Chapter 3: The Second Soul on the List
~1.9k words · 2026-06-22
The hallway stretched longer than any corridor in any prison Jiang Chen had ever walked.
He counted his steps. Forty-seven. Forty-eight. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting the white floor tiles in sickly yellow. Each door he passed looked identical — steel frame, small window, number plaque. But the numbers didn't make sense. 217. 31. 8,842. The underworld had its own mathematics.
The paper in his hand listed two names. He'd caught the first one — the woman with the burned face — and watched her dissolve into the judge's ledger like ink into water. The process had taken seconds. Her suffering had taken years.
Now the second name stared up at him.
*Chen Wei. Male. 34. Cause of death: heart failure.*
*Stolen years: 22.*
Twenty-two years of someone else's life. That meant whoever took Chen Wei's remaining time was still walking around, breathing borrowed air, feeling borrowed heartbeats.
Judge Zhao's words echoed in his skull. *"The soul usually returns to the place where it died. Or the place it loved most."*
Chen Wei's file said he'd collapsed at a construction site in the eastern district. Scaffolding collapse. Three workers died that day. Chen Wei was the only one whose soul never crossed over.
Jiang Chen stopped at the end of the hallway. A metal door. No handle. No window. Just a solid sheet of rusted iron.
He touched the surface. Cold. Alive in a way metal shouldn't be.
"You'll need to cut yourself," said a voice behind him.
He spun.
The woman stood three feet away. He hadn't heard her approach. She wore the same gray robes as the other clerks, but hers were stained with something dark along the cuffs. Ink, maybe. Or blood. Her face was plain, unremarkable — the kind of face you'd forget five seconds after looking away.
"Excuse me?"
"The door." She pointed at the rusted surface. "It's sealed with blood magic. Your blood will open it. A living soul's blood carries the resonance of the mortal realm. The door needs that to let you back through."
Jiang Chen looked at the door. Then back at her. "You're not going to tell me how you know that?"
"I'm a clerk in the Department of Records. I know a lot of things." She smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "Name's Li Mei. I'm your handler."
"I don't need a handler."
"Judge Zhao thinks you do." She pulled a small notebook from her sleeve. "First assignment. Two souls. You caught one. But the second one is trickier. Chen Wei escaped capture because he didn't cross over properly. He's still attached to his body."
"His body's buried."
"His body's in a morgue. The family refused cremation. They're waiting for the investigation to close." She flipped a page. "The construction company is being sued. Three families. Chen Wei's wife is the lead plaintiff."
Jiang Chen stared at her. "How do you know all this?"
"I told you. Records." She tucked the notebook away. "Cut yourself. Go through. Catch the soul. Come back. Try not to die again — the paperwork is a nightmare."
She turned and walked away, her footsteps silent against the tiles.
Jiang Chen watched her go. Something about her bothered him. She was too casual. Too familiar. Like she'd done this before. Like she'd handled other Soul Reapers.
He turned back to the door. Pulled the small dagger from his belt — standard issue, the clerk had called it. One cut. Quick and shallow. Blood welled up on his palm.
He pressed his hand against the rusted iron.
The metal drank his blood. He felt it pull, like a mouth sucking at a wound. The rust began to glow. Red, then orange, then the color of dying embers.
The door swung open.
On the other side: a street. Nighttime. Rain falling. The familiar smell of exhaust and wet concrete.
Shanghai.
He stepped through.
---
The construction site was a skeleton of steel beams and concrete floors. Yellow caution tape fluttered in the wind. A half-finished tower loomed against the gray sky, its upper floors lost in the clouds.
Jiang Chen stood at the base, rain dripping down his collar. He'd been standing there for ten minutes, watching. Waiting.
The soul should be here. Chen Wei died here. His unfinished business was here.
But the site was empty.
No workers. No ghosts. No flickering shapes at the edge of vision.
Something was wrong.
He pulled out the paper the judge had given him. The ink shifted as he watched, rearranging into new characters.
*Chen Wei. Not at death site. Location: unknown.*
"Unknown?" He crumpled the paper. "What kind of tracking system is this?"
The rain picked up. Thunder rolled across the sky.
He needed to think. Judge Zhao had said souls usually return to places of death or love. Chen Wei loved his wife. His wife was at the morgue, fighting for justice.
If Chen Wei's soul was still attached to his body, he wouldn't go far from it.
Jiang Chen started walking.
---
The Shanghai Public Morgue was a squat concrete building tucked between two high-rises. No signage. No windows. Just a steel door and a security camera.
Jiang Chen approached the door. It was locked. Electronic keypad.
He touched the keypad. The screen flickered. The numbers rearranged themselves. A soft click.
The door swung open.
He didn't question it. The underworld had its own rules. Its own keys.
Inside, the morgue was cold. Sterile. The kind of cold that settled into bones and stayed there. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The hallway was empty.
He walked past rows of refrigerated drawers. Each one held a body. Each one held a story cut short.
He found Chen Wei's drawer at the end. Number 47.
He pulled it open.
The body inside was pale. Waxy. The face of a man who'd died surprised — mouth slightly open, eyes closed but not fully, like he'd been interrupted mid-sentence.
Jiang Chen looked at the body. Then he looked closer.
There were marks on the chest. Bruises. Fingertip-shaped bruises. Like someone had grabbed him hard enough to leave impressions on the bone.
The file said heart failure. But these bruises were fresh. They'd been made at the moment of death.
Someone had held Chen Wei down. Held him still. While he died.
"You're not here for the body."
The voice came from behind him.
He turned.
The man standing in the doorway was tall. Broad-shouldered. Wearing a police uniform. His face was familiar in the way nightmares are familiar — you've never seen it before, but your body remembers the fear.
"I asked you a question," the officer said. "What are you doing here?"
Jiang Chen didn't answer. He was looking at the officer's chest. At the faint glow coming through the fabric.
A soul. Bright. Wrapped tight around the officer's heart.
Chen Wei's stolen years.
The officer followed his gaze. Looked down. Saw the glow.
His face went hard. "You can see it."
"I can see a lot of things," Jiang Chen said. "Like the fact that you're not a cop. You're wearing a stolen uniform. Stolen badge. Stolen life."
The officer's hand moved to his belt. Toward his gun.
"You don't want to do that," Jiang Chen said.
"You don't know what I want." The officer's eyes had changed. They were dark. Hollow. The eyes of a man who'd done terrible things and planned to do more. "But I know what you are. You're one of them. One of the judges' dogs."
Jiang Chen's hand went to his dagger. "Then you know I'm not here to negotiate."
"I know." The officer drew his gun. "But I also know you're not supposed to kill the living. Rule number one, isn't it? Don't interfere with the living."
He aimed the gun at Jiang Chen's chest.
"You might be dead already," the officer said. "But I wonder how many bullets it takes to stop a corpse?"
The gunshot was loud. Deafening in the small room.
Jiang Chen felt the bullet hit his chest. Felt it punch through skin and muscle. Felt it lodge somewhere near his spine.
He didn't fall.
He looked down at the wound. Blood, but not much. The bullet had passed through him like he was made of paper.
The officer's eyes went wide.
Jiang Chen pulled the dagger from his belt. "Rule number two," he said. "Don't threaten a Soul Reaper in a room full of dead bodies."
He moved forward.
The officer fired again. Two shots. Three. Each one hit, each one passed through.
Jiang Chen didn't slow down. He grabbed the officer by the throat. Slammed him against the wall.
"Where did you get the stolen years?" His voice was calm. Too calm. "Who sold them to you?"
The officer laughed. Blood bubbled at his lips. "You think I'm the buyer? You think I'm the one at the top?" He laughed harder. "I'm just a customer. Just a man who wanted more time."
"Who sold them to you?"
"Find the merchant," the officer said. "Find the soul merchant. He's the one who cuts the years from dying men. He's the one who sells them to people like me."
"Where do I find him?"
The officer's eyes met his. "He finds you."
And then the light in his chest went out.
The stolen years detached. They floated up, a golden mist that swirled around Jiang Chen's hand. He grabbed them. Tight.
The officer's body went limp.
He'd killed a living man.
He'd broken the rule.
Jiang Chen let the body fall. He looked at the mist in his hand. Chen Wei's stolen years. Twenty-two of them.
But the soul was still missing.
And now he had a name for the enemy.
The soul merchant.
He turned to leave. The mist followed him, clinging to his fingers like smoke.
At the door, he stopped.
The officer's body was still warm. Still bleeding. Still alive in the way fresh corpses are alive.
But in the corner of the room, a shadow moved.
Jiang Chen turned.
Chen Wei's soul stood in the corner. Transparent. Flickering. His eyes locked on the body of the man who'd stolen his years.
"Thank you," the soul whispered.
"Don't thank me yet," Jiang Chen said. "I still have to bring you back."
The soul smiled. It was a sad smile.
"I'm not going back."
Jiang Chen frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I've seen what's on the other side." Chen Wei's voice was hollow. "I've seen the ledgers. I've seen what happens to souls who owe debts."
"What debts?"
The soul pointed at Jiang Chen's chest. At the mark that only the dead could see.
"You're carrying a debt too," Chen Wei said. "You just don't know it yet."
The lights flickered. The room went dark.
When they came back on, Chen Wei was gone.
And Jiang Chen was alone with a dead body and a name that burned like acid in his mind.
The soul merchant.
He had to find him.
But first, he had to figure out why every soul he touched seemed to know something he didn't.
He looked down at his hands. The mist was still there. Golden. Warm. Alive.
Twenty-two years of someone else's life.
And
He counted his steps. Forty-seven. Forty-eight. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting the white floor tiles in sickly yellow. Each door he passed looked identical — steel frame, small window, number plaque. But the numbers didn't make sense. 217. 31. 8,842. The underworld had its own mathematics.
The paper in his hand listed two names. He'd caught the first one — the woman with the burned face — and watched her dissolve into the judge's ledger like ink into water. The process had taken seconds. Her suffering had taken years.
Now the second name stared up at him.
*Chen Wei. Male. 34. Cause of death: heart failure.*
*Stolen years: 22.*
Twenty-two years of someone else's life. That meant whoever took Chen Wei's remaining time was still walking around, breathing borrowed air, feeling borrowed heartbeats.
Judge Zhao's words echoed in his skull. *"The soul usually returns to the place where it died. Or the place it loved most."*
Chen Wei's file said he'd collapsed at a construction site in the eastern district. Scaffolding collapse. Three workers died that day. Chen Wei was the only one whose soul never crossed over.
Jiang Chen stopped at the end of the hallway. A metal door. No handle. No window. Just a solid sheet of rusted iron.
He touched the surface. Cold. Alive in a way metal shouldn't be.
"You'll need to cut yourself," said a voice behind him.
He spun.
The woman stood three feet away. He hadn't heard her approach. She wore the same gray robes as the other clerks, but hers were stained with something dark along the cuffs. Ink, maybe. Or blood. Her face was plain, unremarkable — the kind of face you'd forget five seconds after looking away.
"Excuse me?"
"The door." She pointed at the rusted surface. "It's sealed with blood magic. Your blood will open it. A living soul's blood carries the resonance of the mortal realm. The door needs that to let you back through."
Jiang Chen looked at the door. Then back at her. "You're not going to tell me how you know that?"
"I'm a clerk in the Department of Records. I know a lot of things." She smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "Name's Li Mei. I'm your handler."
"I don't need a handler."
"Judge Zhao thinks you do." She pulled a small notebook from her sleeve. "First assignment. Two souls. You caught one. But the second one is trickier. Chen Wei escaped capture because he didn't cross over properly. He's still attached to his body."
"His body's buried."
"His body's in a morgue. The family refused cremation. They're waiting for the investigation to close." She flipped a page. "The construction company is being sued. Three families. Chen Wei's wife is the lead plaintiff."
Jiang Chen stared at her. "How do you know all this?"
"I told you. Records." She tucked the notebook away. "Cut yourself. Go through. Catch the soul. Come back. Try not to die again — the paperwork is a nightmare."
She turned and walked away, her footsteps silent against the tiles.
Jiang Chen watched her go. Something about her bothered him. She was too casual. Too familiar. Like she'd done this before. Like she'd handled other Soul Reapers.
He turned back to the door. Pulled the small dagger from his belt — standard issue, the clerk had called it. One cut. Quick and shallow. Blood welled up on his palm.
He pressed his hand against the rusted iron.
The metal drank his blood. He felt it pull, like a mouth sucking at a wound. The rust began to glow. Red, then orange, then the color of dying embers.
The door swung open.
On the other side: a street. Nighttime. Rain falling. The familiar smell of exhaust and wet concrete.
Shanghai.
He stepped through.
---
The construction site was a skeleton of steel beams and concrete floors. Yellow caution tape fluttered in the wind. A half-finished tower loomed against the gray sky, its upper floors lost in the clouds.
Jiang Chen stood at the base, rain dripping down his collar. He'd been standing there for ten minutes, watching. Waiting.
The soul should be here. Chen Wei died here. His unfinished business was here.
But the site was empty.
No workers. No ghosts. No flickering shapes at the edge of vision.
Something was wrong.
He pulled out the paper the judge had given him. The ink shifted as he watched, rearranging into new characters.
*Chen Wei. Not at death site. Location: unknown.*
"Unknown?" He crumpled the paper. "What kind of tracking system is this?"
The rain picked up. Thunder rolled across the sky.
He needed to think. Judge Zhao had said souls usually return to places of death or love. Chen Wei loved his wife. His wife was at the morgue, fighting for justice.
If Chen Wei's soul was still attached to his body, he wouldn't go far from it.
Jiang Chen started walking.
---
The Shanghai Public Morgue was a squat concrete building tucked between two high-rises. No signage. No windows. Just a steel door and a security camera.
Jiang Chen approached the door. It was locked. Electronic keypad.
He touched the keypad. The screen flickered. The numbers rearranged themselves. A soft click.
The door swung open.
He didn't question it. The underworld had its own rules. Its own keys.
Inside, the morgue was cold. Sterile. The kind of cold that settled into bones and stayed there. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The hallway was empty.
He walked past rows of refrigerated drawers. Each one held a body. Each one held a story cut short.
He found Chen Wei's drawer at the end. Number 47.
He pulled it open.
The body inside was pale. Waxy. The face of a man who'd died surprised — mouth slightly open, eyes closed but not fully, like he'd been interrupted mid-sentence.
Jiang Chen looked at the body. Then he looked closer.
There were marks on the chest. Bruises. Fingertip-shaped bruises. Like someone had grabbed him hard enough to leave impressions on the bone.
The file said heart failure. But these bruises were fresh. They'd been made at the moment of death.
Someone had held Chen Wei down. Held him still. While he died.
"You're not here for the body."
The voice came from behind him.
He turned.
The man standing in the doorway was tall. Broad-shouldered. Wearing a police uniform. His face was familiar in the way nightmares are familiar — you've never seen it before, but your body remembers the fear.
"I asked you a question," the officer said. "What are you doing here?"
Jiang Chen didn't answer. He was looking at the officer's chest. At the faint glow coming through the fabric.
A soul. Bright. Wrapped tight around the officer's heart.
Chen Wei's stolen years.
The officer followed his gaze. Looked down. Saw the glow.
His face went hard. "You can see it."
"I can see a lot of things," Jiang Chen said. "Like the fact that you're not a cop. You're wearing a stolen uniform. Stolen badge. Stolen life."
The officer's hand moved to his belt. Toward his gun.
"You don't want to do that," Jiang Chen said.
"You don't know what I want." The officer's eyes had changed. They were dark. Hollow. The eyes of a man who'd done terrible things and planned to do more. "But I know what you are. You're one of them. One of the judges' dogs."
Jiang Chen's hand went to his dagger. "Then you know I'm not here to negotiate."
"I know." The officer drew his gun. "But I also know you're not supposed to kill the living. Rule number one, isn't it? Don't interfere with the living."
He aimed the gun at Jiang Chen's chest.
"You might be dead already," the officer said. "But I wonder how many bullets it takes to stop a corpse?"
The gunshot was loud. Deafening in the small room.
Jiang Chen felt the bullet hit his chest. Felt it punch through skin and muscle. Felt it lodge somewhere near his spine.
He didn't fall.
He looked down at the wound. Blood, but not much. The bullet had passed through him like he was made of paper.
The officer's eyes went wide.
Jiang Chen pulled the dagger from his belt. "Rule number two," he said. "Don't threaten a Soul Reaper in a room full of dead bodies."
He moved forward.
The officer fired again. Two shots. Three. Each one hit, each one passed through.
Jiang Chen didn't slow down. He grabbed the officer by the throat. Slammed him against the wall.
"Where did you get the stolen years?" His voice was calm. Too calm. "Who sold them to you?"
The officer laughed. Blood bubbled at his lips. "You think I'm the buyer? You think I'm the one at the top?" He laughed harder. "I'm just a customer. Just a man who wanted more time."
"Who sold them to you?"
"Find the merchant," the officer said. "Find the soul merchant. He's the one who cuts the years from dying men. He's the one who sells them to people like me."
"Where do I find him?"
The officer's eyes met his. "He finds you."
And then the light in his chest went out.
The stolen years detached. They floated up, a golden mist that swirled around Jiang Chen's hand. He grabbed them. Tight.
The officer's body went limp.
He'd killed a living man.
He'd broken the rule.
Jiang Chen let the body fall. He looked at the mist in his hand. Chen Wei's stolen years. Twenty-two of them.
But the soul was still missing.
And now he had a name for the enemy.
The soul merchant.
He turned to leave. The mist followed him, clinging to his fingers like smoke.
At the door, he stopped.
The officer's body was still warm. Still bleeding. Still alive in the way fresh corpses are alive.
But in the corner of the room, a shadow moved.
Jiang Chen turned.
Chen Wei's soul stood in the corner. Transparent. Flickering. His eyes locked on the body of the man who'd stolen his years.
"Thank you," the soul whispered.
"Don't thank me yet," Jiang Chen said. "I still have to bring you back."
The soul smiled. It was a sad smile.
"I'm not going back."
Jiang Chen frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I've seen what's on the other side." Chen Wei's voice was hollow. "I've seen the ledgers. I've seen what happens to souls who owe debts."
"What debts?"
The soul pointed at Jiang Chen's chest. At the mark that only the dead could see.
"You're carrying a debt too," Chen Wei said. "You just don't know it yet."
The lights flickered. The room went dark.
When they came back on, Chen Wei was gone.
And Jiang Chen was alone with a dead body and a name that burned like acid in his mind.
The soul merchant.
He had to find him.
But first, he had to figure out why every soul he touched seemed to know something he didn't.
He looked down at his hands. The mist was still there. Golden. Warm. Alive.
Twenty-two years of someone else's life.
And