It took a conscious effort to stop seeing the worn linoleum floor as moss-slicked flagstones and the hum of the refrigerator as the groan of an ancient tunnel.
The familiar, slightly shabby apartment was a stark contrast to the dripping stone and death Su Yao had just left behind. She closed the door softly, the lock clicking into place with a sound of finality.
Her aunt was waiting up, dozing in an armchair with a knitting project slumped in her lap. She jolted awake at the sound.
“A-Ling! You're back so late! I was getting worried!” Her eyes, still blurry with sleep, scanned Su Yao for any sign of distress. “Everything alright? You look tired.”
Su Yao looked pristine. The carnage in the aqueducts might as well have happened on another planet.
“Everything is fine, Auntie,” Su Yao said. Her voice was the picture of calm. “There was just some garbage that needed taking out. It took a bit longer than expected.”
“Garbage?” her aunt repeated, confused. “At this hour?”
“Metaphorical garbage,” Su Yao clarified, walking toward the kitchen to pour a glass of water. “The spiritual kind. It’s been disposed of. Permanently.”
She took a sip of water. Her aunt stared at her. The strange phrasing and her niece’s unnerving composure finally cut through her sleepiness.
“A-Ling, your job, it’s not too dangerous, is it?” she asked. Her voice was laced with real worry. “I know the money is good, but if it’s putting you in harm’s way—”
“It’s no more dangerous than taking out the actual trash,” Su Yao interrupted, finishing her water. “The bags sometimes leak. It’s unpleasant, but not difficult.” She placed the glass in the sink. “The situation has been handled. You have nothing to worry about.”
She gave her aunt a small, reassuring smile that barely quite reach her eyes. “Get some rest.”
Before her aunt could ask any more questions, Su Yao retreated to her room. She closed the door and leaned against it. The silence of the small space enveloped her.
Her gaze fell on her schoolbag. The jade vial of pills rested inside. A slight, almost imperceptible smirk touched her lips.
Now, she thought, to see if my literary-minded Key to the apocalypse can handle a little supplemental nutrition.
The world was safe from a fictional demon queen. Her friends were about to get an involuntary power-up. She had a perfectly valid reason to skip tomorrow’s calculus review.
All in all, a productive night’s work.
The next day at school, the air was thick with the mundane buzz of weekend plans. For Su Yao, however, the atmosphere had shifted. Her senses, honed over millennia, picked up on the subtle change immediately.
It was Mei.
She stood by her locker, calmly arranging her books. Her movements were economical, precise. When she turned to greet Su Yao, her smile was small, serene, and barely crinkle the corners of her eyes.
“Ling Ling,” Mei said. Her voice was several degrees cooler, her tone measured and even.
“Mei,” Su Yao replied. Her own voice was neutral. Her ancient eyes scanned her friend. The energetic, scattered aura that usually surrounded Mei was gone, replaced by a strange, deep stillness. It was the calm of a placid lake that hid unfathomable depths.
“You seem different,” Su Yao stated. It was a simple observation laced with probing intent.
“Do I?” Mei asked, closing her locker with a soft, definitive click. “I feel clear. Well-rested. As if I've been sleeping for a very long time and have just finally woken up.”
She looked at Su Yao, and for a fleeting second, her gaze seemed to hold an intelligence that was far older than her eighteen years. It was the look of someone who had just remembered something very important.
“Your web novel,” Su Yao pressed, watching her closely. “Chronicles of the Silent Scorch. Any new inspiration?”
A faint, knowing smile touched Mei’s lips, an expression utterly foreign on her usually open face. “Inspiration comes from strange places,” she said cryptically. “Sometimes, it feels less like making things up, and more like remembering.”
She shouldered her bag. Her movements were fluid and unnervingly graceful. “Don't worry about me, Ling Ling. I've never felt better.”
She walked away. Her steps were sure and silent, leaving Su Yao standing in the hallway.
Su Yao watched her go, a cold, thoughtful frown on her face. The pill had worked. Mei was undoubtedly stronger, her spirit fortified. But the cost...
She had wanted her friend to be less of a burden. It seemed she had succeeded beyond her expectations.
The buzz of Su Yao’s phone was an unwelcome intrusion into her analysis of the new, unsettlingly calm Mei. It was Director Luo. His voice was a familiar screech of panic.
“Xiao Ling! Emergency! It’s Jian Feng! He’s down! It’s food poisoning again, but worse! He’s been hospitalized this time! We need you to—!”
Su Yao ended the call without a word. Food poisoning. Again. The excuse was as transparent as glass. He’d used it to skip the Jiang Mansion exorcism, leaving her to handle the Category Five threat alone while he wined and dined his fiancée.
A cold smirk touched her lips. Let him rot, she thought, turning her attention back to Mei’s retreating, too-calm figure. His cowardice is finally catching up to him in a conveniently gastrointestinal fashion.
The director’s desperation was a persistent itch. With a sigh of annoyance at the sheer incompetence surrounding her, she changed direction and headed for the hospital. If only to confirm her suspicions and relish the sight of his suffering.
She found his private room. The smell hit her first: the lingering, cloying aroma of expensive jasmine perfume undercut by something foul, something spiritually rancid.
Jian Feng was indeed in the bed, pale and connected to an IV, but he was conscious. His eyes, usually full of arrogant disdain, were wide with a genuine, gut-wrenching terror.
Director Luo was wringing his hands at the foot of the bed. “Xiao Ling! You’re here! The doctors say it’s a severe toxic reaction, but they can’t identify the poison! It must be a spiritual venom! A targeted attack by our enemies!”
Su Yao ignored him. Her eyes were on a small, elegant thermos on the bedside table. The source of the foul spiritual odor. She picked it up and unscrewed the lid. The smell that wafted out was a physical blow. It was a concoction that smelled like spoiled milk and metaphysical rot.
“What is this?” Su Yao asked. Her voice was flat.
Jian Feng flinched. “It’s nothing.”
“That’s the source!” Director Luo cried. “The poison! We must have it analyzed!”
“It’s soup,” a soft, guilty voice said from the doorway.
Li Xiu stood there. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. She wrung her hands. “I, I made it for him. To help him feel better. He said he isn’t feeling well, so I thought, a homemade remedy…”
Su Yao looked from the thermos, to Jian Feng’s terrified face, to Li Xiu’s desperate, innocent one. The pieces clicked together with devastating, hilarious clarity.
Li Xiu’s cooking caused this.
Su Yao’s enhanced senses dissected the aroma. The ingredients were all top-tier, spiritually infused herbs and meats. But they had been combined with a catastrophic lack of understanding. Their energies clashed and curdled into a potent, spiritually toxic sludge. It was a culinary abomination that would liquefy the guts of a lesser cultivator.
Jian Feng, for all his posturing, was a lesser cultivator.
“You? You ate it?” Su Yao asked him. A note of genuine, incredulous amazement was in her voice.
Jian Feng looked away. His ears turned red with a mixture of shame and nausea. “She’s my fiancée,” he muttered, as if that explained willfully consuming a biological weapon. “I couldn’t say no.”
A sound escaped Su Yao’s throat. It was a short, sharp exhale of pure, unadulterated awe at the sheer stupidity on display.
She looked at Li Xiu. “Your culinary arts are formidable.”
Li Xiu burst into fresh tears. “I just wanted to help!”
Director Luo stared. His mouth was agape. His doomsday scenario of ancient enemies and spiritual assassins crumbled into the farcical reality of a failed love soup. “It was the soup? All along?”
Su Yao placed the thermos lid back on, containing the horrific aroma. “The only demon at work here is a complete lack of kitchen competence.”
She looked at Jian Feng, who was now groaning and clutching his stomach. “His constitution is weak. His judgment is weaker. He’ll live. The memory of this humiliation will probably hurt more than the intestinal damage.”
Turning away, she walked out of the room, leaving the director sputtering and Li Xiu sobbing over her unconscious fiancé.
The great Jian Feng, star exorcist, was brought low by his fiancée’s lethal attempt at comfort food instead of a mighty demon.
It was, Su Yao decided, the most poetic justice she had witnessed in centuries. And a valuable lesson: never underestimate a woman who could unintentionally weaponize broth.
Su Yao paused at the doorway, turning back to face the stunned Director Luo. The sobs and groans from the hospital bed were a fitting backdrop.
“The cult that was agitating the spirits has been dismantled,” she announced. Her voice cut through the drama. “Permanently. You can consider that particular problem resolved.”
Director Luo’s eyes widened, shifting from the soup thermos to her face. “Resolved? But how? When?”
“The details are unimportant. The result is what matters.” Su Yao leaned against the doorframe. “However, their elimination creates a new problem for your show. With the main instigators gone, the more troublesome spirits will lose their nerve. They’ll go to ground and hide. Your supply of dramatic, film-worthy hauntings is about to dry up.”
She let the implication hang in the air.
“What, what do we do?” Director Luo asked. His producer instincts kicked in despite the chaos.
Su Yao’s gaze slid past him to Li Xiu, who was still sniffling by Jian Feng’s bedside. “We use a better lure.”
Li Xiu looked up, confused.
“Her,” Su Yao said, pointing. “Li Xiu. Her unique constitution is a beacon. We can have the spirits come to her. Set up cameras. Film the results.”
Jian Feng, despite his agony, pushed himself up on his elbows. “NO!” he croaked. His face was pale. “Absolutely not! I forbid it! It’s too dangerous! She’s not a bait!”
Su Yao gave him a look of pure, unimpressed disdain. “Your ability to ‘forbid’ anything is currently compromised by your fiancée’s soup. And your assessment of danger is, as ever, flawed.”
She turned to Li Xiu. “You won’t be in any real danger. I will be there. The spirits will be drawn to you, but they will be handled before they can so much as touch you. You will be perfectly safe. And you’ll be helping to protect the city, in a way.”
Li Xiu stared. Her tears were drying. The proposal was insane. The way Xiao Ling said it with such absolute, cold certainty, however, made it sound almost reasonable. After the humiliation of the soup, the idea of being useful, of being a hero instead of a liability, was dangerously appealing.
“I,” Li Xiu began, her voice small. “I could do that?”
“You will do it,” Su Yao corrected with finality. “It is the most logical solution.”
“Yan’er, don’t listen to her!” Jian Feng pleaded.
Director Luo’s eyes were already gleaming with the light of skyrocketing ratings. “A human bait show, ‘Spirit Magnet’, the public would eat it up! Xiao Ling, you’re a genius!”
“I am aware,” Su Yao said. She looked at Jian Feng’s frantic, helpless expression. “Rest well, Senior Jian. Focus on your recovery. We’ll take care of the real work.”
Su Yao guided a still-hesitant Li Xiu out of the hospital room, away from Jian Feng’s weak protests and Director Luo’s starry-eyed scheming. In the relative quiet of the hallway, she faced the heiress.
“The plan requires you to be resilient,” Su Yao stated. Her tone was matter-of-fact. “A flickering candle attracts moths, but a steady flame can control them.”
She produced the small jade vial, removing one of the two remaining pulsating pearl-like pills. It glowed with a soft, captured light. “This is a spiritual tonic. It will fortify your essence, sharpen your senses. It will make you less fragile.”
Li Xiu stared at the pill. Her eyes were wide. “What is it? Where did you get it?”
“Consider it an investment in the show’s success and your safety,” Su Yao deflected. Wong Lei is durable enough without it. You are the one walking into the spirit’s den. “Take it.”
Driven by a mix of fear, a desire to prove herself, and the compelling force of Su Yao’s will, Li Xiu took the pill and swallowed it with a gulp.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, her eyes fluttered shut. She swayed on her feet, and Su Yao caught her before she could collapse, guiding her gently to a nearby waiting room chair.
Li Xiu fell into a deep, instantaneous sleep. Her breathing became perfectly even. Her features were utterly serene. The faint lines of worry and fear vanished from her face. She seemed to be carved from living jade. Her complexion was flawless. Her aura radiated a quiet stillness.
She looked less like a modern heiress and more like a slumbering princess from a fairy tale, waiting for a kiss to awaken her.
Su Yao observed dispassionately. The transformation was proceeding as expected. The pill was refining her, burning away the mortal dross and accentuating her inherent spiritual qualities.
About an hour later, Li Xiu’s eyelids fluttered open.
The change was immediate and striking. Her eyes, once just pretty, now held a deep, luminous clarity. She sat up with a natural, innate grace she had never possessed before.
She looked at her hands, then at Su Yao. Her expression was one of calm wonder. “I feel different. Lighter. Clearer.” Her voice was the same, but it carried a new, melodic resonance.
“Good,” Su Yao said. “The effect is satisfactory.”
Just then, a nurse pushing a medication cart passed by. She did a double-take, staring at Li Xiu. “Oh! Miss, are you an actress? You look so radiant!”
Li Xiu offered a small, polite smile that made the nurse blush and hurry away, flustered.
Su Yao assessed her work. The pill had worked perfectly. Li Xiu was now a far more potent lure. Her spiritual “scent” would be cleaner, brighter, impossible for any hungry spirit to resist. She carried herself with a poise that would read brilliantly on camera.
“Come,” Su Yao said, turning to leave. “We have a new show to prepare for. The spirits are waiting.”
The location was a stroke of cynical genius. Instead of a soundstage, Director Luo had secured an entire unused wing of the city hospital. It was a place already saturated with the residual energy of death and suffering, the perfect amplifier for Li Xiu’s newly refined spiritual beacon.
Cameras were mounted on silent rigs. Microphones hovered like mechanical bats. The Luo family crew, now viewing Su Yao with reverence, moved with hushed efficiency.
Li Xiu sat serenely in the center of a dusty hospital room. Her enhanced aura was a subtle, irresistible perfume, wafting through the spiritual currents of the building.
“Places! We're live in five!” Director Luo whispered into his headset. His voice was trembling with excitement.
Su Yao stood just outside the camera’s frame, a silent specter. Jian Feng, discharged against medical advice and leaning heavily on a cane, watched from a monitoring screen in the makeshift control van. His face was a mask of impotent fury and fear.
The filming began.
Nothing happened for the first few minutes. Then, the temperature in the room dropped sharply. Frost patterns bloomed on the windowpane. A faint, mournful weeping echoed from the hallway.
A wispy, skeletal spirit, drawn by the promise of Li Xiu’s pure essence, drifted through the wall. It reached for her with translucent claws.
Li Xiu, following Su Yao’s instructions, looked at the spirit. Her expression was one of pitying grace.
From off-camera, Su Yao’s voice cut through the chill, calm and clear. “Your suffering is acknowledged. Your time here is over.”
She raised a hand from the shadows. A thread of golden light, almost too thin to see, shot out and touched the spirit. It dissolved into a shower of peaceful, glowing motes that faded away.
In the control van, the crew gasped. “Incredible! The compassion! The power!” Director Luo choked out.
Another spirit, this one a raging poltergeist made of tangled hospital sheets and surgical tools, stormed the room. Li Xiu remained seated, a perfect picture of tranquil courage.
Su Yao emerged from the shadows just enough for the camera to catch her profile. She pointed a single finger. The chaotic mass of energy froze, then unraveled neatly. The sheets fell harmlessly to the floor. The tools clattered dead.
“Cut! Perfect! The ratings! The RATINGS!” Director Luo was practically weeping with joy.
For an hour, it continued. Spirits of all kinds were drawn to Li Xiu’s light like moths. One by one, Su Yao dispatched them with an efficiency that was both breathtaking and chilling. It was a spiritual cleansing, a pest control operation filmed for prime-time television.
The final shot was of Li Xiu, still sitting perfectly composed in the now-warm, quiet room. A single tear of compassion (or excellent acting) traced a path down her cheek. Su Yao stood beside her, a hand gently on her shoulder, the protective guardian.
“AND WE’RE OUT! That’s a wrap! We have gold! Pure gold!” Director Luo screamed.
As the crew erupted in celebration, Su Yao helped Li Xiu to her feet.
“You performed adequately,” Su Yao said.
Li Xiu looked at her. The luminous clarity in her eyes was now mixed with a dawning understanding of the terrifying world she was now a central part of. “They were really there, weren't they?”
“Obviously,” Su Yao replied. She glanced toward the control van, where Jian Feng was staring at the screen. His face was pale. He had seen it all. His fiancée, the bait. His rival, the unstoppable executioner.
Su Yao gave him a slow smile through the glass.
The episode was in the can, and the Luo family’s future was secure. Su Yao had successfully turned a cursed heiress into a television star and a spiritual lightning rod. It was, she reflected, a productive day’s work.