Ghost Compendium

"Quick, grab it... grab the rope quickly!"

The confidant was lifted up by Wu Liang by his clothes and couldn't move, but deep down, he was shouting constantly.

Hoping that the girl in the river could grab the rope in front of her.

From his observation of this black-clad boy, the Monkey Zodiac, throughout the day.

Whether he was massacring hundreds in the underground black factory, or expressing a superior attitude when facing Wu Yeli, or even at the moment when Old Xing was slain by the Blood Sword Domain, the confidant had hidden at a great distance and witnessed that the Monkey Zodiac did not even show a single emotional fluctuation.

With such a person, the confidant had no doubt that he could watch this girl drown slowly without blinking an eye!

"You have about ten seconds until the river completely drowns you. Do you choose to become the Black Swan or Luo Fei?" Wu Liang's voice remained cold.

But the girl's heart, sealed away by unimaginable torment, was not so easily unlocked.

During that tormenting process, every independent thinking and escape attempt brought her nothing but endless suffering or changing styles of torture devices.

Only by robotically following orders could she avoid the torment.

"Mr. Hou, are you really just going to watch her drown?" The confidant took a deep breath and still chose to ask this question.

Even though he already knew the answer.

"If she has always been the Black Swan, then death is the release her heart desires most."

As soon as Wu Liang finished speaking, the ten-second deadline had already reached its last moment.

The river had submerged the girl's nose, and as her body struggled uncontrollably in pain, it finally went completely over her head.

Only a string of bubbles kept emerging from the river, marking the countdown of the girl's life.

When no more air could escape her mouth, and the icy river water poured into her body, it would be her final demise.

"Oh... poor girl..." The confidant couldn't help but sigh for the girl's tragic fate.

According to the investigation by their Black Market into Wu Yeli's affairs, most victims were young people just entering society, or even orphans who happened to become Awakened.

It is easier to cover up the crime if it is someone with no family or friends who fall victim.

So this girl likely lived a hard life even before she was an Awakened, and thought joining the Awakening Association, the most powerful civil organization, could change her fate, only to find herself jumping from one hell into another.

Perhaps it's exactly as the Monkey Zodiac said—death might be a release for her.

"Mr. Hou, at least let me lay her body to rest?"

Yet as the confidant prepared to go down and retrieve the girl's body for a proper burial later, he was surprised to find that the Monkey Zodiac had not let him go.

Even the life-saving Fog Rope was quietly floating in the water and hadn't been retracted.

Plop—

Suddenly, the water rippled with only a few bubbles, and a frail, pale hand emerged high above the river.

Without any hesitation, it gripped the grayish-white Fog Rope tightly, and with a strong pull, borrowing Wu Liang's mighty strength, the girl broke through the water.

Her eyes revealed a complexity of fear, gratitude, pain, and despair.

The long-suppressed emotions erupted like a volcano, causing Luo Fei to wail and sob as she cried out in a hoarse voice toward the shore: "Please save... save me!"

"I want to live! I'm not the Black Swan!"

"I want to crawl out of Hell!"

"Please..."

She was utterly spent, her already scarred hands clutching the Fog Rope had long since been worn raw, with bright red blood coloring the river around her.

Even so, she refused to let go of this single lifeline.

Whoosh—

With those words barely spoken, Luo Fei felt herself being lifted out of the river by a strong force.

The gentle breeze brushing over her soaking body sent a bone-chilling cold through her, causing Luo Fei to shiver uncontrollably.

But her heart was jubilant.

The coldness on her body, the pain in her hands—these sensations she hadn't felt for a long while!

"Cough, cough... thank... you..."

The raspiness in Luo Fei's voice wasn't due to weakness or fear, but because her vocal cords had also been destroyed by some means.

The confidant, seeing the girl in front of him coughing non-stop and seemingly on the verge of collapse, hurriedly prepared to take off his coat and cover her.

But Wu Liang acted first, saying:

"Welcome back to this world."

As soon as these words were spoken, Luo Fei's pupils contracted sharply, and she was astonished to find all the cold and pain had vanished, even her soaking hair was now dry.

Most incredibly, even her scars and her damaged voice had returned to normal.

As if reborn by those words, she could find no trace of her former injuries.

Thud—

A dull sound echoed from her body hitting the hard ground.

Upon regaining her normalcy, Luo Fei wasted no time, not caring about her still scantily clad state, she knelt profoundly before Wu Liang.

She said, through sobs: "Thank you... thank you for recreating me! Luo Fei cannot repay your kindness enough, even if I work tirelessly for you! Could you please tell me your name? Luo Fei will spend her life repaying your grace!"

"No need to, it was your choice to live, not me forcibly pulling you out of the water, he can testify." Wu Liang coldly said, casually pointing at the disoriented confidant beside him.

Faced with this point, the confidant was at a loss.

The words were correct, but something still felt off!

Nevertheless, he stepped forward to help the girl up, took off his coat to cover her exposed skin, and whispered in Luo Fei's ear, "He's the official Monkey Zodiac, he seems a bit tsundere, but he's the one who saved you!"

Hearing about her savior's identity, Luo Fei's eyes began to gleam!

Now she knew where to direct her gratitude!

However, watching this girl's grateful demeanor, Wu Liang squinted with some confusion.

His confusion wasn't about her attitude, but what made her special?

The choice to awaken Luo Fei's consciousness was simply because Wu Liang sensed a familiar aura in her—Promised Land's man-made Supernatural Objects!

This meant that the girl's buyer wasn't some foreign tycoon, but the Promised Land!

What made her special enough for Promised Land to purchase her?

"Boss, you don't have to pretend so tough, if it weren't for you at the last minute asking me to tear a rift into her mental world, this girl wouldn't have woken up suddenly, she would've drowned..."

A wisp of Spiritual Body silently floated from Luo Fei back into Wu Liang's Shadow.

Upon hearing Nightmare's teasing, Wu Liang cursed in his mind: "I just want to figure out her connection to Promised Land, awakening her consciousness helps in the subsequent investigation!"

After cursing Nightmare, Wu Liang glanced at Luo Fei, then extended his right hand toward her head.

Faced with that giant hand that had been stained with countless blood and even destroyed the entire Mingjing Pier, the confidant instinctively shrank back.

Yet Luo Fei remained standing still, blinking her eyes, allowing the hand to land on her head.

Lightly tearing off the label tied to her hair, Wu Liang casually tossed it into the river, watching it gradually sink as he said:

"I don't need you to repay me, just remember who you are, remember that the Black Swan died in this river today."