The Whisper Returns

At eleven thirty, the night was black as ink. The lights in countless homes had just gone out, and the city was going to sleep.

In Su Yang's room, a low, hoarse whisper rang out.

The voice was faint and elusive, fading in and out.

It seemed to seep through tiny pores in the walls, to come from the floorboards beneath the bed, and yet also to sound from some corner of Su Yang's body.

As time passed, the voice grew clearer, and pain slowly enveloped Su Yang's body.

"At the hour of the rat, the eldest ate my hands."

"At the hour of the ox, the second gouged out my eyes."

"At the hour of the tiger, the third sliced open my back and pulled out my spine."

"At the hour of the rabbit, the fourth flayed me and made my skin into a garment."

Su Yang jolted upright in bed, his eyes wide.

It was the whisper! The whisper had come again!

And this time there was another part to it!

"At the hour of the rabbit, the fourth made my skin into a garment..."

"Was there more to the whisper?"

Su Yang repeated the extra sentence aloud, and its contents set his imagination racing!

But before long, the pain grew more intense, making Su Yang's mind go blank in waves and forcing him to stop investigating the sentence that had suddenly been added.

Su Yang immediately pulled the black-covered Dead Man's Book from beneath his pillow and opened it.

Several lines of words formed from blood had appeared once again on the flyleaf of the Dead Man's Book.

The blood floated above the paper, forming round beads, just like droplets of water on a lotus leaf.

Drop after drop of blood formed words on the notebook, an utterly chilling sight.

[Tomorrow, at the hour of the rat]

[Soul-Reaping Bureau, Maiden's Soul.]

[Tear any blank page from the book. This time, go alone.]

[Every gift from fate has its price secretly marked upon it. Good luck!]

Su Yang glanced at the bloody words in the Dead Man's Book and committed their contents to memory.

Without the slightest hesitation, Su Yang held the Dead Man's Book up before his face, stuck out his tongue, and licked every trace of blood from it.

The instant Su Yang's tongue touched the blood on the Dead Man's Book, the pain that had clung to him like maggots to the bone vanished.

Su Yang put the Dead Man's Book back beneath his pillow and glanced at the clock on his desk.

The clock's luminous hour hand pointed halfway between eleven and twelve.

It was eleven thirty, half an hour before the time he had arranged to meet Zhao Shengshen.

"Tomorrow, at the hour of the rat. Doesn't that mean midnight?"

"The Maiden's Soul in the Soul-Reaping Bureau... Why does the Dead Man's Book know I'm going to the Soul-Reaping Bureau? And why is it telling me to tear out any page from the book and go alone? Nothing like this has ever happened before."

"A gift from fate. Could the Dead Man's Book know my fate?"

Su Yang sat in the pitch-dark room, recalling the words that had just appeared in the Dead Man's Book.

The more Su Yang thought about it, the more a chill crept down his back!

It wasn't fear of death; the more he thought about it, the more terrifying it became.

Even Zhao Shengshen hadn't told Su Yang that he was taking him to the Soul-Reaping Bureau tonight, much less that they would be meeting the Maiden's Soul!

Zhao Shengshen had only told Su Yang to wait for him at his front door at midnight tonight, and nothing more!

Su Yang now felt as though an invisible hand in the shadows had clamped tightly around his throat, controlling every turn of that fate!

Ever since his parents had disappeared, every step of his fate had seemed arranged by someone!

The closer he came to awakening his sequence ability, the clearer this sense of his fate being controlled became.

"Ability! My ability still isn't enough! If I were as powerful as Gai Fengyan and Zhao Shengshen, how could I still be at the mercy of this eerie whisper?"

Su Yang slammed a fist into his quilt, but its soft touch only made him more irritated.

Taking a deep breath, Su Yang got up, took a set of clean clothes from his wardrobe, and went into the bathroom.

Only when cold droplets splashed against Su Yang's face did most of his irritation subside.

After a quick cold shower, Su Yang forced himself to stop thinking about what had just happened.

Fortune and misfortune go hand in hand. His parents naturally had their reasons for leaving him the Dead Man's Book.

Perhaps one day in the future, the Dead Man's Book would become what he relied on to turn heaven and earth around!

Su Yang came out of the bathroom, tossed his dirty clothes onto the bed, and glanced at the clock.

It was already past eleven fifty, with ten minutes left until his meeting with Zhao Shengshen.

Should he do as the Dead Man's Book instructed?

After standing in the room for a while, Su Yang nevertheless took the Dead Man's Book from beneath his pillow, opened it to a random page, gently tore it out, and slipped it into his trouser pocket.

Then Su Yang picked up his house key and crept quietly to the front door.

The door opened softly with a creak.

Just as Su Yang turned his back and gently pulled the door shut, a magnetic voice sounded behind him.

"Not bad, you're three minutes early! Earlier than I expected!"

The voice was so distinctive that Su Yang recognized it as Zhao Shengshen's at once.

Sure enough, when Su Yang turned to look, he saw Zhao Shengshen smiling.

Zhao Shengshen had changed out of the suit he'd worn that morning and into a close-fitting black shirt and a pair of slim black trousers.

Two buttons on his shirt were undone, revealing his broad chest.

With the graying hair at his temples and his slicked-back hairstyle, Zhao Shengshen displayed all the charm of a mature man.

"Director, what's with that outfit?"

Su Yang froze when he saw how Zhao Shengshen was dressed.

Was he taking Su Yang to awaken his sequence ability? At this hour, dressed like that, he looked every bit like a city man heading out for a wild night!

Zhao Shengshen chuckled softly. Instead of answering Su Yang, he pointed to a long black sedan parked downstairs.

"Let's go! I'm taking you to the Soul-Reaping Bureau tonight! You can meet your future partners."

"Trust me, you'll never forget tonight."

With that, Zhao Shengshen left Su Yang with a dashing view of his back and walked straight toward the black sedan downstairs.

Su Yang could only suppress his doubts and follow behind Zhao Shengshen.

After getting into the car, Su Yang discovered that the sedan was not only magnificent on the outside; its interior was every bit as luxurious and distinguished.

He felt the leather of the front passenger seat, and the sensation beneath his fingertips convinced Su Yang that it couldn't have been cheap.

Are people in the Soul-Reaping Bureau all this rich?

Su Yang muttered to himself.

He glanced at the scenery flashing past the car window, then at Zhao Shengshen, who was swaying nonstop to the music in the car.

For some inexplicable reason, Su Yang suddenly felt that the director seemed a little unreliable.