Chapter Eleven

-Xiao Lan-

Maki frowned, looking at me with some disapproval, while Yuta had raised his head at some point.

"Stop! What kind of crazy ideas are you two having!" Panda said. "If we don't bring the body back, where are we going to take it? Just leave it there?"

"Wow!" My attention was immediately drawn to the chubby panda behind me. "Long time no see, Panda, Thorn! When did you guys get back? I didn't see you just now!"

Ji pointed to the gap in the back door and gave me a "V" sign: "Honey-glazed bonito."

"What do you mean 'long time no see'!" Panda sat back down in his seat. "We clearly saw each other just last night!"

"Let's get back to the point." Maki clapped her hands twice, drawing our attention. "You've both gone off-topic—so why are you two thinking that way?"

"What are you thinking? Isn't this normal?" I secretly glanced at Shaohan, and seeing that she didn't intend to speak, I patiently explained, "First of all, people should always look forward and not dwell on the past. Um, a temporary death doesn't mean anything. And then... bringing the body back might be used by someone with ulterior motives. It really does need to be handled by professionals... like that."

Maki: "..."

Youtai: "..."

Panda: "..."

spine:"……"

Shaohan started clapping for me: "Perfect, Xiao Lan, as expected of you! Your explanation was perfect!"

"Right!" Shaohan's praise made me smug. "Really... But I think my explanation was perfect!"

"No, no, no." Panda said with a blank face, "This explanation is the same as not explaining at all."

He thought for a moment and decided to give me an example: "How about this? Your parents—"

“She has no parents,” Shaohan interjected. “She was raised by her senior brothers and sisters in a chaotic manner.”

"Uh, I'm sorry, I apologize immediately." Panda apologized immediately, "What I mean is, if your senior brother suddenly dies unexpectedly one day, and his remains are never found, what are you planning to do with his body...?"

“Just hand it over to the professionals. That’s how it is where we are,” I said. “Because the situation there is a bit complicated. If the corpses aren’t handled by professionals, they might be used by some evil cultivators or demonic cultivators to do bad things.”

Yuta, who had been observing from the sidelines, suddenly spoke up: "You two..."

Panda and I turned to look at him at the same time.

"...Did we misunderstand each other?"

"Is that so?" I tilted my head. "Shaohan?"

Shaohan sat in her seat, arms crossed, feet propped up on the desk. Hearing this, she shrugged at me, looking completely innocent: "I don't know."

Panda pondered for a moment and said, "Xiao Lan, do you mean that because we're afraid someone might use a child's body for illegal purposes, we should hand the body over to professionals to handle it?"

"Huh? Isn't that what you meant? I think I expressed myself quite clearly..."

Yu Shaohan couldn't help but cover her mouth and burst out laughing, her shoulders shaking. Now I knew perfectly well that she was deliberately trying to make me look bad, so I glared at her fiercely: Fine, fine, you just wait and see. Revenge is a dish best served cold!

I was wrong. Shaohan clasped her hands together, making a pleading expression: I'm so sorry—

“Who would take a child’s body and do that?” Maki said, sounding incredulous. “Besides, this is inside a tent; ordinary people can’t go in.”

I gave an awkward laugh and turned my pleading gaze back to Shaohan: Help me!

If you don't help me this time, you're dead!

"Who knows?" Shaohan, accepting my threatening gaze, came to my rescue. "There are evil cultivators around where we live. Who knows, they might secretly steal one or two corpses and carry out an evil plan to raise ghosts."

“…Ah.” Panda exclaimed sincerely, “Your side is amazing. Raising ghosts? Ghosts? I can’t even imagine what ghosts are like.”

Shaohan gave a mysterious smile: "Don't worry, if it really is her, you'll soon be able to see what a 'ghost' is like."

"kelp?"

Anyway, let's get back to the main topic. Maki cleared her throat: "Let's skip the detailed process of removing the series of minor cursed spirits at the beginning and go straight to what the so-called ghost is. At the mission location, there's a giant cursed spirit that looks like an octopus..."

"Don't say that. I can't face octopuses anymore." Shaohan burst into a painful sob.

“…It has many legs.” Maki glanced at Shaohan. “We found two missing babies inside her.”

“That octopus is really powerful,” Yuta continued, completely ignoring Shaohan’s mutterings on the table, “Don’t describe the cursed spirit like that.” “It has very dangerous poisonous gas in its stomach. Maki even lost consciousness because of this gas for a time.”

"Don't mention that!" Maki snapped.

"Are you alright, Maki?" Panda sat up straight. "What's the approximate level of your cursed spirit?"

"Pickled mustard greens".

"It hasn't been assessed, but I estimate it to be Level 1."

"How did you escape from level one? With Rika's help?"

“…Rika almost went berserk.” Yuta twisted his fingers. “But then something unexpected happened.”

I keenly guessed the truth: "You encountered a ghost? The ghost saved you?"

I pressed on, "What kind of ghost? Is it beautiful? Is it strangely shaped? What does it look like? What is its personality like?"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Panda shouted. "What's a ghost? A new kind of cursed spirit? Can someone explain this to a panda who's late for school?"

Yuta was bewildered by my barrage of questions: "Um... I guess it's a ghost. I can't see her face, but I guess she's not some weird shape. She's probably a young woman, her figure is indistinct, she has no feet, and I'm not sure about her personality..."

Me: "...Ah."

Shaohan: "...It's her, isn't it?"

Me: "It really was her."

Shaohan: "It must be her, right?"

Shaohan and I exchanged a glance, and she made the final decision: "So it really is the Ghost Bride, one of the two ghosts under your command! Deng Xiqi!"

Panda's forehead was practically overflowing with question marks. He asked blankly, "Wait, wait, who are you talking about?"

"I don't know." Maki shrugged. "They're practically having some kind of encrypted call right now."

"...They isolated the four of us?"

"Salmon."

Deng Xiqi, female, is also the ghost cultivator representative I mentioned earlier. Neither Shaohan nor I know her age; she appears to us to be around 17. The reason we don't know her age is because she has already died once.

"...died once?"

The first-year students at the Spellcasting Academy all knew we were from another world (believe it or not, according to Shaohan), so there was no need for Shaohan and me to rack our brains and play riddles with them. "Ah," I thought seriously about how to start, "you know there are ghost cultivators where we're from, right?"

"Ghost cultivators cultivate the ghost path. There are two reasons why ghost cultivators are rare: first, the ghost path is difficult to cultivate; second, to cultivate the ghost path, one must first die. One must give up one's rights as a human and live on as a 'ghost'."

“This might be a little hard for you to understand, right?” I said.

"It's alright." Maki crossed her arms. "I just have one question: are ghost cultivators very strong?"

“Very strong,” Shao Han said. “The Ghost Path is the most difficult to learn, much more difficult than the Sword Path or the Talisman Path. So a Ghost Cultivator is generally stronger than most Sword Cultivators and Talisman Cultivators. By the way, Deng Xiqi is still no match for me and Xiao Lan. It’s not that she’s weak, but that we’re both too strong.”

“I understand.” Maki nodded, completely ignoring Shaohan’s next sentence. “I can understand.”

"Anyway, we've now got a lead on Deng Xiqi!" Shao Han stood up again, full of energy. "Look, look, Xiao Lan, what did I say? Very good! Now let's restart the search for Deng Xiqi! Oh, and Yi Gu You Tai, and Maki, as the last humans to see Deng Xiqi's ghost bride in this world, I've mercifully decided to let you join my project too!"

Maki: "Ugh, this is too much trouble, no thanks."

Yuta: "Are you asking me to help you find someone?"

Ji raised his hand: "A delicacy!"

Shaohan waved her hand and said, "Zhenxi, refusal is invalid! Alright, since you, Dog Roll, are so sincere about joining, then we'll add you!"

Panda: "...You can't ignore pandas!"

Shaohan looked troubled: "Ugh, if you're going to participate too, Panda... never mind, you can come along."

Panda: "Why does your tone become so forced when you talk to me?"

And so, the plan to find and save our good friend who had also time-traveled was launched again. This time, Shaohan was still the team leader, and I was the deputy team leader. It is worth mentioning that we have four more team members this time.

With four more group members, Shaohan was jumping around excitedly (Shaohan's comment: not really). She was unusually excited today for some reason and immediately decided to take us skipping class to complete her newly devised project. Here, I'd like to mention that, to prevent Shaohan and I from becoming famous for our random diary entries during our time travel, and to prevent children everywhere from skipping school because of our chaotic behavior, leading to our diaries being banned by cultivation education, good kids shouldn't imitate Shaohan's bad behavior!

“These are invisibility talismans. Once we stick them on, no one will be able to see us. Skipping class will be a piece of cake.” Shaohan took out a stack of talismans from her pocket and carefully flipped through them. “There are exactly five here. We can each take one.”

"Five sheets? But there are four of us!" Panda pointed out.

“That’s right, five. Me, Yigu, Goujuan, Maki, and you, five people, just right.” Shaohan blinked. “Oh, you mean Xiao Lan? Don’t worry, don’t worry, Xiao Lan doesn’t need it. After all, she has the speed of the wind, she won’t be stopped by Uncle Principal.”

"..."

“…”