Cheng Xu was certain he was done for. The boulders came roaring down like an avalanche of angry heaven, slamming toward him. No matter how he looked at it, there wasn't a shred of survival on the table.
A thunderous crash — and then darkness swallowed him whole.
In that pitch-black void, his great-grandmother's face emerged. A shriveled hand reached out from the darkness, clamped firmly onto his calf, and began dragging him downward — deeper, deeper…
He went still. Quiet. Waiting to tumble straight into hell and reunite with Great-Grandmother under the Yellow Springs.
But then—
BOOM!
Something above his head shifted. Sunlight tore through the darkness and poured over him. His great-grandmother's skeletal hand began to smoke, sizzle, and then crumbled into ash.
Only then did Cheng Xu notice: he wasn't buried. Not really. A weird invisible barrier had formed around him, shielding him completely. Only his calves were stuck in dirt.
"What the hell is protecting me?"
He reached out to touch it — but the invisible wall suddenly moved. With a single boom, it blasted the surrounding mud and rocks away like chaff. Each shift of it radiated an immense, terrifying divine power that made his guts twist.
If he hadn't been standing right at the epicenter of this force, he would've run screaming. Actually, he still wanted to run screaming — he just didn't know which way to run.
Then—
Huh?
A direction!
The invisible force scratched a gigantic arrow into the dirt, pointing northeast.
Cheng Xu panicked.
What did that mean?
No clue.
But resisting didn't feel like an option.
Heart hammering, he picked up his feet and trudged northeast.
After several hundred meters, a new arrow appeared, slightly adjusted but still pointing northeast. So he continued. He was armored, heavy, exhausted from fighting Jinyiwei, and running for his life for hours. His pace was pathetic, but he followed the arrows faithfully.
The sky grew darker. And darker.
By the time the sun finally disappeared, the arrows vanished.
He looked up.
A tall, hulking fortress loomed ahead, pitch-black and deathly silent except for a few dim oil lamps flickering on the walls. Two sentries paced atop the rampart, their expressions vacant, like their souls were off on vacation.
Cheng Xu's heart nearly leapt out of his throat.
"Gaojia Village…"
He immediately remembered his past visits — and Bai Yan's warning: enter Gaojia Village at night and you die. Zheng Yenfu and Zhong Guangdao both tried a night raid and ended up corpses.
"Why… why am I being guided here?"
And suddenly, enlightenment struck:
"Oh. I died back there. The falling rocks killed me. This whole journey was my imagination. I've already crossed into the underworld. I skipped the Bridge of No Return and forgot to drink the Forgetfulness Soup. That's all."
"So Great-Grandmother must be waiting for me in the ghostly Gaojia Village. I'm coming, Great-Grandma, your dutiful descendant is finally home."
Dragging his exhausted body, he shuffled toward the gate.
The sentries stared at him with bizarre expressions — but didn't raise an alarm. As if they'd been expecting him.
Cheng Xu ignored them, stumbling to the gate. But before he could knock—
Creak… the doors opened on their own.
Standing inside was Shansier, holding a lantern so lifeless it looked like even the flame was contemplating suicide. He grinned wide, teeth gleaming strangely.
"General Cheng," Shansier said softly. "Please come in. We've been waiting a long time."
Cheng Xu shrugged. Dead men didn't fear anything. Ghosts? Please. Ghosts eat the living, not the dead. He wasn't exactly premium-quality prey anymore.
He stepped inside.
Shansier followed silently.
"General, the matter of your crimes being exposed — were you chased by Jinyiwei?"
Cheng Xu wasn't even surprised Shansier knew. It'd be weirder if he didn't.
"Yeah. So I'm dead."
"Not necessarily," Shansier murmured.
"My great-grandmother—where is she? Did she ask you to fetch me?"
"Is the Eunuch Faction finished?" Shansier countered.
Cheng Xu snorted, mocking himself.
"In one night, every official in the capital suddenly remembered they hate us. I wanted a promotion, hugged the Eunuch Faction's thigh a bit, got this county inspector position. And now? Suddenly I'm one of them. The Emperor wants me dead, officials want me dead… Jinyiwei made up some excuse just to kill me."
Shansier raised a brow.
"Made up? Really?"
Cheng Xu stiffened.
Awkward.
Fine. He had lied his entire career — it had become muscle memory. Even in the afterlife, he was still compulsively bullshitting. Terrible habit. Ghosts don't fall for lies — they've got nothing else to do except see through people.
He sighed.
"Alright, fine. Wang Er isn't dead. I faked his head to fool everyone. Whose fault is that? Those damned scholars above me! With only a hundred men, how the hell was I supposed to control a whole county full of starving rebels? If I didn't lie, I'd die. And now that I lied, I'm dead anyway."
His anger rose with each word.
"They forced me! From the day Zhang Yaocai started squeezing taxes—no, from the day the drought began—I already had one foot through the Gates of Hell! Hahaha!"
"Who the hell is laughing like a ghost out there!? Shut up! Some of us are trying to sleep!"
"Laugh again and I'll beat you!"
The curses came from a nearby residence — one voice belonged to Gao Chuwu, the other to Zheng Daniu.
Cheng Xu's laugh died instantly. A big question mark floated over his head.
…Wait.
This isn't… a ghost city?
Ghosts sleep?
And they yell at people?
No, no—thinking outside the coffin: dead people are still people, right?
He must mean "quit disturbing the dead."
Obviously they must be sleeping in their coffins.
Cheng Xu stopped laughing. Not that he actually felt like laughing.
He followed Shansier through long corridors, winding left and right, until they reached the watchtower. Gao Yiye was already waiting.
Cheng Xu thought:
Ah. The head ghost. Finally. She's clearly the top spirit of this cursed place. I guess I'll have to obey the hierarchy. Well… what's one more death to a dead man?
Footnotes
Gaojia Village "ghost reputation" – Many rural fortified villages during late Ming were so heavily guarded at night that outsiders really did say entering meant certain death. Calling them "ghost villages" wasn't supernatural — it was practical horror.
Eunuch Faction purges – Whenever imperial politics shifted, officials who previously aligned with eunuchs were often thrown under the bus overnight. Moral consistency was never a prerequisite for office.
Starving rebels versus one hundred soldiers – A painfully accurate summary of local governance during disasters: counties were expected to maintain order with forces that couldn't even guard a barn.