Chapter 6: Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6: The Price of Names

The black light consumed her scream.

Jiang Chen pulled the staff free and stumbled backward, gasping. His head throbbed where she'd been digging, her claws still phantom-pain inside his skull. The woman's soul lay crumpled on the ground, wisps of black smoke curling off her form like evaporating blood.

She was still alive. Still conscious. He could see her eyes tracking him, calculating even now.

"You're making a mistake," she said. Her voice was weak but steady. "You'll never find them without me."

"I don't need to find them tonight." He raised the staff again. "Right now, I need to get you back to Diyu before you kill someone else."

"I haven't killed anyone in this body."

"No. You just take them over. Steal their lives. Move on when they're used up." He walked closer. "What happens to the bodies after you leave them? Do they wake up? Do they remember?"

She didn't answer. That was answer enough.

"Stand up," he said.

She stood. Slowly. Her eyes never left his staff.

"You're different from the other reapers," she said. "They never asked questions. They just dragged me back. You want to know things."

"I'm three weeks old. I don't know anything."

"You know you were framed."

He felt the words like a knife. "Shut up."

"You know your death was a setup. You know someone wanted you dead. You know the system failed you." She took a step closer. "And I can tell you who."

"I said shut up."

"I'll tell you one name. Free. Just to prove I'm serious."

Jiang Chen stopped walking. His grip on the staff tightened until his knuckles went white.

"One name," she repeated. "Then you decide whether to take me to Diyu or let me go in exchange for the rest."

"One name means nothing if I can't prove it."

"Then let me prove it." She spread her hands. "Take me somewhere. Let me show you. There's a man in the city. He keeps records. Old-fashioned paper records, not digital. He has proof of everything—judge bribes, fabricated evidence, false testimonies. If your case is in there, he'll have it."

"And you know this man?"

"I've been in his mind." She smiled. "Three years ago. He never knew. I took a secretary at his firm, read every file in his office over six months. He has connections in every courthouse in the province."

Jiang Chen's mind raced. It could be a trap. Everything about this woman was a trap. But if she was telling the truth—

"If I take you to this man, and he doesn't have anything—"

"Then you drag me back to Diyu and I never bother you again."

"You're already going to Diyu. The only question is whether you walk there willingly or get dragged there unconscious."

She laughed. "You're learning. I like that." She pointed at his staff. "But you won't use that on me again. You don't have enough spiritual energy. I can see it. You're running on fumes."

She was right. He'd felt it when he hit her—the staff had drained him more than he expected. His vision was slightly blurry at the edges. His hands shook.

"How long until I recover?" he asked.

"With proper rest? A few hours. Without it?" She shrugged. "You'll be useless for combat for the rest of the night."

"Then I guess I'd better not need combat."

He grabbed her arm. She didn't resist.

"Where's this man?"

---

The office was on the fifteenth floor of a building that had seen better decades. The elevator smelled like cigarettes and despair. The carpet was the color of dried blood.

Jiang Chen stood in front of the door while the woman—she'd given her name as Lin Mei, though he suspected that was as fake as everything else about her—lingered behind him.

"He's still here," she said. "Working late. He always works late."

"How do you know?"

"I can feel him. His soul is loud. Anxious." She tapped her temple. "Being inside people teaches you to read them from outside too."

Jiang Chen pushed the door open.

The man inside looked up, startled. He was in his sixties, bald, wearing glasses that had slid halfway down his nose. His desk was covered in papers—stacks of them, organized in a system only he understood.

"Who are you?" he demanded. "This is a private office. You can't just—"

Jiang Chen raised his staff. The man's eyes went wide.

"What is that?"

"You're going to answer some questions," Jiang Chen said. "About a man named Jiang Chen. Executed three weeks ago for murder."

The man's face went pale. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You keep records. Paper records. Bribes, fabricated evidence, false testimonies." Lin Mei stepped forward. "I've seen them. Don't lie to me."

The man stared at her. Recognition flickered in his eyes. "You. You're the one who was in my secretary's head. I remember. She quit afterward. Said she had nightmares for months."

"That's me." She smiled. "And now I'm back."

"What do you want?"

"The truth about Jiang Chen's execution." Jiang Chen stepped closer. "Tell me who paid to have me killed."

"You're dead," the man whispered. "You can't be alive."

"I'm not alive. I'm a soul reaper. And I need answers before I drag this woman back to hell."

The man looked between them. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His hands trembled as he reached for a file cabinet.

"I don't keep files on everyone," he said. "Only the ones that make me money. If your case was profitable, I'll have it."

He pulled open a drawer. Flipped through folders. His fingers stopped on one.

"Jiang Chen," he read. "Executed November 12th. Case number—" He stopped. "This can't be right."

"What?"

"The payment. It's not from a person. It's from a company." He pulled out a sheet of paper. "Longxing Financial Group. They paid three hundred thousand yuan to the judge, another hundred thousand to the prosecutor, and fifty thousand to the lead investigator."

Jiang Chen felt the world tilt.

Longxing Financial Group. He knew that name. He'd worked for them. As an accountant. For three years before his arrest.

"That's impossible," he said. "I was a nobody. I processed invoices. I didn't know anything important."

"You must have known something," Lin Mei said. "Someone important didn't want you talking."

"I didn't have anything to talk about! I caught a few discrepancies in the books, but I reported them. I did everything by the book."

The man laughed. A dry, raspy sound. "You reported discrepancies at Longxing? That's like reporting a tiger for being hungry. They don't fix the problem—they eat the reporter."

Jiang Chen grabbed the paper. The names were there. Judge Wang. Prosecutor Li. Investigator Zhang. All paid. All bought.

"What do I do with this?"

"Nothing," the man said. "That paper proves nothing. It's just a record. The real evidence was destroyed when you were executed."

"There has to be something else."

"There isn't." The man's eyes flickered to Lin Mei. "But she might have something. She's been in hundreds of minds. She might have seen something useful."

Jiang Chen turned to her.

"I've been in government officials," she said slowly. "I've seen things. But I need time to remember. Time to sort through seventeen years of memories."

"How much time?"

"A few days."

"I don't have a few days. I have until dawn, and then I have to go back to Diyu and pretend everything is normal."

"Then take me with you."

"No."

"I'm useful. I know things. I can help you find the truth."

"You're a murderer."

"Your own hands aren't clean." She looked at the staff. "You've killed too. Two times tonight. I felt their souls when you sent them on. You're not innocent."

"I never said I was."

"Then stop pretending you're better than me." She stepped closer. "We're both dead. We both want something. Let's get it together."

Jiang Chen looked at the paper in his hands. Longxing Financial Group. Three hundred thousand yuan. Judge Wang.

He thought about his execution. The needle. The cold table. The witnesses who watched him die without a flicker of emotion.

He thought about the people who put him there. The judge who read the sentence. The prosecutor who argued for death. The investigator who found the evidence.

All paid.

All bought.

"I need to think," he said.

"Dawn is in four hours," Lin Mei said. "You don't have time to think."

"Then I'll make time."

He grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the office. The man watched them go, already reaching for his phone to call someone.

They had maybe ten minutes before the police showed up.

Jiang Chen pulled Lin Mei into the stairwell. They ran down fifteen flights. By the time they hit the street, his legs were burning and his spiritual energy was almost gone.

"Where now?" she asked.

"Somewhere safe."

"There's nowhere safe for you. You're dead. You're a ghost. You don't belong anywhere."

"Then I'll make somewhere safe."

He led her through alleys, over walls, into the basement of a building that had been condemned for years. The air smelled like mold and rust. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness.

"This is your safe place?" she asked.

"It's quiet."

"It's disgusting."

"It's temporary."

He sat down against the wall. The staff rested across his knees. His head was pounding.

"You look terrible," she said.

"I feel terrible."

"You used too much energy. You need to rest."

"I know."

"Then rest. I'll watch."

"Like I trust you."

"You don't have a choice." She sat down across from him. "If I wanted to kill you, I'd have done it already."

"You tried to possess me."

"You stopped me. And now I need you alive."

"Why?"

She was quiet for a long moment. "Because you're the first person in years who's treated me like a person instead of a problem to be solved."

Jiang Chen stared at her.

"That's not a good reason."

"It's the only one I have."

He closed his eyes. The darkness was thick and heavy and warm.

He thought about Longxing Financial Group. He thought about the discrepancies he'd found. The ones he'd reported. The ones no one had done anything about.

He thought about the question that had been eating at him since his arrest: why him? Why frame a nobody accountant for murder when there were so many other, easier targets?

The answer was simple.

He hadn't been the target.

He'd been the message.

Someone at Longxing wanted to send a signal to every other accountant in the company: keep your mouth shut, or die.

And he'd been the example.

The realization hit him like a physical blow.

"They killed me to scare everyone else," he whispered.

"What?"

"I wasn't the target. I was the warning." He opened his eyes. "They didn't need me dead. They needed everyone else to see me dead."

Lin Mei's expression shifted. Something almost like sympathy flickered across her face.

"That's worse than being the target," she said. "Being the target means you mattered. Being the warning means you were disposable."

"I know."

"What are you