Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The absurd guess turned out to be true, but Xu Muchan couldn't crack a smile.

His brows were nearly knotted together as he asked, his face stern, "You... why have you become like this?"

Ever since he was ten and sent to the Mountain God's Cave, the first time he met his brother, he'd never once appeared in human form. Most of the time, he was a cold, thick shadow, and occasionally that shadow would take on a humanoid shape.

But now his brother had completely transformed into a human form. Xu Muchan's first thought was: did he possess someone's body?

"You don't like it?" Wei Xilou's lips pressed into a thin line, his smile gone as he frowned, watching the boy's reaction.

This wasn't quite the reaction he'd expected.

Xu Muchan didn't dare say he didn't like it—what if his brother took that as a green light to possess someone else?

So Xu Muchan pursed his lips and stammered, "I... I do like it."

"Knew you would."

The smile crept back onto Wei Xilou's face. He reached out and ran his hand through the boy's hair, which felt amazing, and asked, "Heading back today?"

Xu Muchan nodded. Since nothing was wrong, he might as well get discharged and head home early.

Only then did he notice his hair and nails had grown quite long. Just as he was thinking about finding scissors to trim the excess, there was another knock at the ward door.

This time, it was Wei Jianguo who walked in.

Wei Jianguo came in carrying the property deed, keys, and a phone: "The ancestor's old identity can't be used anymore, so we'll have to pull some strings to get a new household registration and ID card. So the house can't be transferred yet. Here are the keys to the house—please stay there for now, and once the documents come through, we'll handle the transfer. The house is at Jiahua Garden, Building 5, 9th floor—private elevator access. It's a bit small—three bedrooms and two living rooms—but the neighborhood and location are great, right next to Nanming, just a ten-minute walk away."

Wei Xilou gave a slight nod. "Just leave them."

Wei Jianguo placed the items one by one on the small table by the bed. Seeing that the ancestor seemed to be in a decent mood, he finally got to the most important matter: "The kinship recognition ceremony is already being prepared. Father said this shouldn't be put off, so it's set for the day after tomorrow. If the ancestor has time, would you do us the honor of attending?"

Wei Xilou refused without a moment's hesitation and started dismissing him: "If there's nothing else, you can go."

Wei Jianguo: "..."

Even burning bridges didn't happen this fast. But he didn't dare show his displeasure, so he could only force a smile and leave.

Xu Muchan watched Wei Jianguo's retreating back, held back again and again, but finally couldn't help asking, "Who was that person?"

Was he a relative of this body's?

Wei Xilou couldn't be bothered to untangle the Wei family's old history and said casually, "Just some unimportant relatives. Achan doesn't need to worry about them."

Xu Muchan's face instantly fell.

He didn't want to care, but his brother had possessed someone's body without even telling him about it, and on top of that, he was shaking down that person's relatives for money.

He knew Jiahua Garden—it was a fancy residential complex near school. A classmate of his lived there, and apparently the apartments were forty to fifty thousand per square meter.

Xu Muchan was worried, and for some reason felt a pang of guilt. But seeing how completely self-righteous his brother seemed, he could only say tentatively: "Actually, I think the way it was before was fine. Brother, maybe you should just change back to how you were..."

He clutched the blanket, his brow furrowed in distress: "When I was at the Wei place, I ran into a powerful Daoist priest. Brother, what if you get found out like this..."

Wei Xilou stared at him intently, not hearing a single word he said. Instead, he suddenly reached out and scratched his chin, saying, "Achan's so cute."

Xu Muchan: "..."

Xu Muchan: "..."

Xu Muchan thought angrily—this was a classic case of the emperor not worrying while the eunuch frets.

Fine, let him do whatever he wanted. It wasn't him who'd get caught by the Daoist priest anyway.

With that thought, Xu Muchan shot a fierce glare at the man beside the bed. But since his vision was blurry, his eyes were all misty, and the glare wasn't fierce at all—it just made him cuter.

Wei Xilou felt like touching his face again.

Before he got his body back, Achan rarely chattered on at him for this long.

As far as he could remember, the last time Achan had said something so adorable was when he was a kid, coming home crying after losing a fight, wiping his tears and saying: If you could really become my brother, that'd be great—then I'd have someone to back me up.

It seemed Achan really did like this body of his, Wei Xilou thought with satisfaction.

These unfilial descendants of the Wei family weren't entirely useless—at least they had preserved his body well.

Xu Muchan had no idea what was going through Wei Xilou's mind. He pressed his lips together and scooted to the other side, putting distance between himself and the man by the bed to avoid any more opportunistic touching, while putting on a serious expression: "I still have a question to ask."

Wei Xilou's outstretched hand met empty air. He regretfully rubbed his fingers together, his eyes glued to the boy's face, and gave an absent-minded "Mm."

Xu Muchan touched his eyes: "I can see a little blurry now—is it because of that thing you fed me earlier?"

Hearing him mention his eyes, Wei Xilou finally pulled back a thread of his attention and nodded. "Correct."

Xu Muchan's eyes immediately lit up, and his body unconsciously leaned forward, closing the distance they had just created: "What was it? If I keep eating it, will my eyes fully recover?"

"It's Black Taisui."

Wei Xilou reached out and touched his eyelids, which still held a hint of pink. Xu Muchan's vision hadn't recovered yet, so his reactions were slow, and he didn't manage to dodge in time.

The slightly cool fingers touched his sensitive eyelids, and Xu Muchan's lashes suddenly trembled, brushing against the other's fingertips. But this time, he didn't pull away. Instead, he lifted his eyelids and gazed at the man across from him with those misty eyes, urging, "Brother?"

Wei Xilou's fingertips itched, and he casually pinched the small, plump earlobe nearby, rubbing it fondly: "Black Taisui isn't easy to come by. Just focus on going to school—I'll find it for you."

His earlobe was sensitive, and being rubbed made it itch, burn, and go slightly numb. Xu Muchan suppressed the urge to shrink his neck and dodge, giving a perfunctory response without taking his brother's words seriously.

When his eyes first started failing, he had also asked his brother for help. Back then, he depended on the other for everything—food, clothing, shelter—and he had secretly hoped his brother might have some way to cure his eyes.

But as time passed, he began to vaguely sense that his brother seemed quite satisfied with his blindness.

Later, when the Xu family sent people to find him and his brother was unwilling to let him leave the village, Xu Muchan had secretly suspected that his brother might not want his eyes to be cured.

So Xu Muchan felt that finding Black Taisui was something he'd have to do himself. He pressed again, "What is Black Taisui?"

When he had been forced to eat Black Taisui before, he had only found it fishy and foul enough to make him gag.

But now that he knew it was a remedy that could restore his sight, it somehow didn't seem so disgusting anymore—he was even eager to find more and eat it.

"Black Taisui is yang water, but not ordinary yang water. It comes from the Black River."

"The Black River?"

The word stirred some memories. Xu Muchan suddenly recalled that he seemed to have seen a black river in his dreams—a silver full moon hanging above the black river's surface, rippling waves, coming from nowhere and going nowhere.

Xu Muchan said hesitantly, "I think I saw a black river in a dream..."

Wei Xilou's casual demeanor turned grave: "You saw it?"

Xu Muchan, unsure whether this was a good or bad thing, nodded nervously and added, "I was out of it in my dream and didn't know how I ended up stepping into the river. I almost ended up lying down in the water."

Wei Xilou fixed his gaze on him, then let out a sigh after a moment and said, "If you see the Black River again next time, remember to stay away from it."

"Is seeing the Black River a bad thing? Is Black Taisui made from the Black River's water?" Xu Muchan was more concerned about the Black Taisui that could cure his eyes.

"I don't know what the Black River truly is, but it has existed since ancient times. 'Black River' is just one of its names—some call it the River of the Dead, others call it the River of Forgetfulness."

"It's said to be the source of all life and the wheel of the six realms, and only a handful of people can see it."

Wei Xilou gently touched the boy's innocent eyes. "The Black River itself is neither good nor bad, but if a living thing that sees it doesn't have strong willpower, it can easily get drawn in and absorbed, becoming part of it. Black Taisui is born from this process."

Xu Muchan got it now—Black Taisui was actually made from living things that got absorbed by the Black River?

Later, for whatever reason, it broke away from the Black River and, after going through who knows what, eventually became part of other organisms.

Just like that chunk of Black Taisui they dug out of Lady Golden Flower.

But then he thought of that massive, twisting river in his dream and a chill ran down his spine—if the Black River's water was Black Taisui, then how many living things had a river that huge absorbed?

Xu Muchan bit the inside of his lip, thinking, "Black Taisui is hard to find. If I see the Black River again, can I just scoop some straight out of the river—"

"Achan!"

Wei Xilou cut him off mid-sentence, his face darkening. "In all of history, no living thing has ever been able to resist the Black River's massive consciousness. Do you understand? The only reason you got lucky and came back last time is because it was a dream. But if you pull something that reckless again, you might not come back at all."

He'd never been this harsh with Xu Muchan before. Xu Muchan was stunned for a second, then let out a quiet "Oh."

After a beat, he dropped his gaze, looking disappointed. "But if I can't go near the Black River, where am I supposed to find Black Taisui? When will my eyes get better?"

Wei Xilou rarely felt this helpless, so he explained more carefully to put his mind at ease. "The Black River seems to be entering an active phase. A lot of spirits and deities that have been dormant for ages are starting to stir. They were born from the Black River, so they're naturally attracted to Black Taisui... I'll go find them. It won't take long to collect enough."

"Achan just needs to be a little more patient, okay?"

That actually calmed the restless kid down. Xu Muchan looked up, smiled, and said obediently, "I understand. Thanks, big brother."

The boy seemed all obedient and well-behaved again. Wei Xilou patted his head like a reward and switched topics. "Your nails are too long. Want me to cut them for you?"

With that, he went to ask a nurse for clippers and came back.

Xu Muchan willingly held out his hand and placed it in Wei Xilou's palm.

Wei Xilou held his slender, fair fingers, stroking each one, patiently and carefully trimming the long nails into a neat, nice shape.

After the nails, next up was a haircut.

Wei Xilou had never cut hair before and frowned, a bit stumped, not sure where to start. Xu Muchan was about to say "just cut it however," when he suddenly heard a phone buzzing nearby.

"Your phone is buzzing?"

Wei Xilou followed the sound and pulled the phone out of the pocket of the pants Xu Muchan had changed out of. "It's yours."

Xu Muchan leaned in, squinting. It was their homeroom teacher, Wan Zheng, calling. Below that, the call log showed a number in bright red.

The number was too small to read clearly, but it looked like two digits.

The phone kept buzzing. Xu Muchan suddenly remembered he'd been dragged into the ghost domain during the school's lunch break.

He answered the call and asked guiltily, "What time is it now?"

Wei Xilou said, "Seven at night."

Their homeroom teacher Wan Zheng's voice came through the speaker, sounding like he was barely holding back his worry: "Xu Muchan, where are you right now?"

Xu Muchan started to say, "I'm at the hospital."

Just as he was trying to think of a reasonable explanation, the teacher's tone got weird: "What a coincidence, you're at the hospital too?"

Xu Muchan wasn't sure if he was imagining it, but he swore the teacher let out a cold laugh. "Wen Dajiang and He Jiaqi just got back to school. They said Wei Yao got sick during lunch and they took him to the hospital. Did you happen to get sick too, or were you also tagging along with Wei Yao to the hospital?"

Xu Muchan: "..."

Even though the teacher probably wouldn't believe him, Xu Muchan answered honestly, "I got sick. It was sudden, so I forgot to ask for leave. Sorry, teacher."

Maybe because of his good attitude, Wan Zheng's tone sounded calmer as he said, "Then when will you be better? Come to my office with a doctor's note when you get back to school."

Xu Muchan hung up and snapped his head around to look at Wei Xilou. "What did the doctor say I've got?"

"Malnutrition and anemia," Wei Xilou said. He didn't know anything about human schools and asked, confused, "What kind of note do you need?"

Xu Muchan muttered, "...I wonder if the homeroom teacher will buy that I fainted from anemia, got sent to the hospital, and just woke up."

Wan Zheng didn't buy it for a second.

That afternoon, when he found out four students were missing from class, one of them being blind Xu Muchan, he nearly panicked, thinking it might be another case of bullying at school.

He frantically called each student one by one, but none of the calls went through.

In a panic, he asked around the class and checked the security office's surveillance footage. After two exhausting hours of going through the footage, he found that during lunch break, the four students had shown up together in the cafeteria and then vanished.

Based on his extensive experience dealing with students, Wan Zheng guessed the four had probably skipped class together and snuck out of school.

Even though Xu Muchan and He Jiaqi were both good students who didn't seem like the type to skip class, unfortunately Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang were mixed in—and neither of those two was easy to deal with.

Wan Zheng had no choice but to personally search the internet cafes and food streets around the school.

But after a whole afternoon of worried searching, he hadn't found a single trace of them. As night fell and the four students were still missing with their phones unreachable, Wan Zheng was getting ready to call the police while mentally preparing to say goodbye to this job.

Just at that critical moment, He Jiaqi's phone finally went through.

Wen Dajiang came back with her too.

The two looked a bit rough. Wan Zheng tried to stay calm and asked where they'd been that afternoon, and where Wei Yao and Xu Muchan were.

After that, he had the two wait in the office and called Wei Yao and Xu Muchan.

Wei Yao's phone still wasn't picking up, but Xu Muchan's went through.

Wan Zheng put the call on speaker in front of the two students, which led to the conversation with Xu Muchan.

Wen Dajiang and He Jiaqi stood nearby listening, their expressions perfectly in sync—"we're screwed" written all over their faces.

The three had zero coordination, each with their own story.

Well, this was screwed.

Xu Muchan hastily snipped his hair back to about its original length, then changed and headed back to school.

He'd always been a model student in the teachers' eyes—good grades and good behavior. Skipping class right after transferring to a new school, and getting caught by the teacher, was a real first for him.

Although getting dragged into the ghost domain wasn't exactly his fault, he could say with confidence that Wan Zheng wouldn't buy it either.

Wei Xilou didn't get why he was in such a rush. He squinted and said, "Your homeroom teacher is a real pain."

Xu Muchan instantly went on guard: "Don't you dare do anything to him! Teacher Wan is a good guy and has been really good to me."

Wei Xilou got a kick out of his outburst and smiled instead: "Then I'll get Wei Jianguo to drive you to school."

Xu Muchan didn't turn him down this time—he really did need to get back to school fast.

It was already eight o'clock when they got to school. Wei Xilou dropped him off at the academic building and said, "Call me after school, and I'll come pick you up."

Xu Muchan mumbled something vaguely and hurried upstairs.

As soon as he walked into the office, he saw that besides homeroom teacher Wan Zheng, two people were standing in the corner. Xu Muchan squinted to get a better look. It was a boy and a girl. The boy was tall and sturdy, with tan skin and short spiky hair; the girl was petite, with a low ponytail, her head hanging low, looking pretty dejected.

He didn't recognize either of them. But Xu Muchan figured these must be Wen Dajiang and He Jiaqi.

Sure enough, Wan Zheng spoke up right then: "Xu Muchan, did you get your doctor's note? Tell Wen Dajiang and He Jiaqi what you were up to this afternoon."

"..."

Xu Muchan could still spin a story, but since he hadn't gotten his story straight with Wen Dajiang and He Jiaqi, a face-to-face showdown would definitely expose holes in it. So he just lowered his head and said, "Teacher Wan, I'm sorry, I wasn't really sick."

Him owning up right away softened Wan Zheng's expression a bit. After giving the three of them a serious lecture, he said, "I'll let it slide this time—no punishment. Don't let it happen again. You almost gave me a heart attack. Go back and each write an 800-word self-reflection. Wei Yao hasn't returned yet—you can tell him for me to write a 1,500-word one."

The three nodded obediently, listening to the lecture like scolded kids, then walked out of the office on shaky legs.

"What a pain," Wen Dajiang grumbled. "There are ghosts in this world now, so why do I still have to go to school?"

He Jiaqi tilted her head and looked at Xu Muchan, a bit puzzled: "Xu Muchan, are your eyes better now?"

She'd been curious back in the office—she felt like Xu Muchan was looking at her, and he wasn't using his cane.

Xu Muchan nodded: "Guess it's a blessing in disguise. I can see a little now."

He Jiaqi perked up too: "Congratulations! Let's hurry back to class—we haven't done any of today's homework yet."

Xu Muchan agreed and followed.

Wen Dajiang: "..."

He suddenly felt a lot less scared of ghosts—these two people who'd study themselves to death no matter what were way more terrifying to him.

When evening study hall ended, the Xu family driver was waiting at the school gate as usual.

Xu Wangchuan knew Xu Muchan had skipped class that afternoon and was planning to rag on him, but he suddenly noticed that Xu Muchan wasn't holding his cane when he got in the car, and he didn't fumble around when opening the door either.

His face changed instantly: "Can you see now?"

Xu Muchan just hummed in acknowledgment, put on his earphones, and made it clear he didn't want to talk.

Xu Wangchuan, surprisingly, stayed quiet and didn't push it.

When they got back to the villa, Xu Zhifei and Xu Qingming heard the good news too. Xu Zhifei especially—she was over the moon, cupping Xu Muchan's face and holding up fingers in front of his eyes: "Are you sure you can see? How many fingers am I holding up?"

Xu Muchan played along: "Three."

"But I can only make out vague shapes."

Xu Zhifei was still thrilled: "Being able to see means it's getting better. Let's go to the hospital for a check-up tomorrow—maybe your eyes will be completely fine soon."

Xu Muchan was thinking the same thing. After Xu Zhifei kept him talking for a while longer, he finally got to go back to his room to wash up.

Even though his vision was blurry, being able to see made getting around a lot easier. Xu Muchan dropped his backpack and headed to the bathroom to shower, leaving the Mountain God Amulet on the counter outside.

When he came out to grab the amulet, he was startled to see that his fingernails seemed to have turned a dark greenish-black, and they looked a bit longer than before.

Xu Muchan leaned in and stared hard for a long time, making sure he wasn't seeing things.

His first thought was that this had to be a side effect of the Black Taisui. He quickly threw on a bathrobe and went to find the shrine in the cabinet, wanting to ask his brother about it.

When his eyes met the stone-carved statue inside the shrine, Xu Muchan suddenly stopped, feeling like he'd forgotten something.

"What is it?" Xu Muchan frowned, trying to remember.

At the south gate of Nanming, Wei Jianguo, once again roped into being the driver, looked at the grim-faced man in the passenger seat and said carefully, "Ancestor, did you get the school dismissal time wrong? Nanming usually lets out from evening study hall at 9:45. It's already 10:30—the students went home a long time ago."

Wei Xilou slowly curled his lips into a cold smirk and said, "Take my body to Jiahe Garden."

Before Wei Jianguo could figure out what that meant, he saw the guy in the passenger seat suddenly slump down as if all his bones had been pulled out.

He instinctively reached out to catch him, but the arm under his palm was cold and stiff—not like a living person's, more like a corpse's.