At eight in the evening, a man waited for his flight at Narita International Airport.

Reflected in the glass was the man’s gaunt, pale face. He looked like a vampire who’d spent too long living in a basement, though he knew he wasn’t a vampire—he was human.

He glanced around, checking to see if anyone was following him.

Once he was sure there were no watchful eyes nearby, he dragged his suitcase into the restroom.

First, he tossed his SIM card into the toilet and flushed it away. Then he took the baseball cap and fake mustache he’d prepared in advance from his suitcase. With a little makeup, he made his face look as old as he could.

In the mirror stood a man who looked like an artsy guy in his forties. He let out a long breath, seemingly relieved.

“I’ll be home soon. I’m so happy.”

Nearby sat a family of three, with a lively, adorable daughter. They seemed to be travelers returning home after a trip to Country J.

Once, the man had been just like them. He’d thought it would be a simple little trip.

But reality had gone far beyond anything he’d expected.

“Home…”

His lips parted, slightly dry, and his eyes grew a little red.

That simple word—“home”—carried a crushing weight.

“Gao-kun, from now on, this is your home.”

Those sweet, crazed words echoed in his ear, accompanied by the clatter of chains.

The man jerked his head up as if electrocuted, his eyes instantly bloodshot.

A few travelers glanced at him in confusion.

“Whew, it was just an auditory hallucination…” Gao Sijin clenched his fists and whispered, “No matter what, I have to go home again…”

Time, hurry up.

Plane, hurry up and take me home.

Gao Sijin looked calm, but inside, his emotions were already raging.

He really didn’t want to be imprisoned anymore. Even if he’d been well-fed and well-clothed, with no worries about making ends meet, he still had to be free.

Ten minutes.

In ten minutes, the plane to the Magic City would rescue him from this hell.

He counted down six hundred seconds. At last, when he reached “six hundred,” Gao Sijin stood up and joined the orderly line to have his ticket checked and board.

He looked back. The woman still hadn’t come after him.

“Yuexue Lixu, I finally beat you for once. Go to hell—goodbye!”

For an author obsessed with yandere novels where the girl takes the lead, being imprisoned by a beautiful girl for a year might have been good material. But when Gao Sijin thought of all the desperate cries he’d let out that year, and how they’d only been answered with endless, sleepless torment, his heart sank to the bottom again.

Some wounds might never heal…

Following the information on his ticket, Gao Sijin found his seat.

Beside him sat a kind-looking old woman. Her threat level was low, so she probably wasn’t an informant for the Yuexue Conglomerate.

Besides, no matter how powerful Yuexue Lixu was, she couldn’t exactly board a plane and grab someone.

Country J was, more or less, a country ruled by law. There was no need to worry.

The plane began accelerating down the runway. It was about to take off.

Gao Sijin smiled with relief.

Even if the plane crashed right now, he wouldn’t regret it.

If he had to die, he’d die charging forward.

But just then, what happened before his eyes made Gao Sijin’s relaxed expression freeze again.

The plane didn’t take off. It had covered half the runway when it suddenly came to a stop.

Police sirens sounded outside, and several police cars blocked the plane’s path. Gao Sijin suddenly found it hard to breathe. With difficulty, he patted his chest.

“Good evening.”

A classical beauty with dark hair, red lips, and skin as pale as snow stepped onto the plane in a black kimono and wooden sandals.

Her words and manner were refined, as if she’d been raised with impeccable manners.

Most remarkable of all was her peerless beauty, which even outshone the biggest movie stars.

Bewitching beauty and mystery lurked beneath her loveliness. She was like a demon blade drawn from its sheath, hungry for blood.

“Yuexue Lixu…”

Behind the girl stood a group of men in police uniforms.

Gao Sijin had no idea whether they were real police officers or impostors.

Either way, the outcome would be the same.

Gao Sijin was about to be arrested.

He did his best not to meet Yuexue Lixu’s eyes and decisively picked up a magazine to read.

This disguise should be good enough to fool her.

Yuexue Lixu strolled slowly down the aisle.

The woman walked very, very slowly on purpose, like a Yamato Nadeshiko.

Still, every time her wooden sandals struck the cabin floor, they made a loud clack.

It was one of her little quirks. She didn’t like killing someone with a single stroke. She preferred to torment them slowly, like cutting into flesh one slice at a time.

Yuexue Lixu walked right past Gao Sijin.

“Huh? How strange. Where did Gao-kun run off to? Has Gao-kun, who’s written so many wonderful novels, vanished off the face of the earth?”

Her fluent Chinese sounded almost too perfect to be real, as sweet as an oriole’s song. But that didn’t change the fact that she was a predator.

Suddenly, a slender hand came to rest on Gao Sijin’s shoulder.

“Hey, sir. Do you know where Gao-kun went?”

“How should I know?”

Gao Sijin, disguised as an older man, lowered his voice as he replied.

For some reason, Gao Sijin thought of the werewolf legend.

They said that if someone tapped you on the shoulder from behind, you must never turn around—or they’d bite through your throat…

But Yuexue Lixu was even more terrifying than the werewolf in the legend.

Gao Sijin swallowed. One second after another ticked by.

A bead of cold sweat ran down Gao Sijin’s forehead.

At last, Gao Sijin couldn’t take the pressure anymore. He sprang to his feet, trying to shove the police officers aside and escape.

“Qingxue, take care of this for me.”

“Yes, Miss Yuexue.”

Gao Sijin had just shoved past the police and tried to leave the cabin when a woman in a classical maid’s dress appeared behind him at lightning speed. One cold hand twisted his wrist behind his back, while the other slammed his head hard against the floor.

The pain made Gao Sijin cry out. The whole thing took less than three seconds, and the maid had already subdued him.

“Stay down.”

“Fuck, let go of me! Don’t make me fight back! If I actually tried, I’d knock all of you flat in a second!”

But Gao Sijin’s threat only earned him an even harsher joint lock.

His bones felt like they were about to break.

“You’re really going for it, huh? Fine, I’m sorry, okay? No, no, please, ma’am! My arm’s gonna break!”

“Qingxue, just teach him a little lesson. If you actually break a bone, I’ll take the medical bills out of your pay.”

Only then did the maid ease the pressure on his joint.

Yuexue Lixu walked up to Gao Sijin and removed his baseball cap and fake mustache.

“You even put on a handlebar mustache. Were you imitating Bishop Myriel from your novel? How cute. You’re like a child who never grows up. But you’re a bad boy, and bad boys have to be punished. Now, be good and come home with me, Gao-kun.”

—Click.

Yuexue Lixu handcuffed Gao Sijin’s wrists together. Then the maid dragged him off the plane.

As the heiress of the Yuexue Family, Yuexue Lixu was something of a public figure. She glanced at the passengers she regarded as “commoners” and bowed to them openly in apology:

“I’m terribly sorry for the trouble.”

After apologizing, the girl vanished from the cabin like a gust of wind, as if she’d never been there at all.