In the end, with Yun Jianyue's explanation, Lu Changxue retained her status as a respectable citizen... well, a well-behaved ghost, that is.
Everyone signed Non-Disclosure Agreements at the SAB office. After debriefing, Xia Chao drove his parents and in-laws back first. He then returned home with Yun Jianyue and the others.
It was half-past three in the morning when they finally got back.
"Everyone, wash up and get some sleep. Tomorrow… well, never mind. I'll get you leave for the morning. Rest up, attend classes in the afternoon," Xia Chao told Huiqing.
Exhaustion, both physical and mental, weighed heavily on everyone that night—except for the still energetic Yun Jianyue.
All four slept until noon the next day. Yun Luhua cooked lunch. Huiqing ate and left for school, while Xia Chao headed to work.
Left alone with Yun Luhua, Yun Jianyue cut straight to the chase.
"Aunt, I want to know some things about my mom."
Yun Luhua's expression froze. She turned away, avoiding Yun Jianyue's gaze. "She's been gone so many years, what more is there to ask?"
"Mom was picked up by Grandpa, right? And eleven years ago, in that fire… you actually never found her body, did you?" Yun Jianyue pressed.
"Who told you that?" Yun Luhua stared back, shocked and flustered. Confronted by her niece's steady gaze, she crumbled.
Finally, the whole story came out.
Back then, Grandpa and Grandma had been married two years with no child. Hospital visits concluded Grandma had difficulty conceiving.
In those times, a woman who couldn't bear children was openly scorned. Villagers gossiped. Busybody relatives urged Grandpa to divorce. He refused, loudly cursing them for sticking their noses in, even severing ties with many family members.
Snow was rare in the south. Yet that winter, a heavy snow fell. Grandpa found a baby girl in the snow. That baby was Yun Jianyue's mother, Yun Xiangrong.
Having no children of their own, Grandpa and Grandma cherished her as their own daughter. Perhaps good deeds brought good fortune. Less than two years after adopting Xiangrong, Grandma became pregnant and gave birth to Yun Luhua.
Later, Yun Xiangrong got unexpectedly pregnant. She never named the father, stubbornly insisting on keeping the child. And so, Yun Jianyue came to be.
When Jianyue was ten, a fierce fire broke out in Xiangrong's home. They found no body—only a suicide note and a bank card left by Xiangrong. The note said she had accepted death calmly, asking Yun Luhua to care for her daughter. The money she'd saved over the years was to be used for Jianyue's upbringing.
Yun Luhua never touched that money. Without depending on Xia Chao, she, along with Grandpa and Grandma, pooled their resources to raise Jianyue. On Jianyue's eighteenth birthday, Yun Luhua finally gave her the card Xiangrong had left behind.
"No body, just a suicide note… doesn't that mean Mom might still be alive?" Yun Jianyue murmured, sounding like she was asking both Yun Luhua and herself.
Before Yun Luhua could answer, Jianyue pressed on: "In your memory, Aunt, did Mom have any… unusual traits? Things that set her apart from regular people?"
Yun Luhua thought carefully. "Unusual? Well… unusually beautiful? Does looking incredibly stunning count?"
Yun Jianyue, who had inherited eighty percent of her mother's famous beauty: "…"
Obviously, her mother was beautiful!
"I mean other things! Like me punching a ghost with my bare hands yesterday, that kind of unusual!" Jianyue clarified.
Yun Luhua thought long and hard before shaking her head. "No, nothing like that. She was gentle, kind, and never believed in ghosts or spirits."
Lu Changxue drifted close, adding mischievously: "A gentle, kind lady gave birth to a violent maniac."
Yun Jianyue: Shut up, traitorous bestie. Now's not the time.
Getting nowhere with her aunt, Yun Jianyue decided to try Grandpa. She went straight to him. He was working in the fields. Jianyue grabbed a sickle and started cutting forage grasses beside him.
"Grandpa, I wanted to ask…"
Before she could finish, Grandpa placed his basket beside her. "Finish cutting, then we'll talk back home with the AC on."
Yun Jianyue: "Sounds good."
After hard work, the pair sat comfortably in the cool air-conditioned room. The details Grandpa shared matched Aunt Yun Luhua's story almost exactly. If their accounts weren't deliberately coordinated, then this was simply the shared truth they knew.
"Oh, right. Before your mom had her… trouble, she gave me this." Grandpa took a small wooden pendant off his neck and handed it to Jianyue. She turned it over and over, examining it closely, but found nothing remarkable. She returned it to him.
After celebrating Yun Luhua's birthday on Saturday, Yun Jianyue returned to A City on Sunday.
Since the SAB's administrative offices weren't open Sundays, Yun Jianyue reported to the SAB headquarters on Monday.
Just as Du Minghao had promised: five funds (social insurances), paid holidays, various subsidies. The net monthly salary was indeed highly attractive.
"You said it was an established position?" Yun Jianyue pointed to the contract.
Du Minghao scratched his head, his eyes nervously flicking towards Cai Zeyu. Help me out here! What do we say?
Cai Zeyu, resigned to his role as the fall guy, stepped forward, looking slightly apologetic. "Well, here at the City Bureau… the positions with formal civil service status are harder to get. You'd have to pass the exams."
Xu Tiangang's county branch could bend rules for special hires. But at the City Bureau, things were stricter. Securing that coveted civil service spot meant passing the annual, highly competitive examinations.
"The final frontier really is civil service exams," Yun Jianyue muttered. Still, she signed the contract.
Once the signed contract was collected, Cai Zeyu announced cheerfully, "Congratulations! You're officially a contract personnel for the City Bureau! I'll assign Du Minghao to be your…"
"Mentor?" Du Minghao interjected sharply. "Who said anything about mentor?"
"Well, someone has to supervise her! Who else would it be?" Cai Zeyu looked baffled.
"Me? Supervise her? Do I look qualified?" Du Minghao's expression twisted into a mask of horror. She took out a C-grade malignant ghost barehanded! That level of brute force dwarfed most practitioners in the organization.
The two men exchanged a look. Their gazes then slowly drifted towards Si Wuming, who was dozing off in a nearby chair. Sensing their intense stares, Si Wuming slowly opened his eyes. He tilted his head, blinking sleepily as if to ask, Yes?
Cai Zeyu clapped his hands decisively. "Perfect! Si Wuming, you'll supervise Yun Jianyue. Excellent timing—there's a case pending. Here's the file. You both head out now."
Si Wuming: ??
Yun Jianyue: "That's… terribly abrupt?"
"This is efficiency! What would you know about it?" Cai Zeyu shoved Yun Jianyue towards Si Wuming, thrusting a file folder into each of their hands, then ducked back into his office with remarkable speed.
Si Wuming and Yun Jianyue stared at each other blankly. Finally, Yun Jianyue broke the silence tentatively: "So… shall we go execute this… task?"