Downstairs of the inpatient building.
After leaving, the staff from the Charity Orphanage gradually slowed her steps. She turned back to glance at a certain ward upstairs, hesitation creeping onto her face.
The social worker beside her asked, “Ms. Zhu, what’s wrong?”
Ms. Zhu frowned. “That investigator just now—she was alone, right?”
“Yes.” Wasn’t that obvious?
“But I suddenly remembered—doesn’t the Investigation Division usually operate with at least two people? Like how the Public Security Bureau sends officers out in pairs?”
The two exchanged looks. An uneasy thought flashed through both their minds.
The social worker said, “There’s still a social worker outside the ward. It should be fine, right?”
Ms. Zhu shook her head. “I’m still not at ease. I’ll go back and check.”
“Then let’s go together.”
They hurried upstairs and saw from a distance that the young social worker was still sitting outside the ward. When she noticed them returning, she stood up in surprise. “What’s wrong? Did you forget something?”
Ms. Zhu looked at the tightly shut ward door. “Has there been any movement inside?”
“No. After the investigator went in, there hasn’t been a sound.”
Ms. Zhu pressed her ear against the door. Not even voices—an abnormal silence.
She knocked. “Investigator, are you finished talking?”
No response.
She tried the handle. The door was locked from the inside.
The three of them exchanged glances. Something was wrong. They immediately began pounding harder on the door.
Someone from a neighboring room stepped out. “What’s going on?”
After hearing the explanation, the person frowned. “Just kick it open. Step aside!”
Inside the room, Jiang Fu was leaning against the wall. She heard the commotion outside.
So they had finally reacted. Not completely useless, at least.
Zhang Tong struggled to look toward the door, as if seeing a savior. He stretched out a trembling hand. “He—”
Bang!
Someone outside kicked the door hard. It didn’t budge—not even a shake.
“What’s going on?”
“That’s strange!”
Bang! A second kick. Then a third.
The commotion drew more people—doctors, nurses, security guards.
Jiang Fu calculated the time, watching as Zhang Tong’s face aged completely. It shriveled like a walnut, the corners of his mouth drooping, age spots spreading across his skin. His hair and brows turned gray and brittle; his eyes filled with cloudy bloodshot veins.
Without his ability to sustain him, he looked older than an ordinary seventy-year-old.
The curse should have fully taken effect.
It was her first time cursing someone. She had no experience—she could only keep a close watch.
Once she confirmed there should be no problem, she withdrew the barrier in the room.
The next instant—
Bang!
The door was kicked open violently, slamming into the wall with a thunderous crash.
A crowd had gathered outside. Some had even activated their abilities, poised and ready.
But the moment the door flew open, a gust of cold wind rushed out of the ward, stinging everyone’s eyes.
People instinctively turned their heads and shut their eyes. In that split second, something seemed to brush past them.
When they opened their eyes, what they saw was a boy collapsed on the floor, writhing in agony.
Ms. Zhu rushed in immediately. In her urgency, she didn’t even notice that the boy’s hair had turned completely white.
The next moment, the boy lifted his head, revealing a face like cracked tree bark. She recoiled in horror.
“Ah! Y-you—who are you?!”
The others gasped in shock.
It was clearly a child’s body—but that hair! That face!
A monster? A mutation? A new kind of zombie?
Thinking of how contagious zombies were, the crowd scrambled backward.
On the floor, the child’s body with an old man’s head crawled desperately toward them, stretching out a hand. “Save me! Save me!”
His voice was hoarse and aged, like a broken saw scraping against glass.
Ms. Zhu asked uncertainly, “Zhang Tong?”
Zhang Tong clung to the name like a lifeline. “Ms. Zhu, save me! Save me!”
Suddenly he convulsed. The searing pain inside him became unbearable. Desperate, he shouted, “I lied! I tricked all of you! I saw my dad beat my mom to death! That night, I thought she was too noisy, so I pulled the blanket over my head—her screams were so unpleasant!”
“In the morning she was lying on the floor. I stepped over her, ate the food she left me, and went to school. When I came back, the soil in the yard had been turned over. I knew she was there. I kept stomping on that pile of dirt—finally no one nagged me anymore, hahahaha!”
Dead silence.
Everyone stared at him, listening to the venomous words pouring out. They doubted their own ears. That face was grotesque—like a monster wearing human skin.
Ms. Zhu stumbled backward in disbelief, trembling violently. She suddenly gagged.
Disgusting. So disgusting. Every word from that mouth made her feel sick. Insane—completely insane! How had she ever thought this child was innocent and well-behaved? He was a demon.
And after confessing all that, Zhang Tong realized the agony in his body had actually lessened.
Eagerly, he continued:
“That woman was too stupid. She actually angered my dad over a dead person—she deserved to be beaten! My dad was right—women should be beaten. Beat them enough and they behave. Too bad he didn’t dare do it every day, since the one in power at the base is a woman…”
“She was so useless. If she’d just run out and reported it, someone would’ve handled it! She could’ve gotten a resettlement job and taken me to live a good life! But she didn’t dare. She even covered up for my dad!”
“So useless—really useless! If she’d been more capable, I would’ve helped her. I would’ve helped her send my dad to jail. I wanted to be a good son! But she was too useless. She couldn’t hold things together. I couldn’t live well with her! So she deserved to be beaten! Useless people—if they die, they deserve to die!”
The crowd finally snapped out of it.
Listening to his “accusations,” fury surged. The women present trembled with rage.
“You bastard!”
“Animal!”
“Damn it! I’ll kill this piece of trash!”
Blinded by rising anger, no one thought to look for the vanished investigator.
They also failed to notice that when the cold wind had rushed out, someone had slipped past them.
While everyone crowded at the end of the corridor outside the single ward, a figure emerged along with the passing draft.
With all attention drawn to the ward and those hoarse confessions, no one noticed the sudden appearance.
Jiang Fu wore her trench coat hood low, head bowed, walking against the flow of people.
Someone in a hurry bumped into her.
“Ah, sorry, sorry!”
She staggered a few steps, gripping the corridor railing, silently shaking her head. The person didn’t think much of it and hurried on.
Jiang Fu glanced up at the security camera overhead. She quickened her steps toward the fire door, pushed—it didn’t budge. She pushed harder, and it finally opened. She slipped inside.
As soon as the fire door shut, she could no longer hold on. Sliding down against it, she collapsed to her knees, clutching at her collar with one hand as resentment poured out of her body as if she were leaking air.
“Ugh—!”
Inside her, the evil bone thrashed wildly. She opened her mouth to vomit, but nothing came out.
Looking down at herself, she could almost see through her clothes and skin—her organs churned into pulp inside her chest, only to rapidly mend under the influence of resentment.
Destruction. Repair. Ruin. Regeneration.
Over and over. Endless.
“Ah!” Another wave of twisting pain hit her. She collapsed forward, fist clenched, and slammed it hard against the floor.
How wretched. Too wretched.
Gritting her teeth, a ruthless gleam flashed in her eyes. She almost wanted to reach into her chest and tear out the evil bone.
But she couldn’t.
Without it, she would likely die instantly.
She still had many things to do. Many debts to settle.
She refused to accept it.
The black cat wriggled out of her trench coat pocket and jumped to the ground. Seeing her like this, it startled. “Are you okay? My god—just cursing one person, and you ended up like this?!”
Jiang Fu was drenched in cold sweat—or rather, she couldn’t tell whether it was sweat, fluid squeezed from her tissues, or the blood inside her that had long since rotted.
She trembled uncontrollably, staring at the black cat. At times her eyeballs were pierced and warped by surging resentment, only to be swiftly restored to their original shape. The sight was horrifying.
“You… don’t know?”
The black cat said, “I’ve never used resentment to curse anyone before. I just know it can be done. What exactly is happening to you right now?”
Jiang Fu closed her eyes and clutched her chest. “The evil bone… it’s very agitated… cough… It seems to have been activated.”
“The evil bone can have its own consciousness? What does it even want?”
“I don’t know…”
Then what were they supposed to do?!
The black cat scratched its ears and cheeks anxiously. With a kick of its hind legs, it leapt high into the air. “Wait here. I’ll try something!”
The next moment, the cat collapsed to the ground with a thud. A pitch-black evil spirit burst out of its body and plunged into Jiang Fu.
She didn’t stop it—nor did she have the strength to.
During the ten years the evil spirit had accompanied her, it would often enter the bronze statue under the pretense of keeping her company, when in truth it was feeding on the malice inside.
For an evil spirit that fed on malice, the statue—where resentment was thick as slurry—was like returning to a blissful homeland.
After entering Jiang Fu’s body, the evil spirit found the evil bone and bit down on it.
One evil spirit and one evil bone turned her body into a battlefield, clashing fiercely within her.
“—!” Jiang Fu squeezed her eyes shut. Her entire body tensed. Her fists opened and clenched, clenched and opened again. Her nails gouged long scratches into the floor. The tips of her fingers were ground raw, only to heal again under the surge of resentment.
After a while, the evil bone finally calmed. Jiang Fu’s body slackened, and the resentment filling her settled, no longer leaking outward.
The evil spirit drifted back out, still chewing noisily. “Um, sorry about that (chew chew chew). I didn’t have any other way (chew chew chew). I could only bite it (chew chew chew). Then it quieted down (chew chew chew chew chew).”
Jiang Fu opened her eyes and looked at the pitch-black mass. After a moment, she said weakly, “Thank you.”
Suddenly she gave a muffled groan. The evil spirit hurriedly asked, “What? Is it acting up again?”
Jiang Fu shook her head. “No.” She looked toward the window in the stairwell. “She’s here!”
Who?
The evil spirit froze, then its fur stood on end. “The you from here is here? Is she lightning or something—why is she always so fast? Run, run! If you run into her now…”
It would be fatal in minutes!
Jiang Fu braced herself against the door and staggered toward the stairs. But her legs gave out, and she tumbled down with a clatter.
The evil spirit, which had just reentered the cat’s body: !
It rushed after her, but having just returned to the cat’s body, it wasn’t used to the coordination. One paw tripped over another, and it too went rolling down the stairs, crashing into Jiang Fu’s face.
Jiang Fu: “…”
She pushed aside the noticeably heavier cat and climbed back up. Leaning against the wall, she steadied herself for a moment. Looking downstairs, she realized it was too late to go down.
She turned and headed upstairs instead, dragging the black cat along.
…
At the hospital building below, Jiang Fu arrived with Jiang Shiyue. She looked up at the inpatient building, her expression darkening.
Just moments earlier, while in her office, she had received that message, puzzled as to why the sender wanted her to let Zhang Biao go. She had tried to question them, but they hadn’t responded at all.
Then, only a few minutes later, she received news that Zhang Tong had gotten into trouble—and in an extremely bizarre way.
There was no way not to connect the two events.
So she rushed over immediately.
Because the First Hospital was nearby, even bringing Jiang Shiyue along, she arrived faster than she had the last time she rushed to the research institute.
The moment Jiang Shiyue’s feet touched the ground, she closed her eyes to sense something. Then she said, “Xiao Fu, the east stairwell!”
Before her words had even fully fallen, the person beside her had vanished.
Jiang Shiyue: “…Be careful!”
As she spoke, she hurried after her while calling for backup.
Jiang Fu entered the stairwell and swiftly shot up to the fourth floor. The moment she reached it, she sensed something was wrong.
The temperature had dropped noticeably. A strange energy fluctuation lingered in the air, on the verge of dissipating.
When her spiritual power brushed against it, it felt as though it had touched sticky dust.
She had vaguely sensed this feeling before in the ice-coffin chamber, but at the time it had been too faint—so faint she had thought it was merely due to poor ventilation in a sealed space.
That person was indeed here!
She slowed down. At the turn between the fourth and fifth floors, she saw fresh marks, as though someone had fallen from there.
Going further up, there were scratch marks beneath the fire door on the fifth floor.
Her brow twitched, and she continued upward.
She chased all the way to the rooftop. Just as she was about to open the door leading to the roof, her phone in her pocket suddenly vibrated.
She took it out. It was the same number. Another message.
[Don’t come any closer, unless you want something to happen to Jiang Shiyue!]
Jiang Fu’s heart jolted violently, and anger flared up.
She tried to release her spiritual power to check on Jiang Shiyue’s condition, only to discover that she was surrounded on all sides by that same strange energy.
Thick, cold, turbid—like a misty barrier—it had appeared from nowhere, enclosing her front and back, left and right, even above and below. Her spiritual power couldn’t penetrate it for the moment.
What on earth was this thing?
Her phone vibrated again.
[Jiang Shiyue’s ability can capture the slightest fluctuation of aura and distinguish true emotions from false words. When she forms a spiritual link with even a single speck of dust, she can trace its trajectory back an entire day. But her weakness lies in this as well. If an overwhelming amount of information and energy is poured into that speck of dust, it will directly detonate her ability—and even shatter her crystal core.]
Jiang Fu’s heart pounded wildly. On the surface, Jiang Shiyue’s ability seemed like nothing more than a tracker or a lie detector. Very few people knew her true trump card. Yet this person not only knew it in detail but even understood her weakness thoroughly.
If someone used this method against Jiang Shiyue, she would truly be in grave danger!
She glared at the murky, eerie energy around her. “You dare!”
There was no response.
She shouted again, “If you dare lay a hand on anyone by my side, I will fight you to the death!”
Still no response.
“Who exactly are you? What do you want?”
The strange energy around her began to dissipate.
Jiang Fu waited for a moment. Nothing happened. Only then did she realize the other party might have already left.
She looked at the door before her, wanting to open it. But remembering the warning, she ultimately gave up. In fury, she slammed her fist into the door, denting it inward.
“You’ve got some nerve!”
Just you wait. Don’t ever fall into my hands.
She turned and darted swiftly downstairs. In the stairwell on the fifth floor, she saw Jiang Shiyue crouching there, studying the marks on the ground.
“Don’t touch those!” she said, pulling Jiang Shiyue away and giving her a quick once-over. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. What’s wrong with you? That person—”
Only after confirming she was truly unharmed did Jiang Fu relax slightly. She gave a cold snort. “She ran. Just to be safe, don’t use your ability for the next few days.”
Seeing how terrible Jiang Fu’s expression was, Jiang Shiyue seemed to understand something. She shifted the topic. “Did you notice the traces on the floor? She might be injured. She came out of the general surgery inpatient ward, collapsed here, struggled for a while, and then fell down the stairs. She probably sensed you coming up, so she turned and headed upstairs instead.”
Given the other party’s condition—barely able to walk down the stairs without falling—it should have been nearly impossible for her to escape from Jiang Fu.
But looking at Jiang Fu’s dark expression, Jiang Shiyue chose to keep quiet.
Jiang Fu stared coldly at the trail of marks. How pathetic.
A few minutes ago, she might have felt a flicker of concern.
After all, the woman had once clung to her mother’s ice coffin and wailed in grief. That alone had barely earned her the label of “one of ours.”
But now, she could only sneer. “Why didn’t the fall just kill her?”