What else could he do in a situation like this?
Run for it!!
As long as he made it back to the village, this Xingzi wouldn't be able to do anything to him.
Lu Yuan gritted his teeth and sprinted with all his might.
He could hear that strange laughter right behind his ears.
And as Lu Yuan ran, the eerie laughter grew louder and louder.
It was as if it were mocking him.
When Lu Yuan, drenched in sweat, finally stumbled into the village, he looked back.
He saw the strange woman squatting on a tree branch, her mouth split into a wide grin and her eyes smiling into thin slits.
The bizarre sight sent another shiver down Lu Yuan's spine.
Thankfully, this Xingzi didn't pounce on him like last time.
He didn't know if it was because he now had the Holy Body and it didn't dare, or if his wife's little talk with it yesterday had actually worked.
Still, the problem was...
even if this thing wasn't chasing him anymore, having it hang around like this wasn't a long-term solution.
'Am I just never going to leave the village again, or what?'
Lu Yuan trudged home, his steps heavy and uneven.
As he reached his front door, a graceful figure hurried toward him.
Lu Yuan was startled at first, but he relaxed when he heard the soft, sweet voice.
"Why are you waiting at the door? It's so chilly out."
Lu Yuan said to Su Liyan as she walked toward him.
Su Liyan rushed to his side, took the things he was carrying, and said in a sweet, concerned voice,
"It got dark and you still weren't back, so I was a little worried. I decided to wait for you at the door."
The main reason she didn't go to the village entrance was that there was still firewood burning in the stove. Otherwise, Su Liyan would have been waiting there.
Looking at his beautiful and considerate wife, Lu Yuan's heart filled with warmth.
He had originally been feeling a little down about transmigrating to a world like this.
After all, it was a world where just staying alive was a struggle.
But having a wife like this right from the start made it all worthwhile.
After they went inside, Su Liyan had just put the things on the table when she turned, looked at him, and exclaimed,
"Oh my, dear, what happened to you?"
As she spoke, Su Liyan hurried to her husband's side, bent down, and began brushing the dirt off his long robe.
Lu Yuan paused, recalling what had just happened, and said with a sigh of resignation,
"Don't ask. I ran into that female ghost again."
"She was squatting on a tree branch, cackling at me. I twisted my ankle when I was running back."
Hearing this, Su Liyan froze. She looked up at her husband, stunned, and asked,
"The one from the stone bridge?"
Lu Yuan nodded and sat down to take a sip of water.
He was about to say something but stopped when he saw Su Liyan standing there, her face filled with self-blame.
After all, just yesterday, Su Liyan had said she would take care of it with a simple talk.
But the very next day, that female ghost had shown up again.
Seeing his wife looking so guilty, Lu Yuan took her small hand, pulled her onto his lap, and comforted her,
"It's not your fault. Your method would definitely work on an ordinary evil spirit."
"But I thought about it carefully on my way back."
"Could it be that she's latched onto me because of my great-grandfather?"
Lu Yuan trusted Su Liyan; his wife wasn't the type to make empty boasts.
If she said she could handle it, then she could handle it.
At the very least, the female ghost hadn't pounced on him today, right?
But she had still appeared, so Lu Yuan figured there must be something else going on.
Su Liyan listened to her husband, a little confused, not quite understanding what he meant.
Lu Yuan continued to speculate,
"Could this ghost be someone my great-grandfather wronged back in his day?"
"I heard from my parents that my great-grandfather was no saint. He was corrupt, extorted people, and bent the law."
"He often had people wrongly or unjustly killed for a bit of money. How else do you think our family amassed this fortune?"
Su Liyan blinked. She wanted to say that wasn't it.
Because Su Liyan had checked last night; it wasn't a restless spirit of someone who had been wronged.
It was purely a case of seeing that her husband was an easy target and wanting to mess with him.
'This kind of minor Xingzi is afraid of vicious people. The fiercer you are, the more it fears you.'
'Conversely, the more you fear it, the more it will come to torment you.'
But Su Liyan couldn't bring herself to say this out loud.
After all, she had just said yesterday that she'd stop the Xingzi from bothering her husband, and then it had come back...
Lu Yuan didn't know what his wife was thinking. He just kept pondering aloud,
"Anyway, whatever the case, tomorrow I'll go find someone from the Guild to take a look. I imagine they handle this sort of thing."
Su Liyan nodded and murmured in agreement, but her mind seemed to be elsewhere.
Then, Lu Yuan gave his wife's perky bottom a light slap and said,
"Alright, what delicious food did you make? I smelled it the moment I walked in. Hurry up and bring it out."
The light slap from her husband snapped Su Liyan back to reality. She gave a shy murmur of assent and went to the kitchen to bring out the food.
Soon, a spread of white-flour steamed buns, braised spare ribs, scrambled eggs with green onions, and a plate of crispy fried peanuts was laid out.
It was a feast that other families might not even get to eat for the New Year.
Lu Yuan picked up a big, steaming, fluffy white bun and took a bite of the braised ribs.
Savoring the taste, he looked at Su Liyan, who was warming wine for him, and exclaimed in amazement,
"This is so delicious!"
"It's even better than the food at the restaurant in town!"
In this day and age, even having good ingredients didn't guarantee you could make something tasty.
After all, if you'd never seen or cooked something before, how could you possibly make it delicious?
Seeing her husband eating so happily made Su Liyan happy too. She looked at him and smiled sweetly.
"My second uncle used to be a traveling cook. Anyone in the surrounding villages who was having a wedding or a funeral would hire him."
"I helped him out ever since I was little, so I learned how to cook too."
Hearing this, Lu Yuan nodded slightly. 'No wonder,' he thought.
After they had eaten and drunk their fill, they blew out the candle, drew the curtains, and got onto the kang.
That night, the two of them snuggled together under the covers as Lu Yuan told her about his trip to the city.
Of course, he had to let his wife know about the family's three shops.
As he talked, Lu Yuan's hands started to get restless, beginning to wander.
This drew a soft moan from Su Liyan, who then whispered coquettishly in Lu Yuan's ear,
"Oh, you're so naughty~"
With a delicate cry from Su Liyan, it began again~
...
「At midnight.」
Lu Yuan was fast asleep. Su Liyan, nestled in his arms, suddenly opened her eyes.
She glanced at the soundly sleeping Lu Yuan, and her face grew hot as she seemed to recall what had just happened.
After gazing at her husband with eyes full of love for a moment, Su Liyan quietly slipped out of bed and got dressed.
Once she was ready, Su Liyan went to the bedside and tucked her husband in.
Then, she opened the door and disappeared into the pitch-black night.
「Shige Village.」
Outside the village, under the stone bridge.
A jade-like hand, covered in silver scales, was pressing a disheveled woman firmly against a bridge pier.
The tail of a great white serpent thrashed back and forth by the small river under the bridge.
Like a whip, it struck the river, making loud SPLASHING sounds.
"I told you to stay away from my husband!!
Are you deaf?!"