Chapter 25: The Female Ghost, Song Shiyun!

After the matter with the female ghost was resolved, Li Weiwei left with a fair amount of reluctance. After all, judging by the "pie in the sky" the ghost had promised, Li Weiwei felt she hadn't lost anything at all—in fact, she might have hit the jackpot.

However, Chu Tian would certainly never let this ghost go just to grant Li Weiwei’s wishes. First, as a nether-official, letting a ghost slip through his fingers would be a dereliction of duty. Second, the ghost was so formidable that Chu Tian couldn't bear to let her go. Just listen to her talk: running a company and making a fortune seemed like child's play to her. His haunted house happened to be in need of a receptionist, so he decided to hand the role over to her. After all, one must make the best use of everything.

The next day, after Chu Tian released the female ghost and spoke with her, he learned her name: Song Shiyun—a name with a touch of literary elegance.

By the third day, the issue of Chu Meng'er’s identity had been sorted out. Chu Tian took the household registration book to the appropriate office to register her, and now "little kid" Chu Meng'er could finally go to kindergarten.

The haunted house erupted into a flurry of activity. Chen Meng prepared a mountain of things for Chu Meng'er: a tiny school backpack, a little yellow hat, a small water bottle, and little leather boots, dressing her up like a porcelain doll.

The "little kid" Chu Meng'er was so incredibly excited that she didn't sleep a wink all night in anticipation of her first day of school. This situation led Chu Tian to sigh to himself: "Little girl, you are still too naive. You’re too excited to sleep now, but soon enough, you’ll be too overwhelmed by homework to sleep."

Still, these were the obsessions of children who had arrived in the world of the living, and Chu Tian could understand that. Sometimes, that is just how things are: the daily life you treat as worthless trash might be the paradise someone else yearns for.

"Let’s go, time to take Meng'er to school." In Chu Tian's home, the family of three stood at the door putting on their shoes after breakfast. Chu Tian grabbed the car keys from behind the door. Today was Chu Meng'er’s first day of kindergarten, and Chu Tian and Chen Meng were going together to drop her off.

Along the way, Chu Meng'er was irrepressibly excited, her little legs kicking uncontrollably in the back seat.

"Listen to your teacher when you get to school, don't cause trouble, you hear? Make friends with the other children, and if you have a problem, ask the teacher," Chu Tian instructed. "You are a little kid now, not a Ghost King; you must not use your powers recklessly, understand?"

"I understand!" Chu Meng'er nodded, gazing at the scenery outside the window.

Chu Tian and Chen Meng parked in front of the Little Swan Kindergarten and walked her inside together. After leaving the school, they sat in the car and fell into a sudden silence, feeling the strange, unpredictable nature of fate.

"I feel like we really do have a daughter now, watching her grow up, taking her to school," Chen Meng said, her expression a mix of bewilderment and wonder.

"It really does seem that way," Chu Tian said, his hands resting on the steering wheel as he couldn't help but smile.

He and Chen Meng were both outsiders to normal life. As a nether-official, before he had mastered his cultivation, he couldn't control his yin energy; he had long ago abandoned the idea of finding a partner, let alone having a child. And Chen Meng, a fox spirit, had long transcended the lot of ordinary foxes. Would she marry a common fox? She had no interest. Finding another fox spirit was nearly impossible—it was like looking for a partner in a world where so many were unworthy, and given how few fox spirits could cultivate into human form, she might never have met one.

Thus, when she decided to be with Chu Tian, she had resigned herself to a life without children, focusing entirely on cultivation.

And yet... this accidental ghost-exorcism had allowed them to experience the life they had once ruthlessly discarded. One became a mother, the other a father. In their illusion, they had genuinely lived through three years of parenting, and now, they were personally dropping their daughter off at kindergarten. Apart from the fact that she wasn't their biological child, it seemed the missing piece of their lives had been filled.

The human heart is flawed; one must grasp something before one can let it go. Only after experiencing things can one truly be carefree. To speak of "letting go" without having experienced life first only leads to obsessions. Like the ghost Song Shiyun—a life unlived is always filled with regrets and attachments.

Chu Tian and Chen Meng were, after all, not born divine; they possessed the same seven emotions and six desires as any human. If they had simply cast this experience aside, it might have become a spiritual barrier they could never overcome years down the line. Chu Meng'er’s appearance had served to complete their journey of the heart.

They had fulfilled Chu Meng'er, and in turn, she had fulfilled them. For a moment, both of them sitting in the car radiated an indescribable, ethereal aura.

"Let's go, back to the haunted house!" Chu Tian said, starting the car and heading back. After all, in this day and age, even a nether-official has to earn money to eat.

Back at the haunted house, Chu Tian opened the doors and released the ghosts from the Soul-Detaining Tower. After lighting incense in the side room, he said, "Eat up. Once you're done, get ready to start work." Such was the life of this boss; employees never had to ask for leave, and whether they were late or not depended entirely on when the boss arrived.

After Old Man Li and the others finished their incense and entered the house, Song Shiyun floated before Chu Tian and said coldly, "You promised that if I worked for you, you would help me."

"Don't you want to experience life?" Chu Tian looked at her. "Possessing someone for a year isn't experiencing life; it's just playing around. You only experience a small part of their existence. Besides, experiencing someone else’s life is inferior to experiencing your own. Stay here as my receptionist, and you can play however you like!"

"You want me to be a receptionist, but do you think I can do that?" Song Shiyun looked down at herself. Below her feet was only a wisp of smoke. Anyone with eyes would either think she was a hologram or that they had encountered a real ghost. How could she work the front desk like that?

"Hmm, something is missing! Wait for me," Chu Tian said. He snapped his fingers, and a beam of light shot out from the first level of the Soul-Detaining Tower in his mind. His blue nether-official energy instantly enveloped the entire haunted house; it was as if a transparent pagoda had descended to shroud the building. At that moment, Song Shiyun’s body began to solidify.

Then, a pair of long, slender legs clad in black silk materialized from the smoke beneath her.

"As long as you don't leave the haunted house, your body will have no issues," Chu Tian said, sitting in his chair. "You will be no different from an ordinary person. As for your identity... you can ask Chen Meng to arrange it for you."

"I even have my five senses back?" Song Shiyun touched her own skin, then smiled in surprise. "Then, thank you, Boss."