Chapter 482: She Saved My Life

The heavy iron door slid open.

It wasn't the rust‑spotted, squeaking opening of a horror‑movie style intro.

The hydraulic arm that moved the door made a smooth, even sound, even the air‑pressure changes were precisely controlled, and her eardrums felt no discomfort. Su Xiaoya even smelled a whiff of… bread.

She thought she was hallucinating.

The scene behind the door nailed her to the spot.

Underground Air-raid Shelter.

At least it was an old civil‑defense structure from fifty or sixty years ago, with a curved dome and cement walls freshly repainted—not the perfunctory gray‑white, but a warm yellow coat. The ventilation ducts had the old fans removed and were fitted with an industrial‑grade fresh‑air system of unknown origin; the blades turned softly, with a faint hum.

Lighting.

Not the harsh white of fluorescent tubes.

It was LED warm‑light strips, coiled around the dome in circles, bathing the whole space in amber.

In the corner stood several rows of metal shelves, neatly holding petri dishes of various sizes, each containing clusters of glow‑fungi that needed no sunlight—pale blue‑green, like Scandinavian‑style decorative lights on an IKEA shelf.

There were tables and chairs. There was a bookshelf. There was a simple stove made from a repurposed old iron bucket.

There was a person.

No, not a person.

But it wasn't entirely Weird.

Su Xiaoya's mind underwent three cognitive resets within two seconds.

First reset—

A middle‑aged man in a suit greeted her with a cheerful smile, carrying two neatly folded dry towels. His smile was affable, the kind a neighborhood committee elder gives when he meets you and asks if you've eaten.

A Reinforced Steel Bar as thick as an arm was embedded in his chest.

The bar pierced from his left chest through to his back, the cross‑section still bearing dried cement fragments, the wound edges curling with gray‑white skin tissue.

Yet he kept smiling and handed over a towel.

"You've been drenched, right? Quickly wipe yourself. Every time Xiao Ji brings someone back he's soaked through; I told him to bring a bigger umbrella, but he won't listen."

Second reset—

Next to the bookshelf, a school‑uniformed girl sat cross‑legged on an old sofa reading. Her page‑turning was silent, her index finger lightly flicking the paper edge, her wrist rotating with precise, graceful motion.

She had no face.

Not the kind that's been disfigured.

Literally, her features were gone. From forehead to chin was a smooth, porcelain‑white skin, without even the ridge of a nose.

She tilted her head, "looked" toward Su Xiaoya, then politely nodded.

She turned a page.

She was reading *The Little Prince*.

Third reset—

An old man whose body was missing half of his left side emerged from behind the stove. From the waist leftward only half remained; the missing side had no flesh, no bone, just a few strands of pale mist slowly drifting.

He walked quite nimbly.

Limping, he circled the table corner and went straight to Su Xiaoya, his gaze landing on the coat drenched in mud and blood that she had draped over her crippled arm.

"Come, I'll take it to wash."

The old man extended his only right hand, the motion as natural as a neighbor helping you receive a parcel.

Su Xiaoya's throat tightened.

She recoiled slightly, and the pale filament at the cross‑section of her right shoulder swirled twice.

"It's fine," the old man chuckled, his wrinkled face crumpled, "no one here will bully you."

Su Xiaoya turned to look at the youth.

The youth tucked away the black umbrella, hung it on the rack by the door, and turned around.

Rainwater streamed down his hair; his school uniform was soaked, clinging to his thin shoulders.

He split the towel the suited uncle had handed out, giving one piece to Su Xiaoya, and casually draped the other over his own head, wiping twice without fully cleaning it.

"This is the Ferry Port."

The youth's voice was low, his tone casual as if introducing his own living room.

"My name is Ji Bai."

He pointed to his own nose.

"It's a dry job; politely it's called a ferryman, crudely it's a junk collector—specifically gathering the Weird that are chased, beaten, killed, and have nowhere to go by the outside."

Su Xiaoya opened her mouth slightly.

Ji Bai gave her no time to ask.

He turned his head toward the back and called, "Big sister."

From the shadows deep within the dome emerged a figure.

A woman, about thirty, her long hair tied into a low ponytail, wearing a faded long‑sleeve T‑shirt.

A soft white halo enveloped her.

The halo was faint, illuminating only a meter around her, yet Su Xiaoya, three steps away, could feel its warmth—not physical heat, but a… hard‑to‑describe sensation.

Like a nest.

Like the smell of braised pork ribs simmering on the stove when you return home in winter.

Like the feeling of being embraced long, long ago, when you were still alive.

"This is big sister," Ji Bai said, his tone flat, "stay with her for a while."

Big sister stepped forward, bent over and looked at Su Xiaoya, her gaze gentle.

She stretched out her hand.

Su Xiaoya hesitated for three seconds, then placed her remaining left hand onto it.

Big Sister's palm was warm.

The Fierce Ghost's palm was warm.

This realization surged into Su Xiaoya's mind, exploding so that she almost burst into tears.

Big Sister led Su Xiaoya inside, speaking softly as they walked, her pace unhurried, her voice gentle as if soothing a child to sleep.

"There are only three Regulations here."

She raised three fingers.

"First, do not actively harm humans. No matter what those people outside have done, once you pass through this gate, let it go."

Su Xiaoya instinctively clenched her left hand.

"Second, look out for each other. We are all discarded; no one is luckier than another, and anyone who is wounded must be helped."

Big Sister paused for a moment.

The third finger did not lower; instead it curled.

"Third."

She turned back and glanced at Su Xiaoya, her gaze carrying something weighty.

"The location here must never be known to anyone. Not to hunters, not to the Investigation Bureau, nor anything else."

"If it leaks, no one will survive."

Those three words ended, the final tone pressed down low.

Su Xiaoya understood.

Big Sister placed her on a marching cot covered with an old cotton blanket. The blanket had been washed and smelled of soap. Su Xiaoya's right shoulder cross‑section no longer emitted strands of resentment; Big Sister wrapped it twice with a gauze that emitted a faint glow, cool and very comfortable.

The suited uncle brought over a cup of hot tea.

It was not ordinary tea.

The cup was enamel, missing a rim, holding half a cup of pale‑blue liquid with a faint mist on the surface. Su Xiaoya leaned in to smell it and detected an indescribable clean bitterness.

"It's condensed ghost‑qi," the suited uncle explained, his tone as natural as describing a Thermal Cup steeped with goji berries. "It warms you and is good for your injury. Rest assured, it's not some unknown contraption."

Su Xiaoya cradled the enamel cup, her fingers feeling the temperature radiating through the walls.

The temperature was not scorching.

Yet it existed truly.

She took a small sip; the pale‑blue liquid slid down her throat into her chest, a tingling warmth spreading from her stomach to her limbs.

She sat there, cup in hand, surveying the underground space.

In front of the bookshelf, the faceless girl turned to a new chapter; the old man hummed an off‑key old song behind the stove; the suited uncle played chess with another semi‑transparent man, arguing over whether a horse should jump.

No one was killing anyone.

No one was screaming.

No one showed the ferocious expression that the world defines as "Weird."

Su Xiaoya lowered her head to look at her own reflection in the cup—blurred, shattered, a pallid visage.

After she became a Fierce Ghost, she never looked into a mirror again.

Because she was afraid.

Afraid of seeing that she was no longer human.

Yet when the reflection in the enamel cup sat side by side with the surrounding Weirdness, she suddenly felt that not being human might not be that terrifying.

Her gaze moved upward.

The edge of the platform.

Ji Bai sat there alone, his two legs dangling over the platform edge, not swinging at all.

He was wiping that black umbrella.

He wiped it very carefully.

Every umbrella rib was brushed back and forth twice with a dry cloth, and the bloodstains at the joints were finely scraped away with his Nail. His expression was focused, brows lowered, the warm glow from the light strip fell on his profile, giving the young man's face a fatigue that seemed beyond his years.

Su Xiaoya set the cup down and stood up.

She walked over.

She moved to Ji Bai's side and sat on the opposite end of the platform. She didn't sit too close, leaving about two fists' distance between them.

From this angle looking down, the entire underground space was laid out in full view.

The chess game argued whether the rook should cross the river; the faceless girl, holding a book, changed posture and lay prone; the stove's pot lid was lifted, white steam billowed out, and the old man tossed two handfuls of glowing fungi inside.

It was absurdly harmonious.

It was absurdly surreal.

Su Xiaoya spoke.

Her voice was hoarse, breathy, as if her throat had been sanded.

"You are human."

It wasn't a question; it was a confirmation.

Ji Bai didn't stop; the last speck of blood on the umbrella rib was brushed clean.

"Hmm."

"Then why......"

Su Xiaoya paused, filtering out nine‑tenths of the flood of questions rising to her throat, leaving only the core one.

"Why are you doing this?"

She swept her gaze over the quietly living Weird below, then looked back at Ji Bai.

The hunters will hunt you. The Investigation Bureau will issue a warrant for you. Eden Garden will not let you go either. You protect these… these guys that everyone treats as prey, what for?

Ji Bai's hand that was wiping the umbrella stopped.

The umbrella ribs rested on his knee, the dry cloth clenched in his hand, his knuckles tightened slightly then relaxed.

He didn't turn his head.

His gaze fell on a point in the void, a point that was neither inside this Air-raid Shelter nor in the city above, as if it were far, far away, somewhere else.

It was quiet for a few seconds.

The bubbling, gurgling sound from the pot on the stove filled the silence.

"Because a long time ago,"

His voice was soft.

"There was also a Fierce Ghost like you, treated as a monster by everyone."

He folded the dry cloth twice and pressed it onto the umbrella canopy.

"She saved my life."

Su Xiaoya's breath stopped for half a beat.