“Be honest with me—what enemy did you tick off? Why did they name you and only you? Don’t tell me you’ve got no clue at all.”

At the inn’s front door, Lingcai burned like dry grass in a wind, scolding the guard before her, Xueyu. Xueyu held a pale-green card, searching it like a spider hunting a single broken thread, and found nothing.

“Meeting you is the worst luck of my life! If anything happens to my Leaf, I’ll go down fighting you!”

Under the barrage, Xueyu found no words to fire back. She kept turning the card, eyes combing the strokes like reeds in fog, and found no shape.

“How would I know?” Xueyu flicked the card to the ground like a leaf in a gutter. “I’m just a guard. Where would I get jianghu enemies?”

Seeing her toss it, Lingcai darted forward, scooped the card like a fledgling from a storm, and cradled it. Right now, that card was Scarlet Leaf’s lifeline.

She tucked it into her pocket, then shot Xueyu a glare sharp as sleet. “It’s your mess anyway. If you don’t carry it, who will?”

Xueyu watched Lingcai’s anxious hopping like a monkey on hot tiles, then patted her shoulder. “I never said I wouldn’t go. Why panic? When things turn strange, there’s always a demon in the reeds. Let me swing by home and prep, then we’ll go save our wife, alright?”

Lingcai slapped her hand away. “What do you mean our? She’s my wife! Not yours! Don’t cozy up to me!”

“Alright, alright—your wife. I’ll prep, then we’ll go save your wife.”

The territorial nitpicking grated on Xueyu. She spread her hands. “So I swing home first, okay? Big fights need supplies. You save before you fight the boss. You want me to dash in empty-handed and feed them my head?”

She had a point, and Lingcai wouldn’t dump everything on Xueyu anyway. She’d prep some tools herself, for storms you don’t see coming.

“Fine, supplies, whatever! Move it then!” Lingcai shoved her, feet tapping like rain. “No dawdling—go!”

Half dragged by urgency, Xueyu returned to a small courtyard house she’d bought in the capital. She spent most days guarding Her Highness in the palace, so the place only saw an occasional broom. Not dirty, just a bit like leaves scattered after wind.

Lingcai’s heart still beat like a drum, but Xueyu, even at home, moved with a slow, steady tide. “Throwing knives… canteen… magic scrolls… Yaksha candy… Recovery Potion G… if it’s undead, I’ll need a silver sword… let me find it…”

“Can you hurry?” Lingcai snapped, voice cracking like ice. “You take one lazy breath and my wife loses one heartbeat!”

“She won’t be hurt. Trust me.” Xueyu tugged a dusty strap from a chest of odds and ends, planted a boot, and hauled at the sheath like a fisherman pulling net. She kept her back turned. “If it’s a kidnapping, they’d ask for something. They only called me to meet. No ransom, no reason to cut the ticket. Breathe.”

Lingcai’s anger sank like a stone through water. She slumped onto the step, weak at the joints, but one question drifted up like mist. “Then what do they want?”

Xueyu frowned, a question mark drawn in ash. “How would I know? For the record, I don’t make enemies. I don’t keep grudges.”

You? Not make enemies? Lingcai nearly spit the words like sparks.

If Leaf loses a single hair today, I’ll be your worst enemy.

Xueyu spoke again, breezy as a knife through silk. “Besides, anyone with a grudge against me didn’t live to see today. What? You were about to say something?”

She glanced back. Lingcai had swallowed her words like a pebble, face tight. Xueyu found it odd, but let it drift.

Cold sweat flooded Lingcai’s back like rain slipping under armor. “It’s nothing. Nothing.”

Forget it. There are people in this world small folk like us can’t afford to provoke.

While Xueyu sorted gear, Lingcai’s gaze fell on the mailbox set inside the front gate. The slot faced out; the letters spilled in on this side.

Looked like Xueyu really hadn’t been back in ages. The box was stuffed like a swallow’s nest after spring, letters swelling at the seam, ready to spill.

She touched the door and—whoosh—the envelopes poured out like a burst dam, a white stream flooding the floor.

“Uh… I didn’t mean to…”

Xueyu ignored her. Lingcai crouched and gathered the drift of paper like fallen petals.

Reading someone’s mail wasn’t great, but this was force majeure, force majeure—

Still, as she picked up the letters, her eyes brushed the sender’s line. All anonymous. Only five characters: To Lady Xueyu. Same hand, every stroke like a matching wave.

“Huh. Someone wrote you this many? Debt collectors?” Lingcai’s tone had thorns.

Xueyu shot her a withering look. “What nonsense. You couldn’t spit anything nice if you tried. You never wish me well.”

Words aside, the sea of envelopes left her blinking. She jogged over in three quick steps, scooped a handful, and flipped through them like cards. “Weird. Where’d these all come from? They can’t be debt notices. Who’d chase me for debt?”

Lingcai grabbed her arm and shook it hard, like rattling a bell. “Think. Think again! Who do you owe? You got my Leaf taken! Move!”

“Don’t rush. Let me check first…”

Xueyu slit an envelope as she soothed her. The moment it opened, a scream tore out of her throat, hawk-shrill and temple-loud, echoing off the courtyard walls like it would hang there three days.

“Ma—aaah!”

She flung the open envelope against the wall, then shook the hand that touched it like it had frostbite. “Begone, spirits! Begone, monsters! Begone!”

…What now?

Lingcai leaned in, puzzled by Xueyu’s ghost-struck face. She peered into the half-open envelope. Inside, it brimmed with black strands of a woman’s hair, packed thick as kelp in tide.

Lingcai wasn’t the superstitious sort. She snagged a twig and lifted the hair, brows knit. “Huh? What’s this supposed to mean… It can’t be only hair, right?”

She teased out the long black tangle strand by strand. At the bottom, a yellowed sheet of paper breathed up like old leaves.

Xueyu clung to a post from far away, trembling, and howled, “Help! A ghost! A ghost! Lingcai, don’t touch that stuff! It’ll cling to you! Help—!”

“Quit yowling.” Lingcai’s disdain was a cool splash. “It’s just hair. What’s scary? Someone you crossed knows you fear ghosts and used it to spook you. There are no ghosts. If you won’t open it, I will.”

She picked up the letter and unfolded it, stubborn as a lantern against wind.

Red ink bloomed across the page, bright as fresh blood against tired paper.

The same hand, line after line, only three words repeated, packed like ants:

I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you I like you—

Lingcai’s skin crawled like ice up her spine. She crushed the paper into a ball and hurled it, then threw back her head and screamed with a trembling voice:

“Help—there’s a ghost!”