Having learned her lesson, Ling Wu reached Seven Bridges Town before the gates closed.
The moment she entered, cold made her shudder.
It was utterly different from Seven Bridges City. Only abandoned display racks remained along the streets, some faded by rain and sun until they looked ready to collapse. The once-bustling teahouse stood desolate. A gust scattered rubbish in every direction and rolled several white lanterns into view.
Heaven curse this place. How is it different from the underworld?
The plague had killed many people. As she walked, Ling Wu heard weeping behind tightly closed doors.
She sighed. She could never bear scenes of separation and death.
Mortal lives were brief, and disasters made them even more fragile. Storybooks often told of famine, when a little girl sold herself to human traffickers so her family could buy grain. However unwilling her family might be, desperation forced their heads down. That was separation.
Then came plague: families displaced, becoming infected one after another during their flight, dying in succession. That was death.
Whenever a story contained either, Ling Wu cried terribly. Faced with the real thing, however, no tears came.
Every beginning was difficult. Crouched in a corner, she still had no idea how to cure an entire town. She knew no medicine. If she knocked on doors claiming to be a healer, the townspeople might beat her out as a fraud.
The image alone was tragic.
After pondering for a long time, Ling Wu sprang up with sudden inspiration.
She could first use talismans to place a barrier around the town. That would prevent new disease from drifting in through the air.
She had also brought a heap of immortal medicine. She only needed to find the town's water source and put the medicine inside. Mission accomplished! The people could hardly refuse to drink water.
Thus, beneath a dark, windy moon, Ling Wu began searching for water.
Seven Bridges Town was neither large nor small. Homes were scattered everywhere, along with countless wells and springs. She could not determine which supplied the people's drinking water.
She had plenty of medicine, but could not waste it.
Eldest Senior Brother had said he obtained it from the Divine Physician with enormous difficulty. It was so powerful that cultivators who consumed it could dramatically increase their cultivation.
Naturally, Ling Wu wanted to save some for herself.
Immortals should care for all living things, true—but she had not ascended yet.
Holding the medicine on a rooftop, she hesitated. Perhaps she should ask about the water source tomorrow.
This plague truly was troublesome.
“Has Ah-Wu encountered a difficulty?”
Master's clear voice sounded beside her. Ling Wu looked everywhere and saw no one. Assuming she was hearing things, she sighed again.
Ling Wu, you must cure this habit of thinking about Master whenever trouble appears. If he always solves everything, when will your cultivation, knowledge, and ability improve?
But it was not an illusion. Qingchen was using a voice-transmission spell.
“Blame me for deciding too hastily. This plague is no natural disaster. An evil being is interfering in secret.”
“Seven Bridges Town is dangerous,” he said with concern. “Do not be afraid, Ah-Wu. I will arrive tomorrow. Find somewhere to rest tonight and leave the matter to me.”
How embarrassing!
Ling Wu hurriedly refused. “There is no need, Master. This is the first time I have lightened your burdens. How could I trouble you to descend? Do not worry. It is merely an evil creature. I can handle it!”
If Master discovered she could not manage even this, that would be a terrible offense. Sneaking into the mortal realm again would become nearly impossible.
“Does Ah-Wu feel uncomfortable beside me?” Qingchen sounded wounded.
“Of course not! Master is the finest person in all Six Realms and the strongest in my heart. I feel safest when you are near. How could I be uncomfortable?”
“Then leave the plague to me.”
“This matter should remain with your disciple.”
“Ah-Wu does not wish to see me.”
“That isn't true.”
“Then leave the plague to me.”
Ling Wu was exhausted.
Since Master was determined to come, she stopped resisting. A teacher for one day was a father for life. If she imagined him as a father terrified his daughter might be trapped in danger, accepting his help became easier.
She reported the address of an inn, then buried herself in bed. The last two days had drained her; she had even slept in a tree. Now that she finally had a soft mattress, she would rest properly.
She slept until the sun was high.
Upon waking, she discovered a blue figure beside the writing desk. It was Master.
He leaned against the desk, one hand supporting his head, the other resting casually on his knee. His eyes were closed, lashes casting soft shadows beneath them. Sunlight entered from outside and refined his already picturesque features into a portrait of a sleeping beauty.
No wonder celestial maidens wanted to dual cultivate with him. Even Ling Wu's heart could not help stirring.
But master and disciple were distinct. Her respect flowed as endlessly as a great river. Dual cultivation could get lost and stop interfering with her immense filial devotion.
She quietly left the bed to cover him with a blanket, but he awoke when she approached.
Oh! The beauty opened his eyes.
“Ah-Wu.” The lingering huskiness of sleep made her heart move.
For some reason, the scene felt as though she had lived it countless times. Next, she would throw herself into his arms and ask him to arrange her hair. He would tap her nose and indulgently begin to comb it.
By the time Ling Wu realized how disrespectful that image was, it was too late.
Beauty ruins people! I have read too many romances. How dare I harbor thoughts about Master? Am I tired of living?
She shook away the vision and began fussing. “Why didn't Master wake me? I could have booked you another fine room. Why sleep beside the desk? You may not possess a mortal body, but nights are cold. What if you became ill? All medicine carries poison. I don't want Master to visit the mortal realm and return as a medicine jar. My senior brothers would lecture me endlessly for causing it.”
Qingchen listened contentedly. Ah-Wu was worried about him.
“Mm. Ah-Wu is thoughtful.”
“About the plague—”
“Eat first.” Four simple words permitted no argument.
Ling Wu obediently followed. Master had ascended and needed no mortal grain. She was different. Hunger made her miserable.
Downstairs, she ordered osmanthus cakes and tea and began eating with elegant restraint. Before Master, she should appear dignified.
After a long while, she had finished only one cake.
Qingchen teased, “By the time Ah-Wu finishes eating, it will be bedtime again.”
Master thought she was delaying his work!
Fine. He had witnessed worse table manners. Pretending was pointless.
She devoured the remaining cakes like a storm and burped in satisfaction.
Noticing crumbs beside her mouth, Qingchen reached to wipe them away. Ling Wu misunderstood, assumed he meant to give her another artifact, and opened both palms with a brilliant smile.
“What is Master giving me this time?”
Qingchen laughed, wiped away the crumbs, and shook his head. “My artifacts are fiercely loyal. If I gave one rashly to Ah-Wu, you might suffer the same fate as Qi'er.”
Ling Wu heard none of it. The instant his hand touched the corner of her mouth, she froze.
Her pupils widened, her heart raced, and her ears burned.
Such intimacy was not new. When she was young, Master had wiped her mouth countless times to keep food from dirtying her clothes. Yet this time felt different.
When she failed to withdraw her hands, Qingchen tapped her palm with one finger. The soft contact frightened her into snatching them back. Now her palm burned too.
“The weather is rather hot today. Your disciple will change clothes upstairs before handling the plague.”
Without waiting for him, she hurried upstairs in obvious flight.
Qingchen glanced at the bare trees outside, confused. Was it truly hot?
Ling Wu returned in a different outfit. Her hair formed two buns, with several small braids hanging below and red cords tied at the ends, making her face look younger. Her black-and-white cross-collared dress bore talisman patterns at the neckline. A chain decorated with bells and silver ornaments hung from her belt, and the broad skirt opened like lotus petals, chiming as she walked. Anyone could tell she practiced talisman arts.
Eldest Senior Brother always said the first step in cultivation was tying a high ponytail. Ling Wu thought ponytails pulled painfully at her scalp. Buns were far more comfortable.
Qingchen watched her descend. The figure before him gradually overlapped one from his memories.
“Qingchen!”
“Master!” Ling Wu's call brought him back. “Shall we leave?”
“Mm.”
With Master present, finding the town's water source was trivial. In less than an incense stick's time, they reached a lake surrounded by mountains. Ling Wu could not imagine how the townspeople had found it when easier sources lay nearby.
As she approached, she saw dense miasma floating over the water.
“Master, this lake is strange.”
“I know.” Qingchen waved a hand, dispersing the miasma. “Resentment reaches the heavens here. A deluded living soul is causing trouble.”
When a mortal died but refused to leave the body, continuing like a walking corpse and repeating the actions of life, it became such a soul. Usually, only an unresolved obsession held it back. Once that obsession ended, soul and body would separate. The Black and White Impermanence officers could then take it to the Ghost Realm for punishment and reincarnation.
“Did that soul cause the plague?”
Qingchen nodded. “In life, she was a physician famous throughout Seven Bridges Town.”
Ling Wu marveled. Master truly deserved to be a High God. In so little time, he had found both the source and the spirit's identity.
The soul was clever too, poisoning the entire town through its water. Ling Wu had taken ages to think of dispersing medicine there.
She took immortal medicine from her satchel, but Qingchen stopped her.
“Not yet. She will emerge again tonight. Unless we resolve her, the plague will continue spreading.”
He led Ling Wu to the soul's home: ruins abandoned for many years. Spiderwebs covered charred timbers, insects nested inside, and weeds concealed the building's former shape.
“Immortal, have you come to subdue me?”
A gentle female voice sounded. A woman in white appeared beneath a scholar tree, using its shade to avoid the sun.
She had delicate features and a wooden hairpin. Her clothes retained their colors from life: a green cross-collared dress, a small sachet at her waist, and dried mud along the hem.
Before Master could speak, Ling Wu stepped protectively in front of him.
“Female ghost! Why refuse reincarnation and remain here harming people?”
The woman laughed softly, sorrow filling the sound. “They deserved it.”
“I only returned exactly what they did to me. What is wrong with that?”
There was clearly an unknown story here.
Ling Wu meant to ask, but Qingchen gently patted the hand shielding him and addressed the ghost.
“Cause and effect turn in a cycle. Those who commit evil will taste its consequences in reincarnation. By destroying their destined fates, you incur a debt that must be repaid through your next three lives. Do you truly feel no regret?”
“Why should evil committed in this life wait until the next for punishment? What of everything I suffered?” In the light, her face looked deathly pale. Without the tree's shadow, the sun would already have burned her.
“They did not believe me. Even he did not believe me. He promised to take me away, but I waited until they poured oil across my house. They sealed the doors and windows so I could not escape. I begged them to spare me, but they said I had harmed too many people and deserved my fate. Trapped in the flames with no rescue, I watched myself burn alive.”
Pain covered her face.
“How could I release that agony? I remember every expression and every cheer.”
“Before that day, I had saved them countless times. Yet one unproven suspicion erased every kindness. They would not even investigate. How could I spare people so heartless?”
Compassion gradually filled Ling Wu's face.
The hateful often carried unbearable sorrow. This woman had died in unimaginable misery.
What could have driven an entire town to treat a helpless woman with such cruelty?