He lowered his head to look at the black, ever-flowing water shackles around his wrists, which radiated an ominous aura. His brow furrowed slightly, but his tone remained unchanged.
"Do you know what you're doing?!"
Wu Heng stood in the doorway, with rain forming a hazy curtain behind him. "I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm inviting Death itself... for a visit."
The entire haunted house fell utterly silent at this reversal, leaving only the increasingly urgent rain outside, as though it were playing a song for this blasphemous imprisonment.
The shackles around Death's wrists, condensed from shadows and rainwater, flowed slowly as if alive, severing his profound connection to the death beyond.
He lowered his head to inspect the shackles, and at last, the unchanging indifference on his face cracked.
His expression was a mixture of shock, anger, and a trace of incredulous absurdity.
"You." His voice remained low, yet it was like a suppressed volcano. Beneath his composure lay terrifying majesty. "You imprisoned Death. Do you know that, since the beginning of time, there has never been an act so arrogant?"
He could not even find a more fitting word, because the act itself surpassed all history that had ever occurred.
Wu Heng stood at the door of the haunted house office. Beyond it lay an endless curtain of rain; within it, fear had congealed.
The hem of his robe fluttered in the wind, contrasting with the water still spreading across the floor.
"I know exactly what I'm doing, sir." Wu Heng's voice was so steady that not a ripple could be heard in it. "Imprisoning Death itself does indeed sound beyond all reason, but I have reasons why I must do this."
"And you, honored incarnation of Death—if you do not wish to remain Lucifer's puppet, having