Chapter 1: Midnight Ghost Wailing

  "Hey little brother, listen..." A voice sounded in Long Xuelan's ear from the horse stable.

  She opened her sleepy eyes and saw Zhang Liu's face, filled with terror in the dim light of the dark night.

  She turned her face away, rubbed her eyes a couple of times, and the dry grass under her made a rustling sound.

  The day before, she had traveled a long distance to Jinling, but all the inns in the capital were fully booked. To avoid the wind and snow, she had no choice but to take shelter in the horse stable of this Donglai Inn, where Zhang Liu was the stable boy!

  Seeing him so uneasy, Long Xuelan could only comfort him by saying: "That's just the sound of wind and snow!"

  "No, there's another sound in the wind and snow!" Ma Liu said very affirmatively, his eyes wide open, his gaze directed towards where he heard the sound.

  Long Xilan certainly heard the woman's crying in the wind and snow, but at this midnight hour, with goose feather-like snow still falling outside, whose woman would be crying on the wall?

  "Zhang, you misheard! That's just the wind!" Long Xilan didn't move, three-tenths of his sleepiness had already gone.

  Zhang Liu shook his head, his face suddenly changed, and he muttered anxiously: "She's calling my name... she's calling my name..."

  Long Yilan saw this and secretly called out that it was bad, immediately crawling up from the grass pile, blocking Zhang Liu's front, "Brother Zhang, calm down a bit!"

  Zhang Liu's mind was muddled, and he suddenly flipped her over, shouting: "She's calling my name!"

  As he spoke, he rolled and crawled out of the stable, rushing towards the back door of the inn.

  Long Xilan got up from the ground, not wanting to intervene in such trivial matters. However, he thought of his conversation with Zhang Liu last night, where Zhang mentioned that he had a 70-year-old mother and two young children at home. If something were to happen to him, wouldn't the old lady and children be left helpless?

  As she thought of this, her eyes gazed up at the night sky where snowflakes were falling continuously. She quickly followed the footprints on the ground and went out of the inn, only to see Zhang Liu wearing a deep blue thick cotton-padded jacket, crouching by the wall and shivering with fear.

  Long Xilan's footsteps suddenly slowed down, her eyes fixed motionlessly on that back figure.

  A moment later, her eyes gleamed with a fierce light as she asked in a clear voice: "On the night of the Clear and Bright Moon, with the Bodhi universe above and below, seeing through everything inside and out, nothing is not obedient. What kind of little demon are you? Report your name!"

  Zhang Liu's body stiffened as soon as he heard her question, and he began to convulse.

  She walked quickly over, repeating what she had just said. Zhang Liu's asthma became even more severe, but he stood up straight nonetheless.

  Long Xilan thought, good, still a fierce ghost!

  He walked over and pressed down on the other person's shoulder: "Dust returns to dust, earth returns to earth. Since you're already dead, you shouldn't be lingering in the mortal world, staining the living. I order you to leave quickly!"

  But unexpectedly, Zhang Liu, who was grasped by her shoulder, suddenly turned around, swung his arm and pushed her hand away, with a sharp and resentful cry: "I won't be satisfied!"

  Is this the female ghost who was crying on the wall just now?

  "Despicable!" At the same time as Long Xilan spat out a mouthful of cold air, a yellow talisman paper popped out from his sleeve and instantly stuck to Zhang Liu's forehead.

  After Zhang Liu let out a terrified scream from his mouth, he fell to the snowy ground, but a red shadow sprang out of his body and ran towards the intersection at the corner of the street.

  Long Xilan didn't even bother to look at Zhang Liu lying on the ground anymore, and when she saw that the female ghost was wearing a red dress when she died, she thought that her resentment must be extremely heavy. If it wasn't handled properly, there would definitely be more trouble. Without any hesitation, she ran wildly in the snowy field, chasing after the red-dressed female ghost.

  The city of Beijing was quiet and deserted after curfew, and on this pursuit, they didn't meet a single person.

  They chased to the front of a government mansion, and then the shadow of that female ghost was gone. Xilan saw that the door plaque was engraved with "Ji Fu", thinking that it must be a high-ranking official in the imperial court, otherwise this mansion would not have been built so grandly.

  It's also because of that female ghost being so fierce, this place with such a strong aura of death, ordinary small ghosts can't even get in.

  She hesitated for a moment and decided to go in and take a look. She found a wall that was easy to climb and flipped over it.

  As soon as she stepped into the mansion, her eyes scanned the interior and sensed that something was amiss.

  At this hour, people should be in deep sleep, but in the Yue manor, a black shadow was floating in the backyard. Xilan hid behind a tree and heard a cold male voice ask: "Where is the corpse?"

  "Just stop in the backyard!" Another male voice replied softly.

  "This corpse cannot be seen by people!"

  Sister Suo Miao

  Pen Pavilion

  Tong Ling Shi Xi Lan

  "But..."

  "There's no but!" The two people's identities should be master and servant, yet the one making the decision is resolute and stubborn, necessarily having a reason they want to hide.

  The two of them immediately went to the place where the body was placed, Long Xilan was afraid of being discovered, so she didn't go over, but when the two left, she quietly came to the place where the body was placed.

  Just now, she heard the man order to burn the corpse, and she was certain that the corpse was the red-clothed female ghost she had seen earlier. It seemed that it was a wrongful death, and the soul must be lingering around its own body.

  Long Xilan walked through the stone gate, down the stone steps, and abruptly untied the white cloth wrapped around the corpse, wanting to investigate the cause of the woman's death. However, when that pale greenish face appeared under the night lamp, it startled her so much that she sat down on the stone step behind her with a thud.

  "How could this be? How could this be?" she muttered in disbelief.

  Long Xilan, as the only heir of the ancient Long family's law, had seen countless gruesome corpses, but this one made her face change color in shock!