Two minutes earlier, in the top-floor meeting room of a landmark building in the city center.
“The student I’m recommending is Xie Qingyuan.” A man with a small black mole beside his left nostril gestured for his assistant to show a photo. “The twelfth-generation eldest grandson of the Xie Clan. The Xie Clan’s first patriarch assisted us in exterminating the Demon Clan—”
The scrape of a chair interrupted him. He frowned and looked over, seeing that the man had walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. His displeasure instantly vanished, replaced by a respectful smile. “Mr. Lu—Imperial Lord,” he inquired. He still wasn’t used to the old forms of address. “Do you have a question?”
Lu Sheng ignored him. The pain in his right arm was intense. He overlooked the dazzling, liquor-scented city center, listening for sounds within a hundred-mile radius.
“It’s almost ten! You still haven’t done your homework! Maybe you should just drop out!”
“Honey, I love you!”
“Excuse me, are you still hiring?”
“Boss, I’ve sent the report to your email. I’m off work now!”
“Old man, the weather’s getting cold. Tomorrow, let’s go see our daughter. I’ve knitted a few thick sweaters for her.”
“You old fool, our daughter’s been dead for years! She can’t wear them.”
“Small fried noodles, 12. Large, 15.”
“I’ll… I’ll have a small one.”
…
Countless voices surged in, and then he found the familiar voice—
“Hiss!”
“Imperial Lord?” The mole-nosed man, getting no response, was about to step forward when Lu Sheng vanished instantly from the spot.
It was the first time he had witnessed the new Ghost Emperor use a spell. Admiration flickered in his eyes. Turning back, he wore a polished smile. “The Imperial Lord Beitai had urgent matters. Let us continue.”
…
Ghost Emperor?
As Jiang Wu’s vision slowly sank, the misty, elusive figure in his mind finally became clear.
The man holding the red umbrella in the rainy alley. The man with the highly polished leather shoes in the back seat of the shared ride—jaw as sharp as a blade’s edge, deep-set eyes, his dark pupils faintly revealing a red tinge. His eyes were narrow and long, his nose bridge high, and his thin lips radiated no warmth whatsoever.
So it was him…
Jiang Wu’s mind went blank for a brief second, then plunged into endless darkness. His eyelids fell completely shut, and he passed out from the pain on the stone steps.
Transparent blood trickled down his arm, dripping and flowing down the steps to the tip of Lu Sheng’s shoe.
Lu Sheng looked down at the pool of transparent blood. “Bring him back,” he said, then turned and left.
Gongliang Ye hurried over. He crouched down to observe Jiang Wu, whose eyes were tightly shut, both lips drained to a cyan color, and half of his right arm a bloody, mangled mess.
“Ah, what kind of monster did this? Such a vicious strike.” Gongliang Ye murmured, carefully avoiding the arm as he hoisted Jiang Wu onto his back.
After fainting from the pain, Jiang Wu fell into a dark place. Suddenly, he heard sobbing. He walked towards the sound, and his vision gradually cleared. It was the backyard of a kindergarten.
A frail child was hiding inside the tunnel bridge of a slide, surrounded by a crowd of children shouting at him.
“Weirdo! Your blood isn’t red!”
“I’m going to tell my Mom and Dad your blood isn’t the same color as ours!”
“Come out! I want to see your hand! No, I want to see your blood!”
“Are you a monster?”
“Will you eat us?”
“How scary! Let’s run!”
“No…” The child tried hard to hide his bleeding finger, tears welling in his eyes. He defended himself in a small voice, “I’m not a monster. I don’t eat people…”
The children still ran away screaming, “So scary! He’s a monster, his blood is like water! He’ll eat us!”
A large teardrop fell from the child’s eye, landing on his bleeding fingertip. Blood and tears mingled; both were a transparent, watery color.
Then the scene shifted again. The child’s pants were pulled down to his ankles, leaving him only in his underwear. A woman held a long, thin, glossy bamboo strip, striking the child’s thigh repeatedly.
His legs, as thin as bamboo skewers, were covered in crisscrossing marks, both shallow and deep. The child trembled violently, but he bit his lips tightly shut, not daring to make a sound.
The woman wept as she lashed him. “We have to move again! Have to run away again! Why can’t you learn to be sensible? You’re different from others. You can’t be naughty, you can’t get hurt! You can’t let them see your blood. Why won’t you listen…”
The sound of the bamboo strip echoed clearly in the dim, unventilated basement. Suddenly, the child looked up, meeting Jiang Wu’s gaze. More large teardrops welled up in his eyes.
Jiang Wu knew. The child was feeling wronged. He hadn’t been insensible, nor had he been naughty or disobedient. A little boy in kindergarten had bullied him and cut his finger with a utility knife.
The child had tried to dodge but failed. Many hands grabbed his arms and his shoulders. He didn’t dare shake them off with force, afraid they would fly away and get hurt. In the end, he would still be the one scolded and beaten.
Jiang Wu knew it all, knew it clearly, because he was that child.
He bent down, wanting to embrace his younger self. He remembered that back then, he had desperately wanted a tight hug.
He almost reached him. Then the bamboo strip struck the child’s arm.
Jiang Wu bolted upright with a start. “Huff… huff…” His chest heaved violently. It took him a long moment to calm down. Drenched in sweat, he looked around.
It was no longer the cramped, suffocating basement from his dream. The dim room was spacious and comfortable, filled with a clean, fresh scent, like being in a forest at early morning—a dense, thin mist, and varying shades of green leaves appearing and disappearing.
To his left, a gilt-bronze desk lamp shone with a warm, soft light, illuminating the flowing dark green tassels. In the distance, the sheer curtains—their color indistinct for the moment—shielded the view outside, their hems piling in a small circle on the carpet.
And the bed Jiang Wu was lying in…
He had never slept in such a soft bed. It felt like sinking into weightless cotton. The comforter was light and warm and smelled wonderful.
Jiang Wu’s eyelids twitched a few times. He recalled the memories before he fainted—the sky filled with fire, the man saying he was…
The Ghost Emperor?
A god who controls life and death?
Jiang Wu instantly sprang from the bed. His arm brushed against the heavy bed curtain. “Hiss…” He grunted in pain and looked down. His right arm was wrapped in snow-white bandages. That was what had woken him.
Since he could still feel pain, he probably wasn’t dead?
Jiang Wu touched the clean, soft pajamas he was wearing, then lifted the blanket and got out of bed.
Beside the bed, a pair of slippers was neatly aligned. Jiang Wu hesitated for a moment, then slipped his feet into them.
He searched the room but couldn’t find his clothes or his phone. The Ghost Emperor wouldn’t have brought him here without a reason. Jiang Wu walked to the window, lifted the curtain, and peeked outside. It was almost dawn.
He dropped the curtain and sat down on the sofa. Sure enough, as soon as it was light, there was a knock on the door.
A polite, measured three raps.
Jiang Wu went to open the door. Outside stood an elderly man with graying hair, holding his clothes and the Lazy Goat mask.
Jiang Wu recognized him. He was the elderly man who had sat in the front passenger seat during the shared ride.
“Good morning,” the old man smiled. “I am the butler of this residence, Gongliang Ye.”
“Hello, I’m Jiang Wu.” Jiang Wu took the clothes and the mask. He flipped open a pocket with his fingertip and glanced inside. Although he had expected that Banfen would definitely be gone, his brow still furrowed. He looked up and asked Gongliang Ye, “Excuse me, when you cleaned my clothes, did you see a small spider?”
Gongliang Ye replied, “No.”
Jiang Wu didn’t press further. He hugged his clothes and said, “I need two or three minutes to change.”
Gongliang Ye smiled. “No need to rush. Take your time. I’ll wait for you outside.”
Jiang Wu closed the door. He lowered his head and sniffed the clothes. They were clean, ironed, and carried a faint, fresh fragrance—the same scent as the comforter he had slept under.
He didn’t know what would happen next, but after surviving a swarm of disgusting Old Harriers last night, there was probably nothing he couldn’t handle for the moment.
Jiang Wu patted the fluffy, soft clothes, changed into them, and went out, still wearing only the slippers on his feet.
Gongliang Ye turned left to lead the way. “Follow me.”
It was a corridor so long the end wasn’t visible, covered with a thick, soft carpet. The carpet was the same deep, rich dark green as the tassels of the gilt-bronze desk lamp in the bedroom. Their footsteps made no sound whatsoever as they walked.
Jiang Wu observed his surroundings discreetly. The ceiling was very high. At regular intervals, night pearls the size of dinosaur eggs were embedded, their soft, luminous glow illuminating the large framed paintings on both sides.
All were of birds.
In the painting directly to his left front, two birds were playing on a cliff. Their feathers were long and fine, with a blue-green metallic sheen. The crown and back of the neck were mostly white, tinged with a faint brownish-gray, while the rest of their bodies were silvery gray.
They were Silky Starlings.
Jiang Wu breathed a silent sigh of relief. Good, they were real birds.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at a painting on the right. This one depicted a bird standing atop a snow-covered summit, its neck slightly raised. Its crest drooped backward, with bare blue skin around its eyes. Its head was green, its neck a brownish-red, its belly white, and its back bluish-purple. The feathers of its wings and tail were a shimmering, light-catching blue-green.
Jiang Wu’s eyelid twitched slightly. It was a male Chinese Monal pheasant, active in regions between three and five thousand meters in altitude.
“Watch your step. We’re going downstairs now,” Gongliang Ye suddenly said.
Jiang Wu pulled back his gaze. He looked ahead at the mahogany spiral staircase that had abruptly appeared. He was absolutely certain that a second ago, that spot had been carpeted.
The endless cemetery stone steps from last night had given Jiang Wu a considerable psychological scar. Coupled with the man’s identity—Ghost Emperor—he couldn’t help but form a logical conjecture.
A passageway straight to the eighteenth level of Hell!
Sweat slicked Jiang Wu’s palms. His Adam’s apple bobbed slightly as he looked at Gongliang Ye. “Grandpa Gongliang…”
It was the first time Gongliang Ye had been addressed as “Grandpa.” He paused in surprise for a moment, then his eyes crinkled with a smile. “Don’t worry. The Master means you no harm.”
Jiang Wu squeezed his fingertips and stepped onto the staircase.
They descended only one floor. Suddenly, the view opened up wide. Unexpectedly, it was a dining room.
The dome ceiling was a vast colored mural depicting a hundred beasts. From the center hung a crystal chandelier of interwoven white and green. To the left and right were arched, black-framed floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside, heavy snow was falling; the view beyond was a vast expanse of white.
The long table in the center was over twenty meters long, with a dining chair placed only at each end. The tabletop was covered with a dark green tablecloth, and a vase of red plum blossoms sat upon it.
Then—
A group of transparent Black Shadows entered from a side door. They had no facial features, and it was impossible to tell their gender. Their hairstyles and body curves were uniform. Heavy iron chains bound their hands and feet.
The shadowy beings were transparent, yet they carried solid trays, busily placing one breakfast dish after another at the foot of the table.
Once the Black Shadows had served the food, they hunched over and silently departed. Only then did Jiang Wu see that iron chains also pierced their scapulas.
“Please, enjoy your breakfast.” Gongliang Ye pulled out the dining chair at the table’s foot for Jiang Wu.
Jiang Wu hadn’t expected to simply go downstairs for breakfast. The aroma of the food reached his nostrils. His throat tightened, but he still asked first, “Am I eating alone?”
The food was only set at this end of the table.
“The Master does not eat,” Gongliang Ye explained with a smile. “His last formal meal was one hundred years ago.”
He then gave a slight nod. “Take your time. I must leave for a moment to attend to some matters.”
Gongliang Ye left. Jiang Wu was alone in the vast dining room. He looked at the exquisite breakfast laid out before him—
A mix of both Chinese and Western dishes.
Yellow Croaker Noodles, Four-Joy Steamed Dumplings, Bacon-wrapped Asparagus, Tulip Steamed Eggs, Pan-fried Golden Eggs, Black Sesame Rice Cakes, Yogurt Oatmeal, various juices…
And a few dishes Jiang Wu didn’t even recognize.
He took only the bowl of Yellow Croaker Noodles. Just the smell alone was fragrant enough to make his nose twitch.
With his right hand bandaged, Jiang Wu picked up the chopsticks with his left hand without any difficulty. After a casual stir, he began devouring the noodles with gusto.
He was too hungry. He had also lost too much blood the previous night. His body desperately needed a large replenishment of nutrients.
Even if the most unimaginable things happened after he finished eating, the most important priority in his life right now was to savor this delicious bowl of Yellow Croaker Noodles.
Once he finished the noodles, Jiang Wu was full. He didn’t touch any of the other food. He neatly arranged his bowl and chopsticks and waited for Gongliang Ye’s next instructions.
Soon, the Black Shadows returned. Some hunched over to clear the food and tidy the table, while others knelt on the floor, scrubbing the vintage tiles.
Gongliang Ye also returned to the dining room. As Jiang Wu expected, he led him to another place.
But—
“I can leave?” Jiang Wu confirmed again at the entrance hall.
“Yes,” Gongliang Ye nodded. “You are free to leave at any time.”
Jiang Wu’s gaze swept over a new pair of fleece-lined casual shoes. He asked again, “I didn’t see my own shoes.”
“They were gone by the time I carried you back,” Gongliang Ye said amiably. “These shoes were chosen in your size. Please, take them.”
