Chi Wang Chuan squinted slightly, dropping the nail into a small porcelain dish. The sound it made as it landed was crisp and piercing, while his expression showed not triumph but a trace of melancholy.
“The second question.” Chi Wang Chuan moved the tweezers to Xuan Ye’s ring finger, pausing briefly. “Are you ready?”
Xuan Ye nodded.
Chi Wang Chuan turned to Ban Xia. Blood still dripped from the tweezers, falling in sharp, rhythmic drops.
Ban Xia inhaled deeply, bracing for the next question.
“Would you love him, regardless of wealth or poverty?”
This second question offered her a much-needed breath of relief.
“Yes,” she replied, her voice resolute.
She loved money—there was no denying that—but Qin Yue had none. As a ghost, he didn’t even have a corporeal form, let alone wealth.
To love him had nothing to do with money.
It was because every morning when she woke, he was always there by her bedside, his eyes filled with warmth, an infinite tenderness that enveloped her completely.
“Yes,” she said again, this time more firmly, with unwavering conviction.
“Very well,” Chi Wang Chuan acknowledged, shifting the tweezers to Xuan Ye’s middle finger. “The third question.”
Ban Xia felt her heart steady as the trial continued.
She passed the third question, then the fourth.
Nineteen-year-old love—for a ghost who had wandered the world for over a century—could only persist if it was rooted in sincerity.
Eight questions came and went.
Only two of Xuan Ye’s nails had been removed. The others had been spared, released from the curse, no longer itching or hurting.
Chi Wang Chuan was keeping his word.
Victory seemed within reach.
Xuan Ye raised his head. Though pale, his eyes were steady and reassuring. He gestured for Ban Xia not to worry.
“The ninth question…”
Chi Wang Chuan’s voice rose softly, wrapping around them like a wisp of smoke in the misty grove.
“Would you love him, even if it meant surrendering your dignity, forsaking your pride?”
“This question is unfair!” Ban Xia shot to her feet. “No woman should have to surrender her dignity!”
Chi Wang Chuan’s sharp gaze flicked toward her. His right hand twitched, summoning a misty phantom in the form of a beast that settled heavily on Ban Xia’s shoulders, forcing her back down.
“I am the master of this wager,” Chi Wang Chuan said coldly, placing the tweezers against Xuan Ye’s nail. “The rules are mine to set. You have no right to question fairness. You only need to answer: yes or no.”
“Yes or no!” he barked when Ban Xia remained silent.
“No!”
The answer came from the depths of Ban Xia’s soul.
By her nature, she would never share her man with another woman. She would never relinquish her pride, allowing even her lover to trample it.
Even if the man was Qin Yue—the one she had adored throughout her youth—her answer would remain the same.
“The answer is no.”
Chi Wang Chuan confirmed her reply without hesitation. Calmly, he inserted the tweezers beneath Xuan Ye’s ring finger nail, prying it away.
Blood trickled down in glistening beads.
Xuan Ye slumped forward, his forehead resting on his knees. Ban Xia couldn’t see his face, only the labored rise and fall of his chest as he fought to keep his breathing steady.
Her question.
Her answer.
Yet someone else bore the pain.
Chi Wang Chuan dropped the third nail into the porcelain dish. Its sharp clink reverberated through the grove, echoing the tremor in Ban Xia’s chest.
“Three nails gone.” Chi Wang Chuan wiped the tweezers clean, fixing his gaze on Xuan Ye. “Only one question remains. If you lose, you lose everything. Will you continue?”
“Continue,” Xuan Ye replied softly, his voice steady, unyielding.
“The final question: Would you love him, regardless of his position or whether he is right or wrong?”
There was a pause, brief yet suffocating, before Chi Wang Chuan delivered the final blow.
Ban Xia’s heart raced, her mind clouded.
Of course, it had to be this question.
This very question had haunted her for three years, relentlessly probing her heart since that night when everything had gone wrong.
The memory’s jagged edges resurfaced, pulling her under its shadow.
Wang Xiao Dan’s words.
In the funeral home, every living soul and every ghost had vanished.
This startling silence awakened a latent power within Ban Xia. Meditating in the desolate halls of the funeral home, she began to see faint images.
To the north, not far from the funeral home, lay a pit. Inside it, she saw Qin Yue's familiar long robe, stained in dark red blood.
She knew this pit well. As a child, she used to crawl in and out of it. There was no need to search for it; she knew exactly where it was.
She ran, her sandals slipping from her feet. Stones pricked her bare soles, but she didn’t feel the pain.
The pit loomed ahead, shrouded in the dim night. Before she could even glimpse its contents, an overpowering scent of blood reached her nose.
There was no room for fear. Without hesitation, Ban Xia leaped into the pit, roughly two meters deep.
What she saw next would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Qin Yue—the gentle ghost who watched her sleep from her bedside, the ghost who listened to her stories beside the crematorium, the ghost who once promised to stay by her side forever—was crouched over her father, devouring his leg.
Blood streamed down his face, dripping from his lips and soaking his already crimson-stained robe. The blood pooled at his feet, painting the pit floor in vivid red.
The pit was filled with bones—many still identifiable as human skulls.
The remains of Gatekeeper Lao Li…
The skeletal frame of Uncle Qi, the furnace operator…
The hefty Auntie who cleaned the halls…
They were all there.
0 Comments