Looking for the Ashes Division

One month later.

The capital of Yan Kingdom, Chengtian Prefecture, Xunjin Division Office.

Xun Jin Si sounds impressive, but it's actually a thankless and insignificant government office that nobody wants to work for.

To put it bluntly, it's about cleaning up the messes of the Six Ministries. Each ministry dumps its mess on you, and Xun Jin Si is responsible for finding evidence in old documents. The credit goes to them, but the hard work is yours.

A young man sat at a table in the far corner of the government office.

Suhe.

A clerk of the ninth rank, with a monthly salary of three taels of silver.

There were two stacks of official reports in front of him, all sent back from the border. Suhe's job was to classify and file these reports, make copies after filing, and finally send them to the analysis room on the second floor.

This job isn't complicated, but it's tedious.

The previous secretary left through connections, but Su He didn't leave. Besides lacking connections and backing, he discovered something interesting.

Over the course of five years, he did something that no one noticed.

He went through the old files in the warehouse one by one about the founding emperor, Yanzu.

The Xun Jin Si has collected all the edicts, battle reports, records of palace repairs, and eyewitness accounts related to Yan Zu.

Su He spent five years reading a small portion of it.

Those yellowed pages were filled with the same person's name.

Suhe's feelings evolved from indifference to curiosity, then to awe, and finally to an emotion he couldn't quite explain.

He felt that he was beginning to understand that important person.

The vermilion annotations on Emperor Yanzu's edicts sometimes sounded impatient, and sometimes full of wicked humor.

A memorial from the Minister of Works stated that a jade seal had been unearthed from the ground. The seal was clearly buried and dug up by the emperor himself. The emperor then wrote: "It is carved more beautifully than my personal seal. I will keep it for you as your official seal."

The minister was so frightened that he knelt down and begged for forgiveness overnight.

There was also a border battle report that said the enemy army was lying in ambush in the basin, but was "surrounded" by Yan Zu alone, who also captured a general.

Suhe laughed out loud when she read that part.

But the further I read, the less I could laugh.

In the last few years of Emperor Yanzu's reign, the imperial edicts were written with increasingly shorter and shorter comments. Sometimes he would only write "Approved," and sometimes he would write nothing at all, just draw a circle. He would no longer reply to battle reports or add comments to transfer orders.

It's like someone who's been talking all along suddenly doesn't want to talk anymore.

One day, Suhe read a record from the capital's pharmacy. It was from the year before Yanzu disappeared. Every ten days, the Imperial Medical Academy would send a batch of medicines to the palace. The prescriptions for these medicines were all for nourishing the heart and calming the mind, and the dosage was extremely large.

It can cure a condition called "insomnia".

From this point on, Suhe became extremely obsessed with Yanzu's past.

When official historical information was insufficient, he also collected unofficial historical accounts.

Unofficial histories aren't kept in warehouses; you have to go to bookstalls, secondhand shops, and pawnshops to flip through them one by one in the piles of waste paper.

Suhe couldn't afford expensive ones, so he specifically chose the old, worn-out, and unsellable scraps.

Yesterday evening, after finishing his shift, he went to the old bookstore street in the south of the city. The thirty coins in his pocket were what he had saved up over the past two weeks.

Su He flipped to a tattered book without a cover, missing more than a dozen pages, with a small, illegible paragraph at the end:

[...The Ghost Saint asked: How long will you live? The Emperor smiled but did not answer...The Ghost Saint asked again: Is ten thousand years possible? The Emperor remained silent...]

The next half page is missing, with only the last line remaining:

[The Ghost Saint sighed: Is immortality a blessing or a curse?]

Suhe's eyes widened after only five breaths.

The Ghost Saint's surname is Bai. He is the strongest person in the world today, and he is the one who single-handedly created the Demon-Ghost Alliance, almost overturning the human race's格局 (geju, a term referring to the overall situation or structure of the human race).

If this record is true...

Su He calmly closed the tattered copy and looked at the stall owner: "How much is this copy?"

"Fifty coins."

"I only have thirty coins."

Suhe neatly arranged the thirty coins on the stall.

The stall owner glanced at the few copper coins, then at Su He's faded collar, and muttered "poor scum," but still agreed to the deal.

Suhe returned home with the incomplete manuscript as she had hoped, and sat under the oil lamp for the entire night.

He read the last paragraph eight times.

Each time I read it, I hope to discover a new meaning, yet I'm also afraid of discovering a new meaning.

Whether the unofficial history is true or not is irrelevant.

It doesn't matter if it's fake; just imagining that person's deeds in old documents is enough to make him feel happy.

Can't sleep all night.

Suhe's mind was entirely on the incomplete manuscript. When she woke up, her mouth tasted bitter and her stomach was empty.

He took a sip of herbal tea, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, got up to check in at the duty room, and then slipped back to the storeroom.

This was his daily routine—picking up the outline of the emperor from piles of old papers.

"Old Su!"

A voice came from the warehouse door.

Su He turned around and saw Wu Huaiyi push the door open and come in.

Wu Huaiyi was also a clerk. He always had a smile on his face and was eloquent. He did better than Su He.

"What are you doing rummaging through piles of old papers all day?" Wu Huaiyi glanced at the old books spread out on the table.

Su He grinned, chuckled, and closed the book.

Wu Huaiyi muttered a few more words before changing the subject: "Have the battle reports from the west been filed? The higher-ups are urging us to submit them by today."

"Okay, okay, I'll go get it done right away."

"Hurry up," Wu Huaiyi said in a low voice, "The border is in turmoil these days, don't run into trouble."

Let's go.

"Brother Huaiyi," Suhe called out to him, "I have something to ask you."

Wu Huaiyi stopped and turned around.

"Do you think it's possible for someone to live for a thousand years?"

Wu Huaiyi was stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing: "Are you dreaming? Live for a thousand years? Even a tortoise might not live that long."

"Where is Yan Zu?"

Wu Huaiyi's laughter stopped abruptly.

He was well aware of the significance of this word in the Yan Kingdom.

"The Ancestor Yan is unique, the pride of the Yan Kingdom, and the strongest person ever recorded in history."

Wu Huaiyi lowered his voice, his tone sincere, "Do you know what year it is now? Even the strongest person is still human, and everyone dies. Have you ever heard of anyone living forever?"

Su He forced a half-smile: "That's true."

Wu Huaiyi is gone.

Su He sat back down in his chair. His colleague's words didn't make him let go; instead, they tightened his grip on that thought even more.

What if?

What if?

Suhe shook her head, trying to bring her thoughts back to her work, but the more she tried not to think about it, the more her brain wanted to think about it.

The Ghost Saint asked, "Is it possible to live for ten thousand years?" Yan Zu did not answer.

What does it mean if I didn't answer?

Is it because you're too lazy to answer, or because you don't want to lie?

"Thump—"

At that moment, the bells of the imperial city suddenly rang.

The first sound was dull, like someone slamming a giant log into the ground.

Suhe immediately looked out the window.

Then came the second and third tones.

He put down the official gazette and stood up.

Fourth tone, fifth tone, sixth tone.

The other archivists in the warehouse also stopped what they were doing and looked at each other. Wu Huaiyi ran out of the mailroom, his expression slightly changed.

The seventh tone.

Su He has been with the company for five years and has only heard the bell ring three times at most.

The rules in the palace were: three cries to worship Heaven, five cries for the death of the emperor, and seven cries for the fate of the nation.

If you can knock seven times, it must be something of utmost importance.

Then Suhe heard someone shouting outside the government office, the voice shrill:

"Great news! A truly joyous occasion!"

The man ran closer, his voice cracking, but he was still shouting.

"According to reliable sources! The Ghost Saint, the strongest member of the Ghost Clan, is nearing the end of his life. He left a will several months ago and then disappeared—!"

The warehouse was quiet for a moment.

The Ghost Saint lived for far too long, intimidating generation after generation of humans, but today he has finally died!

Everyone spoke at the same time, their voices exploding. Some people threw down the booklets in their hands and ran outside, while others shouted, "Really?" Wu Huaiyi was stunned for a moment, and then he also started to walk outside.

Only Su He didn't move, and his heart skipped a beat.

He reached into his robes and touched the back cover of the tattered book. He had just read about the Ghost Saint last night, and this morning the Ghost Saint had met with misfortune.

What would a super-powerful figure who knows his time is coming to an end do if he doesn't stay behind to make arrangements for his affairs or stay behind to guard the Ghost Clan to prevent foreign enemies from taking advantage of the situation?

"If I were a demon saint..."

"..."

"I will find a way to survive."

How do I find it?

Suhe's breathing became shallow and rapid.

He forced himself to calm down, then retreated deeper into the warehouse, away from the hustle and bustle at the entrance and away from his whispering colleagues.

He leaned against the old shelf at the back of the warehouse, took out the tattered book, and flipped to the end.

Then he picked up a pen and wrote in very small characters:

[Who is the Ghost Saint going to see? The Flame Ancestor?]

After writing it, I stared at it for a few moments, crossed it out, and wrote another line below:

[Based on this deduction, could it be that Yan Zu... is not dead?]

He put down his pen and wiped the ink off his fingers with his sleeve.

This guess is so crazy that even he himself doesn't dare to think about it too much.

If Yan Zu were still alive, the bells of the imperial city would surely have rung ten times.

even more.

The crazed people of Yan will smash the bell to pieces, and the entire Yan Kingdom, the entire world, will tremble.

Outside the window, the echoes of the seven chimes had not yet faded.

Suhe turned the official gazette over to cover up his bold speculation.