Has the Ghostly Priestess Been Taking It Easy Today?

[Main plot. The entire novel is shorter than drinking a cup of Snow King tea. Thank you for supporting the official release.]

[My completed historical novel, The Promotion Notes of a Noble Wife, is in my column. My next novel, The Daily Life of Consort Shen Keeping Herself Alive, will begin soon. Interested readers, please add it to your favorites!]

---Synopsis begins here---

I

Feng Ling is a ghost, and a wicked one who has been dead for a thousand years.

She has no memories of her life, nor any idea what sins she committed. All she has is the promise of the Great Emperor of Fengdu: "Atone for your sins and you can be reincarnated soon." So she accepts the Underworld's offer of amnesty and becomes its Ghost Master...

An unofficial one, that is.

Though she is a wicked ghost herself, she has spent a thousand years helping the Underworld catch runaway spirits all over the mortal realm.

But the more ghosts she catches, the less certain her prospects of reincarnation become. Working for free is the worst!

Today, as always, the Ghost Master has yet to hear any good news about her next life!

II

Xie Yu is a Taoist priest, but he's a charlatan who can't actually catch ghosts.

Meeting Feng Ling was pure chance. She saw right through his disguise and realized he had ghost-seeing eyes from birth. In the end, he got a one-time experience of being scared out of his wits by a thousand-year-old wicked ghost...

As for how Feng Ling dragged him into her scheme?

Master Xie says, "At first, we really were just innocent accomplices..."

III

Eventually, Feng Ling gets used to having Xie Yu by her side and makes up her mind to keep him in the Underworld after he dies.

People say that humans and ghosts belong to different worlds. But once Xie Yu becomes a ghost, won't the two of them belong to the same world?

The Ghost Master thinks she's come up with a brilliant plan.

As for Master Xie, he silently agrees and gives her a thumbs-up.

But before Feng Ling can see that day arrive, her former colleagues in the Underworld drive her into a desperate corner.

When her memories return, she finally realizes just how deeply she has been deceived, and how long these lofty gods and ghosts have been laughing at her...

But why should she have to become a wicked ghost to atone for the sins committed by someone else?

"You want to save her?"

"...I, Xie Yu, offer my living soul in exchange for Feng Ling's sins to be erased and her return to the cycle of reincarnation."

-Reader's Guide-

1. I'm a devoted fan of happy endings, so this will absolutely have a satisfying conclusion.

2. An immensely powerful Ghost Master of the Underworld x a human-loving Taoist priest. The male lead is no pushover, but the female lead is even stronger.

---Upcoming historical novel---

Xuan Li, the eldest daughter of the Shen family of Wuxing, is strikingly beautiful and graceful. Though her father died young, she has a loving, protective mother, an expensive education from learned tutors, and the support of her elders.

On the day she comes of age, however, an imperial edict arrives summoning her to be selected as a consort. She is named Consort Xi and sent to the palace along with eight other women.

People say the eldest Miss Shen is doomed. The Shen family has only just sent their daughter to the palace, and soon they will have to prepare two coffin boards to bring Shen Xuan Li home for burial. The matriarch of the Shen family weeps as she bids her daughter farewell, asking only that she live long and stay safe in the palace.

The reason is simple: in the ten years since the current emperor ascended the throne, he has already had his first empress killed. Several consorts have died or been injured, and being ignored in the Cold Palace is practically the best outcome one can hope for.

Shen Xuan Li initially thinks the rumors may be exaggerated, but after entering the palace, she learns that they are not entirely baseless. She wants to live, and she cannot bear the thought of her mother worrying about her outside the palace. So she learns to be cautious and to become a sensible, understanding companion in the emperor's presence.

Among the women chosen alongside her are one who becomes empress but dies when she is left to perish in a fire, one who bears the crown prince but lives in constant terror and eventually dies of illness, and one who is beaten to death for a misstep before the emperor even favors her. The emperor's consorts come and go, but Shen Xuan Li remains unshaken, firmly establishing herself in the harem.

Many years later, Shen Xuan Li sits high on the throne of Imperial Noble Consort, watching a daughter with no blood relation to her bow in greeting. She can't help marveling at how unpredictable life can be. Who would have thought that the young Miss Shen from Jiangnan would one day become the most powerful woman in the harem?

But at first, all she wanted was to survive.

---Upcoming fantasy novel---

I

As the only daughter of the head of the B Qiong Sword Sect, Kou Xi has a father who spoils her rotten and many senior brothers and sisters who care for her. Her cultivation talent is average, and her swordsmanship is nothing special. But she neither seeks enlightenment nor immortality. Living for a few centuries, the average lifespan of a cultivator, would be enough for her.

Life goes smoothly for Kou Xi, until it all comes to an abrupt end when she is twenty-eight.

The senior disciple of Qing Hui Sect, the noble gentleman whom the hundred sects of the immortal world believe most likely to attain the Heavenly Dao, inexplicably falls to demonic cultivation after a retreat. He then massacres over a thousand people from large and small sects alike.

Kou Xi is the last person to die by his sword.

II

When she opens her eyes again, Kou Xi has returned to the massacre of the B Qiong Sword Sect. But before she can react, she falls into another pool of blood.

Then come endless loops of returning and starting over.

Different times, different places, different circumstances.

The one thing that never changes is that she always dies by Xuan Zhaoming's sword at the age of twenty-eight.

No matter how hard she tries, no matter how early she approaches Xuan Zhaoming and tries to kill him.

The result is always the same.

The last time, Kou Xi returns to when she was five years old.

At that point, Xuan Zhaoming is still a young, pitiful child who has just lost both his parents. He has yet to begin cultivating, and bears no resemblance to the dignified man he will become.

I will kill him.

Kou Xi smiles as she meets his desperate, struggling gaze, while endless malice rises in her heart.

Theme: Heaven sees all, and karma comes full circle.