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Kapitel 57

Volume 4, The Soul Singer, First Movement: The Mirror of Life's Strange Tale (Part 9) - End

"No way?" Xu Ying rubbed her eyes repeatedly, her face filled with disbelief. Where were the pimples? Where had those pimples that had transformed the beautiful Wu Manli into an ugly duckling overnight gone? Xu Ying carefully examined Wu Manli's skin. Nothing. Not even the slightest acne scar remained. They had been so vividly present before her eyes; she had even used her hands to prove their existence, yet…!

Was all of this just her hallucination?

She felt cold sweat dripping down her forehead, and her vision went black… Her body swayed involuntarily, her vision blurring… It was all fake, a hallucination—Wu Manli hadn't developed any pimples at all; she had always been there for Xu Ying, her beauty shining through, accompanying her shopping—which explained why the beauty advisor at the cosmetics counter acted perfectly normally. In that advisor's eyes, it was an honor to do makeup for a beauty like Wu Manli!

Xu Ying suddenly felt a suffocating pain, as if a thousand-pound boulder was pressing on her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She could no longer distinguish whether the beautiful face before her was Wu Manli or someone else. If the acne-ridden, hideously ugly Wu Manli was her hallucination—no, or rather, a deep-seated desire within her—that Wu Manli should be even uglier than herself, so she could look down on her and laugh at her—then when exactly did this illusion begin to quietly replace reality, trapping her so deeply? Was it the moment Xu Ying saw Wu Manli wearing a mask? Or perhaps…

It felt as if she had been punched hard in the chest.

From the moment she was praised for becoming more beautiful?

From that moment on, the mirror no longer reflected her true appearance; instead, she grew older and uglier with each passing moment. The so-called compliments from passersby and the fawning of men were merely illusions, wishful thinking on her part. The real her, she didn't know what kind of shell she wore, responding to those illusory smiles and voices. Xu Ying was like an animal sinking into the mire, slowly sinking, slowly despairing—she struggled desperately, but all she received was the slow, relentless downward force of the stagnant mud, the weight pressing down on her body from all sides. "Give me a mirror!" she cried, but the image in the mirror seemed to be corroded by the mud, dripping and dissolving; "Can anyone see my true appearance?!" She desperately stretched out her hands, pleading for help from passersby, but only received indifference and disdain in return. Her heart was bleeding; she wished she could kneel down and kowtow, just to get a clear answer from the onlookers:

"Can anyone tell me what I look like right now?"

Wu Manli squatted down, utterly bewildered by Xu Ying's sudden action. The usually timid and submissive Xu Ying had humiliated her so fiercely. She had intended to retaliate decisively, but instead, Xu Ying was clutching her head, muttering to herself, her expression one of utter pain.

"Is she sick?" Wu Manli leaned forward slightly, just as Xu Ying looked up. Their eyes met mid-air, and Wu Manli gasped, "You..."

When Xu Ying dragged her tired body home, the wooden table was unusually full of dishes, so rich in variety that it was almost extravagant, and her mother was sitting between two bowls of steaming white rice.

"Are you hungry? Come on, come and eat!" Mom was unusually cheerful today, a smile she hadn't seen in a long time radiating from her face, making her look much younger. She kept piling food into her bowl of rice, listing the dishes as she went, "Wood ear mushrooms with sliced pork, shredded pork with scrambled eggs, home-style tofu—these are all your favorites…try them!"

Xu Ying stared coldly at her mother, who was busy at work, and after a long while, she finally uttered a sentence:

"Mom, am I pretty?"

"What's with all this talk about pretty things... eating is the most important thing!" Without waiting for a reply, Mom handed her a overflowing bowl of rice, her eyes filled with love and expectation. "Eat up, sweetie!"

"I won't eat!" Xu Ying shoved her away abruptly, sending a full bowl of white rice, along with the delicious dish her mother had prepared, flying to the ground and scattering it everywhere. Her brows furrowed, veins bulging on her temples, as she squeezed out the following words, one by one:

Am I pretty?

The mother sighed helplessly, as if complaining but unable to say it, "What's wrong with you today, child... As the saying goes, a child doesn't despise his mother for being ugly, and in a mother's eyes, of course there are no ugly children."

"What about how outsiders see it?" Xu Ying's eyes flashed with a vicious glint, a ruthless determination that her mother had never witnessed before. "Speak!"

The mother turned away helplessly, perhaps wiping away tears—she seemed completely intimidated by her daughter. "What can I do? You look like me, and of course I've never thought you were uglier than other girls..."

"If you're so ugly, you shouldn't have given birth to me!" Xu Ying roared, a tremendous energy bursting from her small frame. "Do you know how much pain I've suffered? From childhood to adulthood, I've been ridiculed and hurt so much that I wish I had never been born! It's all because I'm not pretty, because you couldn't give birth to me as beautiful..." She took a deep breath, her teeth clenched so tightly, and tears welled up in her eyes. "Who told me to be so unlucky, to have a mother like you who's ugly, poor, and incompetent!"

"No, Xiaoying!" Mom panicked, not knowing what to say. "I..." Suddenly her eyes lit up, as if she had discovered something new. "Xiaoying, don't be ashamed anymore! You've become very beautiful!"

"Stop trying to fool me!" Xu Yingyu was still furious. "Instead of saying nice things, you should find a way to raise money for my plastic surgery! I can't stand this ugly face for even a day longer!"

"No, it's true!" Mom moved over, grabbed a small mirror from the bathroom, and held it up in front of Xu Ying, her expression a mixture of humility and satisfaction. "You are now, truly, a beautiful woman!"

The face reflected in the mirror was quite similar to the original Xu Ying, but suddenly much more beautiful. Her sallow, dark complexion had been brightened to a rosy glow, and subtle adjustments like changing her single eyelids to double eyelids had been made; Xu Ying had transformed into a stunning beauty that everyone loved. Xu Ying carefully examined her reflection in the mirror, the scene from just moments ago involuntarily replaying in her mind.

Wu Manli rescued her from the mud, and then she cried out in surprise:

"How did you suddenly become so beautiful?"

An illusion, another illusion. She sneered twice, then punched the sycophantic illusion, knocking it to the ground. You blatant liar, I'll teach you a lesson you'll never utter again. She rolled over, pinning the illusion down, ignoring its screams, and gouged out its eyes. This was its just deserts for its shameless flattery!

The same is true now. Xu Ying faced her beautiful self in the mirror with a radiant smile, and then slowly extended her strongest index and middle fingers. The last thing she saw was those two jade-white fingers, as long and slender as scallions.

He applied force slowly. His fingers pierced her clear, bright eyes, the viscous blood feeling like mud.

"What a pity!" Maya sighed, unusually mature for her age. "It's rare for her mother to make a deal with the astrologer for her daughter's 'beauty,' but it ended like this! However, sir," she whispered in the astrologer's ear, "you can also achieve this level of change in appearance!"

The astrologer's silver hair fluttered silently in the darkness, a fleeting glimpse illuminating half his face, making him appear to shimmer between light and shadow. "Ah," he replied, "if it's merely a human shell..."

“Then sir,” Maya suddenly thought of something, her golden cat eyes sparkling, “if the tomboy asks you, you could probably upgrade her ‘flat-chested’ body, right? She seems quite dissatisfied with ‘that size’! Right, right, maybe that’s a good idea! Just put up a sign that says ‘Offer your body, and you’ll get a stunning beauty,’ and lots of ‘food’ will automatically come knocking!”

"The human body is perhaps the most superficial and fragile thing, most vulnerable to the ravages of time. Yet, this shallow appearance determines the fate of many people for most of their lives, even their entire life journey." The astrologer thoughtfully raised his head, gazing at the hazy starry sky. His words were as faint as a gentle breeze brushing through the treetops. "Making an ugly appearance beautiful is within my power, but an already ugly heart, even I am powerless to change..."

The first movement – Birth. The Buddha said that the real world is full of suffering, and our very existence in this world is suffering. Birth and death, when will it end? Suffering originates from within ourselves; suffering originates from living. Therefore, the first sound a person makes upon birth is a loud cry.

Volume 4, The Soul Singer, Second Movement: The Old Man and the Snow Boy

Yan Wuyue recently discovered something strange.

Her dormitory was the most precious resource hub at K University—not only did all the undergraduate girls from the main campus reside there, but even the more advanced female master's and doctoral students lived there. According to university regulations, undergraduates shared rooms in groups of four, while only master's students and above could share rooms in pairs. Therefore, Xiao Yu had recently moved out to share a room with a graduate student. Frankly, Yan Wuyue longed for a shared dormitory room. Although the current accommodations were already quite good, as everyone's clothes, shoes, hats, and other belongings accumulated, she gradually felt the pressure of limited space. Just then, she noticed that the dormitory opposite the water room was somewhat different.

The dormitory room seemed to be occupied all the time, as its door was always locked, with only a sliver of fluorescent light leaking from the transom window. However, Yan Wuyue never saw anyone go in or out. Intrigued, she inquired a little and learned that a female PhD student lived there alone. This PhD student always went to the lab early every morning to conduct research and often didn't return until late at night. So, who was the person who stayed in the room all day long?

The question that had been lingering in her mind for so long was finally answered one night. It was a cold day, and Yan Wuyue, having just returned from outside, rushed straight to the bathroom—each floor of the dormitory had a communal bathroom for ten people. Since hot water was supplied at set times each day, the girls usually showered on time; only those who missed the water supply would risk having the hot water cut off mid-shower and shower late at night. Therefore, when Yan Wuyue carried two bottles of boiling water towards the bathroom, she didn't expect to bump into the person she had been curious about.

A middle-aged woman in her early fifties stood under the tap, washing her wrinkled skin. Yan Wuyue was stunned. Her first reaction was to open her mouth wide, her mind in a state of chaos, constantly thinking, "There are girls this old in our school?" But the other woman was no less shocked than Yan Wuyue. She futilely covered her body with half a bath towel, and the bathroom stall door was quickly closed.

As Yan Wuyue lathered herself with shower gel, she sensed something was amiss, so she decided to observe further. After washing for a while, she deliberately turned off the tap and stomped heavily out of the bathroom with an unimaginable force for a woman, leaving a trail of heavy footsteps. Then, she tiptoed and secretly hid in the outermost stall, only a narrow crack in the door visible. Although the image of her peeping naked was somewhat like that of a creepy uncle (and a peeping to an older woman at that—-_-!), and the cold weather made her shiver, the thought of soon uncovering this "eternal" mystery made Yan Wuyue feel her blood boil, and her face flushed as if she had a fever.

Sure enough, not long after, a neatly dressed girl walked in. She was clearly several years older than Yan Wuyue and the others. As soon as she entered, she called out softly:

"mom!"

The sound of water stopped immediately. Yan Wuyue held her breath and watched as the middle-aged woman cautiously walked out. Yan Wuyue took the opportunity to memorize the woman's daughter's face.

After confirmation, it was undoubtedly the female PhD student living in that dormitory.

From then on, Yan Wuyue saw the mother and daughter more and more often—no, perhaps Yan Wuyue seized the opportunities they had to appear. The mother didn't hide as much as expected; she would occasionally come out of the dormitory. However, each time she came out, she was either washing clothes, rinsing rice, cooking, or scrubbing pots and dishes. On a cold winter morning, the mother soaked her rough hands in a basin of icy water, rubbing her daughter's heavy sweater. The draft blowing in from the water room window was so cold that even Yan Wuyue, brushing her teeth and washing her face, couldn't help but shiver. Yet the mother remained silent, laborious, and tirelessly scrubbing the sweater's high collar. At that time, her short frame stood ramrod straight.

Should Yan Wuyue tell the dormitory manager about her female PhD student letting her mother stay overnight? She didn't want to drive away the mother who missed her daughter so much, but she resented the PhD student for being so incapable of taking care of herself and insisting on having her mother act as a babysitter. However… it was their private matter, and since no one else had objected, it seemed it wasn't her place to interfere… Thus began a new round of worries for Yan Wuyue. She even skipped the usual horoscope forum gathering, only attending after her friends dragged her along.

She hadn't seen her old friends from the horoscope forum for a long time. Ever since the "Ivy League Ghost House Incident," she hadn't taken the initiative to appear before Lonely Ox and the others. Lonely Ox was already in a relationship, but not with her—this outcome alone left her heartbroken. Why should she bother witnessing his sweet and warm relationship with him?

However, only Lonely Ox arrived; An Lin never appeared. Lonely Ox was no longer the fiery spirit he once was. Compared to his former hot-tempered self, he was now more like a stone thrown into an icy lake, slowly cooling as he submerged. He ignored Yan Wuyue's questions, simply sitting silently to the side. "Are you and An Lin... alright?" This question lingered in Yan Wuyue's mind for a full hour, but even after Lonely Ox left dejectedly, she never had the courage to say it.

"I'm so useless!" She raised her little fist and pounded her head repeatedly. "If this keeps up, the relationship will only get worse! As a friend, I should at least try to understand his troubles! Yes," she exaggeratedly said "Oh," "he must have some troubles!"

"So, do you need my help, guest?" A magnetic male voice echoed eerily from the side, accompanied by a chilling wind and a sudden drop in temperature to below zero. "For just a tiny price, you can gain unprecedented satisfaction!"

That voice… it sounded so familiar. No, it should be said that, apart from someone else, there was no other man as handsome as him who would use such a seductive and alluring voice to speak so intimately to Yan Wuyue’s ear. “Ahhh!” Yan Wuyue let out three strange screams in a row, her voice so rough and unnatural that it hardly sounded like a little girl’s. “It’s you, the astrologer!”

At the same time, she quickly jumped five zhang away to avoid being sexually harassed by the demon's sonic waves again. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

“Because I miss you.” The astrologer smiled, putting on an honest and trustworthy smile, and said some incredibly cheesy things. “Because I’m about to go on a long trip, and I can’t bear the loneliness of being away from you, I’ve decided to take you with me.” As he spoke, he appeared silently behind Yan Wuyue, grabbed her arm, and his smile remained as gentlemanly as ever. “Well then, let’s go.”

"Waaaaah! Wait a minute! I haven't asked for leave yet! I have a 100% attendance rate, how can I miss classes! And I can't hand in my homework on time, what am I going to do!" Yan Wuyue, who has been a model student since childhood, let out a futile cry that gradually faded into the air.

Volume 4, The Soul Singer, Second Movement: The Old Man and the Snow Boy (Part Two)

This was the astrologer's second train trip with Yan Wuyue (the first one can be found in "Volume One: The Seven Deadly Sins - Wrath"), but this time his feelings were completely different from the last. The astrologer was preoccupied with the letter he had just received, and from the lines of that letter that should have arrived long ago, he seemed to smell an ominous scent.

He seemed to have forgotten a "contract" made years, perhaps decades ago—he smiled wryly and tapped his forehead; his memory was getting worse and worse, he couldn't even remember his own guest. Now, recalling it, all that appeared in his mind was a vast, endless white expanse, a despairing, suffocating white. As for the contents of that contract…

He glanced at Yan Wuyue, who was engrossed in eating and drinking. She had been making a huge fuss the whole way, shouting about "ghouls kidnapping a female college student as a hostage," until he stuffed her mouth full of Chengdu-style beef jerky, spicy enoki mushrooms, and pickled chicken feet. Only then did she immediately quiet down. From the moment she boarded the train, Yan Wuyue's mouth hadn't stopped—not nagging, but constantly busy with all sorts of delicious snacks.

"Would you like a bite?" Yan Wuyue noticed his gaze and took a moment to recommend to him, "These enoki mushrooms are absolutely delicious!"

The astrologer politely declined, but still picked up his beloved yogurt. Maya, hiding in the travel bag, peeked out and said sourly:

"Sir, why do you have to bring this tomboy along as a third wheel?"

It was supposed to be our honeymoon! But she never dared to say that last sentence.

The astrologer turned his gaze to the window, his faint smile vanishing instantly. "Maya, do you believe in my astrology?"

“Of course!” Maya’s eyes widened as she answered without hesitation, “Sir, you are the most powerful astrologer in the world!”

“Well,” the astrologer lowered his voice deliberately, lest the secret be carried away by the wind, “this time I didn’t make a mistake…”

The train sped along for a day and a night, finally arriving at their destination—City D. Located in the cold north, the crisp, chilly air immediately seeped into Yan Wuyue's sweater as soon as she stepped off the train, causing her, already listless, to shiver several times. However, unlike the familiar City H, the air here was incredibly clear and thin, lacking the hazy feeling of the south, and the sunlight was bright and dazzling. "For vampires, this is not a good place to live and work peacefully," the astrologer commented.

"Then what about ghouls?" Yan Wuyue's eyes widened with curiosity. Based on her limited experience, it seemed that the astrologer was not afraid of the sun at all. Although he covered most of his body with black clothes, he always carelessly exposed his face to the sunlight, enjoying its caress—so, was the astrologer a ghoul who surpassed the vampire level?

Maya let out a muffled snort from her travel bag to acknowledge her presence, "Don't compare such a lowly race to you, sir! I'd be ashamed of myself!"

The astrologer smiled slightly and walked towards the taxis waiting in line outside the station. Yan Wuyue secretly stuck out her tongue and quickly followed him into the car. The streets and buildings on both sides slowly rushed past the car window; every blade of grass and every tree in this city was so unfamiliar to Yan Wuyue. "Oh, right, I haven't asked you yet," she suddenly turned to the astrologer and asked seriously, "Are you here for business this time?" Was he going to provide door-to-door service and eat her on the spot? She suddenly felt her hair stand on end, half out of fear and half out of curiosity. Although she had seen Feng Xiaoxiao's bloodied body under duress, the astrologer's proactive invitation couldn't be as simple as just "eating," could it?

The astrologer rested her beautifully shaped chin on her hand, a rare look of embarrassment on her face. "Well... in your human terms, it would probably be called after-sales service..."

"What?!" Yan Wuyue was extremely surprised, her eyes widening in astonishment. "So-called after-sales service is just a stopgap measure to fix substandard product quality, isn't it? How come you've experienced something like this too?..."

Before she could finish speaking, the car had already come to a smooth stop in front of a small villa in the suburbs. The astrologer's tall, slender figure in black darted out of the car and eagerly opened the door for Yan Wuyue. "Hey! Answer my question, old man!" she shouted as soon as her feet touched the ground.

“Well then,” the astrologer’s smile was so gentle and kind, “could you please, Miss Yan, keep your mouth shut for a moment?”

He rang the doorbell, and while no one answered, Yan Wuyue quickly scanned the surroundings. It was a two-story detached house with its own yard; the ground floor alone occupied over 200 square meters, a veritable "mansion" in today's China where land is incredibly valuable. However, for some reason, it gave off a desolate feeling. The once snow-white roof and walls had peeled away, revealing the plaster beneath, and thick layers of dust had accumulated on the huge French windowsills, not to mention the private gardens in front and behind. In Yan Wuyue's memory, any private garden of this size would be bursting with flowers and lush green grass, not like this one, merely covered with a layer of withered yellow weeds, left to grow aimlessly.

"Hey, old man," Yan Wuyue quietly tiptoed closer to the astrologer's ear. There was no way around it; the difference in their builds was just too great! "Is this really the place? It looks a bit like an abandoned house!"

The astrologer frowned; to be honest, this was his biggest worry on the way here. "Am I too late?" he wondered. "Or have they moved?"

"No!" Yan Wuyue suddenly exclaimed, "How stupid of me! If no one lives here, how could the doorbell possibly ring!"

“That’s not necessarily true!” Maya’s persistent voice rang out again. “Maybe they’re too lazy to remove the batteries from the doorbell, or maybe they’re just trying to mislead you, you tomboy,” she said earnestly. “You need to look at things from all angles!”

"What?! Is this the time to hold a reasoning competition and test our logical thinking?" Yan Wuyue retorted indignantly. "We should judge based on common sense. What you're saying is just sophistry! Why don't you say that a ghost is imitating the doorbell in the house?"

As if to confirm her words, at that very moment, a deathly pale face suddenly appeared on the transparent glass window. It was a woman's face, frighteningly white from skin to lips, even her long black hair was as white as frost under the moonlight. Then, the villa's door creaked open automatically.

Volume 4, The Soul Singer, Second Movement: The Old Man and the Snow Boy (Part 3)

"Human or ghost..." Yan Wuyue couldn't help but mutter to herself. Honestly, anything good was bound to happen whenever she was with an astrologer. She glared at the tall man, who wore a gentlemanly smile and gestured for the ladies to go first. Yan Wuyue gave him a sharp look and stepped into the villa.

Her first reaction was to shiver several times.

She had assumed that with the freezing weather outside, she could stay inside and warm up, but to her utter surprise, the entire villa was like a giant, natural icebox, even colder than outside. She'd heard that every household in northern cities had heating, so why was it so cold here? Could it be… that the heating had been forcibly cut off because of unpaid bills? But how could someone who could afford such a grand villa be in debt? She couldn't help but start letting her imagination run wild.

The astrologer, however, seemed oblivious, entering with a graceful and ethereal gait that no human could imitate. In the midst of the biting wind, he removed his hat, and in an instant, countless strands of hair, half silver and half black, tangled together in the air, reflecting each other's brilliance.

"I am an astrologer with flesh and blood," he greeted politely. "Is Mr. Luo here?"

The white wall suddenly moved—no, rather than the wall moving, it was something in front of it, blending seamlessly with the white wall, that moved. It was a humanoid creature with long, pure white hair, skin as pale and translucent as snow, wearing a pristine white robe, and bare, equally dazzlingly white feet. The only parts of her body with color were probably her eyes and lips. Thin, translucent, pale red eyes, coupled with a touch of extremely faint crimson like a sunset, made her look like a Chinese ink painting etched on the wall, full of an ethereal and dreamlike quality. If it weren't for the rustling sound of her robes as she moved, Yan Wuyue would have almost thought she was a female ghost descending from the wall.

"You are..." The astrologer couldn't help but wonder.

"Grandpa...Grandpa...he..." The girl kept her head down, not daring to look them in the eye. "Are you here to save Grandpa?"

Grandpa? The astrologer suddenly remembered something. So many years had passed since the contract was signed. The young Mr. Luo in his memory had now entered the ranks of "grandpas." So, the letter he received was indeed from Mr. Luo…!

Yan Wuyue couldn't help but feel pity for the girl in front of her. If she wasn't mistaken, this girl probably had albinism, and the whole body kind at that. She had once seen the figure of an albinism killer in the global bestseller *The Da Vinci Code*—Silas, whose skin was described as "as white as an angel."

And what about this girl? She was petite, with a very youthful face. Her voice, demeanor, and movements were all those of a child. Judging from her clear, fair skin, she was no more than fifteen years old.

"My name is Xiaoxue," she introduced herself.

Yan Wuyue bent down, asking her, "How old are you?", her restless hands instinctively reaching for her head. But to her utter surprise, Xiaoxue screamed and dodged backward. Due to the sudden movement, she lost her balance and fell to the ground with a "plop."

Yan Wuyue was taken aback. "What's wrong with you?" Even as she asked this, she hadn't learned her lesson and still reached out to Xiaoxue. This time, she finally received a painful lesson, because Xiaoxue quickly swatted her hand away and yelled, "Don't touch me!"

Even when she hit her hand, Xiaoxue was very careful to do so with her arm, which was covered by her robe.

In other words, Xiaoxue had absolutely no desire for any direct physical contact with Yan Wuyue. To be so disliked by someone she had just met was a devastating blow to Yan Wuyue, who always prided herself on her excellent interpersonal skills. What angered her even more was that the ever-present Maya reappeared, wearing a gloating expression.