A Female Lead Wants a Lifelong Union With Me (Quick Transmigration) - Chapter 20

As a highly respected “Great Immortal” among the ghosts, An He found that they were quite willing to listen to her.

The situation was becoming increasingly grave. More and more ghosts were gathering outside the small inn, and the chatter was growing louder, with theories flying in every direction.

In just a short while, An He had heard no fewer than five different opinions. Some said Wang Daniu had offended someone and was settled with for unpaid debts. Others claimed he had a grudge against the innkeeper and, having lost the will to live, chose this gruesome method of revenge.

The most exasperating theory came from a ghost who claimed a battalion of Heavenly Soldiers had descended to wipe them all out, lamenting that they were all doomed.

“Wait, no,” An He said, utterly speechless. “Where did you get all this? You need at least a shred of evidence to back up these claims, don’t you?”

“Evidence?!” one ghost retorted. “You can tell just by looking at it!”

An He: “…” Well, aren’t you divine. With that imagination, it’s a tragedy you aren’t writing novels with Lin Yueyue.

To prevent things from spiraling further out of control, An He dispersed the crowd. Those with homes were sent back, and those with nowhere to go were herded into the inn, each provided with a jar of wine.

“What are you doing?” the System asked. “Trying to get them all drunk and stupid?”

“Wine keeps their mouths shut,” An He replied. “Otherwise, they won’t stop yapping, and who knows what terrifying rumors they’ll cook up next.”

“Xixi, is there anything I can do to help?” Lin Ruoxue asked from beside her, her expression looking quite somber.

“You… help me take the body parts down first.” An He paused, feeling a bit embarrassed. Lin Ruoxue originally didn’t want her involved in this at all, and now she was asking her to handle a corpse; An He felt a bit guilty.

But Lin Ruoxue didn’t object. She followed An He outside to dismantle the gruesome display.

As they took it down, they immediately discovered some crucial information.

The objects pinning the body parts to the wall were actually just small tree twigs—extremely thin, roughly the width of the red string around An He’s neck. Initially, An He thought they were some specially crafted wood, but upon inspection, she realized they were just common twigs that would snap with a light bend.

Unless someone possessed immense internal power, they wouldn’t be able to drive such fragile twigs into a wall, let alone use them to support the weight of a heavy corpse.

“Can you do something like this?” An He turned to look at Lin Ruoxue.

“I’ll try,” Lin Ruoxue said. She raised her hand and gave a light flick.

Instantly, the pile of twigs on the ground took flight, gathering beside her hand in a formation, awaiting her command. Then, she closed her eyes, gathered her breath, and flicked her fingers forward again.

This time, the twigs moved like arrows released from a bow, pinning themselves into the wall in a neat row.

An He was genuinely startled by the scene. She had always known the fox she raised was powerful, but she never imagined she had such skill to manipulate tiny twigs so fluidly.

“I can do it,” Lin Ruoxue said, turning back to her with a slight upward curve of her lips.

“Good job, good job.” An He didn’t know what else to say, so she simply reached out and ruffled Lin Ruoxue’s hair.

“What do you think about this?” An He asked after a moment. “From your perspective, what kind of person would do this?”

“The one who did this is definitely no ordinary person,” Lin Ruoxue said. “The ghosts who were watching just now, and the ones currently sitting inside—none of them could be the killer.”

“How do you know?” An He was stunned. She hadn’t realized Lin Ruoxue had been observing that closely.

“Presence,” Lin Ruoxue whispered. “Different people have different auras. Even after becoming a ghost, that presence remains. I sensed it earlier; the auras of all the ghosts here are very weak. None of them have this kind of ability.”

Hearing this, An He couldn’t help but feel curious. “You say everyone has their own presence… then what about me? What is my aura like?”

“Yours…” Lin Ruoxue paused, then suddenly let out a soft laugh. “It’s very warm. Like a quilt that has just been sun-dried.”

“Oh,” the System interjected. “The smell of sun-baked dust mites.”

“Baked your sister!” An He cursed in her head, fuming. “That ‘smell of mites’ thing was debunked ages ago!”

“Then what do you think Lin Ruoxue meant?” the System asked defiantly.

“She means,” An He sighed, pausing for a beat. When she spoke again, her lips were curved into a small smile. “She says I smell like sunshine.”

Regarding the killer’s identity, both An He and Lin Ruoxue had a suspect in mind: that eccentric man from before.

He had come to her for a fortune reading regarding his “Path to Immortality,” asking when he would reach the pinnacle. But in his state back then, he looked nothing like a cultivator. In An He’s mind, a cultivator should be elegant, sage-like, and handsome—at least the standard for a second male lead, if not the protagonist.

“Right?” she muttered to the System.

The System said it didn’t know. After a moment, it asked: “Are you talking about someone like Zhou Tage?”

An He had been in this world for so long, busy making money through fortune-telling, rejecting Lin Ruoxue’s advances, and wondering how to get some meat to eat, that she had long since forgotten the original plot. When the System mentioned the name Zhou Tage, she froze for a moment, having forgotten who he was.

System: The Male Lead has cried himself unconscious in the restroom.

“You can’t blame me for forgetting him,” An He said after a while. “I’ve never met him in person, so I couldn’t remember him.”

“Who says you haven’t met him?” the System said. “Back when you were still at the Ren manor, when the matchmaker was introducing suitors, wasn’t he in one of the portraits?”

“Now that you mention it, I have a slight impression…” An He nodded.

According to the original plot, Ren Xixi and Zhou Tage met through a blind date. They both came from wealthy families and had similar backgrounds, so they naturally had plenty to talk about. Plus, they were a handsome match, and everyone was trying to push them together.

Before Lin Ruoxue took human form, the two of them got along quite well. In the original story, Ren Xixi used to call the male lead “Brother Zhou” every day. But the good times didn’t last; her so-called Brother Zhou was soon seduced away by the transformed Lin Ruoxue. That was what triggered all the chaotic drama that followed.

However, all of that was cut short by An He’s arrival. The moment she transmigrated, she chose Buddhism to escape her fate of becoming a demon; she had no time for dating. She even told her mother that she wouldn’t marry even if the Emperor himself came. Because of that statement, her usually doting mother had her dragged to the courtyard and given a spanking in front of the servants.

But that spanking was worth it; at least no one forced her into blind dates after that, so the male lead never had a chance to appear. Thus, An He had only “seen” him once—in a portrait.

Now that the System mentioned him, she instinctively recalled the male lead’s appearance. And then… things felt increasingly wrong.

“I think I’ve discovered something huge,” An He exclaimed, slapping her thigh.

Lin Ruoxue was pouring tea nearby and was so startled that she spilled water all over herself.

“Xixi, what’s wrong?” Disregarding herself, she wiped her clothes haphazardly with a cloth and rushed to An He’s side. She saw An He’s eyes wide and her expression dazed, as if she had received a massive shock.

This worried her sick. She began patting An He’s back rhythmically, coaxing her gently. After a while, An He’s complexion returned to normal, though her lips still trembled slightly.

The System was no better, scared half to death and unable to recover for a while.

Finally, in the silence, An He spoke. “Just now, I figured out that man’s identity.”

Lin Ruoxue hurriedly asked, “Who?”

“Zhou Tage.” An He breathed the name out weakly.

An He found the changes in Lin Ruoxue hard to accept at times, but she never imagined the Male Lead’s transformation would be even more drastic—it was staggering. A son of a wealthy family, a refined gentleman… out of all things to study, he chose cultivation, and he had managed to turn himself into that.

If it weren’t for his facial features still being recognizable, An He wouldn’t have believed it was him. And that wasn’t all. If…

If he really was the one who committed the murder as she suspected, then it was truly world-shaking.