Max racked his brains for an excuse. "Xiao Ai! Xiao Ai! Don't get excited, don't get excited—listen to me, listen to me! She is…"
He gestured helplessly. "She is… she's the delivery girl!"
The ex-girlfriend glanced at the scattered clothes on the floor, her eyes growing even redder. "Delivery? Does delivery require this?"
"I… I saw her carrying a lot of things, her clothes got dirty, so… so I wanted to help her wash them! Yes—washing clothes!"
Max babbled incoherently, desperately trying to muddle through the crisis in front of him.
"You go home first. I'll close the shop after I send her away. You know, that black-hearted boss of mine is stingy and tightfisted…"
He rambled wildly, eventually even dragging out the "black-hearted boss" he constantly complained about, trying to divert his ex-girlfriend's attention.
The redness in her eyes faded slightly. "You'll come home soon?"
"Yes, yes! I'll definitely come back! For sure! You go home first—I'll head back once I'm done here!"
Relying on his glib tongue, Max forcibly convinced his ex-girlfriend to go home and wait for him.
It wasn't until she left the Weyland Magic Item & Special Goods Store that he finally let out a long breath.
By then, the mustached young man was drenched in cold sweat, his fear lingering long after the danger passed.
He realized that aside from a head full of occult theory, he was completely useless. When trouble actually arose, he had no idea how to solve anything.
After turning it over in his mind, there was only one option left—he had to ask his mysterious boss for help.
…
Back in the dormitory, Bella was writing furiously when she received a phone call. It was from her employee, Max.
"Boss, you have to come to San Francisco! Please—please save me! I'm begging you!"
His voice trembled on the other end of the line; he was clearly terrified.
Before Bella had even decided whether to go, a second call came in—this time from her roommate, Heather.
"Bella! A dead person came back to life! Do you know how to deal with this? What? You have a solution? Then could you come to San Francisco? Please! You must come!"
She had barely hung up when the phone rang again—a third call. This time it was Alice Cullen, the black-haired vampire from Forks.
"I didn't want to bother you, but I'm furious! Absolutely furious! I'm livid! Can you come to San Francisco?"
A slippery employee, a terrifyingly busty roommate, and a very beautiful former best friend—three calls in just a few minutes, all centered on San Francisco. Bella immediately took the situation seriously.
In her mind, San Francisco was enormous. These three people didn't even know each other. If three unrelated individuals all said something had gone wrong in the same city at the same time, how big could that problem be?!
For a moment, she even suspected a large-scale supernatural incident. At one point, she genuinely thought the Lord of Hell—Mephisto—had descended upon the mortal world.
She didn't dare waste a second. Jumping into her pickup truck, she sped toward San Francisco.
Yet once she arrived downtown, she felt confused. Nothing seemed wrong at all.
The streets were calm, traffic flowed smoothly, and everything appeared perfectly normal.
There were no shambling zombies on the roads, no gargoyles perched on streetlights, and no flesh-devouring demons lurking in dark corners.
Nothing looked out of place.
At that moment, the phone calls started coming in again.
Bella felt overwhelmed, but decided to deal with the issues one at a time.
Alice's situation wasn't urgent—a vampire wouldn't die so easily.
Max's problem wasn't immediately pressing either. At the moment, the person closest to Bella was still her roommate, Heather. Following the address, she quickly located the ice cream shop where Heather worked.
The moment she stepped inside, she discovered that both Heather and Max were there.
A flicker of doubt surfaced in Bella's mind. These two know each other?
"Boss!"
"Bella!"
To both of them, regardless of Bella's exact identity, she was someone reliable. Seeing her arrive, they each stepped forward with relief—then their peripheral vision collided, and they froze.
No complicated reasoning was required. Realization dawned on both faces at the same time.
"S-she… she's your roommate?"
"She's the black-hearted boss you were talking about?"
What? Black-hearted boss?!
Bella shot Max a furious glare. Her shop barely made any money, and most of the monthly revenue went straight into this guy's salary—yet he still dared badmouth her behind her back?!
Realizing he'd slipped up, Heather waved her hands repeatedly, indicating she hadn't meant it. Max laughed awkwardly, nodding and bowing in a thoroughly sycophantic manner.
"Since you both know me, and I know both of you, there's no need for introductions. Start talking—what exactly happened?" Bella sat down on a nearby stool and waited for their explanation.
Max recounted the entire story: how his ex-girlfriend had died in a car accident, and how she had now crawled out of her grave to come after him.
Hearing it so abruptly was genuinely unsettling. Crawling straight out of a grave to seek revenge on the ex-boyfriend who abandoned her and found someone new—there was definitely a cautionary lesson in that.
"Mr. Max," Bella said coldly, "your feelings moved on far too quickly. No wonder your ex-girlfriend won't leave you alone. From beginning to end, this is entirely your fault."
Daring to call me black-hearted? Bella showed this employee no mercy.
Max hurriedly defended himself. "She's dead! Hospitals confirmed it—there are records! My life has to go on, my emotional life too, right? …You can't expect me to stay alone forever, can you?"
Bella thought for a moment. "We'll set aside your moral failings for now and not discuss them… However, resurrection is a very serious matter. Without the aid of supernatural power, achieving something like this is extremely difficult."
With her abilities, proper preparation could allow a soul to possess a new body after death—but the original body would be unusable, and some memories would be lost. Scientifically speaking, the cells would have lost vitality; occult-wise, memories dissipated along with the body's life force.
To die, resurrect in the original body, and retain pre-death memories—that level of difficulty was extraordinarily high.
Bella recalled a film she had seen before—The Autopsy of Jane Doe—whose plot bore some resemblance to the current situation.
Somewhat uncertainly, she asked, "Could your ex-girlfriend have been a witch? Where is she? Take me to see her."
Max pointed out the location of his home. It wasn't far from either the ice cream shop or the Weyland Magic Item & Special Goods Store. Bella turned and headed straight for the door.
After taking a few steps, she suddenly stopped.
A flash of insight crossed her mind. Linking all the events together, she felt she had grasped the answer…
The world was truly too small.