Chapter 30: Wild Fires Cannot Burn It All

Running to the study door, he opened it and saw the room was empty, with only Cao Meng sleeping peacefully on the bed, occasionally letting out faint snores.

Seeing this, Li Si exhaled, his whole body relaxing.

Then he took out the Eight Trigrams mirror from his bosom and looked around the room, finding no sign of that thing anywhere in the entire room.

This bizarre thing wasn’t here. Thinking of this, Li Si was about to return to his room to sleep, but halfway there, his footsteps paused. Seeming to have thought of something, he turned and walked to the desk, using the fire striker to light the candle.

Then he sat in the chair, casually took a book from the bookshelf behind him, and began reading by candlelight. He also released Xiao Duan and Xiao Yu, and suddenly the stuffy air in the room no longer felt hot, but rather comfortably cool.

Cao Meng, sleeping on the bed, had been tossing and turning earlier, but as the air cooled down, he fell into a deep sleep, not wanting to move at all.

…

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!!!” A loud rooster crow rang out in the faintly glowing dawn, followed by more rooster calls.

“Hm?!” Cao Meng, sleeping on the bed, rubbed his sleepy eyes and looked towards the study, just in time to see Li Si practicing calligraphy at the desk.

“Awake?” Li Si heard movement from the bed, stopped writing, and turned to look at Cao Meng: “I brought you some tofu pudding, it’s on the table in the main hall outside.”

Cao Meng was stunned. He hadn’t expected the teacher to be up so early and to have brought him tofu pudding.

So without hesitation, he immediately got up and dressed, while hurriedly saying, “Thank you, teacher. What time is it now?”

“It’s just the Hour of Rabbit (5-7 am). Remember to wash up before eating breakfast later, I’ve put the washing utensils by the water vat,” Li Si instructed Cao Meng, then continued practicing calligraphy at the desk.

As Cao Meng walked out of the room, he couldn’t help but curiously glance at the xuan paper on the desk. He saw that the characters on the paper were like iron paintings and silver hooks, with force penetrating through the paper. He couldn’t help but inwardly exclaim in admiration.

But fearing that Li Si might not like someone watching him practice calligraphy, he left the study, looking back three times with each step, somewhat reluctantly.

“Wild fires cannot burn it all, spring winds blow and it grows again.” Not long after Cao Meng left, Li Si’s brush stopped, and a thoughtful expression appeared on his face.

In his previous life, he had practiced calligraphy, but could only be considered a beginner. However, the original owner was extremely proficient in calligraphy. Li Si had mastered the original owner’s memories in this aspect, naturally also mastering his calligraphy skills.

From last night to this morning, Li Si had been pondering what that bizarre thing was. This reminded him of the dream he had in the Zhang mansion, of a person with exactly the same appearance as himself, gnawing on human bones under the bed.

That person was the original owner!!!

Indeed, a person whose parents had arranged a ghost marriage for him, exchanging his future for his parents’ wealth.

No matter how well his parents treated him, it couldn’t change the fact of their cruelty.

As for his parents going to find that bizarre entity to dissolve the engagement, it did happen. But anyone would know it’s impossible to dissolve an agreement with a bizarre entity.

From the original owner’s memories, Li Si knew that dissolving the engagement wasn’t his parents’ real goal.

Their true purpose was simply to get more money.

In other words, from beginning to end, he had been sold out by his parents!

Even the most peaceful person would harbor hatred in such a situation.

So he was extremely resentful, hating his parents, hating the Nie family he was engaged to, and hating himself even more.

This led to the original owner’s visit to the temple on the eve of the autumn examinations. As for whether he went to seek a master or to pray for the Buddha’s blessing, Li Si couldn’t remember clearly. His acquisition of the original owner’s memories was very fragmentary, so naturally, he couldn’t recall every detail.

But one thing was clear: the original owner was already dead, and had been under Li Si’s bed since his death.

Moreover, Li Si was certain that the original owner had lost his consciousness and had completely become a ghost creature, very fond of eating living things. He could tell from the feeling of hunger in the dream that such hunger was beyond what human rationality could resist.

Perhaps he could only eat small animals before, but later he might have started eating children, just as in Li Si’s dream.

Thinking of this, Li Si felt somewhat sad. Having received some of the original owner’s memories, he naturally understood him very well. Although he resented his parents, he had always been true to himself and didn’t give up because of what his parents had done.

If not for this, how could he have enlightened the children nearby and been widely respected by the local people?

But even such a good person could turn into an evil man-eating ghost after death!

“I must find him,” Li Si muttered softly.

He couldn’t allow this evil ghost to cause trouble outside, and it was also his fault. If he had discovered this ghost creature earlier, it wouldn’t have escaped.

Thinking of this, Li Si could hardly restrain himself from wanting to go out and search. But he quickly calmed down, realizing that such aimless searching would be useless.

From the previous situation, it seemed that the original owner still had an attachment to this house, which was why he had been willing to hide under the bed rather than go elsewhere.

And from the animal corpses under the bed, it could be seen that possibly due to his limited power, he could only eat animals.

So now the thing to do was to wait for him in this house, and to inform the nearby children and their parents to be aware of the danger. This was what Li Si needed to do at present.

Thinking of this, Li Si put down his brush and walked out of the study. At this time, he saw that Cao Meng had already finished the tofu pudding and was about to wash the bowl.

“Cao Meng, wait a moment,” Li Si called out to Cao Meng, while walking into the bedroom and bringing out two jars, saying to Cao Meng helplessly, “I need to transport the contents of these two jars to the Feng River. It’s not easy for me to carry them alone, can you help me with one?”

These two jars weighed about 20 jin(0.5kg) each. It was manageable for one person to carry one, but carrying two in one’s arms would be difficult. This was why Li Si asked Cao Meng to help him move them.

“Alright, teacher,” Cao Meng, seeing Li Si ask him to do something, happily ran over and picked up one of the jars.

Seeing Cao Meng so lively, Li Si shook his head and smiled inwardly. Although this child was quite precocious, he was still just a seven or eight-year-old kid.

Afterwards, the two walked out of the house towards South Gate Street. About 2 li outside the south city gate, there was a large river called Feng River, which was where Li Si was heading.

On the way to Feng River, people who saw Li Si would greet him. This was the effect of the original owner’s previous reputation combined with Li Si’s recent fame for subduing demons and exorcising evil.

Li Si politely returned their greetings, while inwardly sighing. These people didn’t know that the gentle Young Master Li had already become a man-eating ghost creature, potentially ready to commit atrocities at any time.

After leaving the city gate, the two walked for about 20 minutes before reaching Feng River. By this time, Li Si felt his arms were a bit tired, while Cao Meng beside him seemed completely fine.

Li Si inwardly marveled at Cao Meng’s physical fitness, while feeling somewhat ashamed of his own stamina. But he quickly pushed this shame aside.

This body wasn’t his before, so its weakness had nothing to do with him.

“Put the jar down over there,” Li Si said to Cao Meng, then walked alone to the riverbank.

Note: Xuan paper, Shuen paper, or rice paper, is a kind of paper originating in ancient China used for writing and painting.