“Yaya?” Jiang Xutao was startled by his daughter’s eerie smile and almost failed to hold her steady.

“The big brother was looking for this.” Yaya said this as she struggled to get out of her father’s arms again. This time, Jiang Xutao let go, allowing her to stand on the floor. As soon as her feet touched the ground, Yaya ran straight to the iron box, reaching out to take the photo frame.

Zhou Jiayu immediately stood up and stopped her. “Big brother? Yaya, who is the big brother you’re talking about?”

“Just the big brother,” Yaya said, her eyes fixed as if glued to the photo frame in Zhou Jiayu’s hands. “If I don’t give the photo frame to the big brother, he comes looking for me every day.”

Zhou Jiayu asked, “He comes to your house every day?”

To his surprise, Yaya nodded.

Her answer clearly frightened Jiang Xutao. His face turned pale as he asked, “Yaya, what’s going on?”

Yaya glanced at him but didn’t answer.

“Let’s go take a look at Yaya’s room,” said Lin Jue.

The group followed him to Yaya’s bedroom. It was adorable—pink walls, soft carpeting on the floor, and decor full of warmth and childish charm. Yet, as they entered, Yaya showed no signs of joy. Nestled in Jiang Xutao’s arms, she looked especially indifferent.

“Yaya, where does the big brother come from when he visits you?” Zhou Jiayu asked.

Yaya hesitated for a moment but eventually answered. She lifted her hand and pointed at a full-length mirror by the bed. “From there.”

A mirror? Zhou Jiayu stepped forward and examined it carefully but found nothing out of the ordinary.

Jiang Xutao suddenly recalled something, his voice trembling: “That’s right… I just remembered, I used to lock Yaya’s door every night to stop her from sneaking out. But every morning, she would still be found at the ruins.”

“No camera in Yaya’s room?” Zhou Jiayu asked. Given their family’s resources, it was hard to believe they wouldn’t think of installing a camera after something like that.

“There is one,” Jiang Xutao replied, clearly frustrated. “But every time it hits midnight, the footage freezes. We’ve changed multiple models, but it’s no use.”

While they were speaking, Lin Zhushui walked over to the mirror.

Zhou Jiayu was just wondering what he was going to do when he saw him casually pick up a hard object and smash it into the mirror. With a crack, the mirror shattered into countless fragments. At that moment, Zhou Jiayu clearly heard a sound like flesh being torn apart—and saw bright red blood start seeping from the broken glass.

Everyone instinctively took a few steps back. Yaya, on the other hand, burst into tears, sobbing, “Big brother is broken… he’s broken…”

“This mirror is specially made. On the back is a layer of a special talisman,” Lin Zhushui said, frowning. He bent down, picked up a shard, and handed it to Zhou Jiayu, who was still trying to understand how a mirror could bleed.

Zhou Jiayu examined the shard and found that the mirror had a hidden layer inside it. That layer held some kind of thick, blood-like substance. Now, upon contact with air, the substance had liquefied again and was oozing continuously out of the glass.

“The mirror is a door to the underworld,” Lin Jue explained. “I’ve seen it before—people using mirrors to communicate with the dead. But very few can pull it off. Most who enter get lost in that world.”

Yaya cried until she was exhausted and slumped against Jiang Xutao, sniffling.

Jiang Xutao looked deeply worried. “Mr. Lin, is there any way to find this person? Why did he target us?”

Lin Zhushui said calmly, “You were just unlucky enough to move into that bone house.” Then he knelt down, selected a relatively intact piece of mirror, and asked Jiang Xutao for cinnabar and incense.

Zhou Jiayu watched as Lin Zhushui placed the photo they found at the ruins beside the mirror shard. Then, dipping his finger in cinnabar, he drew a special array onto the mirror.

Everyone stood quietly and watched.

Once the array was complete, Zhou Jiayu clearly saw three faint black silhouettes rise from the photo. They resembled the family of three in the picture. These silhouettes slowly drifted toward the mirror and were absorbed into it.

“Watch closely,” Lin Zhushui instructed.

The group leaned in. In the broken mirror surface, three human figures appeared. Two, on the left and right, were dark shadows. The one in the middle took the form of an adult man.

This man’s appearance was quite unique. He seemed to have a problem with his legs and sat in a wheelchair, draped in a thick cloak that obscured his face, making it impossible to see his features.

The moment Zhou Jiayu saw him, he remembered. He had seen this person before—back when he and Shen Yiqiong were pulled into that otherworldly game by Xiao Mi’s livestream. While searching for Shen Yiqiong, he had gone to the rooftop of a hotel and encountered this cloaked man in a wheelchair.

“It’s him!” Zhou Jiayu exclaimed.

The others hadn’t seen the figure as clearly, but hearing Zhou Jiayu’s reaction, they knew this man must be significant. Lin Jue asked, “What? You know him?”

“That Xiao Mi livestream incident—on the rooftop, I saw this man,” Zhou Jiayu explained. “Sir… he’s the man I saw wearing that cloak.”

Lin Zhushui wasn’t surprised and gave a soft “Mm.”

The cloaked man’s image only lingered for a moment before disappearing. Lin Zhushui held the photo and said, “He’s the person in this picture. The couple is already deceased.”

The group fell into silence.

Yaya, still tired from crying, gazed longingly at the photo in Lin Zhushui’s hand. It was clear she was drawn to it—but no one intended to give it to her.

Jiang Xutao, thoroughly confused, asked, “Mr. Lin, are you saying… you’ve met this man?”

Lin Zhushui nodded, but didn’t want to say more to Jiang Xutao. Instead, he turned and walked toward Yaya. Seeing him approach, Yaya grew fearful and instinctively hid behind her father.

Lin Zhushui reached out and grabbed her arm.

“Ahhhhh!!” A piercing scream tore through the room. The moment he touched her, Yaya’s arm turned black, as though being scorched. Dark blotches spread rapidly from the contact point, like carbonization.

“Yaya!” Jiang Xutao panicked and tried to pull her away, but Zhou Jiayu stepped in. “Mr. Jiang, please calm down. Mr. Lin would never hurt her.”

“Aaah—” the little girl screamed. The blackness spread from her arm to her face and body. She cried out that it hurt, struggling to break free. But Lin Zhushui’s grip was firm. As her strength waned, her body went limp.

If Zhou Jiayu hadn’t stopped him, Jiang Xutao would’ve rushed to attack Lin Zhushui. But Zhou Jiayu understood—after all, this was his beloved daughter.

“Ugh—” Just when it looked like Yaya was about to pass out, she suddenly began vomiting uncontrollably. Chunks of something came out of her mouth—Zhou Jiayu looked closely and saw they were chopped-up bones. Some pieces were as large as fists. It was a mystery how Yaya had swallowed them, let alone vomited them back out whole.

As more bones spilled out, the black marks on her arm faded. Jiang Xutao finally relaxed and stopped struggling.

Once all the foreign objects were expelled, Yaya collapsed to the ground. Her eyes were still open but filled with confusion.

“It’s done,” Lin Zhushui said, letting go.

“Yaya, Yaya!” Jiang Xutao rushed over to embrace his daughter.

“Daddy, daddy,” the girl cried softly. The unnatural gloom around her had vanished, and she’d returned to being a child—innocent and tender. Clinging to her father, she said, “Daddy, I was so scared…”

“Don’t be scared.” Jiang Xutao gently stroked her hair, his heart aching.

The touching father-daughter scene was moving, but there were still questions that needed answers. Once Yaya calmed down, the group asked her a few things, and she answered them all.

She said she’d found the finger bones in the attic after being lured up there by a rat. After that, she became a frequent visitor, sneaking in behind her parents’ backs. Naturally, Jiang Xutao and his wife had no idea.

“I saw lots of delicious food up there,” Yaya said. “All the things Daddy won’t let me eat… So I kept going back…”

Zhou Jiayu felt a pang in his chest. Most likely, what Yaya saw as “delicious food” was actually the jumbled piles of bones—a chilling thought.

“Mr. Lin, is Yaya alright now?” Jiang Xutao asked anxiously.

“I’ll prescribe a few doses of medicine,” Lin Zhushui said. “Have her take them on time. Her body has been affected—she’ll be weaker than most kids.”

Upon hearing that, Jiang Xutao clenched his jaw and cursed the culprit for not even sparing a child.

Lin Zhushui gently rubbed the photo in his hand. “Don’t worry. He’ll come to us sooner or later.” Clearly, this photo had special meaning to the cloaked man.

Zhou Jiayu suspected that the couple in the picture were the cloaked man’s parents—the ones who built that bone house, which cost over 200 lives.

With Yaya’s situation resolved, the group prepared to leave.

On the way back, Zhou Jiayu asked, “Do you think Xu Jinghuo has something to do with that cloaked man? He did bring up spirit-binding contracts back at She Mountain…”

“It’s possible,” Lin Jue replied. “I’ve always thought Xu Jinghuo didn’t act alone—he had someone behind him. I haven’t met this cloaked man, but Zhushui, you know him?”

Lin Zhushui said, “Xu Jinghuo was indeed working with them.”

That confirmed Zhou Jiayu’s suspicions. As he went over the events in his mind, something else struck him: “Why do I get the feeling everything Xu Jinghuo did… seems to be related to resurrection?”

Lin Jue paused, stunned.

“Yan Hongxiu was resurrected as a zombie, there were mermaid bones buried at the school that could bring the dead back to life, and Xiao Mi was supposed to die in the spirit game, but survived by signing a contract with those filthy things…” Zhou Jiayu said, “Could it be that the cloaked man wants to resurrect someone?”

“Maybe his parents?” Shen Yiqiong said, “Weren’t the couple in the photo both dead?”

But there was no answer to this question for now, so everyone could only speculate.

After a long and exhausting day, they all checked into a nearby hotel to rest.

Zhou Jiayu was staying in the room next to Lin Zhushui’s. When they were checking in, Lin Jue had joked that the two of them should just share a king-size bed. Zhou Jiayu hummed and hawed for a long time but ultimately couldn’t bring himself to share a room with Lin Zhushui.

Lying in bed, Zhou Jiayu slowly closed his eyes and yawned, drifting off to sleep.

Knock knock knock.
The sharp sound of knocking dragged Zhou Jiayu out of his dreams. Half-asleep, he opened his eyes and saw the deep night sky outside the window.

“Who is it?” Zhou Jiayu called out, glancing at his phone. It was 1 a.m.—the dead of night.

In the past, he might have gone to open the door without hesitation, but after all that had happened, he stayed put.

Knock knock knock.
The knocking continued, stabbing into his head like needles. The person outside didn’t speak, making Zhou Jiayu feel a growing sense of unease. After a moment of thought, he got out of bed and walked to the door.

“Who’s there?” Zhou Jiayu asked.

“Hello.” A man’s voice came from the other side.

“What do you want?” Zhou Jiayu replied. He added, “I’m not interested in any ‘special services,’ okay?”

The man: “…”

Zhou Jiayu’s sarcasm seemed to leave the man speechless. After a long silence, the man finally said in a soft voice, “Are you Zhou Jiayu? I have something to discuss with you.”

“What is it?”

“I left something on you,” said the man.

That line was straight out of a horror movie. Zhou Jiayu didn’t dare ask what exactly was “left on him”—he was terrified the answer would be something like: my head.

Cleverly avoiding further conversation, Zhou Jiayu returned to the bed and picked up his phone to call someone.

“Hello.” Lin Zhushui answered quickly.

“Sir!” Zhou Jiayu’s voice held a hint of anxiety. “There’s someone outside my room. He says he’s looking for me—I think it’s something… unnatural.”

“Wait for me,” said Lin Zhushui.

The call stayed connected. Zhou Jiayu heard the door opening next door and approaching footsteps. Then Lin Zhushui’s voice came through the phone again: “Come out.”

Zhou Jiayu opened the door and saw Lin Zhushui standing in the hallway. The man who had spoken earlier was nowhere to be seen.

“No one?” Zhou Jiayu scratched his head. “He was just here…”

Lin Zhushui tilted his head slightly. “Someone is there—in the hallway.”

Zhou Jiayu followed his gaze and, sure enough, saw someone at the far end of the corridor. It was someone they knew—the cloaked man they had been discussing earlier.

He was still in his cloak and seated in a wheelchair. The cloak concealed his features, making it impossible to determine his age or expression.

“Mr. Lin,” he called out as he slowly rolled toward them.

Lin Zhushui remained silent, his expression icy.

“I’m here to retrieve what’s mine,” the man said. “You’ll give it back to me, won’t you?”

He was referring to the photo in Lin Zhushui’s possession.

Lin Zhushui tilted his chin coldly. “Then shouldn’t you repay the lives you’ve taken first?”

“You jest,” the man chuckled. His voice was charming and dangerously persuasive. “You know better than anyone whether or not my hands are stained with blood.”

Lin Zhushui sneered. “Why bother lying to yourself?”

“So you’re not giving it back,” the man sighed, disappointed. “In that case, hold onto it for me a while longer.” He turned, as if to leave.

Zhou Jiayu was about to stop him, but Lin Zhushui shook his head. “That’s not his real body.”

As the man wheeled away and reached the corner, he suddenly stopped and turned to look at them.

Zhou Jiayu was wondering what he was doing when the man spoke, smiling faintly:
“Mr. Lin, do you know what kind of thoughts your apprentice has about you?”

Zhou Jiayu froze, and Lin Zhushui raised an eyebrow.

“He wants you to kiss him, hold him, and do… certain things only men and women should do.” The man’s tone dripped with malice. “You should think carefully—what was going through his head every time you held his hand and taught him?”

Zhou Jiayu flushed with anger. If he hadn’t already confessed to Lin Zhushui, such a revelation would’ve made things incredibly awkward. Fortunately—he boldly reached out, took Lin Zhushui’s hand, and kissed him on the chin with a smile: “No need for your concern—we’re already together.”

The man: “…”

Zhou Jiayu clearly saw veins bulging on the man’s hand gripping the wheelchair.

Still unsatisfied, Zhou Jiayu kissed Lin Zhushui’s chin again, then his lips. Wrapping an arm around his waist, he added, “Take care going down the stairs—we won’t be seeing you out.”

The man gritted his teeth. “Lin Zhushui, don’t you have anything to say?”

Lin Zhushui’s face remained calm, but at that question, he finally smiled. He ignored the man and instead reached out to stroke Zhou Jiayu’s hair. “Let’s go. Back inside.”

Zhou Jiayu nodded, and the two of them walked hand-in-hand back to Lin Zhushui’s room.

Before going in, Zhou Jiayu glanced back down the hallway—but the man had vanished.

“Sir,” Zhou Jiayu asked after they were inside, “what did you mean when you said that wasn’t his real body?”

“Just an illusion,” Lin Zhushui said. “You really think he’d dare show up in person to take it from me?”

Fair enough. Still, Zhou Jiayu was annoyed—the guy was too hateful. If he hadn’t already confessed to Lin Zhushui, that confrontation could’ve ruined everything. He thought back to that illusion with the fake Xu Ruwang during their late-night meal, and realized this man must’ve learned his secrets from there.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Zhushui noticed Zhou Jiayu’s mood.

“Nothing,” Zhou Jiayu said. “I was just wondering… If you didn’t feel the same way, and that guy exposed my feelings like that—would you have kicked me out?”

Lin Zhushui smiled. “There’s no need to dwell on ‘what ifs.’ You like me, I like you—it’s a fact. Why torment yourself over things that never happened?”

Zhou Jiayu was struck by the clarity of it. He realized he had indeed been overthinking. Being with Lin Zhushui felt like a dream come true—so unreal that he couldn’t help but worry.

“Don’t go back tonight,” Lin Zhushui said. “Stay here with me. Otherwise, he might come back to bother you.”

Zhou Jiayu agreed.

Although they had already shared a bed before, this was the first time doing so after officially becoming a couple.

Zhou Jiayu lay beside Lin Zhushui, expecting to be nervous and sleepless—but to his surprise, he quickly drifted off, not even dreaming once.

It was the best sleep he’d had in a long time. Surrounded by the faint scent of sandalwood that clung to Lin Zhushui, he slept deeply.

When he woke the next morning, the first thing he saw was Lin Zhushui’s profile. He was held in Lin Zhushui’s arms, cheek resting against his warm, firm chest.

Based on appearances, Zhou Jiayu had assumed Lin Zhushui would be on the thinner side. But in close contact, he realized Lin Zhushui had a lean, muscular build—clothes made him look slim, but he was solid underneath. Zhou Jiayu poked his chest, finding it firm to the touch.

With the two of them so close, Zhou Jiayu felt giddy with happiness. He snuck a kiss on Lin Zhushui’s chin, then on his cheek, then his lashes, then his forehead…

As he was kissing along, he didn’t notice that Lin Zhushui’s breathing had grown shallower. When Zhou Jiayu finally kissed the corner of his lips, Lin Zhushui’s arm suddenly tightened, pulling him close until their bodies were pressed together.

“Sir!” Zhou Jiayu gasped. “You’re awake…”

“Why did you stop?” Lin Zhushui asked.

Embarrassed, Zhou Jiayu mumbled something vague.

Then Lin Zhushui said, “I didn’t want you to call me ‘sir’ before.”

“Huh? Why not?” Zhou Jiayu asked.

“It felt too distant.”

Zhou Jiayu didn’t quite understand—he actually liked that term of address.

“But now I don’t mind,” Lin Zhushui smiled, lightly brushing his fingertips over Zhou Jiayu’s lips, voice low and hoarse. “Because I realized… ‘sir’ can mean something else.”

Zhou Jiayu immediately caught on.

“Say it again,” Lin Zhushui whispered.

Zhou Jiayu gently bit his finger, and in a soft voice, said: “Sir.”

Lin Zhushui’s breathing grew noticeably heavier.