Chapter 13: Chapter 13

The black light from Jiang Chen's staff threw Madam Zhao across the chamber. She crashed through a stack of funeral paper goods—burning houses, paper servants, spirit money—and landed in a heap of torn offerings.

She was laughing again.

"You can't kill me, boy. I'm already dead."

Jiang Chen advanced, staff raised. His hands were still shaking. The names. She'd promised him names. The people who framed him. The judge who took the bribe. The witnesses who lied.

"I don't have to kill you," he said. "I just have to bring you back."

"Back to what? Memory wipe? Oblivion?" She rose, brushing paper ash from her stolen body. "That's not justice. That's convenience."

"What do you know about justice?"

"I know it's the first thing they sacrifice when the system gets comfortable." She circled him, her movements no longer those of a middle-aged woman but of something older, something that had learned to read people like ledgers. "You were an accountant, weren't you? You understand numbers. You understand that every system has a balance sheet, and sometimes the numbers don't add up."

Jiang Chen's jaw tightened. "Stop reading my mind."

"I don't need to read it. You're an open book." She pointed at his chest. "That need you feel? That hunger? I've seen it in a hundred faces. You want to know who took everything from you. You want to make them pay."

"You don't know anything about me."

"I know you took a bribe. Small one. Three thousand yuan to look the other way on some falsified invoices. You told yourself it was nothing. Everyone does it. Just one time." She tilted her head. "But it wasn't one time, was it? It became two. Then five. Then you stopped counting."

Jiang Chen's grip on the staff tightened until his knuckles went white.

"By the time they caught you, you'd taken forty-seven thousand yuan over three years. Not a fortune. Not enough to buy a house or a car. Just... pocket money. Coffee money. The price of your integrity."

"Shut up."

"And then someone murdered a woman. Strangled her in her apartment. Left your fingerprints everywhere. Used your bank card to withdraw money from her account. Made it look like you'd killed her for the cash." She smiled. "Amateur hour framing. Any competent lawyer would have torn it apart in ten minutes. But you didn't get a competent lawyer. You got a public defender who'd already been paid to lose."

Jiang Chen's vision went red at the edges.

"How do you know all this?"

"I told you. I've been possessing people for seventeen years. Lawyers. Judges. Police officers. I've been in their heads. I've seen their secrets." She stepped closer. "I know who framed you. I know who paid for the evidence. I know the name of the man who ordered your death."

"Tell me."

"Take me to Diyu."

"You'll just try to escape again."

"I won't."

"You're a liar."

"I'm a survivor." She met his eyes. "There's a difference. Liars lie for pleasure. Survivors lie for the next breath. I've been dead for seventeen years, Jiang Chen. Do you know what that's like? To exist in the space between worlds? To watch the living forget you, one day at a time?"

He didn't answer.

"At first, people remembered. They lit incense. They burned paper money. They visited my grave." Her voice dropped. "But the living have short memories. After a year, only my mother came. After five years, no one. I was erased. As if I'd never existed."

"Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?"

"No. It's supposed to make you understand." She spread her arms. "I've done terrible things. I've stolen bodies. I've ruined lives. I've killed two of your predecessors. I'm not asking for forgiveness. I'm asking for a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"You take me to Diyu. I tell the judges everything I know about your case. They re-examine your file. You get your name cleared. The people who killed you face justice." She paused. "And I get to keep my memories."

"That's not your choice. The judges decide punishment."

"The judges decide based on what they know. I have information. Valuable information. Information about corruption in the mortal realm that goes higher than they realize." She smiled. "I've been inside the heads of politicians, police commissioners, even a deputy minister. I know where the bodies are buried. Literally."

Jiang Chen's mind raced. She was dangerous. She was manipulative. Everything she said was designed to appeal to his desires.

But she was also right.

He needed those names. He needed justice. And the judges of Diyu had given him a staff and a job without ever asking if he wanted it. They'd processed his death like another form, another number, another case closed.

"They executed me," he said slowly, "based on fabricated evidence. And no one checked. No one questioned. They just... stamped the form and moved on."

"The system is broken," Madam Zhao agreed. "On both sides of the veil. The judges of Diyu are overworked. They process thousands of deaths every day. They don't have time to investigate every claim of innocence."

"How do you know so much about Diyu?"

"Because I've been running from it for seventeen years." She sat down on an overturned bier, suddenly looking tired despite her stolen body. "I've studied their methods. Their weaknesses. Their blind spots. I know how they operate because I've been staying one step ahead."

"Until now."

"Until you." She looked at him with something like respect. "You're different from the others. They were hunters. You're... something else. You listen. You think. You don't just swing that staff without understanding."

"I'm not different. I'm just new."

"Newness has its advantages." She extended her hand again. "So. Do we have a deal?"

Jiang Chen stared at her hand. The same hand that had tried to possess him twice. The same fingers that had clawed through his memories.

"One condition," he said.

"Name it."

"No possessing anyone between here and Diyu. Not for any reason. Not even if you think you're saving yourself."

"Agreed."

"And when we get there, you tell the judges everything. Not just about my case. Everything you know about the corruption in the mortal world."

"That's a lot of information. It might take days."

"Then we'll take days."

Madam Zhao's smile was small, almost genuine. "You're trusting me."

"No. I'm using you. The same way you're using me."

"Fair enough." She stood. "Lead the way, Soul Reaper."

---

The path back to Diyu was different from the path out.

When Jiang Chen had first crossed the veil, he'd walked through a mist that seemed to stretch forever. Now, the mist parted like curtains, revealing a road paved with black stone that glowed faintly in the darkness.

"It's easier going back," Madam Zhao observed, walking beside him. "The dead are always drawn home eventually. That's why most souls don't run. They feel the pull."

"Why don't you?"

"I've been dead too long. The pull faded years ago." She looked at the sky, which was neither day nor night, but something in between. "I've become something else. Something that doesn't belong anywhere."

"A rogue spirit."

"If you want to use the official term." She laughed. "I prefer 'independent operator.'"

They walked in silence for a while. The road stretched ahead, lined with withered trees that bent toward them as they passed, like mourners at a funeral.

"How did you die?" Jiang Chen asked finally.

"Does it matter?"

"I want to know who I'm dealing with."

She was quiet for a long moment. "I was a journalist. Investigative. I dug into things I shouldn't have. Corruption in the provincial government. Embezzlement. A murder that had been ruled an accident." She shrugged. "They found me in my apartment. Gas leak, they said. But I'd been dead for three days before anyone came looking."

"That's why you know so much about corruption."

"That's why I know so much about everything." She glanced at him. "When you're a ghost, you can go anywhere. See anything. No one notices a dead woman in the corner. I've spent seventeen years collecting secrets."

"And now you're going to trade them for a chance to keep your memories."

"Everyone has a price. Mine is not being forgotten."

The road curved, and ahead of them, Jiang Chen saw the gates of Diyu. They were taller than he remembered, carved from bone and obsidian, guarded by two figures that could only be described as nightmares given form.

"Ah." Madam Zhao stopped. "I was wondering when they'd show up."

"You know them?"

"Ox-Head and Horse-Face." She nodded toward the guards. "The judges' enforcers. They've been hunting me for years."

The two figures turned as one. Ox-Head was enormous, with curved horns and eyes that burned like coals. Horse-Face was taller, thinner, with a skull-like visage and hands that ended in claws.

"So," Ox-Head rumbled, his voice like grinding stone. "The rogue returns."

"And brings a gift," Horse-Face added, his voice a whisper that cut through the air like a blade. "The new Soul Reaper."

"She's my prisoner," Jiang Chen said, stepping forward. "I'm bringing her before the judges."

"Prisoner?" Ox-Head laughed, a sound like an avalanche. "She's a corpse. She's been dead for seventeen years. She's killed two of your predecessors."

"I know what she is."

"And yet you walk beside her." Horse-Face's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Because she has information. Valuable information."

"Everything she says is valuable to her." Ox-Head stepped forward, his bulk blocking the gate. "She's a liar and a manipulator. She'll say anything to survive."

"I'm aware."

"Then step aside. We'll take her to the judges."

"No."

The word hung in the air. Ox-Head's eyes widened. Horse-Face's claws twitched.

"No?" Ox-Head repeated. "You refuse the enforcers of Diyu?"

"She's my capture. I brought her in. I'll present her to the judges myself."

"That's not how it works."

"It's how it's going to work today."

Jiang Chen met Ox-Head's gaze. His staff hummed in his hands, the black light pulsing in time with his heartbeat. Behind him, Madam Zhao was silent, watching.

For a long moment, no one moved.

Then Horse-Face laughed. It was a terrible sound, like nails on a coffin lid.

"The new Soul Reaper has teeth," he said. "Let him pass. Let him present his prize to the judges. It will be amusing to see how long she lasts before she betrays him."

Ox-Head grunted, but stepped aside.

Jiang Chen walked through the gates, Madam Zhao at his side. Behind them, the enforcers watched, their eyes burning in the darkness.

"You made enemies," Madam Zhao whispered.

"They were already enemies. I just made it official."

"Bold. Stupid, but bold."

"I learned from the best." He glanced at her. "You."

She smiled. "I'm almost proud of you."

They entered the Hall of Judgment. The Ten Judges sat on their thrones, their faces hidden in shadow