After a long while, Su Kun looked at the Master, then at Bai Wuchang, and asked: "Then... then who was I originally?" His tone sounded a bit anxious, but the ending was light and floating, as if there was also some hesitation.

Bai Wuchang's pale and thin index finger tapped on the book: "An orphan."

"An orphan?" Su Kun softly repeated, "No parents?"

"You had them, but according to the records in this book, before you were two years old, your parents had already passed away." Bai Wuchang moved his gaze from the book and looked up at him: "What? Don't tell me you want to go find your original family?"

Su Kun was stunned for a moment. He seemed to not have fully recovered from his daze. After a long while, he shook his head: "Ah? No, I was just asking."

Bai Wuchang nodded: "What's past is past, no need to dwell on bygones. In this book, you've already changed your identity and fate, this is your path, no need to think too much."

After saying that, he didn't bother with Su Kun anymore, but turned to the landlord and the others: "The ghosts you captured?"

The Master looked at Su Kun with concern, then took out a cloth pouch and handed it to Bai Wuchang: "All the captured ones are in here." The rest were swallowed by a certain ghost... =_=

Opening the pouch and glancing inside, Bai Wuchang raised his eyebrows, then gave Gu Yan a light smile that did not quite seem like a smile, before tightening the pouch again and cupping his hands to everyone: "Much obliged, if there's nothing else, I'll take my leave first--"

"Ah! That... wait, wait a moment!" Su Kun suddenly spoke as if just waking from a dream, but didn't know how to address Bai Wuchang, so he sounded a bit incoherent.

Bai Wuchang: "...What is it?"

Su Kun took out the jade pendant that had been with him for twenty years from his neck and asked Bai Wuchang: "The Master and the others said this pendant seems to be yours... really?"

"It's mine." Bai Wuchang smiled. He didn't even really look at it before giving Su Kun an affirmative answer: "As soon as I entered this room earlier, I sensed it."

"Then you're not taking it back?"

Bai Wuchang shook his head: "No need. To be exact, this is what I wore during the few decades I spent in the mortal realm a hundred years ago, I just accidentally lost it when returning to the underworld. But I have no use for it now, you can keep wearing it."

"This jade seems quite powerful, you didn't look for it after losing it?" Su Kun didn't understand.

"If it was lost, there was a reason for it to be lost. When the time comes for it to be found, naturally it will be found." Bai Wuchang pointed in Su Kun's direction: "Didn't I just find it?"

Su Kun: "..." Are these people pessimistic or open-minded? =_=

"Besides, this jade itself doesn't have much use." Bai Wuchang said: "It can only ward off evil, avoid disasters, and calm the soul, but it can't handle fierce evil spirits with higher cultivation. Just treat it as a mediocre peace charm."

Su Kun looked at the jade pendant, then at Gu Yan, and said to Bai Wuchang: "But it seems to also absorb souls..."

Bai Wuchang was stunned for a moment, then waved his hand: "That's because I wore it for decades, so the jade was imbued with some of the Impermanence's characteristics."

"The Impermanence's characteristics?" Su Kun heard this for the first time and widened his eyes.

This didn't need Bai Wuchang's explanation. The Master said to Su Kun: "Little Su, you don't understand this, right? You think the Impermanences collect souls one by one? Actually it's not like that at all. Of course, there are some special ones unwilling to enter reincarnation that need to be captured, but most normal souls are attracted to the Impermanences on their own. They have a kind of attraction to souls within a certain range. Just like moths to a flame, the souls will unconsciously want to approach them and be captured and led back to the underworld by them."

Bai Wuchang nodded: "It's more or less like that."

Gu Yan, who was listening on the side, thought back to when he first saw Su Kun. He always felt a warm current from him and unconsciously wanted to get close to him, probably also because of this. As for why other souls were absorbed by that jade pendant but he wasn't, firstly it was because at that time, although he didn't have much cultivation, he could still be considered a fierce evil spirit; secondly, it was because he had swallowed the other half of that jade.

Seeing that they really had no more questions this time, Bai Wuchang waved his hand, indicating that he was leaving first. However, before his figure faded and disappeared, he turned back and smiled in the direction of Su Kun and Gu Yan: "When you no longer need this jade, remember to return it to me."

"Eh? Didn't you say to let nature take its course and not care even if it's lost?"

"That's in the situation where it was already lost. Now that I know it's with you, naturally I have to give a word of advice." After saying that, Bai Wuchang's figure, along with his cold voice, disappeared without a trace.

Having asked all the questions he wanted to ask, Su Kun now recalled his incredibly bizarre origins and felt a bit down again.

Someone who was usually carefree suddenly becoming heavy-hearted and listless, everyone felt a bit unaccustomed. And these few people were all not very good at comforting others. Moreover, Su Kun's situation was really impossible to comfort, so the atmosphere suddenly became silent and solemn.

In the end, it was the Master who suddenly spoke.

Sometimes the best way to comfort someone is not to coax them with words, but to directly change the subject and divert their attention. And what the Master said greatly aroused Su Kun's curiosity, allowing him to break free from his half-dead state.

The Master stroked his beard and said: "Oh, when I was flipping through Impermanence Bai's book, I unintentionally saw the information about Little Su's past few lives."

Su Kun's body trembled and he instantly sat up straight as if coming back to life, looking at the Master with eager eyes: "What was I in my past life? A graceful noble young master?"

Although matters of past lives are intangible and have no relation to one's current life, many people still can't help but be curious about their identity and experiences in past lives. Some who are obsessed even try various reliable or unreliable ways to explore it.

Although Su Kun wasn't obsessed, and he usually didn't have any fantasies about things like past lives, the Master took the initiative to mention it, so his curiosity was piqued.

"You're thinking too much..." The Master twitched the corner of his mouth and shot him down.

"Then what was it?"

The Master chuckled and stroked his beard: "Not even human."

Su Kun didn't give up: "...Then what about the life before that?"

The Master continued to shoot him down: "Also not human."

Su Kun angrily said: "The life before that must have been then!"

The master held up a finger and shook it: "You've been a cat for three lifetimes in a row. But you're quite peculiar - while others reincarnate in different places each time, you always stick to one spot."

Su Kun looked as if he had been struck by lightning: Three lifetimes as a cat? And always reincarnating in the same place... What sins had he committed to deserve this? QAQ

Since he had already asked this far, he figured he might as well ask one more question. With a face full of despair, Su Kun looked at the master: "Where exactly did I reincarnate in those three lifetimes?"

The master counted on his fingers: "The first two lifetimes were in Yingtian Prefecture, followed by Jiangning Prefecture... These are all the same place, just with different names. I only remember the specific location for the first one, not the other two... It seems to be some kind of garden at the west end of Yudai Street."

"Chenxiang Garden?" Gu Yan, who had been frowning and seemingly deep in thought, suddenly spoke up and finished the master's sentence.

"Ah yes! Chenxiang Garden, that's it!" The master said to Su Kun: "Anyway, it's roughly that place. There's no point in asking for more details, since we don't even know which lifetime it was."

Su Kun had a weathered look on his face: "I've been an animal for three lifetimes. Now that I finally get to be human for once, it's still so convoluted... This is too much!" TAT

"Wait a minute!" The master turned to look at Gu Yan: "I was the only one who flipped through that book just now, you didn't even look. How did you know?"

Gu Yan's expression was a bit strange: "Because my former residence was on Yudai Street... only two houses away from Chenxiang Garden."

"What?" Su Kun whipped his head around: "So you mean we might have been neighbors?"

This is what they call fate!

Su Kun was all excited and about to say something, but then deflated again: "Even if we were neighbors, there's no way you would have known me. There are so many cats all over the streets, who knows which one was me." *whimper* QAQ

Gu Yan looked at Su Kun with a complicated expression: "..." Maybe he really had seen him before.

When he heard the master mention cats, an image suddenly popped into his mind of that palm-sized little creature that used to freeload in his courtyard back then. When the master specified the exact address, he felt it was almost too much of a coincidence.

Could it really have been the one in his yard?

But as Su Kun said, there were so many cats all over the streets, who could tell which one it was?

In the end, none of this was important. The past life had long gone by. The life they were living now was the most important and the most precious.

After the master's rambling tangents, Su Kun indeed felt much better. In fact, it wasn't hard to look at the matter openly.

Just as the events of the previous life were beyond pursuit, his own origins had already been changed over twenty years ago. The original orphan without a soul was surely doomed, and there was no way to find his relatives. The ones who had raised him for so many years were his later parents and family.

Moreover, in the eyes of his parents and elders who were unaware, he was their child, both in body and soul.

He had familial love, he had blood ties. As for his soul, he had no memories from when it was switched, so there was no difference from the original...

Thinking this way, Su Kun felt there was absolutely no need to dwell on it.

And so, the heartless and gutless Comrade Su Kun, after a rare bout of melancholy lasting less than an hour, once again returned to his lively, bouncing, vigorous self.

He pointed to the sack containing Qing Yuan in the corner: "Very good, now I don't have to agonize over whether to burn paper money for him anymore."

The various ghosts and spirits who had witnessed the entire process silently turned their faces: "..." This kid is too easy to cheer up.