Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I was a headless ghost, pinned beneath a Land God temple for hundreds of years.

I could never find a freshly dead corpse to borrow and return to life in.

I could neither live nor die.

Year after year, I stood on that old Land God’s clay statue, suffering through the endless days.

Until one year, a little orphan girl ran into the Land God temple.

She was being chased by villains, her face slashed to ribbons, blood and tears blurring together as she stumbled through the door.

In a panic, she crawled under the offering table and curled up beneath the old Land God’s clay body, trembling all over.

It had been so long since any living person had come to this ruined temple that I had been bored enough to tie a five-step snake into a bow.

Now fortune had suddenly dropped from the heavens. I could not help but rejoice.

If I scared her to death, I would finally have a body to resurrect in.

After tossing the five-step snake out the broken window, I dusted off my tattered dress and had just leaped down, ready to bare my claws and fangs and frighten the little girl half to death.

Then the rotten old door was kicked apart.

Several burly men with crude builds and lecherous faces came right after her, barging in with rough voices.

“If you want to blame someone, blame your rotten luck. You could have died cleanly, but no, you had to offend someone important. Now you’ll end up dying filthy and ruined.”

“If you know what’s good for you, get out here. Once us brothers have our fun and report back, we’ll give you a quick death!”

Their filthy words rolled through the cobwebs, making the little girl beneath my feet shake like chaff.

Trying to steal someone from me on my own turf?

Had they asked my opinion?

Hooking an arm around the old Land God’s clay neck, I bent down with a whoosh and tilted my neck to meet the little girl’s eyes.

In the trembling reflection of her pupils…

I raised a finger to my empty head and made a shushing gesture.

The little girl clapped both hands over her mouth, even more terrified than before.

Black boots crushed over the broken doorframe with a crisp, splintering crack.

Three strong men!

After enduring centuries of loneliness, it was finally my turn to enjoy my own gluttonous feast.

I could not help letting out a cackling laugh.

The sound squeezed out from my neck. The little girl’s face drained of all color, ashen as death.

Her torn flesh hung from her, blood streaming down, yet she still curled into a ball, a pair of frightened black eyes fixed straight on me.

The next instant, amid several lewd laughs, someone grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her out.

The little girl’s hand passed through the empty pink hem of my dress as she screamed at me in terror.

“Save me! Save me! Sister, save me!”

Sister?

I froze.

It had been so long since anyone had called me Sister.

My husband had used me as a substitute for the woman he loved. After cutting off my head, he set my entire family on fire.

My little sister had been the same, screaming hysterically to me from inside the flames.

“Sister, save me! Sister, save me!”

The sound of cloth being torn mixed with the little girl’s heart-wrenching sobs.

I had no head, yet hatred still made my brain ache.

So, carrying fury vast enough to drown the sky, I did as I had when I tore apart my husband’s entire family. Coldly, I patted the back of the brute who was hurriedly undoing his belt behind the others.

He shrugged impatiently.

“I’m already last in line. What are you patting me for?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he seemed to remember something.

He whipped around and came face-to-face with the neck where my head should have been.

To the accompaniment of his scream, I struck fast, true, and vicious, plunging one claw into him and ripping out his heart.

As blood sprayed, I happily stuffed that heart into my own chest.

Ah, it was beating. Thump, thump. I was practically just like a living person.

Once I changed into a new skin, I would be able to pass as human. How wonderful.

When the other two men turned back in horror, their first instinct was to run.

But once they were on my turf, whether they could leave was up to me.

With a sweep of my wide sleeve, I wrapped up their bloated bodies and smashed them hard into the Land God’s clay statue.

With a crashing crack, both men slammed to the ground, spat out blood, and curled into balls from the pain.

Wrapped in her torn clothes, the little girl shivered in the corner.

Yet somehow, a sudden ferocity surged up in her. She lunged over, snatched up a wooden club from the ground, charged at the two men, and began beating them with gritted teeth.

She did not stop until both heads were reduced to bloody pulp, brains mixed with blood spilling all over the floor.

Only then did her hands loosen, and the wooden club fell to the ground along with her.

She burst into loud sobs.

“I had no choice. If they didn’t die, I couldn’t live. Father, Mother, Shuyue is so scared!”

I clicked my tongue and sighed.

“You’re so scared, and I’m the one who lost out! Three bodies, and one has had its heart dug out, so it’s incomplete. The other two lost their heads and are the same as me, so I can’t use them either.”

“I waited hundreds of years thinking I could finally borrow a corpse and return to life, but it was all for nothing again!”

The little girl paused, then lifted that horrifying face and looked at me with determination.

“Sister, you saved my life. Whether you’re a good ghost or a bad ghost, I owe you my life.”

“After I go back, kill my eldest uncle’s family for murdering my parents and stealing our fortune, and avenge my blood feud, I’ll return and leave my life to you!”

After a moment of thought, I drew in a sharp breath.

“Silly child, does your eldest uncle’s family not have a single good-looking living corpse I can borrow?”

The little girl’s eyes lit up, and she answered with absolute certainty.

“They do! My dear cousin, who wants to ruin my chastity, steal my marriage, and seize my dowry and family property.”

“Not only is she beautiful, she’s been close to me since we were little. Her precious skin and flesh were all raised by Grandmother stealing my mother’s dowry. Peeling it off for my benefactor sister to use couldn’t be more fitting!”

She was so generous that she was even willing to give me her cousin.

I was not stingy either. I tore off a piece of skin from the mass grave and sat in the ruined temple, using my cultivation as the needle and my magic as the thread. Stitch by stitch, I used up nearly all my power to mend that pretty, delicate face of hers.

There was only one loose thread I could not tuck away, so it remained beneath Shuyue’s jaw.

She once joked,

“Even if I get lost, as long as you touch my face, Big Sister, you’ll be able to find Shuyue by that loose thread.”