In the afternoon, Zhou You lay on his desk in the breeze. It was scorching outside. The wind blowing in had been dry and hot to begin with, but once it entered the classroom and came under the influence of Nuomi's ghost domain, it turned unusually refreshing, cool and comfortable against his face as autumn rain.
Perfect for sleeping.
Hard to imagine the height of summer could feel like this.
Thanks, Nuomi.
A paper airplane flew in through the classroom's back door, wobbling along, and landed on Zhou You's head.
"Where did this paper airplane come from?" Zhou You had been sleeping comfortably on the desk. He took the paper airplane off his head.
He unfolded it. In delicate little characters it read, "Come out and find me."
"Who wrote this?" Zhou You was puzzled. It was a girl's handwriting, and his first thought on seeing it was Chu Xiaoyao.
On second thought, that wasn't right. Chu Xiaoyao's summer-break essay about things on the Hongmeng Continent had come to light, and the Chinese teacher had called her out for a scolding. She wasn't here now.
"This paper airplane..."
Just now he had been pleasantly dazed with his head on the desk and hadn't noticed. A little more awake, he saw that a faint thread of spiritual power clung to the paper airplane.
"A girl, and spiritual power?"
Zhou You readily thought of who it belonged to. He walked out of the classroom, looked left and right, and sure enough found Su Tingxue hiding at the stairwell.
"Looking for me?"
Su Tingxue gave an almost imperceptible nod. Right now she didn't dare go straight to Class Three to find Zhou You.
After losing to Nuomi that morning, she had received a mission from Mount Longhu, asked for leave, and gone out to catch a ghost. Returning to school in the afternoon, she heard from her close friend that some very strange rumors were circulating about her.
Rumors like Zhou You taking advantage of her two years ago, and her seeking him out to make him take responsibility, were still all right. At least those fell within what Su Tingxue could understand. She knew where talk like that came from.
But the rumor that she had knelt to Zhou You in order to get back together with him—where had that come from?!
All the way here, she couldn't tell whether it was her imagination or real, but she felt that everyone's eyes on her were strange.
In this situation she didn't dare look for Zhou You directly. She could only fold a paper airplane, turn it into a temporary magical implement, and call him out.
"I'd like you to help me catch a ghost. Can you get leave? We can be back before evening."
The moment he heard he would have to ask for leave, Zhou You instinctively dreaded the homeroom teacher. But hearing that he could follow a Mount Longhu disciple to catch a ghost, that fear was not beyond overcoming.
"The ghost is very weak, but it's somewhat special. I can't handle it alone. I need another cultivator who can see ghosts."
Su Tingxue had no choice but to come to Zhou You. The ghost she had to catch was very special and required two cultivators who could see ghosts working together. Aside from herself, though, every cultivator who could see ghosts was a Foundation Establishment expert, and those were not easy to invite.
"I won't let you help for nothing. As payment, how about I recommend you to join Mount Longhu?"
Mount Longhu was a great sect of towering fame in the cultivation world. Who knew how many cultivators had sold their cars and mortgaged their houses, knelt for a long time before the mountain gate and would not get up, hoping money and sincerity would move Mount Longhu.
Su Tingxue felt that since Zhou You possessed yin-yang eyes like the founding patriarch, Mount Longhu would be very glad to have him.
"I already have a sect." Zhou You refused at once. He had only joined the Carefree Sect that morning and become its sect master. How could he defect that same afternoon?
"You already have a sect?" Su Tingxue was surprised. When they met that morning, hadn't he introduced himself as studying under his deskmate, Chu Xiaoyao?
What kind of sect was that? The Deskmate Sect?
"The Carefree Sect. Unworthy as I am, I am the sect master." With composed dignity, Zhou You introduced himself and, speaking as sect master, recounted the whole course of the sect's founding. His words and expression were full of pride.
This was the Carefree Sect, renowned across the Hongmeng Continent. The Carefree Empress had invited him, with generous gifts, to be its sect master.
Su Tingxue's expression turned odd. She wanted to say that he and Chu Xiaoyao together couldn't beat the PE teacher, so what were they doing founding a sect.
She didn't say it. Instead she raised another question. "Have you announced it publicly, then?"
Zhou You looked blank. "Announced it publicly? Announced what publicly?"
Seeing that Zhou You was utterly clueless, Su Tingxue could only kindly explain. "By the customs of the cultivation world, founding a sect requires proclaiming it to the world. Generally, a small sect spends a little money to place a notice in the announcement column of the local newspaper, while a great sect spends a great deal to place one in the announcement column of a newspaper circulated nationwide."
"But it's written rather discreetly. Usually they disguise it as the founding of some company or other."
"There's such a thing?" Zhou You was astonished. So immortal cultivators had been close by all along. Even the newspapers held traces of them.
"Of course. That's the modern method. Before newspapers, the ways of proclaiming a sect to the world were rather wild."
"Rather wild?"
"The most common method was for the head of a sect to steal something from the imperial palace. Then he would be wanted nationwide. The wanted notices were posted at the city gates, saying that the sect leader of such-and-such a sect had robbed the national treasury, complete with a portrait of the sect leader. That way everyone knew the sect had been founded."
"Not a single coin spent, and you could even gain a national treasure. Plenty of people used this method."
"Then what if the attempt failed and you got caught?" Zhou You asked, curious.
"See you at Caishikou."
Zhou You: "..."
"You've heard of the most famous case of announcing a sect's founding. You studied it in your history textbook."
"Studied it in my history textbook? I've heard of it?" Zhou You pointed at himself, thought back over his history textbook, and could not come up with the answer.
"It's the predecessor of our Mount Longhu, the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice at the end of the Eastern Han. They rebelled outright, announced it to the world, and the sect was founded."
Zhou You was silent.
The cultivators of the Hongmeng Continent sounded a great deal more normal.
"Where are we going next?"
"Catch." Su Tingxue took something from her pocket and tossed it to Zhou You. "I'll explain the ghost-catching in detail on the way."
Zhou You opened his hand. What she had given him was a key. A key to open something, so they could take out whatever was inside and catch the ghost?
"This is...?"
"It's the key to my bicycle. It's parked at the school gate. You ride it. I'll scan a shared bike, and the two of us will go to the destination."
"..."
So much for the young lady chauffeured to and from school in a luxury car. How was it just a bicycle?
Zhou You plucked up his courage, made up an excuse, and asked the homeroom teacher for the afternoon off. The teacher's eyes were as unreadable as ever. Probably because his conscience was uneasy, after he left the office he kept wondering whether the homeroom teacher had seen through what he meant to do.
In the meantime he went back to the classroom. Chu Xiaoyao wasn't there. She was apparently still being lectured by the Chinese teacher, so he had no choice but to leave her a note saying he was going out with Su Tingxue to catch a ghost and would be back before evening self-study.
He had originally wanted Nuomi to pass it on, but considering the relationship between Nuomi and Su Tingxue, he thought better of it.
Su Tingxue seemed quite familiar with the gate guard. A greeting, and the two of them were let out. Zhou You's leave slip was never even used.
"I often leave campus to help people subdue demons and eliminate evil. I go out fairly often, so the gate guard knows me." Seeing Zhou You's puzzlement, Su Tingxue explained.
Hearing that Su Tingxue often subdued demons and eliminated evil, Zhou You looked envious. A life like that sounded very interesting.
"I originally wanted to handle this one alone too, but I ran into a special situation."
Su Tingxue pointed out where the bicycle was and had Zhou You ride it. She took out her phone and scanned a shared bike.
Su Tingxue's bicycle was a mountain bike. It was Zhou You's first time riding it. The seat was too high, and he wasn't quite used to it.
"What special situation?"
"At the beginning of this month, the Chang'an Transportation Bureau found that one set of data was abnormal. Traffic accidents at the intersection of Zhonghua Avenue and Huai'an Road were far more frequent than in previous periods."
"At the same time, according to the written statements of some of the drivers at fault and the victims, their vision suddenly went black just before the accidents and they briefly went blind. That was what caused the accidents."
Zhou You frowned. "Is a ghost or monster behind this?"
Su Tingxue nodded and went on. "It happened that someone at the Transportation Bureau had dealt with our Mount Longhu before and told Mount Longhu about it. I was in Chang'an, so Mount Longhu sent me to investigate."
"I found that starting in June of this year, accidents began to happen more often, so I pulled every traffic accident at the intersection during May. One of them was the most suspicious."
"It was afternoon, and there were few people on the road. The driver at fault wasn't paying attention. Passing the intersection, he had his head down playing on his phone and didn't see the pedestrian ahead. By the time he noticed, it was too late. The car hit her. The driver and the pedestrian died on the spot."
"The driver was a middle-aged man in his forties. His parents had died early, he had never married, and he lived alone. The pedestrian was a young woman who had just been admitted to graduate school on her second attempt at the exam. Her family was intact, and she had just started seeing a boyfriend."
"The pedestrian in this accident died with resentment and transformed into an Eye-blocking Ghost, blocking the sight of drivers and pedestrians and causing traffic accidents."
Eye-blocking Ghost. It was the first time Zhou You had heard the name. The ghost's name was simple, and its methods were easy to understand.
"Does everyone who dies with resentment become a ghost?" Zhou You was curious. He knew nothing at all about this.
Su Tingxue shook her head. "No. Becoming a ghost requires the right time, the right place, and the right people. If resentment alone turned someone into a ghost, there would be far too many ghosts in the world. Even if every cultivator of our Mount Longhu came down the mountain and we printed talismans on a printing press, we still couldn't deal with them all."
Chapter 9