Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 99: The Shadow of Karma

Meng Xiaomeng’s living soul trembled violently.

In a daze, she found herself sitting before an antique vanity with three mirrors arranged around it.

Directly across from the vanity stood an enormous, decaying canopy bed. At the deepest end of the bed flickered a single candle. In the center lay a child-shaped porcelain pillow, placed on crimson sheets. The air was thick with an overpowering scent of incense.

The three mirrors reflected three faces:

A vocational school version of herself, with permed hair and a defiant expression; a high school student in uniform, hair sleek and neat; and a mature-looking “Hu Die” with softly curled hair.

Their arms reached out from the brassy mirrors and clutched at her flesh, shouting unintelligible words.

Meng Xiaomeng’s head throbbed.

She remembered standing in her cramped, broken-down home, staring at crushed carnations as her mother scolded her. She remembered sitting in a well-decorated bedroom, staring at a darkened living room in silence. She remembered leaning in a company break room, looking down at traffic, her ears filled with her boss’s warnings and her teacher’s weary resignation.

…Who was she again?

Maybe the vocational girl was dreaming—dreaming of swapping out her shrill mother for a new “self” to raise herself better. Maybe the high schooler had invented a wild excuse for her mother’s neglect. Or maybe the office worker had cracked under pressure and imagined her daughter as her younger self.

…Either way, she was losing her mind.

The three mirror selves still clung to her, and Meng Xiaomeng covered her face to avoid looking at them. To her shock, she felt nothing. Her face was smooth, blank, and featureless.

She leapt to her feet, throwing off the mirrored phantoms and stumbling backward. The three figures emerged from the mirrors like snails pulled from their shells, their torsos dragging long, wet spinal cords.

Panicking, she looked around wildly. The childlike porcelain pillow on the bed began to move. It clumsily climbed down and walked step by step, speaking in the voice of a strange woman.

“Don’t be scared. These are just hallucinations from the medication.”

“You’re in a hospital now. You’re safe. Just don’t move around too much.”

The voice was sweet and gentle, brimming with reassurance.

Hospital… Hospital… 

Right, she wasn’t in her right mind… It was just the medicine…

With that thought, the canopy bed morphed into a cold white hospital bed.

The three phantoms vanished. Her facial features returned and better yet, now she had three heads and fifteen facial features total.

Everything from ceiling to floor was stark white. She wore white slippers, gazed out at white leaves beyond the window, and even the veins on her wrist were a calming white.

Only the pediatric porcelain pillow on the bed was slightly yellowed. It made her uncomfortable. She kept scrubbing it with her white hospital gown until her skin broke and white blood oozed out.

It has to be cleaned, she thought.

She had to get better. Then she’d remember who she was, and she’d be able to see her mother and daughter again.

“I don’t want to see her! I want to see Ku Yue!” her left head shouted.

“I’m not your mother. You’ll understand when you’re older,” her right head said softly.

Meng Xiaomeng ignored them and kept scrubbing the old porcelain pillow. White blood streamed from her wounds, and the flayed flesh was whiter than lard.

On the neighboring bed, patients were fighting. One was trying to strangle another with gauze, while two muscular nurses pulled madly at the strangler.

Four others lay neatly in the corner like corpses, all in the same white hospital gowns. A small white dog in a nurse’s outfit moved from patient to patient, sniffing their condition.

A broadcast played in a soothing, professional female voice. The tone was perfectly normal, but when she listened closely, she couldn’t understand a word.

Clearly, she was very far gone, Meng Xiaomeng thought. No wonder they placed her in the violent psychiatric ward.

…Creak.

The door to the ward suddenly opened and a doctor, completely dressed in white, entered. His lab coat was long, and in his arms, he cradled a skinny gray tabby cat with a vivid red collar. Its tail hung limp.

The porcelain pillow in her hands shivered as if it feared the newcomer.

No surprise. This doctor had long black hair that stood out against the pristine white room. The red on the sleeping cat was so bright it hurt her eyes.

“You scared my pillow!” she shouted from her bed. “You’re a doctor. How could you bring a pet into a hospital room!”

The little dog nurse gave her a disapproving look.

The doctor’s pale eyes shifted toward her expressionlessly, like a chef inspecting meat on a cutting board. Only then did Meng Xiaomeng notice the vivid red mole below his left eye.

It matched the red collar on the cat and made her eyes sting even more.

In that pain, something warm began leaking from her eyes. She reached up instinctively and found red threads. It was soft and slippery, like blood vessels, but straighter and longer.

They writhed like living things, slipping free no matter how she tried to grab them. They shot out in all directions, two-thirds of them merging into the porcelain pillow, like nerves embedding into flesh.

“You’re just a layman, yet you dare use the Immortal E,” the doctor said with scorn. “He offered his soul in your place, and the spell was forcibly interrupted. This chaotic karma. This is your backlash.”

Meng Xiaomeng tilted her head. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying, but it’s fine. I’m probably just insane.”

“So give me the meds or treat me already. I need to go home. If I’m late, my mom will yell, and I still need to cook dinner for my kid.”

The doctor’s face didn’t flinch. Clearly, he was unmoved by her appeals to family. He simply stroked the cat in his arms. It nestled closer and let out soft purrs.

A few red threads floated near. The doctor caught them with ease.

“At first, I thought he left this mess for me to see if I had ‘humanity’,” he muttered. “But later I realized, my human wouldn’t be so tacky. However I handle you, he won’t care.”

Meng Xiaomeng: “…”

No wonder this was the psych ward. Even the doctors were delusional. Or maybe she was too far gone to understand anything anymore?

“He’s just curious what I’ll do. Just as I’m curious about him.” The doctor raised his eyes and announced with satisfaction, “That makes sense. After all, he said he likes me.”

“Balance must be served. So let heaven decide… I’ll only eat half your soul.”

He glanced at the cat, as if checking for permission. The feline stayed fast asleep, curled up like nothing in the world could bother it.

Meng Xiaomeng: “???”

That couldn’t be good. She clutched the pillow tightly and climbed onto the bed to claim the high ground.

“Keep me!” shouted the right head. “I remember everything. I want to live! When I get out, I want to talk to Mom—keep me!”

“You’re just a figment of my imagination.” The left head giggled. “The police station wasn’t real, and this place isn’t either. I must have swallowed pills. All a hallucination.”

Meng Xiaomeng’s mind spun. Was the doctor the one speaking sensibly… or was her brain just too far gone to tell?

Ignoring the shouting, the doctor walked to the next bed. One arm still cradling the cat, he twisted off the heads of the two muscular nurses like eggs.

The female patient who’d been strangling someone renewed her grip with greater force.

The doctor cracked open the two skulls, extracting pale white souls like a chef preparing ingredients. He set them gently on a tray.

Then he tugged on all the red threads in the room. Meng Xiaomeng felt a soreness like her nerves were being yanked out through her teeth.

“Stop!” her right head cried. “I only fought the Disaster Resolvers to survive! I used to believe in you—you know that! If there’s a peaceful solution, I’m willing to negotiate…”

On the next bed, the woman strangled harder. The man underneath her stabbed her arm repeatedly with something sharp.

“I used to believe in you,” the right head whispered again, seemingly oblivious to the pain. “Take whatever price you want. Even my soul.”

The right head tried to sound calm, but its fear was obvious. “Just don’t erase my memories. I’m more useful alive. I understand better…”

“You haven’t changed,” the doctor said flatly. “You chase others’ affection and fall apart when things go wrong. There’s no growth at all.”

“You don’t even know how to love yourself. What do you know about ‘understanding’?”

The right head fell silent.

“I’m not here for justice. I don’t care who’s more useful. I only know, your part tastes best.”

Instinctively, Meng Xiaomeng looked toward the right head. Red threads poured from its eyes, nearly popping them out.

The mature face was filled with terror and sorrow. “I don’t want to die…”

“You won’t,” the doctor said.

A moment later, the threads surged.

Meng Xiaomeng’s right shoulder went cold. Something warm and vital was pulled from her. In that instant, her heart felt hollow.

“This hallucination’s wild,” the left head said cheerfully. “I’ve gone off the deep end. Let’s see what Mom does with this. Bet she loses face…”

Rip.

There was a loud tearing sound. The left head flew off too. It had barely any threads holding it on, and in its final moment, she could see its startled expression.

A chill crept into Meng Xiaomeng. The hollowness inside her was sharp and aching, like missing teeth or a severed wrist.

The doctor held the two heads by their red threads and placed them on the tray. They muttered faintly, but he wasn’t listening.

He turned to her.

“I have remove the fragment of the soul you cut off to serve as ‘mother’, and the soul that was distorted by the dream.”

The doctor touched the cat’s paw and spoke in a tone like a surgeon pleased with a successful tumor removal.

“Now you have two souls left. The E lingers around you and your heart and soul has been damaged. You will never dream again for the rest of your life, and your karmic blood-debt will not disappear… But since I’m the one who intervened, you won’t go crazy.”

She still didn’t understand. Her chest felt hollow, like something crucial was missing. The white ward began to flicker and collapse and her heard started pounding.

She curled her shoulders, fingers twisting. Suddenly, she felt pain.

Ah, right. Before entering the hotel, she’d had her nails done… She’d wanted to greet the new students in her best state… Hotel… new students…

Meng Xiaomeng stared blankly at her beautiful fingernails.

She’d spent so much money on them. Her mom would scold her again. But for some reason, this time, she didn’t mind.

The red threads had vanished without her noticing. This time, tears flowed from her eyes. She wasn’t even sad, but they wouldn’t stop.

She no longer cared about the fight on the next bed or the crumbling hospital. She only felt cold—bone-deep cold.

The man in white frowned as he watched her, then reluctantly added, “Your memories are gone, but the karmic effects remain. Don’t panic.”

“Mom…”

Meng Xiaomeng rubbed at the cut on her finger. A bright red bead of blood slowly oozed out.

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The author has something to say:

Master Bai performed the operation, and the disease was miraculously cured (?

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