Ye Weibai stared at Little Ash. “So?”

Little Ash put a playful stress on it. “A corpse, y’know. Our mom’s corpse.”

As she let that shocker slip, her face looked paper-white, a hurtful kind of pale. Yet a careless smile hung there like a paper lantern. Teasing, joking—and not a shred of… sorrow.

His gut went cold. His instincts said she wasn’t lying.

In that room, the body lying there—was indeed her mother’s.

Time of death, under two hours.

But the gray-haired girl who didn’t lie wore composure like frost. No panic, no grief. That calm made Ye Weibai’s back prickle. He lowered his head and fell silent.

Seeing his silence, Little Ash got oddly urgent. “Hey, hey, hey! We didn’t lie, okay! That really is our mom’s corpse.”

After a long beat, Ye Weibai lifted his head. His eyes fixed on her. “Allow me three questions.”

Little Ash took a swig of cola and laughed. “Hahaha, why so serious? I’m super open. Ask anything~ But a girl’s measurements are a secret.”

He ignored the joke and asked the first. “One. This World—the World you’re in—are you the only ‘person’ left?”

From the moment he entered this World, he’d felt it. Spring light like warm silk, a soft breeze like a sigh—and yet too quiet. More like dead stillness.

No breath of life.

Little Ash nodded without fuss. “Oh, oh! You noticed! Yep. When the [Misfortune] divinity descended into our body, we got sent to the World’s inner side. Since only one living being got brought in, this huge World has just me.”

“You’re the only ‘lifeform,’ then?” Ye Weibai tasted the word.

“Yep. Those who can enter the inner side, aside from a Deity, are non-lifeforms. Kinda lonely, yeah. Maybe that’s what being a god feels like.” She tilted her head, blew at her bangs, and smiled.

“What about those plants?” Ye Weibai pointed at tree branches swaying in the wind outside.

“They’re… fake.” Little Ash answered, “Fake as in projections. Don’t ask for more. The detailed rules? We don’t really know~”

“I see.” Ye Weibai nodded. “Second question, then.”

“Ask, ask~”

“The [Misfortune] divinity—entering a human body—or rather entering yours. What are the conditions?”

“Ah, that. Too bad—we can’t say.” She frowned in mock distress, then stuck out her tongue.

“Can’t say—rather than won’t say?” Ye Weibai pressed.

“Wow~ Xiaobai, you’re super sharp!” Her eyes went wide, adorably so. “Yes—can’t say.”

“Then may I guess?”

“Sure~ But we won’t show any approval or denial. Otherwise trouble.”

“It’s ‘Misfortune,’ isn’t it?”

She smiled. “Mm?”

Ye Weibai held her gaze and spoke each word. “If like calls to like, then the condition for being possessed by [Misfortune] is—already living in misfortune. In other words, Little Ash, before [Misfortune] settled in you, you were suffering a great torment, trapped in misfortune with no release. Am I right?”

“Whether you’re right or not—” She still smiled, yet the warmth bled away. Gray motes began to whirl in her pupils. “What makes you think—you can provoke us like this—and we won’t kill you?”

Ye Weibai nodded as if that answered him. “Then I understand.”

“Tch. Xiaobai—you’re clever enough to be annoying.”

“Sorry.” He smiled without a hint of apology. “Last question.”

“Ugh, I regret agreeing. Fine, ask~”

“Little Ash—have you forgotten how to cry? To be clear, did the [Misfortune] divinity strip away all your expressions, leaving only the one—smiling?”

“Tch.”

Boom—!

Thunder seemed to detonate by his ear. In an instant, gray particles burst off Little Ash like a storm.

In a single breath, they swelled into something three meters wide, a mass that speared through the entire apartment building. If anyone else existed in this World, they would see from above a colossal tornado of gray metallic motes drilling through the building. It roared and howled, turning without end, straight into the sky.

Its presence felt like a ruinous omen, a storm that could unmake heavens and earth. Yet strangely…it broke not a single brick of this World. The whole building was pierced through, but it felt more like a formless dream had phased through it. The true body of things stayed untouched.

The tornado’s edge stopped less than ten centimeters in front of him. Even the couch beneath him remained intact, harmless to an absurd degree. But Ye Weibai knew—harmless only to the World. If he dared to touch it, he’d die badly.

At the far end of the couch, in the eye of the storm, Little Ash sat at an angle. Hair whipping, eyes burning. She was still that delicate, sickly girl, yet wrapped in a gale that could steal breath from any chest.

“Besides smiling—”

She was still smiling, but it was a smile cold enough to cut bone.

“I can also sneer.”

“…” Ye Weibai held his tongue.

Right. Not a bad joke. I really did piss her off.

“Little Ash.” After a long moment, Ye Weibai spoke softly. “You said you need a maiden’s tears—despairing, painful, right?”

She watched him, waiting for the rest.

“And ‘maiden’ doesn’t stop at human, does it?”

“With Deities showing up, I bet demons, ghosts, angels, elves, dragon girls… won’t be rare. They’re all within my [Hunt], right?”

Little Ash narrowed her eyes a fraction, then nodded. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying—” Ye Weibai looked at her. The corner of his mouth lifted, sunlight-bright. “Little Ash, you’re within my [Hunt] too, aren’t you?”

“Making you cry—that’s on the table, isn’t it?”