55: A ghost at the bottom of a well, a century-old obsession

The air by the flowerbed suddenly froze.

Master Zhang's face turned pale, and he waved his hands repeatedly. "Open the well? That won't do! This is school property; it requires layers of approval..."

"Master Zhang," Li Muchen looked at him, "you've stayed in this building for ten years. Have you ever heard anything at night?"

The old administrator opened his mouth, but the words got stuck in his throat.

He remembered those nights on duty, where the sound of wind blowing through leaves occasionally mixed with faint sobbing. He remembered the old wooden back door during autumn leaf-fall, always swaying gently on its own in the windless dead of night. He remembered once patrolling at dawn, his flashlight beam sweeping across the courtyard, seemingly seeing a blurry white figure squatting in the rose bushes of the flowerbed... He never dared to tell anyone these things.

If he did, others would think he was senile, and he might even lose this easy job.

"I..." His voice was dry. "I'm old, my hearing isn't good..."

Li Muchen didn't press further, but simply turned the diary in his hand to the last page and held it out to Master Zhang.

The dark red bloody handprint on the yellowed pages was shocking to behold.

"In the twenty-sixth year of the republic of china, a female student named Chen Shuyi was imprisoned in the basement of this building and then disappeared." Li Muchen's voice was calm but every word was clear. "Her diary is here, her pen is with the Lin family, and her resentment is attached to Lin Xiaoyu."

He pointed to the flowerbed: "And her soul might be at the bottom of this well, imprisoned for ninety-seven years."

Master Zhang's hands began to tremble.

He wasn't a bad person, just an ordinary retired-and-rehired worker. For these ten years, he had organized books and wiped away dust in this old library every day, guarding these silent old things. He never thought that behind these old objects lay such a tragic past.

"But... but even if we open the well, what can we do?" he asked with a trembling voice. "The person has been dead for so many years..."

"Death does not mean liberation." Li Muchen took back the diary. "If the resentment does not dissipate, the soul will not find peace. She cannot move on to the next life and will continue to affect the living—like Lin Xiaoyu, or anyone who might come into contact with this pen in the future."

He looked at Lin Wenyuan: "Layman Lin, you are a history professor; you should understand—some history doesn't disappear just because it's buried. It continues to exist in another way, affecting the present."

Lin Wenyuan was silent for a long time.

He thought of his daughter's pale face, his wife's tearful days, and the young girl at home being eroded by resentment... Finally, he gritted his teeth. "Temple Head, what do you need me to do?"

"Two things," Li Muchen said. "First, contact the school and apply to open the well—using the most legitimate reason, such as 'cultural relic protection investigation' or 'building safety inspection.' You're a professor; you should have the connections."

"Second," he paused, "look into someone—Chen Shiru. The Chinese Teacher in the diary. Find out where he went afterward, his descendants, and... where he is buried now."

Lin Wenyuan was startled. "Why look into him?"

"To settle the Karma." Li Muchen looked at the flowerbed. "The root of Chen Shuyi's resentment lies with Chen Shiru. To resolve her resentment, this Karma must be settled."

He spoke very calmly, but Lin Wenyuan heard a hint of chill in his words.

"I... I'll try." He took out his phone, walked to the side, and began to make calls.

Master Zhang looked at Li Muchen, then at the flowerbed, and finally gave a long sigh. "Forget it... I've lived most of my life and haven't done anything against my conscience. This time, I'll join you in this madness."

He turned back to the library. "I'll go get the tools. When the well was filled thirty years ago, I saw the blueprints and know the exact location of the wellhead."

At ten in the morning, the sunlight was intense.

But in the courtyard behind the old library, an inescapable chill lingered.

Master Zhang brought a roll of yellowed engineering blueprints and spread them out by the flowerbed. The blueprints were hand-drawn, the lines blurred, but the wellhead's location could still be identified—right in the center of the flowerbed.

"When we filled the well back then, we first threw in large stones and then poured concrete." Master Zhang pointed at the blueprint. "The well is about fifteen meters deep with a diameter of 1.2 meters. The walls are made of green bricks, a craft from the republic of china era."

Li Muchen studied the blueprint carefully, calculating in his mind.

Fifteen meters deep, filled solid with reinforced concrete. Re-excavating it would be a major project and cause too much commotion.

He couldn't use brute force.

He walked to the edge of the flowerbed and pressed his palm against the soil.

His Spiritual Sense extended downward once more.

This time, he wasn't just investigating; he was slowly injecting True Yuan into the ground.

The True Yuan, like silk, penetrated the soil and the concrete, extending all the way to the bottom of the well.

Then, he "saw" it.

There was indeed something at the bottom of the well.

Not a skeleton—after ninety-some years, a skeleton should have decayed.

But rather a... condensed, non-dissipating soul body.

Wearing an Indanthrene blue cheongsam and with two braided pigtails, she curled up at the deepest part of the well. Her body was translucent, and her entire being was wrapped in thick black energy—resentment condensed into form.

The soul body's eyes were open, but they were hollow, as if still stuck in that desperate night over ninety years ago.

In her arms, she held a small ball of light—the soul of an infant, died before birth and trapped here with its mother.

Li Muchen's Spiritual Sense gently touched that soul body.

The soul body jerked violently and looked up.

Those hollow eyes seemed to "look" in his direction.

Then, a weak voice echoed in his Spiritual Sense:

"Who... is it?"

"I am here to help you," Li Muchen responded with his thoughts.

"Help... me?" The soul body seemed confused. "Why... help me?"

"Because you have been trapped here for too long."

"Long..." the soul body murmured. "How long? I remember... it's always been dark. Occasionally, a little light leaks down from above. Then... darkness again."

Her memories were already muddled.

Ninety-some years of imprisonment had blurred her mind, leaving only her core obsessions: indignation, hatred, and... her attachment to her child.

"Do you still remember Chen Shiru?" Li Muchen asked.

The soul body began to tremble violently.

Black energy surged, and resentment spiked.

"Chen... Shiru..." Her voice became sharp. "He lied to me... He said he would marry me... He said it would be fine to abort the child... He locked me up... He had people..."

Fragments of memory flooded in:

A dark basement, a man's back, a cold voice: "Shuyi, don't blame me. Doing this would ruin me."

Then several dark figures dragged her out of the basement toward the backyard.

Struggling, crying out, no response.

The wellhead, darkness, falling.

Icy water, boundless darkness.

And... the final fetal movement of the child in her womb.

"My child... my child..." The soul body tightly hugged the ball of light in her arms, her voice shrill. "He was so small... he hadn't even seen the world yet..."

Resentment surged like a tide, almost washing away Li Muchen's Spiritual Sense.

He steadied his mind, his True Yuan circulating to form a protective layer around his Spiritual Sense.

"Chen Shuyi," he barked with his thoughts, "Wake up! Over ninety years have passed!"

The soul body jolted.

"Over ninety years..." she murmured. "Then... what year is it now?"

"The year 2024," Li Muchen replied. "The republic of china is gone; it's now New China. Women can study, work, and love freely. That Chen Shiru you spoke of, if he's still alive, would be over a hundred years old."

The soul body was silent for a long time.

"So... it's been that long." Her voice gradually calmed down. "Then... has the world outside changed?"

"It has," Li Muchen said slowly. "Women no longer need to depend on men to live; they can have their own careers and their own choices. Tragedies like yours rarely happen now."

"Is that so..." The soul body seemed to be laughing, yet also crying. "That's good."

She asked again, "Then... what about him? Chen Shiru, what happened to him later?"

"I don't know," Li Muchen said truthfully. "But I'm looking into it. When I find out, I'll tell you."

The soul body fell silent again.

After a long while, she whispered, "Thank you."

This was the first person to speak to her in over ninety years.

The first... to say they would help her.

"I need to open this well to let you out," Li Muchen said. "But the well is filled with concrete, and digging it out would cause too much of a stir. Can you... cooperate with me?"

"How should I cooperate?"

"Tell me the structure of the well. Where is it weakest? Where can a minimal passage be opened?"

The soul body thought for a moment—though her thinking was very sluggish.

"The well wall... the southeast corner, the seventh brick down is loose," she said slowly. "When the well was built, that brick wasn't set properly, leaving a gap. Later, as the well water rose, the gap grew wider. When they filled the well... some concrete leaked through there, but it didn't fill it completely."

Li Muchen's Spiritual Sense immediately focused on the southeast corner.

Sure enough, at the position of the seventh brick, the concrete filling was clearly hollow, with a fist-sized cavity.

Although small, it was enough.

"Very well." He withdrew his Spiritual Sense. "Wait here; you'll be out soon."

The soul body seemed to want to say something, but finally only gave a soft "Mm."

The infant's ball of light in her arms also flickered slightly.

Li Muchen opened his eyes.

Lin Wenyuan had finished his call and returned with a somewhat complex expression.

"The school agreed, but they require us to hire a professional construction team; we can't just dig randomly," he whispered. "And... we have to wait three days until the school leaders return before we can officially start."

Three days?

Too late.

The Heart-Clearing Talisman could only last for two days. Moreover, every extra day of waiting meant another day of torment for Chen Shuyi's soul.

"We can't wait." Li Muchen shook his head. "I have a way that doesn't require a major operation."

He looked at Master Zhang: "Do you have a chisel and a hammer? Smaller ones."

Master Zhang nodded and went back to the library to get a set of tools—this time, fine stonemason tools, with a chisel only as thick as a finger.

Li Muchen took the tools and walked to the southeast corner of the flowerbed.

He first pushed aside the rose bushes to reveal the soil beneath. Then, using his hand as a ruler, he measured out the approximate position.

"Dig half a meter down from here," he said to Lin Wenyuan.

Although puzzled, Lin Wenyuan did as he was told. The soil in the flowerbed was loose, and a shallow pit was quickly dug.

The surface of the concrete was revealed at the bottom of the pit—rough, grayish-white, and somewhat weathered due to age.

Li Muchen squatted down and lightly tapped the concrete surface with his fingers.

"Thump, thump, thump..."

The sound was hollow.

It was here.

He raised the hammer and chisel but didn't start immediately. Instead, he first bit his fingertip and drew a simple rune on the concrete surface with blood—not for suppression, but for "penetration."

Once the rune was drawn, a flash of blood-light vanished into the concrete.

Only then did he begin to chisel.

The tip of the chisel pressed against the concrete, and the hammer fell.

Clink—

The sound was crisp.

But strangely, the concrete didn't shatter; instead... as if melted by high heat, it slowly softened and collapsed outward from the tip of the chisel.

In just a few minutes, a fist-sized hole appeared in the concrete layer.

Beneath the hole was a pitch-black void.

A small passage to the wellhead had been opened.

A thick surge of Yin Qi, mixed with aged water vapor and an earthy smell, poured out of the hole.

The temperature in the courtyard instantly dropped several degrees.

Zhao Xiaowen and Li Shiyu shuddered and instinctively took two steps back.

Li Muchen's expression remained unchanged as he reached his hand into the hole.

True Yuan circulated, turning into an invisible hand that extended downward.

It extended all the way to the bottom of the well.

To the curled-up soul body.

"Take my hand," he said with his thoughts.

The soul body hesitated for a moment, then reached out a translucent hand and grasped the invisible hand.

Then, Li Muchen slowly pulled upward.

The soul body floated up, passing through the fifteen-meter-deep well shaft, through the concrete layer, through the soil... finally, she floated out from that fist-sized hole.

The noon sun of July shone down on her.

The soul body trembled and instinctively raised her hand to shield her eyes.

It had been over ninety years.

She finally saw the sun again.

Although as a soul body, the sunlight felt like a burning pain, she still greedily felt that warmth.

"My... child..." She looked into her arms.

The infant's ball of light flickered slightly in the sunlight, seemingly happy as well.

Li Muchen withdrew his hand and looked at the soul body floating above the flowerbed.

She was a bit clearer than when she was at the bottom of the well, and her face could be seen—it was indeed the young girl with pigtails from the photo, only her eyes held over ninety years of weariness.

"Chen Shuyi," he said softly, "you are free."

The soul body slowly landed—though her feet didn't actually touch the ground.

She looked at Li Muchen, then at the unfamiliar surroundings, and finally at Lin Wenyuan, Master Zhang, and the two young girls.

"Thank you." She gave a deep bow.

Then, she looked toward the old library, her gaze complex.

"That building... is still there."

"It's still there," Li Muchen nodded. "It's now a Cultural Relic Protection Site."

"That's good," Chen Shuyi said softly. "At least... the traces of my existence are still there."

She paused and looked at Li Muchen. "You said just now that you were looking for Chen Shiru's whereabouts?"

"Yes."

"When you find him... can you take me to see him?" Her voice was very soft, yet it carried an inexpressible emotion. "Not for revenge. Just... I want to ask him why he did that back then. I want to ask him... if he ever felt a shred of regret in these ninety-some years."

Li Muchen was silent for a moment, then nodded.

"Okay."

Karma must be settled.

Obsessions must be resolved.

And this required a face-to-face closure.

Regardless of whether that person was alive or dead.