The scene that followed was far more entertaining than Chen Yu had expected.
Sang Sheng's wife was named Li-shi. She was a forthright woman who never minced words during an argument, every sentence aimed straight at the vital point. Lianxiang was different. She didn't argue; she smiled. Her smile was gentle and warm, but every sentence carried a barb—never deeply embedded, but always dead-on.
"I was merely worried about Sang-lang's health," Lianxiang said softly. "If Sister is concerned, then I simply won't come anymore."
"You say you won't come, and that's that?" Li-shi sneered. "You said the same thing last month. And what happened?"
"Sang-lang came looking for me."
"Sang Sheng!" Li-shi turned and glared at her husband.
"I didn't!" Sang Sheng hurriedly waved his hands. "I was just passing by her house—"
"Your house is in the east of town, and hers is in the west. How were you passing by?"
Sang Sheng opened and closed his mouth, unable to come up with an answer. His hand instinctively reached for the bronze mirror beside him, as if he could find a better-looking version of himself in it to deal with the situation.
Chen Yu broke off another piece of flatbread. Tangbao leaned over, nudging his hand with its nose.
"Wait," Chen Yu whispered. "We're almost at the climax."
Sure enough, Li-shi and Lianxiang's verbal sparring escalated into physical contact—not a fight, but a tug-of-war. Li-shi grabbed Sang Sheng's left arm, while Lianxiang pulled on his right. With one woman on either side, Sang Sheng was stretched between them like a bedsheet hanging from a clothesline.
"You're coming home with me!"
"Sang-lang, don't listen to her—"
"Sang Sheng, if you dare leave with her today, don't bother coming back!"
"Lianxiang, let go! You're putting him in a difficult position—"
"I'm in a difficult position?" Sang Sheng finally found a chance to speak. "I really am in a difficult position! Look at me!" He wrenched himself free of both hands, stepped back, and spread his arms. "I was just born with this face. What am I supposed to do about it?"
After saying that, he looked in the mirror again.
Chen Yu counted. The fifteenth time.
The temple fell silent for a moment.
Then Li-shi and Lianxiang both looked at Sang Sheng. Rarely had they shared the same emotion, but this time they did: speechlessness.
The farce continued for about an hour.
In the end, all three of them were exhausted. They sat panting in different corners of the temple. Sang Sheng sat in the middle, his wife on the left and Lianxiang on the right. None of them looked at the others, but none of them was willing to leave first.
Chen Yu noticed something.
After Li-shi sat down, the temperature around her dropped again. It wasn't particularly obvious, but Chen Yu saw Sang Sheng instinctively rub the gooseflesh on his arm. By contrast, Sang Sheng's complexion actually looked better beside Lianxiang.
He finished the last piece of flatbread and brushed the sesame seeds from his hands.
"Brother Sang," he began, his tone still so calm it was almost boring, "I have a question."
Sang Sheng raised his head, looking exhausted. "What?"
"Have you been feeling unwell lately? Dizzy, weak, occasional heart palpitations, and still tired no matter how much you sleep?"
Sang Sheng froze, then nodded. "How did you know?"
"And these symptoms only started after your wife took that fall three years ago, right?"
Sang Sheng's eyes slowly widened.
Chen Yu didn't look at him. Instead, he looked toward Li-shi.
"Sister-in-law," he said calmly, without hostility, "when did you die?"
The temperature in the temple plummeted.
Li-shi's expression changed. It wasn't anger, but the panic of someone whose wound had been unexpectedly torn open. She instinctively took a step back, retreating into the shadows.
"You... What are you talking about?"
"Three years ago, you went out to draw water, fell, and hit the back of your head," Chen Yu said, word by word. "The doctor said it wasn't serious. But doctors examine the illnesses of the living. They can't tell when someone is no longer alive."
Sang Sheng shot to his feet. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Brother Sang, think about it yourself," Chen Yu said, his tone unchanged. "Has your wife's hand been cold ever since three years ago? Have you two never had another child? Does she never go out during the day? And whenever you're with her, do you always feel cold?"
Sang Sheng stood there with his mouth open. Each question was like a needle, stabbing into the doubts he'd spent three years refusing to examine too closely.
"She died three years ago," Chen Yu said. "But she couldn't bear to leave you, so she stayed behind. The price of staying is that she has to rely on your yang energy to maintain herself. She isn't doing it on purpose. It's simply the price a ghost pays to remain in the mortal world. Every day, she drains a tiny bit of yang energy from you—so little that you don't even notice it yourself. But after three years, your vital essence has been severely depleted."
He paused, then looked at Lianxiang.
"And every time Miss Lianxiang sees you, the first thing she does is wipe your mouth with a handkerchief, right?"
Lianxiang's smile stiffened for a moment.
"That handkerchief is coated with dandelion sap," Chen Yu said. "The dandelion is her core spirit item, and its sap strengthens the body and replenishes vital essence. She isn't wiping your mouth. She's keeping you alive."
Lianxiang was silent for a while, then let out a soft sigh. The aura around her changed. The delicate human disguise covering her was like thin mist scattered by the wind, revealing something more genuine beneath it. Her pupils turned amber, the tips of her ears rose slightly, and a fluffy tail could just barely be seen behind her.
"You're right," she said, looking at Chen Yu. "I'm of the fox clan."
She turned to Sang Sheng, concern filling her amber eyes.
"The first time I met you, I smelled your yang energy leaking away. You were a perfectly healthy living man, yet you were wrapped in a layer of yin energy, as if something were sucking it away bit by bit. It took me a long time to find out why."
She glanced at Li-shi. There was no hostility in her eyes, only complicated pity.
"I don't blame her. She simply couldn't bear to leave."
Li-shi stood in the shadows, her shoulders trembling. Her outline grew somewhat blurred in the candlelight, like a painting soaked with water, its edges beginning to bleed.
"I know," she said softly, her voice trembling faintly. "I know I'm hurting him. But I..."
She raised her head and looked at Sang Sheng. The sharpness in her eyes during the argument was gone, leaving only a bone-deep reluctance to part.
"I just can't leave."
Sang Sheng stared at her blankly, his eyes red. He reached out to take her hand, but the instant he touched it, a chill shot up from his fingertips and made him shudder.
He didn't pull away.
"I don't care what you are," he said hoarsely. "You're my wife."
After saying that, he instinctively looked in the mirror.
Chen Yu counted. The eighteenth time.
The temple was quiet for a long time.
Lianxiang crouched in a corner, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. Li-shi stood in the shadows, afraid to approach Sang Sheng but unwilling to leave. Sang Sheng sat in the middle, cold on his left and warm on his right. He didn't want to let go of either side.
Wu Wei hadn't said a word.
He sat in a corner with his head lowered, his finger tracing something on his knee. Chen Yu recognized it: runes, the basic runes of the Talisman Gate.
"Wu Wei?" Chen Yu called.
Wu Wei raised his head, his eyes shining.
"I was thinking about something," he said, his tone carrying the earnestness peculiar to young people. "Sister-in-law... she's a ghost now, right? A ghost needs to rely on yang energy to remain in the mortal world because she doesn't have her own source of spiritual power."
"Mm-hmm."
"But what if she did?" Wu Wei stood up. "If she had a core spirit item too, she could cultivate on her own and produce her own spiritual power. Then she wouldn't have to drain Brother Sang's yang energy anymore."
Chen Yu gave him a look.
"You mean helping a ghost find a core spirit item?"
"Why not?" Wu Wei said. "A ghost is a spirit body, and spirit bodies can resonate with spirit items. The Talisman Gate's classics record that in ancient times there were ghost cultivators—ghosts who found core spirit items and embarked on the path of cultivation. It's rare, but it's not impossible."
He looked at Li-shi.
"Sister-in-law, what did you treasure most when you were alive? Not something valuable—something that mattered most to you."
Li-shi froze, then slowly said, "When I married into this family, my mother gave me a wooden comb. It was made of peach wood, with a lotus carved into it. I used it to comb my hair every morning. I used it for five years."
"Do you still have it?"
"I do. It's at home, in my dressing case."
Wu Wei turned to Chen Yu, his eyes blazing with excitement.
"Peach wood is inherently spiritual. After being used for five years and infused with her aura, it may already have the beginnings of a spirit item. If we can guide her into resonance with that comb—"
"Then she can cultivate on her own," Chen Yu finished. "She won't have to rely on Brother Sang's yang energy to stay alive."
He looked at Sang Sheng, then at Li-shi, and finally at Lianxiang.
"Brother Sang, the reason you're still holding on is that your core spirit item saved you."
Sang Sheng instinctively touched the bronze mirror beside him. "You mean this?"
"Yes. A bronze mirror reveals the heart. Every time you look into the mirror, you're actually cultivating unconsciously—gathering your spirit and stabilizing your vital essence. The more you look, the steadier your cultivation becomes."
A trace of laughter finally entered Chen Yu's voice.
"To be honest, this is the first time I've seen someone cultivate through narcissism. Your cultivation method is probably the one best suited to you in the entire world. If you weren't so addicted to looking in the mirror, and if Miss Lianxiang hadn't been secretly replenishing your vital essence, you would've collapsed long ago."
Sang Sheng was stunned for a long while.
Then he lowered his head and looked at his face in the bronze mirror, raised his head to look at Lianxiang, and then looked at his wife.
"So... Lianxiang has been saving me this whole time?"
Lianxiang turned her head away, the tips of her ears turning red.
"And my love of looking in the mirror has been saving me too?"
"Not 'too,'" Chen Yu said as he stood and dusted off his clothes. "It's the only reason someone like you has survived until now. A narcissistic scholar, a fox woman secretly administering restorative medicine, and a ghost wife who can't bear to leave. The three of you came together and somehow managed to maintain a delicate balance."
He walked to the temple entrance. The rain had eased, but it still hadn't stopped.
"When you get home, have Sister-in-law try resonating with that peach-wood comb. Wu Wei can help draw a spirit-guiding talisman. An introductory technique from the Talisman Gate should be enough."
He looked back at Sang Sheng.
"As for you, keep looking in the mirror. With your personality, that shouldn't be difficult."
Sang Sheng opened and closed his mouth, unsure whether he should be angry or grateful.
Lianxiang lowered her head. Tears glimmered in her amber eyes, but the corners of her mouth were raised. Li-shi stood in the shadows, her outline clearer than before, as if something had gathered her together again.
She said softly, "Thank you."
Her voice was quiet, but everyone in the temple heard it.
The rain stopped.
When the three people and one donkey left the Mountain God Temple, Sang Sheng stood at the entrance and watched them go. His wife stood to his left, and Lianxiang stood to his right. Li-shi's hand rested on Sang Sheng's arm. It was still cold, but Sang Sheng didn't pull away. Lianxiang stood on the other side, her handkerchief clutched in her hand and a smile at the corners of her mouth.
The distance between the three of them was much smaller than before.
"Brother Chen," Sang Sheng suddenly called, "thank you."
Chen Yu waved a hand without looking back.
After they had walked some distance, Wu Wei couldn't help asking, "How did you know Sister-in-law was a ghost?"
"The temperature dropped when she came through the door."
"That's it?"
"The temperature dropped when she came through the door, but she wasn't wet. It was raining that hard outside. She walked all the way here holding an umbrella, and there was water on the umbrella but no mud on her shoes." Chen Yu's tone was calm. "A living person walking along a mountain road couldn't possibly have clean soles."
Wu Wei thought about it and decided the logic was somehow flawless.
"Then how did you know there was dandelion sap on Lianxiang's handkerchief?"
"Sang Sheng's complexion improved immediately after she wiped his mouth. A regular handkerchief couldn't produce that kind of effect just by wiping someone's mouth. Besides, she smelled like dandelions—the faint, clean sweetness of dandelions scattering in the spring wind. It's very light, but distinctive."
"Your nose is that good?"
Chen Yu was silent for a moment.
"I hauled bricks at construction sites for three years in my previous life. I can identify any kind of dust or dirt by smell."
Wu Wei didn't understand, but it sounded impressive.
Tangbao, walking behind them, suddenly sneezed.
It sounded almost like laughter.