Chapter 71: Spirit Calling (Requesting Monthly Votes)

The moment Lu Mi saw the “midwife,” his heart seemed to stop beating.

Is she still alive?

I clearly saw her killed by Ryan, her spirit destroyed!

Lu Mi remembered clearly: the midwife had finally turned into a pile of bloody flesh fragments, some parts even gone entirely.

This must be a ghost sighting! No—there’s breathing! Lu Mi recalled fragments from his sister’s novels, and his heart shifted instantly from stillness to pounding.

Had the midwife so much as glanced at him, he would have reacted instinctively.

Crack. Crack. Tiny, tangled branches fell to the ground, jolting Lu Mi out of his stupor.

He stepped forward unconsciously, heading toward the blooming tulips.

The midwife made no move to stop him, not even turning her body.

Lu Mi couldn’t help stealing another glance: her expression was focused, her movements deliberate, her profile shadowed dark and gloomy by the surrounding plants and trees.

Without lingering, Lu Mi plucked a few tulips and left the governor’s castle.

Even after returning to the village, his heart kept thudding wildly.

After calming himself, seeing the hour was still early—not yet the point for Aurora to trigger the loop—he headed toward Ryan Cos’s house.

It was also a two-story building, but far older, more dilapidated, and smaller than Lu Mi and Aurora’s home; its outer walls showed gray stone, overgrown with green vines.

At this moment, the Cos family’s front door stood open, revealing the stove on the left, the table on the right, and the rows of wooden barrels behind.

According to Lu Mi’s memory, those barrels stored goods; the space they enclosed held two crude wooden beds, one for Ryan and one for his sister.

Lu Mi didn’t knock; as usual, he walked straight into the Cos house.

Ryan’s mother, older sister, and younger sister were helping prepare dinner; his father, Pierre Cos, sat on a chair beside the wooden table, sipping cheap wine in silence.

“I heard Ryan’s gone missing?” Lu Mi asked Pierre Cos first, feigning concern.

Pierre Cos looked several years older than before; his few wrinkles had deepened noticeably.

He looked up at Lu Mi, puzzled and startled:

“You don’t know?”

At that moment, Ryan’s mother, sister, and older sister all paused their tasks and turned toward Lu Mi.

Lu Mi spoke the most genuine truth he could:

“I’ve been busy with my own affairs these past few days—I haven’t seen Ryan.”

Pierre Cos had already checked; he knew Lu Mi was telling the truth, or else he would have stormed over this afternoon to accuse the brat of inciting Ryan to run away.

“The afternoon before last—said to be the 29th—Ryan went out and never came back,” Pierre Cos said, his expression grim. “We’ve been searching for him. His two brothers are still out looking. Where do you think he might have gone?”

Lu Mi thought for a moment:

“He always said he didn’t want to learn shepherding, but he has no money—he couldn’t have left on his own. Let me see if he left anything behind…”

As he spoke, he moved naturally toward the row of wooden barrels at the back of the first floor, slipping between them until he reached Ryan’s bed.

The bed was crude—just a few planks nailed together—but the gray-blue sheet, the straw-stuffed pillow, and the patched quilt were all clean, clearly washed often.

This was because Aurora loved cleanliness and refused to tolerate lice or filth on herself or in the house; Lu Mi had adopted the habit too. When playing with his friends, he’d consciously urge them to keep clean, forbidding them from being filthy and crawling with lice and fleas.

If Ryan or the others slacked off and he caught them with lice, they’d suffer pranks—sometimes even be shoved into the river, forced to wash whether they liked it or not.

After years of this pressure, Ryan had grown accustomed to helping clean up at home.

“We found no note,” Pierre Cos followed him into the area, his face heavy with sorrow.

Lu Mi sat on the edge of Ryan’s bed and reached beneath the pillow.

There were two items: a dark red ink pen with a crack, and a notebook filled with words.

Ryan craved knowledge but had few opportunities for education.

During the era of Emperor Luo Saier, villages like Kerdou had established compulsory township schools, located in the same building where the governor now worked—it also housed recruitment offices and conscription medical boards, though staff were few and constantly rotating.

In recent decades, many villages had lost their schools; only larger ones still had church-run Sunday schools. In villages like Kerdou, only elders who had once been educated could spare time to teach the children. Over generations, some youths had become illiterate again.

When Lu Mi was in a good mood, he’d claim he was saving up for wine, then sold his used pens and notebooks cheaply to Ryan, Ava, and others—while teaching them a few words along the way.

Every time he studied, Ryan was utterly serious—just as he was when practicing combat or helping shepherds make cheese for pay.

He was striving so hard to change his fate.

Lu Mi picked up the pen and notebook, staring at them for a long while without moving.

“I showed them to the parish priest—he said these are all simple words, no sentences formed,” Pierre Cos sighed.

Lu Mi flipped through the notebook: the handwriting, as the pages progressed, shifted from messy and ugly to somewhat legible.

“No note here,” he first agreed with Pierre Cos, then added, “but I’m not sure if this is a code that can be translated into a sentence. You’ve heard stories like this, right? Aurora told many children in the village—they mentioned them at home?”

This included Ryan’s younger brother and sister.

“Yes, she told them,” Pierre Cos nodded.

When villagers of Kerdou couldn’t afford the tavern, they’d gather in the kitchen at night, chatting and telling stories; newcomers invited for the first time had to bring a bottle of wine as a gift, even if cheap.

Pierre Cos had heard such a story from his youngest son during one of these gatherings.

Lu Mi lifted the notebook openly and confidently:

“I’ll take this home and show it to Aurora—see if she can find anything.”

“Fine,” Pierre Cos didn’t think it was anything valuable.

Leaving the barrel-enclosed area, Lu Mi headed for the door; Pierre Cos sat back down.

After a few steps, Lu Mi heard Pierre Cos sighing to himself:

“If he didn’t want to learn shepherding, he could’ve told me—why run off…

“In a little while, our family will become rich—we won’t need to learn shepherding anymore…”

Rich? Lu Mi’s heart stirred. He turned around, feigning curiosity:

“Any chance of getting rich?”

Pierre Cos didn’t look at him, head bowed, mumbling:

“Our family’s constellation is about to change—our luck will improve…”

This… Lu Mi felt a chill crawl up his spine.

“Who told you that?” he pressed.

Pierre Cos didn’t answer, still lost in self-pity.

…………

Back home, Lu Mi immediately told his sister about the midwife being alive.

Aurora frowned her golden eyebrows:

“She may not be alive.”

“Huh?” Lu Mi blinked.

Aurora mused as she spoke:

“Didn’t we discuss this before? The path associated with Madame Pualis likely involves control over the dead—this might be a corpse animated by spirit.”

“But I saw her without using Spirit Sight, and she had no stitches—she was chopped into pieces by Ryan!” Lu Mi recalled. “And I heard her breathing!”

Here, Lu Mi paused:

“Still, she was unusually vacant, her expression gloomy, her eyes dull—just like, just like Naroka! The Naroka I saw at night during my second-to-last loop—the one who walked into the Other Side!”

That Naroka, pale-faced, eyes vacant.

Of course, the midwife seemed more alive than that.

Aurora nodded slightly:

“Some special state, closer to the dead?”

She couldn’t deduce the answer, so she gestured for Lu Mi to speak of something else.

Lu Mi described in detail the castle’s unchanged state and Pierre Cos’s words.

Aurora listened quietly, then nodded:

“Madame Pualis doesn’t seem to care about what happened in the castle—yet she’s wary of something…

“And your discovery confirms some anomalies in the village are tied to her, but she doesn’t seem involved in the loop…”

She meant the anomalies linked to Madame Pualis concerned birth, death, souls, and the Other Side—not time loops.

“I feel the same,” Lu Mi had sensed this during his earlier explorations. “The person behind the parish priest and the others is probably not Madame Pualis.”

Connecting Pierre Cos’s words, he guessed:

“The one spreading rumors that doing something can change your constellation and bring good fortune?”

Aurora hummed:

“Investigate tomorrow. See if we can spirit-call Ryan tonight.”

…………

After dinner, night fell. Aurora judged the hour right and began setting up the altar.

This time, as always, she invoked herself—so she placed only one candle, but it was now a different one, made from Deep Sleep flowers and other materials.

Following procedure, she lit the candle, sanctified her silver dagger, created a spiritual barrier, then dripped pure essence made from night-blooming jasmine and moonflowers onto the orange flame, stirring up a hazy mist.

Seeing the preparations complete, Aurora glanced at the notebook on the altar, stepped back, and spoke in Ancient Hermes:

“I!”

As the word left her lips, her eyes deepened into darkness, and invisible winds seemed to swirl around her.

“I invoke by my name:”

This was her second phrase, now in Hermes.

—Since she didn’t know where Ryan’s spirit was, she couldn’t directly spirit-call him; she could only try summoning. As a self-taught adept, she dared not petition the “Goddess of Night,” who governed this domain, and could rely only on herself—success was unlikely, unless Ryan’s spirit truly remained somewhere nearby in Kerdou village.

Aurora continued chanting:

“Spirits lingering in Kordu Village;

“The man named Ryan Cos;

“The owner of this notebook...”

The orange candle flame suddenly flickered, absorbing the surrounding mist and growing slightly larger.

Its light rippled outward, stained with a deep blue hue.

Sweat broke on Aurora’s forehead as she began drawing power from each material.

Amid a whistling wind, a figure appeared above the blue flame.

In Lu Mi’s already activated Spirit Sight, the figure was semi-transparent, with brown hair and brown eyes, an ordinary face—Ryan Cos.

He was indeed still in the village.

At this moment, Ryan’s body was swollen, his face pale, and blood-tears dripped from his corners.

This... Aurora clearly froze.

After the cycle reset, Ryan had only gone missing—he hadn’t drowned yet. How could his spirit look like this?

Then again, if he hadn’t drowned, how could he have become a spirit?

Contradictory...

Amid her confusion, Aurora spoke:

“Ryan Cos, why did you disappear?”

Ryan’s expression twisted into a snarl; he shrieked:

“They drowned me!”

ps: Requesting monthly tickets~

(End of chapter)