In a daze, Ji Li seemed to see the man slumped on the damp ground.
A lock of hair had fallen across his forehead, and the collar of his meticulously buttoned Zhongshan suit had been torn.
Only those eyes, still as a deep pool, shone with a lonely light beside the corpses and amid the ashes.
He gazed at him quietly, his mind clear as a mirror, without a word.
Ji Li gently brushed his index finger over the name on the card and murmured:
"I'll reshape the future into what I want it to be..."
At 20:07:59, Spirit Communication activated.
His fingertip touched the black lettering, establishing a mysterious link between a human and a ghost.
As the black aura was drawn out of the card, Ji Li shut his eyes tightly and became one with the ghost.
Two souls overlapped at that moment, freezing even the moonlight in the sky.
Spirit Communication originated in the Real World, yet it affected the Ash World as well.
In that same guest room.
Chang Nian held her right hand open behind her back. An invisible mark had already been drawn on her palm, needing only one final stroke.
She stared fixedly at Ji Li before her, ready to act at any moment.
But in that very second, endless ashes enveloped the translucent Ji Li.
The ashes blowing in through the window consciously gathered around him.
The fierce wind left Chang Nian unable to open her eyes, forcing her to retreat toward the door. Through her blurred vision,
she saw that the ashes had completely engulfed Ji Li, their pale gray gradually turning pitch-black.
Ji Li, buried deep within them, had long since vanished from sight.
From within that mass of ashes, she seemed to faintly hear a few words:
"Someone