"I have no idea either..." Fei Yangnian said with a bitter look on his face. That had been his reaction too, the first time he heard Wei Zhao's voice just now; only at the time he had been nearly scared stiff by all the spirit beasts, great and small, crowding around him, and so had managed to keep it off his face. Otherwise he would surely have given them away.

"Then... what is this..." Duanmu Yu did not know what to say for a moment either. Wei Zhao's image in her mind was indeed unfathomable, but surely not so unfathomable as this—to hear his voice but see no sign of him, what sort of devilry was that?

"Senior Sister Duanmu, do you think this could be a ghost's spirit manifesting?" Fei Yangnian suddenly asked in a furtive whisper.

"A ghost's spirit manifesting?" Duanmu Yu was startled to hear it, though a look of disdain soon followed. Talk of gods and ghosts had far more currency in the world of cultivation than in the mundane one; many refused to swallow such stuff, true, but the believers were even more numerous. So much in this world was half true and half false—even the foremost authorities of the highest rank could give no clear account of it—and that only hardened the case for the possibility of gods and ghosts.

Naturally, Duanmu Yu did not believe a word of it. Nor was she alone; the great majority of elite cultivators turned up their noses at the notion, for to a cultivator, a ghost was simply a primal spirit.

"It's true!" Fei Yangnian, however, believed it with all his heart, and he spoke as though it were plain fact: "I didn't believe it at first either, but I had no choice—otherwise there's no explaining what happened today at all. Senior Sister Duanmu, do you know how I got in here?"

"How you got in? Was it not because of the Brain-Eating Worm?" Duanmu Yu asked, rather curious.

"Of course not. I've never even heard of any Brain-Eating Worm—every word I spoke just now was fed to me by Senior Wei Zhao, one sentence at a time." Fei Yangnian shook his head with a wry smile. Seeing Duanmu Yu only grow more bewildered, he went on: "As I said, I was swallowed up by a twin-bloom man-eating flower. But the one who saved me then was no Brain-Eating Worm—it was Senior Wei Zhao. After he rescued me, the two of us fell together into a hidden haven overflowing with rare spirit herbs. But I was careless for a moment and fell foul of a monster in the river, and when I woke again I was inexplicably here..."

"What has that to do with ghosts?" Duanmu Yu did not follow.

"Think carefully, Senior Sister Duanmu. That dreadful river monster struck at me, so surely it would not have spared Senior Wei Zhao either. Even if Senior Wei Zhao is very powerful, he can hardly be invincible, can he? And now look at the situation—if Senior Wei Zhao had not become a ghost, how could we hear his voice and yet never see him?" Fei Yangnian reasoned with a perfectly earnest face.

"..." Duanmu Yu was struck dumb by this string of revelations. It was a common failing of many people: the moment they hit upon something they cannot work out, they naturally leap to the mystical explanation, and the more they think, the more right it seems, until they cannot tear themselves away.

"I must say, Senior Wei Zhao is a true friend—even after becoming a ghost, he still remembered to save me once more. When we've weathered this calamity, I'll have to burn him a good pile of paper money. Two worlds apart, the living and the dead—that's all I can do for him now." Fei Yangnian sighed with great solemnity.

"Two worlds apart..." Duanmu Yu nearly burst out laughing at this. She thought for a moment, then said: "I think you're overthinking it. Hearing his voice but seeing no one is certainly uncanny, but it isn't entirely beyond explanation. I suspect Wei Zhao's primal spirit is right here. Don't forget—in the tales, he is a primal spirit body."

"A primal spirit body?" Fei Yangnian was taken aback, then it dawned on him: "That's right, it's been so long since anyone mentioned it that I'd nearly forgotten that part!"

"Heh. As expected, there's no keeping it from you, Miss Duanmu." At last Wei Zhao revealed his primal spirit body before the two of them.

"Senior Lin!" Fei Yangnian's face at once showed both shock and delight—though how much of it was genuine and how much feigned, only he himself knew.

A faint flicker of gladness crossed Duanmu Yu's face as well, though she quickly regained her composure and said with feeling: "I never imagined you possessed such marvelous, uncanny means. It seems you truly are not of this world. You may not be a ghost, but in a certain sense you are not far from one."

"You have struck the mark precisely, Miss Duanmu. I am in awe." Wei Zhao did not deny it. For a woman, Duanmu Yu was, it had to be said, a person of rare insight and judgment—in this she surpassed the great majority of men—and those two sentences of hers had all but laid bare his origins and his true nature.

"Brother Lin flatters me." Duanmu Yu shook her head with a wry smile. Anyone with even a little discernment could see that there was something extraordinary about Wei Zhao; by comparison, she supposed she had been slow to catch on.

Wei Zhao smiled, looked her up and down, and suddenly asked: "Miss Duanmu, what are you thinking?"

The question came rather out of the blue; anyone else might have needed a moment to grasp it, but Duanmu Yu understood Wei Zhao's doubt at once and said with a bitter laugh: "I have no choice in the matter. That is all."

"I thought as much." Wei Zhao nodded. Given Duanmu Yu's temperament and bearing, the notion that she would willingly marry a spirit beast was impossible however one looked at it. The only explanation was that she had no choice and could only swallow her pride and make the best of it.

They were both silent for a moment. Then Duanmu Yu forced a smile and said: "Never mind. To meet Brother Lin in this godforsaken place is already a rare and unexpected joy for me—I am content! Oh, yes—Brother Lin, if it is difficult for you to leave in this state, you might as well first find some way to hide here for a while. I will think of something to send you safely away from this place, as repayment for the kindness you showed me before."

Another woman in Duanmu Yu's predicament would, if not weeping and wailing, at least never have borne herself with such composure. Yet Wei Zhao could plainly sense that Duanmu Yu had not simply resigned herself to her fate—though what she truly had in mind, there was no telling.

"Are you prepared to accept your fate?" Wei Zhao probed.

"Accept my fate?" Duanmu Yu sighed and looked at Wei Zhao with a complicated expression. "Perhaps. I will struggle a while longer and try to find another way, but the odds of success are truly not high. If nothing works by then, I suppose I shall have to accept it."

Given how little intimacy there was between her and Wei Zhao, and with Fei Yangnian present besides, to have spoken this far was already remarkably frank. As for her more detailed thoughts, she would not voice them; from where she stood, there was of course no need to.

Wei Zhao thought for a moment, then suddenly proposed: "What if we join forces?"

"Join forces?" Duanmu Yu was startled at the words, and then, in spite of herself, a little moved.