Infinite Professions from a Pearl Collector

"What’s wrong?"

Seeing Chen Ye’s movements halt and his expression turn strange, Chunyan couldn’t help but ask, curious.

Chen Ye didn’t answer. He just stared at the pitch-black mouth of the well. After a moment, he said in a low voice, "I think the bottom of my bucket is cracked. Come back with me to get a new one."

Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed Chunyan by the wrist and started walking back.

Chunyan was taken aback by his sudden action. She glanced down at the wooden bucket in Chen Ye’s hand and saw it was perfectly intact, not cracked at all.

But seeing the serious look on Chen Ye’s face, she swallowed the words on the tip of her tongue. Her face blushing slightly, she let him pull her away from the old well.

When they returned to the Opera Troupe’s courtyard, Tie Dan and the others who were waiting for water saw them returning empty-handed and immediately crowded around.

"Chen Ye, what happened? Where’s the water?" Tie Dan asked, his voice deep and rumbling.

"There’s something wrong with that well." Chen Ye let go of Chunyan’s hand and said gravely.

"What’s wrong with it?" another apprentice asked, confused. "I just fetched water from there yesterday. Nothing was wrong."

A few of the girls nearby chimed in, agreeing they hadn’t noticed anything strange when they fetched water yesterday.

Chen Ye shook his head. "Just because it was fine yesterday doesn’t mean it’s fine today."

With that, he ignored the crowd’s chatter and walked straight across the courtyard. He found Guan Sihai drinking tea in his room and explained the situation from beginning to end.

Guan Sihai paused, his teacup halfway to his lips. He narrowed his eyes at Chen Ye. "You really felt a sinister chill?"

Chen Ye nodded.

A strange glint flashed in Guan Sihai’s eyes.

In their Peach Garden Lineage, besides performing for the living, their more crucial skill was pacifying the dead and delivering wronged souls.

Therefore, for a performer capable of taking the stage, singing, speaking, acting, and fighting were merely the fundamentals. Far rarer was that spark of Spiritual Energy—the ability to keenly perceive the presence of those... ’things’.

But this kind of ability often required years of immersion, honed only when one’s Heart Spirit merged with the very essence of the opera.

For this kid to have such an intuition after only two months was truly astonishing.

Though inwardly pleased, Guan Sihai’s expression remained impassive.

He stood up and said gravely, "Let’s go take a look."

This time, it wasn’t just Chen Ye who went; Tie Dan and the others tagged along as well.

The group arrived at the alley’s entrance. Before they even got close to the old well, Guan Sihai stopped dead in his tracks, his expression turning solemn.

A normal person might not notice the wisps of resentful energy wafting from the well’s mouth, but in the eyes of an old hand in the Martial World like him, it was unmistakably clear.

Sure enough, there was a problem.

Guan Sihai ordered in a low voice, "Inform all the neighbors at once! The water in this well can no longer be drunk, and no one is to go near it for the time being!"

Startled by his demeanor, the apprentices didn’t dare delay. They immediately scattered, going door to door to spread the warning.

Most of the residents in this alley were old families who had lived here for generations; they naturally understood the unwritten rules.

Hearing that the Class Leader of the Qingchun Troupe himself had said so, none of them dared to be careless. One by one, they bolted their doors and windows shut, and no one ventured near the old well again.

But there’s always one who doesn’t get the message.

That evening, a drunkard staggered into the alley from outside.

He lived near the well and was returning late, completely plastered after attending a wedding feast at a relative’s house. He had no idea what had happened during the day.

At that moment, the drunkard felt his mouth was parched. With no water stored at home, he grabbed a wooden bucket, hummed a little tune, and headed straight for the old well.

As he reached the well, he saw a woman in the hazy moonlight, sitting on the edge with her head down, completely still.

"Hey..." The drunkard hiccuped. He didn’t think much of it, just assuming it was some young wife who’d had a fight with her husband and run out to sulk.

He hooked the bucket to the rope and, while turning the windlass, offered some slurred advice. "Young lady, what’s there to be so upset about? All couples have their tiffs, it’s perfectly normal... It’s dark out now, you should hurry on home."

He said a few words, but the woman by the well didn’t react at all.

The drunkard found this a bit strange. He moved closer, squinting his drunken eyes to get a better look.

That one look sent a jolt through his mind, scaring him half-sober.

He saw that the woman’s hair and clothes were sopping wet, dripping steadily onto the ground. DRIP. DRIP. DRIP.

The hairs on the drunkard’s body stood on end, and his legs trembled uncontrollably, shaking like a leaf.

Just then, the woman slowly raised her head.

It was a face, bloated and pale from being soaked in water. From all seven orifices flowed crimson tears of blood as she whispered in a mournful, pleading voice.

"My neck hurts so much... Please, stop cutting it."

"SOB, SOB, SOB... How could you be so cruel!"

The drunkard was silent for a moment, then he let out an inhuman shriek. "A GHOST!!"

With that, he forgot everything else and scrambled back to his house, tumbling and crawling. He threw himself onto his bed and couldn’t get up again.

The next day, the story of the well being haunted spread like wildfire throughout the entire neighborhood.

The residents were terrified, not even daring to leave their homes.

But things couldn’t go on like this. So, after some discussion, the people pooled their money to go to the City God Temple in the east of the city and hire a capable Daoist to take a look.

Since their own safety was at stake, the people acted quickly. By the afternoon, a young Daoist had been brought over.

The Daoist was in his early twenties. He wore a faded blue Daoist Robe and carried a Peach Wood Sword on his back. Though young, he had a distinctly otherworldly air about him.

He walked over to the well, circled it twice, and then sighed softly. "A pitiful soul, indeed."