Chapter 110: Confusion

For several long seconds, nobody inside the bedroom moved.

Tianhe stood near the doorway with one hand still resting on the handle, staring directly at Shen Wuxia as though his mind had completely stopped working.

Wuxia stared back with almost the same confusion.

The crimson-black symbols left by the Veyran's destruction were still fading across the walls, yet none of them mattered to him right now.

Tianhe was looking directly at him.

Wuxia shifted slightly toward the side, and Tianhe's eyes followed his movement without hesitation.

Before Wuxia could properly process that impossible detail, Tianhe suddenly stepped forward.

"Wuxia, you bastard! You… you're alive!"

Wuxia's brows tightened slightly, his attention still caught on the far more immediate problem.

"You can see me?"

Tianhe stopped and stared at him as though he had just heard the stupidest question imaginable.

"Of course I can see you, you bastard! Where the fuck have you been? We all thought you died!"

His voice rose immediately as the shock finally broke apart.

"The whole guild mourned you! Everyone thought you were gone, and I barely ate properly for days afterward!"

Wuxia opened his mouth, but no immediate answer came.

For a moment, the familiar voice and equally familiar irritation struck him harder than expected.

Then Tianhe's eyes suddenly moved around the bedroom.

He looked toward Xingluo, then back toward Wuxia, and his expression slowly became strange.

"Wait."

Wuxia immediately disliked that tone.

"Everyone thought you were dead, and you're here enjoying yourself inside Dragon Military Academy?"

Tianhe pointed toward Xingluo with increasing disbelief.

"You even caught Sister Luo in your net while the rest of us were mourning you."

Xingluo's cheeks immediately reddened as she snapped toward him.

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

Wuxia looked at his old friend with a completely speechless expression.

"You have misunderstood several extremely important things."

"Then explain them."

Before Tianhe could continue, Ruan Mei finally stepped backward and raised both hands before her chest in a crude cross-like shape.

"Stay back."

Wuxia slowly turned toward her.

Ruan Mei stared directly at his translucent body before speaking with complete seriousness.

"Get exorcised or return to the afterlife or whatever ghosts are supposed to do."

Wuxia gave her a flat look.

"That is not how exorcism works."

"How the fuck would I know?" Ruan Mei immediately snapped. "I have never met a ghost before."

The absurd exchange lasted only a moment before her eyes narrowed sharply.

"What the fuck is going on here?"

She pointed toward Wuxia first.

"Who is he, why does Tianhe know him, and why is he a ghost standing inside your bedroom?"

Her gaze shifted directly toward Xingluo.

"And why do you look like you already know all of this?"

Xingluo remained completely still for several seconds.

Then she slowly raised one hand and rubbed her forehead.

"It is a long story."

Ruan Mei crossed her arms again.

"Then start talking."

Xingluo looked toward the ruined bedroom, the fading markings across the walls, and the remains scattered across the floor.

"Not here. Let's go downstairs before something else decides to explode."

Tianhe nodded immediately.

"Good."

Ruan Mei followed without argument, although the look she gave Xingluo clearly promised considerably more questioning downstairs.

Wuxia remained behind for another moment.

His gaze moved toward his translucent hands again, but nothing about his soul body looked visibly different.

"Xingluo."

She stopped near the doorway and looked back.

"What?"

"What the fuck just happened?"

Xingluo stared at him before her eyebrow twitched.

"How the hell am I supposed to know? It was your weird summoning."

"Soul Extraction."

"I really don't care what you call it right now."

Wuxia became silent.

That was fair.

He floated after her while turning his attention inward.

What was that Death Seal? What is Astrakh, and why can they suddenly see me?

The System remained silent long enough for Wuxia's expression to darken.

Then two lines finally appeared.

[Dangerous foreign soul structure detected.]

[Foreign structure requires destruction.]

Wuxia waited for more information.

Nothing followed.

So you know something but refuse to explain it.

The System remained completely unresponsive.

By the time they reached the living room, Tianhe had already taken a seat while Ruan Mei remained standing beside the sofa.

Xingluo dropped onto the opposite seat and released a tired breath.

"Fine. Ask one thing at a time."

Ruan Mei immediately pointed toward Wuxia.

"Start with the ghost."

Xingluo glanced toward him before answering.

"Wuxia appeared beside me as a soul some time ago. At first, nobody except me could see or hear him."

Tianhe's eyes moved toward Wuxia again.

"So you really died?"

Wuxia looked at his old friend directly.

"I died inside a dungeon."

Tianhe's jaw tightened slightly.

"And afterward?"

"I woke up like this."

Wuxia gestured toward his translucent body.

"Somehow, I became bound to Xingluo through a strange connection between us."

Ruan Mei looked between them slowly.

"And you just lived with this?"

Xingluo gave her a tired expression.

"What exactly was I supposed to tell you? That a dead Level 93 player suddenly appeared beside me and nobody else could see him?"

Ruan Mei opened her mouth, paused, then leaned back slightly.

"That would have sounded completely insane."

"Exactly."

"That does not make this less disturbing."

Xingluo ignored the complaint and continued.

"He has been helping me since then. Most of what happened with my training, several dungeons, and some of the things you thought were strange before were connected to him."

Tianhe looked toward Wuxia with a mixture of irritation and disbelief.

"So you were actually here this whole time."

"Not exactly here," Wuxia replied. "But yes, I have been around."

Tianhe clicked his tongue.

"You could have found some way to tell me, bastard."

"If I had discovered a convenient method for sending messages while dead, I would have considered it."

Tianhe stared at him before shaking his head.

"Still annoying even after dying."

The corner of Wuxia's mouth moved faintly.

That familiar irritation felt strangely normal after everything that had happened.

Xingluo looked toward Tianhe afterward.

"You two were really that close?"

Tianhe immediately nodded.

"Shen Wuxia. Level 93, Tianchen University, my old guildmate and friend."

He gave Wuxia another look.

"A very troublesome friend, apparently."

Wuxia ignored the final addition.

Ruan Mei's suspicion had not disappeared, but her posture relaxed slightly now that Tianhe had clearly confirmed Wuxia's identity.

Her gaze soon moved toward the staircase.

"Then what about that thing upstairs?"

The mood inside the living room shifted immediately.

Xingluo looked toward Wuxia before speaking first.

"The strange part started before we even bought the corpse. That Veyran could see Wuxia inside the academy arena."

Ruan Mei frowned.

"It could see him?"

"Clearly," Wuxia answered. "Its eyes followed me even when nobody else knew I was there."

Tianhe leaned forward slightly.

"And afterward?"

"When I used Soul Extraction, the strange structures inside its soul activated," Wuxia explained. "Whatever governs my current abilities identified them as a Death Seal."

His expression became colder as the memory returned.

"The Veyran struggled against it, shouted 'Astrakh,' and then the seal destroyed its soul."

Ruan Mei repeated the unfamiliar word quietly.

"Astrakh."

"Do not ask," Wuxia replied. "I have no idea what it means."

"And the markings?"

"Part of whatever happened when the soul collapsed," Xingluo said. "My privacy formation contained the disturbance inside the villa."

Tianhe frowned toward the staircase.

"So the Veyran could already see you, then its Death Seal exploded, and now we can see you too."

Wuxia nodded once.

"That is the obvious connection."

"But you do not know why."

"No."

Ruan Mei's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Comforting."

Nobody answered that.

Tianhe eventually leaned backward and looked toward Wuxia again.

Despite all the questions still hanging over the room, his earlier anger had settled into something quieter.

"You really are here."

Wuxia met his gaze.

"For now."

Tianhe clicked his tongue softly.

"Do not disappear again without saying anything."

Wuxia paused before answering.

"I will try to make my next death more convenient for everyone."

Tianhe's expression immediately darkened.

"Fuck you."

A faint smile appeared on Wuxia's face.

For the first time since entering the living room, some of the tension finally eased.

Ruan Mei looked between them before rubbing her temple.

"You two really were friends."

"Unfortunately," Tianhe replied.

Wuxia gave him a cold look.

Xingluo leaned back against the sofa and finally asked the question none of them had addressed yet.

"So what do we do now?"

For once, Tianhe did not joke.

Ruan Mei's expression also became more serious.

Xingluo looked between both of them before speaking firmly.

"Nobody tells anyone else."

Tianhe nodded after only a moment.

"Agreed."

Ruan Mei remained quiet briefly before nodding as well.

"Fine. Until we understand what happened, nobody else needs to know about the ghost."

"I have a name," Wuxia said dryly.

"I know."

Ruan Mei looked toward him without changing expression.

"Ghost is shorter."

Wuxia decided not to argue.

His gaze moved between Tianhe and Ruan Mei while his thoughts returned toward the Veyran, the strange Death Seal, and the single unexplained word it had screamed before disappearing.

Whatever that seal had changed, one fact was already impossible to ignore.

Xingluo was no longer the only person capable of seeing him.