Wang Quan’s true consultant wasn’t the fraud; they had hidden an actual sorcerer, capable of splitting souls.
The plan became clear: to rip Wang Li’s soul apart, make him a wandering wraith, then implant it into my body instead.
Success meant Wang Li wore my flesh. Failures meant not just his end but annihilation.
It was madness. Filial devotion turned to inhuman cruelty.
And if they succeeded, I would vanish. Soul shredded, unheard.
In the chamber, Wang Li staggered, pouring fresh animal blood over himself, chanting through cracked lips. A translucent barrier shimmered around him, fueled by pain ritual.
Jiang struck again and again. Nothing broke it.
I knew this barrier could only fail if breached from within.
But that was impossible.
Until....
"Lu Wei?" I gasped.
Shock floored me. My brother was already inside, hidden by the freezer.
In one brutal movement, he kicked over Wang Quan, shattering the chant.
The barrier cracked.
Relief soared too soon.
Because madness wasn’t done.
Wang Quan, foaming with rage, half dead already, leapt up and tackled Lu Wei. In the thrash of limbs, his jacket spread wide revealing a vest of explosives.
My eyes froze.
"No."
Lu Wei clenched tight around his struggling frame, arms locked. His eyes met mine.
"Go, Zhen. Run."
Jiang grabbed me, sprinting.
I twisted against him, screeching,
"Lu Wei, don’t."
But Lu Wei smiled through blood, through terror. Raised a hand, thumb up, the gesture familiar from decades of brotherhood.
"Sorry, brother."
And the world split white.
Light. Heat. A roar that tore the air. My soul ripped loose, tearing upward, wobbling free of the cat body.
Memories crashed back all at once.
I remembered why I was in the south that day. I had gone to meet Jiang Yuyan. To answer him.
Until Lu Wei, desperate, called me lied about debts, pulling me east where Wang Quan waited. I had walked right into the trap.
Wang Quan had yanked my soul cruelly from flesh, preparing it for his son. Afterward, to erase traces, his men staged the ring-road crash, stuffed my ID card onto a corpse pile, leaving innocents dead with me.
Insanity. Evil to the bone.
That tearing agony of being pulled from my own body I still hissed with terror at the memory.
But now none of that mattered.
Because the ether clawed me again, pulling me away.
"Jiang," I shrieked. My little body already unraveling.
He held me tight, face broken, smiling anyway, forcing warmth.
"Zhen, will you wait for me?"
Tears blurred my eyes. I touched his nose with mine, desperate.
"The truth is, I was headed south to find you. Jiang Yuyan. I went for you."
His eyes widened, shock flooding his red rimmed gaze.
I screamed through dissolving light,
"I accepted your confession. You hear me? I was going to say yes."
Because five days before the accident, he had secretly confessed to me. That morning, roses in hand, I had intended to surprise him. My answer.
Yes. Yes, dammit, yes.
All those years of rivalry, fury, tangled admiration always him.
Always Jiang Yuyan.
His laugh cracked through tears, body shaking. He pressed my head hard as if to fuse me alive to him.
"Lu Zhen, wait for me. No matter worlds apart, you wait."
And then pure white.
His face, fading, the last anchor.
Until even that dissolved.
And my soul was torn away.
The Emperor of Fengdu was not what I had imagined.
I thought he’d be a towering warlord with a beard thick enough to weave ropes an iron fisted king of the dead.
Instead, he was a skinny little nerd.
Hunched over a desk stacked with scrolls, muttering like a bitter accountant in hell’s back office.
"Those damned Jiang family brats pulling souls out of my jurisdiction right under my nose,"
"Tricked by cheap sorcery, how humiliating,"
"And don’t even mention budgets someone just burned down an entire ghost city last week."
He fluttered parchment and sighed like a middle manager.
"Excuse me?" I coughed politely.
He looked back at me, blinking owlishly, tilting his head.
"Wait. Why are you still here?"
Me: silence.
So that was it. My human world adventure dreamlike, surreal. And just like that, it was over. I was once again only a ghost, tethered to the Underworld.
Half a month later, Black and White Impermanence came to fetch me.
Good news: my body had finally been buried properly. My old crew and Jiang Yuyan had made sure of it. Now the offerings burned in my name finally arrived.
Bad news: the Underworld had just rolled out currency reform. No longer a one-to-one with the billions of paper money. With conversion rates, my tens of billions shrank to about fifty thousand ghost-coins.
Not even enough to buy me a deluxe dream visitation with my man.
My soul sagged into despair.
But then the brothers gave me another message.
Because the Jiang family’s backing carried weight, the Emperor of Fengdu himself arranged me a permanent job: Guard Officer at the Underworld Administrative Hall.
No more temp blackmarket jobs. Decent wages, benefits, actual progression. Yes, still unestablished for five years, but after that civil service.
Stability. Respect.
And then Black Impermanence smiled and said softly,
"Jiang Yuyan told us to tell you something. He said his family has debts, karmic obligations he must close out in the world of the living. But once they’re done, he’ll come. He asked you to wait."
My cat ears flicked. My throat tightened.
"Tell him," I whispered, "I’ll wait."
Chapter 07
*
Comments
Post a Comment