14. He Was Born In The World Of The Living, But Died On The Other Side

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Yu Dongxi sneered. “It has nothing to do with you. If you’re risking your life for this, it’s not worth it at all.”

The sarcasm in Yu Dongxi’s voice was obvious—Qiu Sui heard it clearly. But so what? What could he do about Yu Dongxi? Their relationship had already been hanging by a thread. He was powerless.

“Since he’s my friend, I have a duty to save him.”

Yu Dongxi stared at Qiu Sui for a long time before turning her head away and saying awkwardly, “Then let’s go.”

Qiu Sui let out a breath, as if a heavy burden had been lifted.

The Song family’s residence was now located in the suburbs of Bingcheng, surrounded by mountains and rivers—a rare land of excellent feng shui.

From the perspective of feng shui, it was actually quite unfair. The first generation of rich families had already picked out so-called “auspicious grounds” to bring prosperity to their descendants. Meanwhile, the poor could only bury their dead wherever there was space—forget about choosing feng shui, just having a plot to bury someone was already fortunate.

And so, generation after generation, the feng shui of the wealthy only got better and better, while the poor could only hope for their ancestral graves to “emit green smoke”—an expression both laughable and bitter.

As expected, Song Puyuan followed the instructions precisely. He prepared everything and neatly arranged it on the rooftop. This method was quite dangerous—it required a certain level of cultivation. It was a form of reverse-guiding, drawing a dead soul into the realm of the living through pure blood.

Of course, if the summoned soul had already reincarnated and left behind no remnants, then the ritual would naturally fail.

“Wait a minute, how can a soul leave remnants? Can souls be dismembered too?” Yu Dongxi raised her hand to ask.

“Dummy. Souls are dispersed—just like gases. Gases can be broken apart, so can souls,” Xiao Hei yawned. “How did you even manage to stay behind? You don’t know even this much basic knowledge?”

“It’s not like everyone is born knowing this stuff. Didn’t the Underworld give any training before putting you on the job?”

“Training?” Xiao Hei looked like it had just heard the funniest thing ever and couldn’t stop laughing. “Who has time to train you? Of course we go straight to work. Let me tell you, you think getting this job is easy? Nonono. It’s super hard. Those who make it either have deep cultivation but were never discovered, or already had this ability when they were alive.”

To be honest, Yu Dongxi didn’t really fit into either category… Could it be that she really got the job through connections?

“Well, not all cases are like that. There are some exceptions,” Qiu Sui said while drawing talismans. His slender, fair fingers gripped a brush dipped in cinnabar ink, and his strokes flowed smoothly and gracefully in one continuous motion.

“I have a question. What does it mean when a soul is ‘incomplete’?”

“Incomplete soul? It means exactly what it says—part of the soul is missing,” Xiao Hei replied.

As they spoke, Qiu Sui had already finished drawing the talisman. He poured the bowl of blood-tainted water entirely over the paper, crossed his hands into a seal, and began chanting a spell under his breath. In the next second, the characters on the paper glowed with a brilliant golden light. The light was so piercing that Yu Dongxi instinctively closed her eyes.

When she opened her eyes again, everything around them had already returned to calm.

Qiu Sui still maintained the hand seal posture, unmoving. However, it seemed… nothing had happened.

“What’s going on?” Yu Dongxi whispered to Xiao Hei.

Xiao Hei: “……”

Xiao Hei: “It’s pretty obvious—this is what it looks like when a ritual fails. Now we’re really in trouble…”

The last sentence was muttered under Xiao Hei’s breath.

Qiu Sui tried again, but still failed. And now, the bowl of blood was used up.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, we’ll think of something else,” Yu Dongxi said, though she couldn’t even force a smile anymore.

Qiu Sui slowly turned his head toward Yu Dongxi and said, “Actually… there’s still another way.”

“What is it? What is it?” Yu Dongxi’s eyes lit up, and she immediately leaned in.

Qiu Sui cleared his throat awkwardly. “We need to find his burial site. From there, retrieve one of his burial items. If there aren’t any, then we take a handful of ashes… or a piece of bone.”

“Ah…” Xiao Hei was just about to speak when Qiu Sui shot him a glare like a sword. Xiao Hei had no choice but to shut up.

Well, it was Qiu Sui’s own decision. If something went wrong, it wouldn’t be his responsibility anyway.

Let him do what he wants.

When will being love-brained finally be classified as a serious national mental illness!?

“Isn’t there some serious backlash for this kind of thing?” Yu Dongxi, naturally, had noticed earlier—Qiu Sui was the kind of person who loved to break the rules.

She knew Qiu Sui.

“It’s not backlash… it’s just that it breaks the rules.”

“That’s really all it is?” Yu Dongxi’s gaze was full of scrutiny. Obviously, she didn’t believe a word Qiu Sui said.

The two stared each other down for a moment before Qiu Sui finally gave in. “Alright, fine. It’s true—it’s not just that. The higher-ups will issue a punishment.”

“What kind of punishment?”

Qiu Sui fell silent.

Yu Dongxi frowned, her tone clearly impatient: “Speak.”

“It’ll affect my promotion evaluation.”

Yu Dongxi went quiet.

Xiao Hei also fell silent.

They weren’t sure if “might cost you your life” counted as a serious consequence.

“But it doesn’t matter,” Qiu Sui said, “whether or not I get promoted hasn’t mattered to me for a long time. I’ll be retiring in a few decades anyway. My current position is already higher than what most people in the Underworld will ever reach. For me, power really isn’t that important.”

“Is that the truth?”

Qiu Sui smiled and said, “It is.”

Xiao Hei: Bullshit.

But that aside, a new problem came up—finding Song Yu’s grave was going to be its own challenge.

So the group retraced their steps and returned to Xia Lingyin’s office.

Xia Lingyin’s archive didn’t just contain records of the living and the dead’s past lives, it also held some secret techniques and forbidden methods.

And so, just as Qiu Sui led a human and a dog in through a broken window, they ran smack into Xia Lingyin, who was sitting comfortably with one leg crossed over the other, sipping tea leisurely at her desk.

Xia Lingyin: “……” Again?

Last time, she had been caught off guard and taken advantage of. This time, she instinctively reached for her dagger—only to have a red, unidentified flying object once again smack down on top of her head the next second.

Xia Lingyin: “……”

She sighed. “Qiu Sui, what exactly do you want?”

“Sorry, I still need to borrow your files for a bit,” Qiu Sui said politely, but her hands moved quickly and efficiently as she began searching through the documents. Yu Dongxi wanted to help, but she wasn’t much use—she could only stand by and watch Qiu Sui and Xiao Hei work.

Of course, Yu Dongxi could at least help put the materials they’d finished reading back where they belonged.

“Found it,” Qiu Sui said as she tore a page from a book. The next second, the group vanished from Xia Lingyin’s office.

They reappeared in Bingcheng—or more precisely, in a small suburb of the city. Qiu Sui laid the torn page flat across a patch of wild grass. It was covered in various spell symbols.

This was a soul-tracking talisman. In the Underworld, some souls, for various reasons, might escape and flee. Some particularly powerful spirits were especially skilled at hiding their presence. In extreme cases, Underworld workers would resort to using this kind of spell to locate them.

The procedure involved dripping the caster’s blood onto the page to awaken the paper spirit. Then, an item belonging to the deceased would be placed on the page to lock in the target. Finally, the paper spirit would guide the caster to the location of the ghost.

It sounded simple enough, but the reason this method was considered forbidden magic was because the paper spirit fed on a person’s lifespan. However long the paper spirit lived, that was how much lifespan the caster would lose.

Qiu Sui slit her wrist, letting her blood drip down the handle of the umbrella and fall onto the paper. As soon as her blood touched it, she placed a small portrait on top of the paper.

But nothing happened.

—

Xiao Hei said, “At this point, the only place he could be… is there.”

With another shift, the group arrived at the most secret place in the Underworld.

The Bridge of the Other Shore.

Legend had it that any soul which could not be properly guided on and yet still managed to enter the Underworld would eventually be brought to this place. The souls that ended up here all had one thing in common: no matter how many years they had been dead, no matter how long they had wandered the living world, no matter how tragic or brutal their death—they never truly faded. They remained unkillable, overflowing with power.

Very few people ever reached such a state.

For reasons unknown, even as memories of that person had begun to blur, deep in Xiao Hei’s heart, he had always believed that person was that kind of soul.

An unshakably strong spirit.

In the entire Underworld, the souls that resided here were not under anyone’s jurisdiction. They did not appear in any records or registers.

Naturally, that meant no person, ghost, or spirit could detect them—or track them.

Qiu Sui handed the red umbrella in her hand to Yu Dongxi. Yu Dongxi looked at it, not taking it, and clearly puzzled.

“Dongxi, hold this umbrella and wait for me here.”

“What do you mean?”

Qiu Sui placed the umbrella on the ground and kicked it to Yu Dongxi’s side with her foot. Then, pressing her index and middle fingers together, she drew a golden line on the ground between herself and Yu Dongxi.

The golden line shimmered with light. Yu Dongxi tried to step over it, but an invisible force pushed her back half a step.

“Wait here for me. I’ll be back soon. If I don’t come back, then…” A trace of unwillingness flickered in Qiu Sui’s eyes. “Then just focus on your job. When the time comes, you’ll naturally reincarnate.”

And forget me.

It was this thought that truly made Qiu Sui reluctant.

“Hey, Qiu Sui! What are you going to do?” Yu Dongxi shouted after her. Qiu Sui paused for a brief moment, but then walked away without looking back.

“Stop yelling,” Xiao Hei, perched on Yu Dongxi’s shoulder, spoke up. “This is the Bridge of the Other Shore. Even the highest-ranking officials in the Underworld wouldn’t dare to breathe too loudly here. Shouting could attract things you definitely don’t want to deal with.”

“What exactly is this place? Will Qiu Sui be okay?”

“The souls who dwell here… are usually extremely fierce. Their deaths were so tragic that they can never reincarnate. Normally, these spirits don’t interfere with the Underworld, and the Underworld doesn’t bother them. But there’s one exception—the one you’re looking for. He came from here.”

Everything Qiu Sui knew about the Bridge of the Other Shore came from hearsay. Most people in the Underworld had only ever heard the stories.

This was the most dangerous place in the Underworld, inhabited by terrifying spirits whose powers were profound and unfathomable.

Beneath the surface of the water lay a hidden tunnel. The walls were covered in murals, and it was said that the scenes depicted the lives of the souls who now lived here.

After being tortured to death and falling into hell, yet never able to reincarnate—this kind of “eternity” had never been a blessing.

No—in any form, eternity was, at its core, a curse.

Qiu Sui lightened her steps as she walked deeper under the eaves. At the end of the corridor was a wall, painted with a Yin-Yang and Eight Trigrams formation. Qiu Sui approached the mural, pressed her hand against the orb between the Yin and Yang, and said softly, “Aren’t you going to come out and see me, Song Yu?”

There was a pause.

Then, a hoarse voice came from the other side of the wall: “You remember?”

“No, I haven’t remembered,” Qiu Sui said, still pressing her palm to the orb. “It’s just my guess. I don’t believe your soul was destroyed. You must still be here. In other words—even if you were destroyed, why would we forget you? The only explanation is that you erased all traces of yourself. The only kind of person who could pull that off must be someone from this place. In the recorded lives of the Song family members, only a few died sudden and unnatural deaths. And among those, the most powerful was Song Yu. So, I bet you’re Song Yu.”

There was another moment of silence. Then Qiu Sui heard a soft chuckle. The stone door creaked open. “Come in. Let’s talk, Qiu Sui.”