After a brief moment of daze, Meng Ruji came to her senses and slapped the thief hard on the face. "If you hadn't opened my 'coffin' to steal the elixir, would I have died so quickly and unjustly!?"
The boy was thick-skinned. The slap hurt, but he only frowned slightly, without even a groan, and still didn't wake up.
Meng Ruji glanced at his exposed abdomen. She pondered for a moment, then reached out and touched it, not for anything else, but just to confirm her inner elixir was still within this "ghost."
The answer was yes. It was worthy of being her inner elixir, with the power of creation; it could even follow her after death.
Unfortunately, she still couldn't take it out.
"Ah..." Meng Ruji felt both regret and helplessness. She had died, and he had died too. When people die, their debts are settled. What else could she do to him? Just think of it as being robbed by a dog.
Meng Ruji stood up, patted her clothes, and prepared to calmly "reincarnate." But when she turned around, she saw that it was pitch black all around, with only the river in front of her emitting a strange, wonderful light. In the mist upstream of the river, there was a pier with red lanterns.
In the silent night, the pier in the distance seemed both abrupt and eerie.
"The underworld," Meng Ruji muttered. "It should have this kind of atmosphere, but two dead bodies have been lying here for so long, and no ghost messenger has come to lead the way."
Meng Ruji walked toward the pier. Along the entire river, besides the sound of the water, only her chatter echoed.
"The management of this underworld isn't as good as our Hengxu Mountain's..."
After walking for a while, the pier still looked far away, and Meng Ruji felt more and more tired. Every step she took was as heavy as if a thousand-pound weight were hanging from her feet.
"Why is it so hard to walk as a ghost?" Meng Ruji panted, looking at the pier.
This life is too difficult. Is there really no ghost messenger to give me a hand and lead the way?
Meng Ruji stopped, feeling her consciousness grow tired and blurry. As she struggled between giving up and continuing, a casual shout came from the side:
"Hey, you, what are you doing?"
Meng Ruji turned and saw a boatman wearing a straw raincoat, holding a fishing rod in one hand and supporting his chin with the other, sitting on a small boat, leisurely fishing in the strange fluorescent river.
Fishing in this river? It was a bit strange, but Meng Ruji was too tired to think about it. She waved to the boatman and took two steps toward him in a daze. "Great, I finally saw a ghost. I don't have to rush to the pier. Why don't you take me across the river to reincarnate?"
"Cross the river to reincarnate?"
"Really?" Meng Ruji asked. "Don't the legends say you have to cross the Naihe Bridge and drink Meng Po soup to reincarnate?"
The boatman sneered. "This river is called the Naihe River, but if you want to be reborn, you don't have to cross it; just jump in."
"Jump in?"
"Yes, jump in. Follow the water of the Naihe River. You'll become a point of light in the river, then follow the river into the sky, and that point of light disappears, and you disappear with it. This should be what you call reincarnation."
Is it that simple?
Meng Ruji looked at the river, which resembled a galaxy, and felt that although the water was unusual, it didn't look dangerous. If she jumped in, she should be able to go smoothly, right?
"Thanks for the advice." Meng Ruji thanked him and started to walk into the river.
Seeing her walk so calmly, even a little impatiently, the boatman was a bit surprised. "Is life so hard? Others try their best to live, but you're in a hurry to die?"
Meng Ruji was stunned. "Can I still make a living now?" What kind of living? A more glorious death?
"Don't you want to go back?"
"Go back where?"
"The human world."
"I can go back!?" Meng Ruji was even more surprised. "Do you have two-way traffic here?"
"A place without retention—you can come and go naturally."
"A place without retention?" Meng Ruji reacted. "Isn't this the underworld? I'm not dead?"
"Not really. Half-dead." The boatman put his fishing rod aside, picked up a kettle, took a sip of water, and continued, "Everyone who comes here has only half a life. By chance, at the moment of life and death, they fall into this place."
So, she was indeed struck by lightning but not completely dead. She was struck half to death and, by some chance, fell into this magical place with the thief who stole her elixir.
"Then how can I go back?" Meng Ruji became alert.
"Simple." The boatman pointed his fishing rod at the ferry upstream. "Go there, buy a ticket, and I'll take you across the river."
"Can't I buy it here? I don't know what's wrong with this place. I really can't walk..."
The boatman just shook his head. "You can only buy it at the ferry. I only recognize a ferry ticket."
Meng Ruji had no spiritual power, so she had to obey.
She struggled to continue upstream, but the farther she went, the more difficult it felt to walk. After taking a few more steps, her legs felt impossibly heavy, and she felt a heart-wrenching pain.
This is definitely not normal.
Meng Ruji had to stop and take a breath. "Excuse me, why have my steps become more and more difficult?"
Meng Ruji hadn't taken many steps in total and was struggling. She wanted to ask the boatman again, but when she looked up, the waves on the Naihe River had returned to their original silence. There was no lonely boat or boatman.
With so many strange things happening, Meng Ruji could no longer care about them. She could only take a few steps back to ease the pain in her body.
And it was those few steps back that made Meng Ruji feel like she was reborn.
Walking back took no effort.
She pondered, then retreated all the way back. The more she retreated, the easier it became. She retreated to the side of the thief who stole her elixir and stopped. She looked at the thief on the ground, then at the ferry in the distance, and then tried to walk out again.
One hundred steps was the limit—the tearing pain returned, and Meng Ruji ran back again.
She squatted beside the thief and had a very bad guess.
She started walking in other directions—downstream and to the right of the thief. In each direction, the distance she could walk was about one hundred steps.
Meng Ruji confirmed her guess. It wasn't that she couldn't walk; she just couldn't walk too far away from this little thief.
She squatted beside him, completely stunned.
What was this thief? A debt from a past life? Or some sin she committed in this one? Why did fate bind her so strangely to this boy?
Now, she not only had to buy a boat ticket but also had to drag him along?
"Unlucky!"
But... forget it.
Meng Ruji sighed. Since she wasn't truly dead and had a chance to return, she might as well take the little thief with her. After all, her inner elixir was still inside him.
Resigned to her fate, Meng Ruji reached out to grab the boy's arm. But just as she helped him sit up, he groaned and began to wake up.
His eyelashes fluttered, and his phoenix eyes opened, reflecting Meng Ruji's face and the strange starry sky behind her.
Their eyes met—his wide with confusion, hers caught off guard.
The next moment, the boy’s expression sharpened. His eyes filled with a sudden, intense wariness.
Sensing the shift, Meng Ruji immediately pushed him away. The boy leaped back, landing by the riverbank, his gaze fixed on her with suspicion.
"I didn’t hurt you," Meng Ruji explained quickly. "I just wanted to help you up and take you to the ferry to buy a boat ticket. I'm being kind, trying to take you back with me."
But the boy wasn’t listening. His eyes darted around, scanning the unfamiliar surroundings, confusion and nervousness etched into his features.
His lips moved slightly, his voice hoarse as he muttered, "Here... here..." He clutched his head, wincing as if in pain.
"What's wrong here?" Meng Ruji asked, trying to understand his situation. She took two cautious steps forward. "Do you know this place?"
The boy's hostility flared up like a hedgehog's spines. He glared at Meng Ruji, teeth clenched, clearly struggling with the pain in his body while warning her to stay away. He also took two steps back.
Seeing that he was dangerously close to the river, Meng Ruji called out, "Alright, alright! I won't get close. Just... don't step into the river. It'll take you to the sky—" Don’t wash away my inner elixir...
The boy seemed to sense the wrongness of the water. He quickly stepped back onto the shore, his eyes following the river's flow as it wound upward into the sky, turning into stars before disappearing.
He rubbed his temples, trying to make sense of it all.
"Have you been here before?" Meng Ruji asked, curious.
The boy, still wary, took another step back, his eyes darting between her and the river behind him.
Meng Ruji couldn’t understand why a thief would be so suspicious. It made her nervous just watching him.
"Alright, you don’t have to be so scared. I don’t intend to take back the inner elixir you stole—at least not yet," Meng Ruji said. "Right now, the priority is to get out of here. Since you’re awake, you can walk on your own. Let's head to the ferry and buy the boat ticket. We can figure out the rest once we're back in the human world."
"Inner elixir?" The boy murmured, his hand instinctively touching his abdomen.
Meng Ruji saw his movements and laughed bitterly. "Don't tell me you've forgotten it?"
The boy finally looked at Meng Ruji, a trace of confusion mingling with the wariness in his eyes.
His expression... Could he really have forgotten?
Meng Ruji stared at him, a strange silence settling between them.
"Forget it..." Meng Ruji pinched the bridge of her nose. "This isn't the time to worry about that..."
Whether he remembered being a thief or not, the inner elixir had to be returned once they got back to the human world!
"Let's head toward the ferry first..."
If he kept standing here, she’d never reach the ferry in this lifetime! They couldn’t afford to fall out now...
"Let's go." Meng Ruji forced a smile, trying to appear friendly.
The boy might have lost his memory, but he was sharp enough to detect Meng Ruji’s insincerity. He stepped back even further.
"Don’t retreat," Meng Ruji said, still smiling that forced smile. "Come on, let's go to the ferry together. We’ll head back together."
Before she could finish, the boy turned and bolted in the opposite direction!
The wind tousled Meng Ruji's hair as she stood there, stunned, watching the boy sprint away. After a moment of disbelief, she felt a sharp, all-too-familiar pain surge through her.
"Hey..."
Meng Ruji barely managed to shout before reality hit her.
Damn it, they couldn't be too far apart!
Meng Ruji tore after the boy like a madwoman, stumbling and scrambling as she yelled, "Slow down! Stop! I won't kill you! Just stop! I don't have the inner elixir! I can't run anymore!"
They dashed through the silent night, leaving no trace behind except their rapidly fading footprints and Meng Ruji’s frantic shouts:
"You bastard! Stop!"
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