Days passed with the usual rhythm of school and clandestine exorcism work. The buzz around Su Yao’s TV debut had settled into a steady undercurrent of recognition. Mei, meanwhile, was unusually quiet, absorbed in writing her next chapter.
The normality shattered during a morning history class. The door flew open, and a pale-faced teacher whispered urgently to their instructor. A hush fell as the news spread through the room in frantic, horrified whispers.
An exorcist from the Luo family’s operation had been found dead. The details were gruesome and specific: his internal organs had been liquefied while his external body showed no signs of trauma. It was a perfect, terrifyingly clean kill.
Mei, doodling plot ideas in her notebook, overheard the whispers. Her pen froze. The color drained from her face. She slowly turned her head to look at Su Yao. Her eyes were wide with dawning, absolute horror.
She mouthed a single, silent word: Liquefied.
Su Yao met her gaze. Her expression was one of mild, detached interest, as if hearing about an unusual weather pattern.
The bell for lunch rang. Mei practically leaped from her seat, grabbing Su Yao’s arm and dragging her into an empty stairwell.
“Did you hear?” Mei hissed. Her voice was trembling. Her grip was tight on Su Yao’s sleeve. “The exorcist! They said his insides were turned to soup! That’s exactly what you said! The area-of-effect spiritual technique! The clean external! You said that!”
Su Yao gently pried Mei’s fingers from her arm. “I recall the conversation. You asked for writing research. I provided a plausible method.”
“But it’s REAL!” Mei’s voice rose to a panicked whisper. “Someone actually DID it! Exactly like you said! How? Why? Did you tell someone else?”
“I have no need to discuss theoretical assassination techniques with anyone but a curious novelist,” Su Yao replied calmly. She studied Mei’s terrified face. “It appears your research has coincidentally aligned with a real-world event. A rather unfortunate coincidence.”
“Coincidence?!” Mei choked out. “You call that a coincidence? Someone is out there killing people the way I write about it in my stupid novel!”
“The method isn’t copyrighted, Mei,” Su Yao said. Her tone was dry. “It is a simple, practical application of destructive vibrational energy. It was inevitable that someone with the requisite skill would eventually employ it.”
Mei stared at her, looking sick. The reality of violence, so exciting in fiction, was now a cold, horrifying weight in her stomach. Her research had bled into reality. The link was the impossibly calm girl standing in front of her.
“This isn’t fun anymore,” Mei whispered, hugging herself.
“No,” Su Yao agreed. Her gaze drifted toward the window, as if she could see the aftermath of the crime scene miles away. “It rarely is.” A faint, almost imperceptible frown touched her lips.
The method was indeed efficient. But who else in this diminished modern world possessed both the knowledge and the power to execute it so perfectly? The list was short.
The image of the liquefied organs lingered in Su Yao’s mind. Efficient, yes. But also specific. A method that prioritized internal destruction while preserving the outer shell. It was less like a technique designed for combat and more like…
Her eyes caught movement on the wall beside the stairwell. A small spider, methodically wrapping a trapped fly in silk.
…More like predation.
A predator that dissolved its prey’s insides to consume them.
Another whispered detail from the crime scene reached her, passed from a terrified student whose cousin was on the police force: the victim’s face. It was frozen in an expression of pure, ecstatic bliss.
A cold understanding settled over her. The method, the bliss, it pointed to something specific.
Her phone buzzed. It was Director Luo. His voice was a hysterical screech on the other end.
“Xiao Ling! Thank the heavens! We found her! The killer! We have her cornered in an old warehouse by the docks, but nothing works! Our talismans burn to ash before they touch her! Our spells slide right off! She just sits there! You have to come! Now! You’re the only one who might be able to do something!”
Su Yao’s gaze remained fixed on the spider. “Describe her.”
“She’s just a woman! Young! Looks normal! It’s the most unnerving thing I’ve ever witnessed! Every time we try something, she just looks at us and lets out this weary, disappointed sigh, and our techniques just fail! Please, you have to—”
“I’m on my way,” Su Yao interrupted, ending the call.
She looked at Mei, who was still pale and shaking. “It seems my expertise is required.”
“What, what is it?” Mei stammered.
“The killer is exerting her nature,” Su Yao said, turning to leave. “The liquefaction, the bliss, it’s the work of a very old, very hungry spider demon. They inject a venom that dissolves the insides and induces euphoria in the victim before they drink them. The sigh the Director heard, that’s not disappointment.”
She glanced back. Her eyes glinted with a cold light.
“That’s the sound of something ancient waking up and finding the modern vintage… disappointingly thin.”
The warehouse by the docks was surrounded by flashing police lights and the Luo family’s black vans. The air crackled with the static of failed talismans and the tang of fear. Director Luo rushed to Su Yao the moment she arrived. His face was slick with sweat.
“There! Inside! She hasn't moved!” he jabbered, pointing a trembling finger toward the open warehouse door.
Su Yao stepped inside. The scene was exactly as described. A young woman sat on an old crate in the center of the vast, empty space, bathed in the harsh beam of a spotlight. She wore simple, modern clothes. Her hands were folded in her lap. She was indeed sighing, a long, weary exhalation that seemed to suck the tension out of the air around her.
Circling her at a safe distance were a dozen Luo family cultivators. Their faces were pale and determined. One lunged forward, hurling a glowing talisman. It streaked toward the woman, and then disintegrated into harmless ash a foot from her face, scattering like black snow.
The woman sighed again, a sound of existential boredom.
“See?” Director Luo whispered frantically from behind Su Yao. “Nothing works! Her demonic aura is too strong! It nullifies everything!”
Su Yao’s sharp eyes scanned the woman. Then they scanned the ash falling to the concrete floor and the terrified cultivators.
She walked forward, past the ring of exorcists, who parted for her with a mixture of relief and awe and stopped a few paces from the woman.
The woman looked up. Her eyes were tired, but clear. There was no malice in them.
“Are you going to try to burn me too?” the woman asked. Her voice was flat with exhaustion.
Su Yao turned to face the cultivators and Director Luo. Her voice cut through the nervous silence, cold and precise.
“You imbeciles.”
Everyone stared.
“The ash from your talismans,” she said, pointing at the black dust on the floor. “Can none of you sense the basic ward etched into the floor around this crate?”
She kicked at the concrete with her shoe, scraping away decades of grime to reveal faint, intricate lines of silver inlay. It was an ancient, powerful negation ward, designed to dissipate hostile spiritual energy.
“The talismans are failing because you’re blindly firing them into a dedicated defensive formation,” Su Yao continued. Her tone was scathing. “A formation she is clearly sitting in the center of for protection.”
She turned back to the woman. “You’re hiding from the killer.”
The woman on the crate finally showed a real emotion: stunned relief. Her shoulders slumped. “Finally,” she breathed out. “Someone with eyes.”
Director Luo gaped. “But, the sighing! The disappointed sighs!”
The woman gave him a look of pure exasperation. “I was sighing because you morons were trying to exorcise a protection ward! I was disappointed in your critical thinking skills!”
Her words landed, and nothing followed.
Su Yao looked at Director Luo. Her expression was utterly deadpan. “Congratulations. You almost murdered a witness. The real killer is still out there. And it’s still hungry.”
She turned and walked out of the warehouse, leaving the Luo family cultivators in a circle of humiliated silence, staring at the very obvious, very ancient ward they had all somehow missed.
The sigh they heard next came from Director Luo, a sound of pure, unadulterated despair.
Back outside the warehouse, the night air felt sharp after the stifling tension inside. The police were now awkwardly questioning the woman, while the Luo family cultivators skulked in the background, thoroughly chastened.
Su Yao approached the woman, who was now wrapped in a shock blanket. Her eyes were still wide with residual fear.
“The killer,” Su Yao said. Her voice cut through the procedural chatter. “Describe it.”
The woman flinched at the memory, clutching the blanket tighter. “It, it wasn’t an ‘it’. She looked normal. Beautiful, even.”
Su Yao’s gaze sharpened. “Go on.”
“Long black hair. Perfect skin. She looked rich. Expensive clothes.” The woman shuddered. “But her eyes, they were wrong. They were hungry. And when she moved, it was too smooth. Too quiet. Like a spider lowering itself on a thread.”
She took a shaky breath. “And she smelled like jasmine. Really strong, really expensive jasmine perfume. It was the last thing I smelled before I ran.”
Su Yao went perfectly still.
Long black hair. Perfect skin. Expensive clothes. The description was generic enough.
But the jasmine perfume was specific.
That was Li Xiu’s signature scent. The masking agent for her spirit-bait constitution.
A cold certainty settled in Su Yao’s gut. The killer was wearing Li Xiu’s face. Or worse, had co-opted her very being.
“Did she speak?” Su Yao asked. Her voice was dangerously calm.
The woman shook her head. “No. She just smiled. And then my friend, he just melted. He was smiling too. It was horrible.”
Su Yao turned away from the woman. Her mind was racing. Li Xiu. The cursed heiress. The one who smelled like a banquet to spirits. Was she the killer? Was she being controlled? Possessed?
Or was something using her form as a perfect camouflage?
The pieces were there, but they formed a terrifying new picture. The Luo family’s desperation. The “awakening” they feared. The murders that perfectly mimicked predation.
At the center of it all stood the girl who smelled of jasmine.
Without another word, Su Yao turned and walked away from the chaotic scene.
She needed to find Jian Feng. The fiancé. The one closest to Li Xiu.
He had some explaining to do.
Su Yao found Jian Feng at the Li family’s private hospital, standing guard outside Old Man Li’s room. Li Xiu was with him, as seemed to be the pattern. She looked pale and tired. Her jasmine perfume was a faint, clean scent in the sterile hallway.
“Xiao Ling?” Li Xiu asked, surprised to see her. Jian Feng’s posture immediately stiffened into defensive hostility.
“We need to talk,” Su Yao said. Her voice left no room for argument. “Now. About the murders.”
Jian Feng stepped forward, blocking her path to Li Xiu. “Whatever you think you know, you’re wrong. We have nothing to say to you.”
“Someone is killing people,” Su Yao stated. Her eyes locked on Li Xiu. “Someone who looks like you. Someone who smells like your perfume.”
Li Xiu’s hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes widened in horror. “What? That’s impossible!”
“Is it?” Su Yao’s gaze was relentless. “Where were you last night? During the attack at the docks?”
“Here!” Li Xiu’s voice was sharp with panic and indignation. “I’ve been here all night! Every night since grandfather collapsed! The nurses, the security cameras, Jian Feng, they can all vouch for me! I haven't left this floor in forty-eight hours!”
Jian Feng nodded. His expression was grim but confirming. “It’s true. She hasn't left his side. The staff will verify it. Your theory is wrong, rookie. Dangerously wrong.”
Su Yao looked from Li Xiu’s genuinely terrified face to the confirmation in Jian Feng’s eyes. The alibi was airtight. It couldn't be her.
Which meant it was something else.
Su Yao’s mind, which had been focused on the “who,” now shifted to the “what.”
“If it’s not you,” Su Yao said. Her voice dropped to a low, chilling murmur. “Then something is wearing your face and your scent perfectly.”
The implication hung in the air, far more terrifying than the idea of Li Xiu being a killer. A killer could be caught. A killer had motives.
Something that could perfectly mimic a person down to their spiritual scent was an entirely different level of threat.
Jian Feng’s arrogant defiance finally cracked, replaced by a dawning, cold fear. He looked at Li Xiu, then back at Su Yao. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying your fiancée’s greatest value to your family isn't her bloodline or her fortune,” Su Yao said. Her words were cold and precise. “It’s her unique spiritual signature. A signature that something out there has learned to copy. And it’s using it to hunt.”
She turned to leave. The mystery was solved and simultaneously deepened.
“The ‘who’ is irrelevant now,” she said over her shoulder. “The question is, what is the copycat? And how do you stop a predator you can’t see coming, because it looks exactly like the person standing next to you?”
The walk home from the hospital was a straight line through neon-lit streets, but Su Yao’s mind was anything but linear. A perfect mimic? A predator wearing Li Xiu’s face and scent? The implications were a tangled web. She was picking at the threads.
She turned the corner onto her street, her thoughts churning. Then she stopped.
There, under the flickering glow of a convenience store sign, was Zhang Wei. He was leaning against the wall. A stupid, infatuated smile was on his face. He was holding hands with a girl.
The girl had long black hair. She wore a familiar school uniform. She tossed her head back and laughed at something he said in a light, musical sound that was a perfect imitation of Xiao Ling’s shy giggle.
It was her. Or rather, it was a perfect copy of her.
Su Yao stood frozen in cold, analytical observation. The copy was flawless. The way she stood, the tilt of her head, the cadence of her laugh. It was like looking into a mirror that showed a slightly different reality.
Zhang Wei, utterly oblivious, reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind the copy’s ear. “You’ve just been so different lately, Ling Ling.”
The copy smiled, a sweet, playful expression that Su Yao herself would never make. “People change, Zhang Wei. Maybe you just finally appreciate me.”
Then the copy’s eyes drifted past Zhang Wei’s besotted face. They landed on Su Yao, standing twenty feet away in the shadows.
The copy’s perfect smile sharpened and the playful light in its eyes shifted into something ancient, knowing, and utterly mocking. It was a look that held millennia of malice, all contained within Xiao Ling’s face.
It winked.
Then, in a movement too fast for Zhang Wei to follow, it pulled its hand from his, spun on its heel, and darted down a narrow, dark alley next to the convenience store, vanishing into the blackness.
Zhang Wei stood confused for a second. His hand was still outstretched. “Ling Ling? Hey, where’d you go?”
Then he turned and saw the real Su Yao standing there, watching him with an expression as cold as ice.
He jumped. Guilt and confusion warring on his face. “L-Ling Ling? What are you, how did you?” He looked from her to the empty alleyway and back again. His brain was short-circuiting. “But you were just right here…”
Su Yao fixed her gaze on the dark alley where the thing wearing her face had disappeared.
“It would seem,” she said. Her voice was devoid of all emotion. “That I have a fan.”
Zhang Wei stared, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. His mind was utterly broken by the paradox of two Xiao Lings. “I, I don't, you were just, and then you…”
Su Yao ignored his spluttering. Her eyes were locked on the spot where the mimic had vanished. Then her gaze dropped to the ground.
There, lying on the damp pavement where the thing had stood, was a single, simple black flat shoe.
It had left one of its shoes behind.
She walked forward. Each step was measured and silent. She crouched down. Her senses extended, probing the object. It was just a shoe. A perfect, mundane, mass-produced shoe.
That was what made it terrifying.
It was a calling card. A taunt. I was here. I wore your face. And I left this for you to find.
Zhang Wei finally found his voice, a high-pitched squeak of panic. “What is that? Why did you, she, leave a shoe? Is this some kind of weird game? Ling Ling, what’s going on?!”
Su Yao finally picked up the shoe. It was cool to the touch and utterly ordinary.
She stood and turned to face him, holding the shoe up between them. “It seems your new girlfriend is forgetful,” she said. Her voice was flat.
“This isn't funny!” he yelled. His fear was morphing into frustration. “That was you! It had to be some kind of trick!”
“Was it?” Su Yao asked. Her head tilted. “Did I run away? Did I leave a shoe? Or are you finally realizing you're in over your head?”
She dropped the shoe into her open backpack without another glance.
“Go home, Zhang Wei,” she said. Her tone left no room for argument. “And run if you see me again. Any version of me. It won't be a game next time.”
She turned and walked away, leaving him standing alone under the flickering light, more confused and terrified than he had ever been in his life.
As she walked, her fingers brushed against the cheap canvas of the shoe in her bag, now a mocking message.
The predator wore its stolen face like a trophy. It was collecting them.