Chapter 18

Through the female ghost’s fragmented account, the group finally pieced together the cause of her death.

She really was Hang Huining.

But unlike the Hang Huining known to the public, the one before them now had died in her early twenties, just as she was rising to nationwide fame.

The person who replaced her and became the nation's goddess was actually her cousin, Hang Zifan.

"That vicious woman Hang Zifan! Her parents died in an accident, and my parents, out of pity, took her in and raised her as their own daughter. I truly treated her like my own sister—whatever I had, she had too. We even shared the same bed at night. But she wasn’t satisfied. She framed and defamed me by hurting herself and inciting bullying at school, driving a wedge between me and my parents!"

As Hang Huining spoke, tears of blood streamed down her face. “My parents were so foolish. They believed her just because of a few words, and afraid of being accused of mistreating their niece, they shifted all their love onto that adopted daughter! And then there’s my fiancé—"

She gritted her teeth, her eyes blood-red. "I thought he was a good man, but he was just another beast who couldn’t keep it in his pants!"

Hang Huining had come from a wealthy family—otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to adopt a girl and raise her so delicately in such frugal times, even training both girls to become singers.

Her fiancé had been arranged since childhood, a childhood friend who grew up with her. Hang Huining had believed he was the one exception in her stolen life. But in the end, the man who once swore he belonged only to her also fell for Hang Zifan’s sugar-coated tricks.

In fact, Hang Huining’s brutal death had been orchestrated by Hang Zifan and that very fiancé working together.

As Hang Huining recalled everything, the resentment in her body surged uncontrollably. Her long black hair whipped wildly, and her eyes were filled with nothing but hatred.

The male ghost, moved to tears, wiped his eyes while cursing, “Unbelievable! How could they do something like that?!”

An He Guang empathized deeply with Hang Huining. After all, he had almost had everything taken from him by a relative’s child when he was younger. As he listened, he jumped up in anger. “Scumbag man and wicked woman! I liked her for so many years! I was sad for so long thinking she couldn’t write new songs anymore—and it turns out her soul had already been swapped! No wonder her singing got worse and worse!”

Ke Yuanbai: “...Didn’t you just say her voice hadn’t changed in decades?”

“That’s because I was deaf!” An He Guang cursed himself as well in his fury.

Ke Yuanbai: “...”

Ke Xingzhou, who had been listening silently on the side, couldn’t help but speak up. “Your hearing is fine. Her voice was stolen too.”

“What?” The two men and two ghosts turned to look at him in unison.

Ke Xingzhou pointed at the hideous scar on Hang Huining’s face. “Those scars were from when you were alive, right? I’m guessing she didn’t look much like you originally, but over time, through living together, she started to resemble you more and more—until after your death, she looked exactly like you. Did they cut off your face on purpose?”

Hang Huining had been dead for over thirty years. Her older memories were vague, but the ones right before death replayed constantly in her mind. With just a moment’s thought, she nodded firmly. “Yes!”

She remembered the searing pain on her face before death, and the eerie brightness in Hang Zifan’s eyes.

“I remember, just before she killed me, she kept muttering something like ‘Everything would be mine if only you were dead!’”Hang Huining had always thought that when she heard those words—“If only you were dead”—Hang Zifan meant that once she died, Zifan could rightfully become the only child of the Hang family and marry her fiancé under the guise of their childhood engagement.

But now, after hearing what Ke Xingzhou said, she suddenly realized that perhaps when Hang Zifan cut her face before she died, it wasn’t to destroy her looks and make her unidentifiable to the police.

It was to completely steal her appearance.

She looked intently at Ke Xingzhou, who nodded at her in affirmation.

“This is a kind of dark magic used to steal someone else’s fortune. Normally, it can only steal a portion of someone’s luck for a short period to boost the caster’s own. But what you encountered was clearly something much more thorough,” Ke Xingzhou paused. “She didn’t just take all your luck—she took your face and your talent too.”

An Heguang was shocked. “There’s such a thing?”

He remembered how, as a child, he was almost replaced by a relative’s kid. Cold sweat broke out on his back.

Could it be that person was using some dark magic too?

Thankfully, Ke Xingzhou quickly realized what he was thinking and interrupted his wild imagination. “That wasn’t the case. That was simply emotional displacement. Your parents thought you were lost and transferred all their feelings to someone else. It just took time to readjust. But the moment that substitute hurt them, they snapped out of it immediately.”

An Heguang didn’t even have time to be surprised that Ke Xingzhou could see through his childhood experience—because, upon reflection, it really was like that.

The relative’s child had a bad personality and, emboldened by the favor of An’s parents, didn’t treat him with any respect at all.

When An first came home, he tried to report what was happening multiple times, but his parents didn’t take it seriously—until that child sneaked into his father’s study and tried to steal confidential documents to give to their own parents. That’s when his parents finally threw the child out.

Thinking back on all this, An Heguang suddenly realized some things he’d never noticed before, and a dazed look crossed his face.

Ke Xingzhou glanced at him but said nothing. Ke Yuanbai, however, patted him on the shoulder and comforted him: “Not all parents are bound by blood ties to love their children. Before becoming parents, they’re just two individual human beings.”

“…” An Heguang was silent.

He found it hard to accept that maybe his parents had never loved him as much as he thought.

But compared to him, Hang Huining’s experience was clearly far more tragic.

After a long while, she looked up in a daze at Ke Xingzhou. “What did you mean just now? Are you saying… they really didn’t know what Hang Zifan did?”

Her soul trembled violently. For all these years, her hatred for Hang Zifan, her family, and her fiancé had kept her going. That deep-rooted resentment had driven her cultivation to skyrocket in just a few decades, allowing her to become a lead ghost.

If she had hated the wrong people all along, then everything she’d done would be nothing but a cruel joke.

Hang Huining couldn’t accept such a result. She stubbornly stared at Ke Xingzhou, hoping he would give her a definitive answer.

But Ke Xingzhou didn’t intend to comfort her—nor did he excuse her family. “The human heart is complicated. As for the truth, you’ll have to ask them yourself.”

Hang Huining froze, then realized what he meant. “I can go see them?”

Ke Xingzhou raised his eyebrows. “You died with heavy resentment. The underworld authorities will definitely want you to confront the ones responsible after you’ve atoned, so you can reincarnate peacefully.”

Just like reporting a crime in the living world—first they try mediation, and if that fails, they move on to more direct methods.

Ke Yuanbai couldn’t help but speak. “You really plan to meet them?”

Hang Huining nodded, then looked out the window, her expression somewhat lost. “I need to know whether all my years of hatred… were justified.”

“…Yeah.”Ke Yuanbai sighed, glancing at Ke Xingzhou beside him, whose expression remained calm, but he himself felt a bit heavy-hearted.

His parents were alive, yet he had grown up like an orphan, while the other child was raised properly. When the Ke family first came looking for him, he had to admit he’d felt some resentment.

So he’d never really interacted much with the Ke family, and had only visited them once.

As for Ke Xingzhou, he had also held a lot of prejudice against him.

But looking closely now, Ke Xingzhou's clothes were all cheap stall goods, and even the uniform issued by the show—they could see the collar of the shirt inside was already stretched out and loose.

He felt a bit lost now too.

The two men and one ghost all fell silent, the mood turning low for a moment. Only the male ghost they first encountered was still sniffing and sighing about how even the lead ghost had been a pitiful person in life.

Suddenly, the male ghost seemed to recall something. “But it’s been over thirty years. They probably aren’t even in the country anymore, right? How’s Lord Ghost Leader going to find them?”

Everyone froze at that.

Ke Yuanbai said as a matter of course, “Don’t ghost officials know how to find people?”

Ke Xingzhou hesitated. “Overseas isn’t under the jurisdiction of the Underworld. Cross-border enforcement would be difficult… Plus, since Hang Zifan stole Hang Huining’s life, the fate records for the two might already be tangled.”

That would explain why no ghost official had come to retrieve Hang Huining after all these years.

Everyone looked a bit awkward. If the ghost officials couldn’t even find the culprits, how could her resentment ever be resolved?

Just then, a voice came faintly from behind them: “I know how to find them.”

Everyone turned toward the voice to see An Heguang wiping his face and snapping out of his daze. Under their gaze, he pulled out his phone. “I’ll give my parents a call.”

A few minutes later—

With the address he’d tricked out of his parents, the smile on An Heguang’s face instantly disappeared. He handed the slip of paper to Ke Xingzhou. “My parents are diehard fans of Hang Huining. Last year when they traveled abroad, they actually ran into Hang Huining—no, Hang Zifan and her family—and used the power of money to become friends.”

Ke Yuanbai looked at the clearly written and detailed address. “...Aren’t you afraid your parents will find out the truth from this?”

“Heh.” An Heguang sneered. “When I was bullied by someone else’s kid, and they helped that kid smash my favorite Sun Wukong sugar figurine, they didn’t care if I’d be heartbroken then!”

Ke Yuanbai fell silent.

From the conversation earlier, Hang Huining had already guessed what this young man had been through. She felt both sympathy and a bit moved. “Thank you.”

An Heguang immediately grew awkward and shrank back behind Ke Xingzhou, nervously saying, “No need. Just tell your people not to scare me anymore.”

After a pause, he pointed at the male ghost beside them. “Especially him. My teammate got tormented by him all night yesterday—his dark circles are almost dragging on the floor! And now he’s back already? My teammate still has to train during the day. How’s he supposed to take it at this rate? Can’t you control him a bit better?!”

Hang Huining: “?”

The male ghost was quick to admit fault. “Sorry, sorry, I’ll pay more attention next time and try to control my urges.”

Hang Huining: “???”

Ke Yuanbai: “……”He silently turned his face away and closed his eyes in despair.