Chapter 15: The Tables Have Turned

“Let me see my mother!”

The youth lay prostrate on the ground, head slightly raised, reaching out with trembling hands to grasp at someone's legs.

He raised his hands, but they ultimately landed only upon the embroidered shoes edged with silver thread.

“I beg you...”

The boy's tone was humble, as if he had been trampled into the mud, exuding a sense of broken misery.

Song Lan froze for a moment.

This was far too different from the demon of her past life—the one who only dared to vent the frustrations he suffered at the Zhang family through fists and kicks against her, a fragile woman.

Song Lan sneered.

It seemed that the beasts of this world, during their infancy, inevitably carried a hint of pitiful cuteness to entice people's soft hearts and trade for a glimmer of survival.

“Trading your life for it?”

Song Lan’s voice hesitated for two breaths.

“Yes.”

The youth was weak, yet exceptionally firm, answering with absolute certainty.

Song Lan let out a cold snort.

However, she did not break her word. With a lift of her hand, a sudden yin wind rose. A somewhat dazed and tranquil woman looked around in confusion, eyeing her surroundings as if they seemed somewhat familiar.

“Tian'er?”

When Liu Yueniang's gaze fell upon the youth, her confusion dissipated slightly, and she floated toward him in joy.

“Mother, Mother!”

The boy scrambled up unsteadily, reaching out to pull her into his arms to express his longing, but caught nothing but air, stumbling forward from the momentum.

“Mother?”

“Tian'er!”

The two tried to touch each other again, only to miss once more.

Liu Yueniang's soul passed directly through the boy's body.

“She is already dead.”

“You cannot touch her.”

Song Lan had no patience for this display of maternal affection and interrupted their time-wasting behavior.

“Liu Yueniang, your life force in the living realm is gone. If you have any unfinished words, say them quickly.”

She glanced at the youth, who was clenching his fists in resentment, and chuckled softly. “Any later, and the ghost messengers sent to collect you will be chasing you down.”

“I can't fight off those fierce and sinister ghost messengers.”

For some reason, the boy did not believe her words.

Not only was he not afraid of the arrival of the ghost messengers, but he felt a faint sense of anticipation.

“Tian'er!”

Liu Yueniang seemed to finally awaken from her state of chaotic consciousness.

Looking at her son, who was so close yet untouchable, she gradually understood something.

Before she could speak, tears fell.

“Tian'er!” Liu Yueniang cried out his name sorrowfully, her voice laced with endless attachment and worry.

She said apologetically, “It is Mother's uselessness. I could not give you a better background, nor a better life.”

“I couldn't even find a decent teacher for you, wasting so many of your years.”

“It is Mother who has been a burden to you...”

As Liu Yueniang spoke, she began to weep mournfully again.

“But they promised me. From now on, once you enter the Zhang estate, you will be a legitimate child of status. You won't have to follow a mother like me who cannot show her face in public, and they will hire the best teachers for you.”

Hearing this, the boy interrupted with reddened eyes, “Mother!”

“I won't allow you to speak of yourself that way! You are my mother, not something 'unfit for public view'!”

“Earning our own food and clothing with our own hands is no shame!”

“We don't need them to trample on us with their charity and pity!”

“Even without famous teachers, I can still make a name for myself, pass the imperial examinations, and bring you honor!”

Liu Yueniang only shook her head incessantly, her tears falling even harder.

“It won't work, it won't work! Tian'er! Listen to Mother. Go back with them. They promised, they all promised!”

“You cannot not go back. If you don't, they won't let you take the exams smoothly.”

“They will break your legs, break your hands, and then ruin your face.”

Liu Yueniang's eyes gradually turned red, and several wisps of black gas seeped from her pale gray soul, making her spirit much more solid.

She kept murmuring "it won't work, it won't work," unable to even attend to the boy calling her name before her.

“Mother?”

“What's wrong? Mother!”

The boy's voice grew urgent, filled with panic.

“What is wrong with my mother? Why does she seem unable to see me, or even recognize me?”

He looked toward Song Lan, treating her as his last straw.

Song Lan did not like the way he looked at her.

As if she could save them.

“Her soul is tainted by the turbid air of the mortal realm, and her obsessions have been lured out. When the moon reaches its zenith and the yin energy thickens, she will transform into a vengeful ghost.”

Song Lan smiled. “Come to think of it, if she becomes a vengeful ghost, she can stay by your side forever and continue to be your mother.”

The boy's eyes instantly flashed with light.

“However, you must be careful. If you encounter a high cultivator, they will inevitably capture her, or even refine her.”

“That would mean eternal damnation, never to be reincarnated.”

The light in the boy's eyes instantly dimmed.

Soon, he grew frantic again, his eyes full of panic.

“I beg you, save my mother.”

“No... don't let her become a vengeful ghost.”

He hesitated with a hint of reluctance, but finally turned his head away and said through gritted teeth, “Let her ascend to paradise early and enter the cycle of reincarnation.”

As his words fell, the tears at the corners of his eyes followed.

Song Lan let out a "Heh." “If you want me to help her, can you afford the price? And what do you have to pay with?”

Like a ghost, though she remained stationary, her voice drifted around his ears: “Don't forget, you just pledged your life to me.”

“I beg you...”

The boy's voice trembled.

“Beg me?” Song Lan seemed to have heard a hilarious joke. She sneered several times, then bit out the words that this person in front of her most frequently said to her in her past life: “What kind of thing are you? How much is a single word of 'begging' worth?”

Once upon a time, she had also been this lowly, begging the person before her to let her go.

But aside from cold mockery, insults, and verbal abuse, all she had received in return were more fists, kicks, and torn flesh!

Now, the tables had turned.

Begging her?

Heh!

How ironic, how truly hilarious!

Yan Jun, who was searching for the source of the resentment but had become lost within it, felt a sudden headache as he watched the resentment around them grow even denser, nearly turning into a physical substance.

Why has the resentment become even, even, even heavier?!

Who on earth is provoking this little goddess!

***

“I beg you, I beg you...”

The boy clenched his fists in humiliation, his voice hoarse as he knelt on the ground, pleading with the utmost humility.

He wanted to offer a higher, better stake, but he had nothing except his life.

And even his life had just been pledged.

“Please, save my mother.”

He kowtowed repeatedly, seemingly hoping to evoke even a shred of her compassion.

Song Lan sneered.

Just as she was about to offer a few cold, mocking words as she had in her past life—

Suddenly, a gust of yin wind roared, and the fallen leaves around them were swept into the air.

Liu Yueniang, who had been trapped by obsession and was on the verge of becoming a vengeful ghost, suddenly saw her soul return to a grayish-white state. She looked toward the direction of the rising yin wind with a terrified expression.

Realizing something was wrong, the boy scrambled up in a panic, shielding her.

As the thick mist dispersed, the Black Impermanence had not yet arrived, but his voice preceded him.

“Who is so bold as to obstruct the Soul-Locking of the Underworld—”

(End of Chapter)