The Murderess in White

"Knock, knock!" The rapping on the door sounded once more, with the exact same cadence as before, not a fraction of a second off in timing. It was hard to imagine a person being capable of controlling rhythm to such precise perfection. Was it his aunt? His head was splitting with pain, his mind muddled and heavy. Just as he was about to get out of bed to open the door, his body abruptly froze the instant he threw off the blanket. A thought suddenly struck him. The person outside the door had made no footsteps. Indeed, there were no footsteps. Before the knocking had begun, he hadn't heard the slightest stir. And for a Level 2 Night Wanderer, at such close quarters, even with the bedroom door offering some slight sound insulation, it was impossible to completely block his hearing. Not an ordinary person!! Zhang Yuanqing raised a hand and pressed hard against his throbbing temples, his mind racing: *Did someone uncover my real identity? Did they trace me to my doorstep? Is it Dark Night Rose, Hei Wuchang's people, or the Taiyi Sect?* At that moment, his muscles pulled taut and adrenaline surged, momentarily dulling the headache. *Regardless of which faction they belong to, sneaking into my home at this hour means they have foul intentions. I can't fight them here—it'll drag my aunt and the others into the crossfire. I have to find a way to lure them outside...* Right then, the knocking stopped. Then, Zhang Yuanqing watched as the doorknob slowly twisted. *Click.* Amidst the faint sound of the latch withdrawing, the bedroom door gave a slight creak and opened a crack. Outside the gap lay thick, pitch-black darkness. Zhang Yuanqing stared fixedly at the opening, every muscle strung tight. He still couldn't sense the enemy's aura, and cold sweat broke out across his back. *Slap!* Suddenly, a blackened hand reached in through the crack, gripped the doorframe, and shoved the door fully open. As the door was shoved roughly aside, Zhang Yuanqing finally caught sight of the uninvited guest. It was a woman with disheveled hair, clad in a filthy white cloak covered in stains that dragged all the way to the floor. Her posture was bizarre and crooked, like a doll whose limbs had been pieced together all wrong. Her blackened right hand held a rust-pitted cleaver, its blade pointing backward behind her. Thick, tangled locks concealed her face, and between the strands of hair, black blood dripped incessantly. This... this appearance gave him an odd sense of déjà vu, as though he had seen it somewhere before. Zhang Yuanqing's eyes widened in realization. *The Murderess in White? The vengeful spirit from that text message today?!* *That wasn't a prank?!* His face was filled with shock. He had never imagined in his wildest dreams that a spam text message he received during the day was actually real. This truly caught him completely off guard. Still, if it was just a vengeful spirit, he had nothing to fear... Just as the thought crossed his mind, the Murderess in White at the doorway charged toward him with clumsy yet swift strides. Her gait was deeply uncanny, as if she were walking backward, her body twisting and lurching with every step, her arms and legs bent at impossible angles. "Hmph!" Darkness churned in Zhang Yuanqing's eyes as he channeled his Lunar force... His expression instantly changed. He discovered that he had lost the abilities etched into his very genes—he had lost his power to suppress spirits. At that moment, the Murderess in White staggered backward right up to him. She raised the cleaver high, her right arm twisting a hundred and eighty degrees with a sickening crunch, turning the blade toward Zhang Yuanqing before hacking viciously downward. Zhang Yuanqing threw himself into a roll across the bed. *Thud! Thud! Thud!* The cleaver chased after him, gouging deep gashes into the mattress. Zhang Yuanqing rolled off the bed and tumbled onto the floor, his face darkening further. He hadn't just lost his skills; his physical constitution had reverted to that of an ordinary person as well. He had been knocked completely back to his original state. He couldn't help recalling the description from the text message. *This is a dream?!* *My skills haven't disappeared—I'm trapped in a nightmare! My skills, my items, none of them can be used.* With no time to think, out of the corner of his eye he saw the vengeful spirit in filthy robes raise the blade and chop down once more. Zhang Yuanqing rolled away again, hearing the elm floorboards splinter right beside his ear. Had that blow landed, his head would have parted from his shoulders on the spot. *Fuck...* Pushing off the ground with both hands, he sprang to his feet and dashed wildly toward the living room, toward the entryway, toward the security door. He had to escape this house. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't turn the handle of the security door. The latch seemed rusted solid inside the frame. A whistling gust tore through the air behind his head. Without a second thought, Zhang Yuanqing ducked low. *Clang!* The cleaver spun through the air and embedded itself into the metal security door. *She can throw the cleaver too?* Zhang Yuanqing swallowed hard. He instinctively moved to yank the cleaver free to fight back against the spirit, but looking up abruptly, he found the cleaver had vanished. Only a deep gouge remained in the door. And there was the Murderess in White, gripping the cleaver once more, sprinting toward him backward. Seeing this, Zhang Yuanqing crossed the space to the dining table in two or three strides, hoisted a high-backed dining chair, and smashed it down violently to meet the oncoming blade. *Crack!* The chair in his hands shattered. The cleaver cleaved straight through the wood and struck Zhang Yuanqing across the chest. Agonizing pain flared through him instantly. The rust-eaten blade tore open his chest and shattered several ribs. And inside this dream, he possessed no regenerative healing. Zhang Yuanqing caught the stench of death. Staggering back several steps, he leaned against the edge of the dining table. The Murderess in White lurched backward toward him, raising the cleaver once more. Zhang Yuanqing dodged sharply to the side. *Thunk!* The rusty blade struck the dining table, embedding itself deeply into the wood. The Murderess in White yanked at it several times, but failed to wrench it free. Seizing the opening, Zhang Yuanqing endured the excruciating pain in his chest, grabbed another high-backed chair nearby, and swung it with all his might at the vengeful spirit's waist. *Crack!* The Murderess in White's waist snapped instantly, folding into a grotesque angle as she collapsed to the floor. *Snap! Crack! Crunch!* Lying on the floor, the spirit's limbs twitched violently. Her head twisted all the way to the left, while her arms and legs wrenched in opposing directions—her left knee pointed right, her right knee pointed left—resembling a puppet assembled haphazardly in total disarray. Amidst the sickening grinding of twisting bones, her torso bounced upward. Her lower half rose to its feet while her upper body dragged limply along the floor. *Fuck!* The sight made Zhang Yuanqing's scalp prickle with horror. Clutching the slash wound on his chest, he stumbled frantically back toward the bedroom. *This thing can't be killed.* Back inside his room, he locked the door and staggered toward the window. Zhang Yuanqing pushed the window open and peered out. Outside was pitch-black. There were no streetlights, no cars, and not even the neighboring residential buildings were visible. If this were reality, he would have risked leaping onto the outdoor air conditioning unit, but this was a dream. Setting aside whether jumping out the window could save him, what if jumping meant certain death? What was he supposed to do? Unable to escape the dream, unable to kill the vengeful spirit, and stripped of both skills and items... Zhang Yuanqing was backed into a corner. Worse yet, the blood pouring from his chest couldn't be stopped. At this rate, within ten minutes, he would bleed out from his injuries. If he died in the dream, what would happen in reality? He didn't dare contemplate it. *Who wants to kill me? If I remember correctly, dreams are the domain of Illusionists, but I've never had any grudges with an Illusionist, nor any dealings with them...* Just then, the doorknob rattled. Finding the door locked, the spirit outside turned exceedingly frenzied, rattling the handle with sharp, metallic clicks. A few seconds later, it stopped, seemingly giving up on turning the handle. Suddenly, with a deafening *bang*, half the blade of a cleaver punched through the door panel. *She's chopping down the door!* Despair welled in Zhang Yuanqing's eyes. He glanced at the pitch-black void beyond the window, weighing whether to gamble on leaping out. *Bang! Bang! Bang!* Blow after blow from the cleaver gradually battered the door to splinters, opening an ever-widening hole. Finally, with a loud crash, the door panel shattered completely, and the disheveled vengeful spirit, clutching her cleaver, stepped through in her grotesque posture.