As the bespectacled girl stepped toward Dr. Chen, a nearly invisible strand of hair had already coiled around her neck.

It tightened—slicing through flesh as effortlessly as tofu. The cut was so fine and smooth she felt nothing at first.

“Isn’t that… my body? Why…”

Legend says a decapitated person stays conscious for ten seconds. In her final moment, she never understood why her head fell.

“Ahhhh—!”

Seeing a living person’s head drop right before him, even Dr. Chen’s steel nerves shattered. He screamed and collapsed to the floor.

Blood gushed from the severed carotid artery, spraying meters high and splattering everywhere—yet not a single drop touched Dr. Chen. An invisible barrier seemed to shield him.

“Cough—! What is this? A ghost?!”

Still disoriented, Dr. Chen assumed the girl was a hostile ghost—eliminated by the Crimson Robe.

But when had she become a ghost? Killed downstairs? That made no sense. Why would a ghost’s blood steam?

He’d seen Malevolent Ghosts slain by the Crimson Robe before—their blood was always cold.

Heart pounding, he squeezed his eyes shut, reached out, and poked her fallen body. Warm. She wasn’t a ghost.

“I can’t—urk—!” Overwhelmed by the coppery stench, he clamped a hand over his nose, bolted into another room, and gasped for air.

Unlike ghosts, watching a living person beheaded sent real chills through him. He wasn’t a monster. He remembered the busty girl, the expressionless man, the tech geek, annoying Brother Li… and now…

Everyone on this mission was wiped out except him. No wonder VIP missions were so brutal—even Tier-1. What awaited higher tiers?

Without the Crimson Robe, he’d be dead already.

“I will not die. I won’t!” He slammed a fist against the wall, using sharp pain to dull the fear. He feared death—not ghosts.

Having watched too many fall before his eyes, he vowed: never their fate.

[Congratulations! You’ve uncovered three side quests. Early exit available.]

Dr. Chen read the phone notification without surprise. Face blank, he slung his bag over his shoulder and limped out of the psychiatric hospital.

Midnight had just passed.

“Dead? Impossible! Absolutely impossible! San Mei spent immense effort divining that candidate—how could she die on a Tier-1 mission? She even carried a Ghost Mirror fragment! A broken piece, yes, but still a Tier-3 VIP item!”

In a Black Rose chamber lit by candles burning eerie blue flames, a woman stared in disbelief at the extinguished wick.

A trace of the bespectacled girl’s soul resided within it. Extinguished meant dead.

“Did she cross some rookie from another group? No… Even Qi Ye gives us respect. Let alone trash like Group Three! I must find who dared touch Black Rose.”

Candle in hand, she knocked on San Mei’s door. Black Rose’s medium—master of spirit communion and divination—none below Tier-4 VIP could rival her.

Beneath her white robe, her skin was carved with strange symbols. A terrifying blue-faced, fanged demon was tattooed across her back. Power came with agony.

“The one I chose… murdered? Let me ask her… who dares oppose us.” The voice beneath the veil was hoarse, ageless.

“I’m counting on you.”

“มาเร็วมาเร็วดวงวิญญาณ.”

She placed the candle on the altar. The medium’s eyes rolled back as she chanted in an unknown tongue.

Soon, the wick reignited with an unnatural blue flame.

“She says… she was murdered. She begs us to avenge her.”

“By whom?”

“A man… Dr. Chen… from an organization called Zu An.”

“Zu An? Never heard of it. San Mei, can you use her soul to see what happened? What does he look like?”

“I’ll try.”

Medium San Mei knelt devoutly. The demon tattoo on her back seemed to stir—its eyes rolling, gaze plunging into the candle’s residual soul, arriving at the psychiatric hospital’s first floor.

Through the demon’s eyes, she witnessed the bespectacled girl crush the expressionless man’s ghost underfoot.

Such was the strongest medium’s gift: a sliver of soul revealed all. Touch any object a ghost contacted, and she’d uncover a Malevolent Ghost’s origin—even its weakness.

No wonder organizations courted Black Rose. With her “eyes” to glimpse the past, even stubborn hauntings fell easier.

“What did you see?”

“I saw…” The medium froze. Her expression twisted into raw terror, as if something unspeakable had seized her vision.

“Ah—no! No!! Let go… release me! Let me leave! I was wrong… I shouldn’t have spied on him… AAAAAH!”

She clawed at her throat, face turning blue-purple as if strangled. Blood burst from the Malevolent Ghost tattoo’s eyes—it too wore terror, thrashing as if desperate to flee San Mei’s body.