The woods were thick with silence.

It was the kind of silence that weighed on the air like smoke. The trees stretched upward like skeletons, branches crooked and shivering in the light breeze.

The path they followed was barely a path at all—more like a forgotten trail left to rot with the seasons.

The only sound was the crunch of tires against gravel as a fleet of matte black cars crawled toward their destination.

At the front of the convoy, a sleek black Maybach rolled to a slow, deliberate stop.

Fu Jing Rong stepped out.

No hesitation.

No pause.

His black boots hit the earth like a declaration.

He didn’t say a word. The Blue Gang members behind him, dressed head-to-toe in black, poured out of their vehicles like shadows. Each held cold steel beneath their coats, eyes sharp, jaws set.

Ahead of them stood the house.

If you could even call it that.

It rose in the clearing like a decaying beast. A massive, crumbling thing of weather-beaten brick and half-collapsed shutters. The roof slanted like it had once been struck by lightning.

The old wrought-iron gate had long since rusted off its hinges, and weeds as tall as a man snaked up the sides of the walls. Ivy choked every edge.

Glass windows were fogged or broken, and the faint smell of damp rot curled in the air.

It looked less like a home and more like an abandoned asylum—the kind people whispered about, the kind people said was cursed.

After a bit of threatening and instilling fear on Hua Ming Rong, he finally got his daughter to cough up the location of this place and where they could find Hua Jing.

Fu Jing Rong barely looked at it but his eyes danced like those of a ghost who had finally found its prey!

So this was where they took her?

His fury was almost spilling over!

He slowly walked forward and the others followed suit.

Ling Bu followed closely, his eyes darting across the clearing. "Boss, it’s worse than we thought. What kind of psycho brings someone here?"

Fu Jing Rong didn’t answer.

He was too angry to utter a word.

His heart was pumping some madly inside his chest as he did not know what he was going to expect.

He had seen Hua Jing back when he was still in his spirit form when he had come back to this world.

By then, she was still in quite a bad shape. A lot of time had passed since then how will she look like now?

There was slight worry etched on his face and the thumping of his heart was quite loud that he almost feared the people near him would hear it as well.

The heavy front door stood slightly ajar.

Two guards—likely hired by Hua Ling—stood stiffly by it, looking nervous the moment they saw who had come.

Their eyes widened.

"That’s—That’s Fu Jing Rong—!"

There is gleamed in fear and it was more of a surprise because what was this person doing here?

Last they checked, he was in a coma so how could he be here at such a time?

The young lady had told them specifically not to let anybody in and to guard the young lady inside with their bodies if need be yet how could they find again this man and the Blue gang?

They didn’t get a second word out.

In an instant, the Blue Gang surrounded them. Before the two men could so much as lift their hands, they were disarmed, slammed against the wall, and knocked out cold. Fu Jing Rong stepped over their bodies without a glance.

The house creaked under its own weight.

It was dark inside, save for faint streaks of dying light bleeding through the cracks in the boarded windows. Dust floated thick in the air, catching every breath like ash. The wallpaper peeled in long strips, exposing mold-stained plaster underneath.

"This place is a damn tomb," someone whispered behind him.

Fu Jing Rong said nothing.

His fists were clenched.

The hallway stretched long ahead of them, narrow and crooked. The kind of hallway that devoured sound. Each step echoed unnaturally, like the house itself was listening!

Inside was worse.

Much worse.

The air was thick with dust and rot. Cobwebs clung to the ceiling corners like desperate hands. The floors creaked with every step, groaning like the house itself resented their presence.

"This place is a dump," one of the men muttered under his breath.

Mold speckled the wallpaper. Torn curtains hung limp and colorless. Empty syringes, used cotton pads, and dried-out IV lines were tossed in corners like trash. The stench of old antiseptic mixed with mildew and something sour.

"This is not where you keep a coma patient!" someone growled.

Fu Jing Rong said nothing.

His eyes were dark, jaw set so tight it looked carved from stone.

Ling Bu shoved open a door to the right.

"Not here!"

Another man called from the opposite wing.

"Empty!"

Room by room, nothing.

"She’s not here!"

"She’s not here!"

"She’s not—"

With every word, Fu Jing Rong felt something snap inside of him. A sharp, slow split down the center of his chest.

Don’t do this to me...

He didn’t wait for the others.

He pushed deeper into the house, toward a corridor half-collapsed from years of neglect. At the very end, hidden behind a shelf haphazardly pushed aside, was a door.

It was smaller than the others. Sun-bleached. Locked.

He kicked it open without thinking.

And there—there she was.

His whole world. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Hua Jing.

Lying so still on a rusted bed, wires loosely wrapped around her frail arms, a drip bag swinging above her nearly empty. Her hair was tangled across the pillow. Her face—too pale. Too still.

Everything stopped.

His feet were rooted to the ground.

His breath caught in his throat.

He did not know what to feel in this moment. His heart went still.

Then came a whisper, so soft it barely passed his lips.

"Hua Jing..."