Chapter 3: 第3章 勾错了魂！

After hearing his daughter’s words, Gu Lianshan remained silent for a long while. He didn’t say he would change his mind, nor did he say he wouldn’t. Instead, his tone shifted as he asked, "Why did you suddenly think of letting Ping'an go to school?"

Gu Tang paused. Could she say this was one of the original owner’s dying wishes?

Gu Tang had originally been a freelancer living in the twenty-first century. While out shopping and riding a bus, she had encountered a god-forsaken old man.

Just because he had missed his stop while chatting with someone, he insisted on forcing the driver to turn the bus around, resulting in everyone on board meeting their end!

After dying, a dazed Gu Tang arrived at the underworld, only to be told by the Judge that the soul-reaping envoy, for the sake of convenience, had accidentally snuffed her out along with the others when she was supposed to have survived!

Gu Tang was so furious at the time that she sat at the entrance of the Hall of Yama and wailed, making it impossible for the entire underworld to have a moment of peace.

In the end, fearing that the commotion would disturb the Empress Houtu, King Yama opened a back door for Gu Tang, allowing her to borrow a corpse to return to life.

Gu Tang wasn't so easily dismissed.

She had been living a perfectly good life, only to be forced to take a trip to the underworld and then borrow someone else’s corpse to return—she found it utterly repulsive!

Therefore, she demanded compensation!

To get rid of Gu Tang, this hot potato, King Yama paid a heavy price, allowing her to enter the underworld treasury and choose one treasure to take with her.

Gu Tang picked and chose among the many treasures, selecting one that caught her eye. Only after binding it did she realize it was a golden finger—a "Sign-in System!"

She was barely satisfied.

Afterward, Gu Tang followed the Judge to find the "corpse" she was to inhabit.

As it turned out, she ran into that bastard soul-reaping envoy again on the Naihe Bridge, where he was busy fighting with another envoy.

Gu Tang was truly unlucky; the two envoys were locked in a fierce struggle, and she didn't know which one of them kicked out, but the blow sent her flying straight into the Reincarnation Pool.

Gu Tang’s soul bore a mark placed by King Yama, intended to help her refine her new body once she borrowed it, turning the "borrowed" state into a "natural" one to prevent any cultivators from noticing the traces of soul-possession.

Because of this, Gu Tang, having fallen into the Reincarnation Pool, could not reincarnate. She was squeezed out of the pool as a soul, becoming a wandering ghost.

That would have been bad enough, but when she wandered around and finally found humans, she discovered she had transmigrated to ancient times.

Not long after, she met the original owner, "Gu Tang," in the mountains.

The original owner shared the same name as Gu Tang. She was just thirteen years old, a young girl with a delicate face.

When Gu Tang found her, she was hanging on by a single breath.

As for the cause of death, it wasn't illness or foul play, but that her natural lifespan had reached its end.

Although the girl hadn't completely breathed her last, the aura of death had permeated her, allowing her to see Gu Tang.

Upon learning that Gu Tang was going to take over her body, the girl felt no resentment. Instead, realizing that Gu Tang was not from this world, she immediately knelt and kowtowed three times.

The girl asked for nothing else; she only begged that if Gu Tang had the ability, she would reach out and help her father and younger brother. As for the others, she didn't care.

After saying this, she voluntarily handed over the silver she had hidden away, asking Gu Tang to help persuade her father to send her younger brother, Gu Ping'an, to school.

Don't let the girl's young age fool you; she had apprenticed under a medicinal herb gatherer since she was small. From the age of seven or eight, she had been running around the mountains gathering herbs, secretly saving up several taels of silver behind her family's back.

The girl hadn't hidden the silver for any other reason than to send her little brother to school, hoping he could earn the title of a *tongsheng*.

That way, as the sister of a *tongsheng*, she would surely be held in higher regard at the Gu household, rather than being picked on, scolded, and beaten all day long.

Now that she was dying, once her body was occupied by Gu Tang, she would still be "her" in the eyes of outsiders, so she begged Gu Tang to help fulfill her wish.

When the girl spoke of this, the whites of her eyes turned black; clearly, this had become her obsession. If it weren't fulfilled, she feared she would turn into a vengeful spirit.

Gu Tang’s heart softened, and she agreed.

No sooner had she agreed than the girl breathed her last. After her soul left her body, the girl tore off a piece of her own soul and shoved it into Gu Tang’s soul without a word.

Having "eaten" a portion of the girl's soul, the possession went very smoothly. The flesh sensed the familiar soul fluctuations and naturally accepted Gu Tang.

The mark King Yama had left on her soul went unused; it flickered a few times, turned into golden stardust, and vanished into the body.

Intuition told Gu Tang that this golden light was a good thing. She ran through the girl’s soul, letting some of the golden light rub off onto it, which quickly mended the missing parts.

Sensing Gu Tang’s intention, the girl was very grateful. She knelt and kowtowed three more times before walking along the path to the underworld that had appeared behind her.

Gu Tang was willing to honor her promises as long as she had the capacity to do so.

Today, taking advantage of the fact that her father had been drinking, she seized the opportunity to bring up the matter of Gu Ping'an’s schooling.

But this reason had to be buried deep in her heart; she could never say it, not even to her dying day!

After thinking for a moment, Gu Tang decided to let the Gu family’s eldest branch take the blame. In any case, in her memories, the girl had suffered plenty of torment from them.

"My heart was hurt by the eldest aunt. The day before yesterday, she asked me to wash the eldest cousin’s undergarments. I didn't want to, and the eldest aunt said that since the cousin would marry a scholar in the future, it was an honor for me to wash her clothes!"

Gu Lianshan’s face darkened.

Gu Tang continued, "I was thinking, if our branch could also produce a scholar, would I be able to hold my head high in front of my cousin?"

These words truly pierced Gu Lianshan’s heart. "Don't listen to your eldest aunt’s nonsense! That woman has always had a crooked heart; just treat her words like wind!"

"Whether her heart is crooked or it’s just wind, I can’t forget those words. I just want to let Ping'an try."

"What if? Ping'an has always been sharp. Even though he’s young, he has a sense of order in everything he says and does. Father, I want to let Ping'an try. At worst, I’ll provide the silver."

Gu Lianshan clenched his fists, his heart feeling heavy and pained. "Raising a scholar is no simple matter. The medicinal herbs you find in the mountains every day... even if you sold them at a markup, it wouldn't be enough..."

Gu Tang didn't speak.

Those herbs weren't ginseng or lingzhi; how much could they be worth? Even adding the original owner’s private savings wouldn't be enough!

What was truly valuable were the items she received from her daily sign-ins.

Over these thirty days, her daily sign-ins had yielded twenty taels of silver, fifteen points, ten deer hides, five sheepskins, a bolt of silk, a bolt of satin, a bolt of fine silk, and a bolt of gauze, among other things.

When she sold the sheepskins today, she had specifically asked about the price of deer hides. A deer hide in perfect condition could sell for about two or three taels of silver.

If it were a fine sika deer, it would be another tael or two more expensive.

The system rewards happened to be sika deer hides, with beautiful, uniform spots—they were perfect, and could sell for at least four taels each.

Ten of them would be forty taels. Added to the twenty taels from the sign-ins, that was sixty taels of silver.

With these sixty taels, the books and the tuition fees were covered; the other expenses weren't that large.

The only thing was that she had to find a way to make the source of this silver look legitimate.

Gu Tang calculated in her heart. Seeing her father lost in thought, she assumed he was worried about the money and wanted to offer a few words of comfort.

(End of chapter)