The door creaked open, and amidst the eerie howling wind, the fme ihe ntered a pale, ghastly light. Instead ing fort, the illumination cast an indescribable chill over the surroundings.

  Yet, this very chill brought an inexplicable sense of relief to the two brothers, "No Salvation" and "Iable Death."

  Seeing that the ntern's light had inguished, the brothers felt a momentary ease. Uhe pale glow, they exged a relieved smile. But before they could speak, a fierce gust of wind roared through.

  Amidst the howling, the ntern—boasted by the paper craftsman Zhang to be uinguishable—swayed violently twice. Suddenly, a grotesque bck human face emerged oern's surface.

  The face bore expressions of agony and malice. Its eyes shifted, gng at the two brothers ihe room, before the shadowy figure exploded with a loud bang.

  As the bck ghostly face shattered, the supposedly iructible human-skin ntern crumbled into pieces. The tiny fme inside, ner than a peanut, couldn't withstand the fierce wind and was snuffed out with a soft puff.

  The room lunged into darkness.

  "..."

  The brothers' smiles froze on their faces, their bodies feeling as if they had been thrown into an icy abyss.

  "Ah!!!"

  "Ah—"

  Two blood-curdling screams echoed oer another.

  With the light extinguished, their prote was gohe ghosts would soon discover their hiding pd enshem, draining their life fortil nothing remained.

  The brothers waited in despair for death. The braver of the two, the older brother, lost all will to resist and slumped to the ground.

  Unbeknownst to them, at the moment the human-skin ntern shattered, the "Register of Gods and Demons" on Zhao Fusheng's body began to reboot.

  As the Register successfully restarted, the pque hanging outside the mansion's eaves, previously shrouded in bck mist, seemed to be wiped by an invisible hand. Three faintly disible characters emerged:

  *Demon-Suppression Bureau.*

  Boom!

  The night was filled with thunder and lightning. The twin brothers, certain they were doomed, waited in despair for their iable end. Yet, the night passed without i, and they survived until dawn.

  As the storm subsided, the sky cleared, and a red glow heralded the su seemed like a rare, beautiful day was ahead.

  The brothers sat back-to-back, their eyes bloodshot.

  "Brother—"

  "No Salvation" called out, his voice hoarse from screaming throughout the night.

  "Do you think... the camity has passed?"

  As he spoke, he turo look at his older brother.

  "No Salvation's" face ale, with dark, swollen bags under his bloodshot eyes. His brother wasn't faring much better—drenched i, his hair disheveled, his lips cracked and peeling. Fear and despair had takeoll, and ht, painful sores had broken out on his lips.

  "Maybe... maybe it has," the older brother rying to move his legs. They had gone numb from squatting all night, and now they prickled with pain. But the thought that the disaster might be over brought a glimmer of hope to his eyes.

  "We 't stay in the Demon-Suppression Bureau of Wan'an ty any lohe nearby ghost domains are expanding, and the imperial court has probably abahis pce. We o find another way out—"

  As the brothers discussed their future, a pale hand emerged from under a dirty white cloth on a wooden pnk in the ter of the room. The cloth ushed aside, revealing the exhausted, pale face of Zhao Fusheng.

  Her face was ashen, and her head throbbed with pain.

  As she woke, her eyes were dazed, staring bnkly at the rge hole in the ceiling. Fragments of the chaotic dreams from the night before fshed through her mind.

  Zhao Fushe as though she had slept for ay.

  She had been overworked retly, her mind stantly on edge, and hadn't had a proper rest in a long time.

  Perhaps it was the stress, but despite the long sleep, the quality had been terrible.

  She had dreamed strange and bizarre things.

  In her dream, her rented apartment had met with an act. At the brink of death, her soul had crossed into a pce called the Great Han Dynasty, possessing a girl who shared her his girl had been sold by her parents at a low price to a pce called the Demon-Suppression Bureau.

  At first, this Zhao Fusheng had been overjoyed. She thought she had found food and clothing, esg her miserable life.

  For some reason, when she first joihe Demon-Suppression Bureau, her luck had turned incredibly good—so good that she would find silver s oreet and have food delivered to her uedly.

  But this good fortune didn't st. As time passed, she realized that her luck always came with a price.

  From finding silver s to occasionally stumbling upon food, each stroke of luck was apanied by injury.

  At first, it was just minor scrapes and falls, but soon it escated to broken limbs.

  Her body began to feel inexplicably cold, and she always felt as though a terrifying presence was lurking around her.

  The two brothers who had bought her for the Demon-Suppression Bureau began to look at her strangely. They often whispered to each other, their gazes falling on her as if she were already a dead person.

  Zhao Fusheng grew increasingly frightened. Her body ached more and more, her injuries worsening. She was too scared to sleep, feeling the cold presence drawing closer to her back.

  She ofte a heavy weight on her shoulders and back, as if she were carrying something invisible.

  Amidst this growing terror, bad news arrived—her parents had died in a ghostly camity.

  For some reason, she immediately thought of her ret streak of bizarre misfortune, and the fear only deepened.

  On the day her parents' bodies were brought to Wan'an ty, Zhao Fusheng was filled with dread. But in the end, she couldn't escape her fate.

  That day, sensing something terrible was about to happen, she had been uo sleep for days. Just as she was trembling with fear, she felt an unnatural chill approach from behind. She turned instinctively—and saw a shadowy figure standing behind her.

  Zhao Fusheng's pupils trembled. Before she could scream, the ghostly figure reached out.

  A bck, ghostly hand pierced through her back, tearing through her chest and abdomen, ripping opehroat and lungs.

  In an instant, Zhao Fusheng was disemboweled, her life extinguished.

  The st image burned into her memory was of a pale, grayish hand tearing through her throat, blood spraying everywhere.

  Zhao Fusheng's pupils tracted. She had been killed by a ghost.

  The suffocation and pain of her death lingered in her mind. She betedly clutched her throat, finally exhaling the breath trapped in her chest.

  "It was just a nightmare," she thought with relief, though it felt ulingly real.

  As her thoughts returo the present, her eyes gradually cleared. She immediately noticed something strange.

  Above her head was not the simple, white-painted ceiling of her rented apartment. Instead, several bck wooden beams supported the roof, covered in yers of dusty cobwebs.

  Most striking was the rge hole, about a meter in diameter, directly above her. Light streamed through, illuminating the floating dust in the air.

  A sense of foreboding washed over her. She reached down to feel the surface beh her.

  It wasn't her cheap bed, but a hard, simple wooden pnk.

  Zhao Fusheng sat up, her eyes falling on a blood-stained white cloth.

  To her left and right were two more pnks, each covered with simir white cloths. Beh the cloths, the outlines of human figures were faintly visible.

  A strahought fshed through her mind: Father? Mother?

  No! These were the parents of the inal Zhao Fusheng. Two days ago, upon hearing of their deaths, the Fan brothers of the Demon-Suppression Bureau had arranged for their bodies to be brought here.

  Memories surfaaturally in her mind:

  Because she had been tainted by the supernatural, her entire family had fallen victim to the ghosts, all dying horribly.

  "..." Zhao Fusheng's hands trembled, her face growing even paler.

  Just then, voices came from outside.

  Perhaps thinking there was no one else in the mansion, the two men spoke without l their voices.

  "Brother," one of them called out. There was a rustling sound as he shifted his body, his voieasy. "Acc to Paper Craftsman Zhang, this ghost trades 'luck' for lives. O tches onto someo won't leave until it has draihe entire family's fortune, leaving them all dead."

  "The Demon-Suppression Bureau is the best example. Almost everyone here has died because of this ghost."

  After diverting the camity to Zhao Fusheng's family, they too had quickly met their demise. "But st night, nothing happeo us. Does that mean the disaster is over? Are we free from its grasp?"

  Fan Wujiu!

  The name suddenly popped into Zhao Fusheng's mind. The face of a young man fshed before her eyes, and she was shocked to realize that she reized him, as if they had known each other before.

  As she was reeling from this realization, another male voice spoke:

  "Logically, once a ghost has killed, unless someone else triggers its rules, we should be free from its curse."

  "After all, the nter out st night, and we're still alive—"

  The two brothers had unique stitutions, and being part of the Demon-Suppression Bureau, they had their own ways of determining whether they were haunted.

  The man was certain that no ghost was attached to them, which meant Paper Craftsman Zhang's method had worked.

  As he spoke, another name surfaced in Zhao Fusheng's mind: Fan Bishen.

  They were twin brothers, envoys of the Demon-Suppression Bureau. They had bought Zhao Fusheng from her family for five copper s and brought her to the bureau.

  The Great Han Dynasty, the Demon-Suppression Bureau, the Fan brothers, and the bodies of Zhao Fusheng's parents...

  "..." Zhao Fusheng's vision darkened, and she instinctively looked around.

  Her gaze fell on the decrepit hall of the Demon-Suppression Bureau. The terrifying shadow from her dream wasn't visible, but her sharp intuition told her that somewhere in the shadoair of cold eyes was watg her every move.

  The malice alpable, sending chills down her spine and making her heart ch.

  Outside, the Fan brothers, unaware that she had awakened, tiheir discussion:

  "If the ghost is gone and the curse on the Demon-Suppression Bureau is lifted, we o leave this pce immediately and find another way to survive."

  "The ghost domains around here are growing rger, and ghosts are appearing even in broad daylight."

  "Our Demon-Suppression Bureau has beeated by that ghost. Almost everyone is dead. Staying here is a death sentence. I've heard that the Demon-Suppression Bureau in Baozhi ty is doing well. They have a ceneral who has tamed a fierce ghost. He's very powerful. We should go there—" Fan Bishen was quick-witted and more level-headed than his impulsive younger brother.

  "But we bound our souls with a blood tract back then. The tract hasn't been dissolved. How we leave Wan'an ty..." Fan Wujiu said nervously.

  "Idiot," Fan Bishen scolded. "We'll find someone else to take the position of envoy here, then figure out a way to remove our names from the sistry. That should settle it..."

  As the brothers discussed their pns, Zhao Fusheng, who had e back to life in the hall, couldn't believe her situation.

  "This 't be! This 't be!"

  How could something so absurd happen? She had woken up in someone else's body, her nightmare had e true, and she was now the nominal head of the Demon-Suppression Bureau in Wan'an ty uhe Great Han Dynasty.

  Without a sed thought, she threw off the burial cloth, jumped off the wooden pnk, and rushed out of the hall.

  "Once we—"

  Fan Bishen was still speaking when his brother, hearing the urned his head.

  In an instant, Fan Wujiu's expression ged from relief to sheer terror, as if he had seen the most horrifying thing in the world. His pupils trembled.

  "Gah—gah—"

  In his extreme fright, his words became i. His arm hung limply, and goosebumps crawled up his spio the back of his neck, making his hair stand on end.

  "You—" Fan Bishen frowned, about to speak, when Fan Wujiu cried out in a trembling voice:

  "Brother, it's... it's a corpse! It's moving—"

  "What nonsense are you talking about?" Fan Bishen shouted, but then a familiar voice rang out:

  "This 't be... this 't be... how is this possible..."

  Zhao Fusheng, barefoot, dashed out of the courtyard and toward the main gate.

  "...I..."

  Fan Bishen watched her run out, his mind bnk, uo speak.

  Zhao Fusheng ighem. She rushed through the long courtyard and emerged outside the mansion gates.

  Before her eyes stretched a dirty, dipidated street. Oher side stood low, shabby huts, many of the shops closed and in disrepair.

  The few open shops were mostly coffin or paper moores, with folded paper figures dispyed outside. She sed the street but saw no living souls.

  Perhaps due to the ck of human activity, the ereet exuded an eerie silence.

  The se was both unfamiliar and strangely familiar to Zhao Fusheng.

  Her mind buzzed as she g to o hope.

  Summoning her ce, she looked up at the mansion's eaves.

  Two nterns hung oher side of the roof. Last night's storm had shattered them, revealing the oil mps inside.

  The oil had spilled, and yellow grease dripped from the torn paper, emitting a foul stench.

  Betweeerns hung a bck pque. The dark mist surrounding it had partially dissipated, revealing the faint outline of three characters.

  Though the inal Zhao Fusheng had been illiterate, she could now make out the words on the pque:

  Demon-Suppression Bureau.

  [--------------------------------------------]

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