Chapter 108: Shizun's Earth Soul

Mo Ran followed him upstairs without any idea what's going on, the worn-out wooden stairs beneath his feet creaking with every step. He couldn't resist asking, "You call him Sir Chu?" "That's right, Lord Yanluo himself sent him to manage this place, he's our superior."

"..." Mo Ran was surprised, but said nothing about it.

"Here we are," the masked person stopped in front of a half-moon shaped door on the second floor, and knocked lightly on the carved vermillion door that wasn't completely closed. "Sir Chu, there's an acquaintance of yours looking for you." There was a beat of silence, then a voice came from the inside, gentle like warm wine on the stove, soft hair by the pillow.

"An acquaintance? Him again? I've already said that I don't want to see him ever again. You can tell him to leave."   The masked person cleared his throat and said, "No, Sir Chu misunderstood,

it's not him this time." "But who else is there?" A moment of silence, and then. "No matter, come in." The room was simple and elegant, and the furnishings were so plain that it seemed a little bare, but the floor was covered by a soft, luxurious rug. Mo Ran's foot sunk into the rug when he stepped inside, and there was a whiff of the sharp smell of furs in the air. Completely at odds with the smell was the person currently standing by the window, pruning a flower branch.

His long, inky black hair draped loosely down his white robes and sweeping sleeves, and the vividly-red flower buds quivered lightly where they were held between his delicate fingertips. Maybe it was the rule here at Tailwind Hall, but he also wore a dark blue mask with bared fangs and bulging eyes. Yet, worn on his face, even such a ferocious-looking mask somehow managed to look gentler.

He trimmed off the excess branches, gathered them up and discarded them,

before finally turning around.

Mo Ran's throat felt dry. The exchange between the masked person and Chu Wanning just now left him at a complete loss and feeling vaguely uneasy. He didn't know what it was that this soul had lost; if Chu Wanning didn't remember him…

Just as he was fretting, the man put down the pruning shears and walked toward him.

Mo Ran, he who was undaunted by the heavens and the earth, found himself flustered and agitated, sweat covering his back.

"Shizun." The man stopped walking, coming to a stop close by. Mo Ran heard something like a chuckle from him.

"Shizun?" he said. "Perhaps the little gongzi got the wrong person?" As he thought…

Just what he was afraid of.

Mo Ran's heart dropped like an enormous rock into an endless abyss,

dragging him all the way down. He stared at the man before him at a complete loss for what to say.

Seeing no response from him, the person placed his pale, slender hand over the boldly painted mask and took it off, revealing an elegant and composed face beneath.

Mo Ran felt that thousand-pound rock disappear in an instant.

He stared at the unmasked man, astonished but without the slightest hint of doubt, and blurted out, "Chu Xun?" No wonder the person downstairs had mistaken the portrait. Chu Xun and Chu Wanning looked eight-parts alike to start with, except that Chu Xun was gentler and Chu Wanning was colder, but only someone extremely familiar would be able to tell the difference.

Someone like Mo Ran.

The person before him now was indeed the gongzi of Lin'an City that he had seen in that illusion of two hundred years ago, Chu Xun, so he had blurted out his name without thinking.

But the real Chu Xun had never met him before, and he was surprised as he said with a smile, "...You actually do know me?"   Mo Ran hurriedly waved his hand. "No no, I got the wrong person. But I do also know you…" He peered curiously at the other person as he spoke. Chu Xun had died hundreds of years ago, but had still yet to be reborn, seemingly due to the task assigned to him by Yanluo, allowing him to temporarily exist outside of the cycle of reincarnation.

Meeting Chu Wanning's ancestor was the last thing that Mo Ran had expected; he found the experience quite bizarre.

Chu Xun nodded and said, "I see." Then he continued with a smile, "Whom is the little gongzi looking for? Since fate brought you up these stairs, I will help you search. Else who knows how long it might take you to find this person, with the size of Nanke Town and all the millions of ghosts in it." Mo Ran was originally going to quickly explain things and then go back downstairs to have the divination re-done, but he hadn't expected Chu Xun, as warm-hearted in death as he was in life, to offer to personally help him. He accepted the offer joyfully. "I'd appreciate that, Sir Chu, thank you!" He handed the portrait over as he spoke.

Chu Xun unfolded it and took a look, then smiled, "No wonder the people downstairs were mistaken, he really does look quite like me. What's his name?" "Chu Wanning," Mo Ran said. "His name is Chu Wanning." "His surname is also Chu? ...What a coincidence." Mo Ran's heart leapt, and he asked, "Could he be related to you?" "Not sure. You have to go to the Ninth Ghost King to look into things in the living world. I… have a death grudge against the Ninth King, and refuse to beg him any favors, so i know nothing of matters in the living world." The Ghost King in question was, of course, the one that broke through the barrier at Lin'an and killed his entire family back then. Bringing up an old scar like this, even someone so composed as him couldn't help the complicated expression on his face.

Mo Ran thought he could use this opportunity to confirm the relationship between Chu Wanning and Chu Xun, but unexpectedly ran into this, and could only shake his head. "That's a pity." Chu Xun smiled a little and said nothing as he went to fetch a gold-plated yin-yang patterned compass from the shelf, then invited Mo Ran to take a seat.

"This thing can tell us where he is?" "Eight, nine times out of ten." "What about the remaining one or two times?"

"The energy of some people's souls can be strange sometimes, so there's a possibility it can't be located," Chu Xun explained. "But that's rare, the little gongzi probably isn't that unlucky." With the divination set up, the little golden needle inside the compass pointed shakily toward the north, but a little while later swiveled to point south,

then suddenly east, suddenly west, and in the end settled on spinning round and round.

Chu Xun: "..." Mo Ran asked cautiously, "So what does that mean?" "Ahem," Chu Xun cleared his throat, looking a little embarrassed. "The little gongzi… is indeed that unlucky." Mo Ran: "..." Truth be told, Mo Ran's always had rather bad luck, so he just knew it wouldn't go this smoothly. He sighed and thanked Chu Xun, then made to go back into the sea of people to keep looking for Chu Wanning.

But just then, the compass suddenly stopped spinning madly, its needle pointing shakily in a certain direction as if it wasn't too sure, then a moment later,

nudged to the side a little bit more.

Chu Xun hurriedly called, "Little gongzi, hang on." Mo Ran paused immediately, holding his breath as he stood by the table and stared at the compass. The needle swiveled left and right, refusing to hold still,

but more or less pointing out a general direction.

Chu Xun furrowed his brows and said, "What's going on…" "Is that weird?" "Not so much weird, but it is rather strange," Chu Xun gazed at the compass,

his brows furrowing even more. "He seems to be in two directions?"   Mo Ran was startled.

How could that be?

Right now, the Cognizance Soul was in Chu Wanning's body, the Human Soul was inside the Soul-Calling Lantern, which means there should only be just the one Earth Soul left in the Underworld, so how could Chu Wanning appear in two places simultaneously?

Chu Xun continued, "In any case, there's one to the southeast and one to the northeast. The little gongzi should go check in both directions. It's possible that the compass was affected by some kind of magic and couldn't pinpoint the right location." Filled with anxiety, Mo Ran thanked Chu Xun and hurried out of Tailwind Hall, headed eastward.

He ran for a long while, but his footsteps were abruptly halted by a fork in the road.

Southeast or northeast?

He held up the Soul-Calling Lantern anxiously, but a little while later, as he stared at the lantern in his hand that held the Human Soul, he suddenly felt some kind of a strange, vague feeling in his heart.

Following this feeling that seemed to vacillate between drawing closer and retreating, he walked along narrow roads and dark alleys.

The feeling became more distinct the further he went.

He even felt like Chu Wanning's Earth Soul was calling the lantern in his hand, or rather, calling him toward a certain place.

Mo Ran finally came to a stop in front of an old, wooden building that was two-story tall.

"Ailing Souls Sanitarium." He looked up, gaze sweeping across the large, heavy-looking plaque above the door. The plaque's black paint had peeled off from so long in the sun and wind, and the raised lettering had also lost most of its red paint, revealing the molding, decaying wood underneath.

Mo Ran frowned, heart tremoring in his chest—these three words made him feel uneasy.

Ailing souls… what does that mean?

Is this why Chu Xun's compass didn't work?

He pushed open the door and went in, stepping over a tall threshold.

He found his answers soon enough.

There were hundreds of beds inside, with unconscious souls lying on them.

A dozen-odd ghosts wearing white masks were going around channeling spiritual energy to those on the sickbeds.

This so-called Ailing Souls Sanitarium was the Underworld's infirmary.

Mo Ran found the ghost doctor overseeing things in the inner section and cupped his hands respectfully toward him, saying, "Doctor, I…" The doctor was very busy and said impatiently, "Prescription pickup's on second floor, examination queue is to the left." "Then where do I go if I'm looking for someone?" "Looking for someone's over at… huh? Looking for someone?"   Mo Ran showed him the portrait. "Have you seen him?" The ghost doctor took the painting and looked it over, then looked back up at Mo Ran. Under the holes in the mask, there was pity in his eyes. "Your relative?" "Mhm, yes."   "His Earth Soul is damaged," the ghost doctor pointed toward the stairs.

"He's in the innermost partitioned compartment upstairs. This kind of illness is untreatable, we can only delay it for the time being. You should go see him." Mo Ran started, "Damaged? Damaged how?" "Who knows? The cycle of reincarnation is an agonizing thing, it's possible his soul was damaged during his last couple of reincarnations, or, since he was a cultivator this life, maybe he had a qi deviation that damaged his soul. Either way it's no longer whole, how am I supposed to know how it happened." Mo Ran asked apprehensively, "Then… then would a damaged Earth Soul affect anything?"   "Affect?" the ghost doctor thought for a moment. "It's not a huge issue, since it's only one of three souls that's incomplete, so it won't affect his ability to reincarnate. If anything… in the next life, he'll probably have a shorter lifespan,

poorer luck, or a weaker constitution."

"..." Mo Ran was reluctant to accept that, but there was nothing to be done about it, so he could only thank the ghost doctor and head upstairs.

It was less densely packed upstairs than it had been downstairs, which was so crowded it was hard to breathe.

Maybe because the souls here were those that could not be revived, so there wasn't much of a need to watch over them, but there was only one doctor in the entrance hall, napping leisurely on a rattan chair.

Mo Ran left him alone and headed straight inside.

Such a big space, but there were only ten, twenty sickbeds laid out next to the rosewood windows, partitioned off with white screens in between.

It was dead silent.

The floor creaked beneath his feet. Mo Ran's eyes landed on the innermost compartment. It was next to a half-moon shaped door, outside of which was an open balcony. The moonlight poured in through a thin layer of silk curtain that drifted in the breeze.

There were twenty-odd sick souls here, yet for some reason, Mo Ran had an intense awareness of exactly where to go.

Perhaps it was the Soul-Calling Lantern showing him the way, but he walked directly to the innermost compartment without so much as a sideways glance,

coming to a stop in that pure, hazy moonlight.

He lifted the curtain.

The last piece of Chu Wanning's soul lay there. His eyes were closed and his face colorless, looking just like the body resting at Frostsky Hall.

Despite having found him, despite the hope of rebirth now being within reach, Mo Ran still couldn't help the ache in his heart and the stinging in his nose as he gazed at that frail, bloodstained figure.

He walked over and set the Soul-Calling Lantern down by the bedside.

Then he sat down on the bed, wanting to gently hold the other's ice-cold hand.

But this soul was different from the Human Soul from before. Maybe because the damage was too severe, but his body was actually incorporeal; Mo Ran couldn't touch Chu Wanning's Earth Soul, his fingers passing right through him to land on the clean white sheets.

Such incorporeality left Mo Ran feeling unbearably lost and pained.

If something had gone wrong, if Master Huaizui hadn't come, if Chu Wanning's soul had been just slightly more damaged, if Shizun had despaired and refused to see him...

He bent down, and though he knew he wouldn't be able to lay his forehead against Chu Wanning's, he still couldn't help closing his eyes and leaning over the bed like he was embracing that faint, fragile Earth Soul.

"Shizun." He overlapped with his soul, the moonlight spilling over them, indistinct and indistinguishable.

Mo Ran let out a long exhale in a sigh, but his heart was heavy and bitter.

He had seen Chu Wanning's body, then his Human Soul, and now this sickly Earth Soul, and felt something different upon seeing each. He had knelt before the body, his sins and his guilt nearly tearing him apart. He had repented before the Human Soul, and held his hand as he begged him to return.

But the Earth Soul.

He tried to hold him, yet he couldn't reach him, couldn't touch him. He suddenly felt a bottomless dread, that this was what he deserved.

He was laden with so many sins, his hands were covered in blood. What merit, what right did he have to accompany him at his side again, to stay by his side?

Mo Ran kept his eyes closed. The wetness on his eyelashes soaked into the flimsy pillow.

He once thought that the Heavens were unkind to him, but that seemed to him such an absurd joke now. That wasn't the case at all. It turned out that the Heavens were very kind to him; it was his own heart that was unkind, that made everything seem dark and gloomy.

He was wrong.

He suddenly realized that he had once walked a road of no return. He wanted to turn back, he wanted to use the rest of his life to make up for it, use the rest of his life to pay it back. He didn't know if that would be enough to go back to the start.

Forget Taxian-Jun, forget Emperor of the Human Realm.

He didn't want any of it.

He wanted only to lead a proper life, to be the kind of righteous person that Chu Wanning had always wanted him to be.

People say that recognizing your mistakes and changing for the better was the most important part.

But he had sinned so deeply.

He didn't know how long it would take to make up for it; perhaps he'll never be able to escape this endless remorse, even until the day he dies. After all, a scar cut into the waters could return to evenness, but a wound stabbed into a tree will always be there.

"Shizun." After a long time immersed in the light of the moon, immersed in Chu Wanning's nearly see-through soul, he said in a voice like he was coaxing a child, "Come on, let's go home."   He straightened up and picked up the Soul-Calling Lantern.

He recited the incantation silently, and the Earth Soul went inside, the faint silhouette disappearing into the lantern in no time.

Mo Ran waited.

He waited for a long while, until the Earth Soul and the Human Soul had merged completely into one, and then he waited some more, but still nothing happened.

Mo Ran's face paled.

What happened?!

Wasn't he supposed to be able to bring Chu Wanning back to the living world once the Earth Soul and the Human Soul had merged?

Was Master Huaizui's spell not working?!