My Little Ghost

Volume 1.4.1 — The Transcendence

Not long after scanning the letter thoroughly, Meng Zhang’s eyes are glowing in that bluish-green color before he throws the parchment in the air, leaving trails of blue sparkles. Soon enough, characters still unfamiliar to Bai Bing Wen appear in the air in glowing blue light.

“Will you be able to understand these characters, at least?” Meng Zhang asks without looking.

“Please work. Help me understand these words,” Bai Bing Wen whispers to the ring on his finger, eyes closed. He kisses the ring and suddenly, blue and gold specks of dust burst out of it, sticking themselves onto the characters in the air.

After being rearranged, the message reads. . .

“Meng Zhang, if you are reading this, I am in trouble.

Please, make sure that my Xiao Bing does not leave your side until I can look over him myself.

Someone attacked me after we went out for a stroll and they are all thinking that the boy who has been with the Crown Prince all this time is already dead so I cannot show my face like that in the palace again.

I am currently detained in the imperial infirmary by the Emperor.

The Emperor suspects that I was carrying the Crown Prince’s child and that I poisoned myself after learning about it.

This perverted scum shall die a painful death in my hands.

Xiao Bing and I have not even kissed yet and this scum of an Emperor dares to accuse me of being pregnant with the Crown Prince’s child.

Does he think I am an i***t?

Anyway, the Shadow Empress wanted Lady Ji Wen beheaded but she did not succeed, although Lady Ji Wen ended up with a cut off limb and is now trying to heal herself with an amputation.

For now, I am finding a way for my Lady Ji Wen to exit the palace after clearing her name and never come back as her anymore.

Please, take care of my Xiao Bing and tell him that I am okay.

I know he cannot use his spiritual energy yet so I am certain he cannot read this on his own.

Do not let him worry about me.

I will see you all soon.”

The room falls in an awkward silence as soon as the characters in the air have disappeared. Bai Bing Wen, for one, doesn’t know what to say. His brain has almost stopped working on that part where Ji Feng Huang mentioned something about the Emperor thinking he’s being cuckolded; by his own son and his consort, no less. But it stops completely at that part where Ji Feng Huang talked about how they never even kissed yet.

Did that mean that the little ghost was considering it?

He also takes note of the number of times that Ji Feng Huang has addressed him with such possession. He can’t even deny that part since he’s lost count of the times he’s called Ji Feng Huang his little ghost in his head, and no one has heard him say it... or at least not to his knowledge.

“Anyway, you’ve seen the message yourself so there’s no point in hiding the truth from you now,” Meng Zhang says. “So far, we already know that the Emperor is just as paranoid as the Shadow Empress. Your Highness, does Huang Di have any memories of interacting with the Shadow Empress on his own?”

Hearing Meng Zhang’s obvious attempt at removing the unwanted awkward atmosphere, Bai Bing Wen also reckons it’s not the right time to be over-thinking about the most trivial things. “Yes, I do have memories of him talking to the Shadow Empress. All of them, mostly are unpleasant.” Bai Bing Wen frowns a little, seeing something unusual in the Crown Prince’s head of chaotic flashbacks. “Wait, I’m seeing something I’m not sure I’m supposed to,” he says quietly, holding onto his head.

Upon triggering the memories of the Crown Prince that involve the Shadow Empress, he realizes one big problem.

“This Huang Di...” he says, feeling a bile threatening to lurch out of his throat. “Oh. Seriously, he...”

“What is it?” Meng Zhang asks, deep concern marring his face.

Bai Bing Wen heaves a few breaths, trying to keep himself together. It wasn’t even his body yet when those things happened to the younger version of the Crown Prince, but for some reasons, the anger, fear, and helplessness feel so real to him, he almost believes he was there when these things happened. Like it was him whom these things had happened to.

“Xiao Bing?” Meng Zhang calls out to him carefully, instinctively running his spiritual energy on Bai Bing Wen’s body.

With the help of Meng Zhang’s healing power, Bai Bing Wen is at least able to calm down after a few minutes.

“I need to puke,” he blurts out, rubbing on his tired eyes.

Meng Zhang and Jian Bing stare at him, looking confused.

“What does that mean, Your Highness?” Jian Bing asks.

Bai Bing Wen looks up at them like they’re stupid. “Really? You guys don’t know what that means?”

Jian Bing shakes his head and Meng Zhang only scowls. “Do you mean, you’re feeling sick to the stomach?” Meng Zhang asks.

Bai Bing Wen nods his head. “I need to pour out—empty the contents of my stomach in order for me to feel better.”

“But... Can you not use your spiritual energy to do that?” Jian Bing asks.

Bai Bing Wen sighs, already losing his will to puke. “Where I’m from, you don’t always depend on your core or dantian to do everything for your body. You eat like a normal human, let bowel movements happen, sleep like a baby and drink like a sailor. My world considers this routine normal because we have more coreless humans than cultivators and we needed to blend more with them to avoid causing an imbalance to our living system. They know of magic, but not everyone has it. Which means when we consume anything, we let our earthly bodies naturally digest the nutrients and dispose of the unnecessary matter. To puke, for example, is a natural reaction to being sick to the stomach when something disgusts you. It means everything you just ate, you would cough it back out of your mouth.”

Jian Bing’s eyes light up at this. “You mean, you can pour out food from your mouth? That’s an incredible secret storage for food, then.”

Bai Bing Wen doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Jian Bing has the aura of a fierce tiger but in reality, he really is just a soft kitten. “No, little kitty,” he answers, automatically ruffling the white tiger descendant’s hair. When Jian Bing just blinks up at him with a perplexed look, Bai Bing Wen chuckles to himself. “To puke means to let out a bile of dirty, rotten substance. It’s... actually a disgusting act, now that I think about it.”

“But...” Jian Bing pouts, looking at his hands. “The food,” he mumbles.

“I’ll make you some in the kitchen, okay?” Meng Zhang says, patting Jian Bing’s shoulder. “For now, let’s focus on helping our brother Xiao Bing tell us what he remembers about the Shadow Empress.”

Jian Bing nods. “Okay, gege.”

“Xiao Bing? Can you talk about it now?” Meng Zhang asks with a gentle voice.

Nodding, Bai Bing Wen follows when Meng Zhang gestures for them to leave the room. Meng Zhang leads them to what looks like a dining area with a set of long table and six chairs, all of which are made of bamboo. This room is different from the tea room that Bai Bing Wen has been in to when he last came here with Ji Feng Huang.

 “I’ll make food, you two sit here and try to talk about our matter. I’ll listen in and ask if need be,” Meng Zhang says, giving Bai Bing Wen a comforting smile.

Bai Bing Wen nods again, taking a seat. Jian Bing quickly picks the seat right next to him, making Bai Bing Wen smile helplessly. “Why—”

“Can you lend me a bit of your fire spirit?” Jian Bing asks in a low voice.

Bai Bing Wen gives the man a blank stare. “How... how do I do that?”

“It’s usually Ling Guang who lends him a bit of his fire spirit,” Meng Zhang tries explaining, searching through jars of different ingredients. “Jian Bing sleeps better with a bit of fire spirit close to his chest. An actual flame is an air spirit’s weakness, but the warmth coming from it is something that Jian Bing enjoys as a tiger beast. The warmth from a fire spirit doesn’t weaken him, but gives him the similar comfort.”

Reaching another epiphany, Bai Bing Wen turns to look at Jian Bing who’s now staring at him with big eyes. “How do I lend you my fire spirit?”

Jian Bing moves in his seat to lean closer without losing eye contact. “I’ll teach you.” He offers both of his hands to Bai Bing Wen excitedly. “Hold my hands. Both of them.”

A passing thought crosses Bai Bing Wen’s mind at that moment. He remembers Ji Feng Huang telling him about the usual customs of this world, in which people don’t just casually touch or get close to another unless it’s consented or ceremonial. Otherwise, it would be deemed inappropriate. But so far, being with these nobles of different empires, he’s not seen them being too sensitive about skinship.

Or it could just be something specific to Ji Feng Huang’s standards.

“Okay,” Bai Bing Wen breathes out, holding Jian Bing’s hands. At this, he starts feeling a bit of his spiritual energy—that he cannot control the flow of, as of the moment—being sucked out of him. He feels a foreign sensation of being drained, but it doesn’t make him feel weak. Rather, it makes him feel like his spiritual energy is being replaced with a new flow.

“Thank you,” Jian Bing says, for the first time smiling genuinely with his tiger teeth showing. A small ball of red light floats out in between his hands as he lets go of Bai Bing Wen, placing the red ball into his chest. “You’re just as warm as Guang-gege.”

“Don’t get distracted now, didi,” Meng Zhang reminds him.

Jian Bing’s face turns red, looking back at Bai Bing Wen. He clears his throat, trying his best not to look at the small fire spirit glowing in his chest. “So... what did you see in the Crown Prince’s memories, Your Highness?”

Bai Bing Wen takes his time to observe Jian Bing first, smiling to himself. He really is just like a cat—a small demon beast from the modern world that can be either a very dangerous one or a very defensive one. They are usually harmless to coreless humans but if they sense a cultivator, they get defensive and run away or sometimes, they would also initiate an attack.

“I saw the Shadow Empress molesting Huang Di as a child.”

When the horrible start of the story is finally out, Bai Bing Wen hears a jar getting broken by Meng Zhang who can’t help but accidentally release a fraction of his oppressive aura. “What...”

“Zhang-gege, calm down,” Jian Bing calls out, forming a few characters in the air with his hand. As the blinding white glowing characters form, Jian Bing quickly commands them to surround Bai Bing Wen, preventing a bit of the oppression from reaching him. “Zhang-gege,” he calls out once more, this time with more urgency in his tone.

As Meng Zhang takes his aura back, he inhales deep, steadying breaths, holding onto one of the bamboo chairs. Bai Bing Wen didn’t even realize when he’s gotten this close to the table.

“Tell me what happened,” Meng Zhang says through gritted teeth, looking absolutely murderous.

And although amongst everyone in this house, Bai Bing Wen is the most affected to oppression of cultivation levels, he knows that the sudden instability of Meng Zhang’s cultivation is justified. If his own core is functioning as usual, he might have gone unsteady, too. Or something a bit worse.

“The Crown Prince’s childhood is a mix of poor parenting and extreme discipline. He gets reprimanded for his mistakes but he was never complimented for any achievements. It’s... horrible, really.”

Meng Zhang seems to be trying to calm himself down as he sits to the chair across from Bai Bing Wen. “Go on.”

“The First Consort back then, which is the now Shadow Empress, usually took the little Huang Di to the back gardens of the main Imperial Palace even though only the sick Empress and the Emperor were allowed to go there. She’s kind to him at first, until he showed signs of getting unusually mesmerized by male soldiers... male nobles of his generation...”

Jian Bing crosses his arms on the table and lies his head over them. “Then?”

“The First Consort would... She... Ugh, it’s too much. I just need to tell you that he was manipulated into thinking that whatever he was doing or feeling was wrong, and that the First Consort told him it was going to be their secret. But he had to listen to everything she said if he didn’t want to disappoint his parents again. The...” Bai Bing Wen pauses, gripping tighter onto his head in between his hands. He doesn’t mean to, but every time he tries to look back further into those memories, it’s as if the Crown Prince’s own body is repelling him. “The Consort would punish Huang Di every time the answer he was giving her was not to her liking. The punishment... She would touch him on places that even I, a person from a very open-minded and non-conservative modern world, would consider inappropriate. Huang Di learned to keep his cries of help to himself in fear of disappointing his father.”

“That monster,” he hears Meng Zhang cursing, with his aura threatening to expand again. Thankfully, Jian Bing is always ready to protect the one with the lowest level of cultivation. “What else?” Meng Zhang asks, hands balling into fists.

A sudden memory flashes in Bai Bing Wen’s head, making him move forward from his seat. “Oh.”

Both Meng Zhang and Jian Bing look up at him in anticipation.

“What is it?” Meng Zhang asks.

“The horrible act repeatedly happened until the Crown Prince met this young boy in this liquor house he accidentally stumbled upon in one of those days he tried escaping from the palace.”

Meng Zhang looks back at the table with a solemn expression on his face. “The boy had an azure mask on and wearing foreign-looking set of pristine clothes. He seemed lost in the sea of dunk diners, but no one dared to make trouble for him.”

Bai Bing Wen turns to look at Meng Zhang, scowling deeply. “How did you know that?”

“Because the young boy was wearing a band on his head with the azure dragon’s badge,” Meng Zhang goes on, looking a bit lost in his own thoughts. “It was a sign that the Crown Prince of the Eastern Empire has finally made it to the Central Empire’s realm. He was the earliest visitor after the realm has opened. And Huang Di still approached him despite their gap in cultivation level.”

Bai Bing Wen can only gape this time because he’s thinking that he already knows where the story is going.

“Remember the time when I told you how I was so sure that you’re no longer Huang Di?”

When Bai Bing Wen nods, Meng Zhang can only smile back at him.

“It’s because the original Crown Prince had a pure mage dantian with a white core. And I know all of this because...” Meng Zhang pauses for a few seconds, still only staring at the table. And when he speaks again, his voice is as soft as the gentle smile on his face, “That boy... was me.”