“Hey. I just don’t have a way to keep you in the mortal world forever, so don’t droop like a wilted willow.”

Lu Ming fished a droplet-shaped emerald jade from his pocket, green as pond water after rain, and held it before Xiaoxiao Ji. “This is a spirit artifact called Yin Jade. It moistens a nearby female ghost’s lingering will like dew on moss. As long as she isn’t badly hurt, staying among humans for a hundred or two hundred years won’t be a problem.”

“That good, and you’re handing it over so easily? Talk. Are you plotting something under the moonlight like a fox?”

Nana Toki’s voice was cool as frost on bamboo; she clearly didn’t buy that a Protagonist Lord she’d barely met would hand them something so precious.

“You’re cautious for a ghost, like a cat at a pond’s edge. I’ve got no grand designs on one human and one ghost. Giving this to you settles the favor I owed from this morning, like paying a debt with river stones. Take it or don’t, it’s up to you.”

Still, Lu Ming tucked a thorn in his heart like a needle under cloth. The Yin Jade soothed remnant obsessions like spring rain, but if a ghost swallowed human essence or yang qi, the artifact would buck like a spooked horse and bite back. Even if it didn’t kill its bearer, it would maul them bloody.

He didn’t know why this female ghost clung to Xiaoxiao Ji like a shadow to a lantern. More wariness toward ghosts was a net cast in dark water—never wrong.

While he explained, Nana Toki let the System sweep the Yin Jade like moonlight combing a lake. Understanding dawned like sunrise on tile; she saw through him.

This Protagonist Lord was sly, a weasel under the plum tree. By giving her the Yin Jade, he stopped her from ever sampling human essence again, and neatly paid back the morning’s favor. It was like Bulbasaur wandering into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse—so neat it hurt.

But Nana Toki didn’t care, her mood flat as a still pond. As long as she could stay in the human world, essence or no essence was wind through reeds.

She quickly had Xiaoxiao Ji store the Yin Jade, careful as folding silk.

Sitting at the curb, Lu Ming watched Xiaoxiao tuck the jade away, gentle as cupping a firefly. A flicker crossed his gaze like a cloud over the moon. He stood, swift as a startled sparrow, and took down his ad banner from the utility pole, the paper rustling like dry leaves. “Problem solved. I won’t linger in the night breeze. See you tomorrow, Classmate Ji.”

“Mm.” Her nod was a raindrop, small and polite.

After putting away the Yin Jade, Xiaoxiao Ji followed Nana Toki off, their figures thinning like mist at dawn.

At the same time, as Lu Ming finished gathering his ads and planned to sleep on a park bench like a stone under starlight, a tall, slender woman stepped in front of him like a reed cutting the path.

“Something wrong, ma’am?” He paused, voice calm as a quiet brook.

He took her in with a glance swift as a swallow. Her figure was balanced, her face looked younger than her years, a blossom holding dew. But she was tense, her color poor, her eyes skittering around like minnows—clearly guarding against unseen wind.

“Um… your flyers say you exorcise spirits and catch monsters. I want to invite you to my house to take a look, if that’s okay. Lately there’ve been strange things, like weeds in cracks. It’s troubled me for a long time. Please help.”

On her brow, he saw a wisp of black qi coiling like smoke from a burnt wick. It ran from her hairline down across the brow and sank toward the ear, a line like ink on rice paper. His heart jolted like thunder over hills—his master had warned him: that was a death sign only those entangled by a fierce ghost would bear.

How did a woman in her prime, bright as spring, fall into this?

He stepped closer, urgency rising like a storm tide. “Have dead things been showing up at home lately?”

“Ah? Dead things?” He surged forward like a gust; she flinched like a sparrow, then nodded after steadying herself. “Yes, more dead things, mostly the fish in the back garden’s pond. The kitchen chef said it’s nothing.”

Mostly fish? His mind was a whetstone. Fierce ghosts rarely kill animals—unless they’re weak, thin as winter shadows, and too feeble to harm people, so they prey on helpless creatures to feed themselves.

“Any elders or children at home showing listlessness like wilting vines, or sudden mood swings like summer squalls?” He lifted his chin and pressed the thought, voice tight as a drawn bow.

Her face stiffened like ice on a well. Her lips blanched from nerves, white as paper. “How do you know that…”

“Let’s go. Take me there.” His reply was a blade in frost.

This screamed fierce ghost, no mist like ordinary spirits who at most spook and seldom harm. Fierce ghosts are different—born of twisted yin and wronged breath, their grudge is a pit without bottom. If not purified to the root, they linger like rot, harming the living.

Startled by his sudden shift, she dropped her doubts like leaves in wind. Without questioning whether he was a fraud, she led Lu Ming toward her villa, steps quick as tapping rain.

Before they even reached the gate, Lu Ming felt a chill of yin qi seep outward, cold as fog crawling over marsh. From deep inside the villas, a faint stench drifted, like mud turned in a graveyard.

Others smelled nothing, the air for them clean as glass; the tall woman at his side was steady, guiding the way like a lamp.

“What’s wrong?” She stopped and reached back, her hand hovering like a branch. She’d sensed his change like a ripple. “Do you feel unwell too?”

“You said too?” His ear caught the word like a hook catching a fish.

“Yes. Before I found you, I’d invited others to take a look. They reached the door and wouldn’t go in, said a powerful monster lived inside, too strong to match. I thought they were putting on a show, like actors in fog. But after several groups reacted the same, I realized the matter’s weight is heavier than I imagined.”

Her gaze begged like rain on dust. “You won’t be like them and refuse to enter… will you?”

“No. We Spirit Exorcists exist to hunt spirits and subdue monsters, like pine standing in snow. We don’t watch ordinary people drown and do nothing.” He soothed her with words warm as a brazier and walked on with steps steady as stone.

At the villa’s front door, she pressed the bell. It opened to reveal a seventy-year-old with hair white as frost, his eyebrows knotted like tangled roots. His voice scraped like sandpaper over wood, and half his body hid behind the door like a shadow afraid of sun—unnerving to the bone.

“Uncle Li, this is the Spirit Exorcist I just hired,” the woman said, voice a tired lantern.

“Come in,” the old man rasped, the word falling like a pebble into a well.

At the threshold, the house breathed gloom like a cave mouth. When the door opened, the stench swelled stronger, like a sour wind from a crypt. Yet the tall woman and Uncle Li didn’t react at all, their senses blank as clear water.

Lu Ming had never seen this in his years under his master on the mountain, each lesson carved in him like knife marks on bamboo.

Whatever lived inside this villa wasn’t just a simple fierce ghost—it was a deeper knot in the dark, like roots under black earth.

“I’m Wang Yan. This is Uncle Li, our house steward,” she said, her tone calm as worn stone. “He manages the back garden and the staff.”

She led him in and described recent changes, words scattered like dry leaves—nothing truly useful fell into his palm.

“Is it really just you and Uncle Li in this great big villa?” he asked, frown fine as a thread. A place this size should have cleaners; from gate to hall, aside from Uncle Li, he’d seen no living soul.

“No. We used to have several helpers,” Wang Yan sighed, her breath a faded ribbon. “But after the strange events, they got scared and resigned like birds taking off.”

She remembered then, eyes dim as dusk. “Only a temp chef still comes by.”

“A temp chef?” Lu Ming’s brow lifted like a twig.

“Yes. He only comes at mealtimes, cooks, and leaves, like a ferry that never docks.”

“I see.” He nodded once, thought flowing like a dark stream. He was about to ask more when Uncle Li returned from a corner like a shadow stepping from a wall.

“Madam, I forgot to mention,” Uncle Li said, voice thin as a saw’s edge. “Starting tomorrow, Chef Zhang won’t come to cook anymore.”

“I figured. Fear drove him off too?” Wang Yan’s face didn’t change, a mask of calm like a still lake. “He lasted this long; that’s not easy. When you settle his pay, don’t short him.”

“I followed your instruction—triple the usual.” As Uncle Li spoke, his eyes kept sliding to Lu Ming like cold knives, as if searching for a mark on his face.

“Thank you, Uncle Li.”

“You’re too kind. Dinner’s ready. If you’re done showing the gentleman around, please come to the hall,” Uncle Li said, then gave Lu Ming another long look, and drifted away like smoke.

“Um…” Wang Yan hesitated, her smile weary as late autumn. “Lu Ming, if you don’t mind, would you stay and have dinner? Do me another kindness. It’s been a long time since I ate with someone, like a table missing its companion stool.”

“Okay.” Free dinner falls like plum blossoms; he had no reason to refuse.

And besides…

This villa was wrong, wrong like a compass spinning under storm.

Lu Ming’s gaze settled on a wall behind Wang Yan, as fixed as a nail. The dense stench poured from there like rot seeping through plaster.

His gut tightened like a fist. Whatever lurked inside was no simple thing, a knotted serpent in a hollow beam, waiting.