“What’s inside the Zhous' Mansion?” Fang Xiu asked once more.
This time, the corpse moved. It scooped up all the Spirit Money on the counter and slid a note his way.
The answer: “A heart.”
'A heart?' Fang Xiu pulled out the Scalpel and cut into himself without a second thought.
Death reset kicked in.
…
“What’s the heart in the Zhous' Mansion?”
Answer: “A Specter’s heart.”
“What does it do?”
“It holds THIS piece of Land Between in check.”
“Is it linked to Zhou Qingfeng sealing the Specter World off from reality?”
“Yes.”
“How’d Zhou Qingfeng manage it?”
“He chopped up a Specter and used its pieces to lock down all the Lands Between the two worlds.”
Fang Xiu kept tossing questions, stacking up answers—no cost, thanks to the resets.
By the time he walked out of the pawnshop, he was brimming with info.
He saw it now: the pawnshop was a treasure chest. It could prop up his future-seeing act. As long as he didn’t prod at entities too far up the ladder, it spilled answers—some fuzzy, some dead-on.
Of all the scraps he’d dug up, the one that grabbed him most was the Specter Zhou Qingfeng had sliced apart.
Its scattered bits alone could clamp down all the Lands Between. That was power on a whole other level.
And the heart in the Zhous' Mansion? That was its anchor, the key keeping this place pinned.
He’d even squeezed out the Specter's name: FORBIDDEN.
Past that, the info dried up. No more money, no more answers.
Stepping out of the pawnshop, Fang Xiu’s curiosity pulled him to the other shops.
He wandered into a burial shroud store next.
Inside, a withered corpse rocked in a squeaky chair, the walls draped with shrouds of every type, prices marked below.
Cheapest was ten grand, priciest topped a million.
He ran his fingers over the million-Spirit-Money shroud. Light as a sheet, but it buzzed with an odd energy—not quite a Specter Gadget, missing that thick stain of rot.
He reckoned it could tank a few Class-A Specter strikes.
Out in the real world, this’d be a prize—psychics would go nuts for it. Better still, it seemed like something they could churn out in bulk.
Probably a leftover from the old days, he figured. They’d stormed the Other Side back then; they must’ve had some killer gear.
The shroud shop wasn’t just about shrouds, either.
Wreaths that snagged Specters, ingot candles that drew them in when lit, paper figures that popped out fakes—funeral stuff flipped into tools of war.
Next to that, today’s psychics looked like amateurs. The old era had mastered twisting Spiritual Energy and Specters to their whims.
Fang Xiu snagged a few things and headed out, then kept poking around.
Carpenter shop, blacksmith, coffin maker, tattoo parlor—he checked them all, taking it in.
Lu Ziming’s life-saving wooden puppet? A million from the carpenter. One-shot, stops a killing blow.
The blacksmith hammered out blades, the coffin shop dealt caskets that reined in wild Spiritual Energy. But the tattoo parlor? That was the real puzzle.
The corpse inside offered ink—not just any ink, but Specter Patterns. Get one carved into your skin, and you’d tap a shred of Specter power, even juice up your Spiritual Energy growth.
It was like Specterization lite—less kick than the real thing, but less deadly. Sort of.
The stronger the Specter you inked, the higher the odds your Spiritual Energy could spiral out of control. Big payoff, big gamble.
There was one big catch with Specter Patterns: once they’re on, they’re stuck. They don’t grow with you.
Ink a Class-A Specter on your skin, and by the time you’re fifth tier, it’s next to useless—worse, it’s a ticking bomb, upping the chance your Spiritual Energy goes haywire.
The payoff just doesn’t match the hassle.
Jumping straight to a top-tier Specter tattoo? That’s begging to die.
If it’s stronger than you, you can’t keep it in check—your Spiritual Energy shorts out, and you’re toast.
Plus, it’s not like you can pick any Specter you fancy. To get one inked, you need a chunk of its power.
Want a Class-S Specter on your skin? Good luck—you’d have to tangle with one, maybe even clip it, to snag that spark.
So, Specter Patterns? Shiny, but shaky. More trouble than they’re worth. That’s why nobody in the Land Between bothered.
The risks smothered the rewards, and the million-Spirit-Money price tag didn’t help.
None of that bothered Fang Xiu. Spiritual Energy blowouts didn’t scare him, and with Pain Manifestation, he could pull Specter power right from the tap. He could tattoo a Specter God if he felt like it.
But he didn’t. He picked “wife.”
She was the strongest Specter he’d ever crossed—bar none.
If he was going to ink something, it’d be the top dog. Her power, he reckoned, sat up there with his death reset—way out of reach.
That first summon, her icy stare from nowhere had slammed into him—huge, ancient. Every call since? Nothing. No stare.
If “Wife” was tied to the death reset, each rewind should’ve been a clean slate—new “first” summon, stare and all.
But it never came back. That meant one thing: his resets didn’t reach her. She stood outside the cycle.
That hit him hard, sparking a sharp glint in his eyes, a rush of cold, murderous edge.
He’d once pegged “wife” as some basic Specter—something he’d smash when he got tough enough to even the score.
But the stronger he got, the scarier she turned out to be. She might even top a Specter God. What’s beyond that? Nobody knew.
Still, he didn’t waver. No matter how high she loomed, he’d claw his way up someday and yank her down.
“Come out, 'wife!'”
In the tattoo parlor, Fang Xiu spoke her name low. With Pain Manifestation, he called up her shadow—a faint, glowing trace of her.
Then he flung a million Spirit Money at the shop’s corpse of an owner. “Put her on me.”
The tattooist was a shell—skin like leather, draped in dark red ink of a flame-wrapped Specter.
The design crawled over its body, but the head? That was the corpse’s own, stuck on top of the fiery shape like a creepy mash-up.
Fang Xiu peeled off his shirt and stretched out face-down on a creaky wooden bed, his slim, pale back bare.
The corpse shambled over, skeletal hands clutching a tattoo needle. No chit-chat—just money and the Specter’s power, that was the trade.
The needle dug in, and a hot, burning sting ripped across his back.
Fang Xiu didn’t blink.
To grab power, he’d carve his biggest grudge into his own skin. This kind of hurt? It was peanuts.
Translator's note: Dude's basically saying that his wife is the scariest creature in the world.