All beings suffer in the Karmic Fire; this is the evil fruit you have sown.
“Starting from this moment, in six hundred days, the molten lava of the Abyss will erupt and rage. The evil spirits within the Karmic Fire will descend upon the mortal realm. When the Bewildering Miasma rises, and the Flower of Evil from the Sea of Blood crawls into every corner of the city, when innocent humans are stained with blood and corpses litter the streets, the mortal world will fall into a realm more cruel than Purgatory. And the one who sowed all these evil fruits is you.”
“—Ying Tao Tao.”
“The countdown has already begun. Do everything in your power to make amends. If you cannot prevent the disaster from occurring, then your fate will be a thousand times more miserable than death.”
“Remember, this is no joke.”
“Do everything you can.”
…
Before waking up, a cold, mechanical voice, indistinguishable as male or female, echoed in Tao Tao’s mind, buzzing and making her dizzy.
Tao Tao thought it was just a dream. She was about to pat her head to clear her thoughts when she raised her hand and bumped into a solid wall.
No, it wasn’t a wall.
Waking from unconsciousness, she found herself trapped in an extremely narrow, enclosed space.
The damp smell of soil permeated the air. Clearly, she was underground, and what confined her was a coffin. What she had bumped into earlier was the coffin lid above her head.
The lid was tightly nailed shut on all sides. She pushed against it, but it didn’t budge.
There was a light source inside the coffin.
Stuck to the coffin lid directly above her face was a white Luminous Talisman, from which the light emanated.
This was one of the simplest Talismanic Arts. In the past, when there were no electric lights, Spirit Masters occasionally used it as a lighting tool. Depending on the Spiritual Power of the talisman’s creator, the illumination time varied, but it typically lasted no more than a minute or two.
Yet the talisman before her had been glowing for far longer than that. Tao Tao stared at it.
Five minutes passed, and the light remained.
Ten minutes passed, and it still hadn’t extinguished.
Before the talisman faded, Tao Tao’s patience had already worn thin. Finding the light too harsh, she was about to tear it off and crumple it when, under the glow, she noticed five small characters written in brushstrokes at the bottom of the talisman: “Ying Tao Tao, die.”
Although the writer had used proper regular script, Tao Tao could sense the person’s hatred for her through these simple words.
—Overwhelming, bone-piercing, a hatred so intense it wished to skin her alive, tear her tendons, devour her flesh, and drink her blood.
This person not only wanted her dead but also wanted her to know that somewhere in the world, in a place unknown to others, someone silently hated her with an intensity that would not fade even after her death. Even if she might never see it, that person insisted on leaving such a mark.
Tao Tao wasn’t curious about who they were or why they had buried her alive. At this moment, the air inside the coffin was growing thin—she was about to die.
When facing death, many things that seemed overwhelmingly important in life no longer mattered.
Tao Tao’s Fate Pattern was peculiar; she was destined not to live past eighteen.
From a very young age, she had prepared herself for death’s arrival, so she was exceptionally calm now, closing her eyes peacefully.
A few minutes later, she suddenly realized something and snapped her eyes open. “Wait.”
After a moment of thought, she reached out and knocked on the thick coffin board beneath her. “Hey!”
She called out hesitantly, “Husband, are you there? I’m about to die. Aren’t you coming to save me? Do you want to be a widower later?”
As soon as the words left her mouth, sand began leaking from the four corners of the coffin, and a chilling sound echoed from above.
Crack, crack…
It sounded like a demon gnawing through wooden planks with sharp teeth.
—After Tao Tao finished speaking, something bit into the coffin lid above her head.
One month later.
Eleven o’clock at night.
Driving a taxi was tough work, especially the night shift. Not only did you have to endure the occupational hazards of backaches and sore buttocks, but you also had to fight off drowsiness and stay alert to pick up passengers. The driver had already downed a bottle of Red Bull before heading out, but it didn’t help much—his eyelids were still heavy and drooping.
He saw someone waving ahead, so he pulled over to the side of the road.
The passenger was a girl, dressed rather oddly. Her long, jet-black hair was disheveled, and she wore black three-quarter-length pants and a linen top made from a modified Taoist robe. Across her chest, she carried a cloth crossbody bag, and on her back, she carried a long wooden sword.
Such attire in the middle of the night was truly unsettling, and the driver’s drowsiness vanished instantly.
The girl walked to the rear passenger door, raised her left hand, and stared blankly at the watch on her wrist.
The driver waited for half a minute, but she still hadn’t opened the door. He rolled down the window and called out, “Are you getting in or not?”
The girl stared at her watch for a few more seconds, then reached for the door handle and pulled it forcefully. The door opened, and she bent down to get inside.
“Where to?” the driver asked, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
“Tao Tao, tell him where you want to go.”
A young boy’s voice came from inside the two-person cabin. The driver was startled at first, then realized the voice was coming from the girl’s watch.
He looked in the rearview mirror—it was a blue Xiaotiancai smartwatch. The girl was using it to make a video call with someone on the other end.
She said, “Chengho Medical College.”
The driver started the car and headed toward the medical college in the suburbs.
The voice on the phone spoke again: “Ask him if he uses the meter.”
The girl asked, “Do you use the meter?”
The driver pointed to the meter on the dashboard. “Of course, this is a licensed taxi.”
The girl said nothing more. The boy on the other end of the call said, “Pull the handle on the door to open it. For safety at night, try to sit in the back seat. A red light means the taxi already has a passenger and can’t be hailed. A green light means it’s available. After getting in, tell the driver where you want to go. Make sure he uses the meter, and pay only after you arrive. Got it?”
“Pretty much.”
“Try it yourself next time. The rules and order in the city aren’t hard to understand. If you don’t know how to do something, just watch the people around you. Usually, you won’t go wrong.”
The conversation was rather bizarre. In modern society, who didn’t know how to open a car door or hail a taxi? The driver couldn’t help but glance at the girl in the rearview mirror again.
She looked about seventeen or eighteen, with delicate and refined features, but there was a coldness in her expression that made her seem unapproachable.
Tao Tao took the Peachwood Sword from her back and laid it across her lap. She said to the person on the other end of the call, “I’m hanging up. I’ll call you another day.”
The boy said, “Wait, you still haven’t told me why you’re going to Chengho Medical College alone so late at night. You’re a girl—going out alone late at night is dangerous. Don’t you know that?”
Tao Tao replied impatiently, “Mind your own business.”
Silence fell on the other end. No one spoke for a long time. Tao Tao glanced at the watch screen.
The boy was only fourteen years old, with fair skin and a face caught between youth and childhood—a uniquely youthful handsomeness.
His hair was a beautiful chestnut brown, falling softly over his temples. His pale blue eyes were as captivating as a vast azure sea. Though his nose bridge hadn’t fully developed yet, one could still see the perfect traces carved by the Creator’s divine hand. As he grew older, he was sure to become a handsome man who could captivate countless hearts.
His beautiful brows furrowed. “Tao Tao, you’re using me.”
Tao Tao felt a headache coming on. “Don’t talk nonsense.”
“I was already in bed resting when Xin, the bodyguard, said you called. I ran barefoot to the study to answer the phone without even putting on shoes. I thought you missed me, but you just asked me how to take a taxi, and after that, you tossed me aside like garbage.” The boy said with certainty, “You just came down from the mountain and don’t know anyone else, so you had to turn to me for help. How can you say you’re not using me?”
Tao Tao’s headache grew worse, and she surrendered helplessly. “I’m just going to Chenghe Medical College to fulfill my master’s last wish.”
Only then did the boy’s brows relax. “Is it dangerous?”
Tao Tao thought for a moment. “Probably not.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No,” Tao Tao said. “It’s late. You should go to sleep. Don’t you have school tomorrow?”
The boy fell silent but didn’t hang up.
By now, the taxi had left the main city area, and there were no pedestrians on the road for a long time.
On either side of the provincial highway were desolate stretches of tall grass. Not far ahead was a wide lake, and above it, an overpass where a black car was slowly driving across the bridge.
Tao Tao glanced over unintentionally, but her gaze seemed glued to the bridge as if by strong adhesive, unmoving.
She saw a dripping black shadow clinging to the bridge pier, crawling toward the road surface. With each step it took, a dark, watery stain was left behind in its path.
As the black car reached the center of the bridge, she suddenly spoke. “He’s going to die.”
The boy asked, “Who?”
Tao Tao withdrew her gaze. “The person in that car.”
Her tone was indifferent, as calm as if she were discussing the weather turning rainy. In the quiet of the night, it sent shivers down the driver’s spine.
He was about to tell the girl in the back seat not to scare people in the middle of the night when an unexpected turn of events suddenly occurred.
On the overpass not far away, the car that had been driving steadily suddenly lost control and careened madly toward the guardrail at the edge of the bridge.
The driver slammed on the brakes and craned his neck to look. He saw the car crash through the guardrail and plunge directly into the lake below the bridge.
After a loud “bang,” a huge splash erupted from the lake’s surface.
The driver was frozen in his seat, terrified. He turned around and stared at Tao Tao in horror. “You… you… you…”
“I didn’t make the car fall,” Tao Tao’s voice showed no trace of emotion, but it was enough to make every hair on his body stand on end. “A Water Ghost was clinging to the bridge. It grabbed the car’s wheels.”
A whirlpool formed in the center of the lake, and the car slowly sank beneath the surface.
Mist began to spread across the water’s surface, starting as faint, wispy tendrils, not particularly thick. But within minutes, a dense fog filled the air, gradually spreading onto the road until it was almost impossible to see ahead.
The driver trembled all over. He unbuckled his seatbelt, got out of the car, lit a cigarette, and tried to call 110. But the call wouldn’t go through. He checked his phone—there was no signal. Shencheng was a major city; even in the suburbs, such a situation shouldn’t occur. The only possible explanation was that some inexplicable force was blocking the signal here.
The car roof had not yet fully submerged underwater, and he hesitated whether to dive in to rescue the person.
Through the gap in the car window, Tao Tao looked at him: “A substitute pulled down by a Water Ghost cannot be saved so easily, unless you’re willing to exchange your own life.”
“What about you? Can’t you save them either?”
Tao Tao shook her head: “It’s already too late. Let’s go, I’m in a hurry.”
But the driver was too terrified to take her any further. Hearing his request for her to get out of the car, Tao Tao didn’t move. She asked, “Are you sure you want me to leave?”
Her gaze fell into the heavy fog not far away: “When a Water Ghost feeds, mist spreads across the water’s surface. This fog is dangerous. Driving alone through the heart of such thick mist is not a wise decision.”
“Stop trying to scare me…” The driver’s voice trembled. “There’s no such thing as ghosts in this world. Even if there were, Water Ghosts live in the water. I’m driving on the road; I won’t get in their way…”
“That car was driving on the bridge—how did it get in their way?” The girl’s smile was faint at the corners of her lips. “The mortal realm hasn’t been peaceful lately. Walking alone at night is dangerous. Believe it or not, it’s up to you.”
The cigarette in the driver’s hand had burned down to the filter, nearly scorching his fingers.
Though frightened, he vaguely sensed the girl was telling the truth. Gritting his teeth, he returned to the car.
The video call on the watch had disconnected at some point. Tao Tao turned off the screen, leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes to rest.
Inside a luxurious estate.
The call had abruptly ended. The boy redialed, but no one answered on the other end. He set down his phone: “Investigate.”
The bodyguard returned just a few minutes later: “The tracking system on the young mistress’s watch has malfunctioned. We cannot locate her current position.”
The boy picked up the milk glass on the table and finished the milk inside. When he stood up, he only reached the bodyguard’s chest, looking entirely like a child.
“Master…” the bodyguard began.
The boy wiped the milk residue from his lips and said calmly, “Take a team and go to Shencheng to find her.”
Tao Tao had unknowingly fallen asleep, but her rest was uneasy. She sank into a deep dream.
The dream was a crimson sea. She floated on the surface, her limbs shackled by chains formed from the waves. In the eerie depths below, countless skeletal hands emerged from the foul-smelling mud, slowly creeping toward her.
They shrieked hideously:
“Ying Tao Tao, the mortal realm was destroyed because of you. It’s all your fault.”
“The Sea of Blood ravaged the world, and all living beings suffered in the Karmic Fire. This is the evil fruit you sowed.”
“Come, the Ten-Directions Purgatory, the Asura Sea—that is your true destination. Come down and join me.”
Pain, tearing, suffocation—the Evil Qi churning in the Sea of Blood engulfed her, dragging her into the thick, bloody waters. Suddenly, black mist rose all around, swallowing her like the maw of an Abyss. Tao Tao tried to struggle, but the Sea of Blood held her body fast, rendering her immobile.
She murmured in agony, “No, I didn’t do anything…”
Just as she was on the brink of despair, a beam of red light pierced through the black mist and enveloped her. It coiled around her curled fingertips, lifting her and carrying her toward the surface.
Within the red light was an Evil Qi that made her hair stand on end. Every inch of her skin, every strand of hair, even every nerve ending was immersed in a terrifying aura she had never encountered before.
—Frighteningly powerful.
If the black mist had only brought despair, then under the pressure of this aura, she could barely even breathe.
Tao Tao broke through the surface of the sea, and before her eyes, blood-red waves surged to the heavens.
The crimson light enveloping her dissipated, revealing a hooded figure clad in black robes.
He held a scythe, parting the waves of blood as he approached, each step leaving bloody footprints on the ground.
As he drew closer, Tao Tao realized his robes were not black but stained with years of blood, so deep a red it verged on blackness.
The man halted before Tao Tao, raising his scythe as a burst of red light erupted.
At the same moment, a cold hand gently covered Tao Tao’s eyes, shielding her from the blinding glare.
When her vision cleared, she saw that the dark mist that had shrouded her had now gathered at the man’s fingertips.
He idly kneaded the struggling mist into a ball, then, under Tao Tao’s gaze, lifted his head slightly.
Beneath the hood, his face was pale and bloodless, his brows like mountain peaks, his eyes like deep pools. A crimson mole at the corner of his brow resembled the last rays of a setting sun, akin to a still, lifeless pond that could, with the faintest ripple, stir a charm capable of bewitching all who beheld it.
Tao Tao asked, “Who are you?”
The man smiled, and Tao Tao froze.
Had flower seeds been scattered at their feet in that moment, that smile alone could have made the churning Sea of Blood bloom with countless red spider lilies for miles around.
He did not answer. Instead, he brought the dark mist at his fingertips to his lips.
With tenderness in his eyes and at the corners of his brow, he lifted his hand, smiled softly, and parted his thin lips. Every movement was deliberate, as if performing the most elegant and composed act in the world.
—Right before Tao Tao’s eyes, he swallowed the malevolent dark mist.