"Mom, I'm heading to school!"
Just as Zhou You stepped out the door, Tang Shiyin happened to open hers.
Upon seeing Zhou You, the drowsiness in Tang Shiyin's eyes receded, and she looked much more alert. "What a coincidence, Zhou You! Mind if we walk to school together?"
Living all by herself, she was lonely and frightened; finding out her neighbor was a classmate who had helped her before, walking together seemed like the perfect arrangement.
"Sure."
Zhou You agreed somewhat reluctantly. In truth, he preferred walking to school alone. On the way, he could empty his mind and let his imagination wander wild and free; having another person beside him felt awkward, making that impossible.
Still, since Tang Shiyin had put it like that, he had no reason to refuse.
Tang Shiyin grew shy easily and didn't speak much. She kept her head lowered the whole time, merely walking along the street beside Zhou You, barely saying a couple of words.
She trailed half a pace behind Zhou You the entire way, like his little tail.
Even before they reached the school gate, Tang Shiyin drew quite a few looks, which naturally brought Zhou You into the spotlight as well.
Lian Yi felt a flicker of pride. Walking alongside a beauty like her, even if Zhou You had felt nothing toward her at first, his vanity would inevitably compel him to subconsciously enjoy the feeling.
That way, their relationship could take another step forward.
Being in Foundation Establishment, Lian Yi possessed keen hearing, and she caught the hushed whispers of classmates gossiping about her and Zhou You.
"Didn't Tang Shiyin just transfer here? Zhou You hooked up with her already?"
"As if having Chu Xiaoyao and Su Tingxue wasn't enough, here comes another one."
"Does having brute strength and twisting bottle caps with one hand really attract girls that much?"
"Isn't a student's job supposed to be studying?"
"I really couldn't tell he was that kind of guy before."
Huh? This wasn't turning out like she had anticipated.
Zhou You seemed to have heard the students' quiet gossip as well, instinctively putting distance between himself and Tang Shiyin.
Tang Shiyin watched helplessly as Zhou You walked faster and faster until nothing was left of him but his receding back.
Zhou You was actually being considerate of Tang Shiyin. Having his relationship with Chu Xiaoyao and Su Tingxue misunderstood was one thing—those two were mentally resilient and didn't care about idle gossip.
Someone like Tang Shiyin clearly lacked mental fortitude. If she was caught in a misunderstanding like this, who knew if she might become completely withdrawn, refuse to attend school, or even jump off a building?
When Zhou You arrived at school, Chu Xiaoyao hadn't shown up yet. Having finished reading the *Illustrated Guide to Vengeful Ghosts*, Zhou You swapped it with the copy of *Introduction to Immortal Cultivation* she had kept on hand.
Nuomi was still making strained "wuwuwu" sounds, exerting all her effort to fire up her imagination and reach the point of conjuring an imaginary enemy.
Zhou You silently cheered Nuomi on. In any case, his own imagination wasn't up to the task right now, so he had to count on Nuomi to do well.
"Good morning, Sect Master."
"Good morning, Nuomi."
Suddenly, a small hand clamped down onto Zhou You's head, and the Empress's cold voice rang out from above: "You dare touch this seat's book? Courting death!"
"Aaaagh—"
The Empress's hand shook relentlessly, and Zhou You shuddered along with it, crying out in agony as though being electrocuted.
"I haven't finished reading *Introduction to Immortal Cultivation* yet." Chu Xiaoyao was reading this book far more meticulously than any textbook; perhaps reading it might suddenly awaken her memories as the Empress.
The descriptions of cultivation realms in the book were very clear, far better than the secondhand intelligence Zhou You had gathered from Su Tingxue, which had featured descriptions like the Qi Refining stage chopping down walls and Foundation Establishment collapsing buildings—making them sound like some demolition crew.
However, the book's descriptions of realms only went up to the Golden Core stage, offering nothing that matched her.
Thinking about it, that made sense. After all, it was only an introductory book; it was only natural that it contained no description of exalted realms like hers as an Immortal Emperor.
If there's no description, then I can just describe it however I want.
"Who told you to read so slowly? I've already finished mine," Zhou You said, rejecting the Empress's demand. He knew that the Empress had always been a slow reader; only when reading novels was she faster than him, plowing through basketfuls in a single vacation—a feat that left Zhou You thoroughly astounded.
"Fine." Chu Xiaoyao had no choice and could only turn to the *Illustrated Guide to Vengeful Ghosts* first. "Since you finished the *Illustrated Guide to Vengeful Ghosts*, did you figure out what kind of ghost Nuomi is?"
Zhou You shook his head. "There were a few that seemed similar, but none of them quite felt like Nuomi."
Since her identity was at stake, Nuomi halted her imagination training and leaned in. "What kinds are there?"
"Like a hanged ghost. They wear white clothes just like Nuomi, but a hanged ghost also has a strip of white silk, which Nuomi doesn't."
"I do have white silk!"
Under the astonished gazes of Zhou You and Chu Xiaoyao, Nuomi tore off a handspan-long strip from the hem of her white dress.
"Look, white silk!"
Zhou You hesitated for a moment before explaining, "Aside from the white silk, a hanged ghost also has to hang from a roof beam."
Nuomi looked up to search for a roof beam, but where in the classroom would she find one? Aside from ceiling fans, there were only long light fixtures.
"Heave-ho!"
Nuomi looped her newly fashioned strip of white silk over the large ceiling fan. Suspended by the cloth, she whirled wildly along with the spinning fan, moving so fast she turned into an afterimage.
Lian Yi, who had just walked into the classroom, was struck utterly speechless by the sight.
*What is this, a fusion between a hanged ghost and an electric fan ghost?*
Not to mention her—even if a Celestial Master from Mount Longhu showed up, they would be shocked out of their wits.
"Huh? Why did it suddenly get so cold?" Wei Hang blurted out, shivering violently.
"Me too, freezing," his deskmate chimed in, looking around without a clue as to what was happening.
Zhou You and Chu Xiaoyao knew full well what was going on.
The two of them had experienced this before. Last summer, when Chu Xiaoyao visited Zhou You's place, she complained the air conditioner wasn't cold enough and turned on a fan inside the air-conditioned room, leaving them both shivering like pathetic wretches.
Nuomi hanging from the ceiling fan produced a very similar effect.
"All right, all right, hurry up and come down," Zhou You urged Nuomi to put away her supernatural display. If she kept this up, everyone would catch a cold and end up in the hospital.
"Okay."
Nuomi calmed down and behaved herself, realizing she wasn't a hanged ghost after all.
"Another type is someone who suffered abuse in life and harbored intense resentment, becoming a vengeful ghost to seek retribution. In cases like that, they definitely wouldn't have amnesia,"
Zhou You analyzed. Nuomi only had memories starting from two years ago, which clearly didn't fit the criteria.
Furthermore, the strange thing was that vengeful ghosts were born of resentment.
Either their resentment was so overwhelming that they lost their sanity, descending into madness and desiring only to harm people, like an Eye-blocking Ghost;
or their immense resentment caused the nature of their soul to transform, leaving them lucid and fully aware of what happened during life, like a Poverty Ghost.
Nuomi, on the other hand, seemed to have no resentment at all, acting almost like a living person.
"Then there are female ghosts who absorb people's yang qi under cover of night. You don't need to absorb yang qi, right?" Zhou You continued listing examples from the *Illustrated Guide to Vengeful Ghosts*.
"Does sunbathing count as absorbing yang qi? I sunbathe sometimes," Nuomi asked.
Zhou You: "..."
Probably no ghost actually liked basking in the sun.
One by one, the possibilities were eliminated. The *Illustrated Guide to Vengeful Ghosts* had no record of Nuomi's kind.
Nuomi hung her head, spirits sinking.
"So none of them are me..."
Not knowing where she came from, Nuomi always felt a lingering emptiness in her heart, as though something was missing.
Just now, she had tried every possible way to prove she was a hanged ghost or some other kind of spirit, simply because she wanted to understand what she was.
Neither Zhou You nor Chu Xiaoyao knew that late at night, when everything fell quiet and the bustling classroom emptied out, leaving her all alone, she would always sit in a daze, gazing at the moon outside the window and wondering where she had truly come from.
Thinking of being all by herself at night, Nuomi felt an inexplicable ache knotting in her chest, and an urge to cry welled up within her.
She had never experienced anything like this before. Looking up at Zhou You with wide, imploring eyes, she asked:
"Sect Master, I feel so terrible inside... Am I sick?"
Chapter 52