"Now, make your choice."

Zhao Zhao—few could call her by such an intimate name now; most had departed this world, not even Zhong Yanbei would address her so, and others were even more formal.
From the depths of the thick mist, nothing called her name, yet another sound, equally familiar to Ji Ningzhao, drifted forth.
First, there was the faint whisper of silk rubbing against itself, followed by the clearer chime of jade ornaments gently colliding. Ji Ningzhao knew this sound well.
In the State of Chu, jade was revered; a gentleman would never part from his jade, so those of rank and status in the palace all carried jade with them.
If one listened closely, the sounds varied with each person's bearing and the grade of their ornaments.
Her father had many consorts, but only her mother was ever called the other mistress of the palace.
Sometimes, as she read in the study, the sound from the corridor alone was enough—without the servants announcing it—for Ji Ningzhao to know her mother had come to see her.
So, after a thousand years, hearing that sound again—even knowing it could not possibly be her mother—Ji Ningzhao still paused, startled.
Then she adopted a rare, cold expression, lifting her chin in the direction of the sound: "You know I won't be fooled by you. What use is there in hiding?"
The mist parted quietly. A woman walked out, hair of midnight pinned with a jade hairpin, her scarlet robe embroidered with golden phoenixes, her features bearing a faint resemblance to Ji Ningzhao's, though softer.
“Princess, why greet an old acquaintance this way?” The woman laughed lightly, “It is rather disheartening.”
Ji Ningzhao's eyes had begun to glow faintly gold; she echoed the laugh. “You should be grateful my temper has improved since those days. At least I can speak civilly with you now.”
“But if you keep speaking to me with that face, when I leave, I’ll drag your lair into the sunlight and let it bake for three days.”
Her tone was calm, yet the patch of scales shimmering across her chest rose and fell with her breath, betraying her true feelings.
The woman’s smile faded. Pale skin cracked with blue-black lines. She raised her head, expressionless, to meet Ji Ningzhao’s gaze, and Ji Ningzhao met it without flinching.
In the end, it was the woman—or rather, that thing—who looked away first. Under Ji Ningzhao’s gaze, she slowly reverted to her true form.

Below the neck, her body was hidden in billowing mist, making it impossible to discern what lay beneath. Her throat was streaked with blood; her death had been anything but dignified.
Her original form, unlike Ji Ningzhao’s mother’s graceful beauty, was quite different.
A pale, porcelain face shrouded in loose hair, giving her an air of fragility. Only the pitch-black, white-less eyes and the cracked lines on her cheeks, like mended ceramic, revealed the ferocity of this vengeful spirit.
Ji Ningzhao let her coil around her like a cloud, watching as she pressed her icy cheek to Ji Ningzhao’s shoulder and whispered, “I know your strength. I know I cannot best you.”
“But,” she raised her head to look at Ji Ningzhao, “though you gave that mortal many protective charms, he still could not be saved. I can sense it—my minions are dragging him here even now.”
The gold in Ji Ningzhao’s eyes blazed brighter and brighter, no longer seeming human, her pupils narrowing into vertical slits.
Like a beast.
When the spirit tried to speak closer, Ji Ningzhao’s chest scales burned her. She touched the burn and retreated a few steps, saying, “Why don’t we make a deal?”
Ji Ningzhao arched her brow, noncommittal.
The spirit was not offended. She continued, “I can’t harm you, but neither can you do anything to me. I am one with this mountain now. I don’t want to trouble you or the young priest, only the mortal. Leave him to me, and I will let you go. Is that agreeable?”
Ji Ningzhao calmly looked her up and down. “Jingtai Mountain has a dragon vein buried beneath. You are merely a pawn in the geomancy game, your body scattered in corners of the mountain, desperately stealing mortal ancestral blessings to maintain yourself. Is that what you call being ‘one with the mountain’?”
She recalled a phrase she’d picked up watching TV in idle moments, chuckling softly. “You certainly know how to boost your own reputation.”
Any ghost who had the manner of their death exposed would erupt in fury; this one, who had haunted the mountain for years, was no exception.
She, always so soft-spoken, now shrieked loudly and reached for Ji Ningzhao’s throat.
Ji Ningzhao didn’t even step back—the scales had already crept up her neck from her chest.
As the spirit reached out, a phantom dragon rose from the mist, shaking the spirit so violently the fog nearly dispersed and the cracks on her face widened.
Regaining some composure, the spirit withdrew her hand, face hardening. “You rely on the dragon scale to be so audacious, but I’ve been in this mountain for centuries. That scale can only safeguard your life, nothing more.”

“If I don’t get what I want today, neither you nor the young priest you brought will leave this place alive.”
“Moreover,” the dragging sound grew louder in the mist, and a spirit, appearing as a high school boy with a vacant expression, pulled the unconscious Chen Yiming toward them.
The umbrella Chen Yiming should have held, and the small bottle around his neck, had vanished.
Though buried as a pawn in the geomancy, the spirit had absorbed the dragon vein’s vitality for years, and was no ordinary ghost. Any soul that died in this mountain would be seized and used by her.
The spirit handed Chen Yiming to her, then vanished silently into the fog.
She hooked her finger, suspending the senseless Chen Yiming with a thread of mist, and finally wore a satisfied smile. “You came here to solve his problem, didn’t you?”
“Agree to my terms—perhaps I’ll let him go once I get what I want from him. Otherwise, I’ll kill him now. As for the young priest you brought, do you think you can take him away from here unharmed?”
From their first encounter in Ji Ningzhao’s home, the spirit had thought Ji Ningzhao was lucky, merely sheltered by a dragon. What true skill could she possess?
After so many tests, with Ji Ningzhao making no move, it seemed the dragon scale could only protect her life.
The spirit did not believe—without magical tools, without talismans, and with no detectable cultivation—that this gentle little princess could take both men from her grasp.
After all, she was nothing more than a lingering shadow from a bygone golden age.
The spirit drifted closer to Ji Ningzhao, tilting her chin, utterly at ease. “Now, choose.”