The singer had a rather ethereal quality.
The song fully conveyed the singer’s true feelings, but it was out of place in this gloomy atmosphere.
The Newspaper Zombie paid no attention to the singing, staring in utter disbelief at the paper that was constantly softening and thinning. “How is this possible…”
The players’ lost senses gradually returned. Yuan Nianshu covered her ears in disbelief, then slightly loosened her grip.
She wavered between the three possibilities of tinnitus, hallucination, and a real song.
Her gaze shifted to the others, who also had looks of astonishment on their faces. In hindsight, everything now seemed exceptionally clear.
Yuan Nianshu: “It’s not a hallucination, is it?”
She had a feeling it wasn’t.
Because hallucinations usually amplify one’s deepest desires, and under normal hallucinations, something as outrageous as singing shouldn’t occur.
Yuan Nianshu suddenly took a deep breath and began a male-female duet: “In this silent age—”
The others immediately looked at her as if she were a lunatic.
Qiao Song was the first to snap out of it, muttering to himself, “It’s not a hallucination.”
The others were also completely certain now. Especially Chen Su; in a hallucination, Yuan Nianshu wouldn’t do something so stupid.
Regaining control of their bodies, the group immediately seized the opportunity to act, preparing to release their skills against the Newspaper Zombie.
Someone was three steps ahead of them.
The tie had been torn in half in the previous confrontation. The Boss ghost-like appeared behind the Newspaper Zombie, his five fingers gripping the throat almost directly digging into the flesh.
Shen Zhiyi just watched coldly.
The situation on Zhou Q’ian’s side was being displayed in his mind in real-time through the shadow’s perspective. After confirming that he was fine, his absent-minded gaze refocused.
Most of the newspaper had been bizarrely destroyed.
The newspaper boss’s abilities were far from just one type, but the range and intensity of his abilities had been greatly weakened. The Boss was not immune to illusions. The Newspaper Zombie used a momentary illusion to deceive the other’s perception and quickly bolted into the distance.
In that nook, scattered about, were the human heads Zhou Q’ian had previously thrown far away.
The Newspaper Zombie had a beautiful plan.
Before the newspaper became completely useless, as long as it could devour the power of one more ghost, it would still have a chance to turn the tables.
The illusion could only be maintained for a limited time. When the running figure reappeared in his pupils in the distance, the Boss calmly strode forward.
“So watching people run away is this interesting.” No wonder this ghost always liked to chase them from behind.
Coming to this instance had been very beneficial for him.
The Boss concluded with a smile.
In the future, the company could also use a shell corporation and establish a special subsidiary. As long as others didn’t know the big boss was the same person, they would be invincible in a way.
After both companies became big and strong, if an excellent employee wanted to change jobs, they would just be moving from their left hand to their right.
The last-place elimination system and the conflict between new and old employees… if used well, these would also be a valuable asset.
“Eat slowly, no need to rush.”
He looked at the pathetic figure in front of him and reminded him elegantly.
In the last few steps, under the pressure of the even stronger yin energy from behind, the Newspaper Zombie practically scrambled and crawled to the side of the human head, quickly covering it with the limp newspaper.
Hurry, hurry!
Hurry up and eat this head!
This almost crazed scene fell into the eyes of the players behind, their expressions a mixture of wanting to speak but hesitating. None of them wanted to prolong the night of long dreams, but they were also afraid of the Boss’s previous astonishing performance and didn’t want to be the one to step forward and teach him a lesson.
Subconsciously, they looked at Shen Zhiyi.
When their five senses were taken away, it must have been these two who had tied down the Newspaper Zombie, allowing them to survive.
Shen Zhiyi looked like someone who wouldn’t drag things out. Perhaps if he stepped forward…
They looked up. Where did he go?
Half a minute ago, Shen Zhiyi had already left this area and was walking towards the office. As he got closer, he suddenly stopped.
The moonlight was bright. Just near the door, Zhou Q’ian was sitting on the ground, exhausted, his face pale. He still stubbornly clutched a small trumpet, singing to the moon.
Shen Zhiyi gave him a deep look. Just as he was about to speak, he saw a faded black rose in Zhou Q’ian’s left hand.
The shadow, drowsy under the moonlight, disappeared. Zhou Q’ian slowly lifted his eyelids.
As their eyes met, Shen Zhiyi came to his side, squatted down, and asked, “Are you okay?”
“…Mmm.”
Shen Zhiyi was here, so the Newspaper Zombie side shouldn’t be a big problem. Zhou Q’ian asked, “What about you?”
Knowing what he was worried about, Shen Zhiyi said, “The shadow sealed another part of my power. It’s on a break.”
What a coincidence, Zhou Q’ian thought. My heart is also on a break.
“How long is the break?” Is it serious?
He was a little worried. The shadow seemed to have used some special technique to help him resist the self-destructive consciousness earlier.
As they were speaking, the last rose petal in his hand withered tragically. Zhou Q’ian’s breath hitched.
The petal fell to the ground and didn’t disappear, but scattered into a few beautiful words: Work six days, rest one.
“…”
Shen Zhiyi helped him up. “During the break, the shadow appears for no more than eight hours a day and disappears for at least one day a week.”
The body of the Jumping Ghost was still not far away. In the gloomy and foul-smelling environment, Zhou Q’ian was amused by him. Knowing that he was saying this to not make him worry, he put away the megaphone, his gaze drifting into the distance.
“It’s almost over over there.”
Shen Zhiyi hinted that he might miss the Newspaper Zombie’s final moments of pain and cursing.
“Quick, help me over.” For Zhou Q’ian, this was a must-experience part of the process, beneficial for relieving the physical and mental stress of being chased in the instance.
He wasn’t injured.
Besides the bloody marks on his palm and the tip of his tongue, most of his fatigue came from his mind. In the process of resisting the infusion of self-destructive thoughts, his entire head felt like it had split into eight pieces.
The two of them returned the way they came.
On the way, Zhou Q’ian’s lips were tightly pursed. No wonder medicine-type items were the scarcest in instances. If he had a mental power-enhancing item or something like a roly-poly potion, he wouldn’t have been so passive.
As if knowing what he was thinking, Shen Zhiyi helped him reflect on others, almost to the point of listing a hundred useless faults for each player.
Amidst his scathing criticism, the two of them were almost near the sky garden.
Chen Su, who heard the footsteps, was the first to look up. He happened to see Zhou Q’ian walking over with his cane, tapping it on the ground, the other half of his body being supported by someone else, giving him the feeling of an eighty-year-old going to war with a crutch.
“Is there still breath left?”
As Zhou Q’ian approached, he looked over eagerly.
In a dirty corner, the Newspaper Zombie was half-paralyzed, one hand tightly clutching the tattered remains of the newspaper. Where was the arrogance from before?
The moment it saw Zhou Q’ian, the Newspaper Zombie spoke first, its voice hoarse and unpleasant. “You win.”
An expression of extreme, hideous pain appeared on its face.
“I… was once a person too. On the day of the fire, my employees and I were almost burned alive… That wasn’t a person. I saw it. The barbecue restaurant owner and the others were snickering at the door. It was them…”
In the midst of his painful reminiscence, the Newspaper Zombie suddenly burst forth with unprecedented speed, instantly overdrawing all its power to create an illusion and charge at Zhou Q’ian.
As fast as it charged, that’s how high it flew when it was kicked.
Shen Zhiyi coldly looked at this attacker.
If Zhou Q’ian wasn’t half-leaning on him right now, it definitely wouldn’t have been just a kick.
“Are you looking for this?”
A pocket watch appeared in Zhou Q’ian’s hand. He tilted his head slightly. “You’ve been holding on to that last breath waiting for me, haven’t you? Trying to turn back time and give yourself another chance.”
In a way, they were both running towards each other.
With its last hope shattered, the Newspaper Zombie, in its extreme anger, couldn’t even make a sound. A strange noise squeezed out of its throat.
Zhou Q’ian deliberately didn’t put away the pocket watch, just dangled it from a fragile index finger, letting this ghost only stare at it longingly.
“With your scheming mind, the disaster back then was probably not just caused by your reporting. Let me guess, someone went to extort them privately and was quickly taken care of?”
Death can bring emotional distortion, but greed is a primal attribute, only more magnified.
The Newspaper Zombie suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood.
Chen Su, who was closest, had a complicated expression. It was the first time he had seen a ghost get so angry it spat blood.
For the calculating Newspaper Zombie, being seen through by the same person, both now and in the past, was no less than an insult.
“You will… die a horrible death.”
Here it comes!
The familiar curse has arrived. After going through the necessary procedures, Zhou Q’ian waved his hand in satisfaction. “You may kneel and leave.”
“Not a good…” The last two words were not finished. The Newspaper Zombie’s gray glasses slid down its nose. The hand that had been tightly clutching the newspaper loosened. It died with its eyes open.
After watching for a few seconds, Zhou Q’ian said faintly, “Stop pretending. You still have breath left, don’t you, little bro?”
It was just waiting for him to come closer to admire its dead face, then do a sit-up to snatch the pocket watch.
The Newspaper Zombie, its neck already twisted, its eyelids twitched slightly.
The next moment, a reflective leather shoe stepped on its neck. The Newspaper Zombie didn’t even have time to open its eyes. Just as it was about to say something, its cervical spine was directly snapped. Then its brain was also stomped out.
The Boss picked up the newspaper and wiped his leather shoes.
He had lost a tie. High-end custom orders took a long time now. Just stomping its head felt a little too light.
This time, the Newspaper Zombie was truly dead.
From the players’ perspective, the Boss wiping his shoes, the indifferent Shen Zhiyi… the half-smiling Zhou Q’ian—any one of these three, for some reason, made them feel more terrifying than the Newspaper Zombie.
Zhou Q’ian slowly put away his pocket watch. Sensing the prying gazes, he asked, “Do you want this too?”
What answered him was a row of heads shaking like rattle-drums.
Zhou Q’ian looked at the time. It was exactly 4:04 a.m.
Brains all over the floor, combined with this time, it was truly… a beautiful night.
“Next, all that’s left is to kill the ghost market manager.”
The entire fourteenth floor suddenly became so quiet that even breathing could not be heard. Even the Boss raised an eyebrow slightly.
Yuan Nianshu swallowed. “Why do we have to kill the ghost market manager?”
Zhou Q’ian had an expression that said, do you even need to ask? “It also obstructed us during the mission. Ghosts that block the way are usually killed, right?”
“…” Damn it, who taught you this logic?
“But…” His brow gradually furrowed. Zhou Q’ian said, “I haven’t thought of a logical chain that can deal with the ghost market manager yet.”
This is really seeing a ghost.
There was too little direct information about the ghost market manager.
The corpse spots on Yuan Nianshu’s body couldn’t take another round. She prayed that someone would quickly persuade him. No matter how you looked at it, the ghost market manager was not someone they could kill.
This time, Shen Zhiyi did not remain silent. He looked at Zhou Q’ian. “Think about the last instance.”
If the King of Drama hadn’t been seeking his own death, it would have been impossible for ordinary players to kill him.
The so-called instances without staff actually had an invisible presence maintaining order. The game would not set rules for players to deal with these NPCs.
He didn’t say it too clearly, but Zhou Q’ian quickly figured out some similarities and asked seriously, “So besides spitting at it, there’s nothing we can do?”
The other players: “…”
No, they don’t want to spit. They want to go home.
Shen Zhiyi said meaningfully, “This ghost wall came at a coincidental time. Maybe we don’t need to do anything, and the ghost market manager will pay the price.”
Before the last word was finished, a slight, disharmonious noise appeared around them.
He turned his head to look into the darkness. The sky garden was still empty. However, a few inches from the ground, a porcelain doll was standing there. On the doll’s face, the eyes of an adult were looking here.
Eyeless, with long, thin eyes, the immense pressure formed a sharp contrast with its size.
The players more or less took a step back.
Zhou Q’ian had a feeling this doll was staring at him. “It seems to be calling me over.”
Shen Zhiyi sneered, confirming his guess. Just as he was about to step forward with Zhou Q’ian, the porcelain doll suddenly stopped.
Although it was like a porcelain mask, and its face showed no expression, the players could all interpret its meaning: only one person could come over.
But at this moment, Zhou Q’ian took the initiative to stop Shen Zhiyi. For some reason, he said, “It’s fine, you don’t have to follow.”
Their eyes met. Zhou Q’ian’s expression was firm.
In the end, Shen Zhiyi couldn’t win him over.
Watching the young man walk straight towards the porcelain doll, Chen Su couldn’t help but take a deep breath. This person was simply not afraid of anything. Fortunately, they hadn’t become mortal enemies yet, otherwise it would have been a big problem.
Zhou Q’ian walked over quite calmly.
If the ghost market manager was not a mandatory kill, then the difficulty of this instance would end with the Newspaper Zombie. Now that the source of danger had been cleared, it was impossible for the ghost market manager to make a move again.
As if not expecting him to come so quickly, the porcelain doll’s turn was half a beat slow.
It almost slid towards the office, its bottom not really touching the tiles. In the blink of an eye, it disappeared first.
…
The slightly empty office, a section of the display cabinet was empty.
A palm-sized porcelain doll sat quietly on the desk. The porcelain surface was covered with firing lines, very shallow. Under the moonlight, it shimmered.
Boundless light gathered in one place, casting a heavy shadow.
Zhou Q’ian wanted to frown at the sight of this shadow.
Although the porcelain doll was right opposite him, his gaze carefully swept over every area, even the cracks.
“No need to look.”
The shadow did not, as before, bring thoughts of self-harm. The porcelain doll’s mouth did not move. The voice seemed to come from another world, resounding directly in his mind.
“My true body is not here.”
Zhou Q’ian’s gaze finally refocused on the porcelain doll itself. He cursed inwardly that the ghosts in this instance were more cunning than the last.
Under the disparity in strength, the ghost market manager had never revealed its true form in front of the players, which meant that no one could kill it.
Sheets of paper appeared out of thin air, blown by the yin wind, rustling, and finally landed in Zhou Q’ian’s hand.
The moonlight was imprinted on them. Red words on white paper, the title [Employee Exemption Agreement] was particularly striking.
Shen Zhiyi was right after all. The ghost wall had brought some trouble to this ghost market manager.
Now, it was actually trying to force him to reconcile.
Zhou Q’ian sneered inwardly.
If reconciliation was useful, what’s the point of the game?
No matter what gibberish the other party said, he would resolutely not reconcile.
“We meet again.”
Zhou Q’ian, who was boredly scanning the agreement, his expression froze.
The porcelain doll stood motionlessly, quietly watching him.
His intuition told him that this “again” did not refer to their meeting after returning from the ghost temple.
Due to the unexpected opening, under the strange, smiling gaze of the porcelain figure, Zhou Q’ian subconsciously replied, “Is this your reason for being a bitch?”
The temperature in the office dropped a few degrees. The moonlight instantly turned cold.
“I mean… who are you?” Zhou Q’ian tried to warm up the atmosphere.
The porcelain doll’s speech pattern was strange. “Your personality wasn’t so bad before.”
Before?
The smile on Zhou Q’ian’s face slowly faded.
The medical report confirmed that there were problems with his own memory. This ghost seemed to know something.
Seeing the change in the young man’s expression, a trace of malice surged in the porcelain doll’s empty eyes.
In the silent confrontation, Zhou Q’ian actually turned around directly.
What people said couldn’t be trusted, let alone what came out of a ghost’s mouth. No matter how much the ghost market manager knew, he needed to find a way to gain some initiative first.
For the sake of the exemption agreement, the other party would definitely call him back.
One step, two steps…
Zhou Q’ian frowned. He had already taken two and a half steps.
As he was about to take the step closer to the door, a voice reappeared in his mind.
This time, the porcelain doll did not continue to speak in riddles. Its bluish-white body was like being wrapped in a layer of human skin.
“Before, you came to this world,” the porcelain doll paused. “But at that time, you were walking backwards.”
Zhou Q’ian retracted the leg he was about to step out with. When he heard the words “walking backwards,” an uncontrollable chill spread directly to his mind.
The ethereal voice was like a shovel, turning over something that was about to come out, but it was stuck at a certain nerve ending, and his whole head felt faintly swollen.
“What do you mean?”
“It means you are someone who walked back from the end of the instance.” The porcelain doll took in all his discomfort. “I could feel that your body was in a state of degeneration at that time.”
Zhou Q’ian narrowed his eyes.
The end of the instance should be the new world. According to the ghost market manager, he seemed to have been an evolver, and then came back?
Zhou Q’ian only believed fifty percent of these words. The game was not a casual game. How could it let people travel freely?
“During the beta test, the first batch of people who cleared the game were naturally the most excellent. The game likes to recruit excellent people to work for it,” knowing his confusion, the porcelain doll hit the nail on the head. “You should have a deep understanding of this.”
Zhou Q’ian had personally experienced two staff training bases, both of which treated players as raw materials, then further cultivated and processed them, and finally put them on the job.
“The authority that cleared talents can access is not something that ordinary staff can compare to. You should have found an opportunity at that time…”
The porcelain doll suddenly smiled. “The game has this good point. As long as you are within the rules, even if you wriggle through loopholes like a loach, it won’t cut you in half. As for why you came back, only you yourself know the answer.”
Zhou Q’ian did not speak. The experience of going through instances flashed through his mind.
Every time he tried to exploit a bug, the game indeed did not make things difficult for him.
The high and mighty, impartial law enforcement made it impossible for people to find the game’s own weaknesses.
It was like a higher civilization looking down on a lower civilization.
Invisibly, it was as if a pair of eyes were really staring at him. Zhou Q’ian felt a double dose of coldness. His occasionally quickened breathing revealed that he was not as calm as he appeared.
His head suddenly hurt as if being pricked by needles.
The next moment, he strode to the desk and took out his dream pen.
The dormant period did not affect the basic function of writing. Zhou Q’ian quickly signed his name on the exemption agreement.
The porcelain doll was speaking with relish, seeming not to understand why he had just signed directly.
“You started to pause, and the speed of your speech unconsciously slowed down later,” Zhou Q’ian screwed the cap back on, his fingers looking even more delicate than the special paper. “This means you were about to lie.”
It was better not to listen to the half-true, half-false words that followed.
More importantly, as time dragged on, his head hurt too much.
It was like a seed forcibly breaking through a layer of frost—a heart-wrenching pain.
Zhou Q’ian directly took the rest of the exemption agreements, seemingly preparing to wait for the other players to sign before bringing them back.
A strange laugh sounded.
“Seeing as you’re so straightforward, a final reminder.”
“Those who, like you, were willing to respond to the game’s recruitment, call themselves goalkeepers.”
“They…” The porcelain doll thought of something interesting and slowed its tone. “They will actively provide ideas for the design of instances, using the instances as a Colosseum, and making players fight to the death for entertainment.”
“This is a group of real madmen.”
“As a result, because you exploited a loophole, the game revoked a large amount of their authority.” The porcelain doll used a different description: “Layoffs.”
Every word was imprinted in his mind, hooking the seed deep in his memory, forcibly pulling it up by the roots.
Zhou Q’ian could no longer bear this sharp pain. He fell to one knee, one hand barely supporting himself on the carpet, so he didn’t fall completely.
The seed finally broke through the frost of his memory, and a large number of fragmented images scattered in his mind.
“This world is so beautiful!”
“Of course we are not an island. We’ve been through so much together as a team. From now on, we are each other’s family.”
A group of people with blurry faces were talking and laughing. Zhou Q’ian could feel that he was also among them. The most calm and elderly one among them patted his head. “Responding to the game’s recruitment is a good thing. Our little Q’ian shouldn’t have any psychological burden.”
“That’s right,” a girl next to him also said with a smile. “Evolvers and non-evolvers are already different on a biological level. How can humans be compared to the apes locked in a zoo?”
“By working for the game, we will have the opportunity to achieve a second evolution.”
Another playful voice chimed in, “I’ve always dreamed of watching a gladiator fight in ancient Rome. It’s very interesting to watch it as a Colosseum.”
It is human instinct to pursue a higher level of life. As long as their connection with the game deepened, they would have greater power and a longer lifespan.
The younger version of himself in his memory seemed to be smiling in agreement.
However, the scene changed. Those smiling faces were filled with disappointment. The corners of their mouths straightened, and they finally stood in a circle, all looking at him with strange eyes.
“Why?!”
“You said we would be family forever. Why did you betray the game, betray us?”
“It’s because of you that the game no longer accepts our suggestions. You ruined our chance for a second evolution!”
As more and more players cleared the game in the future, they would sooner or later be reduced from noble spectators to one of the masses in the new world.
The power sealed like a stubborn rock was released a little with the revival of his memory.
The wig loosened and fell to the ground. His hair began to grow wildly and unrestrainedly. In its place was a waterfall of deep blue. The young man, half-kneeling on the carpet, his skin had a unique whiteness, as if soaked in the deep sea, never seeing the light.
One of his eyes hurt like hell.
Zhou Q’ian covered the eyeballs that were about to explode, struggling to get up. The will of the world seemed to be punishing the revived power.
The pressure made him vomit a mouthful of blood.
Fortunately, this power seemed to be suppressed by another power before it could completely break through its cage.
Staggering back to the desk, Zhou Q’ian looked weakly at the porcelain doll, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth. “You did it on purpose.”
The porcelain doll never opened its mouth when it spoke. The voice that sounded in his mind had a special magic, like forcibly pulling up everything that had been sealed in his mind by the roots.
The ghost market manager was deliberately using special means to activate his own memory.
The corners of the porcelain doll’s mouth curled up high as it looked down at him smugly.
Just as its smile was at its most smug, a touch of coldness bloomed in its eye sockets. Two red dots appeared in its porcelain eyes.
“!”
The distance was too close. The price of watching a good show up close was not being able to dodge in time.
The fact that Zhou Q’ian did not use a lethal weapon was also key. Not feeling any killing intent made the porcelain doll relax its guard.
His slender fingertips were stained with blood. He had just gently dotted each of the porcelain doll’s eye sockets.
Just as this stroke fell, the porcelain doll’s aura suddenly strengthened, and the pressure was much heavier than before.
But Zhou Q’ian smiled.
Whether in folk legends or in instances, dotting the eyes of ghosts and gods was a very dangerous thing.
The statues in the ghost temple had no eyes, and neither did the porcelain doll. He could probably guess the reason. Just like the paper figures that once sent off the dead on the roads of Huagu City, dotting the eyes was said to prevent them from gaining consciousness after being dotted.
“So beautiful,” Zhou Q’ian looked directly at the new blood pupils he had personally added.
The ghost market manager never showed its true form, excessively cherishing its own life.
But with more consciousness, once the porcelain doll shattered, it would definitely cause it considerable trauma.
In an instant, a sharp fishing fork appeared in Zhou Q’ian’s hand, and he forcefully stabbed it towards the porcelain doll.
The porcelain doll rose with infinite anger, and a sky-full of shadows enveloped the transgressor. Zhou Q’ian, who was generating self-destructive thoughts, was indifferent. It would still take time for this consciousness to completely invade. This bit of time was enough for one fork to pierce the target.
The arrogant smugness completely disappeared from the porcelain doll’s face. The shadows gathered and almost solidified, obstructing the advance of the fishing fork.
Instead of being annoyed, Zhou Q’ian, learning from the porcelain doll’s previous demeanor, the corners of his mouth curled up.
“You…”
Meeting the young man’s smiling eyes, the porcelain doll suddenly had an even more ominous premonition. Before it could react, a dull pain suddenly came from its body.
A hand suddenly attacked from behind.
The sharp porcelain did not pierce the flesh, but was instead further pierced by sharp nails.
A strong yin wind filled the office. With a “crack,” the porcelain doll’s back, from a central point, exploded like a snowflake. Its entire body shattered, inch by inch.
The moonlight shone on the mysteriously appearing person, casting a dark shadow that enveloped the porcelain doll.
This time, it was its turn to be in someone else’s shadow.
Shen Zhiyi’s timing was extremely clever. He only came in the moment Zhou Q’ian raised the fishing fork. The shadow instead further reduced his presence, appearing bizarrely behind the porcelain doll.
The porcelain doll widened the eyes that had just been forcibly dotted.
Damn it, if it hadn’t been completely focused on that damn fishing fork earlier, how could it have been so easily ambushed!
Zhou Q’ian was not at all surprised by Shen Zhiyi’s appearance; it was even expected.
The fact that he had taken the initiative to let him come and see the ghost market manager was in itself abnormal.
“Thanks.”
This was to thank him for not obstructing when the ghost market manager was revealing the truth, so he could personally settle the score.
Shen Zhiyi was taken aback. After a moment, he lowered his eyes and said, “No next time.”
Zhou Q’ian, his face pale, only said, “Quick, devour it.”
Shen Zhiyi must also be able to enhance his power by devouring, just like the Boss and his mother. Devouring it could replenish the shadow’s body.
Now that the account of the ghost wall was settled, and the problem of the shadow’s injury was resolved, everything was just right. Zhou Q’ian looked at the shattered porcelain doll, his eyes meeting the ones he had personally dotted.
His pale lips gained a touch of color from his smile. “I have a habit…”
“Revenge is a dish best served immediately.”
__
Author’s note:
Zhou Q’ian: …My mental health is safe for another day.
