"What exactly are you?"
I shouted at the three swirling masses of red, black, and yellow light. The thing within kept laughing, its voice laced with cruel mockery. As the laughter echoed, the three lights began to drift toward us, moving with slow menace. When they were about twenty meters away, they stopped, their glow pulsing in the gloom.
"From here, you won't find anything. All you can find are fragments of memory, already completely devoured by time—there's nothing left. Go back, Ethan Zhang. This is not a place you should be."
A powerful current of air surged as the three lights grew brighter. The flow intensified, and I saw the red, yellow, and black colors intertwining, gradually expanding to occupy more space.
"What do you want to do?"
I roared, fury twisting in my voice. Instantly, my Seven Ghost Souls formed up behind me, their presence a shield against the encroaching terror. From those three lights, a force surged forth, threatening to tear apart my Instinctive Space, to overturn everything I was.
"To exclude you, Ethan Zhang. You are an anomaly. Whether in the realm of humans or ghosts, you are an anomaly. You are neither human nor ghost. So you must be excluded."
Suddenly, the light before my eyes grew so intense that my entire Instinctive Space was nearly stained with those three colors.
My mind was no longer my own; control slipped away as my Instinctive Space felt on the verge of being stolen. Beneath me, my feet turned to stone, utterly frozen, as if the world itself was locking me in place.
The Seven Ghost Souls floated up, their bodies radiating black light. They began to channel their power continuously into my Instinctive Space.
From the sky, strips of black, rod-like objects hammered down, rumbling continuously. When those black things touched the tri-colored light, they vanished.
All around, the black rod-like objects filled the space, surrounding the tri-colored light. The expanding glow now seemed restrained.
"Get out of my place."
I roared, and a cracking sound echoed. Cracks appeared on the surface of my feet, then began to flake off. Fragments of red, yellow, and black slowly floated upward, tugging at my cloak.
With a swish, I tore off my cloak and threw it into the air. Gradually, it began to expand, growing larger and larger, like a snakeskin cloak. On it, bright white and jet-black snake spirits shimmered like starlight.
"You will regret this, Ethan Zhang. Everything you have done—your future self will regret it. I have already foreseen it."
Gradually, the red, black, and yellow colors in my Instinctive Space began to fade, though they still resisted. All around, increasingly powerful forces pressed in on the lights, finally suppressing them.
"Ah, maybe. Maybe in the future, as you say, I will regret it. But... there's nothing worse than watching everything happen, knowing I could stop it, and doing nothing. I don't want to regret again."
For a moment, memories of my time in the Ghost Burial Squad flashed through my mind—meeting everyone, growing close, surviving ordeal after ordeal. And always, I saw one figure who never quite fit in: Rachel Lan. She was always causing trouble for the squad, but time and again, they accepted and helped her.
Consider it repaying the kindness my wife once received.
Slowly, I raised a fist and roared. The black rod-like objects in the sky parted, and a pitch-black ghost with white fangs pressed down from above, crashing onto the tri-colored light. Raising its fist, it let out a thunderous roar and smashed down.
"You will regret this, Ethan Zhang..."
The tri-colored light began to fade, and the voice gradually receded. My Instinctive Space returned to normal, with the Seven Ghost Souls settling beside me.
"Ethan, it looks like things aren't that simple. This thing is extremely dangerous."
Spirit Snake said, and I nodded.
"No matter what happens next, I will bring all 31 members of the Ghost Burial Squad back—every single one of them."
"Why bother with those useless people, Ethan? They're such a pain."
Resentful Ghost muttered, and I turned to look at him.
"Weren't you just as useless back in Grudgewood? Still, thank you—since I found you, you've become my support. They may not be strong, but the Ghost Burial Squad needs them, Skylar Tian needs them, and I will bring them back."
I've seen it countless times—in the battles between humans and ghosts, sometimes, miracles and reversals come from the weakest. The scales can tip because of them.
Resentful Ghost said nothing more; instead, he seemed a bit embarrassed.
"Alright, I won't say things like that anymore. Come on, let's go back and play mahjong."
Smiling, I quietly looked around at the disappearing ghost souls—only my shadow and I remained.
"No matter what, the heart within you will never disappear. Maybe I should try a different approach."
I gazed quietly at my shadow and smiled.
"You've always tried to tempt me. Great power is born from nothingness, always trying to draw me into darkness. That power is strong—it can destroy enemies, but also everything around me. Remember Exile Town?"
My shadow nodded.
"It was decided back then, wasn't it? Not to stray from my path, to walk it with my friends. I am not alone."
As I spoke, I clutched the Violet Heart Pendant at my chest.
"Then bear everything and keep moving forward, Ethan Zhang. Whether it's human kindness or ghostly malice—contradicting, repelling, fighting each other—walk this spiral path."
My shadow dissolved into a wisp of black particles. I whispered a thank you, then smiled and slowly closed my eyes. In my mind, there was a world of black and white—unable to shed tears, yet still able to feel sorrow; clearly a fierce ghost, yet still able to smile. Spear and shield, coexisting.
"Hey, Ethan Zhang, are you alright?"
I opened my eyes. I was still sitting in the cemetery, but now, noise and bustle drifted from the village above, and dazzling sunlight shone down, though it wasn't harsh. I looked up.
My right hand had recovered, still tightly clutching a crumpled piece of paper. I unfolded it—covered in writing. Now, the fragments of memory in my mind had finally pieced themselves together.
After experiencing the same beginning four times, I remembered clearly. I saw Leo Liu walking toward me. I stood up, raised my hand, and handed him the paper. Tiger Li and Mason Zhao came over too.
The three of them began reading the contents of the paper carefully. After a while, they finished and looked at me in astonishment.
"So, someone from thirteen years in the future has come to help us, who have been missing for thirteen years."
Leo Liu sighed. I smiled, stood up, a sinister grin on my face—then, suddenly, I drove my hand through Leo Liu's body. The other two were stunned, shouting and charging at me.
But Leo Liu just looked at me calmly. Slowly, cracks appeared across his body, and then, like glass, he shattered with a sharp sound, dissolving into particles of light before me.
Now everything was completely clear. The other two—Tiger Li and Mason Zhao—also became perfectly still, and then, just like Leo Liu, they shattered into particles of light in front of me.
It was all an illusion—these were Leo Liu's memories. Everything I saw and experienced was a simulation of Leo Liu's memories, repeating over these four days.
There were countless possibilities mixed in. Though I could move freely, I was still no match for the presence that entered my Instinctive Space the moment I arrived.
After regaining my memories, I finally understood. I had seen countless people's memories, and the greatest feature of memory is that, aside from the main characters, everyone else is blurred.
It was the second time I went through all this that I saw the village completely empty. I had wondered if everything here was fake, just a phantom. But by the third and fourth times, I finally understood.
On the first night, the first day, I disrupted some things—though I couldn't fully grasp what. But it was because of those disturbances that I wasn't expelled from here, and so I made it this far.
No matter how many times, everything in the village stayed the same. The morning banquet on the second day was identical all four times—this was Leo Liu's memory. Memories can't alter such massive things, like the number of villagers or how they act. In memory, they only move in one way.
The reason I was confused is probably because Leo Liu and the others have gone through countless cycles—so many January 1sts, 2000, they've lost count.
I slowly floated upward, looking at the bustling villagers.
"Where is it—the thing called the Shard?"
I must find it—the Shard, Leo Liu's Memory Shard. That guy said before, the Ghost Burial Squad members are already dead; what I see now are just their shards. But if I find the Shard, maybe there's still hope.