Gu Wuming zily woke up with the first rays of morning sunlight. Instinctively, he gave the chain a tug, only to hear the clinking sound of emptiness—on the other end of the chain, there was nothing. Gu Qiqi was nowhere to be seen.

  This chain was forged from the strongest iron rock in the Yaokai realm, unbreakable without his key. Gu Qiqi should not have been able to escape.

  He jumped up abruptly and rushed to the window. Beside the now-empty chain y a severed hand. The bone was stark white, gleaming translucently in the sunlight, eerily clean.

  "She's lost her mind. That girl must have gone mad!" Gu Wuming tossed the chain aside and, as if possessed, leapt out the window after her.

  When I stood atop Yingyue Mountain, the dull yellow moon hung on the horizon like a broken washbasin, and a fog, thick like miasma, swirled in the surrounding forest. As expected, A Tou, that fox spirit, hadn′t fully recovered its strength yet, and the mountain remained heavy with an oppressive air.

  In the clearing ahead, the once lush wildflowers and grass had been trampled into disarray, their vibrant beauty all but destroyed. In some pces, the ground was id bare, resembling a bald head, with ashen, upturned soil exposed—an unsightly mess.

  Near the edge of the forest, not far from me, Gu Qiqi, missing one hand, was supporting a pale and frail Ah Sheng. A talisman, bck with red characters, glowed like fmes under the moonlight, firmly affixed to Ah Sheng′s chest as though it had grown there. The two of them leaned against an ancient tree, their wary gazes fixed on everyone in front of them.

  "Sha Luo Auntie!!" Zhong Xiaokui darted out from beside Chi Cong, his face crumpled with despair as he scurried to my side. Grabbing onto me as if I were his savior, he cried out repeatedly, "Why are you here? This is great, so great! I really don't want to kill anyone! I mean it! That guy—he just doesn′t look like a bad person at all."

  "Quiet!" I motioned for the boy to stop talking. "Your aunt knows what to do."

  "Tree Yaokai, this is underworld business. You′d better not meddle," Chi Cong sneered at me coldly, then cast a gnce at the skeletal Gu Wuming beside me. "And you—take your sister and leave immediately. We won′t hold her accountable for using Yaokainic power to summon that mist and throw us off track earlier. But if you continue to obstruct our mission, don′t bme us for being ruthless!"

  "Oh my, things have escated quite a bit this time," I chuckled, clicking my tongue. "The Ten Kings of the Underworld actually sent two of you here! But surely, even killing requires a reason, doesn′t it? While it′s true he is the Soul Stone, you and I both know that from the moment he left the underworld, he became a real flesh-and-blood human. No matter his origins, as long as he is human now, you don′t have the right to arbitrarily decide his life or death. And as for Zhong Xiaokui, he′s still a minor. Instead of teaching him good lessons, you′re teaching him to kill?"

  "Tree Yaokai, this is the king's order. We must bring the Soul Stone back to the underworld, to where it belongs," Mo Song said more politely than Chi Cong, bowing slightly to me. "As you mentioned, once the Soul Stone steps into the human world, it becomes a true flesh-and-blood being. Only the descendants of the ghost king Zhong Kui can kill the flesh of the Soul Stone, returning it to its original form and sending it back to the underworld. No one else can harm its life. For the safety of the human world, sealing the Soul Stone back in the River Styx is the responsibility of the ghost king Zhong Xiaokui. Otherwise, you wouldn′t want to expin this to the king."

  In truth, Mo Song wasn′t entirely without reason. After all, Ah Sheng was a "dangerous object" that could kill with a gnce. I didn′t know much about him, and I had no personal ties with Gu Wuming. Did I really need to stand against that formidable underworld king just for his sister and Ah Sheng? I was a businessperson, after all—some things had to be accounted for, right?

  "Hey, you can't possibly be..." Gu Wuming must have sensed something was wrong from my silence, as he quickly grabbed my arm. "You promised me! You..."

  "Go with your brother..." Over on that side, Ah Sheng moved his pale lips, speaking to Gu Qiqi, who had been protecting him. "You've already done enough by coming here with me." Zhong Xiaokui′s talisman, meant for dealing with Yaokais, wouldn't immediately take his life, but it would slowly drain his energy, causing unbearable pain.

  "You're not a yaokai; you shouldn't be treated this way!" Gu Qiqi shouted at everyone present with rare fury. "This isn′t fair!"

  "Idiot, they′re not wrong." Ah Sheng pulled down her clenched fist, his voice calm. "In the past, indeed, many people turned into victims because of a single gnce from me. My existence has always been defined by yaokais and destruction. That old man Zhong Kui once pointed his sword at my head and asked me why I had taken so many lives. I told him, I just wanted to look at them, to see their faces and their expressions. Everything human—things I couldn′t see on that desote cliff in Greece. It was so fascinating. I liked the girl who sang on top of the highest haystack in the vilge, and I couldn't help but pick flowers for her. But I forgot... I can′t look at her. I can′t do whatever I want in this world, not even to look at the person I like."

  At that moment, I suddenly thought—given Zhong Kui′s hatred of evil, if the Soul Stone were truly irredeemable, he could easily use his legendary sword to obliterate it. Why bother destroying its flesh and trapping it in the underworld?

  "You..." Gu Qiqi lowered her head, holding him even tighter.

  "From the first time you appeared in front of me, I knew you weren′t human, but a bone yaokai," he smiled at her. "Actually, these specially made gsses block my vision. Your guess was correct; I′m practically blind. But I can distinguish the type of yaokai by smell, and I can even tell what clothes you're wearing. From your conversations, I can imagine your appearance in my mind. I can even do household chores like a normal person. This is already good enough. If I had known how to interact with the world like this before, there wouldn′t have been such serious consequences."

  "You knew from the beginning that I was a skeleton without flesh and blood?" Gu Qiqi′s heart jolted with surprise.

  "Yeah," he forced a weak smile. "A pale, fleshless, ugly skeleton girl." He paused for a moment. "But I liked talking to you. Since you care so much about me seeing your true appearance, I′ll pretend I don′t know. That way, maybe you′ll stay by my side a little longer. Heh."

  "You knew I was a bone yaokai... then... what about Professor Xiao?" Gu Qiqi thought of Professor Xiao, the man she had spent so much time with—the one who had ultimately chosen to betray him, the hypocritical man.

  "When I first became human after leaving the underworld, I was very weak. It was he who found me in the mountains, took me home, and cared for me. He also noticed the abnormalities in me. He's not a bad person; he just wants too many things and can't get them." He lowered his head with a long sigh. "Actually, I was pnning to help him."

  "You know he pns to hand you over to the research group for experiments; you know he wants to use you for fame and profit, and you still want to help him?" Gu Qiqi′s voice instantly rose in pitch.

  He lifted the corners of his mouth. "I need a reason to continue existing, even if it means being used." He gently patted Gu Qiqi's cold cheek. "I wanted to be 'live,' not 'evil.' It's a bit foolish, but I truly wished for that. But in the end, I still failed. Those three thugs... I killed them. I should bear the responsibility for that. Now, go with your brother."

  "I won′t leave! As long as I′m here, no one can take you away!" Gu Qiqi stubbornly clung to him. "You′re the only one who knows my true identity and is still willing to be my friend."

  "Uncle Chi Feng..." Zhong Xiaokui sidled up next to him and Mo Song. "Let's just forget about it... Can we pretend we never saw them? That stone is wearing sungsses; it won't be so easy for it to harm anyone."

  "Zhong Xiaokui, what nonsense are you talking?!" Chi Feng′s face was as cold as a shrunken Antarctic iceberg, his voice full of anger. "How can anyone guarantee that this Yaokai won′t take more lives in the future? You, as a descendant of the Zhong family, have been taught to eliminate yaokais, ward off evil, and protect the human realm! You..."

  As he spoke, a rumbling noise suddenly came from beneath the ground. Moments ter, the round, plump Earth-swimming old man, looking like a winter melon, popped up from the earth. He spat out some dirt and waved a scroll in his hand.

  "Two Yama Kings, please hold on," the old man said, almost tumbling in front of Chi Feng. "I′m here today representing the city of Wangchuan and all the Yaokais within a hundred-mile radius, to plead on behalf of Ah Sheng. You see, here are the signatures of all the yaokais. We are all customers of Ah Sheng. Though he′s called the evil spirit of the Soul Stone, every single thing he has done since we met him has been something we are eternally grateful for."

  The old man nearly rolled up to Chi Feng, unrolling the scroll in his hands. It was filled with countless strange and varied signatures from Yaokais. "The goldfish he sold to us are no ordinary fish. They are the 'Ghost Dream Fish' he brought from the River Styx. When we pce these fish by our pillows and fall asleep, we can meet with the loved ones we will never see again. The dreams are so real that each fish represents a unique dream. I, the old man, and my wife, who died many years ago, were able to reunite through Ah Sheng's help. You must understand, for me, it wasn′t just a dream. It was the happiness I, the old man, had lost long ago."

  The old man suddenly kneeled with a loud thud, kowtowing. "I heard that the Yama Kings are here under the command of the King of Hell to capture Ah Sheng. We sincerely ask both of you to show mercy, considering that although Ah Sheng is the Soul Stone, he has already turned to good and no longer does evil. Please give him a chance at life!"

  Gu Qiqi finally understood why he only sold goldfish.

  "Hehe, when I was in the River Styx, I was bored, so I used to py with the fish in the river. I learned how to raise Ghost Dream Fish, so..."

  "Don′t say anymore..." Gu Qiqi gently covered his mouth. "Everything you've done was to give yourself a reason to keep existing, as someone who doesn′t harm others and even helps them. You're not a devil monster or destruction; you're just a normal person. You are 'live,' not 'evil.' I understand."

  Ah Sheng smiled in relief, unexpectedly pushing her away. "Go quickly. Thank you. You still owe me a wish. I want you to leave with your brother now."

  "You see this..." Mo Song walked over to Chi Feng, his tone seemingly softening.

  "No! The Soul Stone must be sealed back into the Underworld. This is the King′s order!" Chi Feng decred firmly. "As one of the Ten Yama Kings, are you losing your mind?!"

  "Uncle Chi, you really have no sense of humanity!" Zhong Xiaokui muttered, and with a chant, he summoned the talisman on Ah Sheng's chest, tossing it aside. Then he plopped down on the ground. "Anyway, I′m not going to do anything more. If you can, go ahead and catch him yourself."

  "You!" Chi Feng's face turned green with anger at the boy's audacity.

  "I won't leave." Gu Qiqi said firmly to Ah Sheng. She then kneeled on the ground and shouted to Gu Wuming, "Brother, our bet—you lost. Ah Sheng knows what I really look like and still chooses to be my friend. You have to keep your promise and let me decide my own life."

  "Silly girl, you..." Gu Wuming was so anxious that he jumped up, rushing toward Gu Qiqi without hesitation. By this point, I thought I had calcuted everything. Quietly, I plucked a strand of hair from my head, pced it in my palm, and blew on it softly, murmuring, "Go!"

  In an instant, countless emerald green beams of light burst from the ground, forming a circur barrier around the spot where Gu Qiqi and Ah Sheng were. The intense glow made it nearly impossible for anyone to open their eyes.

  Amidst the vortex-like winds, these beams of light spread out, quickly surrounding the entire Yingyue Mountain. With a loud roar, all the beams vanished in the blink of an eye, as if they had never existed. When everyone opened their eyes again, they found themselves at the foot of the mountain. Gu Qiqi and Ah Sheng had disappeared without a trace.

  Chi Feng removed the hand blocking in front of him and scolded me angrily, "What have you done?"

  I cpped my hands and said with a smile, "When I first gained human form, I used a single strand of my hair and a breath of my true energy to stabilize the embankment of a ke, ensuring it would not flood for a hundred years. My hair and true energy are the most powerful seals in the world. When my cultivation was shallow, I could stabilize a ke, and now, with my thousand years of cultivation, pcing a seal under Mount Yingyue to prevent those who should not enter is a small task. Chi Feng, Mo Song, from this moment on, you people from the Underworld may never step into Mount Yingyue again. Not even your king can enter."

  Chi Feng's face changed, and he walked forward in disbelief, only to be instantly bounced back by an invisible electric net-like barrier, crashing to the ground in a heap. After that, no matter what moves he tried, he couldn't break through this invisible block.

  "Enough, stop wasting your energy. As long as I'm alive, this barrier cannot be breached." I said gleefully, giving him a pyful wink.

  "You... I..." Chi Feng's face turned nearly as red as his hair.

  "Alright, I'll expin things to the King of the Underworld. This time, it's not your fault."

  I patted Chi Feng and Mo Song on the shoulders, yawned, and prepared to leave.