Chapter 68 Are You Human?

Chapter 68: Are You Human?

Chen Hui glanced over, reined in the carriage, and told A Chan, "Wait here. I'll go take a look."

A Chan nodded, watching Chen Hui walk towards the man. But just as Chen Hui approached, the man suddenly stumbled and collapsed.

Startled, A Chan quickly jumped out of the carriage. As she drew near, she immediately recognized the pale, unconscious figure on the ground: Song Yan.

"Master Song? Master Song?" A Chan crouched beside him, calling out twice, but received no response.

"Let's take him to a clinic first," Chen Hui suggested.

"Alright." A Chan nodded, reaching out to help Song Yan, but Chen Hui raised a hand to stop her.

Instead, Chen Hui grabbed one of Song Yan's arms, pulled his upper body up, bent down, and with a slight effort, effortlessly hoisted him onto her shoulder.

The carriage, already cramped by the large tiger pelt, had little space left. After Song Yan was placed inside, A Chan sat outside and chatted with Chen Hui.

"I wonder what's wrong with Master Song. The last two times we saw him, he seemed to be getting weaker," A Chan mused.

"Perhaps a sudden illness?" Chen Hui glanced back, adding, "I remember Boss Xu saying he lives in Anping Lane. Why would he suddenly appear here today?"

This location was quite a distance from Anping Lane; a round trip would likely take half a day.

"Who knows? Maybe he has a wealthy relative here and came to visit?" A Chan then looked towards the Duke of Song's residence. "Speaking of which, Master Song shares the surname Song. Could he be related to the Duke of Song?"

The carriage soon pulled up outside a clinic, and their conversation ceased.

A Chan dismounted first and called for the physician.

The resident physician, hearing of an unconscious patient, hurried out. Before he even left the clinic, he saw a woman already carrying the patient in.

For a moment, he was torn between scolding her for handling the patient so roughly and marveling at her strength.

Once Chen Hui carried Song Yan inside, the doctor had no time for other thoughts. "Quick, lay him on the couch. Let me examine him," he urged.

After Song Yan was placed on the wooden couch, A Chan and Chen Hui stood by as the doctor took his pulse. After a moment, the doctor seemed puzzled and switched to the other wrist.

"There's no illness here," the doctor muttered to himself.

"Doctor, what exactly is wrong with him?" A Chan asked, noticing the doctor's strange expression and fearing a difficult case.

The doctor stood up and told them, "This gentleman is not sick."

"But he just fainted while walking."

The doctor pondered for a moment. "Perhaps he is constitutionally weak. I just took his pulse, and his body is severely depleted. If he wishes to live like an ordinary person, he will require constant nourishment with tonics."

"But Doctor, he wasn't this weak just a few days ago."

"This…" The doctor stammered, "Perhaps something unexpected happened that affected this gentleman deeply."

The doctor's diagnosis sounded unconvincing; simply put, he seemed like a quack. A Chan and Chen Hui conferred briefly and decided to try another clinic.

Declining the doctor's recommended tonics and paying the ten-copper consultation fee, Chen Hui once again hoisted Song Yan back into the carriage.

Despite being jostled back and forth, Song Yan showed no signs of waking.

A Chan climbed back into the carriage and pulled back the curtain. Song Yan lay curled up inside, his head facing outward.

After staring at him for a while, A Chan reached out to pry open Song Yan's eyelid. She had a growing suspicion that his sudden weakness was unnatural.

The moment she did, she gasped.

Chen Hui, noticing A Chan's alarmed expression, followed her gaze and saw Song Yan's eyes. What should have been distinct black and white was now entirely black.

A Chan stared at the pitch-black eyes for a while, feeling it resembled someone possessed by a ghost. But ghosts usually possessed bodies to cause mischief, not to simply faint and remain unconscious.

"What's going on? Is he not human?" Chen Hui asked, a rare look of surprise on her face.

"Probably not." A Chan felt his neck—his temperature and pulse were normal—then turned to Chen Hui. "Can you sense any yin energy on him?"

Chen Hui shook her head. "There's no yin energy on him. His heartbeat, scent, even the speed of his blood flow are all like a normal person's."

As a living corpse herself, she was highly sensitive to yin energy.

A Chan fell into thought: "If it's not ghost possession, then what is it?"

"Should we still take him to a clinic?" Chen Hui asked.

A Chan shook her head. "No. We've known him for a while. We'd better take him home first."

If others discovered his anomaly, it would likely alert the Bright Mirror Bureau. By the time Song Yan woke up, he might already be in prison.

A Chan felt they should at least figure out what had happened to Song Yan before deciding his fate. More importantly, she wondered: was the Song Yan she knew truly Song Yan?

When Song Yan awoke, everything was dark. He moved his stiff body and realized he was lying on a bed.

He remembered collapsing before even leaving the outer wall of the Duke of Song's residence. This was clearly not on the street.

Song Yan felt along the edge of the bed and sat up. Using the moonlight filtering through a crack in the window, he found the door, walked over, and opened it.

As the door opened, cold, pale moonlight streamed in.

Song Yan looked up at the sky, where a full moon hung. He suddenly remembered—today was the Ghost Festival.

With the door open, the courtyard was silent. Song Yan, illuminated by the bright moonlight, looked left and right from the doorway but saw no one. He hesitated, then called out, "Is anyone here?"

No one responded.

Song Yan frowned slightly. If the owner of this place had saved him, leaving without greeting them seemed improper.

But if he waited much longer, he feared curfew would begin.

Just as he was contemplating whether to leave, a voice sounded from nearby: "Master Song, you're awake."

The voice sounded familiar. Song Yan turned and saw a figure standing under the corridor. As he looked closer, his heart immediately settled. "Madam Chen."

He wasn't particularly close to Chen Hui—certainly not as familiar as he was with A Chan. He only knew her surname was Chen, that she had been married before, and that she usually didn't talk much.

"Did you save me?"

"A Chan and I happened to come across you collapsed on our way back and took you to a doctor."

"I see. Thank you, Madam." He then asked, somewhat puzzled, "Is Miss Ji not here?"

"Oh, she went to the river with friends to set lanterns afloat. She'll be back soon."

As they spoke, the door knocker sounded. Chen Hui bowed slightly to Song Yan and went to open the gate for A Chan.

Outside, A Chan held two sugar figurines, waving goodbye to Lin Sui.

Lin Sui and her elder brother headed towards the general's estate, while A Chan entered her own home.

"Young Master Song is awake," Chen Hui said in a low voice, accepting a sugar figurine that somewhat resembled herself from A Chan with a small smile.

A Chan walked into the central courtyard and noticed not a single light was on. Song Yan stood by the door of the side room.

Chen Hui turned back to fetch a flint and lit the courtyard lanterns. Under the lantern light, A Chan saw that Song Yan's eyes had returned to normal.

Spotting A Chan, Song Yan hurried to thank her, "Thank you for saving me today, Miss Ji."

"No need to be so polite, Master Song. But I do have a question I hope you can answer," A Chan replied, still holding the sugar figurine that resembled her, her clear eyes fixed on him.

"Please ask, Miss Ji?"

"Master Song, are you human?"

The question caught Song Yan completely off guard. He paused, his tone betraying a hint of stiffness. "Miss Ji, why do you ask?"

A Chan smiled at him. "Master Song, have you looked in a mirror since you woke up? Your eyes are still black, with no whites."

Song Yan instinctively touched his eyes.

"You don't seem surprised at all. It seems you've long known about your abnormality."

Song Yan's movements froze.

Unexpectedly, A Chan added, "Just kidding. They were black when we rescued you, but they've returned to normal now."

In just three sentences, she had made him reveal his hand. Song Yan couldn't help but give a bitter smile. "Miss Ji, I..."

"Are you human?" A Chan repeated her question.

After a long silence, Song Yan finally admitted, "No, I'm not."

"Oh." A Chan's expression showed no surprise, only curiosity. "Then, is Song Yan your name, or the name of this body?"

"How did you know?" Song Yan didn't answer her question, but instead asked his own.

A Chan didn't hide it: "The doctor said your body is normal, just very weak. That means this body belongs to a normal person, but you've shown abnormalities, very similar to possession. I just took a wild guess, and I didn't expect to be right."

After she explained, Song Yan sighed. "Song Yan is my name."

"So you're... an inkstone spirit?" Creatures with "Yan" in their name often choose such names.

Though this type of spirit was rare, if it existed long enough and found an opportunity, it could indeed become a spirit.

Song Yan shook his head. "I am an Ink Spirit."

"Ink Spirit?" This time, A Chan was truly surprised. "The legendary Ink Spirit, said to gain sentience only through the enlightenment of literary talent?"

"Yes."

"Oh, no wonder your eyes were black earlier. I thought it was a haunting, but it was just the color of ink." A Chan understood.

Then she stared at Song Yan like a rare specimen for a long time. Although Ink Spirits also gained sentience from inkstones, they were completely different from inkstone spirits.

One was a monster, the other a spiritual being. Ordinary monsters took many years to develop sentience, but Ink Spirits were different; they were born with high wisdom.

Ink Spirits only came into being because of humans; only those of great literary talent could awaken an Ink Spirit.

A Chan searched her mind for information about Ink Spirits, but found very little, as they were extremely rare. When their enlightener died, the Ink Spirit would also dissipate; their lifespan was much shorter than other spiritual beings. Besides their enlightener, few others had the opportunity to understand them.

What she knew came from anecdotal accounts written by authors in miscellaneous books, not very detailed.

Thinking of this, A Chan couldn't help but ask, "Why did you possess someone else's body? Who was your enlightener, and where is he?"

After a long silence, Song Yan finally spoke, "He died. To survive, I had no choice but to possess another's body."

A Chan finally understood why Song Yan's complexion had grown increasingly pale and his body weaker.

Because it was too weak, it drained the life force from the possessed body, leading to a vicious cycle where the body also weakened.

"Can't you leave this body and possess someone else?" Chen Hui interjected.

Song Yan shook his head. "No. I'm already very weak. If I leave his body, I might vanish immediately. I still have unfulfilled wishes; I cannot die."

"Who was your enlightener?" A Chan asked.

Song Yan lowered his eyes. He had already told A Chan everything, both what he should and shouldn't have. There was no need to hide anything else.

"Miss Ji must have heard his name. He was called Song Yu."

As expected, A Chan sighed inwardly.

For an Ink Spirit to possess such a strong will to live, it wasn't born from its own desire to survive, but was tied to its enlightener.

She recalled recent events: first, Master Baomu's book became popular in the capital. A *Tale of Vengeance* sparked countless people's curiosity about the Duke of Song's residence.

Then, someone came to the capital to file a complaint with the emperor, bringing the victim of the *Tale of Vengeance* into public view.

Unfortunately, while the real-life tale of vengeance had concluded, the villain in the book was never brought to justice. Someone else took the fall, and he escaped punishment.

"Did you write *Tale of Vengeance*?" A Chan had found it strange while reading the book; the author seemed to write from an observer's perspective.

If the book's content was based on real events, who could the author be? How did they know the truth? If it were an Ink Spirit by the victim's side, it would make perfect sense.

"Miss Ji is truly insightful," Song Yan praised.

"So, what you wrote... was all true?"

"Yes." He knew what A Chan would ask and continued without her prompting. "Song Yu's early life was just as described in the book: he had little and was always losing. I was just an ordinary inkstone he bought from the roadside. He named me Song Yan.

He would read his essays to me, place me across from him, and play chess against himself. He even wrote several poems praising me. Then one day, I suddenly gained sentience. I was afraid of startling him, so I hadn't told him of my existence yet—but before I could, his killers appeared."

Sensing the sorrow beneath Song Yan's calm voice, A Chan felt a pang of sympathy. Ink Spirits... possessed great wisdom, but they had no power.

"Before he died, Song Yu asked his killer why. The man seemed to want him to die with clarity, so he told him the whole truth. He even claimed that the Duke of Song's residence had wronged him, but for the future of the Duke's family, Song Yu had to die.

Then the man swiftly killed Song Yu, never realizing that I, too, had heard the truth."

At that time, it could only hide within that unremarkable inkstone, watching everything unfold, yet powerless to act.

Its enlightener died; it should have dissipated too.

Perhaps due to overwhelming obsession, or some other reason, it felt itself weakening but didn't vanish immediately.

Later, Song Yu was buried by his relatives, and his belongings were sold off by them.

It once again found itself on a street stall. Just as it was on the verge of disappearing, it encountered a scholar.

The scholar bought it for a handful of coins. While the scholar slept, it possessed his body, becoming Song Yan.

Then, it came to the capital.