As she sat on the coffin, she used her hand to tap on the lid. She then hopped down and circled around the coffin a few times, making hand gestures at them. This time, the gesture was rather easy to understand. It was the action of “opening” something. Jin Ling guessed, “She wants us to open this coffin for her?”
Lan SiZhui suggested, “Would it be that her body is inside of here? She may want us bury her and bring her peace.” This was the most logical inference, since one of the most common reasons why plenty of ghosts haunted the Earth was that their corpses weren’t buried. Wei WuXian stood on one side of the coffin, while a few boys stood on the other, intending to help him open it.
He reassured them, “You don’t have to help me. Stand further back. What if it’s not a corpse and spurts out some more corpse-poisoning powder at you?”
He opened the coffin alone and lay the lid onto the ground. Looking down, he saw a corpse.
However, it wasn’t the corpse of the girl, but somebody else instead.
It was a young man. He had been put into a peaceful position with his hands folding crisscrossed together, beneath of which rested a horsetail whisk. On his body was a cultivational robe as white as snow. The silhouette of the lower half of his face, along with a pale countenance and soft-colored lips, was handsome and refined. The upper half of his face, though, was enfolded in layers and layers of bandages that totalled a width of four fingers. Under the bandages, nothing protruded from where his eyes should’ve been. The bandages sunk in instead. There weren’t eyes, only two empty hollows.
Having heard them open the coffin, the girl stumbled over. She stuck her hands into the coffin and, after some searching around, she finally felt the corpse’s face. Stomping her feet, tears of blood trickled down from her blind eyes again.
Everyone understood, without the need of any words or gestures. Placed all alone inside of a coffin home that stood all alone, this corpse was the real Xiao XingChen.
Ghost tears were incapable of dripping down. After the girl cried for a while, she suddenly stood up and ahh-ed at them through her clenched teeth. Appearing both angered and irritated, it was as though she really wanted to express her thoughts. Lan SiZhui asked, “Should I play Inquiry again?”
Wei WuXian, “There’s no need. It’s possible for us to ask the wrong questions, instead of the questions that she wants us to ask. And, I think that her reply will be quite complex, quite difficult to interpret.”
Although he didn’t say “you might not be able to do it”, Lan SiZhui still felt rather ashamed. He silently promised to himself, After I get back, I will study Inquiry with greater diligence. I will have to be as fluent, as quick, and as accurate as HanGuang-Jun. Lan JingYi asked, “Then what should we do?”
Wei WuXian, “How about Empathy?”
All of the major sects specialized in various methods of gaining information and searching for material on ghosts. Empathy was the one that Wei WuXian was the best at. His method wasn’t as profound as those of the other sects. Everyone could use it. It was simply to ask the ghost to possess his own body. Using his own body as medium, he could invade the spirit’s soul and memory, hear what they heard, see what they saw, feel what they felt. If the spirit’s emotions were abnormally strong, then he’d be affected by their sorrow, their rage, their ecstasy. Thus, it was called “Empathy”.
One could say that this was the most straightforward, most convenient, and most effective method. Of course, it was even more so the most dangerous method. Everyone feared and avoided chances for ghosts to possess their body. On another level, Empathy, though, was playing with fire. The slightest mistake happened, and it would backfire. If the ghost went back on their word and used the opportunity to counter-attack, even the best result would be the seizure the Empathizer’s body.
Jin Ling protested, “That’s too dangerous! Using such a dark technique without someone…”
Wei WuXian broke him off, “Okay, okay. We’re running out of time. Stand up properly. Quick. We still have to go back and find HanGuang-Jun after we’re finished. Jin Ling, you’ll be the supervisor.”
A supervisor was an indispensable part of the Empathy ritual. In case the Empathizer lost themselves in the ghost’s emotions, they needed to settle on a code with the supervisor. It was best if the code was a sentence or a voice that the Empathizer was familiar with. The supervisor must preside over the scene at all times. If they saw that the situation had changed, they’d need to act at once and pull the Empathizer out of the trance. Jin Ling pointed to himself, “Me? You want a young mast-… You want me to supervise you while you do something like this?”
Lan SiZhui, “If Young Master Jin does not want to do it, I can do it as well.”
Wei WuXian, “Jin Ling, did you bring the Jiang Sect’s silver bell?”
The silver bell was a signature accessory of the YunmengJiang Sect. When Jin Ling was young, he was brought up by two sects. He lived at the LanlingJin Sect’s Jinlin Tower half the time, and the YunmengJiang Sect’s Lotus Pier the other half, so he should be carrying belongings from both sects. As Wei WuXian had expected, with a complicated expression on his face, he pulled out a small, simplistic bell. The Jiang Sect’s clan motif, the nine-petaled lotus, was carved onto the silver body of the bell. Wei WuXian stared at the bell for a few moments. Sensing that he looked a bit off, Jin Ling asked, “What?”
Wei WuXian replied, “Nothing.” He passed the bell to Lan SiZhui, “The silver bell of the Jiang Sect can steady one’s focus and calm one’s mind. Use this as the code.”
Jin Ling grabbed the bell back, “Actually, I’ll do it!”
Lan JingYi grumbled, “You did not want to do it, and now you do want to do it. With such a hot-and-cold temper, are you a young mistress?”
Wei WuXian turned to the girl, “Come in.”
The girl wiped her eyes and her face, and crashed into his body. Her entire soul was slammed inside. Leaning against the coffin, Wei WuXian slowly slid to the ground. The boys hurried to drag over a pile of straw for him to sit on. Jin Ling clutched the bell tightly, his thoughts unknown.
When the girl had just slammed into him, Wei WuXian suddenly thought of a problem, The maiden is blind. If I Empathize with her, wouldn’t I be blind as well and I won’t unable to see a thing? The effects would plummet. Oh well, only the ears should work as well.
After a few dizzying moments, the soul that had been light felt as though it landed on firm ground. As the girl opened her eyes, Wei WuXian opened his eyes as well. However, the scene before his eyes wasn’t a field of pitch-black, but instead a clear landscape with bright colors.
He could see!
Seemingly, at the time of this piece of memory, she wasn’t blind yet.
During Empathy, the scenes shown to Wei WuXian would be segments of her memory with the strongest emotions and that she most wanted to express to other people. He could simply watch quietly and feel what she felt. At the moment, the two of them shared the same senses. The girl’s eyes were his eyes; the girl’s mouth was his mouth.
Sitting by a brook, the girl groomed herself in front of the water. Although her clothes were tattered, she still needed the most basic level of cleanliness. Tapping a tempo with the tip of her foot, she hummed as she fixed her hair, as though she wasn’t satisfied no matter how she fixed it. Wei WuXian could feel a thin, wooden hairpin poking around in her hair. Suddenly, she looked down at her reflection in the water. Wei WuXian’s viewpoint lowered as well. A young maiden with an oval face and a sharp chin was mirrored against the water of the brook.