Chapter 69: The Last Bus (Part 4)

The middle-aged man stood dripping wet on the riverbank, less than three meters from Chen Jiu. His spirit body was even more transparent than when he first appeared, which meant his soul power was failing. If he did not leave the world of the living soon and set foot on the path to the afterlife, he would likely dissipate into nothingness.

Chen Jiu: “You died three years ago. Originally, you needed to find a substitute to break the cycle. Fortunately, you met me today… What else are you still holding onto? Don’t waste time.”

The man stared blankly at her, then turned his head, looking somewhere indeterminate, repeating over and over: “I can’t leave, I still can’t leave, I can’t leave…”

In that instant of turning, Chen Jiu clearly saw a flash of emotion in his eyes, the kind only the living could possess.

The seven emotions and six desires belong to humans; obsessions, fears, and hatreds belong to ghosts.

Chen Jiu frowned. This matter was originally simple, but now it had become somewhat tricky.

“No matter how long you stubbornly refuse to leave, what good does it do? The dead cannot come back to life. No matter how much unwillingness you hold in your heart, you must cross the Naihe Bridge. One bowl of soup and you will forget everything. Why cling so desperately?” She spoke with some patience: “I have already visited your wife once. Her wish is also for you to go peacefully, with a settled heart. She will live on well.”

Hearing this, the driver finally seemed to gain some capacity for understanding. His eyes stared straight at Chen Jiu, or perhaps past her at something else. His ashen skin was covered with wrinkles, his lips moved, but Chen Jiu could not hear what he said.

A river wind blew from the other shore. Chen Jiu’s hair fluttered slightly. She looked behind her and saw a woman carrying a bag of items, walking over with unsteady steps, her gait faltering.

Wang Xiulan?

Chen Jiu’s brow furrowed. She had not expected this woman to follow after all. Deep marital affection, years of companionship, in the end the heart could not bear to part.

At the scene of the accident three years ago, Wang Xiulan had watched as her husband’s body was pulled from the water, unable to make any expression for a moment. Her gaze was numb to the extreme, as if her very soul had been hollowed out. The world spun around her, a persistent ringing sounded in her ears. The people around her kept saying something to her, but she could no longer hear.

She walked slowly. Across the long passage of time, she still had no opportunity to meet her husband, but she knew this young woman before her would help her.

“Is he here?” Wang Xiulan smiled somewhat ingratiatingly at Chen Jiu: “Miss, were you just talking to him?”

“Yes.” Chen Jiu could not bear to deceive her: “He is here. He can see you, and he can hear you speak.”

Wang Xiulan’s gaze wandered blankly through the air, then looked toward the river surface, landing on the dark shadows of trees on the opposite bank. She was an ordinary person with no yin-yang encounters, unable to perceive her husband’s specific location, even though she deeply believed his spirit was right beside her.

“As long as he can hear, that’s good.” She said this, then squatted down, shaking out the paper money and underworld currency from her bag, piling them on the scattered rocks. She took out a lighter, cupping her hand against the wind, carefully lighting an incense stick: “I bought these in a hurry, didn’t prepare much. Take this money for now. When Qingming comes, I’ll burn more for you. I don’t know if you received the paper money and houses I burned for you these past two years…”

She inserted the incense into the mud, igniting the pile of paper money. The flames quickly spread, becoming the only source of light on the pitch-black riverbank. The river wind blew, tossing her hair wildly, plastering it across half her face. She seemed to feel nothing, with no intention of brushing it aside.

The man reached out, his fingertips trembling slightly, wanting to wipe his wife’s tears and smooth her disheveled hair. But a spirit body cannot touch the living. He did not want to let his wife come into contact with yin energy, for that would make her life so unlucky.

After all, the two of them had never encountered anything good in this lifetime. Now that he was finally leaving, he should not cause her more distress.

“Don’t worry about me either. After you’re gone, I can manage on my own.” Wang Xiulan said softly: “We were not blessed by fate, we didn’t leave behind any children. I can still see you off. When my time comes, who will see me off?”

As she spoke, she even laughed for a while, though her tears were truly bitter, dropping into the fire with a sizzling sound.

After laughing for some time, she wiped away her tears haphazardly and asked Chen Jiu: “Sorry, Miss, for making you witness this again. Has he set off yet?”

Chen Jiu thought for a moment, then honestly shook her head.

Wang Xiulan’s expression changed slightly. She stood up, looking around into the air, her voice barely containing a sob: “I told you to go, why won’t you go? Just take me with you… What are you still worried about? In this day and age, whose family can’t survive without a man? I’m doing fine, I’m doing fine!”

The man’s spirit body grew even more transparent. He finally spoke, his voice strained: “Then I can rest assured. Xiulan, then I can rest assured.”

He turned to look at Chen Jiu, lowering his head: “Miss, I trouble you.”

Chen Jiu raised the Soul-Sending Bell, pausing for a long moment. The man looked up at her hesitantly. Chen Jiu’s expression was grave as she pressed her brows together, no longer thinking further. She put the Soul-Sending Bell away, her hand gestures changing rapidly, forming seals. The air around her slowly began to swirl, then spun faster and faster.

“A corner of heaven and earth, the order of yin and yang reversed. Today, I break the old to establish the new, seeking but a single crack!”

In an instant, countless points of light flew out from the riverbed mud, from the stone crevices, from the roots of withered reeds, rapidly gathering and swirling around the husband and wife, coalescing into a drifting ribbon of light, faintly illuminating their faces marked by the passage of years.

This scene was bizarre and magnificent. The river water emitted strange sounds, faintly echoing some melody. The color of the sky and the water reversed. All sounds of nature fell silent.

Time and space twisted simultaneously for several seconds. Wang Xiulan’s expression was almost stunned. She stared blankly at her husband’s face, swollen and mottled from water immersion, and took two unbelieving steps forward.

The man reacted first, suddenly rushing forward to tightly embrace his wife, stroking her hair incessantly, crying like a child, too choked with sobs to speak a complete sentence.

“One minute.” Chen Jiu took a deep breath, changing her hand gestures once more, closing her eyes, leaving the final moments to the husband and wife.

“I, I ride the Number 37 bus every day, retracing the old city district again and again. Xiulan, you don’t know, I see you every day. You’re not doing well, you’re not doing well at all. I watch you.” The man cried: “I’m useless, I never let you live a few comfortable days, I’m useless…”

Wang Xiulan’s whole body shook with crying, desperately wiping her tears: “Don’t speak of that, don’t speak of that, we don’t have time. I have words I never got to say, I never told you my true feelings. Do you know, I wanted to spend my whole life with you, I never told you from the heart, I wanted to spend my whole life with you.”

“I know, I know.” The man lowered his head, kissing her forehead with force: “I know, you’re the only one in my heart. Even when I go down below, I won’t reincarnate. I’ll wait for you, and in the next life we’ll still be husband and wife, still living together, alright?”

Wang Xiulan nodded continuously, feeling as if she were about to shed a lifetime’s worth of tears. They still had so much to say, compressed into just one minute, how could they possibly finish?

Tears blurred her vision into a vague patch. She only felt her body grow light, and the man’s voice suddenly dissipated into the air. His spirit body transformed into ethereal points of light, merging into the ribbon of light, floating upward toward the sky.

That familiar ringing sounded once again in her ears. She could hear nothing more. Memory carried her back three years, scenes interweaving, and she was dazed for a good while before she perceived some reality, some reality she did not wish to face.

When she came back to herself, Wang Xiulan’s hand was still extended in midair, but her embrace was empty, as if the embrace just now was merely an illusion woven from her longing.

A muffled thunderclap sounded in the sky. Chen Jiu’s face turned slightly pale, rapidly withdrawing her hand seals. She turned and spat out a mouthful of blood.

Hearing this, Chen Xiaoxuan in her bag became agitated, poking his head out to bare his teeth ferociously in the direction of the thunder, then jumping onto Chen Jiu’s shoulder, licking her cheek incessantly.

Wang Xiulan lost all strength in her body and collapsed to the ground. She could not see clearly what that patch of light was, the scattered points seemed to gather into the shape of a butterfly, flying toward the horizon, soon disappearing from sight.

Chen Jiu casually wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, chuckling as she pushed Chen Xiaoxuan’s head back a little: “Alright, son, it’s fine. You’re licking my face all over with saliva again. Are you a kitten or a puppy?”

Chen Xiaoxuan seemed somewhat angry, and really burrowed back into the bag, flicking his tail sullenly.

Chen Jiu extended her hand toward Wang Xiulan: “Can you get up?”

Wang Xiulan nodded blankly, like a wooden puppet, and with Chen Jiu’s help, tremblingly stood up.

The pile of paper money had already burned to ashes, and the incense had burned to its base and gone out.

Chen Jiu supported Wang Xiulan as they walked some distance. Only the sound of the river wind remained in her ears.

“Thank you, Miss…” After a long while, Wang Xiulan finally came back to herself, speaking hoarsely in this manner.

After great grief, she only felt a void and numbness in her spirit. She did not know what she was saying, as if her soul had detached from her body, watching her own physical shell, while the shell moved on its own, requiring no further effort from her.

Chen Jiu had never experienced the pain of losing a closest loved one. She was born without father or mother, and the people of her sect were all still lively and jumping about at present. She often observed life and death, but had never truly comprehended it.

She did not know how to comfort Wang Xiulan. She recalled Yunshan saying that the Great Dao is the simplest. In the “Taishang Dongxuan Lingbao Tianzun Shuo Jiuku Miaojing,” the Rebirth Mantra, she had only looked at and memorized it as a child, and even until old age one might not comprehend its deeper meaning.

“Repeat after me.” Chen Jiu supported her, continuing to walk slowly forward: “By the decree of the Supreme, liberate your lonely soul. Escape the sea of suffering, hasten toward rebirth.”

Wang Xiulan’s lips moved, her voice strained: “By the decree of the Supreme, liberate your lonely soul. Escape the sea of suffering, hasten toward rebirth.”

Chen Jiu: “The three souls return to the body, the seven spirits find peace. Grudges are explained away, obsessions cease to be.”
Wang Xiulan: “The three souls return to the body, the seven spirits find peace. Grudges are explained away, obsessions cease to be.”

The Greatly Merciful One saves from suffering, sweet dew sprinkles purity.
Soul, return and depart, to the sweet dew pure land.
Soul, return and depart, to the rebirth pure land.

Go in peace, go in peace.