After much effort, Yu Lanchuan finally got a cab that was willing to take him to the eastern suburb late at night. Along the way, they passed by quite a number of buses on Route 707 and every time, he wanted nothing more than to take a flashlight and shine around the inside of the bus. When he finally made his way to the cemetery in the eastern suburb, he jumped over the wall to enter. In the end, realised that this damned place was much larger than he had expected. From A to N, the place was divided into fourteen areas!

The moment winter came to Yanning, all the cute and lively little birds disappeared and only packs of old crows remained. They especially loved gathering at places that terrified humans, letting out a "Caw, caw" every now and then that didn't sound at all like they had any good intentions. There was also the northwest wind slipping through the densely-packed tree-lined paths; the trees on either side were squeezed so tightly that they wailed like ghosts and howled like wolves. And thus, when these two "celestial music" came together, the effect was multiplied and it was like the opening of a horror movie.

The cemetery was laid out in a very regular manner. The rows of tombstones and trees looked about the same in every direction. Yu Lanchuan walked among them, all on his own, and felt that the black-and-white photographs on the tombstones all showed the same face. The more he walked, the more he felt that something was wrong—he couldn't find Gan Qing and was also a little lost!

At the beginning, he still put on a pretense and kept a gracefully calm and unhurried pace, carrying himself properly even though there was no one around. But outrageously, halfway through, his phone that he was using to light his way ran out of battery!

The graceful and calm Little Master Yu walked faster and faster. Suddenly, a breeze disturbed the water droplets frozen on the pine needles and a string of ice-cold water droplets dripped down, falling unerringly onto the exposed back of his neck. At the same time, something let out a peculiar laugh behind him!

Yu Lanchuan nearly jumped out of his skin, both his feet leaving the ground in his fright. He cut an exceptionally wild figure as he dashed out from among the trees and collided directly with the Gan Qing he hadn't been able to find anywhere, and was even so startled by her screaming that his courage completely failed. He yelled almost in unison with her, "You scared me to death!"

Gan Qing, "..."

Yu Lanchuan shouted, "What are you screaming for! The adrenaline rush is going to fry my brain!"

Gan Qing finally regained her wits. Trembling, she fumbled out her phone from her pocket and used the light from the screen to see Yu Lanchuan clearly. The phone screen with a background of the starry night sky emitted a faint, bluish light that made the both of them look exceptionally monstrous.

She fell into silence. After a long while, she asked faintly, "...Little Master Yu, have you ever been smacked?"

"Wha-"

Before he could finish speaking, Gan Qing's fist swung towards him. Yu Lanchuan quickly retreated half a step but before he could steady himself, Gan Qing hooked her leg around his heel and pulled. Yu Lanchuan's knees were still weak from being scared just now and he kneeled down with a thump, landing in a kowtow right before a tombstone.

The old man on the tombstone had a kindly look and a smile on his face, like he was saying, "Beloved official, you may rise."

Gan Qing didn't think that he would be taken down so easily. She was afraid he would run a porcelain scam on her, so she withdrew her leg with a complicated expression on her face.

Yu Lanchuan was just about to erupt in anger when he suddenly saw clearly the name on the tombstone—Wei… Changsheng.

The surname was "Wei"?

He stared blankly, then couldn't resist turning his head to look at Gan Qing.

"Very polite of you, Little Master Yu." Gan Qing extended a hand to him. "Our family etiquette doesn't require formal bows. Hurry up and stand."

Yu Lanchuan didn't take her hand. He pushed against the ground and clambered up on his own. "Your family? This is… your shifu?"

Gan Qing didn't say anything. Her gaze swept past the edge of her hood that fell nearly below her brows. Her eyes were cold.

Han Dongsheng had speculated that Wei Xiao was already dead.

So it turned out that even in death, he could not put his real name on his tombstone.

Yu Lanchuan said, "So he's really already-"

"Did someone tell you something?" Gan Qing cut him off. She drew her coat closer around her body and began walking away without saying anything.

"Mr. Han saw you today and muttered the name 'Wei Xiao.' I found out some information from him." Yu Lanchuan caught up to her. He chose his words carefully. "How did your shifu die?"

Gan Qing lowered her eyes and said perfunctorily, "Don't call him that, he wasn't my shifu. It was sudden heart failure."

"Gan Qing!" Yu Lanchuan went around to stand in front of her, reaching out a hand to stop her.

"Sudden. Heart. Failure." The eyes that looked up at him had no hint of a smile in the corners but there was a peculiar smile in the curve of her lips. She asked, a little mockingly, "Why, does the law forbid this way of dying? Or does the big demon not have the right to die peacefully of old age?"

Yu Lanchuan's face was serious. "Speak properly."

Gan Qing's heartbeat that had been scared into bouncing like a spring just now had calmed down quite a bit. She also felt that she had been rather rude, so she relaxed her expression a little. "Little Master Yu, don't you have to work extra hours tomorrow? Instead of sleeping at night, you came here to frighten people. What is it that you're looking for me for?"

Yu Lanchuan spoke frankly. "Are you going to look for the people from Travellers' Sect?"

Gan Qing chuckled, crafty yet a little resigned. "Why would I look for them? Our boss takes care of our online shop himself and I don't send packages via express delivery."

"Traveller's Sect has five trades, who said that looking for Travellers' Sect means wanting to send packages?" Yu Lanchuan glared at her. "So, not only do you want to look for Travellers' Sect's people, you even want to look for their North Branch Master, Wang Jiusheng?"

Gan Qing withdrew her smile. She glanced at Yu Lanchuan, then walked around him without a word.

Yu Lanchuan dodged and blocked her way again. "After you find him, what do you plan to do?"

Gan Qing said lightly, in a reasonable and cooperative tone, "Little Master Yu, I'm the type who doesn't like having my way blocked by others, and also the type who isn't happy when someone tells me what to do. Previously, you stopped me at the apartment corridor—the reason why I didn't pick a fight with you over that is because I wanted to maintain harmonious neighbourly relations, not because you're awesome. If you continue to be like this, I'll stop playing nice."

"Wait!" Yu Lanchuan's tone was very urgent. "I know you are capable and that even if you commit murder or arson, you might not be caught. But after that? Are you going to hide your identity too? In the future, is your tombstone also going to have a false name engraved on it so that even in death-"

Gan Qing's face turned cold. She raised her knee to hit his belly. The position was a little vulgar and Yu Lanchuan quickly angled his body to dodge. "Hey!"

Gan Qing forced him to give way and immediately slipped out like a featherlight cloud. Yu Lanchuan stretched out his arm and grabbed her coat. Her hood fell back. Then, right at that moment, out of nowhere, he felt a chill run down his back. Yu Lanchuan instinctively blocked with his out-of-battery phone. There was a scraping sound—a small blade slashed at his phone case, leaving behind a perfect curve.

Her murderous aura rushed forth like countless gossamer-thin threads. The blade slashed his phone case but its force did not reduce the slightest, as though it wanted to go on and slice open his wrist. Yu Lanchuan's pupils contracted. Everything happened in an instant, yet he stubbornly controlled himself and did not withdraw his hand.

The blade touched his skin, left a small red dot, and stopped.

If he were to measure it with a string, the curved line on his phone case would probably be exactly three cun and two fen long.

Yu Lanchuan fell silent for a while. Then, he suddenly said, "I've not thanked you yet, have I?"

"That's right." Gan Qing slowly lifted her gaze. "If I had known earlier that Little Master Yu likes to repay kindness with enmity and likes to meddle in other people's business, I would have sat on the sidelines today and have fun watching all of you fight a battle that neither side can win."

Yu Lanchuan, "I'm not talking about today."

Gan Qing's face had a trace of impatience. "What?"

"The knots on your keyring were tied using my shoelaces. You probably didn't realise," Yu Lanchuan said. "I recognised it immediately. Fifteen years ago, you saved a boy from Mudpool Backlane to the landfill in the outskirts. You took away his clothes and shoes, and helped him lead the human traffickers away... the traffickers from Travellers' Sect. Am I right?"

The damp night wind blew Gan Qing's hair into disarray. She heard Yu Lanchuan say, "I am that boy."

Gan Qing was stunned for a few seconds. The blade between her fingers glinted and just like that, she had kept it somewhere. She laughed. "Such a coincidence? It's truly a small world… I say, Little Master Yu, you're such an excellent young man so why do you keep running after me to create accidental encounters? You're nearly making me assume too much."

Gan Qing was someone who was very well aware of her boundaries. It wasn't that she hadn't noticed Yu Lanchuan purposely catching the times when she went about to pass by her, she had just pretended not to notice all this while. Now, she was suddenly exposing him so sharply, her words completely meant to inflict harm. Yu Lanchuan's face immediately flushed.

"Oh, that's right, I remember now… Indeed."Gan Qing let out a rather malicious snort of laughter. "Running around wearing nothing but a doggy head is a rare experience after all."

Then, unexpectedly, Yu Lanchuan did not turn angry from embarrassment. His gaze was very calm and steady, his eyes clear and cold behind the thin lenses. He said, "I have always remembered it, not because I was in a very miserable state that day, but because until the end, I didn't get any news of where you were."

"Now you know." Gan Qing shrugged. "You're welcome, it was nothing."

"I have always feared that my actions on a moment's impulse resulted in someone being injured. From then on, I never again dared to cause trouble that I could not handle," Yu Lanchuan said. "But today, Old Han told me that it was because of what happened that time that news of your shifu hiding in Yanning was leaked. If-"

"If what?" Gan Qing cut him off. She moved her legs to leave. "Maybe he was getting what he deserved for things that he had done. What was it that you righteous sects say again? Heaven's law is clear, retribution-"

Her steps were too hurried. She happened to be passing by a tree and somehow, a branch extending from the tree hooked unerringly on her hair. Even though her hair wasn't long, it was thick and fine, and frizzled very easily in a damp environment. They were also knots in her hair ends.

Gan Qing hissed in pain.

Yu Lanchuan said, "Even your shifu can't bear listening anymore."

Gan Qing stared blankly, then cut off the tuft of knotted hair. She turned her head around and realised that the tree that had entangled with her was coincidentally the one leaning very close to Wei Xiao's tombstone.

When she was very young, she had her hair tied into pigtails. Her hair in braided pigtails, she ran to play everywhere and after a day, her hair looked like wild bramble. Her shifu had forced her to keep still while he combed her hair again but no matter how he combed, the knots couldn't be untangled, and the little wooden comb tugged on her hair until she was yelling noisily. Her shifu had no choice but to wet the comb and slowly tease out the knots bit by bit. He had even scared her by saying that if she always combed her hair with a wet comb, in the future, her head would turn silly.

Gan Qing didn't want to turn into a "silly girl." After that, she didn't dare ask for the comb to be wetted. She bore the pain with tears in her eyes. It seemed to have left a shadow in her heart; even after she grew up, she never let her hair grow long.

Were there gods and ghosts in the underworld?

Were the people who had passed away watching you from the Nine Springs in the underworld?

Most people did not believe in this. Only people who were frightened, people with a guilty conscience, and… people who were close family would, for a time, be unable to break free of these self-deceiving imaginations.

Yu Lanchuan said softly, "My granduncle had once used the Alliance Leader's Command. Your side didn't respond but despite that, Granduncle had never believed that the eighteen people at the flour factory were killed by him."

Gan Qing didn't say anything.

Yu Lanchuan said earnestly, "I also heard that due to a spar when he was young, he had offended a few people. If you suspect that his death was not natural and had something to do with those people… or with Travellers' Sect, I can help to investigate with you. After all, the matter with Travellers' Sect was started by me. This time, the Travellers' Sect people concealed a crime suspect and even attacked the police, Old Yu's people won't let it go just like that. They will definitely investigate to the last detail. Just wait a while for now, is that okay?"

After listening to that, it was a long while before Gan Qing finally opened her mouth. She relaxed her tone a little. "Actually, it was not very related to you."

It was the little girl back then who did not know how high the sky nor how thick the earth was. She could have easily shaken off the pursuers and escaped, but she just had to show off her skills.

Shifu had always said that Wan Mu Chun's martial arts skills were no longer suited to the modern days. Killing techniques were ominous, a demonic path that strayed from the orthodox. One should not be obsessed with them, and must absolutely not use those skills to commit violence.

But the "demonic path that strayed from the orthodox" that he had spoken of was exactly what a rebellious chuuni teenage girl thought was the coolest thing ever. Even if all she knew was the most superficial bit of skills, she couldn't resist showing off like a little bird shaking out its feathers. How could she hide herself and live incognito like an ordinary person?

Gan Qing lowered her head. "Very polite of you, Little Master Yu."

"Who's being polite with you?" Yu Lanchuan heard her jianghu-like and distant tone, and a nameless fire blazed in his heart. "We have been neighbours for half a year, you've taught my little brother before, we collected evidence against Nie Ke and that group of human scum together, and I even helped you get a bunch of foolish customers during the festive season and watched you trick them for their money without saying anything! I thought we were considered friends!"

Gan Qing lifted her head and looked at him in surprise.

Yu Lanchuan, "..."

Actually, he felt regret the moment he was done talking. All this while, he had conducted himself in the "noble and aloof" manner. In his work life, he turned away drinks, developed shallow relations and kept his words superficial. His friends in his private life were all people like Yu Yan who had stuck themselves to him voluntarily. This was the first time in his life he was saying something like "I thought we were considered friends," something that made it seem as though he thought the other person had feelings for him. For a moment, he felt like he was suspended above a fire, grilled until he was uncomfortable inside and out.

It was like when he had used his phone to block the blade just now—if Gan Qing had pressed down lightly just a centimeter more at that time, she would have sliced open his artery.

And now, Gan Qing didn't need to say anything. If she smiled just a little teasingly, she would shatter his fragile dignity that was merely putting on a brave front.

Yu Lanchuan felt that his entire night had been full of perils. Both his feet seemed to be standing on a tightrope. It was like he had laid his cards on the table, smashed the table, threw caution to the wind and was sitting on the ground, waiting for judgement.

And then… unexpectedly, Gan Qing did not smile.

She stood under the branch, staring blankly for a long while.

Wei Changsheng… Wei Xiao's death portrait gazed at her, as though it was meticulously laying out all the affection and loyalty she had disappointed in her entire life, putting them all on display on the tombstone.

"Why are you still standing here!" Yu Lanchuan was a little afraid of hearing what she had to say, and quickly cut her off in fear. "Are you going to wait for the Lunar New Year here?"

"I… want to sit here with him for a while more." Gan Qing avoided his gaze, drawing back the dangerous and arrogant air she had around her. She seemed a little embarrassed. In a soft voice, she said, "Well… why don't you head back first? I'll take the last bus back… I really will go back, don't worry."

Yu Lanchuan didn't move.

Gan Qing thought that he was still worried so she pointed at Wei Xiao's grave and said, "He has passed away for ten years already, he won't mind waiting a bit longer. I swear on my shifu that I will not look for Wang Jiusheng in private and cause trouble today. Do you need me to sign my name and put an official stamp on it, Little Master Yu?"

"Okay." Yu Lanchuan walked a couple of steps, dawdling. Then, he couldn't help turning his head around. "It's too cold, you…"

Gan Qing said in resignation, "What else do you want?"

"..." Yu Lanchuan was strangely silent for a few seconds. "Which way should I take to go back?"