Hua Zhuo’s delicate voice held a fierce undertone.

“You are so poor that you don’t even have a hairpin in your hair! The fabrics of your clothes aren’t good either. How can you people think that something from such a poor place looks good?”

As soon as these words fell, the whole room fell silent, and everyone’s gaze at her almost carried a hint of absurd disbelief.

Hua Zhuo wanted to cry, but there were no tears left. She heard a voice in her mind—[ding dong! Zhuozhuo completed today’s task! Excellent performance, merit +10!]

How much was added?

+10?!

Hua Zhuo was stunned. Normally she would get +1, but scolding Liang Shanyuan gave a reward of +10! ! +10! !

“What did you say?” The servant in the mansion was dissatisfied and wanted to come out after hearing this.

“Zhuo’er…”

Xu Ruyi looked disapproving and was about to speak, but Ting Lan, sweating anxiously, spoke hurriedly.

“Yes, it’s like this. Our third miss wants to give this fifth miss clothes and jewelry, so she deliberately said this. Hahaha, our third miss is shy and likes to be indirect.”

Hua Zhuo didn’t expect it to be like this.

In her heart, she wanted to shake Ting Lan’s hand and say thank you a hundred times, but on the surface, she remained arrogant and difficult to please. “Humph, I don’t think she has many good things on her; I can give her a few things!”

Liang Shanyuan nodded and gracefully bowed, “Thank you very much, Miss.”

As soon as she spoke, her voice had a jade-like quality that was indistinguishable between men and women. Everyone’s hearts were stirred by her words, but a sudden coldness couldn’t help but surge in their hearts.

The four people entered the quiet courtyard, and suddenly there was a sharp barking of a dog. Hua Zhuo was afraid of the dog and immediately retreated to Ting Lan’s side. Liang Shanyuan stopped in front, her pale face revealed when the lantern was lit; she stared expressionlessly at the dark area where the dog was barking, and then the dog let out a few whimpers and dared not make a sound again.

“The beast is so bold; I hope it didn’t scare you guys.”

“We’ve traveled in the martial arts world and between realms; naturally, this is nothing.”

Xu Ruyi said.

The beauty smiled, but Hua Zhuo felt uncomfortable.

She felt Liang Shanyuan’s eyes fall on her from time to time.

“I heard that there were two ghost tamers? One was named Xu Ruyi, and the other was named Meng Qiuci?”

“Yes,” Meng Qiuci picked up the dark red wooden plaque at her waist. “My name is Meng Qiuci, and I and my senior brother are ghost tamers. Miss Hua Zhuo is my senior’s sister, and Miss Ting Lan is a maid serving her.”

“I see; I envy you.”

She walked ahead and led everyone through the manuscript corridor. On both sides of the corridor, there were plain white lanterns swaying in the shade of the wind, and the grass on both sides was lush. Her aura was weak and plain.

“I’m weak and don’t go out much on weekdays. I envy the Taoist priests and other ghost tamers who roam the rivers and lakes the most.”

“It isn’t…”

Meng Qiuci tried to refute.

But the woman remembered something and turned around, her white lantern swaying. “I forgot to introduce myself to you, Taoist priests. My name is Shanyuan, and I am the fifth in the family.”

“Shanyuan… the heart ‘Shanyuan’ from Tao Te Ching?”

Seeing Liang Shanyuan nod, Xu Ruyi smiled slightly.

Liang Shanyuan said, “My mother told me during the day that because she had limited paper and ink to write to you, she couldn’t say everything she wanted to say. She asked me to wait for you to arrive and then explain the family situation in detail.”

“Okay,” Xu Ruyi responded.

The woman coughed lightly a few times, clearly feeling unwell.

“There has been countless troubles at home since New Year’s Day this year. First, the young lady fell into the water during the New Year’s Eve dinner. The family’s business stopped going well, and the hard work of the year wasn’t rewarded. Later, several elders and brothers applied for the imperial examination, but all failed. As you all know, although my Liang family has a second master who is a businessman, it is also a serious family of scholars. Such things have never happened in previous years.”

She frowned with a worried expression, highlighting the beauty’s weakness.

“This year’s Lunar Ghost Month, the younger generation of the family who are less than 15 years old are all sick and weak. On Zhongyuan Festival Day, I asked them not to come out late at night, but my ninth brother must have been delirious due to fever, so he came out in a daze and accidentally fell into the pond and drowned—”

Her voice was as calm and steady as her walking, exuding the dignified and gentle demeanor of a noblewoman. Even as she finished speaking, everyone’s gaze was still fixed on her.

“That’s the funeral hall of Ninth Brother.”

She held the white lantern in her hand, her pale fingers pointing forward, and Hua Zhuo walked last. Her eyelashes trembled as she followed everyone forward. Seeing the gloomy and pale scene in the dark night, her expression wasn’t very attractive at the moment.

Hua Zhuo, both in her lifetime and now, was an ordinary girl. The only thing that made her stronger was that she watched more horror movies than others and could withstand being scared.

So, she didn’t panic and followed everyone else into the mourning hall.

A white banner was hung at the door, and several long white candles were lit in the room, illuminating a large paper horse standing against the wall. The male and female paper servants’ dark eyes seemed to follow them.

Hua Zhuo averted her gaze; on the wooden table in front of her, there were a bunch of toys that children loved to play with and plates of meat and vegetables. Among them, there was an animal head, but she couldn’t recognize what it was. Its eyeballs were gouged out, and because it had been overcooked, it was pitch black on the plate.

On the wooden platform, there was also a black and white portrait of a chubby boy, staring outside expressionlessly.

“Ninth brother always loved meat dishes,” Liang Shanyuan explained gently after seeing Xu Ruyi’s look, “Toys too; the adults in the family were afraid that he wouldn’t have a good life down there, so they gave them to him.”

“I see…” Meng Qiuci nodded twice.

But Liang Shanyuan chuckled softly, which didn’t fit the situation. Meng Qiuci’s gaze was slightly curious, so Liang Shanyuan spoke.

“I just don’t know if Ninth Brother can still eat it. The fact that the living are concerning themselves with the dead is absurd in itself. Whether Ninth Brother can see it or not is another matter. The meat and vegetables have been attracting flies for several days.”

“Do you not believe in ghosts?” Xu Ruyi asked.

Liang Shanyuan smiled at them without saying a word. As they were about to move on, Liang Shanyuan suddenly asked, “The Ghost Tamers must believe in ghosts in the world. I’m curious, does this miss believe in them?”

She was asking Hua Zhuo.

The novel described that Liang Shanyuan not only had the magical power to drive people crazy but was also extremely good at disguise. Her thoughts were hard to guess, and her temperament was unpredictable, making it impossible for ordinary people to understand her.

“I believe it!”

Hua Zhuo looked at her openly.

Wasn’t there one right in front of her?

“Then it seems that the young miss and I are not of the same kind. I don’t believe in it. I hate talks of monsters and demons the most. What a pity. I wanted to make friends with the young miss.”

Hua Zhuo:… pretend, just keep pretending.

If she hadn’t read the original work, she would have been deceived by Liang Shanyuan.

The two main characters clearly saw many people like Liang Shanyuan, so they didn’t say anything and didn’t find anything wrong. The four of them took turns bowing to the portrait, but when it reached Hua Zhuo, they suddenly heard a faint silver bell ringing from the pitch black outside, swaying leisurely from afar.

The silver bell tinkled loudly, awakening the ears in the silent night. After a moment of confusion, it seemed to get closer to the crowd.

The tinkling sound of the silver bells was extremely pleasing to the ears in the silent night. Hua Zhuo paused and turned around with the crowd.

The white flag fluttered, and at some point, a woman stood in front of the threshold, wearing an old robe with slightly disheveled long hair tied to the back of her ear; she was biting a handkerchief as she stared blankly at them.

The silver bell hung around her waist, with red tassels hanging down, like an object for children to play with.

“Seventh Aunt, why did you come here?”

Liang Shanyuan asked, and the Seventh Aunt remained silent, biting her handkerchief and looking at this and that. Her gaze swept over Hua Zhuo’s body, paused for a moment, then it moved away and looked back at everyone.

“She—”

Liang Shanyuan turned around and pointed to her head at everyone, then shook her head and waved. She stood under the white lantern and waved her hand like a ghost. “Come on, it’s getting late. I’ll take you back to your rooms to rest.”

As the four of them lined up and were about to leave the funeral hall, Xu Ruyi asked, “By the way, Fifth Miss, what kind of animal head is on the table?”

Liang Shanyuan hadn’t spoken yet when the Seventh Aunt suddenly chuckled. Her voice was trembling, as if she hadn’t spoken for a long time.

“Yes, yes, it’s a monkey, a monkey’s head. Eat it, eat it, and the child will become intelligent. The Star of Literature and Talent, rise in rank and enter officialdom. The Star of Literature and Talent has descended to the mortal world… possessed…”

Everyone looked over as they listened to her. Seventh Aunt trembled all over and timidly lowered her head, revealing only a little bit of her back neck, and shrank back behind the door frame.

Liang Shanyuan nodded at Xu Ruyi, indicating that Aunt Qi was right.

The Liang family only knew that two ghost tamers would come, so they only prepared two rooms and courtyards. Xu Ruyi and Meng Qiu, who had been living frugally, found it good enough. They took the initiative to stay together. After all, Hua Zhuo was a noble lady, and she needed a maid to take care of her.

The charm of Liang Shanyuan was revealed; once Ting Lan was away from the two main characters, it was as if she was possessed and she constantly talked to her.

When Hua Zhuo heard Ting Lan say to the fifth Miss in a daze, “You are so beautiful, how can you be so beautiful?”, she frowned, feeling something was wrong.

In “Encountering Ghosts,” the character Liang Shanyuan seemed to be born with a certain kind of magic. Although the experienced male and female protagonists also thought that Liang Shanyuan was a great beauty, they weren’t crazy about her. What was horrible was that mortals, regardless of gender, fought for Liang Shanyuan to the point of spilling blood.

What if that magic was actually a ghostly aura intentionally emitted by Liang Shanyuan?

Hua Zhuo suddenly let out a harsh “tsk.”.

Ting Lan was startled, and her eyes, which were originally filled with amazement, paused, and she looked away from Liang Shanyuan’s beautiful face. “Third Miss, what’s wrong with you?”

“Look at you, you little dog. You’re so annoying!”

The girl in the bright yellow dress crossed her arms over her chest, and the emerald green ribbon tied to her bun swayed in the night wind. Liang Shanyuan stood in the darkness, her dark eyes reflecting the emerald green ribbon flying in the night sky. In her ears, she could hear the girl’s clear voice like an oriole.

“If you continue to be so incompetent, go back to where you came from as soon as possible! I don’t need a maid who praises other people’s beauty all day long!”

The girl hummed angrily. She was small in stature, and when she got angry, her fair face bulged, and she looked more like a bird surrounded by chrysanthemums. The little maid, who had been mesmerized by the ghostly aura she subconsciously emitted, immediately forgot everything and hurriedly went to her master, changing her ways to make her happy. She never looked at her again.

Hm?

Walking through the lush weeds, the darkness and the woman’s pair of dark pupils almost merged into one, like a black hole swallowing people.

Was this human nature?

Or… intentional?

“I won’t forgive you! She’s as beautiful as me? She’s tall and bland; how can she compare to me? You always praise her, so what am I? If you like her so much, why don’t you serve her?”

Listening to the sound of the merit+10 in her mind, Hua Zhuo raised her chin.

“I don’t like her! Third Miss is the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Hmph, say this sentence ten times.”

Listening to the little maid repeating, ‘Third Miss is the most beautiful woman in the world,’ Liang Shanyuan: …

She was so annoyed by the repeated words “Miss Third is the most beautiful woman in the world” that her ears hurt. She thought she was crazy to think that such a spoiled, ignorant, and arrogant young lady could know her secret.

As soon as she left the corridor, she pointed forward and softly said, “That’s the Huaiguang Pavilion over there. It’s late at night; Shanyuan will go back first.”

She saluted and disappeared into the pitch-black corridor with her white hand holding a plain lantern.

After speaking ten times, Ting Lan couldn’t help but look back at the corridor and received a sharp glare from her master. She then closed her mouth in grievance and said, “Slave will go and tidy up the young lady’s gifts.”

Ting Lan entered the yard first. Hua Zhuo stood there for a while, then her tense body finally relaxed.

Just now, the system sensed Liang Shanyuan’s murderous intention towards her.

The heart-eating ghost killed like an invisible person. If she hadn’t come up with an idea quickly, she might have been in danger with Ting Lan this night.