Heartless merchants! Utterly depraved! Give back the money! Give back the life! May your entire family die suddenly!
Hua Xu sat in the office chair of his rented room, staring at the red banner on the wall behind the monitor, silent for a long time.
"—Delivery! Anyone home?"
The deliveryman pounded on the door with a thunderous boom, sending dust swirling down from the ceiling.
The door creaked open. The deliveryman took two steps back, neck craned, scrutinizing the space behind the door to confirm if a living soul was there.
The man before him was unshaven and disheveled, his features half-hidden beneath a messy mop of hair. His hoodie was stained and greasy, caked with grime. A sour stench mingled with the musty odor of the room assaulted the deliveryman's senses, forcing him to stumble back two steps.
"Hua Xu, it's been two months since that incident. You're still in your twenties—you can't keep living like this," the deliveryman urged, scanning the parcel's barcode with his device.
Beep!
Before he could finish, the cardboard box was thrust into Hua Xu's arms.
The deliveryman's footsteps vanished swiftly around the stairwell corner, swallowed by the wind.
Hua Xu stared down at the box.
Recipient: Hua Xu.
Address: Correct.
Sender: Verified.
No phone number. No return address.
A puff of white breath escaped him. "More threats?"
The door closed again.
The world compressed into this cramped, insecure rental apartment.
No lights were on inside.
The faint white glow from the computer screen illuminated the disheveled, downtrodden man before it, making him look like a ghost.
Hua Xu stared at the court summons on the screen for five seconds.
Then he reached for the black suit jacket hanging on the chair back, feeling the pockets on both sides. No cigarettes.
He fumbled in the pockets of his hoodie pants instead, pulling out a red cigarette box. It was crushed flat, completely empty inside.
He tugged at the corner of his mouth, trying to smile, but his facial muscles had stiffened, unable to form any expression.
The box fell to the floor with a thud.
Hua Xu slowly raised his right hand, propping his elbow on the desk. Pinching his thumb and index finger together in a cigarette-holding gesture, he brought his mouth close to the air, drew in a deep "puff," then narrowed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
The white breath he exhaled swirled like smoke, blurring his face.
He lowered his gaze to the cardboard box on the computer desk.
The box was limp and collapsed at the corners, faint, peculiar floral scents wafting from the creases.
Not overpowering, the fragrance carried the burnt protein smell of bookworms exposed to intense heat.
Hua Xu took two more puffs of "smoke" into the void before picking up a utility knife to slice open the tape.
The box opened, revealing a book.
It was thin.
Its gray cover, frayed at the edges, bore four bold, ink-blotted characters slightly raised:
The Flower Compendium of the River of Oblivion
Hua Xu's fingertip traced the title, and the four characters glowed one after another.
Each page bore only a name in the header: Liu Shan, Ge Nan, Zhi Xi, Shi Zhu...
The pages were blank.
Suddenly, the paper's temperature surged.
Hua Xu raised his thumb.
Ssssh—
A faint sting pricked his fingertip. A drop of blood fell onto the paper, instantly absorbed.
Beneath the bloodstain, faint, small characters appeared.
Hua Xu lifted the book, squinting into the faint glow of the screen.
Suddenly, his movement froze. His body stiffened and began to fall backward.
The chair couldn't bear the sudden weight, and both chair and man crashed to the floor.
No, not the floor!
He was falling!
The Forgetful River Flower Manual before him flipped its pages frantically. A gale erupted from the book, carrying a sickly sweet floral scent mingled with a faint tang of blood.
The ceiling light above vanished, replaced by a cracked white moon.
Countless voices howled in the tempest:
"Bro, I'll take this job. I'll take it!"
"Did you buy the fabric? Come back for dinner!"
"You beast, you don't deserve to live!"
"Why didn't you die with them!"
"It's okay, we don't blame you. It's all fate!"...
Cries, laughter, curses, the sound of water...
Thousands upon thousands of voices, thousands upon thousands of emotions, transformed into countless fine steel needles, piercing Huai Xu's eardrums simultaneously.
His eardrums exploded in agony, rupturing as crimson fluid flowed down his ear canal, dripping onto his hoodie.
Huai Xu clutched his ears in pain, struggling to open his eyes and survey his surroundings.
The wind was fierce, yet it did not obscure his vision.
He reached for the Forgetful River Flower Manual. The moment his thumb pressed against the page, his fall halted abruptly, and the entire world fell silent.
A chill swept in from all directions, seeping through his clothes and into his very bones.
Hua Xu tried to move, but his body felt as light as a sheet of A4 paper. He slowly stood upright.
The surroundings were gray, below lay an abyss churning with black waves.
The waves rolled, but instead of water, they churned up countless dark red petals.
Floating among the petals were many incongruous pieces of trash:
neatly pressed long robes, wine-scented clay pots, double-layer cream cakes, countless sheets of yellow paper emitting black smoke... ...
"Did I die suddenly?" Huai Xu concluded upon regaining consciousness.
He felt regret—his freshly prepared braised beef noodle soup still sat untouched on his desk.
Suddenly, a shard of moon broke off and hurtled toward him.
He swiped it away, narrowly avoiding the fragment.
Boom—!
Countless dark red petals scattered, one lingering before his eyes.
He reached out to grasp it. The instant his fingertips touched the petal—
It dissolved and reformed, revealing three characters before him:
Fandongzhou.
A peculiar fragrance wafted toward him. He instinctively covered his nose, but it was too late.
Instead of fainting, he felt a refreshing clarity wash over him.
The three characters burned without flame, and the scent vanished.
Hua Xu suddenly felt an emptiness in his heart, as if someone had taken a small knife and carved out a piece of it.
"Forgetting is also a blessing."
A woman's voice echoed through the empty space, her tone as detached as a monk addressing a devotee during a ritual: "Layperson, life and death are predestined."
Hua Xu abruptly looked ahead.
A white stone staircase had materialized out of nowhere, suspended in the void. Its upper reaches connected to the sky, its lower end plunging into an abyss.
A woman stood on the stone steps leading to the dome, looking down at him.
She wore moon-white robes, her jet-black hair cascading like a waterfall. Barefoot, her skirt swayed without wind.
Her bare feet tread upon a thick carpet of petals—withered and fresh, white, green, pink, black...
From afar, it resembled an altar, or a funeral ceremony in progress.
"Who are you?" Huaixu opened his mouth, his voice hoarse from dryness.
The woman did not answer.
She merely raised her hand, palm upward, and an ancient bound book materialized from thin air.
Four characters glowed on its cover:
The Flower Compendium of the River of Oblivion.
This book—he had just seen it!
Hua Xu's temples throbbed violently, his heart pounding like thunder. Cold sweat seeped down his spine.
I've entered the book!
"Every time you come, you forget everything!" The woman flipped open the pages. "Since you've forgotten, I'll help you remember."
She snapped her gaze toward Huai Xu, hurling the book toward him at lightning speed.
Huai Xu had no time to dodge, staring straight at the book as it halted before him.
The book opened itself to the final page.
It depicted a blade.
Black and gold, its blade like bone, densely engraved with intricate patterns.
The hilt bore a line of blood-red characters: Forgetfulness · Twenty-Eighth Tier, Sealing the Abyss.
Below the inscription lay twenty-seven identical crimson fingerprints.
A thumb pressed down, dragging slightly to the right.
"This?!" Huai Xu's pupils dilated. "It's my fingerprint!"
"No, I never signed anything like this!" His voice trembled, yet his mind remained unnervingly clear. "I rarely even sign contracts with fingerprints. This can't be mine!"
The woman looked down at the man feigning composure before her, her eyes filled with sorrow.
"Every time you come, you say this."
"Every time you leave, you beg me not to forget."
"Hua Xu, this is our final chance. Either we're both swallowed by the Abyss Demon, or you lead us out."
No sooner had she spoken.
A fingerprint slowly materialized beside the twenty-seven others—the twenty-eighth.
The blade within the book flashed with light. In the blink of an eye, Hua Xu gripped it in his right hand. It felt perfectly natural.
The hilt felt not cold, but warm.
Huaigu Knife.
The three words surfaced effortlessly in his mind.
"This blade was forged from your leg bone after your first failure. Time is merely a timer—it remembers you forever!" the woman declared.
"I'm just a clothing manufacturer selling online... Sealing demons? And failing so many times? And you still trust me? That's ridiculous!" Huai Xu suddenly found it absurd.
"None of this is our choice," came a heavy sigh. "You simply cannot let go of your attachments." She smiled.
There was no joy in that smile. "That is your debt!"
The words had barely left her lips.
A deafening roar echoed from the abyss as countless shadows coalesced into a colossal hand, reaching out from the depths to seize Huaixu's ankle.
Huaixu instantly lost his footing, plummeting downward before being yanked into a sea of blood-red flowers.
He raised his Huai Bone Blade and swung it down at the giant hand.
The hand dispersed, transforming into a black mist that surged into Huai Xu's mouth, eyes, nose, and ears!
"Hey! Huai Xu, there's a delivery. Open up!"
It was the sound of the deliveryman knocking on the door!
The next second, Huai Xu's eyes snapped open.