The sun began to rise.
Although only a sliver of light pierced through Xin Huohuo’s small room, day had still arrived.
A little black cat and a little white dog slowly crawled out from under her bed.
The little white dog wobbled unsteadily and even let out a yawn, looking so unsteady it could barely stand.
It was almost painfully cute.
But then, one person and two animals—six eyes in total—met each other’s gaze.
Xin Huohuo, however, keenly recognized a familiar look on those two fluffy faces and in their eyes.
Two gods inhabiting the bodies of two adorable pets…
The dissonance was jarring…
‘This means my ordinary but peaceful personal life is completely ruined from this moment on, right?’
At this thought, an irrepressible annoyance welled up inside her.
She smiled sweetly at the two cute creatures, but her words were laced with malice.
“Little Seven, Little Eight, time for breakfast!
But today, it’s only dog food and cat food.
If you don’t eat, you starve!”
‘To hell with Lord Seven and Lord Eight.
If they want to drag me into their games, they’ll have to be Little Seven and Little Eight!’
At least while they were stuck in the bodies of a cat and a dog, unable to resist their “master,” she was going to enjoy her moment of power.
MEOW!
WOOF!
Objections overruled!
‘So they can’t even speak human during the day!
This is perfect!’
Xin Huohuo was delighted.
She deliberately picked up her “god-level pets” and gave each a loud, smacking kiss.
‘So what if I’m messing with gods?
What are they going to do about it?
If they have the guts, they can transform and hit me right now.’
“She’s lost her mind.
Was the shock too much for her?” Bai Qi asked sympathetically.
“Forgive her,” Mr.
Hei said coolly, feeling particularly magnanimous.
Carrying this small, twisted, yet guilt-ridden sense of psychological victory, Xin Huohuo first went to deliver her milk route.
Afterward, she ultimately didn’t dare to feed Lord Seven and Lord Eight dog and cat food.
Instead, she resigned herself to her fate and cooked some meat congee.
“No salt or other seasonings,” she explained meticulously, a hint of malice in her tone.
“After all, your current bodies are very fragile.
Salt can irritate their stomach lining and cause gastrointestinal distress, which leads to sticky poop.
Then I’d have to wash your butts, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.”
“If my body wasn’t so inconvenient, I’d beat her up!” If it were possible, a cross-shaped vein would have certainly popped on the little white dog’s forehead.
“For once, I agree with you,” the little black cat grumbled, grinding its teeth.
But circumstances were stronger than gods.
Having lost ninety percent of their Mana, and with their weapons still missing even though they’d found their respective Soul Hooking Plates, they were helpless little animals during the day.
They could only endure it for now, keep a tally of her offenses, and wait until things returned to normal to have a good “talk” with this she-devil.
In truth, Xin Huohuo didn’t dare to go too far either.
She was just lashing out after being bullied so much.
But she hadn’t forgotten what she’d promised to do.
After breakfast, she rushed over to that high-rise building.
She had already prepared an excuse: she claimed to be an employee from the fast-food place, here to conduct a customer satisfaction follow-up.
This was plausible since she had indeed delivered food there before, and the takeout container was still sitting in front of apartment 1207.
After several days in this weather, it had already started to rot and stink.
“Does someone live here alone?
The person who ordered takeout before sounded like an old man,” she said, having brought a property manager over.
“But I just called a dozen times, and no one answered.
I think there’s a strange smell coming from inside.
I hope nothing’s happened…
you know what I mean.”
The property manager had only come because she’d practically dragged him here, but now, hearing her words, he also sensed that something was wrong.
The faint, nauseating odor wafting through the relatively narrow and enclosed hallway was undeniable.
The property management office had actually cooperated with the local police station to conduct a census of the residents in the complex.
Logically, elderly people living alone should receive special attention from the Civil Affairs Department, the local police, and property management.
But who really cared?
He rushed to the property management office to check the records and confirmed that apartment 1207 in this building was occupied by a sixty-five-year-old man living alone.
When they asked the neighbors, they all said it had been a while since they’d last seen him.
Calls to his home phone went unanswered.
In the end, they had no choice but to call the police.
When the police broke down the door, the stench inside was like a chemical attack.
The scene that greeted them couldn’t be described by the word “tragic” alone.
The old man had been dead for several days; the exact time of death would have to be determined by the coroner.
He was sprawled on the floor, having seemingly tried to crawl forward.
His body was surrounded by dried excrement, clearly his own, which he had been lying in.
The high-end wood flooring was covered in bloody scratch marks made by his own fingernails, proof of his desperate struggle before death.
No one deserved to die so cruelly.
No innocent person should have to die in such despair.
What was bizarre was that, despite the weather in the middle of the seventh lunar month, the body hadn’t decomposed.
It had become mummified.
In his hand, he clutched a promotional flyer from a well-known fast-food chain.
Of course, the police wouldn’t disclose phenomena that defied the laws of natural science.
Even so, the old man’s death caused quite a stir.
If the relevant authorities had been a little more responsible, if his children had called every now and then, they might not have been able to prevent his death, but at least it wouldn’t have been so miserable.
“What a tragedy,” sighed everyone who knew the old man, shaking their heads.
But what was done could not be undone.
In every corner of the world, at every second of every day, cruel things were happening.
No one could remain untouched; all one could do was their best.
“Look, his eyes have changed.” That evening, Bai Qi and Xin Huohuo opened her phone’s photo album and looked at the old man’s picture inside the white Soul Hooking Plate.
When they collected his soul last night, the photo had shown a pair of ghost eyes—the kind that are all white with just a tiny black dot for a pupil.
They were so creepy you could barely look at them.
Now, the eyes in the photo were normal human eyes, even holding a serene smile.
“Does this mean his resentment has dissipated?” Xin Huohuo asked.
Bai Qi nodded.
“Dying of starvation is painful, but it’s not considered an unnatural death, so it doesn’t create the most malevolent kind of ghost.
His resentment was just about his body being abandoned, coupled with missing his children.
Now that his death has been discovered and the police have notified his family, he’ll see his loved ones soon.
You could say his wish has been granted.”
After a long silence, Xin Huohuo asked, “I’ve heard that hungry ghosts have it rough.
They can never feel full, and when they finally get something to eat, fire shoots out of their throats so they can’t swallow.
Can you bend the rules a little?
Don’t let him suffer like that, please?
He’s already been through enough.”
“You really need to brush up on your Underworld knowledge,” Bai Qi said, patting Xin Huohuo on the head.
“A ghost of someone who starved to death is different from a ghost on the Hungry Ghost Path.
Those on the Hungry Ghost Path are there as punishment for evil deeds they committed in life.
The first ghost you helped collect was just an ordinary person who happened to starve to death.”
“Don’t forget,” Mr.
Hei interjected from the side, “the Yellow Springs Road has vanished.
For now, he has to remain dormant in your phone; he can’t go to the Underworld.
Whether he will suffer, wait, or be reincarnated…
it’s too early to say.”
“So, what’s the next step?” Xin Huohuo and Bai Qi asked in unison.
Mr.
Hei resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“Find more dead people.”