The reincarnation process went smoothly, and Shen Mengxi woke up feeling confused for a moment. Then, she turned her head towards the edge of the pillow.
The little white cat lay sprawled on the bed, eyes closed, as if it were just sleeping. She reached out her finger to the cat's nose, stared for about half a minute, and then lowered her hand with a disappointed look, cradling the cat in her arms.
Cen Yuebai collected the remaining materials and paper talismans, saying calmly, "It was already dead long before you entered its body."
"I know." Shen Mengxi touched the small body of the cat and sniffled, "I just thought..."
Su Yum handed her a tissue, trying to console her clumsily, "Don't cry. We'll give it a proper burial later. If you like cats, I can get you another one..."
"I don't want a cat you buy." Shen Mengxi took the tissue and wiped away her tears, then looked at Ye Zhizhou, saying, "Second Brother, thank you." She turned to Cen Yuebai and hesitated for a moment before softly adding, "And thank you too... Second Sister-in-law."
Seeing that things had gone smoothly and that Shen Mengxi was about to have some water to calm her emotions, Shen Zixia sprayed it out directly. Cen Yuebai's action of collecting the paper talismans paused, and she turned to look at Ye Zhizhou. Ye Zhizhou also hesitated for a moment, then looked at Cen Yuebai with great satisfaction, patted Shen Mengxi's shoulder, and said, "Well done, Mengxi!"
Shen Mengxi pursed her lips and smiled shyly.
Su Yum watched Ye Zhizhou's hand on Shen Mengxi's shoulder, and a pang of jealousy surged within him. However, given his current awkward and unofficial status, he could only clench his handkerchief tightly in his heart.
Taking a deep breath, Shen Zixia turned and left the hospital room. This was fine, this was good.
The siblings completed the discharge procedures the next day, returned home, and Ye Zhizhou went to the police station.
Zhang Lin and Cao Yu looked very dispirited. When they saw him come in, they gave him a cursory glance and then averted their eyes.
"I can have my sister withdraw her accusations against you two," he said, getting straight to the point. "But I have a condition. You can no longer harass my sister, and also, tonight, come with me to a place."
Zhang Lin and Cao Yu exchanged glances and communicated silently with their eyes. Then Zhang Lin replied, "We agree to the first condition. As for the second... we need to know where you're taking us."
"Alright," Ye Zhizhou agreed readily, taking out a pamphlet from his pocket and placing it in front of them. "There's a club that opened in the south of the city recently. Inside, there's a secret bar. I heard you've been wanting to experience it. I'm feeling generous, so I'm willing to take you there to broaden your horizons. Don't worry, I guarantee that whatever happens inside, you'll come out the same way you went in, without losing a single hair."
The two men looked at the pamphlet, exchanged another glance, and promptly agreed to his request. It was just going to a bar, and since the other party was so confident, they had nothing to lose. After all, they were two grown men and were not afraid of any potential inconvenience.
That night, Ye Zhizhou brought the two of them to the bar, allowing them to witness several exciting performances of intimate male couples. Yes, it was a gay bar that regularly featured explicit performances and live matchmaking events, and tonight happened to be one of those matchmaking nights. Zhang Lin and Cao Yu, two straight men, had a good idea of what kind of mental shock they were in for when they entered.
Three hours later, the two men came out of the bar looking pale, their clothes somewhat disheveled, probably from the enthusiastic attention of the bar's patrons.
Leaning against the car, Ye Zhizhou greeted them with a smile and asked gently, "How do you feel?"
"You actually brought us to this kind of place!" Zhang Lin was the first to get angry, rushing forward and trying to grab Ye Zhizhou's collar. "Damn it! I was nearly taken advantage of by a man in there! He actually wanted to make me drink!"
Ye Zhizhou blocked his hand, pushed it away, and sneered, "Isn't this exactly what you used to do to my sister? Get someone drunk, then take them to bed. So, when it happens to you, you're angry. But when you do it to others, you think they deserve it and are willingly taken advantage of by you? Are you a human, while others are not?"
"It's different!" Zhang Lin finally blurted out after choking on his words for a moment.
"How is it different?" Ye Zhizhou stared straight at him and coldly questioned, "Getting someone drunk and taking advantage of them in bed, isn't that what you used to do all the time? Why, when it happens to you, do you feel angry, but when you do it to others, you think it's their fault and that they're willingly being taken advantage of by you? You're a person, but others aren't?"
"In any case, it's different! There's no one else, it's just because of Fan Lang..." Zhang Lin's words choked off, his expression changed, and he sat down irritably in the car. "What do you want to do? I know I was a beast before! I won't be anymore!"
Ye Zhizhou opened the driver's door and got into the car, taking out a photo of Fan Lang from his pocket. He turned around, extended his mental power, and wrapped it around the two of them, lowering his voice as he said, "I know Fan Lang's soul was in my sister's body before. You said you had feelings for my sister because of Fan Lang. So, now, look at this photo and imagine scenes of intimacy with him... Tell me, do you really want something to happen with Fan Lang?"
Their minds involuntarily conjured up the scenes they had seen in the bar and replaced the people in those scenes with themselves and Fan Lang. Zhang Lin and Cao Yu both twisted their expressions, turned to look out the car window with disgusted expressions, and pursed their lips, clearly feeling repulsed.
[The probability of a romantic relationship between Zhang Lin, Cao Yu, and the protagonist has dropped to 0%. Flags five and six have been removed. Congratulations, Host, please keep up the good work.]
With just a slight stimulation, both flags had been removed. It seemed that their trip to the bar had indeed been quite exciting. Ye Zhizhou was satisfied with the result and closed the system prompt with a sense of mercy, retracting his mental power.
The mental images gradually faded, and Zhang Lin, after calming the nausea that had surged within him, quickly shouted, "We and Fan Lang are just brothers, brothers! I understand now! We were wrong! Let's be better people in the future! Shen Zihao, you're ruthless!"
Cao Yu wiped his face, his lips moved, and he said in a low voice, "My mom was right; I've been confused these years..."
Ye Zhizhou turned back to start the car and replied, "It's good that you understand. Good deeds bring good rewards, while bad deeds lead to a dark fate. Don't always think about taking advantage of girls by doing bad things. Isn't it difficult to just be a good man? And if you're straight, be straight. Don't try to bend where it's unnecessary; it'll only confuse others."
Zhang Lin pounded the back of the seat, muttered a few curses, and silently vowed in his heart to never provoke the Shen family again.
In the middle of the night, when the sky was darkest, Cen Yuebai took Ye Zhizhou to the place where Fan Lang had the car accident originally.
"It's right here," Cen Yuebai pointed her flashlight around, crumpled the paper talisman in her hand, observed the direction the ashes drifted, and then turned the flashlight toward a small grove near the road. "The body is in that direction. Judging from the traces of the battle we found earlier, that invading soul should have been awakened during the battle, then consciously entered Fan Lang's body, who happened to have a car accident near here, and it only attempted soul fusion after reaching the hospital."
Ye Zhizhou activated the system's scanning function, scanned the surroundings, and furrowed his brow slightly. "Why did Fan Lang's soul enter Mengxi's body?"
"Because that invading soul made a mistake in the spell; he probably wasn't a practitioner of the occult," Cen Yuebai turned off the flashlight, took out a red thread and a few copper coins, strung them together, and manipulated them for a moment. She then looked up at the sky. "Soul fusion and large-scale soul transfer spells are somewhat similar. Those who are just starting or trying to learn without proper guidance are prone to mistakes. That invading soul had too much malice and couldn't reincarnate. It should have gradually lost consciousness and dissipated into the heavens and earth, but by a twist of fate, it was buried by the person who killed him in this yin-accumulating place, and it grew even stronger."
A yin-accumulating place? Ye Zhizhou glanced around at the desolate landscape and couldn't help rubbing his arms.
Seeing his reaction, Cen Yuebai put away the copper coins and reached out to hold his hand, leading him towards the direction where the body was buried. "Soul fusion turning into soul transfer. In order to avoid dissipating, he must have tried to hide before the second soul fusion. Because he had already performed the spell once, his only choice for soul fusion was Fan Lang. If I had noticed this at the time, it would have been much easier to catch him while he was hiding. Unfortunately..."
Trying to hide? Where could the other soul hide? Also, wasn't Yin Feiyu able to see the color of souls? Why didn't he notice him before?
Seeming to sense his confusion, Cen Yuebai squeezed his hand and explained, "The morgue."
Ye Zhizhou was momentarily puzzled, then suddenly realized. The morgue was the place in the hospital with the most accumulated yin energy and the most souls. It would indeed be very easy for an external soul to hide there. So, in the five years when Fan Lang's soul hadn't returned to his body, did that invading soul stay in the hospital morgue the whole time?
"That's right." Cen Yuebai stopped in front of a hill, pointing to a small cave hidden under rocks. "The body should be under these stones."
Ye Zhizhou used the system to scan the rocks and indeed detected traces of human bones underneath.
"Should we call the police?" Cen Yuebai held his hand and turned him away from the direction of the body.
"In a few days, I'll report it again," he shook his head, "I still haven't figured some things out." Yin Feiyu said that Fan Lang's soul was gradually turning black, which suggests that the invading soul should be black. Black represents great evil, but from the information I found, this invading soul didn't seem to have done anything bad during its lifetime. The only time it had evil intentions, to kill the young miss directly, it was killed in retaliation.
Cen Yuebai nodded to show her understanding and led him back the way they came. "I set up a barrier array outside Fan Lang's hospital room. That invading soul is already trapped there. As for the progress of the soul fusion... Fan Lang's soul color is not pure. You should be prepared mentally."
Upon hearing this, Ye Zhizhou's expression became more serious. In the original plot, the soul fusion process took more than twenty years. How come now...
His mind was preoccupied with the matter, so he didn't notice Cen Yuebai's subtle movements while driving. It wasn't until the car stopped in front of a villa that he snapped out of his thoughts and asked, "Where is this?"
"My master prepared this as our bridal chamber," Cen Yuebai helped him unbuckle his seatbelt, then got out of the car and walked around to the driver's side to open his door. She leaned down to look at him and said, "This will also be our future home. Would you like to go in and see?"
Although he knew that something uncomfortable would definitely happen once they went inside, he didn't care. The way his beloved leaned against the car door and looked down at him was simply too attractive, and it left him breathless. How could he resist such allure?
"Let's see," he got out of the car without reservation and glanced at her lower body, "I heard that your virginity can't be broken until you find your destined partner. What about now?"
Cen Yuebai chuckled softly and took his hand. "It's about to belong to you."