I followed May Shaw back to a small village. Watching her, she looked every bit the doting mother. After returning home, she first coaxed her exhausted son to sleep, then began cooking, looking genuinely happy. Her husband also appeared to be an honest, simple man.
After watching the village for a while, dusk gradually fell. I planned to return and find the Wraithlord to see if there were any results.
However, when I returned to the temple, I saw the Wraithlord sitting at the doorway, seemingly deep in thought. He looked troubled, his brows tightly furrowed.
"Did you discover the connection between the two of them?"
I asked, and the Wraithlord shook his head.
"I'm thinking about women."
I let out a surprised sound, looking at the Wraithlord in astonishment, blinking my eyes.
"Are you thinking about your wife, Loraine Locke?"
I asked, and the Wraithlord shook his head.
"What exactly is a woman? I find it rather baffling."
I couldn't help but burst out laughing, watching the Wraithlord's grave, earnest expression. Then I walked past him and patted his shoulder.
"Completely unreasonable. That's all you need to know."
As I spoke, the Wraithlord stood up and followed, his face still full of sorrow.
"Still can't understand. Reason—whether for humans or ghosts—is the key boundary that helps distinguish things. If there's no reason to follow, then people or ghosts would have long since..."
"Isn't your mother a woman too?"
I muttered, and the Wraithlord nodded.
"You could say that."
"That's right. There's no point reasoning with a disobedient child. Reasoning is useless. You can only use force and give them a good beating—that's the only thing that works."
The Wraithlord looked at me in confusion, and I smiled helplessly.
"Just kidding. Maybe she herself didn't know how to teach a child. After all, you were the first human—she only knew how to give you the best, but never fulfilled a mother's responsibility."
After that, Wraithlord entered the main hall. By now, many monks had finished their meal and were back to meditating and chanting. The drunk had been put to bed in a monk’s quarters, while the abbot was sitting in meditation outside a row of rooms, visibly unsettled, glancing at the drunk’s door from time to time.
Wraithlord and I stood right beside the abbot, though he couldn’t see Wraithlord.
Then I noticed the abbot kept glancing at a bundle the drunk had brought with him. Wraithlord walked over.
“Looks like he’s drawn to whatever’s inside.”
I let out a soft exclamation, just as the drunk suddenly woke up in his room. He staggered outside, grabbed his wine gourd, and began gulping it down. The abbot looked grave, and after a while, the drunk burst out laughing and walked over, handing the wine flask to the abbot, who immediately started talking about all sorts of things.
“Take a sip—you’ll see. Smells great, right?”
The next moment, I was stunned to see the abbot actually take the wine flask from the drunk and start gulping it down.
I jumped in surprise, but Wraithlord burst out laughing, kicked the drunk aside, and stood before the abbot. Then I noticed that, in the abbot’s eyes, Wraithlord looked like the drunk. The two started chatting.
“It really is good stuff. As a poor monk, I...”
“Of course. In this world, wine is a truly magical thing.”
[Irrelevant system prompt skipped.]
Saying this, he pulled out another gourd full of wine and handed it to the abbot. The abbot kept drinking until he was completely drunk, at which point Wraithlord propped him up and asked:
“You have to tell me your secret. After all, I gave you so much wine.”
The abbot laughed and led Wraithlord away.
“I’ve hidden a woman—ha!”
I stared at the abbot in disbelief as he led us to a spot behind the temple, then pushed open a door. Wraithlord immediately let go of the abbot and took me into the room. In a daze, we found ourselves back at that marketplace in the mountains.
“What is this...?”
“It seems the connection between the fake abbot and the drunk is pure, intense desire. People are driven by desire—no one is truly without it. The abbot’s cravings aren’t just for wine and women, I’m sure. But let’s not dwell on that. Let’s watch the drunk for now.”
Wraithlord and I walked to the center of the marketplace. Only then did I realize the drunk had come here to sell wine. He kept boasting about how good his wine was, but when anyone tried to taste it, he refused, saying you could either buy it or watch him drink.
I watched in astonishment as the drunk claimed his wine was truly delicious, insisting he could drink endless amounts without ever tiring. He set out a row of large bowls, poured out the wine, and began drinking—just like the scene I’d witnessed earlier.
The wine really did smell wonderful. Many people tried to buy some, but he refused, saying he didn’t even have enough for himself—how could he sell it? To him, wine was divine water, a gift from the gods, and selling it was out of the question. So, in front of the crowd, he drank bowl after bowl, emptying more than twenty jars before finally passing out drunk.
As a result, most of the market-goers drifted away, gossiping among themselves. Apparently, the drunk was hired by the owner to sell wine—he talked about it so convincingly that he’d helped the boss make a lot of money several times, though he also caused plenty of trouble.
While selling wine, the drunk would sneak tastes, claiming his tongue could tell which jar was the most fragrant. At first, it was fine, but as he drank more, he got carried away. Forget selling—he just drank all the wine that was supposed to be sold.
The wine shop owner had a love-hate relationship with the drunk. Whenever business was bad, he’d have no choice but to bring him back to sell wine. But today, the drunk’s craving had flared up again.
“There really are all kinds of people in the world.”
I muttered, as Wraithlord picked up the now-unconscious drunk and questioned him again.
“Where’s that colorful place you saw the other day? Take me there, and I’ll let you taste the finest wine in the world.”
The moment he heard there was good wine, the drunk snapped awake, tongue hanging out. With a wave of Wraithlord’s hand, I saw a jar labeled with a red paper: “Millennium Vintage.” The drunk immediately popped the lid, took a sip, and exclaimed three times in a row, “Good wine!”
“It’s desire. He wants the best wine in the world, so I gave him that desire and let it take physical form. That’s all there is to it.”
“You can really do that?”
I looked at Wraithlord, half believing, half doubting. But now I noticed the drunk’s drinking style had changed—he was sipping carefully, afraid to spill a single drop. Wraithlord patted his shoulder.
“I’ve got hundreds of jars of this wine. You can have them all—but you have to take me to that colorful place you saw. Think carefully—where is it? Hundreds of jars of the finest wine in the world are waiting for you.”
The drunk immediately gulped down the wine as if his life depended on it, smashed the jar, and then led us up the mountain again.
I was deeply curious about the power Wraithlord used. I couldn’t quite explain it—it seemed he could make a person’s deepest desires manifest. Could it be...?
“Don’t worry. I haven’t done anything to you. I need someone to take me into the Illusory Realm, and you need to see Zhang Qingyuan. We’re just cooperating for now!”