Family

Zhao Qingzhu and I were betrothed through an exchange marriage.

The agreement was that his older sister would marry my older brother, and I would marry him.

He was a scholar, which meant his education was a money pit.

My family had to tighten our belts to provide for him, and the entire village laughed at us for being fools.

But five years later, he passed the imperial examinations with top honors and became the most sought-after bachelor around.

Suddenly, everyone was saying I was no longer worthy of him.

I am the pampered little fake heiress who was driven out to the countryside.

To go from the young lady of Marquis Manor to a carpenter’s eldest daughter-there is simply no living like this!

In order to return to the noble circles of Capital City, I set my sights on the scholar next door.

Standing on a ladder, I waved my handkerchief coquettishly over the wall.

“Hey~ I heard you’re my fiancé?”

The man chopping firewood with his upper body bare slowly turned to look at me.

In an indifferent voice, he said, “I am Lin Jiaoyue’s fiancé.”

On the night of February 2, 2011, my daughter was lured to a park under the guise of a part-time job.

There, she was raped and her body was discarded. At least three people were involved in the assault, but the killers were never found.

On New Year’s Eve, 2026, I prepared a table full of poisoned food and looked at my daughter’s photograph. “It’s been fifteen years, and I still haven’t found the people who destroyed you.

I don’t want to spend another New Year without you. I’m coming down to join you now.”

As the poison began to take effect, I set down my chopsticks and leaned over the table, retching. Just then, my phone rang.

When I answered, a familiar voice came from the other end: “Dad, I’m at the park. Wait for me, I’ll be home soon.”

My sister went to Yunnan to teach as a volunteer, but shortly after, she vanished.

All she left behind was a bizarre post on her social media feed:

“Black dogs grow white scales, the Flesh Well blinks with a thousand eyes, and humanity cannot escape Ailao Mountain!”

After failing to reach her privately, I turned to the police for help, but they refused to open a case.

Left with no other choice, I had to travel to Yunnan alone.

At that time, I had no idea that the terrifying truth buried deep beneath the surface had already begun to emerge…

I am a Bone Demon, trapped for countless years within that cold, desolate graveyard.

No one can see me, and no one can hear me. I have spent centuries in solitary silence.

Until one midsummer, when the sun was shining just right.

A young girl came to sweep the graves, but she mistakenly offered her tributes to me.

I took a bite of a crisp peach and said, “Truly sweet.”

She froze for a moment, then covered her mouth and stifled a giggle.

“Next year, I’ll come again.”

True to her word, she returned year after year, bringing me crisp peaches every time.

Later, she died, and her remains were carelessly tossed into the graveyard.

Her five-year-old daughter, clutching the hand of a younger brother who had only just learned to walk, came to the graveyard day and night to wail for their mother.

I couldn’t stand the noise.

I possessed her body, crawled out from the straw mat, and clumsily gathered those two little brats into my arms.

“Keep crying, and Mother will eat you.”

Everyone said I was blessed by fate.

Born behind vermilion gates, I rested my head on jade and wrapped myself in brocade.

At three, I began my education, studying essays on how to govern the realm.

At five, I held an abacus, calculating the empire’s grain and coin.

At twelve, I debated the scholars in the clan school and, though I was a girl, took first place above them all.

At fifteen, during my coming-of-age banquet, warlords from three regions offered mountains and rivers as my betrothal gifts.

And yet, I chose the hardest road of all.

The day I eloped with a lowly soldier who guarded the city gate, the entire city laughed at me for debasing myself.

After one night of passion, I was stricken from the Yin Clan’s rolls, my spotless reputation ruined.

No one knew that the soldier was the last surviving bloodline of the imperial house.

They were fighting for the realm.

What I was fighting for was the right to take history’s iron brush in hand and rewrite the world with a name that could not be questioned.

I’m a rookie Ghost Agent for the Netherworld.

To crush my KPIs and earn a promotion, I started staking out my targets three days before their scheduled deaths.

My first subject was an elderly woman.

Out of nowhere, she turned to me and asked, “Am I about to die?”

The roars of zombies echoed from the street below.

Inside the apartment, my mother and I were tied together, forced to watch as my so-called “friends” ransacked our entire food supply, their faces twisted with disdain.

“Is this it? This will barely last a month or two. If we bring these two along, it won’t even last us a month.”

Liu Jinjin shot a meaningful look at her burly boyfriend. Taking the hint, he picked up a knife and started walking toward us. They were going to kill us!

The owner of an antique shop came to me with a job: help him transport a batch of aged wine.

The wine had been hidden away in a deserted village for sixty years, sealed in massive jars, each one half as tall as a man.

On the day the cellar was opened, the fragrance carried for miles. Even the workers moving the jars felt light-headed from it.

But the young man selling the wine looked deathly pale. The moment he took the owner’s money, he refused to stay even one minute longer and hurried off.

That night, one of the workers secretly opened a jar.

When he was found the next day, his head was stuffed inside the wine jar. By the time they dragged him out, he was already dead.