Chapter 62 - Back in soul space

Chapter 62: Chapter 62 - Back in soul space

Jua Gu opened his eyes to a book hovering inches from his face.

For a moment, he couldn’t understand what he was looking at. He was still trying to breathe around the pain in his chest, still expecting to feel the pavement beneath his cheek. His fingers curled, searching for the small hands that had been holding his.

They closed on nothing.

He lay still, staring at the book while the last sounds of the street faded from his mind. Mao Mao had been crying. He remembered the boy bending over him, trying so carefully to hold his hand without hurting him.

Jua looked down.

There was no blood on his fingers.

His sleeve was clean too, the loose fabric draped over a wrist that was larger than it should have been.

He pushed himself upright.

Books surrounded him, suspended at different heights throughout the vast space. Some remained still, while others drifted slowly past, their pages stirring despite the absence of a breeze. Green and red sigils shone on their covers, bright enough to make him squint when he turned toward the nearest cluster.

He knew this place.

The familiarity settled unpleasantly in his stomach.

Soul Space.

Jua sat there a little longer, hoping there might be another explanation. Then he raised a hand in front of his face.

It was his own hand. Long fingers, a faint old scar near the knuckle, the shape so familiar that he could have recognised it without looking. Light passed through the edges of it.

He flexed his fingers and watched the movement.

"So... I died again."

Saying it aloud didn’t make it any easier to accept.

He stood, automatically brushing the back of his robes. There was nothing on them, but he patted himself down anyway, checking his side, his chest, then the back of his head.

Nothing hurt.

After so much pain, the absence of it felt wrong. He kept expecting something to catch when he breathed, or for his legs to give beneath him. Instead, he straightened to his full height without difficulty.

He was no longer looking out from the body of that slender teenager. His robes fell properly around his taller frame, their dark fabric following the movement of his legs. His hair slipped over his shoulder as he bent to inspect himself, long and familiar.

The necromancer Jua Gu, back in his own soul body.

He ought to have been pleased.

He had complained enough about that body. Its weakness, its ridiculous sensitivity, the way a small injury could leave him sweating and miserable. Now he had been freed of all of it, and the first thing he wanted was to go back.

His jaw tightened.

He hadn’t expected to die so soon.

There had barely been time to understand that the car was coming toward them. He had seen Mo Yuxin, pushed Mao Mao away, and then—

Jua stopped himself before the memory of the impact could finish.

He looked at his empty hand again.

Mao Mao had been holding it. The boy had been talking to him, telling him he was fine, crying harder whenever Jua failed to respond.

Had someone pulled him away afterward?

Jua could remember the maid calling for help.

At least Mao Mao hadn’t been alone.

That thought helped for all of a second before he remembered that being surrounded by strangers had never done the child much good.

"Damn it."

He dragged a hand through his hair and turned toward the book still hovering beside him.

It had followed when he stood.

Unlike the others, its cover was almost entirely obscured by the light surrounding it. Black gathered along the edges in a way that made no sense; it shone, yet seemed to swallow the colours behind it. A deep red glow pulsed beneath it, briefly revealing part of the cover before darkening again.

Jua leaned closer.

The book rotated slowly in front of his face.

He had seen red sigils here before. Green ones too. Whatever this was, it looked considerably less reassuring than either.

"I suppose I failed."

He didn’t reach for it yet.

What was the kid doing now?

Jua grimaced.

Ying Rui had barely begun spending time with his children. He had finally made the house somewhere Mao Mao could relax, and now he would be returning to this.

And the corpse puppet—

Jua’s eyes narrowed.

What happened to a puppet when its master died in another world?

He knew what should happen under ordinary circumstances. There was nothing ordinary about being thrown between book worlds in someone else’s body. He hadn’t exactly been given a thorough explanation of what would become of his work if he got himself killed.

"Shit."

He reached toward the hovering book, then paused with his fingers just short of the cover.

Perhaps he could still see inside it. If he could find out what had happened after he lost consciousness, he might at least—

"Oh my god! You’re back!"

A voice broke across the space.

Jua turned as a boy came running between the floating books. He ducked beneath one without looking, nearly collided with another, and stopped in front of Jua looking thoroughly distressed.

His hair was a mess. He shoved both hands through it, only making it worse.

"What the hell did you do in that world?"

Jua lowered his hand.

The boy pointed at the book beside him.

"You made it go berserk! You fucking destroyed the whole world!"

Jua looked from him to the black and red glow.

He had been dead for what felt like a few minutes. That seemed a rather ambitious amount of destruction to blame on him.

"I didn’t do much."

"Well, you did!" The boy scratched at his head in frustration, staring at the book as though it might burst in front of them. "Whatever you did to the world’s anchor being, he’s fucking berserk now! He’s gone crazy! The very person who was supposed to save the world is destroying it because of you!"

The small being began pacing in front of him, his steps quick and agitated. Every few seconds, he stopped to look at the book, then started moving again as though standing still with it was unbearable.

"I’ve never had anyone make such a blunder before. What the hell am I supposed to do with this? The world is doomed. Fucking doomed!"

Jua watched him drag both hands down his face.

He would have preferred a little less shouting and something useful. He still didn’t know what had happened to Mao Mao, and being told he had destroyed an entire world wasn’t helping him work it out.

The boy stopped abruptly and glared up at him.

"You have to fix it."

"Me?" Jua pointed at himself. "I’m dead."

"No, you’re not." The boy scoffed impatiently. "You’re in a coma."

Jua’s hand lowered.

He looked down at his translucent fingers, then back at the boy. The news should have been reassuring, but his mind caught on what it meant. His body was still there. Mao Mao hadn’t necessarily been crying over a corpse.

"Then why am I here?"

"Because your soul came out! And before you start asking about that, look at what you’ve done!"

The boy seized the hovering book and dragged it down between them. The black glow clung to his hands as he forced the cover open.

Several pages fluttered past before he pressed his palm against them.

Jua leaned closer.

The paper had darkened in uneven patches, with marks like dried blood spreading across the writing. Some pages were almost entirely black. Where the text remained visible, thin red lines threaded between the characters, making them difficult to follow.

The boy turned another page, his mouth tightening.

"That child was supposed to grow up, inherit the family business, and stop the development of a dangerous virus. He would have had the money and influence to shut the whole thing down. That was how this world was supposed to go."

Jua’s attention sharpened.

"Ying Mao?"

"Who else?"

The boy pushed the book toward him. Jua caught the lower edge, though the weight of it felt strange against his hands. He searched the damaged page, trying to pick out something he could understand.

"Now it’s all messed up," the boy continued. "Whatever you did to him, he’s taken over the research himself. He’s developing the virus because of you!"

Jua looked up slowly.

"What? Why would he do that?"

But taking over research into a virus made no sense.

What could he possibly want with it?

The boy jabbed a finger at a passage near the centre of the page.

"It wasn’t originally presented as a virus. It was supposed to be an immortality drug. Something that could prolong life, repair the body, even reverse ageing."

Jua went still.

The boy kept talking, but for a moment he barely heard him.

An immortality drug. Something that could repair a body that refused to wake.

"He’s trying to revive me," Jua said.

"Yes!" The boy threw up his free hand. "You finally understand!"

Jua barely reacted to his tone. He was looking at the blackened paper, trying to imagine Mao Mao

He rubbed his forehead. He hadn’t asked for this. He hadn’t wanted Mao Mao spending his life chasing a cure, much less destroying a world over it. He had pushed him away from a car because there hadn’t been another choice.

Now he needed to get back before the boy did anything worse.

"How long—"

"I’m sending you in again."

The small being snapped the book higher, cutting him off.

"You’d better correct it this time. He’s supposed to destroy the invention of this virus, understand? Make him destroy it."

Jua reached for his wrist.

"Wait. Where are you sending me? How old is he now?"

The boy pulled free, already turning the pages. Beneath his fingers, a pale section emerged among the black and red.

"You can ask him yourself."

Then he shoved the open book into Jua’s face.

Jua jerked back on instinct, but the pages were already against him. Cold swept through his forehead and down his chest. He tried to catch the cover, to hold himself in place long enough to demand a proper answer, but his fingers passed through it.

His body began to shift.

The robes against his legs lost their weight. His hands blurred in front of him, their edges drawing toward the open pages. For a moment, he could still see the small being gripping the book, his face tense with concentration.

Then Jua was pulled forward.

The sensation caught deep inside him, leaving him unable to tell where his arms or legs had gone. He tried to close his eyes, but the pages filled everything, their light pressing through him until even the book disappeared.

When he opened his eyes again, ceiling lights shone blindingly down into his face.