Chapter 59: Bai Ma’s Life (1) “It is this kind of bad bamboo that produces good…
Bai Ma asked Si Ling with a smile: "Is the Ghost Academy fun?"
"Hmm..." Si Ling's experience made her feel like she had lost interest in the place. After careful consideration, she could only say, "It's a very rich place, and you can encounter many ghosts and monsters that you won't find in the East."
"Then I can try." Bai Ma agreed easily.
Si Ling was speechless: "You can think about it more."
"If I don't like it, I can always drop out, right?" Bai Ma shrugged. "If I belong to the Eastern Underworld, Lucifer can't force me to stay, right?"
"That's true." Si Ling nodded and looked again at the body lying on the bed in a deep coma.
She walked to the bedside, silently chanted a spell, turned her palm over, connected her fingers, and a ball of light golden mist floated out from between the eyebrows of her physical body.
Zhu Mengwei became wary and stood up suddenly: "What are you doing?!"
"These are her memories from her lifetime." Si Ling continued to cast the spell. "Your mortal world's legends hold that the deceased will forget their past lives after drinking Meng Po soup, but that's not true. At the moment of death, unless someone ascends directly to a Loose Immortal like you did, their memory begins to become confused from the moment their brain dies. More than 90% of ghosts can't clearly describe their lives, but the degree of clarity varies. Some simply can't figure out the chronological order of events, while others can't even remember the names of their most important relatives."
Si Ling paused. "Many ghosts suffer greatly from memory loss. I'll preserve her complete memory first; perhaps it will be useful."
"...Is this true?" Li Qi doubted her words and looked her up and down. "Can a super powerful ghost like you also have memory confusion?"
"Oh, I'm the most extreme type." Si Ling tilted his head and smiled. "I don't remember a single thing about my life, including my name."
Li Qi was stunned: "Then 'Si Ling' is..."
"I took it for myself after I died."
“…” Both the man and the two immortals fell silent.
Bai Ma is an open-minded and carefree person. She was about to say, "Just forget it. Why should a ghost care so much?" But after hearing about Si Ling's condition, she felt that it would be a good idea to back up her memory.
After all, if she didn't remember anything...at least at first, would she be living like a fool? What if someone deliberately deceived her? She couldn't hope that only the ghosts she came into contact with were kind, and it would be more reassuring to know that her IQ was normal.
Early in the morning, the sunlight of a new day gently shone into the VIP ward through the light blue curtains. Bai Ma's uncle, whom he had not seen for many years, rushed to the hospital, signed the document to give up treatment without any struggle, and then left.
To mortals, this was a very sad thing. The fortune teller and his wife, who were entrusted by Professor Mimir to take care of Baima, were heartbroken and wept. However, Baima herself didn't think it was a big deal. Her soul floated beside her, and she said calmly, "My parents are dead, so he's the only one who can sign. He and I really have no feelings for each other, so it's strange that he's sad. I'm fine like this now."
Nurses came in and removed the various tubes and wires connected to the monitoring equipment. About 10 minutes later, Baima's body completely lost all vital signs. As her body mechanically exhaled its last breath, a faint glow shone from Baima's spirit. Though it was fleeting, it still startled Baima. "What's going on?" she asked.
"Your connection with your physical body has been completely severed." Si Ling nodded. "You should have realized before that even if your soul left your body, you couldn't leave this ward, right? Now you can move freely."
"Haha, that's great!" Bai Ma's face showed no trace of sadness from having just experienced death. He immediately turned around and floated outside. "Let's go, shall we go to the Ghost Academy now? Next, I'll trouble you seniors to teach me how to be a ghost!"
Li Qi couldn't help but complain: "You don't create any atmosphere at all." As he said this, he and Zhu Mengwei followed her naturally.
Si Ling followed them silently, thinking to himself: If Lucifer didn't become the principal of the Ghost Academy, he would probably be a good businessman.
He was truly a man of calculations. When inviting Bai Ma to the school, he was drawn to Bai Ma's mastery of Eastern magic, including some arcane techniques, and also to Zhu Mengwei and Li Qi, two wandering immortals.
...Although from the perspective of cultivation, Zhu Mengwei and Li Qi's strength is quite weak due to the fact that they have been immortals for too short a time, but immortals are still immortals, and it is enough to raise the status of the Ghost Academy.
But if he had invited Zhu Mengwei and Li Qi directly, they would have refused without hesitation. A wandering immortal is still an immortal, holding a high position within the Three Eastern Realms. As long as they didn't commit acts that would incur divine wrath, they could live freely and unfettered. There was absolutely no reason for them to come to the Ghost Academy. Moreover, if they wanted, they could find a way to track down Bai Ma's spirit. Even if Bai Ma were reincarnated, they could continue to protect her life.
But it would be different if Bai Ma entered the Ghost Academy - just like now, Zhu Mengwei and Li Qi followed her to the Ghost Academy as a matter of course, and didn't think there was anything wrong with it.
A quarter of an hour later, Si Ling brought them into Lingbo City.
It was the first time for all three of them to visit this place, but Zhu Mengwei and Li Qi had previously visited some cities in the immortal realm, so Lingbo City didn't seem new to them. Bai Ma, on the other hand, was excited by everything she saw. While walking through a snack street, she knew she didn't have Hell's currency, but she couldn't resist. She borrowed some money from Si Ling and ate from one end of the street to the other.
Si Ling was quite surprised by her current state. When she first met Bai Ma, she was elegant in her evening gown, and then she quickly displayed composure and a high IQ. Thinking about Bai Ma's past of overcoming obstacles at a top university, Si Ling found it hard to reconcile her current excited state with her.
But no matter what, it's good to be happy, whether you are a human or a ghost.
The next day's breakfast was the first time Bai Ma appeared publicly in front of the goblins of the Goblin Academy. Her cultural identity made her naturally choose to sit with Si Ling and the others. Together with Li Qi and Zhu Mengwei, the table for six was just full.
Si Ling and Xuan Chi sat facing each other on the left, Li Qi and Zhu Mengwei sat facing each other on the right, with Bai Ma and A Zhui sitting in the middle. Everyone ate their own food. Si Ling always liked to think about other things while eating, and even ignored the movements around him.
Suddenly she heard Bai Ma ask, "Do you have something to say to me?"
Si Ling looked closely and saw Bai Ma staring at A Zhu. A Zhu hurriedly lowered his head and coughed awkwardly.
Bai Ma acted very easy to talk to: "It's okay, just tell me, what's wrong?"
"Hmm..." Ah Zhui pondered for a moment, and awkwardly laid the groundwork, "Well... I'm just asking. If you don't want to tell me, just pretend I didn't ask?"
Bai Ma smiled and guessed it directly: "Are you trying to ask me what I went through that led me to betray my parents?"
"It's not really a betrayal..." Ah Zhui carefully chose a more pleasant way to put it, "It's just that this kind of bad bamboo can produce good shoots. It's quite magical."
Everyone at the table looked at Bai Ma.
When she was alive, Bai Ma was always reluctant to talk about her experiences. Even Li Qi and Zhu Mengwei were unaware of what happened to her. Si Ling tried to ask about it in the bathroom rules, but she simply brushed him off.
But now she has no worries.
She put down her chopsticks, leaned back in her chair, and after a moment of concentration, she let out a hoarse laugh, "You experienced ghosts should all know what 'dual cultivation' is, right?"
Si Ling was shocked.
Dual cultivation isn't inherently bad. Throughout the three realms of the East, people practice it in pursuit of higher cultivation. However, in the heavenly and terrestrial realms, where everyone is experienced and vulnerable to deception, dual cultivation generally adheres to the principle of mutual consent. In the human world, however, due to the more complex religious culture and social dynamics, this "voluntary" relationship is often tainted with brainwashing, and in some extreme cases, even involves forced violence.
In Gongbu's own religion, monks who, like him, had fled to the Lighthouse Country published books on dual cultivation. Si Ling had come across one, and the book not only described the practice in explicit detail but also mentioned that a significant number of women who participated were between the ages of seven and thirteen. Most of them lived in poverty, and after the practice, they received food or clothing as "rewards," so they were, of course, "voluntarily" participating.
Baima...
Si Ling knew that she was not in poverty, but because of this, she had some more terrifying guesses.
Bai Ma tutted. "I was only eight years old when Gongbu and I started practicing dual cultivation. To appear selfless, he even recruited a few disciples to join us. We were in the temple on the estate—the one that your charred classmate burned down."
Ah Zhui immediately regretted asking, and covered his mouth in a daze for a long time without saying a word.
Bai Ma continued, "I still remember how they coaxed me. They said it would give me 'great wisdom,' that it would make me smarter than other children..." She laughed bitterly, "Children only care about so many things, and at that time, I was truly religious. So when I felt pain... I only suspected that it was my own fault. I questioned if I wasn't devout enough, and I was afraid they would notice my lack of piety, so I did my best to hide the pain."
She took a deep breath. "Looking back now... this might have made these beasts think I was having a 'good time' as well."
“…I’m sorry.” Ah Zhui was confused.
"What are you apologizing for?" Bai Ma looked at her and laughed, shaking his head.
Si Ling asked her, "What about your mother?" In comparison, she was not so surprised that Gongbu did such a bad thing, but was more curious about the delicate mother-daughter relationship between Baima and Dawa.
The behavior of the mother and daughter after they met that night could not be described as "love and hate".
Bai Ma fell into a long silence when she heard her mention her mother. After a long while, she chuckled again: "My mother..." There was a mockery in her laughter, but it was hard to tell whether she was mocking Dawa or herself.
Si Ling saw her lowered gaze gradually solidify, and some memories seemed to solidify like this, and happiness and misfortune turned into the clouds of the past that no longer stirred up sadness or joy.
Her smile also became peaceful, and she told them in the most calm tone possible: "Not long after this incident happened, I don't know how she persuaded Gongbu to smooth over the channels and send me to study in the Porcelain Kingdom."
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