My Little Ghost

Volume 1.2.6 — The Transmigration

If there’s one thing that Bai Bing Wen has learned in this world that he’s never read about in history books nor heard of from his teachers, it’s the fact that demon beasts can cultivate to higher levels, too. And what shocks him more is the idea that once a demon beast reaches the eighth level, they can already show their human forms.

Human forms.

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same beasts? Like wild tigers, snow wolves, winged lions...”

The consort in disguise who’s now walking right next to him can only give him an amused smile. “There are no winged lions in this world.”

“Oh, thank goodness. We didn’t have one in my world, too. I was just making that up.”

“It would be fun to give the lions a pair of wings, though.”

Bai Bing Wen almost gapes at the consort in disguise if not for the little kid who accidentally bumps into him.

“Hey, be careful,” he lightly admonishes, looking at the little boy’s dirtied chubby cheeks. The kid is about five or six years old.

Ever since they started walking along the market street far away from the palace, Bai Bing Wen has seen more and more people dressed in ancient robes, making him feel like he’s in a film set. In this place, the shadow guardians and others who are trying to follow them won’t be able to listen properly to whatever they’re talking about due to the overlapping auras of many cultivators. They are intentionally talking in low voices, too.

“Gege, help me,” the little boy says, grabbing onto the hems of Bai Bing Wen’s robes. When he looks up, Bai Bing Wen notices that his big glassy eyes are green. “That big brother from the bakery said that I stole food and—”

“Come back here, you little thief!” a gruff voice of a man yells a few meters ahead of them. From afar, Bai Bing Wen can already see that he’s wearing a dirty apron over uncoordinated layers of robes, with a wooden rolling pin in his right hand. “You! Stop right there!” he yells some more, pointing the other end of the rolling pin towards the kid. Not long after, the man has reached them and the little boy instinctively hides behind Bai Bing Wen.

The man scrutinizes Bai Bing Wen’s tall figure from head to toe, scoffing a little. “This young master, are you related to this thief?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

His short beard suggests that he’s probably a middle-aged man, or at least in Bai Bing Wen’s crap judgment. After a quick assessment of his aura, Bai Bing Wen finds out that he’s a cultivator on his third level. If a fight breaks out, he can at least take the man down on his own. “Why are you calling the little boy a thief?” he asks, moving a little to cover the small boy behind him from the man.

The man lets out an exasperated sigh before bravely looking up at Bai Bing Wen. “He stole a few pieces of bread from my shop, that’s why. If you’re not going to pay, get out of my way so I can punish him and he remembers not to steal from me again,” he replies loudly, probably to catch the attention of the passersby.

Bai Bing Wen looks around them. Many people are already staring at him, at the middle-aged man, and the little boy who’s burying his face behind Bai Bing Wen’s thigh.

“How much is the worth of the bread that the kid stole from you?”

The man’s eyes brighten up at this, already doing the counting in his head. “He stole five pieces of bread so that’s worth five thin foils of silver.”

“This old man, he’s offered an inch and he’s taking a yard,” the little boy shouts, this time stepping out of his hiding to glare at the man.

At this, the man quickly hits the kid’s head with the rolling pin, shocking Bai Bing Wen and earning gasps of disbelief from everyone around them. It’s too late before Bai Bing Wen can do anything to protect the kid because he’s never expected the little one to face older man bravely.

“He murdered the kid,” one old lady breathes out, watching on.

Everyone is just looking on and cursing, but no one is moving an inch to actually help the kid. Bai Bing Wen quickly bends over to check on the kid’s head that not only got hit by a solid bat from the older man, but also hit the corner of the display table of the fruit stand next to them.

“Serves him right,” the man scoffs, turning his back on them without any guilt.

The consort in disguise is too shocked to move, but she follows after the man as soon as she recovers. When she realizes that it’s probably too difficult to follow a murderer blending into a sea of similarly dressed people while being dressed a little too fancily herself, she waves a hand to call on one of the shadow guardians and two men suddenly runs after the man wearing apron.

Bai Bing Wen quickly takes the kid into his arms and infuses his spiritual energy to check on him. The kid’s eyes are closed with tear stains on his eyelashes, but no visible bleeding can be found. The small amount of spiritual energy that Bai Bing Wen has infused into the kid’s pulse has triggered his consciousness, jolting him awake. A few seconds after, the boy’s eyes flutter open, but a bright green light comes out of them as soon as he opens them completely. His green aura starts expanding, and he stands up in one swift move, surprising everyone around him.

“Get away from him,” the consort in disguise shouts somewhere behind Bai Bing Wen.

Bai Bing Wen moves away from the kid on instinct, standing in front of the consort in disguise.

“He’s in berserk mode. Unbelievable,” she murmurs, looking awed.

Bai Bing Wen’s face contorts in confusion. “What does that mean?”

“It means he’s a martial cultivator of a special specific type.”

Bai Bing Wen looks at the kid’s figure disappearing into the crowd. The people made way for him, leaving tiny pieces of green crystals where he’s walked before they turn to fine sand. He’s following after the man who hit him, it seems.

He hears the consort in disguise chuckling to herself before saying, “They are called kuang zhang shi.”

 Berserker? Bai Bing Wen cannot imagine a world where there’s an actual berserker, and a young one at that. In the modern world, only video games invented by coreless humans have characters called berserkers or tanks. They take huge amount of health damages to protect the rest of the team and can withstand the impact of high level enemy skills when geared correctly. Come to think of it, Bai Bing Wen realizes that the term mage is also introduced to him through video games, and their roles are not that different.

After this brief realization, he looks back at the consort in disguise to ask more. But the look of admiration in her eyes has distracted him so holds back for a bit. He can only stare at the moving commotion that is the kid. When he’s about to disappear completely from his view, the consort in disguise suddenly pulls Bai Bing Wen towards them and they run after the kid.

“I need him,” the consort in disguise tells him.

“What for?” Bai Bing Wen asks, trying to catch up to their speed.

The consort in disguise quickly changes her route, taking Bai Bing Wen with her. “Do you have more of those sorceries where we can hide for a little time? I need to change back to my original form. I cannot run in these clothes.”

Bai Bing Wen fishes out another makeshift talisman and hands it over to the lady as they walk inside a teahouse. They look for an empty booth, close the door behind them, with Bai Bing Wen automatically preparing safety layers of protective enchantments.

“What’s going on?” he finally asks.

In a split second, Ji Feng Huang is back in his true form with the dazzling blue and silver robes. His hair is as radiant as Bai Bing Wen remembers, and his eyes are sparkling with a blue glow. “You need to change your clothes,” he says, looking up at Bai Bing Wen.

“I didn’t bring any,” he answers.

Ji Feng Huang motions a few hand gestures with his blue aura expanding around them. Then he places both of his hands against Bai Bing Wen’s chest. At first, a few blue characters surround them before they all stick to Bai Bing Wen’s clothes, changing the colors and style of his robes. From black with a few lines of gold, his clothes turn to a palette of gray.

“We have to travel like this from now on whenever we’re escaping the palace people,” Ji Feng Huang tells him as he takes a ribbon from his storage. “Sit down for me, Bai Bing Wen,” he says.

Bai Bing Wen does as he’s told, sitting in one of the chairs. Ji Feng Huang walks behind him and starts tying his long black hair in a messy pony with the silk black ribbon. He takes the hairpin he’s given Bai Bing Wen earlier and transforms its color to black. He places the hairpin above the ribbon and taps Bai Bing Wen’s shoulder when he’s all set. “You look younger, Your Highness.”

Bai Bing Wen rolls his eyes. “What now? What are we doing, exactly?”

“I need that little boy. Let’s go ahead and get him.”

Bai Bing Wen knows that one does not just say let’s go ahead and get him without sounding like a criminal. But when Ji Feng Huang grabs onto his left wrist to drag him, he can only stop the smaller boy from running for a short time and he doesn’t even object with the idea of k********g. “Wait. Change the color of your clothes. I don’t want people looking at you.”

Ji Feng Huang looks up, a little confused, before finally resolving to just do what Bai Bing when says.

They walk out of the teahouse, both wearing identical-looking robes and thick gray headbands similar to those of the shadow guardians’. Bai Bing Wen also insisted that he change the color of his hair so they now both have black hair. Despite their greatest effort to hide Ji Feng Huang’s ethereal looks, people still look at them twice wherever they pass by.

“What does this sorcery do?” Ji Feng Huang asks as they walk into a smaller alley, waving the temporary talisman that Bai Bing Wen handed him earlier.

“It does the same. Just infuse it with your spiritual energy and tear it in two.”

Ji Feng Huang sniffs the air and looks to his left. “We’re close.”

Not entirely understanding how Ji Feng Huang knows, he just goes wherever the smaller man leads him to, keeping his guards up as they now half-walk and half-run.

“What happens if we use it while running?”

“It’s not going to work. A small distortion in space will happen but other than that, we won’t be concealed. If you disturb the protective film...”

“The protective wall will be destroyed,” Ji Feng Huang finishes for him. “It will be useful later. But for now, we need something to hide us from this people.”

“What are you trying to achieve here?”

“You said you don’t want people looking at us.”

Bai Bing Wen looks around them. Two or three people are caught staring at the two of them, but they quickly avert their eyes after seeing Bai Bing Wen’s murderous glare. “I said I don’t want people looking at you. What are you planning?”

“Okay. Since there really is nothing I can do about this...” Ji Feng Huang pulls on Bai Bing Wen’s wrist once more to walk closer to an old tailor shop across the street. He looks up and drapes an arm around Bai Bing Wen’s waist. He places Bai Bing Wen’s arm over his shoulders and with a mischievous glint in his glowing blue eyes, he gives Bai Bing Wen a sweet smile. “Are you ready to fly?”

“What—”

As soon as a word leaves Bai Bing Wen’s lips, he feels himself being easily lifted in the air. He feels his heart almost jumping out of his throat, seeing his feet getting farther and farther away from the ground, with Ji Feng Huang keeping the two of them closer.

This is it. This is the qinggong skill he’s only read about in books.

Lightness skill.

This is the kind of martial arts skill he’s been wanting to learn all his life—one in which he can just jump and the next place his feet would land on from the ground would be the top of a tall building or somewhere far. The thrill in this beats the dizzying sensation of teleportation talismans and transportation arrays.

“Wow. You have got to teach me that,” he breathes out in exhilaration after they land on the bricked roof of the tailor shop.

Ji Feng Huang smiles up at him, sitting at the edge of the roof. “Okay.” He pats the space next to him. “Come here. Let’s wait for the berserker to calm down before we capture him.”

The word ‘capture’ triggers Bai Bing Wen’s guilty subconscious. “That’s called a*******n. k********g. I told you, I can only help when you do something that won’t harm the innocent ones,” he reminds the smaller guy, sitting comfortably right next to him.

Not far from from them, they watch as the kid from earlier is sitting on the unconscious man’s chest, still with glowing green eyes, with the rolling pin now in his small hands. He seems a little out of his mind.

“If we don’t capture the kid, he’s going to kill the innocent baker. I’ll leave the decision to you. But you have to tell me what you decide on before it’s too late.”

In Bai Bing Wen’s mind, the man whose head is now bleeding isn’t really too innocent. He did hit a helpless kid in broad daylight, and in a modern man’s perspective and code of conduct, it is only reasonable that the kid hit him back right at the same place with the same weapon. “I’ll let him get hit once more before we interfere.”

Ji Feng Huang, probably feeling that he’s already won this argument, smiles another mischievous smile. “Okay. We’ll wait it out.”

As they watch, Bai Bing Wen notices the way that Ji Feng Huang has excitedly clutched onto his arm while swinging his short legs by the edge of the roof. The contrasting temperature of the Frostbite’s coldness and Ji Feng Huang’s warmth is distracting him from his goal of keeping an eye on that kid.

“Look. One more hit and that man is dead,” Ji Feng Huang reminds him.

Still a little lost, Bai Bing Wen looks back at the storefront of the bakery but before they can do anything to stop the kid, a fast-approaching figure has entered the scene, leaving trails of tiny bluish green flowers in thick vines coming to life on their wake. Bluish green sparkles surround the entire scene, as if trying to cover whatever’s happening inside a protective array.

Bai Bing Wen’s eyes widen, trying to follow the movements of the figure who’s now surrounding the little kid. He can never mistake this; the suppressing power and uncomfortable warmth—

It’s an overwhelming aura of a ninth level cultivator.