"A g–ghost—!"
The little menial's shrill scream was like cold water splashed into boiling oil, instantly blowing the fear in the communal bunkhouse into an uproar.
The girls huddled together in terror, trembling as their frightened gazes darted back and forth between the dark room and the chaotic courtyard outside, as if that invisible ghostly shadow would rush in at any moment.
"Shut up! What nonsense are you yelling?!" A slightly sharp, feisty voice rang out. It was Chun Ni, the older menial who slept near the door. She was usually hot-tempered; even now, though her face was pale, she forced herself to stay calm. "What ghost? It must've been some wild cat or dog knocking over the vat! You're just scaring yourself!"
Even so, she didn't dare get out of bed to check.
"N–no… it wasn't a cat or dog!" The little menial collapsed on the floor, crying with tears and snot streaming down her face as she shakily pointed out the window. "I saw it clearly! A pitch-black shadow… it had no feet! It was f-floating! It whooshed past and smashed into it… and the vat shattered! Really! Waaaah…"
Her words made the atmosphere, which had just barely settled, tighten again.
No feet? Floating?
That didn't sound like any living thing at all!
Lin Wan sat on her bunk, her palm clenched tightly around the copper coin that had gone cold again, her heart pounding madly in her chest.
Chun Ni's words didn't comfort her. Instead, the little menial's sobbing overlapped eerily with the terrifying guess in her mind.
A black shadow… sha qi… karma…
Was it really coming for her?
Because she had thought about going to Si Guo Ya? Or because she had defended Xiao Ji in front of everyone during the day, drawing the "attention" of some unseen existence?
Just then—
"What the hell is all this noise?! It's the middle of the night—do you want a whipping?!"
A rough shout came from outside the courtyard, along with heavy footsteps and the swaying light of a lantern.
The night-patrolling outer-sect执事 disciples had been alerted.
Two male disciples in green执事 robes entered the courtyard with lanterns in hand, their expressions sour as they took in the mess on the ground and the sobbing, limp little menial.
"What happened?!" the tall one barked, his gaze sweeping over the pale-faced girls crowded by the window.
It was like Chun Ni had found a backbone. She hurriedly answered through the window, "Reporting to执事 sir! I–it was Xiao Mei who said… said she saw a black shadow smash the water vat… we were all scared awake…"
The tall执事 frowned even more deeply. He walked to the shattered vat, nudged a shard with the tip of his boot, then looked at the puddled water and the collapsed Xiao Mei. He snorted coldly. "Black shadow? Looks to me like someone got lazy and careless, broke the vat by accident, then made up ghost stories to scare everyone and avoid punishment!"
"No! I didn't! I really saw it!" Xiao Mei cried.
"Still talking back?!" the shorter, chubby执事 snapped impatiently. "You clearly smashed it with your clumsy hands! And you even spread wild rumors to disturb people's minds! Add another crime! Tomorrow, go to the Discipline Hall and take twenty lashes!"
Xiao Mei shuddered violently, her face turning paper-white. She couldn't say another word, only weep in despair.
The tall执事 shot her a look of disgust, then raised his voice toward the room. "All of you, get back to sleep! Any more noise and you'll all be punished together!"
After a cursory glance around the courtyard—either finding nothing, or simply not bothering to look carefully—they left, lanterns swaying as they cursed under their breath.
The courtyard fell silent again, with only Xiao Mei's low, suppressed sobs remaining.
After that commotion, fear was still in the air, but it had turned into something colder—an oppressive numbness. The rough handling by the执事 disciples felt like a block of ice pressing down on everyone's hearts.
No one dared speak anymore, and no one cared about the truth. Everyone crawled back to their bunks, pulling their blankets over their heads as if that could shut out all fear and misfortune.
Lin Wan lay down as well, but she couldn't sleep.
She listened to Xiao Mei's crying slowly fade, to the uneven breathing around her. The cold touch of the copper coin against her chest was painfully clear.
The执事 disciples didn't believe it.
The others either half-believed or chose to think it was Xiao Mei's mistake.
But she knew it wasn't.
The brief heat of that copper coin was no illusion.
And there was the old beggar's warning…
This night was destined to be sleepless.
...
At dawn the next day, the piercing wake-up bell dragged everyone out of their uneasy doze.
Every face was marked with exhaustion and lingering fear as they rose, washed, and tidied themselves in silence. No one even looked at Xiao Mei in the corner, her eyes swollen like peaches, her expression numb.
Lin Wan followed the flow of people to morning practice, then breakfast, then to receive tools as they prepared to head for the troublesome Red-Flame Potato fields in the back mountains.
Before leaving, Wang Gui stood on the field ridge with his hands on his hips and gave Lin Wan and the other punished menials another round of scolding and warnings, endlessly stressing how important that batch of Red-Flame Potatoes was and how any mistake would be severely punished.
Lin Wan kept her head down, listening in silence, her thoughts already drifting toward the distant Si Guo Ya.
The path to the back mountains was rough and grew more desolate the farther they went. The surrounding woods became denser and gloomier, and the spiritual qi thinner and more chaotic.
The other menials walked with long faces, sighing and complaining.
"Damn bad luck, getting sent to this hellhole!"
"I heard there are tons of burrowing beetles here—you can never catch them all!"
"Sigh, let's just work faster and get back early. This place gives me the creeps…"
Lin Wan followed them quietly, mechanically swinging her hoe to clear weeds along the ridges while secretly observing the surroundings.
The Red-Flame Potato fields lay on the shady side of a low mountain. The soil was an unhealthy dark red. Looking deeper into the mountains, she could see layers of peaks wreathed in mist. One area in particular looked especially gloomy, as if even sunlight avoided it.
That should be the direction of the forbidden Si Guo Ya.
It looked close, but "the mountain is near, yet the horse dies on the way." Deep ravines, dense forests, and the sect's invisible restrictions lay between. With her current legs and status, sneaking over was nearly impossible.
And to make things worse, Wang Gui had clearly arranged for someone to keep a close eye on these "criminals." He'd put Li Gou Dan—a guy who always slacked off and bossed others around just because he had a little backing—in charge as a temporary "overseer."
Li Gou Dan lounged on a big rock with a thin stick in hand, his triangular eyes half-closed as he barked orders now and then.
"Hey! You there! Why are you dawdling? Didn't eat today?!"
"I'm talking to you, Lin Wan! What are you spacing out for? Is that grass even clean yet?!"
Suppressing her irritation, Lin Wan could only set aside her thoughts for now and focus on the exhausting work before her.
The Red-Flame Potato plants had thick, dark-purple leaves. The soil around their roots had to be loosened often to help the tubers grow. The work was brutally tiring. The hoe was heavy and dull; before long, her arms were aching and sweat soaked her back.
Even worse were the burrowing beetles.
They were black insects the size of a fingernail, with hard shells and a talent for digging. They fed exclusively on the potatoes' roots. They moved fast, diving deep into the soil at the slightest disturbance, making them hard to catch.
Lin Wan had to carefully turn over the dirt, and the moment she spotted a darting black speck, she had to clamp it with a special bamboo tweezer and toss it into the insect-sealing pouch at her waist.
The efficiency was terrible, and it demanded total focus—sharp eyes and quick hands.
By noon, she had cleared less than half a mu. Her back ached, her vision blurred, and the pouch held only a pitiful dozen or so beetles.
At this rate, forget Si Guo Ya—she'd be lucky to even finish Wang Gui's quota.
During the lunch break, she sat on the ridge chewing on a hard bun, staring at the gloomy forbidden area in the distance, a wave of helplessness washing over her.
The other menials complained nonstop as well.
Meanwhile, Li Gou Dan sat with one leg crossed, munching on jerky he'd gotten who-knows-where, grease all over his mouth as he mocked them. "Work harder! If you don't finish, none of you will have it easy!"
The afternoon was even worse. Under the blazing sun, the Red-Flame Potato fields were like a giant steamer, baking them until their heads spun.
Lin Wan repeated the motions of loosening soil and hunting insects like a machine, sweat stinging her eyes, her arms so heavy she could barely lift them.
Just as she struggled to flip over another clod of dirt, her vision blurred by fatigue and sweat—
Suddenly!
Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something faintly flicker beneath the freshly turned, damp soil!
The light was incredibly dim, gone in an instant, almost impossible to notice among the dirt.
But in her exhausted state, Lin Wan was strangely sensitive to such tiny changes.
She froze, then instinctively crouched down, ignoring the grime as she carefully brushed away the soil.
Her fingertips touched something hard.
She gently pried it out.
It was a tiny, irregularly shaped stone no bigger than her pinky nail, pitch-black all over.
At first glance it was utterly ordinary, no different from any other pebble in the field.
But when Lin Wan wiped the dirt from its surface, she saw that its blackness was unusually deep. And at a certain angle, in the sunlight, she could vaguely make out hair-thin silver lines flashing inside.
So that faint glimmer just now had been sunlight reflecting off those silver veins?
What is this?
Curious, Lin Wan held the stone between her fingers, studying it closely.
The moment she focused on the black pebble, something sudden happened!
The old copper coin against her chest, which had been completely quiet, flared up with scorching heat again!
This time, the burning sensation was far clearer and stronger than last night!
It was like a red-hot branding iron pressed directly against her skin!
"Ugh!" Lin Wan let out a muffled cry of pain. Her hand jerked, and the black stone almost slipped from her grasp.
At the same time, her fingertips holding the stone felt a strange pull and warmth!
It was as if some extremely faint power inside her—so faint she could barely sense it—was being slowly, thread by thread, drawn out by the stone!
And the copper coin pressed to her chest grew even hotter, as if in anger, or… in warning.
This double, sudden change left Lin Wan completely stunned.
The stone… was absorbing her… lingli?
The copper coin… was burning to warn her?
What in the world was going on?!
Her first instinct was to throw the eerie black stone away.
But just before her fingers loosened—
"Weng…"
A soft hum, as if from deep within her soul, rang out.
This time, it wasn't empty.
Along with that hum, a blur of fragmented yet shockingly clear information slammed into her mind, as if forcibly implanted.
"... yin sha ... refine ... metal qi ... weak ... can ... absorb ..."
The message was broken and incomplete, hard to understand.
But Lin Wan was struck as if by lightning. Her whole body froze, her pupils shrinking violently.
She stared at the black stone in her hand, still gently drawing in her thin metal-attribute lingli.
Yin sha? Refine? Metal qi? Can absorb?
Th–this information was—
She suddenly raised her hand and pressed it hard against the still-scalding copper coin on her chest!
It was it!
It was this copper coin that had sent her that message!
It could… identify items? And transmit information directly into her mind?!
A tidal wave of shock drowned Lin Wan in an instant.
It felt like all the blood in her body had frozen—then boiled!
This old, unremarkable copper coin she had worn for over ten years… it actually… actually was—
Before the wild joy could rise, another, even stronger emotion crushed it down—
Fear.
A bottomless, suffocating fear.
Why did the copper coin only awaken now, not earlier or later, but precisely after she reincarnated and decided to investigate Xiao Ji's case?
Last night's shattered vat, the black shadow, the burning coin… today's stone identification…
Was all of this really a coincidence?
Or was it—
That unseen "karma" and "sha qi" hadn't just noticed her… they had already begun to coil around her in a way she couldn't understand or resist, awakening this strange "treasure" on her body?
Was this a chance…
Or the beginning of an even deeper, more terrifying trap?
Lin Wan stood in the blazing Red-Flame Potato field, clutching the black stone that was still faintly drawing her lingli, feeling the searing heat of the copper coin against her chest—yet she felt as if she'd fallen into an ice abyss, her whole body icy cold.
"Hey! Lin Wan!"
Li Gou Dan's impatient shout cracked through the air like a whip, shattering the suffocating stillness.
"What are you squatting there doing something sneaky for?! You think I'm blind?! Get back to work, now!"