The night deepens. White moonlight spills over the river, blanketing the frozen surface and scattering silvery glimmers. I rest my chin in my hand, head heavy from all the wine I’ve drunk—my mood’s decent tonight. Serena Chen is still quietly studying the four Charm Pouches, arranging them into all sorts of patterns, sometimes muttering to herself, sometimes lost in thought.
I don’t disturb Serena Chen, just keep drinking on my own. There’s still plenty of food on the edge of the grill, but I can’t eat another bite. My cheeks burn as I hold another glass of wine; I’ve lost count of how much I’ve had, but I know I could drink more.
Everything here seems so false, yet so real. I tilt my head back, watching the rare moonlight break through the clouds, smiling with delight.
After a long while, Serena Chen sighs.
“I can’t do anything. This ritual is too hard to decipher, because I can’t tell what the sixteen Frozen Underworld items inside the Charm Pouch actually are. If you open the pouch recklessly, you’ll destroy the ritual.”
I force a helpless smile and shake my head.
“There’s always a way out. Earlier, you mentioned Life Drain—what is it, exactly?”
“You can think of it as being guided by the ritual’s power to places of cold and darkness. How much do you know about the history of the supernatural world?”
Serena Chen asks, and I scratch my head in confusion, then laugh.
“Just a little. I’m not that interested in history. I’ve read plenty of ancient texts, but what’s written in those books is so different from what I’ve actually seen. I’ve returned to past temporal loops before, witnessed a lot, and learned many truths.”
After I finish speaking, I stand up, ready to go back to my room and sleep.
Serena Chen nods and says:
“I’ll ask the others about it.”
“By the way, Miss Chen, if someone dies here, do they lose their soul? Are those four girls actually here in person, or is it just their consciousness, like me?”
I ask, and Serena Chen tells me clearly that the four girls are real people who have come here. It’s now certain that this was caused by the ritual.
When I return to my room, May Shaw is already fast asleep. I quickly lie down and drift off too.
Soon, I feel myself floating, and when I regain consciousness, I see Snowridge Springs again. It seems to be morning now; the place is silent, most people are resting.
I drift aimlessly overhead, glancing down to find many Underworld Denizens resting. On the temporary bridge built over the ice, I see a number of people returning with weary faces. My dad and Fan Xiaoran are among them, deep in conversation; even Fan Xiaoran looks unusually serious.
At that moment, I notice several large buses arriving at the edge of town. Jason Su and Lucas Lu lead a crowd of Underworld Denizens onto the street.
Back in my room, I’m still unconscious, but suddenly I feel a hand grab me. I turn my head and, in an instant, wake up on the bed.
It’s morning already. I’m still catching my breath, remembering how a hand suddenly grabbed me in my dream. What was it? When I turned my head, I thought I saw something, but now that I’m awake, I can’t recall it at all.
“Roxie, breakfast’s ready. Come on, get up—you were drunk last night and kept talking in your sleep.”
I let out a groan as May Shaw walks over with a smile. I mumble a response, still feeling groggy.
Even though my experience in Snowridge Springs felt like just a moment in my consciousness, I’d actually spent the whole night in this time-distorted place. Someone woke me up—it was already past noon.
After breakfast, May Shaw and I went straight to the woods behind the town for a walk. There were plenty of mountain paths and resting pavilions along the way. We stopped at a small pavilion halfway up the hill.
May Shaw collapsed, panting, on the stone bench, while I didn’t feel tired at all. It only took a short while for her to be exhausted—her stamina is a real problem.
“You know, Roxie, meeting Rainie Chen was pure chance. If only I’d refused her invitation back then.”
I mumble a reply. May Shaw tells me that when she first started college, she couldn’t get used to dorm life and often had little conflicts with her roommates. She applied to change dorms several times, but no one wanted to swap with her.
Over time, her roommates—who already didn’t like her—started ganging up against her. It was basically bullying. May Shaw couldn’t take it anymore and ended up fighting with one of the girls. That’s when Rainie Chen stepped in to help, and from then on, May Shaw started hanging out with her.
Rainie Chen was loyal and helped her out, so May Shaw grew close to her. Later, May Shaw learned that the other three girls were the same—they’d all received Rainie Chen’s help in some way, which is why they were friendly with her.
But for some reason, even though everyone seemed close to Rainie Chen on the surface, they always felt she was fake behind her back. May Shaw admits she didn’t really like Rainie Chen either, just pretended to be friendly. During one outing with Rainie Chen and the other three girls, Rainie mentioned a local fortune teller who was supposedly super accurate.
The four girls were interested and went with Rainie Chen. The fortune teller chatted with them for a while, and everyone got annoyed because everything he said was true—he knew their pasts, personalities, even their secret thoughts.
[Irrelevant passage skipped.]
That five-person trip ended without any resolution; everyone just went home. After that, the four girls had something in common: whenever they gathered, they’d gossip about Rainie Chen, though she seemed totally unaware.
It wasn’t until Rainie Chen suffered a tragedy and made a bet with the four girls, giving them Charm Pouches.
I’m certain now that Rainie Chen gathered these four girls together for some purpose. No one’s foolish enough to endlessly please others, especially when those people gossip behind your back. There must have been a reason.
May Shaw keeps talking about her college days, and I start remembering mine. I was notorious for being disliked—everyone preferred pleasant lies over facing reality. I warned a lot of people, but they ignored me and mocked me behind my back, so eventually I stopped caring.
In four years of college, aside from Vivian Ouyang, I barely spoke to any of the other girls in my class. They treated me like I didn’t exist, and I did the same to them. Some even thought I was a fool.
Relationships are just that delicate. I sigh, then stand up and take May Shaw down the mountain.
I have no idea how much longer we’ll have to stay here before we can leave, but now May Shaw’s emotions have stabilized—she’s stopped asking when we can get out. My priority now is figuring out the rituals hidden in those four Charm Pouches.
After dinner, as usual, we played cards until after ten. May Shaw went to bed, but I stayed outside a shop, drinking and waiting for Serena Chen.
Tonight, Serena Chen was late—it was nearly midnight and she still hadn’t come. Just as I was about to go back to my room, she finally showed up.
“Did you learn anything?”
Serena Chen nodded gravely.
“We’ve figured out part of it. This ritual is based on local techniques. Hugh Go told me those four girls were treated as offerings—used in a Dark Sorcery sacrifice. The purpose is still unknown.”
I swallow, take a sip of wine, and see Serena Chen looking at me helplessly.
“Roxie, you really should leave soon. If you stay any longer, your power will run out, and you’ll never get another chance to escape.”
I shake my head.
“I’ll take things one step at a time. There’s always a way out.”
That’s the attitude I have now. I glance at the four Charm Pouches on the table and force a helpless smile.
“Instead of overthinking, why not just open one and see?”
As I say this, I pick up a Charm Pouch and untie the red string. The moment I open it, a pungent stench hits me. I turn away from the table, nearly vomiting up my dinner. My eyes widen in shock as the pouch starts to wriggle—at the opening, a tiny black worm crawls out. Even five or six meters away, the smell is overpowering.
The black worm wriggles on the table like a maggot. Serena Chen watches, her expression grave.
“It’s a Corpse Worm from the Ghost Syndicate.”
I gasp. Serena Chen opens the pouch fully, pulling out a bunch of black stones, bones, and other debris. Five worms crawl on the table—I’m chilled to the bone.
“So this ritual is connected to the Ghost Syndicate?”
Serena Chen nods, then shakes her head.
“Only partly—it’s related to the Ghost Syndicate, but some things don’t add up.”