As Shen Wuming lied in the tangled vines at his feet, the rings under his eyes were notable and darkened. Guarding his sister’s tomb for such a long time was surely a lonesome experience.

Qin Yan was suddenly curious about the man’s role in the novel. With System Chat he now had so much information at his fingertips!

He asked, “System Chat, can you bring up character info on Shen Wuming from the novel?”

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BLEEP…blEeP…retrivEiving…dAtA…

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*The character ‘Shen Wuming’ appeared once during the ‘revenge on Phoenix Demonic Sect arc’ in Crimson Wisteria on Rain Captivates the World. Shen Wuming was killed by the protagonist and his body was lost among the wreckage of Phoenix Demonic Sect.”

“…” Qin Yan’s eyes widened. Song Heqing actually killed him in the original timeline! A-And if Shen Wuming only appeared once, it meant that he was just a cannon-fodder.

Hm…now Qin Yan felt kind of bad for him.

Maybe they could talk a few things out later. He had mostly been concerned with making sure that Shen Wuming would not be able to attack them suddenly and hadn’t paid as much attention to negotiating with him.

“Well,” Qin Yan mumbled. “I guess we should try and meet with the Blue— erm, Shen Yilan.”

He hoisted Shen Wuming’s body over his shoulder. He wasn’t so cruel to drag him along the ground the entire way.

The area of Shen Yilan’s tomb was the same as it had been in the past.

Hedges trimmed, grass green, the building immaculate surrounded by the rest of the unkempt rubble surrounding Phoenix Demonic Sect. Qin Yan stepped into the room with the soft tinkle of windchimes, Song Heqing following in silence behind him. The wooden door that led to the tomb below was not cracked ajar today, but shut tightly.

Qin Yan stepped over to open it, but Song Heqing opened it for him first like a true gentleman.

“Thanks…” said Qin Yan.

It felt nostalgic and somewhat strange to be stepping down into such a place again. He went down the dark stairway and saw the tones of blue like that flooded out from below, a few wisps on floated down around the last stair.

They wobbled slightly when Qin Yan came into view, and perhaps that was because he had Shen Wuming on his shoulder.

Qin Yan knew he’d have to introduce himself properly this time.

“Um…er…hello. It’s me, Qin Yan! We met a while ago. Your brother has told me your name is Miss Shen Yilan. And,” Qin Yan felt he was missing something, “oh, and the person behind me is Song Heqing, my partner.”

There was a long silence.

She could still hear him, right?

Song Heqing did not interrupt since Qin Yan had carefully explained that Shen Yilan had been kind and non-aggressive before. In fact, he thought all the orbs of floating lights like firefly wisps was a beautiful sight. The only somewhat disconcerting aspect of the room was that the body of Shen Yilan still laid in her glass-like ice coffin.

Just looking at it would soothe his heart. Energy within this underground tomb was extremely pure ice Qi, not unlike Song Heqing’s himself.

It was no wonder that it was able to sooth Qin Yan back then.

Qin Yan waited, and finally there was a small voice.

“Oh my, sorry for the late reply, it’s just…my brother…”

Now Qin Yan realized what he’d been forgetting to explain.

“UM! There is a reason for this. Your brother tried to kill me and Song Heqing again so we…”

“Ah. I understand,” said Shen Yilan. A few lights floated over to Qin Yan and landed on her brother’s hair and eyelashes. Making Shen Wuming’s wan expression illuminated like a white sheet. “It’s all right. My brother hasn’t slept much ever since…Wangzi Zhu died. It doesn’t seem like you’ve injured him, and perhaps this is for the best.”

Qin Yan wasn’t really one to try and spin his underhanded trick the he used to knock-out Shen Wuming into a positive light…so he was just quiet. He even seemed a bit guilty.

“Qin Yan, can you speak to her?” Song Heqing asked. “Is it going all right?”

Unfortunately, Song Heqing’s sensory abilities were not like Qin Yan’s and he could not be privy to the conversation. As with most cultivators, any kind of communication with spirits or beasts was difficult to nonexistent.

Qin Yan just nodded his head emphatically.

…it’s nice to see you again, young Qin. I am glad to see that you are all right. How long has it been, a couple years?”

Qin Yan furrowed his brow. “Eight…ish?”

“Not too long.” Shen Yilan agreed. Their senses of time were greatly skewed.

Qin Yan felt an odd ball of nerves worming in his guts. He felt anxious about asking her to help them because he wasn’t sure how to pay her back for it, maybe she wouldn’t agree to help track down System S, anyway.

A small orb, shining bright, went and perched on a curl in Qin Yan’s hair.

“They…they don’t explode when they touch me.” Qin Yan smiled with relief.

Shen Yilan laughed gently, the orbs ebbing up around her coffin flared outwards slightly.

“Yes. When you used demonic energy, it was too harmful towards my soul orbs, now that you use spiritual energy, it’s safe.”

Qin Yan lowered his eyelashes and shyly.

“…I wanted to say thank you.”

The little blue orbs tittered. “It was no problem.”

Qin Yan lifted out his interspatial ring and removed the demonic trapping vessel that stored the bit of System S’s evil energy. The one he’d collected all the way back at Eagle Sect.

“I also wanted to ask if you could help us track this demonic energy to the source…in return, Song Heqing and I can repay you in any way that is possible.”

He cracked open the lid a millimeter, a bit of demonic energy seeped out, and the orbs shifted away. There was a pause from Shen Yilan before she replied,

“…I can. When I lived, I was the Blue Firefly Shen Yilan, a long time ago, I tracked evils such as these down week by week. It was my everything. But…is there a reason you’ve gotten caught up with an evil such as this, Qin Yan?”

Qin Yan averted his gaze as he put away the urn. But he was very happy that she had agreed.

“Yeah, it’s a long story. So is there anything you want in return? Is it possible to leave your tomb here, or do we need to find you a spiritual vessel?”

Orbs floating near her coffin split apart, forming a single path to the glass coffin.

“Come closer, I will show you,” she said.

Qin Yan first handed the unconscious body of Shen Wuming to Song Heqing, who glared angrily at the man before excepting, then he stepped closer, the coolness in the room making him sleepy again. But this time his mind was not as wearied by mental instability, so he didn’t have the urge to lie his head down as sleep as strongly.

Within the glass was the feminine figure of Shen Yilan, splendid as before, her hands laced neatly.  

Shen Yilan explained, “Under my hands is a necklace. It’s a vessel that can host my soul a short period, a few months, with it I can travel a long journey. The purpose was for an emergency, in case this place was destroyed…but instead I have been here for centuries and centuries, waiting for something that was never meant to come…speaking of it, there is a favor I would ask of you.”

“Yes! Anything that’s in our power.” Qin Yan said aloud—accidentally.

Song Heqing was almost startled. “Hm?”

Qin Yan gave an embarrassed cough.

Song Heqing once again merely cocked his straight eyebrow, then sighed. Well, no matter, Qin Yan seems to have the situation under control. Probably.

“Sorry, it’s a bit intrusive…really…” said Shen Yilan. She apologized another five times before continuing. “…never have I been able to communicate with my elder brother all these years. I need to speak with him face-to-face. If you allow me this, I can guide you anywhere that demonic essence leads.”

Face-to-face? Qin Yan puzzled. If it were not possible for Shen Wuming to communicate with his younger sister’s spirit, then how could she…

She hesitated. “Sorry, it’s…body possession.”

“Body possession?!”

That sounded important!

Song Heqing was immediately on guard. “What, Qin Yan, are you saying that she is requesting body possession? That kind of technique is dangerous…”

First, if the possessing soul went into a body that didn’t fit it, there could be damages to the soul and body. And of course there was the CLASSIC risk that the spirit possessing would decide to try and take over or wreak havoc.

Orbs flit around Qin Yan pleadingly. “Sorry, I can only give my word that I will not do anything unsavory. It is extremely important to me that I speak with my elder brother. But, in truth…the one whose body fits my soul the best is the Young Lord Song that I have only just met.”

Song Heqing?

Qin Yan was actually less willing to do it now that it was Song Heqing’s body on the line. He narrowed his eyes, thinking hard. But what they were asking of Shen Yilan was a lot, too. To go on a journey with them, to put her very soul at risk of dissipation over time.

He twiddled his vines to make tiny loops and knots.

“Um…what is it you need to talk about?”

A fluttering sigh wafted through the large room, carrying with it a chill air.

“This…the reason elder brother is guarding my tomb stems from a promise a long time ago. Sorry, I won’t take up too much of your time…”

Qin Yan prepared himself for a brief backstory. Before when he was about to learn her past, he opted to sleep instead. Now he would properly listen.

“Back when I was alight in the cultivation world, three-hundred years ago, give or take, there was tension between our Shen clan and the Jing clan. Our family pressed forward a marriage to resolve it, a duty fell on my shoulders. Unfortunately, the one I already held affections for Wangzi Zhu…back then, he was just a little outer disciple of our Shen clan...”

There was a stifling pause. Qin Yan was certain that this was hard for her to speak of. Shen Yilan certainly did not go into details about her and Wangzi Zhu’s relationship from back then. She did not mention their best moments or sweet days of sitting out in the sunlight. These things were too painful to remember.

“Elder brother was the most excited about my marriage with the Young Master of the Jing Clan more than anyone…and I was of course…sad, and afraid. I did not want to betray the expectations of my own clan, so I broke it off with Wangzi Zhu. How foolish I was. Zhu’er, he…blamed himself and his own weakness. Shortly afterwards I married the man from the Jing clan, but as fate would have it, he turned out to secretly be a cruel man. One obsessed with power, domination, and subservience from his wife. He pressured me exhausting myself of Qi. He was not kind. And his bedroom skills…horrible. Eventually I could not bear it another day and sought to return to my family.”

Qin Yan could not really blame her for that at all. He wished divorces were easier for women like in modern times. The orbs sunk and dipped towards the coffin as she spoke, slowly conglomerating into a large mass of blue, turning into a shape more and more like a person.

“I don't wish to go into detail. But when I tried to break away from that Jing man…he killed me. He framed my suicide and trapped my soul in a necklace to prevent me from reincarnating, just so others would never learn of his shortcomings. Wangzi Zhu knew that I never would have killed myself. From that point on he changed, and so did my brother. The Jing and Shen clans went to war, Wangzi Zhu went into demonic cultivation to try and find a way to revive me. He searched and searched…speeding up the progression of his demonic cultivation in a way that caused him to lose his sanity. One day he met a demon…”

Qin Yan froze. A demon?

“This demon told him about the matter of seeking a new body as a vessel for my soul, the ritual that was needed to do so. Then he began raiding other clans in hopes of finding a person that I could take over as a new body, he founded Phoenix Demonic Sect. Of course I…was not okay with this! But he and my brother didn’t know. They promised to have one guard my tomb while the other searched for a human vessel. And so Zhu’er slowly lost his sanity over the decades…he never found a vessel. At some point he did not even recall that was what he initially set out to do…

...I suppose his end was...fitting."

“Oh,” said Qin Yan. This was depressing. But that part about the demon…was probably the demon that in the original novel, Song Heqing and Cui Luoyang wanted to hunt, that first appeared around Phoenix Demonic Sect.

“So you see!” Shen Yilan said energetically, as though both happy and awkwardly trying to wash away her sad story, “At this point elder brother is not even guarding my tomb with a purpose. It is an unhealthy obsession, and I must convince him to move on. It will only take…and hour…or two…maybe. Sorry!”

Well, given her story, it was very hard to refuse. Qin Yan turned to Song Heqing and swallowed.

“She…can Shen Yilan possess your body for a little bit?”

Amarathia

Sorry for late update! I was deciding how to have the story go from this point. Sooo, it took a long time to give any back story for the Blue Lady and Wangzi Zhu, but here it is. And updates from now on will be on Saturday and Mondays (central timezone)!