In the endless, viscous darkness, Jiang Qianyu’s consciousness was slowly returning.

The bad news was, he couldn’t sense his body at all.

His current state felt like his soul had been ripped out of its shell, then brutally flattened and stretched by some invisible force.

That intense feeling of his soul being remade kept him from staying fully awake. His mind was hazy, heavy, and even thinking was difficult.

The only thing keeping him going was the voice that had awakened him just now.

He had a strong feeling that voice was familiar. Its owner had to be someone very important in his life.

To be honest, that person had saved his life.

If he had stayed in that state, with darkness devouring his consciousness, he might never have woken up again.

His consciousness was like a spark. It would either go out completely, or flare back to life.

In this absolutely silent world, there was no concept of time. Jiang Qianyu had no idea how long had passed. He only knew his mind seemed a little clearer, and that violent feeling of soul-remolding also seemed to have faded.

He couldn’t see light. He couldn’t hear sound. He couldn’t control his body.

This felt a hundred times more terrifying than sleep paralysis.

But for Jiang Qianyu, it wasn’t that bad. It gave him plenty of time to sort through his chaotic thoughts.

In such a short time, everything he’d gone through had hit him far too hard.

A mysterious organization. Urban legends and horrors. A wish-granting notebook. And the truth that his daughter’s real identity was actually the daughter of a Witch.

Even his current state was something he could hardly believe.

When people die, the light goes out. That was what he had always considered “normal.”

Once the body died and the brain rotted away, how could consciousness possibly still exist on its own?

As for souls, he had always thought that was complete nonsense.

And yet now, whether he believed it or not, he had no choice but to accept it. He just didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

At the very least, his daughter should’ve been able to reincarnate smoothly and begin a brand-new life.

He just didn’t know what would happen to the other children who had died in the orphanage. Were they in the same state as him now?

Wandering in the darkness, or scattered into nothing?

When he thought of the orphanage, Jiang Qianyu felt awful inside. Hollow. Empty.

Whether it was heartache or hatred, he knew the ending had already been decided. Nothing could be changed.

His own power had been limited. He could only use the Witch’s notebook to send the Witch away. Even one more person had been beyond him.

While Jiang Qianyu was still thinking, a faint sound came again from the dark world. It was a little girl’s voice, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying.

After the voice vanished, a point of light the size of a fist appeared in its place.

Before he could react, the light suddenly expanded and swallowed the entire world.

Like jolting awake from a nightmare, Jiang Qianyu snapped his eyes open.

A dim room. An unfamiliar ceiling.

He was lying in bed, covered by a thick, fluffy quilt. A faint fragrance lingered at the tip of his nose. The whole room felt warm and comfortable.

Now that he had his body back, his brain shut down for a few seconds instead, just to process reality.

He... had come back to life?

Swallowing, Jiang Qianyu rolled his eyes and looked around the unfamiliar bedroom.

The feeling of being wrapped in that sticky darkness still hadn’t fully faded. He took a deep breath, then another. After a few more silent seconds, he suddenly sat up in bed and let the creamy white goose-down quilt with gold stitching slide off his body.

Her eyes were wide. Before she could even figure out what was going on, a sweet, soft little girl’s voice suddenly came from beside her.

“Mom, you’re awake.”

Jiang Qianyu turned toward the voice and saw a cute little girl standing by the bed with a single ponytail.

She looked only about nine years old, tiny and delicate. She wore a black wool coat and had a white scarf with cat paws wrapped around her neck.

The moment Jiang Qianyu saw that lovely little face, she froze.

There was no way she could mistake her. This had to be Bai Dongqing, her daughter...

But hadn’t this child already been reincarnated? Why was she here?

“Do-Dongqing?” Jiang Qianyu tried to speak.

The moment she did, she realized something was very wrong.

Why did she have a woman’s voice?

She instinctively reached up and touched her neck. The skin felt smooth and soft.

And her hand—hadn’t it been ruined from killing through wishes?

She raised her left hand. The arm was slender, the skin pale, the fingers long and elegant. Jiang Qianyu frowned. There was no way a rough man like her could have hands this beautiful.

And that wasn’t even all.

What she definitely shouldn’t have had was the astonishing weight on her chest.

Her gaze accidentally swept over it, and she completely ignored the strand of dark hair hanging down before her forehead. All her attention was on her chest.

She’d been single her whole life and didn’t know the proper terms, but she’d seen people joke about this stuff online. Going by what she knew, this had to be at least a 36D, maybe even an E.

It wasn’t that her attention had gone somewhere weird. It wasn’t that she especially liked boobs, either. She knew that in a situation like this, staring at her chest without blinking and seriously thinking about how big they were was absolutely not the point.

But the problem was—

These things were on her body...

That was a huge problem!

While she was still stunned, Bai Dongqing quietly asked from the side, “Mom, are you feeling a little better? I’ll go pour you a cup of hot water.”

Jiang Qianyu’s gaze shifted from her chest to Bai Dongqing. Only now did she finally confirm that the “Mom” the girl kept saying really was directed at her.

Which meant she had also reincarnated, and become a woman?

Her mouth hung slightly open, but for a long time, Jiang Qianyu couldn’t say a single word.

Fate had played another enormous joke on her.

It wasn’t until the little girl walked out of the room that Jiang Qianyu came back to herself.

She looked down at her chest, then carefully examined her smooth, fair hands.

If only Bai Dongqing had reincarnated, she could understand that. The problem was, why had she reincarnated too? And why had she become Bai Dongqing’s mother in this life?

She turned her head and looked around the room, trying to find some clue.

The room’s decor was ordinary, but some details made it clear that in this life, she didn’t seem short on money. The wardrobe was made of expensive materials. The LCD TV was pricey. So were the bedding and furnishings.

What she couldn’t understand was why there was a wheelchair placed on the other side of the bed.

She got her answer very quickly.

Jiang Qianyu threw back the quilt and planned to get out of bed.

At the very least, she needed to find out what her name was in this life, and what kind of work she did.

But just as she tried to move her legs off the bed, her whole body froze again.

Her legs felt as if they had been disconnected from the rest of her body, yet not completely.

She could clearly feel that her legs were there. They weren’t numb. She still had sensation. She could feel the warmth of the quilt. But when she tried to control them, they responded only the slightest bit.

They didn’t feel heavy, and they didn’t feel numb. So it probably wasn’t illness, and probably not a spinal problem either. But she had the strange sense that something was missing from her legs.

As if... they were missing a soul.

Jiang Qianyu sat on the bed with her back against the headboard, turning to stare at the cold wheelchair.

Truthfully, she had been happy about being reincarnated. Becoming a girl didn’t matter.

At least Dongqing was by her side. She was still her daughter. In this life, she could still take care of her.

However, with legs that had lost their soul, she was basically disabled.

Forget taking care of her daughter. She might not even be able to take care of herself.

And that still wasn’t the end of it.

While she was observing her legs, her gaze actually passed through clothes and flesh, letting her see the chaotic black threads inside her body.

Some vague voice seemed to tell her that these black threads, woven through her entire body, were the soul.

She knew this was the body’s instinct. Even if a stranger’s soul had occupied it, the body’s instincts still remained. When she looked at things this body used often, they naturally felt familiar, and she could roughly understand what they were.

Just what kind of person was she in this life?

Normal people couldn’t see “souls.”

Back when she first glimpsed the hidden side of the world, she hadn’t even believed souls existed.

So if she could see souls, was she still an ordinary person?

Jiang Qianyu thought of the “monsters and witches” the Nightwatchers had mentioned.

That was the only explanation.

Because she could even pull those black threads out of her body and weave them into things.

The bedroom door was suddenly pushed open, and Jiang Qianyu turned to look.

Bai Dongqing walked in carrying a cup of hot tea. When she saw Jiang Qianyu, she forced a very stiff smile. “Mom, your hot water.”

Jiang Qianyu could see fear in her eyes. It was something she hadn’t noticed earlier, when her mind had still been muddled.

Holding the cup, Jiang Qianyu fell silent.

In this life, she was disabled. And she was also a Witch.

She knew nothing about her current situation. Maybe the Nightwatchers would come knocking the very next moment.

And the only thing she had to hold on to—her daughter, still obedient and sensible even after reincarnation—didn’t seem to have a good relationship with her in this life either.

She must have been beaten and scolded often.

That kind of obedience, beaten into a child, was obvious at a glance.