The story of Lingren Village had come to an end.
What followed was the Supernatural Administration Bureau’s work: shutting down unscrupulous media accounts, educating and guiding certain netizens, and so on. These would take some time. It was worth noting that the government planned to build a Martyrs’ Memorial Hall in Lingren Village, which would drive the village’s economic development for a long time to come.
As long as the local villagers made good use of this, even if the land wasn’t suitable for growing grain, they could still earn a living, no longer worrying about food and clothing.
After fulfilling Xi Jueyun’s last wish, there was still time before the high-speed train departed. Shen Xiaoxiao suggested they play by the sea for a while.
“Summer’s almost over, and I haven’t been to the beach yet this year.”
“Let’s stay a bit longer, then,” Jiang Yan replied.
Jiang Yan was wearing sportswear today. To avoid getting her long pants dirty, she looked around and went to a roadside stall to pick out a pair of beach shorts.
After much deliberation, she picked up a pair of loose red shorts. “This one will do.”
“Are you all buying too?”
“We are, but…”
Shen Xiaoxiao eyed the shorts Jiang Yan had chosen and tentatively said, “Sister Jiang Yan, aren’t you going to reconsider? These are bright red plaid—bright red plaid!”
Jiang Yan gestured at the stall. “Can you find anything better looking?”
Shen Xiaoxiao followed Jiang Yan’s gaze and revealed an expression of realization. The shorts at this stall seemed designed to blind the entire summer, aiming to be the most eye-catching on the beach.
Pingping, who was picking out shorts, looked speechless. A few minutes later, she reluctantly picked up a pair of blue-green plaid. “…Is it really necessary to go to the beach?”
Yu Renwan held up a pair of red-and-yellow striped shorts. “We’ve got nothing else to do anyway.”
“Let’s go have a look?”
Pingping glanced at her disdainfully. “Your shorts look like tomato and scrambled eggs.”
Shen Huanhuan smiled gently, holding up her own pair of dark green gradient shorts. She asked Pingping, “What do these look like?”
Pingping: “Garlic scapes stir-fried with chives.”
Shen Xiaoxiao immediately showed off her black and gold leopard-print shorts. “Look at mine!”
Pingping’s tone was utterly flat. “That doesn’t deserve a dish name.”
“It’s leopard print! And you still dare to speak? I’m going to report you for plotting against protected animals.”
Shen Xiaoxiao pouted. “…But I think they look like black abalone stir-fried with pumpkin.”
“What a terrible combination. Those words are terrifying.”
After saying that, Pingping stepped back in disgust, as if afraid Shen Xiaoxiao’s taste would contaminate her.
Shen Xiaoxiao’s mouth drooped.
But according to the law of conservation of smiles, a smile never disappears; it only transfers.
Before Jiang Yan could subtly curve her lips, Pingping looked straight at her and said crisply, “Don’t you laugh. You two are equally bad.”
“What’s the difference between those red plaid shorts and a giant peony bedsheet?” She answered herself, “No difference. They’re both tacky.”
Jiang Yan smiled. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, you don’t have to say anything.”
“I’ll say it anyway, just to annoy you.”
With that, Pingping flicked her low ponytail and was the first to slip into the makeshift changing room the stall owner had set up with curtains.
Shen Xiaoxiao muttered, “Her pick isn’t any better looking.”
Shen Huanhuan kept smiling, as if she really enjoyed the lively bickering.
Jiang Yan hadn’t planned to say more, but thinking of Pingping calling her tacky, she said, sounding casual, “She thinks her choice looks great, and she’s the one who wants to go to the beach most—she can barely hold back from running over.”
After a pause, she continued, “When she comes out, she’ll first check herself in the mirror, then urge us to hurry up and change. If we’re too slow, she’ll suggest going to the beach ahead of us because she can’t wait.”
Two minutes later, Pingping came out of the changing room.
She didn’t notice everyone sneaking glances at her. She quickly checked herself in the mirror.
“Good enough.”
Then, as if realizing something, she pointed at the changing room. “Why are you all still standing there? Hurry up and get changed!”
“So annoying. You’re the ones who wanted to go, but you’re dragging your feet.”
Shen Xiaoxiao, holding her chosen shorts, made to enter. Pingping glanced at her, then at Shen Huanhuan, and urged, “Aren’t you two twins? Nothing to be shy about—go in together, hurry up!”
Shen Huanhuan, stifling her laughter, pushed her sister into the changing room with her.
The corners of Pingping’s mouth twitched up slightly.
Yu Renwan took a deep breath. To keep herself from laughing, she silently turned away.
Half a minute later, Pingping’s bossy voice came from behind her. “It’s too sunny here. I’m going to the beach to cool off. Remember to find me later.”
“You’re all such a hassle.”
Pingping’s attempts to act cool seemed like she was performing for some kind of achievement score. After saying that, she pulled a pair of children’s sunglasses from her backpack, put them on, and strode off toward the beach on her short legs.
Yu Renwan: “……”
Jiang Yan shrugged. “See?”
Shen Xiaoxiao poked her head out of the changing room, her face red from holding back laughter. Now that Pingping was gone, she finally burst out laughing. “Hahaha, going to the beach to cool off—hahaha—”
After laughing enough, she lowered her voice and asked Jiang Yan:
“Sister Jiang Yan, you’re amazing. Is your ability precognition?”
Jiang Yan shook her head. “I can see people’s desires in physical form.”
Shen Xiaoxiao blinked in confusion.
She’d always thought Jiang Yan could break through energy fields purely because of her powerful yao abilities, never considering her actual power. Now that Jiang Yan mentioned it, she didn’t quite get it, but Shen Huanhuan grew more serious.
She quickly understood how Jiang Yan’s ability worked, pulled Shen Xiaoxiao back into the changing room, and then came out herself, fully dressed.
She quietly reminded Jiang Yan:
“It’s fine to tell us, but Sister Jiang Yan, you must keep this ability secret.”
Jiang Yan replied casually, “Some of the Bureau’s higher-ups probably already know.”
“Just make sure you’re never threatened by them. Don’t let yourself be used,” Shen Huanhuan emphasized. “Don’t let anyone use you for their own ends.”
Jiang Yan smiled.
The sunlight fell on her face, giving her smile a gentle warmth.
“Of course.”
*
After playing at the beach for more than two hours, the group boarded the high-speed train back to Jiangcheng.
Pingping had enjoyed herself thoroughly. As soon as she got on the train, she yawned and closed her eyes, content.
A few minutes later, her head lolled drowsily onto Jiang Yan’s shoulder.
Jiang Yan lowered her gaze, took out her phone, and started scrolling through the news.
Shen Xiaoxiao saw this and texted her sister: “I feel like Sister Jiang Yan is even better than before.”
“She was always great, but now she seems even better, hehe.”
Shen Huanhuan: “We went through Cangnan Funeral Home together, didn’t we?”
She shared her own discovery: “When Pingping used her power, we remembered everything. I saw lots of scenes in my mind—some I’d really experienced, others were details I hadn’t noticed at the time.”
“In the funeral home, Sister Jiang Yan always subconsciously kept her hand in her pocket, sometimes for a long time, never taking it out,” Shen Xiaoxiao typed seriously. “She never used to do that. I thought about it and figured it out.”
“That time-related rune was always in Sister Jiang Yan’s pocket.”
“She must have subconsciously doubted the way the energy field worked, so she was always ready to save someone.”
Shen Xiaoxiao: “QAQ”
“Otter tears.jpg”
“Sister Jiang Yan is so good. I’ll love her forever, wuwuwu.”
By the time they returned to Jiangcheng, it was already evening. As soon as Jiang Yan got home, she collapsed on the sofa.
After resting for a while, she dragged herself up to make dinner. When she opened the fridge, it was full of fresh vegetables, neatly sliced and packed homemade toast, tiramisu in little boxes, and sandwiches stuffed with chicken thigh and mashed potatoes.
Each package had a sticky note and a little peach blossom.
“Sister, this will last three days. It might not taste great, but it’ll get better in the future.”
“Left on 8.17.”
It seemed Mu Wang had started experimenting with desserts.
Jiang Yan took out all kinds of sweets and decided not to cook. She rummaged through the big bag by the door, took out the fried ribs, braised meats, and crispy pork that the psychics had stuffed in that morning, then cut up a watermelon.
Once everything was ready, Jiang Yan started watching a horror movie.
This meal lasted a full hour. Sated and comfortable, Jiang Yan stretched her shoulders, pushed the table away, and relaxed, out of sight and out of mind.
Cleaning up was too much work. Better to just keep lying down.
But just as she lay down, her phone chimed with a “ding-dong.”
It was probably the group chat. Jiang Yan opened the messages, and sure enough, Shen Xiaoxiao had just sent a six-second voice message.
Jiang Yan played it. Shen Xiaoxiao’s shocked voice came through—
“Girls, insider news, insider news—something big happened in Jin Chuan!!”
Shen Huanhuan spoke up: “Don’t listen to her. It’s not insider news—lots of psychics know already.”
“This afternoon, a psychic went back to his hometown in Jin Chuan and suddenly found that everyone in his family’s fate had improved a bit. At first, he thought maybe they’d done something good, like a big donation or rescuing animals, but that wasn’t it.”
“Then he noticed the neighbors’ fate had improved too. Even though the improvement was minor, any rise in fate is a good thing.”
“Because it was so strange, he reported it to the Bureau right away. When the higher-ups got the news, they sent someone over immediately. They found out it was because of the mountain collapse.”
Jiang Yan didn’t quite get it: “What does that have to do with the mountain collapsing?”
Shen Huanhuan explained seriously: “There was an imperial tomb inside that barren mountain.”
“This morning, a construction crew hit a mechanism outside the tomb while working. The mechanism blew up half the mountain. Luckily, no one was killed—at worst, a few days in the hospital.”
“Maybe the mechanism designer messed up, because the explosion not only blew off the mountaintop, it also blasted open the entrance to the imperial tomb. The dragon qi inside—the purest form of spiritual energy or yao energy—started pouring out, able to rush into all living things, cleanse their bodies, and raise their fate.”
“Most imperial tombs have this effect when unearthed, but such a large-scale fate boost has never happened before. So now, tons of psychics are flocking to Jin Chuan to soak up the dragon qi.”
Jiang Yan certainly knew the effects of dragon qi—after all, she was a direct beneficiary of the Empress’s tomb.
Her true form had once been placed right on the dragon’s head of the ley line. After a thousand years of immersion, her lifespan had increased by three thousand years. But the longer it went on, the slower the gains, so she couldn’t just rely on that to extend her life.
Shen Xiaoxiao suggested in the group: “Should we go join the fun too?”
Yu Renwan hesitated: “Better not… The fate boost seems really short—at most two weeks?”
Shen Xiaoxiao: “Think of it as two lucky weeks for free!”
Yu Renwan was instantly tempted.
She was only not unlucky now; she still wasn’t lucky. She asked Jiang Yan, “Jiang Jiang, are you going?”
Jiang Yan: “No.”
Yu Renwan immediately: “What a coincidence, I’m not going either.”
Pingping: “Rolling eyes.jpg”
She sent a picture to the group: “Got this photo of the tomb from my senior—don’t share it.”
“It looks pretty unusual. The tomb door’s mechanism is just one sentence. Now all the archaeology experts are at their wits’ end. They don’t dare force their way in, but they can’t answer the question either.”
Shen Xiaoxiao opened the photo and exited in three seconds: “What is that? Are those symbols supposed to be writing? I thought it was a drawing…”
Pingping confirmed, “I heard it’s the Jiang royal family’s internal script, used for passing down secrets.”
“Some experts have roughly translated it, but the answer is always wrong.”
When she saw the Jiang royal script in the picture, Jiang Yan quickly opened the photo.
The kind of writing that took several experts working together to decipher was all too familiar to her.
On the tall bronze door, there was only one sentence:
[In the Battle of Sanhuai, who was the Jiang general that led a hundred men into the fray and was finally buried in the snowy mountains?]
The answer was clearly recorded in the history books.
Yao Shi’an.
But the real answer was known to only a handful.
It was Jiang Chixi.
The second Empress in Jiang’s history, she abdicated at forty-five to the crown princess, and then, for the sake of her childhood dream, donned heavy armor and went to war herself, personally winning a century of peace for Jiang.
After her death, her body was secretly returned to the imperial mausoleum. She left the chance for fame in the annals of history to the general who died of illness on the march—her close friend, Yao Shi’an.
Shen Xiaoxiao speculated in the group: “There were five generations of Empresses in Jiang. This tomb must belong to someone other than the Red Creek Empress, right?”
Pingping: “Probably.”
Jiang Yan lowered her eyes and spoke up in the group: “I’ll go to Jin Chuan tomorrow.”
A thousand years later, she was the only one alive who knew this secret.
So Jiang Yan had a feeling there was something in that tomb that belonged to her.
Her relationship with Jiang Chixi was complicated. If the other had really left something for her, she had to go and claim it.