Cultivation Retirement Plan (BL)

30. Identity Crisis

Mengmeng?

Mo Yixuan looked between the woman and the fallen figure on the ground, but neither of them seemed to be joking. This was the so-called "peerless jade beauty" who'd been selected as a child because of high innate talent to cultivate in the Middle Realms? Although his looks were excellent, he was undoubtedly male. With a mental shrug, he dispelled Ghost and moved to inspect the altar, ignoring the surprised yelps of the servants as he all but appeared out of thin air to their eyes.

Nan Wuyue was quick to follow him as master and disciple inspected the ancestral hall. They had seen it once during the daytime while setting it up for the seal array. Nothing else seemed out of place or even touched—the only new additions were the fresh food offerings that Ting'er had prepared before she left, most of which had turned black and rotten. Mo Yixuan leaned down to inspect a collapsed orange but found nothing out of the ordinary besides regular decay.

"Her aura of death is strong," he muttered. Usually, offerings made to ancestors on the Ghost Festival were quickly eaten or disposed of because it was believed that the spirits spoiled the food. Here was three week's worth of rot condensed to one tumultuous evening.

"She didn't touch these," Nan Wuyue said, pointing to a plate of rice cakes, a traditional offering for one's ancestors. They had been dyed bright pink for luck and were the only unspoiled items on the altar.

Mo Yixuan recalled the spirit's pink dress and smiled wryly. "Maybe it's her favorite color?"

"Shizun?" Nan Wuyue inquired, looking puzzled.

"Never mind, I was just thinking out loud," Mo Yixuan replied as his smile faded. He takes everything so seriously I can't even be ironic as a joke.

Nan Wuyue quickly filed away the fleeting smile as another snapshot in his growing archive. These days, shizun gets amused over the strangest things...

The spoiled offerings aside, everything else looked normal. it seemed like the ghost girl really was here to pray.

"Aside from that demonic qi, she's quite an ordinary girl," Mo Yixuan observed. A dead one, but still.

"There is one thing." Nan Wuyue frowned and quickly brought up the issue of the strange scents between the ghost and Su Shiyu.

"What does that mean, exactly?" Mo Yixuan asked. He might have read up on cultivation sects, but he hadn't delved into the supernatural yet. "Don't tell me that Su Shiyu's a ghost too."

"Shizun jests," Nan Wuyue shook his head. "Ghosts can't carry scents of their own. If she does, then she must have absorbed it from someone else. Just like you and I take in air to breathe, dead spirits can hold onto certain fragrances if they linger long enough."

"You mean to say she's wearing Su Shiyu's scent like a perfume," Mo Yixuan clarified. "You know so much even though you didn't believe in ghosts?"

"I still read books, shizun..." Nan Wuyue blinked before nodding at his master's guess. Technically, it's not wrong. "Though I'm not even sure if that's Su Shiyu's scent. It's too sinister and powerful to be human—unless, of course, he isn't human either."

Mo Yixuan sighed. Wouldn't that be nice and complicated?

"Sir Su wanted us to call off the investigation," Nan Wuyue reminded him.

"But he didn't stop us tonight," Mo Yixuan pointed out.

"It wouldn't have helped his case if he did," Nan Wuyue argued. "Whatever he is, he's human on the surface so he has to at least play the part. We would have caught on if he tried anything out of character."