CHAPTER 74: CHAPTER 73: HE IS BUT DUST

Chen Xu stopped in front of the vendor who had cut away the foundation of Wei Tang.

This move was like a drop of water suddenly falling into a burning oil pot, causing an explosion and instantly breaking the silence of the entire place.

The people who had been almost speechless after being shocked by the phrase "No idle fields across the four seas, yet farmers starve" finally reacted.

Someone exclaimed, "Brother Chen, don’t!"

This vendor was not as agreeable as other vendors. His ferocity could be inferred from the sight of Wei Tang, defeated like a bundle of dead grass on the ground.

One must not assume all ghosts are easy to deal with just because some have said a few kind words to you.

"Brother Chen, think thrice."

Some looked anxiously at Chen Xu, others anxiously at the moon in the sky.

At this point, besides Feng Xi, everyone had already "bought" something at the Ghost Market.

Even Wei Tang, lying on the ground, though he lost his foundation, had also "bought" something.

Almost no one wanted Chen Xu to make a mistake, only hoping he could craft a few more brilliant poems to spiritedly carry everyone away from this ghostly place!

Of course, Feng Xi was an exception.

Anyway, he couldn’t leave, and mocked, "Some people, with one or two good poems, think themselves endlessly talented and boundlessly arrogant.

Even if you can compose a poem in seven steps like the sages of old, can every verse create such magic?"

He gasped, laughing heartily.

Some people glared at him angrily, others tried to stop him, causing a noisy commotion once again.

Chen Xu ignored all this chaos and clamor, only addressing the vendor, "Miss, I wish to purchase this item, with a poem, please judge it."

He pointed to the Tear of Resentful Soul on the stall, which looked like a dark blue crystal pearl.

The fierce ghost vendor said nothing, silently taking out pen, ink, and paper from beneath his stall.

Silently, he made space on the stall and pushed the high-quality paper and pen towards Chen Xu.

Finally, he uttered two words, "You write."

The voice was melodious like a warbler, but the tone was very cold, indeed different from other spectral vendors.

Chen Xu picked up the pen and dipped it into ink.

Those who were trying to persuade him to reconsider, or arguing with Feng Xi, fell silent.

Some felt anxious and sighed, but there was nothing they could do.

Ultimately, both the dead and the living were silent.

Every pair of eyes was on Chen Xu, while some shadows stretched their necks, leaning their bodies forward, almost drifting over to the fierce ghost vendor’s stall.

However, they seemed bound by some rule, and none could truly leave their own stall.

Under the moonlight, only the soft rustling of Chen Xu’s pen could be heard.

He wrote:

"Flowers are not flowers, mist is not mist. Comes at midnight, departs at dawn."

As he wrote these lines, the vendor remained silent, not following Chen Xu’s brush strokes like the previous Female Official vendor did.

Until the brushstrokes flowed like mountains and rivers, exuding a scent of poetry.

The spectral vendor suddenly moved forward abruptly, reading aloud with a trembling voice,

"Comes like a spring dream for how long? Goes like morning clouds nowhere to be found."

A voice as gentle as an oriole’s song, yet carried a surge of electricity from chaos, almost lifting the heavenly spirits of all present.

The entire scene fell silent, seemingly no one understood what the spectral vendor recited.

Until she repeated it once more:

"Flowers are not flowers, mist is not mist. Comes at midnight, departs at dawn.

Comes like a spring dream for how long? Goes like morning clouds nowhere to be found..."

Before her voice fell, the entire shadow fell to the ground, her black cloudy form resting against the stall, completely collapsed.

"Flowers are not flowers, mist is not mist... comes like a spring dream for how long?" she recited, the emotions in her voice gradually changed until it overflowed:

"So everything in the mortal world is but a fleeting dream. When I was prosperous, it wasn’t truly prosperous, when I was lonely, it wasn’t truly lonely.

I can hold onto nothing, comes at midnight, departs at dawn, a dream of fleeting flowers, that is my whole life!

But, but... Can I really release the suffering of life as a misty shadow?"

She chuckled softly and then cried quietly.

With her sobs echoing, after Chen Xu put down his pen, the blue smoke from the poetic paper finally condensed and took shape.

Seemingly ethereal, yet dense.

It whirled upward with a rush.

The blue smoke collided with the moonlight, the slanted pale moonlight seemed struck by a giant wave, and instantaneously fell like a shooting star.

"The moonlight is falling!" someone in the crowd finally realized and exclaimed.

Is the moon finally going to fall, will the Ghost Market finally dissipate?

The anxious crowd gathered their gazes, almost wishing they could fly to the sky to help the blue smoke completely pull down the moonlight.

Yet watching as the moonlight neared the horizon, seemingly about to completely fall. But it stubbornly hung there, coldly, as if never falling.

"Oh..." someone sighed dejectedly.

In the midst of noise, some were silently savoring this poem "Flowers Are Not Flowers."

"Comes like a spring dream, goes like morning clouds..." entranced by it.

On the long street, paper lanterns swayed gently.

The White Bone Ghost standing at the end of the shadow sighed softly too.

Behind the stall, the fierce ghost vendor looked up with her hollow shadowy head and asked Chen Xu, "Are you trying to advise me to let go? But letting go is so hard, what am I to do if I can’t?"

Chen Xu said, "Those who wronged you in the past, are they now scattered like smoke and clouds?"

"This... After becoming a vengeful ghost after my death, I wanted to fly a thousand miles to seek revenge on that unfaithful person, but was unexpectedly blocked by the Yellow Springs, and after losing my way, I found myself here in the Ghost Market."

The fierce ghost vendor muttered, "I don’t even know how he is now, but I have been dead for a hundred years, surely he must have died too. Ha..."

Saying the other person might be dead, the fierce ghost vendor unconsciously chuckled.

Chen Xu said, "I have a humble opinion that I can share with you. The first death in life is the death of the body, the second is the death of the soul, and the third is being forgotten by the world.

The vast majority of people are not immortalized in history, forgotten perhaps not a hundred years after death, maybe in twenty or thirty years.

You remembering him for a hundred years extended his life by a hundred years, didn’t it?"

The fierce ghost vendor was suddenly stunned, her shadowy body fluctuating like a ripple.

"I, I..." she couldn’t speak.

Chen Xu said, "You have a long ghostly lifespan, while he is scattered like smoke and dust, should it not be comforting?"

The fierce ghost vendor cried out, then laughed, "Ha, hahaha, indeed, I should be comforted!"

"May I ask your name?"

"Ah, I... it’s been many years, I have forgotten. When I was at home, I actually had a name, my parents called me True Maiden..."

"This poem ’To True Maiden,’ True Maiden may endure for generations, while he is but a speck in the long river of history."

As the words fell, the moonlight in the sky crashed down.