Teacher Bai’s words had barely landed when Ling Jiang, wrapped in scarlet, went full barrage. Red blood-threads surged off her like a chorus of lost souls howling. Lu Ming swallowed hard; cold sweat trickled down his brow like icy rain.

This man-made Red Robed Wraith was monstrously strong, strength that bent rules like iron in a forge.

Ordinary talismans couldn’t even stall her. If only they had a relic that suppressed a Red Robed Wraith. At least then they could ease the weight crushing Nana Toki.

“If we use this, do we get a shot to turn it around?”

Xuduo’s voice brushed his ear like wind through bamboo. Lu Ming jerked his head up. Her palm lay open, the safety talisman she wore on a cord resting there like a quiet ember.

“I begged this from an old monk at a temple. He said it would block one disaster at a critical moment. I don’t know how to trigger it, so I want you to try it.”

Lu Ming had seen that talisman’s bite. It wasn’t some fake charm sold by a street hawker. It held a surge of blazing yang, the kind that burned like noon sun on fresh snow. Used right, it could chew chunks out of a man-made Red Robed monster.

…

Whoosh—!

Red threads kept lashing in. Nana Toki staggered as she guarded and gave ground, like a skiff shoved back by storm waves.

Forget that the enemy was a Red Robed Wraith; she herself was only a small grudge-spirit. Worse, every blow she landed ricocheted pain back into her like a mirror with fangs. There was no bargain to be had.

It was suffocating.

How did that idiot pull this off?

Wind keened past her ear. Nana Toki swung her Colossal Axe and barely unraveled the next strike. She stopped retreating, heels digging in like stakes.

“Ling Jiang, stop struggling. Accept the new body. Come back to me,” Teacher Bai said, eyes glittering. On his sickly, twisted face that joy was a snake’s grin. “We’ll be together forever.”

“Together my ass. You think you’re worthy?”

Before he finished, Nana Toki lifted her Black Great Axe and charged. Those blood-threads on scarlet Ling Jiang had ground her nerves raw. If she couldn’t kill the puppet, she’d hack down the puppeteer.

“It’s useless, Ling Jiang. The revival ritual has begun. You don’t get to refuse.”

Her brutal swing split his sleeve wide, carving deep. Teacher Bai didn’t flinch; blood geysered from his waist like a burst spring, and he stood by the blood pool pale but unfazed.

“I embrace everything about you—then and now. Ling Jiang, a student should obey her teacher.”

Red threads blossomed from his waist like creeping roots, cocooned the wound, and wove shut the flesh until it looked untouched.

Nana Toki felt the blood pool’s vortex swelling, a whirl like a mouth in the deep tugging her in. That invisible pull pressed her body toward the red spiral. Only raw Spirit Energy held it back like a last rope. If it kept growing, even if Teacher Bai and the red-robed Ling Jiang stood still, that unseen force would drag her into the whirl.

“You don’t think your plan is flawless, do you?”

She yanked out the Yin Jade she’d been using to store Spirit Energy. Her blurred outline snapped back, solid as hammered steel. She bared her teeth in a crooked grin, contempt sharp as frost. She never humored fools who acted like they’d already won. “Here’s the line. Today it’s you or me. Worst case, we all go down together. No one walks away smiling.”

She gripped the Black Great Axe, Spirit Energy flooding its edge like black fire, and sprinted at the red-robed Ling Jiang.

She’d changed her mind. She would slaughter every idiot here now. Don’t talk to her about meeting Nesting Phoenix after death. She’d drag them all to hell first.

By the blood pool, Teacher Bai read her intent. Terror cracked his mask. “No, Ling Jiang! Don’t! You’ll die! No—”

He tried to hurl his blood-threads to stop her, but another bundle of scarlet cords snapped across the air and barred his way. “Teacher, what are you doing? My punishment… hasn’t ended.”

The red-robed boy he’d tortured had stood up when nobody looked. He stood before Teacher Bai like a charred statue, face and body smeared with black blood, voice hoarse like rust scraping iron.

“Get out of my way!”

“Out! Out! Out!”

“Disobedient students deserve to die!”

Driven rabid, Teacher Bai struck without measure. His threads skewered the red-robed boy again and again—through features, limbs, torso—leaving no whole patch of red.

“Stop!”

Black blood flecked his face. Teacher Bai flung aside the gasping wraith, eyes feral. A storm of blood-threads speared toward the two monsters locked in their savage brawl.

Nana Toki fought by trading wounds for openings, every swing pushed to the brink. The scarlet world trembled like a cracked drumhead. Veins of red wrapped around the ghost-school’s buildings, swelling to grotesque thickness. By the blood pool, gashes opened along red-robed Ling Jiang’s body like torn banners, multiplying with each breath. Nana Toki’s form, restored moments ago, thinned again with every ruthless strike. Her face went white, but the killing intent only grew darker. In that instant, her white clothes looked more vicious than any red.

“Die for me!”

Too late to stop it. Before Teacher Bai’s threads could touch her, the last swing sank clean into Ling Jiang’s chest. The bite of it stabbed through Nana Toki as well, needle-hot and marrow-deep. She heard the other’s ragged scream, and the world around her flashed white.

Spirit Energy roared from the point where the two ghosts met, a wave that drowned everything. When the world settled, a fine drizzle fell from the blood-colored sky—red rain tapping like beads on stone.

“Is… it over?” Lu Ming picked up the Yin Jade, now cracked like dry earth. He stared at the wreckage, dazed, feeling useless, like a blade never drawn.

“Lu Ming, look out!”

Xuduo’s scream lanced his ear. He didn’t even turn before pain bloomed in his gut like a hot iron. Teacher Bai, who’d failed to stop their mutual ruin, pinned the blame on the only living roots—Lu Ming and Xuduo.

Fury, pain, confusion, grief, despair—every shadowed tide broke over Teacher Bai at once. He drove his scarlet threads through Lu Ming’s body and let out a roar that made the air shiver.

“It’s you! It’s all you!”

“If you hadn’t deceived Ling Jiang, none of this would’ve happened!”

“Everything is your fault!”

“I’ll refine you into ghosts. You’ll atone to Ling Jiang, forever and ever!”

The red world began to collapse. The scarlet pool thinned like fog at sunrise, leaving only a rough wooden coffin built to carry the living. Teacher Bai shoved Lu Ming aside, hand lunging straight for his heart like a hawk’s talon.

“Ng—ah—” His body felt torn in two. Lu Ming clenched Xuduo’s safety talisman and poured the last trickle of his power into it, like lighting a wick in a storm.

Without warning, a vast ring of light burst from him like a dawn halo. Teacher Bai felt a hammer in his chest; his organs slammed like shaken bells. Blood hit his tongue. Before his fingers reached Lu Ming’s heart, an unseen force swatted him into the dark.

“Lu Ming, are you okay?”

Xuduo grabbed him as he swayed, panic clouding her face like a sudden squall. Teacher Bai’s eruption had been too fast, too feral.

“I’m fine. Go check on Xiaoxiao Ji. As for Ling Jiang…”

He glanced toward where Xiaoxiao Ji lay, words catching like thorns. He’d seen everything. The odds of Nana Toki surviving were a candle in a gale.

He only hoped Xiaoxiao Ji wouldn’t shatter when she learned.

But.

Hopes rarely match the world.

When Xiaoxiao Ji woke the next day and heard it all, she didn’t believe a word Lu Ming or Xuduo said.

“I know this hits hard, but Ling Jiang is gone. You need to face it.” Lu Ming handed her the Yin Jade, fissured all over. “This is Ling Jiang’s companion Yin Jade. You know what it means when it cracks.”

“What does that prove… Ling Jiang-jie was so strong. How could she just… die?” She took the jade. A strained smile crept up, her voice trembling like a plucked string. “You’re teaming up to trick me, right? This joke isn’t funny. Bring her out.”

“She’s hiding, waiting to jump out and scare me, right? She always does. I’m used to it. I won’t jump this time. So stop with the stupid joke, okay?”

“Hey…”

“Say something! You two!”

“Tell me it was a joke. Tell me it’s not real. Please…”

By the end she was pleading. Outside, Longvine Academy’s plaza still held chunks of flesh and pitted blood-craters like dried ponds. Even without seeing the battle, she could feel the carnage that had raged. And there was that deranged killer, Teacher Bai, dragged off by police still screaming Ling Jiang’s name. Xiaoxiao Ji understood. She just refused to accept.

“We… we promised. When I woke up, we’d see each other…”

“Why would Ling Jiang-jie break her word…”

Clutching the tarnished Yin Jade, Xiaoxiao Ji bowed her head. Her expression dimmed like the sky under gathering clouds.

Lu Ming wanted to comfort her a dozen times. The words wouldn’t cross his teeth. This ending grew from his choices. If he’d uncovered the Soul Carriage sooner, maybe Xiaoxiao Ji and Ling Jiang wouldn’t have been dragged in.

“Enough… I’m done. You two are cruel liars. I’ll find Ling Jiang-jie myself.”

No rage, no tears. She said it quietly, like a door closing, then left the classroom with disappointment trailing like a long shadow.

Even if she knew she might never find Ling Jiang.

Ghost Bride, end?