a Person First, a Mother Second…
“?” Jiang Si finished reading the document, completely bewildered. “If I say I know nothing, do you believe me?”
There was probing in Hai Di’s eyes. Only after a moment did he nod slightly. “I believe you.”
“…” Jiang Si leaned in to examine his eyes closely, reaching out to take off his glasses, trying to see the emotions hidden deep inside.
“You trust me that much? What if I’m lying to you?”
Hai Di sighed. “Even if you don’t want to say, it’s fine. I’ll handle things on his end; it won’t implicate you.”
“I believe that even if you’re keeping something from me, there must be a reason.”
Jiang Si was stunned. “Why?”
Even after losing his memory, Hai Di could go to such lengths.
Was it because Jiang Si was too good-looking, or was the other party just a “love brain”?
He heard Hai Di analyzing solemnly, “Your grudge with Qin Zhansheng wasn’t to the extent of wanting his life, let alone dealing with his complex web of connections. According to what I found out from acquaintances, a dignified bureau chief suddenly committing suicide and leaving a suicide note… Others don’t know ghosts exist in this world, but I do. By this deduction, the highest probability is that either his wife or that friend beside you planned everything. At most, you are just someone who knew about it.”
“…”
Jiang Si, annoyed out of shame for his own presumption, threw the glasses aside and reached out to pinch Hai Di’s face, saying gruffly, “Then why did you ask! You knew clearly in your heart but still pretended!”
Hai Di looked profound. “I’m teaching you not to get to the bottom of things, otherwise it affects the promotion of feelings.”
Saying this, he laughed himself, grabbing a few of Jiang Si’s fingers and kissing them. “Let’s not talk about this. When can Mr. Jiang spare some time to give me a chance to take you home?”
“Do we really have to meet?” Jiang Si hesitated. “I don’t have much experience dealing with elders, and I don’t know what to say.”
“Just be there, you don’t need to think about anything.” Hai Di coaxed. “My family composition is simple, just the three of us. And because of my health, they are actually very open-minded about my partner, not to mention you saved my life.”
“They should be the nervous ones. If you have any conflict with me, wouldn’t taking my life be a piece of cake?”
Jiang Si glanced at him. “Don’t talk like I’m some serial killer.”
But he hesitated again. “Should I bring a meeting gift? What do they like?”
“No need.” Hai Di thought for a moment and added, “Just don’t get the address wrong. I took my mother’s surname; my father’s surname is Qi.”
Jiang Si: “Huh? Could Uncle be…?”
Hai Di nodded. Jiang Si said dryly, “That… is indeed rare. Auntie is quite formidable.”
Hai Di laughed. “My mom is a strong woman. Grandfather’s business was originally a small-scale enterprise. In her hands, it expanded dozens of times in just ten years. But everything is good except she cares about looks. She likes good-looking people; otherwise, she wouldn’t have picked my dad out of so many suitors at a glance.”
Jiang Si looked thoughtful. “That’s good then. At least for the sake of my face, I won’t be beaten out directly.”
They chatted for a long time. Hai Di wanted to keep him there for the night, but Jiang Si refused outright.
Realizing his tone was too firm, he softened and explained, “There are still two kids at the hotel. I need to take them to the ritual tomorrow.”
“Qin Zhansheng’s children?” Hai Di still had some impression of the file he just read.
“Yes.”
Hai Di had no choice but to take him back first and agreed on a time to pick him up for Baiyun Temple the next day.
Lou Qilei ran to the hospital to see his daughter whenever he had nothing to do, and Qin Zhansheng’s wife wasn’t there either, leaving the pair of children for Jiang Si to look after.
Jiang Si folded two small figures out of gold and silver paper for them to play with. To prevent them from possessing the figures and causing trouble, he specifically didn’t dot the eyes.
Unexpectedly, when he pushed open the door, the room was a mess. The two children sat cross-legged high on the windowsill, gesturing and waving at a group of wild ghosts outside.
Even the glass window couldn’t block their passion. An old ghost was storytelling with intense emotion. Just as he said, “Speaking of Liu, Guan, and Zhang after their oath in the Peach Garden—”
Glimpsing the door opening, he braked urgently, and in a flash, they all scattered completely.
Jiang Si met the identical innocent expressions of the two little ghosts: “I saw everything.”
With a cursory glance just now, there were at least twelve wild ghosts.
For all of them to obediently listen to two little ghosts lecturing and telling stories, it was truly bizarre.
“What did you do to them?”
The brother raised a small paper man and answered honestly, “I said I have a lot of gold ingots. As long as they talk to us, I’ll give them out for free. This is the proof.”
The sister also spoke up, “Big Brother, awesome!”
Jiang Si: “…”
Are these really Qin Zhansheng’s biological children? The kids are unexpectedly smart.
Thinking of the woman’s calm manner of speaking—well, it seems they take after their mom.
“Are you bored here?”
The two little ghosts nodded together.
Jiang Si comforted them, “I’ll take you out to play tomorrow.”
Hearing his words, the brother hugged his sister and spun around excitedly. “Great!”
“Great, great!”
“Then behave tonight, don’t make loud noises. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” the siblings said in unison.
The brother kept an extra thought and asked, “Can Mom come?”
Jiang Si didn’t know either, so he could only coax him first. “I’ll talk to your mom, don’t worry.”
The brother was young after all and didn’t know that indirect answers from adults usually meant no. He took Jiang Si’s words to heart and took his sister to squat in the corner and play by themselves.
Baiyun Mountain wasn’t particularly high, but because of its thousand-year history, it was famous in Ning City and even the entire East China region. It truly lived up to the saying, “A mountain need not be high; if there is an immortal, it becomes famous.”
The Baiyun Temple on the mountain had enjoyed flourishing incense for many years. Every first and fifteenth of the lunar month, it was crowded with people and bustling with activity.
The current Abbot was surnamed Chen, with the single given name Liu.
Hearing his name for the first time, Jiang Si fell silent for a good while before saying sincerely, “In the south, isn’t this name a bit too difficult for people?”
Hai Di: “That’s why everyone calls him Abbot or Daoist Chen.”
Previously hearing Hai Di introduce the Abbot as a friend of his parents, Jiang Si preconceived that he would meet a middle-aged man in Daoist robes, at least forty or older.
He never expected the young man in front of him, at most thirty years old, to be the Abbot Hai Di spoke of. Jiang Si couldn’t help but be surprised. “Daoist Chen is actually so young.”
Chen Liu glanced at himself. “I am thirty-two. Not that young, right?”
Compared to a middle-aged uncle in his forties, that was significantly younger.
Discarding his internal criticism, Jiang Si gave a thumbs up in praise. “You look quite young. If you hadn’t said anything, I would have thought we were the same age.”
Hai Di took an extra look at Chen Liu’s face, then glanced at Jiang Si’s hand, pressing his lips into a straight line without speaking.
Chen Liu smiled. “Mr. Jiang really knows how to joke.” He reached out to guide Jiang Si and Hai Di. “This way. There are fewer pilgrims here.”
“I heard Mr. Jiang also wants to perform a ritual. Do you have the birth dates of the deceased? Have you written the memorial text and prepared the Road Guide?”
A ritual, simply put, was for deliverance—sending the souls of the deceased to the Underworld for reincarnation. Nowadays, with the chaos in the Underworld, it was difficult for Netherworld officials to come up. The vast majority of souls relied on Daoist temples or Buddhist temples to perform rituals to send them down.
Depending on the scale of the ritual and the ability of the presiding master, the number of souls sent away varied, from a few to potentially hundreds.
A ritual was essentially a portal; naturally, there were successes and failures. If the soul was fully prepared, the chance of being sent away was greater.
Among the requirements, the birth date (Eight Characters) was essential. The memorial text was equivalent to a visiting card, signifying an outsider coming in; submitting the text first showed respect.
The Road Guide, fully named the Fengdu Road Guide, was a pass. It was generally prepared by the family of the deceased in advance to facilitate subsequent reincarnation, though temples could also write it on their behalf.
Jiang Si came in a hurry and hadn’t thought so much. He only remembered the birth dates the woman mentioned; he had nothing else. He shook his head honestly.
Chen Liu wasn’t disappointed and said, “Then I’ll write one.”
Jiang Si coughed lightly. Under the gaze of both Hai Di and Chen Liu, he confessed, “Please write two copies. I brought a pair of siblings today.”
“Are they both here?” Chen Liu looked behind him but detected nothing. “I need to see them first.”
“They’re here.”
Jiang Si took two palm-sized paper figures from his backpack. With a light flick of the paper, the brother and sister were ejected one after another.
Just looking at their features, one could tell they were siblings. The brother was slightly taller than the sister by a forehead. They looked at least seventy to eighty percent alike, both with thin eyebrows and round eyes—extremely cute.
Seeing them, even Hai Di couldn’t help but furrow his brows tightly, wearing a look of pity.
The two children were dragon-phoenix twins (fraternal twins), probably only six or seven years old. To die just like that… it was truly a pity.
“Where’s Mom?” the brother asked.
“Mom hasn’t arrived yet,” Jiang Si answered patiently. “I’ll take you to play over here first.”
“How is it?” he asked Chen Liu.
“It works.” Chen Liu felt relieved. His purpose in proposing to see them first was mainly because children so young were very likely to turn into wraiths. They were much harder to deliver than ordinary wild ghosts.
Even forced deliverance carried the risk of backlash, driving the children to become infant spirits. Once they lost their reason, they would randomly choose a mother to parasitize, absorbing the mother’s vitality to increase their resentment power, making them even harder to deal with.
“Give me the birth dates; I’ll go prepare,” Chen Liu said. His fingers formed a seal, tapping the center of the two children’s foreheads once each to remove the gloom from their celestial eye points, facilitating the upcoming ritual.
Jiang Si gave them to him, then coaxed the children to play in a nearby pavilion for a while.
Watching them leave, Hai Di asked curiously, “Their mother is Qin Zhansheng’s wife, right? Where is she now?”
“She can’t come,” Jiang Si replied calmly. “A ghost who has killed people cannot enter a cultivation place like a Daoist temple, not to mention she has two lives on her hands.”
“Agreeing to help perform a ritual for her children is already the utmost benevolence I can offer. I won’t interfere in any extra matters.” As he spoke, he waved to the little sister standing on the stool and smiled slightly.
“Did she do it?”
Jiang Si nodded in confirmation.
“The children are indeed innocent.” Hai Di sighed. “She made what could be considered the best choice.”
Beyond several walls, voices were buzzing. Pilgrims from all around gathered, rushing against time. Along with the noise came the strong scent of burning incense, drifting in the air, scattering into the wind, difficult to disperse.
“I once told her I could send her to the Yin Division first, let her appeal to the Judge, and strive for a chance to exact revenge legally led by Netherworld officials. She refused directly. She said letting Qin Zhansheng live one more day was letting him off easy; she really couldn’t wait. Even if she was captured by officials and thrown into the Animal Realm for punishment, she wanted revenge first.”
“Things she didn’t figure out in life, she finally understood after death. She is a person first, a woman second, and lastly a mother and wife. Looking back and forth, compromising for the sake of the whole—she considered everyone but never considered her own thoughts. Now, she wants to be herself first.”
Just as Jiang Si finished speaking, he saw the two children floating up one after another, heading toward the central altar.
“Is this…?” Hai Di was surprised. He took a step, but Jiang Si stopped him.
“The ritual has started. They are going to eat the incense. Let them go.”
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