Chapter 54

No one had ever witnessed such a scene. They froze, yet no one thought to retrieve her body.
By the time they recovered, her flesh had been consumed, her remains sunk to the bottom, while the satiated carp swam away lazily, tails flicking and bubbles rising.
The killer was dead, leaving the mess for Shi Qinglan to handle. Li Daoxuan carried the dazed Shen Qing into a room.
Perhaps because the Fourth Prince was personally overseeing the matter, his subordinates worked efficiently. Soon, they brought a pile of items and information, including details of Ah Si’s background.
According to the head maid, years ago, Ah Si and her husband ran a pork shop in Pingkang Lane. Life was modest but manageable.
Her husband, however, had a bad habit of heavy drinking. Known throughout the neighborhood as a drunkard, he eventually died from alcoholism after ten years of marriage. Misfortune compounded: their eight-year-old daughter was abducted one stormy night.
From then on, Ah Si became eccentric and unstable. The head maid, pitying her, took her in as a cleaning woman in the building.
She stayed for over twenty years, and no one dared speak to her due to her insane reputation.
Although she occasionally lost her mind, she never harmed anyone, so no one suspected she would become a murderer, let alone in such a cruel manner.
The head maid recounted all this, heartbroken and regretful, wishing she could go back twenty years and slap her past self.
Li Daoxuan held an old notebook, found under Ah Si’s bed.
It wasn’t much a book, more like a stack of thin papers sewn together with rough hemp thread. The paper was cheap and coarse, and the thread was the kind commonly used for mending clothes.
Yet the writing intrigued them. Li Daoxuan opened a page:
“Life and death, neither object nor self, all is fate, beyond wisdom’s control.”
The handwriting was delicate and orderly, revealing glimpses of the author’s spirit, yet carried a subtle resentment. Truly paradoxical.
Li Daoxuan gave a barely audible snort.
The next page was filled densely with black ink. At first glance, the handwriting resembled the first page, but upon closer inspection, differences appeared: the strokes were duller, the arrangement less orderly.
The page was full of the words “Ah Chou,” describing her and Ah Chou. Most of it was mundane daily records. Li Daoxuan wanted to turn the page, but a small, soft hand pressed on his, and Shen Qing’s eyes never left the page. “Wait a moment,” she said.
She didn’t want to miss any clues about the Xi Sang demon.
She read every word carefully, so intent that she didn’t notice she was nearly face-to-face with Li Daoxuan, one hand on his, the other on the chairback.
Li Daoxuan’s eyelashes twitched. Suddenly, he grabbed Shen Qing’s wrist, pulling her back. “We need to keep a bit of distance between us, Lady Shen.”
Shen Qing was puzzled, then recalled the earlier situation and realized his action was perfectly normal.
Previously, their closeness had been unavoidable, but now, as their relationship shifted from tense adversaries to “partners,” some distance was necessary. She moved her lips, finally uttering, “Oh.”
This time, she kept her distance. The rules were observed, yet for some reason, Li Daoxuan still felt unsettled.
His aura was subdued; Shen Qing didn’t notice the change, eyes fixed on the notebook.
“Ah Chou came back. I’m no longer alone.”
“Ah Chou liked red skirts. For her thirteenth birthday, I bought one. She was happy, but they took it away. Ah Chou was very upset. I didn’t know what to do.”
“The lotus seeds ripened. Ah Chou saved money to buy a boat, collected many lotus seeds, and I made lotus soup for her.”
“Ah Chou said she loved my lotus soup the most. I’ll make it for her every year.”
“I made the soup, but Ah Chou didn’t come back. They said Ah Chou was dead.”
“Her boat was smashed by them.”
“The boat I bought with savings was taken; she deserved to die.”
“She died, but my boat returned. Once Ah Chou came back, she wouldn’t have to worry about collecting lotus seeds.”
“Ah Chou didn’t come back.”
“I am alone.”
The writing suddenly broke off, smudged as if spilled accidentally.
Turning the page revealed a new passage:
“Ah Chou came back. She said she would take me with her.”
And then… nothing more.
Shen Qing pondered long after reading, then laughed aloud.
She didn’t know why she laughed, just thinking that in her previous life, she had crossed mountains and rivers, tirelessly searching for the Xi Sang demon’s origins. And yet, the thing that troubled her for her entire short lifetime had been hidden just a lane away in Yuanchun Pavilion.
Truly ironic.
“The items are all reviewed. Lady Shen, perhaps it’s time to say what you know, or rather, what you want,” Li Daoxuan said, slowly putting down the notebook, his body relaxing completely, though his eyes remained evaluative.
Shen Qing met his gaze without hesitation. She knew that ever since her rebirth, every step she had taken had involved him. Thus, this scene was inevitable.
Since they had established a cooperative relationship, she needed to be relatively honest.
Yet she could not reveal her rebirth. So, to work with him against the fiends, she needed a plausible reason.
Having resolved that, Shen Qing smiled lightly. “Your Highness must have heard of my master’s name.”
“The famous Master of the Xuanshi Pavilion, Qian Zimo. Renowned for divination, known throughout Chang’an. Who doesn’t know him?”
“That’s right. My master, poisoned by Xiangyou, died resentfully in the west. But before passing, he cast a minor divination, Xiao Liu Ren, for both me and my senior brother.” She paused.
Li Daoxuan looked up, signaling for her to continue.
“At that time, my senior brother, when making his choice, mentioned the matter of ‘helping those in need.’ Master cast a divination for him and it indicated ‘Great Safety,’ so I won’t elaborate further.”
It’s easy to understand, it meant that as long as Liu Jiyue followed the proper steps in exorcising demons and helping the world, nothing too disastrous would befall him in his lifetime. Even his life itself would be relatively smooth and untroubled; a truly auspicious fate.
“As for me,” she continued, “I didn’t have such grand ambitions. I only wished for the people I care about to be safe and well, and to live my own small life peacefully, that alone would satisfy me. So I asked, ‘I want to know what my future life will be like.’ But alas, the word ‘life’ is too broad to summarize in a single event, so Master used physiognomy instead.”
Physiognomy is a way to perceive heaven and probe destiny, and its backlash can be extremely severe. In effect, it’s like wagering one’s life on the divination; a person can only use it once in their lifetime, and even the most skilled practitioners avoid using it unless absolutely necessary.
Perhaps Mr. Qian Zimo felt his end was near, and in his final moments, he considered it meaningful to cast a divination for his disciple. So he exhausted his remaining cultivation to calculate one for Shen Qing.
As Shen Qing recalled this, a vague but kind face flickered through her mind. Tears glimmered in her eyes as she spoke each word carefully: “The divination was: Great Misfortune.”
“Li Daoxuan, the divination shows that I won’t live past nineteen.”
“Before that time, my parents, my friends… all will perish because of me.” She said this with a smile, but the tears in her eyes carried a sorrow that seemed as though all hope had been extinguished.
It is often said that life contains eight sufferings; excluding the suffering of old age, in her past life’s nineteen years, she had endured the seven remaining: birth, sickness, death, separation from loved ones, meeting those one hates, unfulfilled desires, and the extreme suffering of the five skandhas. Every time she dreamt of her past life, her heart felt like fire over boiling oil, unbearably tormented.
Even upon waking, she feared it was only a dream, and if it ended, her mother, Li Yu, Cuizhi, and her senior brother would vanish like smoke after casting a glance back at her, leaving her alone in despair, tortured beyond measure.
She had died the day before her twentieth birthday.
It is said that one should avoid prophecies to prevent them from coming true, but Shen Qing had already experienced all of that. She no longer cared about self-fulfilling prophecies.
She lifted the yellowed old paper booklet and read aloud the text on the first page: “Life and death, neither thing nor self, all is fate, beyond the reach of wisdom. Li Daoxuan, do you acknowledge this statement?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.
Li Daoxuan let out a scoff, eyes flashing with arrogance. “Fate?” He shook his head. “I don’t believe in it.”
“There is no such thing as a free lunch, nor a method to wait idly in the mud until death comes. My fate has always been in my own hands. If I want something, I fight for it myself. Mere destiny, what is that worth?”
In other words: My life is mine, not Heaven’s.
Li Daoxuan’s view, that heaven aids those who help themselves, was one Shen Qing could agree with. Listening to his brazen words made her blood boil with excitement; she wanted to applaud.
Fate is decided by oneself, there is no such thing as heaven deciding it.
Looking at this confident young man, she felt a pang of regret.
Their thoughts aligned, their temperaments compatible.
If he hadn’t killed her in the previous life, perhaps in this one they wouldn’t have been so adversarial. Perhaps, shedding all grudges, they could even have become friends.
Alas, Shen Qing was relentless in vengeance.
“So, after Master calculated my future fate, he also cast a divination to determine the method of escape.”
“The greatest tribulation in my life would come in the year I turned seventeen. The divination showed that the turning point of my life’s calamity involved two great fiends. And the one who could help me overcome this tribulation… is you.” Shen Qing said this without blinking, completely serious.
Li Daoxuan’s fingers, which had been rhythmically tapping on the table, froze mid-air upon hearing this.
He could not believe it, replaying her words in his mind: She… called him her benefactor?
Counting back over their interactions since their first meeting, the countless verbal sparring, the times she could not bear to take even a small loss, he let out a faint, mocking chuckle, expressing his attitude in a single breath.
“Hmph.”
Shen Qing did not rush to explain. Instead, she said, “Whether Your Highness believes me or not, everything I have done so far was simply to find the two great demons my Master spoke of.”
“Only by eliminating them can I have peace of mind. Alone, I am too weak. This matter also involves the people behind the great demons. My senior brother is straightforward and would blindly exterminate demons without understanding the complexities. So I had no choice but to involve Your Highness. I ask Your Highness to forgive my prior rudeness.” She gave a proper, composed bow.
At this moment, she finally appeared the refined lady she truly was.
Yet Li Daoxuan thought that this Shen Qing no longer seemed like herself.
The Shen Qing he remembered was mischievous, clever, and spirited, not this version, meek and compliant in order to request aid, like a bird with its wings clipped.
A sudden, inexplicable anger rose in him, though he quickly realized the emotion was irrational. Why was he angry? At what?
A rare confusion flickered in his eyes.