Chapter 481: After the Vengeful Spirit's Revenge

The weird woman's lips twitched.

There was no sound.

The airflow from her throat passed through broken vocal cords, leaving only a dry, whistling sound like wind through a crack. She could not speak.

The youth did not urge.

Rain on the umbrella gathered into fine threads, sliding down the curved ribs onto his shoulder, soaking his school uniform a layer deeper. He simply crouched before her, one hand holding the umbrella, the other resting on his knee, waiting.

The weird woman's gaze lingered on his face for a long time.

That scrutiny carried an animal‑like instinct—judging whether the creature before her was a hunter or something else. On the cross‑section of her crippled arm, the frequency of pale, resentful threads churning was gradually decreasing.

It was not due to waning strength.

It was because her guard was loosening bit by bit.

Finally, she raised her left hand, gathered the long hair hanging by her face, and plucked a few strands.

The hair strands were pale, bearing an almost transparent sheen, finer than silk to the touch. She pressed those few strands onto the youth's outstretched palm, her fingertips trembling fiercely.

One stroke. One line.

Very slowly. Between each stroke there was a pause, the hair bending and dragging in the grooves of his palm lines, leaving a chilling sensation.

The youth lowered his head and looked at his palm.

Three characters, crooked and twisted.

Su Xiaoya.

"Su Xiaoya," he whispered, keeping his voice very low.

The weird woman—Su Xiaoya—snapped her hand back sharply. Her whole body squeezed further into the corner, and a thin sheen of water rose in the eyes that should have been full of venomous resentment.

The youth gave no extra response.

He simply memorized the name silently.

Buzz—

A low engine roar came from three streets away, mixing with the rain, pressing down heavily and muffled.

It was not a single vehicle.

At least three.

The high‑frequency hum unique to the psychic pulse cannon intermingled, and the searchlight's white beam had already cut through the narrow slit above the alley mouth, sweeping quickly across the walls on both sides.

The second wave of hunters.

The youth stood up without any superfluous motion; he straightened his knee, shifted his weight forward, his whole body like a string snapped outward. He folded the Old Black Umbrella in his hand and, within three seconds, shed the black waterproof coat he wore, wrapping it around Su Xiaoya's shoulders.

The coat still retained body heat.

Su Xiaoya froze, bewildered by the faint warmth.

"Stay close to me."

Three words, no explanation.

The youth bent down and seized the uninjured wrist. Her wrist was slender and terrifyingly cold; the bluish‑gray patterns beneath the skin writhed slowly under his fingertips.

He paid no mind.

He tugged her and ran.

The Old City District slums were the base where the youth had crouched for four months in a previous life. Every alley width, every foothold on walls that could be used for leverage, every exposed, rusted water pipe and how much weight it could bear were all etched in his mind.

He led Su Xiaoya through the Handshake Buildings, his body hugging the wall shadows, his steps so precise that his footfalls always landed in the shallowest pooled water—no splash, no trace.

The searchlight swept overhead three times.

Each time, he turned into a side alley two seconds early.

Su Xiaoya was dragged for five minutes, barefoot over broken glass and damp cement, the shards in her toe gaps pricking her instinct to curl. Yet she neither struggled nor slowed.

She did not know where the youth intended to take her.

But the coat draped over her shoulder, still warm with human heat, led her to make an extremely dangerous decision.

Trust him.

Twisting and turning.

They passed through a narrow passage half‑blocked by a discarded air‑conditioner unit, then slipped through a steel wall slit cut with an angle grinder, wide enough for only one person to side‑step through.

The feeling under their feet changed.

The cement became a metal grate.

The air was filled with the smell of rusted iron, stagnant water, and the burnt odor of melted old cable insulation.

Underground Pipe Network.

The youth pried open a cover disguised as a pile of broken bricks, revealing a vertical iron ladder. He jumped down first, then turned back and reached upward.

Su Xiaoya stood at the edge of the opening, hesitating for two seconds.

The youth's hand waited for her in the dimness, fingers long, the joints still stained with the blood of the previous hunters.

She extended her hand.

She grasped it.

The safe house was hidden in a branch of the pipe network, small—about ten square meters. The cement walls were coated with waterproof paint; a corner held a marching cot, several boxes of compressed biscuits and water, and a whiteboard hung on the wall. The board was covered with intricate lines and formulas, some areas erased and rewritten repeatedly, leaving uneven black marks.

The youth removed his soaking‑wet shoes and stood barefoot on the icy floor.

He pulled a metal first‑aid box from under the marching cot, rummaged through it, and found a roll of gauze and half a bottle of povidone‑iodine.

"Your shoulder," he said, lifting his chin toward Su Xiaoya's severed arm cross‑section, "the weird leakage is too fast; if it keeps flowing you'll lose consciousness."

Su Xiaoya instinctively covered the severed arm with her intact hand.

She stared at the youth for three seconds.

Then, she lowered her hand.

The youth didn't use iodine— that was useless against the Weird. He pulled from his school uniform pocket a neatly stacked piece of black cloth, material unknown, its surface faintly shimmering with a dim dark sheen. It was a leftover of containment material from the test chamber, able to temporarily seal off the leaking resentment—the Anomalous Power of a Fierce Ghost.

He wrapped the cloth around the cross‑section of her severed arm, his movements swift.

Su Xiaoya felt the speed of the resentment leakage drop sharply, and her whole spirit steadied considerably. She looked up at the youth, the venom of resentment in her eyes having faded by more than half.

"Why did you save me?"

She finally regained her voice— hoarse, shattered, like sandpaper grinding her throat.

The youth sat on the marching cot, his bare feet planted on the floor.

"Those people are bounty hunters, specializing in capturing live Weird to sell at the Black Market." His tone was as flat as reciting a textbook, "They don't care what you are, only how much you're worth. Your condition is good— less than seven figures, they say themselves."

Su Xiaoya's Nail dug into her palm.

"Are you from the Investigation Bureau?"

"No." The youth's answer was crisp, "People from the Investigation Bureau wouldn't appear in a place like this."

He paused briefly, then lifted his eyes to glance at her.

"You are a Fierce Ghost. C Ji, at most B Ji. The resentment concentration is low, and you still retain full self‑awareness, emotional response, and language ability. You remember your name, recall your life before death, and can distinguish kindness from malice."

Su Xiaoya's breath halted for a beat.

He was analyzing her.

Like a… doctor making a diagnosis.

"I kill monster legends." When the youth said this, his pace didn't change, "The kind that has lost self‑awareness, left only a killing instinct, is my target. You are not."

Su Xiaoya opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

The youth stood, walked to the whiteboard on the wall, picked up the eraser, and erased half of the existing content. Then he took a marker and began drawing.

Lines, arrows, formulas.

He drew quickly, the strokes crisp.

"The fundamental difference between a Fierce Ghost and a monster legend is— a Fierce Ghost was once human."

The tip of the marker tapped the board twice.

"After death, extreme resentment anchors the soul to reality. That resentment is your fuel, driving you to seek revenge on those who harmed you. This process is uncontrollable, you know that yourself."

Su Xiaoya did not deny it.

"But the problem is—" The youth drew a downward curve on the board, "what after the revenge is taken?"

He turned back and gave Su Xiaoya a glance.

"You have killed, right? Those who bullied you."

Su Xiaoya's lips trembled.

She has killed.

She remembers every face. Every scream. Every drop of blood that splattered on her skirt.

"After the killing, what do you feel inside?"

It was silent for a long while.

Somewhere far in the ducts, water dripped, drop by drop, in an even rhythm like a pendulum.

Su Xiaoya lowered her head.

"Empty." Her voice was so light it was almost inaudible, "The night after the killing was especially empty. Nothing remained. No hatred, no nausea."

She paused.

"And then I remembered."

"Remember what?"

"The braised pork my mother made."

Su Xiaoya's mouth twitched slightly; the curve was too shallow and faint, not a smile, but a long‑forgotten muscle memory struggling to revive.

"It was very salty, too much soy sauce. But fragrant. Every time I came home after school, I could smell it before I even stepped inside."

She lifted her head, looking at the youth.

The thing in his eyes changed. After the venom of resentment faded, what emerged was an extremely fragile, clean, unbearably sorrowful gaze.

"Am I… still human?"

The youth's pen halted.

He turned, faced Su Xiaoya, and tossed the marker back into the whiteboard tray.

"Resentment is fuel. When the fuel burns out, what's left is you. The fact that you can recall the taste of braised pork shows your consciousness Core hasn't been devoured by resentment. You are still Su Xiaoya. Just a different way of living."

His voice was flat.

So flat it carried no emotion.

But Su Xiaoya understood.

She buried her face in the collar of the youth's waterproof jacket, her shoulders trembling. No sobbing— the Weird has no tear glands, cannot cry. Yet the convulsion was real.

In this rainy night where the whole world treated her as a bounty target.

Someone told her, she is still a person.

The youth made no sound to disturb.

He waited for Su Xiaoya's tremor to subside, confirmed there was no tail outside, then walked to the deepest part of the safe house.

There was a door there.

It was iron. Rust‑spotted. The hinges had oxidized to a dark red, like dried old bloodstains. An old‑style pin‑tumbler lock hung on the door, its keyhole packed with congealed engine oil.

The youth pulled a thin rope from his neck, the end tied to a key that shone black.

The sound of the lock core turning rang especially clear in the quiet safe house.

The iron door was pushed open.

The passage connecting to the deep Underground Pipe Network extended downward, the light dim.

Su Xiaoya walked to the doorway and glanced inside.

Her eyes... widened instantly.