Shen sisters
Master Shen coughed, the ashen look on his face fading: "This is my eldest daughter, Yijun. Yijun, this is Young Master Tang Zhou, and this Miss Yan Dan is Young Master Tang's fellow disciple."
Shen Yijun walked to the table and stared intently at Tang Zhou: "So it was you? What were you doing sneaking around my house last night?"
Yan Dan was very envious. She wished she could speak to Tang Zhou so arrogantly, but unfortunately she didn't dare to.
Master Shen immediately stepped in to smooth things over: "Yijun, Young Master Tang is a guest. How can you speak like that?"
Tang Zhou said calmly, "Last night I heard a crying sound. I thought the sound was familiar, so I went to check it out and found Senior Ling Xuzi and your daughter."
Old Master Shen looked at his eldest daughter and said angrily, "Now that Young Master Tang has made things clear, are you relieved?"
Yan Dan glanced at Old Master Shen, then at Shen Yijun, feeling that something was amiss, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Suddenly, Shen Yijun looked over, her eyes still fierce: "Our Shen family has nothing to offer you two; perhaps you should leave now."
Old Master Shen stomped his feet in anger: "Shut up! You...you're going to drive me crazy!"
Shen Yijun glanced back coldly, then her lips twitched into a strange smile before she turned and walked out of the flower hall.
Yan Dan rested her chin on her hand and quietly leaned closer to whisper, "Tang Zhou, what terrible thing did you do to this Miss Shen last night? She looked at you very fiercely."
Tang Zhou glanced at her sideways but didn't say anything.
Mr. Shen's face flushed red and then turned pale. He forced a smile and said, "Gentlemen, it is truly... I have not been a good host." He rubbed his hands together, as if trying to find the right words. "Yijun has been aloof and cold-hearted since she was a child. It is all my fault as her father for not keeping a good eye on her."
Tang Zhou smiled slightly: "Actually, it's nothing, Master Shen. I think it's about time to get down to business. However, the best time to expel the ghostly energy is at noon, which is also the time of day when the yang energy is at its peak. From now until noon, no one is allowed to approach the courtyard."
Master Shen nodded: "I wonder what else Young Master Tang would like? I'll have the servants prepare it immediately."
Tang Zhou said calmly, "My junior sister's help is enough."
Yan Dan immediately looked at Tang Zhou warily. Most of her demonic magic had been sealed away, and the little she had left was extremely precious; she couldn't afford to waste even a fraction of it on him.
The two walked back to the courtyard along the long corridor, and indeed, they didn't see a single person along the way, which showed that it was Master Shen's instruction. Tang Zhou suddenly asked, "Do you usually go to bury flowers?"
Yan Dan looked at him with a choked expression: "Did you see the female ghost burying flowers last night? The vengeful spirits here are very weak and will not turn into ghosts or monsters, much less take shape for you to see. Besides, I would never do such sentimental things that mortal women would do."
Tang Zhou sighed softly, "It was a man who buried the flowers. If a woman had done it, I naturally wouldn't have asked you."
Yan Dan immediately sensed the barb in his words and muttered softly, "Since you're a man, why don't you ask yourself..." She took two steps and suddenly asked, "Could it be... Master Shen?"
Tang Zhou gave a soft "hmm".
Yan Dan shook her finger: "I can give you two suggestions now. First, from now on, no matter what you notice, pretend you didn't see it, and leave immediately after dispelling the ghostly energy. This is the easiest and safest way. Second, delay for a while. If someone has done something, there will always be traces left behind, and the truth will eventually come out. This path is the most dangerous; you might lose your life before you even uncover the truth. So I think the first path is better."
"I also think the first path is better." A cold voice suddenly drifted over. Yan Dan quickly took a step back. Tang Zhou looked ahead and saw a slender woman leaning against the moon gate outside the courtyard, her face gloomy and her eyes vaguely fierce. It was Shen Yijun.
Shen Yijun's lips curled into a strange smile: "Those who come near here are already living dead. Do you want to become real dead?"
Tang Zhou watched Shen Yijun's figure disappear at the end of the corridor, his fingers tapping on the scabbard. Suddenly, as if he had made a decision, he strode towards the courtyard. All the mysteries began here, and the clues would surely be found here.
Yan Dan suddenly reached out and grabbed his sleeve, saying softly, "Wait a moment."
Tang Zhou looked down at her: "What?"
She said leisurely, "Let's think about what Miss Shen's intention is. She had already told us to leave when we were in the flower hall. Now she has come here to say it again, and she is even waiting here to keep it from Master Shen. So, we can guess that she must know the secret, but she can't say it. Then the secret in this house must be very important."
Tang Zhou nodded: "Perhaps what she knows is not complete, but only a general outline."
Yan Dan hummed in agreement and then asked, "Then why did she come to remind us of these things? Since this secret is in her home, it's highly likely that it's related to her family. Why would she side with outsiders?"
"There are two possibilities. Perhaps she meant well and came to warn us not to take any risks. Or perhaps she didn't want us to find out what was going on down there, so she was using threats."
Yan Dan smiled slightly: "As expected of my senior brother, you have a very sharp eye for things."
Tang Zhou smiled faintly and walked into the courtyard again: "Is that so?" Yan Dan sighed behind him: "Actually, there may be a third reason. She knows that there are some people who think they are very powerful. Even knowing that there is danger ahead, they will still jump in to find out the truth. The more mysterious she makes it, the more that person wants to do the opposite and jump into the trap she has dug without hesitation."
Tang Zhou turned to look at her: "Do you think I would willingly jump into someone else's trap?"
Yan Dan thought for a moment and honestly said, "No."
"Yan Dan, you must also be curious about what really happened, right? From the mysterious deaths of people in Qing Shi Town, to what was found in the cemetery, and finally to the Shen family's affairs, there must be some connection between them. Am I right?"
After much deliberation, Yan Dan had to admit, "Yes." However, compared to the secret involved, she was more eager to get rid of Tang Zhou as soon as possible. If Tang Zhou ultimately died a violent death, she would definitely remember to burn paper money for him every Qingming Festival. After all, she was still considered kind-hearted, pure-hearted, and of good character.
Seeing that she admitted it, Tang Zhou continued, "I hope you can lend me a hand. After all, you're the only one I can trust in the Shen family."
Yan Dan was flattered: "You're already amazing enough, I'm afraid you don't need my help at all, right?"
Tang Zhou smiled gently, his features handsome and refined: "Please try to find a way to dig out the corpse we saw in the haystack earlier."
Yan Dan coughed, choked by the fumes. So, his earlier warning against letting anyone near the courtyard was to dig up the corpse. Her expression was sorrowful, her voice soft: "Though I am a demon, I am still a woman. How can you bear to make me do such menial work?"
Tang Zhou asked in surprise, "Aren't the men and women of the Flower Spirit Clan the same?"
"Where did you hear that? How can they be the same?"
"That doesn't matter. I've known you all this time, and I've never thought of you as a woman."
Yan Dan gritted her teeth and after a long while managed to utter, "You... are really good."
Yan Dan squatted by the pit, staring at the stark white bones inside. After a while, she turned to look at Tang Zhou, only to find him looking at her with a complicated expression. Seeing her looking over, Tang Zhou quickly turned his head away to look at the other side. Yan Dan wanted to portray this scene as "Tang Zhou suddenly realizing his mistake and being moved by her wisdom and beauty," but she also knew that it was easier to make Zi Lin suddenly notice her than to wait for Tang Zhou to be moved by her.
At least Zi Lin is a demon with a normal mind, while Tang Zhou is unpredictable and impervious to both soft and hard approaches, making him even harder to break than the seven-colored stones that Nuwa used to mend the sky.
After a moment, Tang Zhou suddenly asked, "You only have half a heart?"
Yan Dan sat down on the ground and waved her hand in front of his eyes: "Tang Zhou, are you possessed? Or have you caught a cold? Do you feel dizzy and lightheaded?"
Tang Zhou slapped her hand away: "It's nothing, I was just asking casually."
Yan Dan looked at him suspiciously for a few moments, then suddenly became interested: "If I told you that I only have half a heart left, would you believe me?"
Tang Zhou glanced at her sideways: "Do you think I'd believe that?"
Yan Dan shrugged. "I was just asking casually." She stood up and brushed the dust off her clothes. "Besides this skeleton, there are probably others underground. Do you want to dig them up one by one to take a look?" She turned and took a couple of steps away, then turned back after thinking for a moment. "I'll go sit by the lotus pond over there. You can think about it here slowly. If there's anything you can't figure out, perhaps I can tell you an answer that's closest to the truth."
Tang Zhou looked down at the skeleton. There were no wounds; it seemed the skeleton hadn't been harmed at all before death. But if that were true, why were there so many vengeful spirits in this house? He thought of the sisters, Shen Yijun and Shen Xiangjun. They looked so alike, yet one could easily distinguish them. What was the purpose of Shen Yijun's previous words? Was it a warning, an exorcism, or a trap? Since Master Shen buried flowers here, he must have seen this skeleton. Why had he never mentioned it?
He used the scabbard to cover the skeleton with soil again, then suddenly realized that the soil here was so messy, it must be because it was frequently dug up and disturbed, and the bones were buried so shallowly, they probably hadn't been buried for long. The Shen family had been living in Qing Shi Town for quite some time, and they might not have known that someone had died suddenly in their house, but how could they not know the origin of this skeleton?
He tried to sort out his thoughts, but he couldn't connect the various events into a coherent whole.
Tang Zhou stood up and wandered aimlessly around the courtyard. Sure enough, he saw Yan Dan sitting by the lotus pond, having somehow obtained a handful of fish food, which she threw into the pond. The fish wagged their tails and swam over to snatch it.
He walked over and stood next to Yan Dan.
Yan Dan fed the fish for a while, then asked with a smile, "Do you believe I can understand what the fish are saying?"
She had said that when she entered the cemetery. Tang Zhou was fairly certain that she spoke a mix of truth and lies, and at least half of her statements were unbelievable. For example, if one sentence was just a casual remark, then the next one would definitely have some truth to it, the next one might be the truth, and the last one would certainly be fabricated. Unless he had lost his mind, he wouldn't take every single word she said seriously.
Yan Dan sighed and said softly, "You really don't believe me. You don't believe I can understand fish, but you believe someone can understand bird language. That's really strange."
These words hit the nail on the head. Tang Zhou remained calm and said indifferently, "Miss Shen is more trustworthy than you, and besides, some people may have extraordinary talents."
"These two Miss Shen are twin sisters, and I think they are the most dissimilar sisters in the world. Even someone who has just met them can tell at a glance who is the older sister and who is the younger sister. As far as I know, twin sisters don't usually have such different personalities unless their circumstances are very different, but they have been together since they were little."
These words are probably the truth. Tang Zhou nodded: "You seem to know quite a lot."
Yan Dan said with a distant expression, "Because I also have a sister who looks almost exactly like me, and many people mistake her for someone else."
Tang Zhou said calmly, "Even if they look alike, there will still be differences."
“Yes, everyone likes her. They look the same, but she looks so noble and gentle. When you talk to her, you don’t want to joke, you just want to tell the truth.” Yan Dan closed her eyes slightly. “But there will still be people who mistake her for someone else. Everyone will mistake me for her, but no one will ever mistake her for me.”
Tang Zhou was taken aback. From the time he met her until now, he had never seen her care about anything particularly. Putting himself in her shoes, he would also find it unbearable; no one would willingly be someone else's shadow. Yan Dan then reached out her hand: "If you really pity me, then remove this restriction."
Tang Zhou looked at her and said slowly, "I am a sister who sympathizes with you, yet someone still mistakes you for her."
Yan Dan smiled slightly, her bright eyes and white teeth revealing her beauty: "There's nothing we can do about that. But judging from the current situation, you might have a chance to see her a hundred years from now. I'm afraid you'll feel even more sorry for her then, since she has the same face as me." She tossed the last bit of fish food into the lotus pond, her robes fluttering, making her look like a fairy from afar.
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