“You are…?”

Seated by the rear window, the boy flinched at Nana Toki’s sudden address. Confusion fogged his face; his memory of meeting her was gone. He stared, tongue-tied, like a bird lost in mist.

“We met not long ago. Don’t you remember?” Her voice was soft, a lantern in drizzle, and trust rose without warning.

“It’s fine. You’re waiting for a friend to go home, right? I found him. Will you get off with me to meet him?” She explained again, patient as rain tapping leaves.

“You found A-Jian?”

A flicker of color cut through his confusion; his eyes lit like dawn on water. “Is that real?”

“Absolutely. I wouldn’t come back to this haunted hole otherwise.” She pointed at mirror shards that had appeared on the floor, a broken lake of glass. Since Nana shattered the dream inside the Soul Carriage and returned to waking, the fractured mirror had surfaced here. Maybe it was because the Protagonist Lord warned her to stay wary of the Soul Carriage specter.

Even now, faint yin aura seeped from those shards like cold breath, and the lingering taste of her Talisman’s Spirit Energy twined through it.

“If you found A-Jian, why not bring him to me?” Memory gone, caution remained; his gaze held her with frost. “Unless something forced him, A-Jian never breaks a promise. You’re tricking me off the bus, aren’t you?”

His last words warped, voice like a bent reed. White flooded his eyes like hoarfrost. The yin aura boiled like a kettle, and tension pressed the Soul Carriage tight as a drum. Beside them, Xuduo clutched the necklace at her throat, hardly daring to breathe. He was a mere obsession, yet his surge of cold could rival revenants birthed from deep grudges.

These two weren’t easy to handle.

Nana watched him change, sighed, then rolled her eyes, a ripple across still water. “Why don’t you consider your friend couldn’t come with me?”

A rough outline in her mind settled like ink. “You remember. Years ago, you and your friend uncovered secrets rotting inside Longvine Academy. Calamity closed in like a tide.

“You planned to flee that school, to claw a bit of sky from a cage. Hope was a single thread.

“He chose to stay, alone, to stall those people so you could leave safe. Years have passed.

“You know better than anyone that farewell vow can’t be kept. The moment he chose, you knew he’d be chained to Longvine Academy forever, didn’t you?”

Ding—! Countdown ended. Optional side quest triggered: [The Promise on Huangquan’s Far Shore]. Accept?

Task description: Life or death hangs on your single thought.

Ding—! Because the host of this plane hasn’t triggered the main quest, if you refuse this side quest, all rewards for this plane’s trial will be wiped, and your karma value will be docked tenfold. Choose carefully.

“What?!” Nana Toki nearly blurted aloud, a thorn snapping in her chest. This damned System was railroading her.

If you want me to do it, just say it. Why all these twisty games to toy with me?

She cursed in her head, mercury-dark. When this plane ends, I’m tearing you apart.

System: “...... The rules are like this. It’s not this System’s fault. This System isn’t human—this System is a pitiful, humble, trashy System. This System has it rough. o(╥﹏╥)o”

Her guess was close enough. After her words, the youth by the window fell silent and dropped his gaze, like a leaf drifting down. He knew the vow couldn’t be kept; he’d avoided it for years, nursing a small comfort.

“I found him. Want to see him?” Nana asked, voice a calm bridge over a dark river.

She accepted the side quest, pulled out her phone, and glanced at the time. Three in the morning. Inside the Soul Carriage, time ran like a flood, faster than in the world outside. If she didn’t hurry, new twists might rise like eddies.

“Meet A-Jian?”

“But… it’s already too late…”

Not far from Nana, the youth smiled bitterly, a crack in winter ice. “Long ago, he locked me inside this Soul Carriage. Even if you drag me out, I’m only a weak ghostly obsession. I won’t last till we meet.”

“Will you be content?”

“What’s the use of not being content? Facts sit before me like stone; I can’t force them.” He opened his palm toward her, slow as petals falling. “This is something I kept from my life. Give it to A-Jian. He’ll tell you everything you want.”

He handed over a bracelet. The next heartbeat, a cough raked him, harsh as gravel. Each cough thinned him, his body flickering like smoke in wind.

“You already know our goal?” Xuduo asked, unable to hold back. In her world, ghosts harmed people; to meet a harmless wronged soul was a first snowfall.

“Goal? Maybe I’ve known all along.” His face blurred until it was only a smear of light, but Nana felt his gaze stay on her like a thread. “A-Jian was right… when ghosts finish their wish and step into the cycle, they recall the memory of being human.”

His voice faded, and the boy dissolved into shadow, then nothing. The Soul Carriage settled back into its hush, a pond without ripples.

“All right. Mission complete. Drive us back to Longvine Academy.” Nana pocketed the bracelet and drifted to the ghost driver, wearing a smile with metal in it.

He caught that smile in the side mirror and felt his heart pound like a trapped bird. This one… scarier than that lord back in Longvine’s ghost campus.

The passengers stayed silent. Their eyes held more fear, like frost gathering.

They drove in silence.

By the time the ghost driver dropped them at the new gate of Longvine Academy, it was six ten in the gray-blue dawn.

Xuduo stepped off and was about to stretch. A shout cut across the morning like a whistle.

“Hey, student over there! What are you doing?!”

The man ran from the duty room at the gate, urgency sparking from his heels. Xuduo opened her mouth to ask, but his scolding hit like a summer squall. “You’re Xuduo, right? Where’d you crawl off to last night? No dorm, no phone—do you know the whole school almost called the cops for you? Now get to the office. Everyone’s losing it.”

He didn’t let her explain. He grabbed her wrist and hauled her toward the teaching building, stride hard as a metronome.

“Hey—Teacher Bai, hear me out! It’s not what you think! I had reasons!” Seized by the wrist, Xuduo blurted, trying to clear her name like swatting dust.

“You’re the only student who spent the night out! What’s there to argue? Come with me. Explain it first; then I’ll let you go!”

Trailing them, Nana Toki frowned. Her face went odd, like a puzzle tile misfit. This Teacher Bai… did he just look at me?

Suspicion coiled; for safety, she slapped a Talisman onto herself, paper bright as a leaf, then followed fast.

The office was no place for sweet talk. Teacher Bai questioned Xuduo in front of a row of teachers, faces like stacked books. Luckily, Xuduo could talk; despite the barrage, she rode it out on a silver tongue and steady breath.

“Ling Jiang, what’s wrong?” Leaving Teacher Bai’s office, Xuduo noticed Nana’s knotted brows and the shadow under her eyes. “Another problem?”

“No. Just thinking.” Nana peeled the yellow Talisman from her back, her face gone stone-gray. “That Teacher Bai isn’t ordinary.”

At the gate, she’d thought his glance was a trick of light. In the office, while he questioned Xuduo, Nana clearly felt his eyes skim her again and again, like he could see through the mist.

“Of course he isn’t ordinary. In a school like this, what teacher could be normal?” Our leading lady muttered, stepping beside Nana. “Seriously, which teacher watches monitors at six in the morning instead of sleeping? Something’s wrong with him.”

“I mean he isn’t normal as a person, not just in behavior.” Nana tucked the yellow Talisman away and looked back at the teaching building, its windows like watching eyes.

First time we met, he wore the mask well. So why did it slip so fast?