Before dawn, I visited Sound of Twilight for the third time.

  It seemed that she, too, had not slept all night, sitting in the shop, pying with her cards. Her expression was calm, as if she had expected my sudden arrival. On the table, she had already prepared a gss of orange juice for me.

  I don′t like something, and she always offers it. This was the fact reflected by her "orange juice theorem."

  "You′re here to return the thing you accidentally took, right?" She smiled and casually flipped through the cards in her hand.

  "The cards are yours, but the things inside them aren′t. So, I suggest you return what doesn′t belong to you first, and then I′ll give you back what belongs to you." I sat across from her, calmly taking out the "Tower" card, though I had no intention of giving it back to her.

  For most spells in the world, the simplest and most effective way to break them is for the one who casts the spell to withdraw their power.

  Even if there′s only a one-in-thousand chance, I still have to try.

  "I′m just helping these kids," Mu said nonchantly, clearly aware of my true purpose for coming. "They told me they′re dissatisfied with their current lives. They don′t want to spend endless days and nights doing exercises, memorizing texts, taking exams, and then anxiously waiting for parent-teacher meetings. They envy those top students who are liked by teachers and pampered by parents. As for them, they′re always overlooked, stuck in the middle, with no clear path to the future."

  She looked up and smiled. "Since life in this world makes them so unhappy, why not go to another one? There are no exams, no rankings, no harsh gazes from parents or teachers—it′s perfect for them. If anyone else seeks the same help from me in the future, I′ll be happy to help them too."

  Boom!

  A fme sprang into existence out of nowhere, cutting across the bck tabletop like an unsheathed bde, surging toward Mu on the opposite side.

  With quick reflexes, she swept the cards from the table into her hand and leaned back sharply, her chair sliding half a foot away. The fme, with its red edges and blue core, grazed her forehead, singeing a tiny bit of her bangs.

  She clearly hadn′t expected this.

  "Courtesy before force" is my principle. I don′t like resolving issues through violence—but that doesn′t mean I can′t, especially when the situation demands it.

  To be honest, her earlier nonchant and lofty rhetoric displeased me—deeply displeased me.

  I have no tolerance for those who treat life as if it were worthless grass underfoot.

  "Did I make you angry?" Calm as ever, she had clearly been startled by the unexpected turn of events. At least, I caught a fleeting moment of panic on her face before it was quickly masked by a teasing smile. "Tree yaokai Shaluo, it′s been quite a while since you st attacked anyone, hasn’t it?"

  "Heh, true. A gentleman uses words, not fists," I said with a chuckle. With a flick of my finger, the roaring fmes burning across the table between us shrank in an instant, condensing into a thread as fine as a hair. Obediently, it retreated back to my fingertip and vanished. The tabletop bore no trace of ever being scorched. "But you know, I′ve never considered myself a gentleman—especially when dealing with stubborn fools."

  She slowly stood up, her long pale-green dress soaked in the deepest shadow of the pre-dawn light, making it look ghostly and desote. Her slender, graceful figure now seemed like a strange fissure tearing through the darkness.

  Mu raised her hand, and the tarot cards she held flew into the air, forming a circur ring that floated around her. On each card, a cold, lifeless eye appeared, gazing emotionlessly at the world.

  "You have your persistence, and I have my twilight melody. We stay in our own nes, Sister Shaluo, so why meddle in my affairs? That′s hardly your style." Her gaze was sharper than the lifeless eyes on the cards, a hundred times more piercing.

  I had no interest in probing her origins or any curiosity about how she knew my identity. I simply responded calmly, "I don′t care for meddling, but you′ve taken my clients and cut into my profits. That′s no longer ‘meddling.’"

  "Heh. You love collecting gold, and I love collecting lives. We each have our passions. Why go head-to-head with me, Sister?" She lowered her eyes slightly, her crimson lips vivid against her pale complexion.

  "Don′t. I work alone. There′s no'sister’ or ‘little sister’ nonsense." I waved her off. "But even if you were my blood sister, what I need to do, I′ll still do!"

  The second way to break a curse is to simply make the caster disappear. Once they vanish, their spell power dissipates simultaneously. Honestly, I′m not fond of using such a crude and violent method to solve problems.

  Mu let out a long sigh, then suddenly looked up. Her emerald-green eyes were filled with dangerous determination, ready to erupt. She held the death card between her fingers and said, "Perhaps I′m not your match, but you aren′t a match for time either. If you want to fight, I′ll oblige."

  I paused slightly, momentarily caught off guard.

  As expected, she was a clever woman, knowing exactly how to exploit her opponent′s weaknesses and bring them up at the perfect moment.

  She was right. In a direct confrontation, she might not be my equal. But defeating her meant nothing to me. My true purpose was to defeat time itself.

  I only had twelve hours. Those were her tarot cards, and she must have realized what I had done to them. Of course, I could take a gamble—bet that I could utterly destroy this woman within twelve hours. But remembering the resolute promise I had made to those unfortunate children, I decided not to use their lives as chips in this game.

  "I had hoped," I said with a smile, "that if you turned back from this misguided path, we might still coexist peacefully in the future. But now, it seems that′s impossible."

  She watched my retreating figure in silence.

  As I walked away, I heard her final words to me: "You′ll lose everything."

  An interesting opponent. Without looking back, I left.

  After leaving Sound of Twilight, I made a call to Jiu Jue.

  I briefly expined the situation to that old guy, Jiu Jue, who had seen far more of the world than I had. However, I substituted the real participants in the story with others—I didn′t want Jiu Jue to know that it was I who needed to rescue someone from that card. The st thing I wanted was to trouble a friend, especially with something potentially dangerous.

  He expined that some sorcerers or malevolent spirits use a spell called the Icefme Soul Binding Curse to trap living people in another dimension. These spaces are unpredictable in form—they might appear identical to our reality or manifest as visions of heaven or hell. Regardless of the appearance, those trapped within will, after a period, be driven toward the underworld by the dimension′s power.

  Once they reach the underworld, the curse within their bodies combines with the underworld′s immense yin energy, creating a violent repulsion force. This force obliterates their physical forms in an instant, compressing their souls into tiny, thumb-sized souls. These orbs are then carried against the current of the River of Oblivion, back into the hands of the caster. By absorbing the refined soul energy from these living beings, the caster rapidly enhances their spiritual power.

  But no matter how effective it might be, it′s undeniably a crooked and wicked path.

  After listening to Jiu Jue, I realized how little I truly knew about this sinister curse. I had only scratched the surface and hadn′t imagined that someone would use such a horrifying method to enhance their power. That woman, Mu...

  Jiu Jue also shared another solution. The Icefme Soul Binding Curse is said to allow “entry without exit,” meaning that while the living cannot return to the original world from the first dimension they′re trapped in—like the world of the tarot card—they can "leave" in death, as their souls are sent to the underworld. However, once they′ve become soul orbs, it′s essentially equivalent to death.

  The only viable solution now is to protect those trapped before they′re forced into the underworld. Then, actively locate a passage leading to the underworld. Once through, they would find a field of crimson-red spider lilies blooming along the riverbank. Following the lilies, moving against the river′s current, would lead them to safety.

  The challenge lies in ensuring that, before leaving the underworld, these human souls aren′t harmed by its immense, corrosive power. Only then can they escape unharmed.

  However, finding someone—or something—that can move freely in the underworld and remain unaffected by its forces is almost impossibly rare.

  I was silent for a moment before telling Jiu Jue, “From now on, whenever you visit Endless, all your drinks will be half-price.”

  He paused on the other end of the line, stunned. After a while, he asked, “Little tree yaokai, are you okay? The friend you said you′re in a rush to save—it′s not actually you, is it?”

  “Do I seem that noble?” I countered. “Alright, go on and enjoy your time in Xi′an. Next time, you′re welcome to bring those two friends of yours to `Endless′.”

  Feigning nonchance, I hung up the phone. Inwardly, I told myself there was nothing to worry about. It was a small matter—I could handle it.

  The truth was, I was already 80% confident. I had a pn—how to save them, how to navigate the path through the underworld.

  Taking a deep breath of the fresh air bathed in the first rays of dawn, I stepped onto my cloud. At the fastest speed of my life, I surged toward a certain direction...