Fate Trading System – Chapter 146

Plan A

Red Moon in the Barrier 10

Embrace

The heaven and earth were quickly covered by a vast expanse of white, including Su Xin who was walking.

In just a few minutes, she looked like a walking snowman. What made Su Xin uncomfortable was that these snowflakes, after melting, weren’t bone-chillingly cold but instead scorching hot, leaving burning marks on her skin. Her exposed facial skin was suffering greatly.

Master Fourteen, how should I get out?

Being trapped in a ghost’s domain and unable to escape, only waiting to die – what a joke.

Ghosts must pay a price for killing unrelated people, so they generally don’t act directly, but instead create illusions to make people pass away in fear.

Su Xin didn’t know if the illusion she was in now was set by that female ghost. If it was that female ghost who killed Yang Cui, she probably wouldn’t mind taking direct action again.

【Host, your consciousness must overcome hers, force her to come out, or you won’t be able to escape.】

“Fine, so it’s an icy snow world, huh?” Su Xin sneered, and began imagining scorching summer days. She wasn’t cold; she was burning hot.

The scene actually began to change slowly. The snowflakes stopped falling, and the sun forcefully declared its presence, illuminating the white world and radiating heat.

Su Xin began to sweat, even feeling that her thick cotton coat was very cumbersome.

Su Xin stopped her imagination, allowing the snow-wrapped world to erode this place again.

It was useless.

The real world outside was freezing cold. The illusory snowflakes were meant to make her unable to move, causing her to collapse exhaustedly in the snow. If she fell here, she would fall in the outside world too. Then ice and snow would cover her body, cold wind would brush her face, and she would freeze to death.

Even if she imagined scorching summer days, the burning temperature would make her want to remove her outer clothes, which would be more dangerous – she would end up like Uncle Tong, wearing summer clothes in deep winter, and still freeze to death.

The female ghost was hiding somewhere unknown, quietly watching all of this.

Su Xin made herself calm down, thinking about ways to get out.

Force the female ghost to come out – but how to force her? She didn’t know if shouting would work.

“You’re here, aren’t you? Let me guess who you are. A ghost raised by Tong Xi? No, I should say not Tong Xi, but a wandering ghost [literally: lonely soul wild ghost] from who knows where living in Tong Xi’s body. Are you one of his people?”

Talking to oneself in the snow was certainly quite stupid, but Su Xin had no other choice.

She analyzed this matter thoroughly.

“You’re the one who did something to Widow Wang, right? She was clearly hanged there by someone, not suicide.”

“You’re wrong about that. This really wasn’t my doing.”

A light, floating female voice came from some unknown corner. Su Xin couldn’t see her.

Not being able to see her didn’t matter – getting a response was enough.

“Could there be other ghosts?”

“Why don’t you guess?”

That voice carried a sense of ease, as if certain that Su Xin would definitely die, so she came out to kindly humor her and satisfy her curiosity.

“Why do you want my life? We have no past grudges or recent grievances, we shouldn’t have any connection, right?”

Su Xin changed the subject, slowly trying to buy time. She hoped Mu Qi would quickly discover she hadn’t returned home. Su Xin’s intuition told her that Mu Qi would definitely have a way to save her.

She wasn’t a yin-yang master [traditional spiritual practitioner] or a feng shui master [geomancer]. Even if she forced the female ghost to appear, she had no way to make her let her go. The female ghost wouldn’t suddenly show mercy – Su Xin could tell just from the fact that she was willing to respond.

“Does a ghost need a reason to kill people? If I want to kill, I just kill.”

“You killed Aunt Cui, didn’t you? Why? She was so good to Tong Xi.”

Su Xin rubbed her fingers inside her sleeves to get a tiny bit of warmth.

The female ghost’s laughter rang out across the empty land, carrying a hint of disdain. Without needing to say anything, Su Xin already knew it was her doing. But how deep must the grudge be to do this to someone? Didn’t Tong Manwen say the female ghost was on his mother’s side? Was this fighting within the nest [internal fighting]?

But no matter what kind of internal fighting it was, it must be connected to Tong Xi.

“Did you do Da Ya and Er Ya too?”

“You’re quite amusing, trying to pin everything [shi peng zi – literally ‘shit basin’, metaphor for blame] on ghosts?”

“Of course not, but I think it was you who did it.”

“Why do you think that?”

The female ghost seemed very angry, her voice carrying fury.

“You said it yourself – ghosts don’t need reasons to kill, they just kill if they want to.”

Su Xin threw the female ghost’s words back at her, with somewhat of an innocent tone.

The female ghost was choked for words and gave a cold snort.

“People about to die always talk too much. Take your time speaking, say a bit more before you can never speak again, say it all to your heart’s content.”

The female ghost mocked, still not showing herself. Su Xin couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from – it seemed to come from all directions, now here, now there, drifting unstably.

“So you’re silently admitting to what I just said?”

“Think whatever you want.”

“It seems you really are an unforgivably evil ghost. Did you also make it so we can’t leave the village? That’s so much trouble. If you wanted to prevent everyone in our village from surviving, couldn’t you just directly attack me like this? Going one by one is so troublesome.”

Su Xin’s seemingly well-meaning suggestion carried a hint of confusion, but her tone was full of disgust.

“You really talk too much. I don’t know who made it so you can’t leave, but I must thank them for creating such a good opportunity for me. With perfect timing and conditions, I couldn’t let it pass.”

The female ghost said in quite a good mood.

“Why did you kill Da Ya and Er Ya? They were so young. You’re too cruel.”

Was Su Xin the type of person to say such things? No, but to get information, she didn’t mind becoming a righteously indignant idiot who was clearly in danger herself yet still fussing about others.

“I told you it wasn’t me. Children are useless to me.”

The female ghost was already very impatient. Su Xin could imagine her scowling face.

This young girl [referring to the ghost] had quite a temper.

Su Xin noticed something odd in the ghost’s words – children were useless to her, which meant adults were useful. What did she want to use them for?

Before Tong Manwen left, he said he was very anxious and had to leave quickly because a powerful female ghost might devour him.

Could it be that this female ghost could devour others’ souls?

“If it’s not you, then who? You’re the only ghost in the village. Anyway, I’m about to die, so I’m not afraid to say anything anymore. You’d better stay away from my little brother, or I won’t let you off even as a ghost.”

Su Xin worked hard to play the role of a foolish sister who deeply loved her brother, looking very angry.

“I can’t wait for you to come find me. Those two little girls were their father’s karmic debt [Buddhist concept of karmic retribution]. A widow and a single man – you should understand now. Some people appear dead, but they’re still alive, watching this mortal world in their own way.”

The female ghost left these meaningful words as snowflakes scattered, carrying a hint of coldness.

Su Xin felt this ghost must be quite young, though her ghost-age [time as a ghost] was unknown. Her temper wasn’t good, easily angered and easily provoked. This was quite good – much better to deal with than the silent, mysterious type.

The ghost’s few words helped her piece together the answer, the truth behind other matters unrelated to this female ghost.

A young widow whose husband had recently died, in her prime years, had taken a fancy to a man at the village entrance whose wife had run away. The two of them gradually became involved behind everyone’s backs, but what they didn’t know was that the widow’s husband’s ghost had never left that house.

Killing Uncle Tong’s daughters Da Ya and Er Ya was the man’s first step of revenge. Then he found ways to torture his wife to death, making it look like she hanged herself, and finally watched Uncle Tong live in panic and fear until he died in madness.

Uncle Tong clearly didn’t know all this was the man’s doing, because he kept mentioning Old Man Hu.

Where did the man’s ghost go in the end? Perhaps he was devoured by the female ghost.

Sometimes Su Xin would think in strange directions – if a ghost caused someone’s death, and that person became a ghost after death, wouldn’t it be awkward when the two ghosts met? Would they fight each other?

Even knowing all these things couldn’t help Su Xin’s current situation. That strange snow had already formed a thick layer on the ground.

Su Xin now couldn’t move at all, because the accumulated snow had reached her waist. She knew that once these snowflakes covered her head, she would be about to die.

Master Fourteen, I need outside help now.

【Host, wait a little longer. She’s coming. Don’t waste your life value anymore.】

Fourteen said as a reminder, showing what could be called very human-like consideration.

Thick black mist eroded this pure white world. Su Xin stiffly turned her head to look in that direction.

Mu Qi walked toward her, carrying heavy fog behind her. That black mist seemed to carry enormous power – everywhere it passed, things fell apart. Mu Qi was slowly destroying the illusion created by the female ghost.

“I came late.”

Strands of black energy dispersed from Mu Qi’s fingertips, and the snow stopped.

Mu Qi walked up to her, her brows carrying anxiety and cold anger.

Su Xin felt Mu Qi’s warm palm press against her waist. The accumulated snow turned to nothing, accompanied by faint breaking sounds. Su Xin saw the real scene – she was near Old Man Hu’s temple, where Tong Manwen had his incident.

Did this female ghost have some connection to Old Man Hu? Why did she like causing trouble outside someone else’s earth god temple?

Su Xin opened her mouth wanting to say something, but before she could speak, she fainted.

Mu Qi embraced her and lifted her horizontally [princess carry style].

If Su Xin had been conscious, she would definitely have been surprised – wasn’t it said that Mu Qi had no strength and couldn’t even wring out clothes? How could she manage to princess-carry her?

But Su Xin had already fainted, her face pale, lips purple, looking like someone at death’s door.

Mu Qi looked toward a certain spot, her mouth corners turning downward.

“Don’t set your sights on people you shouldn’t. I can make all your efforts go up in smoke [meaning: reduced to nothing] at any time.”

A slight movement came from the shadows, as if making a response.

Mu Qi carried Su Xin toward home, looking at the person in her arms with gentle eyes.

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