“Sister Ding Yi!”

Yan Ming and Jiang Xianqing were so startled that their pupils shrank to pinpricks. They bolted forward, adrenaline surging through their fear. Even Feng Baiqiu, whose usual state hovered near total collapse, seemed to rally, a flicker of concern in her eyes as she rushed towards the fallen Wisher.

“Ding Yi, Ding Yi, wake up!” Jiang Xianqing’s voice was laced with panic as she called out, one hand darting out to hover just beneath Ding Yi’s nose, checking for the faintest breath.

Observing Jiang Xianqing’s frantic actions, Qin Yuan offered a dry, almost clinical assessment, “Still kicking.”

“How in the world did this happen?” Yan Ming’s voice was tight and worried, his gaze fixed on Ding Yi’s still form.

Qin Yuan, perhaps momentarily softened by the genuine concern etched on the faces of the three Wishers, and still riding a wave of… well, something that resembled a good mood, made a rare exception. “The injuries are nothing to worry about. It’s the damn poison that’s the real kicker.”

“Poisoned? What— what do we do?” Jiang Xianqing’s question tumbled out, a desperate plea hanging in the air.

“What can we do?” Qin Yuan’s lips quirked slightly. “Naturally, you ask the folks who actually know their stuff.”

The anxious trio: ????? Ask who now?

Outside the ominous-looking oiled paper umbrella shop.

Yan Ming, with the unconscious Ding Yi a dead weight on his back, stood across the narrow street alongside a fretful Jiang Xianqing and a pale Feng Baiqiu. All eyes were glued to Qin Yuan as he casually raised a hand to knock on the shop’s weathered door.

Knock, knock—

After a polite couple of raps, Yan Ming watched, a flicker of expectation in his eyes, as Qin Yuan’s hand was withdrawn. He’d assumed the man was waiting for a response, but what happened next was anything but expected. With a sudden, brutal motion, Qin Yuan’s foot shot out, connecting with the door with a resounding thwack.

Bang!

The tightly sealed wooden door shuddered, splintered, and burst inward, collapsing with a groan.

The trio: …Well, subtlety clearly wasn’t in his vocabulary.

The old man, roused from whatever unholy slumber he’d been enjoying, came barreling out of the shop, his face a mask of thunderous fury. “What in the blazes do you want now! I’m warning you, I’m not some pushover you can just—”

Perhaps his simmering rage had finally reached its boiling point. The old man’s voice suddenly morphed into a guttural roar, his body visibly swelling, contorting into something monstrous. His mouth split into a grotesque four-petaled maw, and two long, sinuous arms erupted from his ribs, flailing as he howled, a sound that scraped against the very air, and charged with terrifying speed towards the unmoving Qin Yuan.

Standing frozen outside, the trio’s hearts hammered against their ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the icy dread that gripped their limbs. They watched, paralyzed, as the mutated old man, a grotesque parody of human form, lunged towards Qin Yuan. Yet, the latter remained rooted to the spot, an unnerving stillness in his posture. The trio’s breaths hitched in their throats, their hearts threatening to leap out entirely.

“Get out of the damn way!” Yan Ming instinctively yelled, though he knew, with a sickening certainty, that his warning was likely useless.

As his words echoed in the suddenly tense air, Qin Yuan finally moved. But instead of dodging, he leaped forward, a blur of motion, his hands snaking out to seize the mutated old man’s newly sprouted arms. In the same fluid movement, his right leg shot out, a brutal kick landing squarely in the old man’s abdomen.

A bellow of pure agony ripped from the old man’s distorted throat, and with a sickening rip, both newly grown arms were torn clean off, dangling uselessly in Qin Yuan’s grip for a fleeting moment before he tossed them aside like discarded toys.

Qin Yuan, seemingly still not satisfied with this display of force, continued his assault. He pressed the thrashing, mutated old man to the ground, a relentless barrage of blows raining down until the man’s features were a pulpy, unrecognizable mess. Only then did Qin Yuan’s voice cut through the gruesome scene, calm and almost conversational, “Still feeling feisty?”

The old man, teetering on the brink of insanity, was so consumed by pain that he could barely register the question, let alone formulate a coherent response.

The trio outside the door: …Yeah, definitely not someone you’d want to cross on a bad day. Or any day, for that matter.

It wasn’t just the old man teetering on the edge; 0723, the ever-present, invisible supervisor hovering near the trio, was also battling a rising tide of… something akin to hysteria. For a multitude of reasons, he was precariously close to losing his cool.

Firstly, could the boss please dial it down a notch with the excessive violence? The internal alarm bells were practically screaming! If this continued, there was no way he could feign ignorance any longer. Protocol was protocol, after all, even for a silent observer.

Secondly, just who in the nine hells was this woman? When had the boss ever shown a sliver of concern for the life or death of a Wisher? Beating an NPC into a bloody pulp for the sake of a Wisher’s survival? That was what a run-of-the-mill supervisor or mid-level manager might do, but the boss?

Absolutely, positively, never.

Furthermore, even though NPCs didn’t exactly die in the permanent sense… the sheer, unadulterated pain was all too real. 0723 winced internally, imagining the sensory overload.

Gazing at the unrecognizable heap that was once an irate shopkeeper, 0723 felt a sudden, unexpected pang of sympathy.

This was a first. 0723, feeling sorry for an NPC. The universe was clearly off its axis.

“I… I was wrong…” A wheezing, broken sound emerged from beneath Qin Yuan’s heavy boot. “Wrong… don’t hit… anymore…”

The old man, or what was left of him, was already formulating a plan. The moment Qin Yuan lifted his foot, he’d burrow into the earth and vanish. This damned bastard had caught him off guard today, but mark his words, there would be a reckoning.

However, Qin Yuan, the very picture of nonchalance as he casually ground his heel into the prone figure, had clearly anticipated this desperate maneuver. He shoved his hands into his pockets, the movement deceptively relaxed, and said in a tone as even as a still pond, “Thinking of making a run for it? Not entirely out of the question. But if I do happen to catch you…”

Qin Yuan let the sentence hang in the air, unfinished, but the implied threat was a palpable weight, crushing any remaining spark of defiance in the old man’s battered mind.

“Speak,” the old man croaked, all pretense of resistance utterly gone. “What… what do you want to ask… again?”

“After being ambushed by those… things in the graveyard, she was poisoned. What’s the cure?” Qin Yuan’s voice was clipped, impatient.

“Those… things… actually managed to hurt you?” The old man’s face, grotesquely flattened beneath Qin Yuan’s boot, contorted further as his bulging eyeballs swiveled upwards, taking in Qin Yuan’s seemingly unscathed form.

Suddenly, a flicker of understanding, twisted with malice, crossed his ruined features. A choked, gurgling laugh escaped his mangled lips. “Hahahaha… that… that bitch! The little viper got herself poisoned!”

“Serves her right!” Though weak, the old man’s voice still held a venomous satisfaction.

“She’s… she’s ruined my… plans… time and time again! She deserves to—”

Before the old man could spew any more vitriol, Qin Yuan’s foot rose and descended again with brutal efficiency. “Didn’t I make myself clear before? Less flapping of your useless gums, less… unpleasantness.”

“Mix… mix all the… incense ash… from all the burners… in the ancestral hall…” The old man gasped for air, each breath a ragged struggle. But as soon as he dared to inhale deeply, he saw Qin Yuan’s foot twitch, hovering ominously above him. Terror lent him a burst of speed. “Spread… the mixed ash… on the wound! That’s… that’s it!”

“Just spreading it on is enough?” Qin Yuan’s lack of reaction was unnerving.

The old man’s anxiety spiked. “Truth! I swear on my… miserable existence… I’m not lying to you!”

Seeing the continued impassivity on Qin Yuan’s face, the old man cursed him a thousand silent curses before finally spitting out the crucial, unspoken caveat. “But… you’d better hurry. If that poison… isn’t dealt with… before the stroke of midnight… she’s a goner.”

The moment Qin Yuan stepped away from the battered shop and onto the street, the two doors he’d so violently introduced to the shop’s interior flew back into their frames with surprising speed.

Overzealous in their automated repair, they misaligned on the first try, bumping awkwardly. After two more jerky adjustments, they finally clicked back into place, as if nothing untoward had happened.

“You guys get her back first.” Qin Yuan’s tone brooked no argument as he gestured towards the unconscious Ding Yi.

---

On the way to the ancestral hall, the adrenaline slowly receded, and Qin Yuan grappled with a disquieting realization.

He seemed to… care. Too much. About Ding Yi.

Just a Wisher. A disposable pawn in the grand scheme of things.

If she croaked, she croaked. The New World was hardly facing a Wisher shortage. One less today, ten more would likely pop up tomorrow, eager to gamble their lives away.

Ding Yi was… admittedly… a bit different. Her emotional stability was a rare commodity. She possessed a certain grit, a quickness of mind, a ruthlessness that was… efficient. And her strength wasn’t half bad either.

But she wasn’t unique. Not truly. Such traits, while uncommon, weren’t exclusive to her.

Not the only one.

So why this persistent, nagging feeling that she was… special?

He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The gears in his mind, usually so precise, seemed to be slipping.

The instant he stepped across the threshold of the ancestral hall, the already bruised, gray-purple sky outside plunged into an abrupt darkness. Inside, all the candles and lanterns flickered to life with a sudden, eerie brilliance, only to be extinguished just as abruptly, plunging the interior into absolute blackness.

Amidst a cacophony of tremors that vibrated through the very floorboards, the unsettling clatter of unseen objects, and a chorus of guttural roars that seemed to claw at the silence, Qin Yuan vanished from his spot like a phantom swallowed by the night.

In the suffocating pitch-black, Qin Yuan and the unseen monsters engaged in a brutal ballet of speed and bloodshed. The raw, visceral pleasure that surged through him with each kill, each lightning-fast movement, felt… good.

Familiar. Almost… right.

To the point where a nascent understanding began to bloom in the darkness of his mind. Although he couldn’t yet decipher the precise nature of his unusual concern for Ding Yi’s survival, this strange, unfamiliar feeling… he didn’t entirely dislike it.

Not at all.