“…” After listening to Wei Luyuan’s story, Huo Wei couldn’t think of what to say for a moment.
Her gaze wandered aimlessly for a moment before settling on Fang Zehao nearby. The surge of emotions found an outlet, and anger immediately rose in her:
“It’s all because of you damn men!”
“?” Fang Zehao pointed at himself in disbelief.
His heart was full of mixed feelings, and he knew that with his gender and situation, it probably wasn’t convenient for him to interrupt, but he really couldn’t help it:
“So those in your freezer are all…”
Wei Luyuan raised her eyes and looked at him coldly.
Under the moonlight, that gaze made Fang Zehao shiver.
Her eyes flashed with hatred and she cut him off sharply:
“They deserved it!”
Later on, Wei Luyuan often thought, why?
Why did Xia Kui have to die? Why was fate so unfair to such a beautiful girl? Why did those who had hurt her either have successful careers or happy families, while she, the one who deserved happiness most, died alone in the cold lake water?
Why?
Why.
Wei Luyuan wouldn’t accept it, and she couldn’t bear to see such an ending.
After barely surviving the lake, she came to understand many things.
For instance, if she died just like that, there would probably be no one left in this world to remember Xia Kui, so she had to live on.
For another, if fate and the law couldn’t bring justice for Xia Kui, then she would do it herself.
“Yuan Bo! Didn’t he deserve to die?! He stole my identity! He stole the memories that belonged only to me and her! He approached her under a false identity! He caused her to end up that way! He deserves to die! He deserves to die!!!”
Wei Luyuan held Xia Kui in her arms, her eyes bloodshot and filled with glistening tears.
She blinked, forcing back the tears about to fall, as if stressing something, repeating over and over:
“He deserves to die…”
“Then what about the others?”
After a moment of silence, another voice suddenly cut in, startling everyone.
Because the voice belonged to the young man lying askew on the ground, who had been quiet for so long.
Fu Sang maintained his curled-up posture, slowly rubbed his face with his hand, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse:
“What about the one called Yu Pingchuan?”
No one had expected him to wake up suddenly.
“San You!”
Huo Wei screamed and lunged toward him:
“You’re alive!”
“You sound disappointed that I’m not dead.”
Fu Sang propped himself up from the ground. He lowered his head and held his forehead, still a bit dizzy.
Seeing him wake, Wei Luyuan immediately checked Xia Kui in her arms.
Xia Kui still showed no signs of waking up, just resting quietly in her arms.
“Where is she?! What did you do to her?!”
Wei Luyuan was finally panicking, while Fu Sang raised his eyes to look at her:
“Answer my question.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about. If you want them, go look in the freezer yourself…they’re all there! I never ask for the names of the dead! They all deserved it! Which one of them didn’t deserve it?!”
Fu Sang had struck Wei Luyuan’s most painful nerve, and she shouted hysterically:
“Those men, every one of them spoke sweet words, saying they loved only her and would only be good to her, but only they themselves knew how disgusting their thoughts really were!! Kui and I never provoked anyone! We didn’t! Those men threw themselves at us, like disgusting gum that has been chewed up and spat out, stuck to the sole of a shoe and can’t be shaken off!
“Who actually liked her? Who truly loved her? What was she in your men’s eyes? Just an exceptionally pretty flower by the roadside that you could pick whenever you wanted! Who ever thought about truly cherishing her? Why did Kui have to be harassed by these scumbags before and after her death? Weren’t they out hunting for prey? Fine then, let’s see who’s hunting whom!”
“I don’t regret it! Let me tell you, even if I kill ten or a hundred more, even if one day I have to pay with my life, be chopped into a thousand pieces, have my bones ground to dust…I will never regret it!!!”
“…” Fu Sang didn’t answer, only nodded slightly and said calmly, “You have a point.”
With that, he stood up, casually made a couple of gestures with his hands hanging at his sides, and the copper-coin blood threads that had fallen to the ground obediently wound themselves back onto the Ghost Blood Whip in his hand.
“But if I were you, I wouldn’t have made such a big scene. As everyone knows, the law won’t punish men who toy with feelings, nor will it punish ghosts, but it can punish you for murder and dismemberment.”
“So, congratulations…the dream of blood for blood is no more.”
Wei Luyuan sneered: “I know what the consequences are, you don’t need to remind me. Even if I have to die, I won’t swallow my anger and watch them keep living their carefree lives! Anyone who coveted Kui or tried to harm Kui must die!”
“You misunderstand.”
Fu Sang walked up to her, lowered his head, and reached his hand near Xia Kui, snapping his fingers above her head, and the Ghost Blood Whip gave a soft chime in response.
Almost at the same time, Xia Kui suddenly opened her eyes, instinctively clinging to Wei Luyuan’s arm, gasping for air as if she had been on the verge of suffocation and had just regained oxygen.
“What I meant was, there are many ways in this world to make someone disappear without anyone noticing,” he glanced at the few conspicuous freezers in the room and shrugged:
“At least you wouldn’t have to waste so much electricity.”
Wei Luyuan didn’t quite understand what he meant by that. She lowered her head to confirm Xia Kui’s condition, and after making sure she was alright, she immediately held the terrified Xia Kui tightly in her arms.
Too much had happened today. The young man before her had died and come back to life, and possessed all sorts of strange abilities. He was clearly no ordinary person. The two of them had fallen into his hands today, so they would probably be lucky to escape.
So at this very moment, the only thing she wanted to do was hold Xia Kui tight.
Fu Sang could see what she was thinking.
He raised an eyebrow slightly, “First of all, I’m not a cop. The fact that you killed people and boxed them up is none of my business, and I’m too lazy to care…I’m not that righteous. I came here today because of this ghost.”
Fu Sang raised his hand and pointed at Xia Kui, and Wei Luyuan watched his movements warily.
“You gave her half of your flesh, blood, and lifespan, turning her into something half-human, half-ghost, neither alive nor dead. So right now, as far as I’m concerned, she can be either a person who’s not my concern, or a ghost who is my concern. Which one it is depends on your awareness.”
Huo Wei had never heard of blood-sacrifice for a dead soul before and had no idea what Fu Sang meant by “half-human, half-ghost.”
Maybe he had his own rhythm…either way, this guy was probably about to stir up trouble again.
Huo Wei didn’t dare to speak, and Wei Luyuan was equally hesitant.
She frowned: “What do you mean?”
“Who taught you about the blood-sacrifice for the dead?”
“…”
Wei Luyuan was silent for a moment.
This wasn’t a secret she couldn’t share, and besides, she had no other choice now, all her secrets were already in this person’s hands.
So she didn’t hesitate much before answering:
“I dreamed it.”
At first glance, this answer was hardly convincing, but Fu Sang didn’t question it, only saying, “Elaborate.”
Wei Luyuan slowly dug into her pocket but didn’t pull anything out. After a moment of thought, she said:
“There’s a white object on the shelf by the window in the living room, where Kui’s things were left behind. It should be related to this.”
“I jumped into the lake after Kui died. I went there intending to die, but in the end, Kui saved me. That thing was in my hand when I woke up by the shore. I thought it was something she left me, so I kept it with me, even holding it while I slept. On the third day after I got it, I had a dream.”
Huo Wei listened to Wei Luyuan’s words and exchanged a look with Fu Sang.
Huo Wei understood his meaning and immediately got up to go to the living room, bringing the item over.
It was a round coin-like disc, but unlike the copper coins commonly used by spirit masters, this one was entirely ivory-white in color, with layers of strange patterns carved across its surface.
“There was a man in my dream. He told me that Kui’s soul was at the bottom of the lake. As long as I found an object that carried precious memories between me and Kui and nourished it with blood for eighty-one days, I could save Kui and bring her back.”
Fu Sang took the bone coin from Huo Wei’s hand.
He rubbed its surface with his fingertip and judged from the texture that it should be a bone coin. It was quite old, and it gave off an extremely sinister feeling.
“What kind of man?” he asked.
“I can’t remember clearly.”
“Got it.” Fu Sang twirled the bone coin between his fingers and closed his hand around it:
“I’m taking this. Huo Wei, let’s go.”
“Go?” Huo Wei’s eyes widened: “Go where?”
“What, you want to stay here overnight? Suit yourself.”
“Hey…” Huo Wei surveyed the room once more…
The completely shattered windows, the sticky human blood all over the floor, and who knew how many brothers in the freezers…
Such a big, chaotic mess…and they were leaving just like that???
But clearly she didn’t have the ability to clean up the mess on her own. Seeing that Fu Sang wasn’t joking but genuinely intended to leave, she hurriedly followed.
Fang Zehao, who seemed to still be dreaming, also tagged along.
However, before leaving, he couldn’t help pausing and looking back at the two slender girls.
Wei Luyuan was kneeling on the ground, with Xia Kui leaning against her. From his angle, he couldn’t see Xia Kui’s face and expression clearly, only that her shoulders were trembling slightly…perhaps she was crying.
He couldn’t say what he was feeling inside.
He felt sorry for Xia Kui’s plight, but he didn’t have the right to offer comfort, because in their story, he seemed to be cast as the perpetrator as well.
If he had to say it, he wasn’t just playing around—he genuinely liked Xia Kui, and before this, he genuinely intended to take the relationship seriously. Every word he had said to Xia Kui wasn’t a lie.
But now wasn’t the right time to say that, and they probably wouldn’t believe him anyway.
In fact, he also wanted to ask, if Fu Sang hadn’t intervened tonight, would Xia Kui really have killed him without mercy after they had “opened their hearts to each other”?
He shook his head. There was no point asking, that would only be humiliating.
So in the end, Fang Zehao only asked, “…Did you turn her into this to save her?”
“Obviously,” Wei Luyuan laughed coldly, “Otherwise, was it to save you?”
“But…”
Fang Zehao hesitated, then still spoke:
“Why would you think that turning her into a being neither human nor ghost, unable to see the light, without an identity, denying her rest, keeping her in this world to suffer… was saving her?”
After saying this, Fang Zehao didn’t wait for Wei Luyuan’s response and left.
He didn’t hear any sound from the two girls even after he left the house that had claimed who knew how many lives.
He was a little dazed, and it wasn’t until he went downstairs and felt the cold wind outside that he seemed to finally wake up:
“We’re… really just leaving like this?”
Huo Wei agreed: “Yeah, we’re leaving just like that?”
“I said if you don’t want to leave you can stay overnight, did I stop you?” Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly.
“No, but… even so, she killed so many people…”
Fang Zehao felt that after going through all this, they should at least call the police. He thought Fu Sang’s words to Wei Luyuan earlier were just an act, but who would have thought he really intended to let it go.
“It’s none of my business,” Fu Sang said indifferently.
“Then what about your Xia Kui? You were investigating so seriously before…” Huo Wei didn’t want to say much about matters involving karma, only quietly reminding him on the side.
“All I ever wanted to know was the secret behind Xia Kui. Now that I’ve asked what I needed to ask, is the rest any of my concern?”
Fu Sang found Huo Wei’s car, opened the door, and got in:
“To Jingda University, thanks.”
“You think I’m your ride-hailing driver?!” Huo Wei shot a disdainful glance at Fu Sang, who reeked of blood, “Wash my car tomorrow! You’ve made it stink… Wait, why are you going back to school so late?”
“To check the lake.”
“Oh…” Huo Wei nodded, and in the gap while shifting gears, she spotted Fang Zehao standing outside the car.
“Little Brother, where are you headed? Do you want a ride?”
“I… uh, no thanks, I can walk.”
Since Fang Zehao said that, Huo Wei didn’t insist and drove away from Jianyuan Residential Community.
Fang Zehao stood where he was, watching the direction they had gone, then turned back to look at the two shattered windows on the top floor of Building 6.
He stood there for a long time, his phone screen frozen on the dial pad. After typing out the three digits “110,” he made no further move for a long time.
His finger hovered over the call button for a long time. In the end, he scratched his head in frustration, turned off the screen, and walked toward the exit.
“Do you think Fang Zehao will call the police?”
Once the car was on the road, Huo Wei couldn’t help asking.
“Is he a stupid pig?” Fu Sang looked down, fiddling with the bone coin in his hand:
“This involves too much. If he called the police, how would he explain it to them? Anyone with a brain wouldn’t want to wade into these muddy waters.”
“That’s true, but we could report it to the Spirit Supervision Bureau. After all, that girl refined ghosts and killed people…it’s not great to just ignore it… Be honest with me, are you not getting involved because you don’t want the karma and the hassle, or because you think the two girls are pitiful and pure-hearted, and feel sympathy for them?”
Huo Wei wore an expression like she was watching a show.
“You think I’m Qi Changying?” Fu Sang closed his eyes and let out a cold laugh, looking somewhat weary:
“Reporting it directly would implicate me. Fang Zehao can’t explain things to the police, can I explain all this to the Zhuge family? It’s too much trouble.”
“But right now my emotions and moral bottom line are fighting. Emotionally, I feel sorry for their suffering and understand their hatred, but my morals tell me that murderers should pay with their lives.” Huo Wei sighed.
“So you’re the real Qi Changying.”
Fu Sang made a lame joke, then added, “Pick me up early tomorrow morning. I’ve got business to take care of at home.”
“What kind of business?”
“The kind that can save your moral bottom line.”
“Fine, then do I need to say thank you on behalf of my moral bottom line?”
“No need. I’ll take it as understood.”
Jianyuan Residential Community wasn’t far from Jingda University. As Fu Sang had requested, the car soon stopped on the road by the nameless lake.
Fu Sang got out, carrying his flashlight, and headed straight for the lake.
Without hesitation, he got close, threw off his jacket and shoes, and dove into the lake with a splash, ignoring Huo Wei’s horrified reaction behind him.
He could sense that the bone coin he had gotten from Wei Luyuan was a magical artifact.
Extremely yin, and extremely sinister.
The last time he had felt this way was with the Well Of Retribution at the Hei Mountain Pass, which was filled with blood and the long nail.
Since Wei Luyuan had gotten it after jumping into the lake, it meant there was something at the bottom of this lake.
The lake water was bone-chilling cold this winter night. Fu Sang used the Ghost Blood Whip to guide him, letting the five blood threads seek out the spot with the densest yin energy at the bottom of the lake.
The Ghost Blood Whip led him all the way toward the center of the lake.
When he reached the ends of the blood threads, Fu Sang took the flashlight from his waist and turned it on, shining it at that spot.
The blood threads sank into the thick mud at the bottom of the lake.
Fu Sang used his hands to dig through the mud and sure enough, saw a flash of copper beneath.
He didn’t know what it was, but it was large and heavy, with patterns on it that gave off a very unpleasant feeling, like part of some ominous sealing formation.
In addition, after clearing away more mud, Fu Sang also found a round notch on it.
He compared it with the bone coin, and they were exactly the same size.
This was a seal that had already been broken. And what the seal supposed was precisely this bone coin of unknown purpose.
With his breath running out, Fu Sang didn’t linger at the bottom any longer and swam upward, surfacing.
He swam toward the shore.
But just as he was about to reach land, the bone coin in his left hand suddenly began to grow hot for some reason.
Along with that heat came a piercing pain in his head like needles.
Fu Sang had felt this kind of pain before, by the side of the Well Of Retribution.
“…What’s your name?”
A very familiar voice seemed to drift in from afar, and his consciousness was slowly being carried away. In the last moment before his awareness completely vanished, Fu Sang used the Ghost Blood Whip to latch firmly onto a protruding rock on the shore.
‘What caused this anomaly?’
As he reached out, Fu Sang realized that perhaps it was because he had been in the water and moved too vigorously, the wound on his left shoulder had opened up, and blood was seeping out, smearing across the surface of the bone coin and dyeing it with threads of red.
The scene before his eyes shifted between the night and the lakeside.
Memories that were not his own once again forcibly invaded his senses.
A person’s voice, carrying a faint, light smile, repeated by his ear:
“What’s your name?”
