Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Drawing Water with a Bamboo Basket

The groom’s family already knew Li Yan Er hadn’t wanted this marriage. They’d been sure the wedding night would come with noise, so they were listening outside. The instant the groom screamed, they slammed the door open and poured in.

Li Yan Er was still standing there.

Their son lay on the floor, barely breathing—more air leaving than entering.

His mother lunged first.

“You little whore! What did you do to my son? Did you hit him?”

She slapped Li Yan Er twice, hard. Li Yan Er hadn’t expected the man to be that easy to frighten, either. She was still stunned. When another hand flew at her, she threw up her arm to shield her face and shouted, “I don’t know!”

The old woman raised her hand again, but the father saw their son’s state and went cold.

“Enough!” he barked. “Forget her—get our son to the hospital!”

He was clearly on the edge. If they didn’t move now, the man could die.

Luckily the house was full of people. They scrambled, hands everywhere, hauling the groom up and carrying him out. The chaos was so sudden that no one spared Li Yan Er a second glance.

She stood in the empty living room, alone—until she heard a voice call her.

“Yan Er! What are you still standing there for? Run!”

Li Yan Er snapped out of it, lips moving soundlessly. “Run…”

That man looked like he might not make it. If he died, then what?

Gu Shi Yi’s voice came fast, urgent. “Don’t worry about him. He looks done for. If you don’t run, are you waiting for them to come back and kill you?”

First, get out. Whatever happened after that, wait for the police.

Shi Yi was right. With how arrogant this family was in town, if the groom really died, Li Yan Er probably wouldn’t live long enough to see the police. They’d beat her to death first and call it “justice.”

She had no plan left. The moment Gu Shi Yi said run, she ran.

She burst out of the house and into the night—but she hadn’t made it far before a relative who’d lingered outside spotted her and shouted, “The new wife ran! You hit someone and you think you can run? No chance!”

Those relatives didn’t even know what had happened. They only knew the groom went in and got carried out. They also knew the new wife hadn’t wanted this marriage. Even a toe could guess the conclusion: she must’ve hurt him.

So they chased.

It became a sprint through the dead of night. Li Yan Er fled down the town road toward the outskirts. Beyond town was nothing but fields and fishponds. Panic made her reckless. Her foot slipped, and she plunged headfirst into a pond by the roadside.

She couldn’t swim.

The moment she hit the water, she started flailing, thrashing, choking—pure, desperate survival.

Her mother-in-law got the news and chased out too. She arrived with a crowd, saw Li Yan Er struggling in the water, and blocked anyone from rescuing her, spewing curses with spit flying.

“You shameless whore! You ran around outside for years, letting men use you until you’re ruined! My son being willing to take you was your blessing, and you still dared to kill your husband! If anything happens to my son, I’ll make you line the bottom of his coffin!”

In truth, the clinic doctor had already been shaking his head and telling them to send him to the county…

But the old woman didn’t care. She planted herself there and screamed, “No one rescues her! If you’ve got the guts to run, then you’ve got the guts to drown!”

The groom’s relatives heard her and, sure enough, every one of them stood by with folded arms. Later, Li Yan Er’s natal relatives came running too. A few looked like they wanted to help—but this was the mayor’s brother-in-law’s family. Who dared offend them? The old woman said no one could rescue her, and truly no one moved.

Li Yan Er gritted her teeth and fought the water. Her strength bled away. She sank, rose, sank again. In her frantic, helpless gaze, she saw the pond bank.

Her father.

Her mother.

Her brother.

They stood there with flashlights among a wall of relatives, faces cold, saying nothing—watching her rise and sink like she was entertainment.

In that instant, something in Li Yan Er turned ice-cold.

She remembered the injustice and suffering of the past twenty-plus years. She’d finally seen a sliver of light—and tonight, she was falling back into bottomless darkness.

“That man looks like he won’t make it. If I crawl out, I’ll die anyway. And if I don’t die, if I fall into their hands… it’ll be worse than death.”

A bitter thought sharpened into something clean.

“Then I’ll die here. At least it’ll be over.”

She clenched her teeth, hardened her heart, and kicked deeper. Her thrashing slowed. Her body went still and sank.

Even then, she was afraid drowning wouldn’t finish her—afraid they’d drag her out and torture her. So she took the mirror shard that had followed her for more than twenty years and slit her wrist beneath the water. Fast. Vicious. The shard opened the vessel, and blood poured out at once, blooming around her in a dark red cloud.

In the water, blood flowed even faster. Within minutes, her vision went black. Her hands and feet went weak. She sank little by little into the depths, the world turning to darkness.

At the very end, the one thing she couldn’t bear to leave behind was her lifelong friend.

“Shi Yi… I’m sorry. I’m going on ahead… If there really is an Underworld Court like you said, when I get there and see King Yama, I’ll beg him to let us be real sisters in our next life.”

Li Yan Er sank. For a long time, there was no movement.

Only then did the people on the bank realize something was wrong. Panic exploded. They shouted, scrambled, and finally jumped in to drag her out, babbling about how she’d taken out a mirror and cut her wrist.

From her side of the mirror, Gu Shi Yi could do nothing but watch. Helplessness turned into fire, and the fire nearly burned her mind to ash.

“Master… right—Master. I’ll find Master and think of something!”

She sprang off the bed—then froze mid-step.

By the time she explained everything, it would be too late.

Then she remembered. The old man had said it before: the treasure mirror was an immortals’ relic. It could absorb souls and gather spirits.

“I’ll try,” she hissed. “I’ll try…”

If it could connect two realms, maybe she couldn’t pull a body through—but a soul should be possible.

So she didn’t go to the old Daoist priest at all. She grabbed the mirror and began chanting spells on the spot. Her cultivation wasn’t enough. Even burning all her power, she only managed to fasten Li Yan Er’s soul onto that broken mirror shard—just enough to help her evade the Underworld Constables’ search.

When both families fished Li Yan Er’s corpse out, no one noticed the shard. It sank into the mud at the bottom of the pond. Water was yin in nature, and it shielded her soul from harsh daylight. She stayed down there for three years, preserving her spirit.

But by forcing things this way, Li Yan Er dodged the Underworld Bureau’s search—and ended up as a vengeful ghost in that pond for three full years. A ghost like her, even if an Underworld Constable later found her, would still have to be washed by the karmic fire of hell before entering the cycle of rebirth. And even then, she could only reincarnate as an animal.

Gu Shi Yi regretted scaring the groom to death, dragging Yan Er into this fate. She regretted binding Yan Er’s soul to the shard and blocking her reincarnation until she could only fall into the animal realm. With Yan Er like this, she couldn’t be human. As a ghost, she could only become a vengeful ghost—destined to be hunted down by the Underworld Court and punished.

Gu Shi Yi thought and thought, and in the end she decided to gamble everything.

She would use the treasure mirror to draw her sister’s soul from another world into this one.

“This realm has abundant spiritual qi,” she told herself. “With Master and me here, she can use the corpse-borrowing soul-return technique—or switch to cultivating the ghost path. Either way, she can still fight the heavens for a sliver of life.”

For that, Gu Shi Yi planned for three years and prepared for three years.

That was why last night happened.

When the old Daoist priest heard the whole story, the smile on his face turned bitter and thin. He murmured, over and over, like he was tasting the words.

“Drawing water with a bamboo basket… all for nothing. Drawing water with a bamboo basket… all for nothing… So that’s how it was. Everything was already fated in the dark.”

It seemed that from the moment he stole the treasure mirror and met his apprentice, today’s outcome had already been set.

Qi Jiu Feng sighed again, waved at Gu Shi Yi, and said, “I understand.”

He paused, then looked at the clay doll in her arms.

“She just possessed it. Her soul is unstable. Don’t let her see too much daylight. From now on, take her out each night to breathe in moonlight essence. Stabilize her soul body.”

Gu Shi Yi’s throat tightened. “Master?”

The old Daoist priest’s face was heavy with exhaustion. He waved her off.

“Let me rest. Go out.”

Gu Shi Yi had never seen him like this. She didn’t dare argue. She lowered her head and backed out, holding Yan Er close. In her arms, the clay doll looked up anxiously.

“Y-you… is Master okay?”

Gu Shi Yi’s heart was uneasy too, but she forced her voice steady. “He’s fine. He just can’t get over it for the moment. After he sleeps, he’ll be okay.”

Yan Er nodded clumsily, letting herself be tucked closer.

Gu Shi Yi sat on a cushion in the side hall, her expression tangled, and let out a quiet breath.

She’d caused trouble.

No—she’d caused a disaster.

The old Daoist priest had spent decades hiding, drifting, and running for that treasure mirror. Now it had all collapsed at the final step. The blow to him was enormous.

But she couldn’t stand there and watch Yan Er fall into the animal realm. And Yan Er ending up like this was mostly her fault. Even if it cost her life, she would save Yan Er.

Still… she had wronged Master.

And it wasn’t all on Gu Shi Yi. The old Daoist priest had his share too. He’d hidden the reasons from her for years. If he’d told her earlier, she would’ve thought ten times before acting. But now it was done. Talking wouldn’t change anything.

That day passed in a haze. Master and apprentice sat cross-legged in meditation while Gu Shi Yi’s mind churned. She called the old Daoist priest to eat twice. Both times, he shook his head and sent her away.

Gu Shi Yi’s anxiety grew by the hour. She wanted to comfort him, but one look at his face stopped her. In the end, she could only hope that after a few days he would cool down, and then she could find a way to fix what she’d broken.

Night fell.

The old Daoist priest suddenly stepped out of the main hall. Seeing his apprentice in the courtyard, he said, “I’m going out.”

Gu Shi Yi sprang up. “Master, where are you going? I’ll go with you!”

He glanced at her. “I haven’t gone to see her in days. I’m going down to take a look.”

Who “her” was, both of them knew. On an ordinary day, Gu Shi Yi would’ve teased him until his ears turned red. Tonight, she didn’t even dare breathe too loudly. She forced a smile and said, “Then, Master… you go. Have fun, you two.”

The old Daoist priest rolled his eyes and sighed. “You’re an unmarried daughter. What kind of talk is that?”

He strode out the mountain gate and went down the path.

Gu Shi Yi chased to the entrance and watched his back vanish into the dark. Only then did she let out a breath she felt like she’d been holding all day. She pulled the clay doll from her robe and whispered, half relieved, half hopeful, “It’s good he went to Widow Zhang’s. He can… loosen up. Maybe when he comes back tomorrow, he’ll be better.”

The two best friends told each other everything. The old Daoist priest’s romantic gossip had long since been chewed up by the apprentice and fed to Yan Er.

Yan Er sighed. “So this really is a world where people cultivate. Master has to be seventy, right? And he can still be so… uh… vigorous.”

Widow Zhang was sixty too.

But thinking about it, it wasn’t strange. In Yan Er’s world, uncles and aunties in their sixties danced in public squares with more energy than young people.

Gu Shi Yi snorted softly. “Of course. In your world, a sixty-year-old woman giving birth is called an old clam producing a pearl. In ours, women giving birth at sixty isn’t even rare.”

In this realm, people usually married around twenty, then kept having children. Some were still giving birth at sixty. A household full of sons and daughters wasn’t a joke.

But having that many didn’t mean raising that many. Disease ran rampant. Monsters and ghosts caused disasters. And mortal kingdoms went to war every ten years or so. Once blades met, it could mean armies of hundreds of thousands—slaughter on an absurd scale. Death outpaced birth. So even in a realm full of spiritual qi, the mortal population stayed thin.

Gu Shi Yi returned to the courtyard, sat down, and set Yan Er on the table so the clay doll faced the moonlight. Her expression turned serious.

“Yan Er. I told you earlier—you’re considered part of this realm now. But a soul body alone can’t last in any world. If you want to stand here for a long time, you have two paths.”

She raised one finger.

“First: you can switch and cultivate the ghost path. I begged Master to find manuals for ghost cultivators. You start cultivating now. If you succeed, you can still transform into human form later—and you can even become a ghost immortal and ascend.”

Then her voice dropped.

“But the suffering is ten times worse than what we mortals endure. Master once told me: every time a ghost cultivator advances a realm, there’s heavenly lightning tribulation. And every month you have to endure hellfire scorching and yin winds washing the marrow. It’s worse than death. A lot of ghost cultivators change after they reach completion—inner demons take hold, and they bring disaster to the living.”

She didn’t soften the next part.

“And those ghost cultivators? Most of them get wiped out by the cultivators of this realm. Not even a trace of soul left behind.”

The clay doll stared at her, blank and helpless.

“I… I…”