Xiao Mi was clearly provoked by Xu Jian calling her “baldy”. Gripping the long knife in her hand, she was about to rush into the room.

Xu Jian, seeing this, wasn’t the least bit flustered. He jumped down from the table, reached into his pocket, and pulled out several bead-like objects.

“Go!” With a flick of his hand, the beads were thrown out.

Zhou Jiayu thought they were something like talismans, but to his surprise, the beads didn’t fall to the ground. Instead, they seemed to be pulled by invisible threads, tracing out bright lines through the air.

Xiao Mi didn’t know what these beads were either, so she made no effort to dodge. But after the beads circled her a few times, her movements noticeably slowed down, as if invisible threads were actually binding her in place.

“Die!! Die!!” Xiao Mi’s entire face twisted in rage, the blood smeared across her face making her even more terrifying. The dark shadows behind her let out low, anxious wails.

Xu Jian, hearing her voice, stared at her carefully for a moment before suddenly freezing in surprise. “You’re that girl from the livestream? What happened to you?”

Apparently, he recognized Xiao Mi—but her appearance had changed so drastically that he hadn’t noticed at first. And who could blame him? Who would’ve thought that the cute young streamer from before had now turned into this knife-wielding, rage-filled, bald maniac?

Xu Jian muttered something under his breath.

Standing nearby, Zhou Jiayu heard him clearly. Xu Jian said: “So being bald really does make a difference, huh.”

Zhou Jiayu: “……” Master Xu, seriously? Is this really the time to focus on that?

If looks could kill, Xiao Mi’s glare would’ve shredded them into pieces by now. But her body was firmly bound by Xu Jian’s spell and couldn’t advance even a single step. The shadows circling over her head showed no intention of entering the room either.

“Sigh… what a sin,” Xu Jian muttered, shaking his head.

Zhou Jiayu and Shen Yiqiong both sighed in relief, thinking they’d finally gotten a break from being chased all over the place. They stepped cautiously from their corner to survey the meeting room.

A rough count revealed at least seventy or eighty people in the room. All of them stood dazed, mindlessly circling the conference table like puppets.

Zhou Jiayu even spotted a few familiar faces—people he’d seen before in Xiao Mi’s livestream. They were the ones who used to play horror games with her.

Zhou Jiayu asked, “Master Xu, were all these people turned into this by Xiao Mi?”

Xu Jian shook his head. “She doesn’t have that kind of power. She’s just a puppet herself. There’s definitely something else controlling her from behind the scenes—but whatever it is, it hasn’t shown up yet.” As he spoke, he suddenly seemed to realize something and eyed Zhou Jiayu and Shen Yiqiong carefully. “Wait… you two aren’t in soul state. How did you get in here?”

Both Zhou Jiayu and Shen Yiqiong jumped. “What? We’re not? But we couldn’t see our reflections in the phone camera!”

Xu Jian said, “See those souls in here? If you used a mirror to find their bodies right now, you wouldn’t see their reflections either.”

That made Zhou Jiayu recall something. “No wonder they were taking photos before going in… if they tried it afterward, no one would show up in the pictures.” He frowned. “Master Xu, is there something wrong with our state?”

Xu Jian gave him a look. “Wrong? Very wrong. Let’s put it this way—imagine a person split into ten parts. The people in this room are only here with one-tenth of themselves. You two brought nine-tenths. A person can still live if they lose a fragment of their soul—it just weakens them…”

Zhou Jiayu understood and laughed bitterly. “So you mean… they can escape by shedding their tails, but if Shen Yiqiong or I get stabbed, we’re completely done for?”

Xu Jian nodded seriously. “Exactly.”

Zhou Jiayu and Shen Yiqiong were speechless. Earlier, when Ji Ba told him to pull out his phone, Zhou Jiayu had been impressed by this soul-leaving technique, thinking it was high-level stuff—even his phone was still in his pocket. Now, reality had smacked him hard in the face.

“So what now, Master Xu?” Zhou Jiayu asked. “Are we just going to wait here?”

Xu Jian nodded. “We wait. Since your master is here, once he finishes handling things on the other side, he’ll come get you. I can protect the souls in this room, but I can’t break the contracts they signed with those things—that’s why I haven’t left yet.”

As they spoke, they noticed Xiao Mi—who’d been struggling uselessly at the doorway—begin to twist her body again. This time, though, she turned toward the corridor outside…

Zhou Jiayu frowned. “Why isn’t she trying to come in anymore?” Suddenly, a thought struck him. “Master Xu—we came in here with a few other kids!”

Xu Jian’s expression darkened. “What?”

Zhou Jiayu quickly explained the situation. They’d scattered while running away—the other four young people should still be somewhere in this building, but where exactly was unknown.

“There are still people here?” Xu Jian frowned deeply. “We can’t let Xiao Mi find them. Their condition is probably the same as yours—if she hurts them, they could die for real!” He hesitated, then said, “I can’t leave right now… you two will have to find them.” He pulled a few more of the bone beads he’d used to trap Xiao Mi from his pocket. “These are special—made from human bone. They can restrain her for a short time, but they’re rare. Only use them in an emergency.”

Zhou Jiayu and Shen Yiqiong each took two.

Xu Jian carefully explained how to use them, his face full of concern—clearly debating whether to really let them go out.

Shen Yiqiong grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Master Xu. We’ll be fine. Xiao Mi’s slow as hell—she can’t catch us. And if she does, we’ve got the beads, right?”

Xu Jian sighed softly and reminded them again to be careful.

Zhou Jiayu and Shen Yiqiong didn’t dare waste any more time. They were afraid that if they delayed, Xiao Mi might already find those people.

Though they’d mentally prepared themselves, searching such a huge building for a few people was easier said than done.

Luckily, at this moment, Ji Ba gave Zhou Jiayu a suggestion.

“There are only a few of you in the entire building who are in a state between yin and yang,” Ji Ba said. “Your yin energy is too heavy, so this won’t work. You need to let Shen Yiqiong do it. Go to the restroom and find a mirror. Have Shen Yiqiong prick his finger, then use his fresh blood to draw this tracking array on the mirror.”

Zhou Jiayu glanced at the array Ji Ba showed him and realized that all the practice he’d put into drawing talismans hadn’t gone to waste—after drawing so many, he had gained experience. Just by looking at this unfamiliar array, he could easily tell where to start and how to proceed.

“Alright.” Zhou Jiayu nodded.

Shen Yiqiong was still puzzled when he saw Zhou Jiayu, face serious and somber, enter the restroom. Moments later came the sound of shattering glass.

“Guan’er, what are you doing?” Shen Yiqiong called out.

Zhou Jiayu said, “Give me a little of your blood.”

Still looking utterly confused, Shen Yiqiong let Zhou Jiayu take his hand and slice open his fingertip with a shard of the broken mirror. Zhou Jiayu then dipped his fingers in Shen Yiqiong’s blood and carefully traced a small, delicate formation onto the mirror’s surface. As expected, drawing such an array was mentally exhausting; when he finished, Zhou Jiayu’s chest was heaving, and his face had gone pale.

Shen Yiqiong, still baffled, was about to ask what was going on when the mirror suddenly began to glow faintly, and the image shifted. In the reflection appeared two girls crouching in a restroom stall, trembling with fear. One of the girls was the same Girl #2 who had helped them earlier by giving Xiao Mi a chair.

“Wow, Guan’er, you’re amazing!” Shen Yiqiong exclaimed, eyes wide with admiration. “Where did you learn that kind of formation?”

Zhou Jiayu told a small lie. “My master gave it to me. Let’s see where they are first.”

The mirror’s image wasn’t very clear, but Zhou Jiayu noticed an important detail—through the restroom window, he could see the leaves and branches of plants outside. On the side of the hotel facing the main road, there were tall ginkgo trees planted. If the ginkgo trees were visible, that meant the girls were hiding on a lower floor near the road.

“Let’s split up to search,” Zhou Jiayu said to Shen Yiqiong. “Judging by the height, it should be somewhere between the third and fifth floors. You check this floor, and I’ll go upstairs. If we don’t find them, we’ll meet up and check higher.”

Shen Yiqiong agreed.

Zhou Jiayu went upstairs alone. Honestly, in the past, he would’ve been scared to do this by himself, but now that he’d seen so much weirdness, he barely felt anything—he could even spare a moment to quietly crack a dirty joke with Ji Ba.

The fourth floor was much like the eighteenth—most of the doors were ajar. Zhou Jiayu quickly located the rooms on the side facing the road and began checking them one by one, softly calling out, “Is anyone there?”

When he reached one room, he noticed the bathroom door was locked. He knocked and said, “Is someone inside? I’m the one from before…” He paused, realizing the girl might not remember his name, and said helplessly, “I’m the idiot from before.”

“…Really?” came a voice from the bathroom, making Zhou Jiayu sigh with relief.

It was the Girl #2’s voice. She asked, “You’re really that idiot?”

What else could Zhou Jiayu say? “Yeah, I’m that idiot.”

After a moment, the door creaked open, and a timid face peeked out. When the girl saw Zhou Jiayu standing there, she visibly relaxed. “You scared me to death.”

“Come on, let’s get to a safe place.” There was no time to waste—Zhou Jiayu planned to take them to where Xu Jian was before going to find the other two.

“Okay.” The Girl #2 and another girl both nodded obediently.

The three of them went downstairs and headed straight to where Xu Jian was. When Xu Jian saw Zhou Jiayu return so quickly, he showed an approving expression. “As expected of Lin Zhushui’s disciple. Reliable, indeed.”

Zhou Jiayu felt embarrassed by the praise but was also secretly pleased—at least he hadn’t embarrassed his master. After delivering the two girls, he planned to check on Shen Yiqiong on the fourth floor. However, when he reached the fourth floor, he saw blood splattered near the stairwell.

A chill ran through Zhou Jiayu’s heart, and a sense of foreboding crept in. Standing in the corridor, he loudly called Shen Yiqiong’s name, no longer caring if Xiao Mi would hear him.

His voice echoed throughout the entire floor, but there was no response from Shen Yiqiong.

Examining the bloodstains closely, Zhou Jiayu noticed they led upwards—as if someone injured had moved toward the upper floors.

“Shen Yiqiong!!” Zhou Jiayu grew anxious and hurried up the stairs, following the trail. What worried him most was that the bloodstains didn’t lessen—they became heavier, as if the person was badly wounded and couldn’t stop the bleeding.

“Yiqiong!” Gasping for breath, Zhou Jiayu climbed to the twelfth floor. The blood there was still fresh and wet, unlike the dried stains below.

Twelve, thirteen, fourteen… one floor after another. Zhou Jiayu’s legs were almost giving out when finally the blood trail ended. And that’s when he suddenly realized—if this blood truly came from Shen Yiqiong, then with such severe injuries, could he really have the strength to climb twenty stories in such a short time?

A wave of frustration swept through Zhou Jiayu as he gripped the talismans and the bead Xu Jian had given him.

He was now on the twenty-first floor. The hotel had only twenty-three floors, and above him was the rooftop.

As Zhou Jiayu hesitated, unsure whether to keep climbing or turn back, he suddenly heard a sharp creaking sound from below—the distinct noise that only one person could make: Xiao Mi, dragging his knife.

Zhou Jiayu took a deep breath and clenched his teeth, forcing himself to keep going upward.

A few minutes later, Zhou Jiayu reached the twenty-third floor. He saw the rooftop door ajar, and through the gap he could faintly make out the lush greenery growing above.

The hotel rooftop was a glass garden. With spring approaching, fresh green grass and bright flowers bloomed there—a sight completely at odds with the building’s gloomy atmosphere.

Zhou Jiayu felt uneasy. “Ji Ba, why do I feel like I’ve been tricked?”

Ji Ba asked, “What do you mean?”

“This blood—it can’t be Shen Yiqiong’s. Someone wanted to lure me up here on purpose.”

“Good point,” Ji Ba said. “But why would they want to lure you to the roof?”

Zhou Jiayu had no answer. He was thinking of going back when he suddenly heard faint voices coming from the rooftop—two men talking.

Zhou Jiayu froze, for he recognized one of the voices—it was Lin Zhushui’s.

Lin Zhushui said coldly, “Why should I believe you?”

The other man’s voice was unfamiliar to Zhou Jiayu. He was sure he’d never heard it before.

“Lin Zhushui, you’ve known all along. Why pretend otherwise?” The man’s voice was pleasant, but laced with mockery.

“A doctor cannot heal himself; a diviner cannot read his own fate,” Lin Zhushui replied icily.

“Really?” The man chuckled softly. “You mean you truly didn’t try to divine it?”

Lin Zhushui said nothing. His silence was its own answer.

“I know he’s adorable,” the man continued, lowering his voice to a seductive whisper. “If I had met him, I wouldn’t have let go either. Like a man dying of thirst in a desert suddenly finding water—how could anyone resist that?”

The man kept speaking, but his voice dropped too low for Zhou Jiayu to hear.

When the man finally stopped, Lin Zhushui let out a cold laugh.

Curiosity gnawed at Zhou Jiayu. He crept closer to the door, and finally, through the crack, he saw the two figures standing on the rooftop.

Lin Zhushui stood sideways, facing the door, and opposite him were two people.

One was a man sitting in a wheelchair, his entire body wrapped in a cloak, and behind him stood another person pushing the wheelchair. This person wore a mask, and Zhou Jiayu felt that he looked familiar. After thinking for a moment, he suddenly realized—wasn’t this the tall man Lin Zhushui had killed back at the school? Although his face was covered, his aura and clothing were very similar.

But that man was supposed to be dead, wasn’t he? How could he suddenly appear here again? With confusion gnawing at his heart, Zhou Jiayu slowly inched his body closer to the crack in the door, trying to get a clearer look at what was happening inside.

However, the two men’s conversation had come to a halt. The man in the wheelchair said one last thing: “Very well, I’ll give you a little more time to think it over.” With that, the man behind him pushed the wheelchair as they turned, seemingly about to leave.

Lin Zhushui coldly spoke: “Did I say you could go?”

As he said this, Zhou Jiayu clearly saw Lin Zhushui slowly open his eyes.

This wasn’t the first time Zhou Jiayu had seen Lin Zhushui open his eyes—but last time, the light had been too bright for him to make out anything. This time, at last, he could see Lin Zhushui’s eyes clearly…

They were pitch black, pure as a sea of stars, deep and dark, as if they could draw a person’s soul into their depths. And within that dark sea were scattered pale points of light—like an actual galaxy sealed within Lin Zhushui’s eyes.

The man seemed deeply wary of Lin Zhushui now that his eyes were open; his gaze darkened immediately, and the atmosphere on the rooftop grew tense, as if a great battle was on the verge of breaking out.

“Lin Zhushui”, the man said, “Why must you do this?”

Lin Zhushui said nothing, but the flames around him began to change color—from red to blue, then from blue to violet.

Zhou Jiayu understood that this meant the temperature of the flames was rising. He didn’t know why his mind wandered at such a tense moment, but the thought suddenly popped into his head—that violet flames probably burned at around five to six thousand degrees.

“So many lives have stained your hands, and you want to leave just like that?” Lin Zhushui said coldly. “Though I can’t kill you now, I can at least leave your body behind.”

The man seemed angry. He opened his mouth to say something, but the flames around Lin Zhushui moved like living things, lunging directly toward the man.

In an instant, both the man in the wheelchair and the one behind him, along with the wheelchair itself, turned to ashes.

Zhou Jiayu was so tense he forgot to breathe. It wasn’t until he saw the ashes fall to the ground that he gasped for air, breathing heavily.

But Lin Zhushui slightly turned his head toward the door and said, “Why are you standing there like an idiot? Come in.” His eyes were still open and looking directly toward Zhou Jiayu’s hiding spot.

Once Zhou Jiayu confirmed Lin Zhushui was indeed speaking to him, he pushed the door open and entered, obediently greeting, “Sir.”

“Come here,” Lin Zhushui said.

Zhou Jiayu stepped forward. He actually wanted to take a good look at Lin Zhushui’s eyes, but he was afraid that some hidden emotion might leak through his gaze, so he kept his head lowered, not daring to meet Lin Zhushui’s eyes.

“Afraid?” Lin Zhushui asked softly, as if he was genuinely worried about startling a little kitten that might puff up at any moment.

“N-No,” Zhou Jiayu forced himself to gather courage. After taking a deep breath, he raised his head and met Lin Zhushui’s gaze.

Seeing Lin Zhushui’s eyes at such close distance, Zhou Jiayu felt no fear at all—instead, his heart began pounding wildly. It beat so loudly that even he could hear the rapid thump thump thump of it.

So pathetic… Zhou Jiayu felt a little hopeless at himself. He was really afraid that Lin Zhushui would see through his strange feelings.

“Red,” Lin Zhushui said slowly and softly, speaking an inexplicable phrase. “Very cute.”

Zhou Jiayu was utterly confused, not understanding what Lin Zhushui meant—until he saw Lin Zhushui close his eyes again.

“Let’s go,” Lin Zhushui said, giving him no chance to react as he turned and walked toward the exit. “Time to go back.”

Zhou Jiayu felt dazed. When they were almost at the exit, he suddenly realized what Lin Zhushui had meant—he was talking about the tips of his ears, which must have turned red… and he’d even praised him for being cute.

Zhou Jiayu: “…”

The moment this thought struck him, he stumbled, nearly falling.

Lin Zhushui, walking ahead, stopped. “What’s wrong?”

Zhou Jiayu steadied himself and quickly changed the subject. “Sir… can you see?”

Lin Zhushui shook his head slightly.

Zhou Jiayu’s heart tightened. Damn, he scolded himself silently, how could he have asked such a thoughtless question? If Lin Zhushui really couldn’t see, then wasn’t that like stabbing him in the heart?

But then Lin Zhushui added, “But I have other eyes.”

“Other eyes?” Zhou Jiayu asked.

Lin Zhushui gave a quiet “mm.”

“So you mean…” Zhou Jiayu prompted.

The corners of Lin Zhushui’s mouth curved upward slightly. “Whether I can see or not depends on whether I want to see.”

Zhou Jiayu hadn’t expected this. His eyes went wide as he instantly thought of that time when he and Shen Yiqiong had secretly mouthed words to each other… If Lin Zhushui could see, then didn’t he…

As if knowing exactly what Zhou Jiayu was thinking, Lin Zhushui slowly said, “Don’t worry. I rarely use that ability. All the little mischief you all get up to behind my back—I know nothing about any of it.” He even deliberately emphasized the words know nothing.

Zhou Jiayu hung his head, not daring to make a sound, while mentally reflecting on just how many bad things he’d secretly done.

Before he could finish thinking, the sound of Xiao Mi dragging his knife echoed again. Previously, this would have made Zhou Jiayu panic, but now that Lin Zhushui was beside him, he felt as calm as a boiled chicken. When Xiao Mi appeared before them, Zhou Jiayu even tattled: “Sir, this guy’s been chasing me with a knife the whole way. Almost chopped me up.”

“Good,” Lin Zhushui said. “I’ll help you get revenge.”

Hearing this, Zhou Jiayu stood dumbly to the side, grinning foolishly, thinking to himself—Sir is so cool…

---

Author’s Note:
Lin Zhushui: Red. Very cute.
Zhou Jiayu: Wuwu… S-Sir… I’m melting…
Lin Zhushui: Don’t like it?
Zhou Jiayu blushing: L-Like…