Xia Mengmeng stopped rubbing her temples at the sound of a voice. She opened her eyes to look at Yunxi and drifted in a brief daze.
Seeing Sister Xia silent and only staring, the little assistant gave a small cough to remind her. Startled back to herself, Xia Mengmeng stood up at once. "Hello, I am Xia Mengmeng."
Yunxi nodded and sat opposite her, speaking evenly. "Hello, my name is Ran Xi."
Xia Mengmeng felt the woman before her looked more like an actress than she did. After Yunxi sat, she took her seat as well and told the assistant to buy two coffees. Once the assistant was gone, she could not wait any longer.
"Do you know what is happening to me?"
Yunxi noted the dark shadows under her eyes and asked in return, "You truly do not know?"
After a moment's hesitation, Xia Mengmeng answered, "Lately there is a stretch every night that is blurry. I cannot remember what happens then. When I come to, I find myself in strange places. Sometimes a back alley, sometimes a bar, sometimes right here in the RV."
As she spoke, her face grew paler. Clearly those experiences unsettled her.
Yunxi smoothed her sleeve. "When you came to, were there unconscious people nearby?"
Xia Mengmeng swallowed. "The time in the alley, a man was lying at my feet, unconscious. I panicked and thought he had dragged me there, so I ran."
Yunxi continued, "And the next day, did you see news of a death in that alley?"
She was being very specific.
Xia Mengmeng clutched at her shirtfront and asked in a trembling voice, "H, how did you know?"
"If I say I calculated it, would you believe me?" Yunxi replied without much interest. With the situation unclear, she did not intend to reveal too much.
Xia Mengmeng seized the lifeline and leaned forward. "Master, please help me. I am at my limit. I hired a master before. He gave me a string of bells and told me to wear them. After that, the memory gaps stopped.
But I cannot remember how I came to set today, when I put on makeup and costume, when I started acting. Nothing.
My assistant says you barged onto set and knocked me down, interrupting the shoot. I do have a few scrapes, but that squeezing in my chest and the feeling of losing control are gone."
Yunxi gave her a brief look. The woman's self-awareness was strong. Noticing such subtle changes was no small thing, so Yunxi spoke directly. "You were possessed. The ghost used your body to siphon vital essence and nourish itself. By day it hid within you. At night it took your place, so your memories blurred.
Those deaths before were the result of the ghost failing to control the draw. It emptied them of essence and they died."
Terrified, Xia Mengmeng reached for Yunxi as if for a lifeline, but Yunxi slipped aside with ease. After so long as a cultivator, she disliked physical contact with strangers.
To soothe her, Yunxi spoke quickly, "I already shattered the female ghost in you. You need not worry."
Xia Mengmeng snatched at air and realized she had overstepped. Hearing Yunxi's words, her color returned, though she still bit her lip and asked, "Master, will no other ghost come for me now?"
"Rest easy. While I am here, no ghost will dare approach you, and none will be able to possess you."
"Could you stay with me for two days?"
"One day is enough. After that, with my talisman on you, this will not happen again."
"All right. How much do you charge to draw the talisman?"
She was no novice to negotiations.
Yunxi did not know the currency standards here, so she put on an air of mystery. "We can call it fate. You are the first possessed person I have met since entering the mortal world to temper myself. Pay as you see fit."
"Master, do not worry. I will show my sincerity."
She gazed at Yunxi expectantly.
Yunxi understood at once. She lifted a hand and traced a protective sigil in the air with spiritual power. As Xia Mengmeng stared, mouth agape, the floating sigil was pressed into her chest with a light slap.
The purple-gold sigil entered her body, and Xia Mengmeng immediately felt clear and refreshed. Perhaps it was psychological, but she even touched her chest, feeling nothing. If Yunxi had not been sitting right there, she might have pulled her shirt aside to look.
After finishing, Yunxi tested her condition. The sliver of spiritual power she had expended on the sigil was gone, and even circulating her technique did not restore it. Clearly the spiritual energy of this plane was all but nonexistent.
If she exhausted what she carried, there would be no replenishing it unless she used pills or spirit stones. She also sensed that aside from what was in her storage pendant and bracelet, she could not take anything out of her space. Her portable space was fusing with the Misty Snow Domain, and the realm spirit had fallen asleep.
Yunxi calculated quickly. She would need to conserve resources if she wanted to last until she found the road back to the Wei Yu Realm.
Just then the assistant returned with two coffees. Seeing Xia Mengmeng, she blinked. "Sister Xia, your face looks much better."
"Does it? That is thanks to Master Ran Xi's skill."
At last, Xia Mengmeng smiled for the first time that night and personally handed a cup to Yunxi.
Yunxi took a sip. Bitter enough to kill. At least this world had something familiar. She set the cup down. "I prefer milk and sugar."
Xia Mengmeng turned at once. "Go buy another."
"Okay, Sister Xia."
The assistant dashed off again.
Yunxi went straight to the point. "Miss Xia, you mentioned a master gave you a string of bells that let you spend some peaceful days. Was it the black bells you wore around your ankle earlier?"
Xia Mengmeng glanced at her right ankle and nodded. "Yes. No wonder the memory gaps returned today. I was not wearing the bells. But why do I not remember taking them off?"
Muttering the last part to herself, she started to stand to look for them, but Yunxi stopped her. "No need. I shattered them. They bound the ghost inside you. They were not a good thing."
"What? H, how is that possible. Xiao Ruixiang would not lie to me, he would not—"
"Miss Xia, if you want the reason, let me meet that 'master' and this Xiao Ruixiang."
Xia Mengmeng's head snapped up. "Master, you can get the truth out of them?"