“After that…” Liang Sheng already had a general sense of what had happened.
“I compromised,” Ling Dang said with a bitter smile. “Yeah, why should those bad guys get to live comfortably and go on harming other innocent, naive girls?”
“Akino told me that for every mission I completed, she would grant one of my wishes. The first time, my wish was to make all those people who’d hurt me drop dead!”
Although she didn’t say it aloud, Liang Sheng couldn’t help thinking: Well done!
“And just like that, I lived my happiest twenty years. Da Hai and I had our own little cottage in the countryside. He tended the fields by day while I wove cloth, and I swear those were the best days of my life.”
“Until…” Ling Dang’s tone grew heavy, “…Akino appeared out of nowhere once again.”
Liang Sheng suddenly caught a detail she’d overlooked. “Wait, Sister Lingdang—what happened to all those men you seduced in the end?”
Ling Dang’s expression froze. She clutched her head as if plunged into painful memories. “They… they!”
Oh no! Was she forgetting again?! Liang Sheng quickly wrapped an arm around Ling Dang’s shoulders and soothed her gently. “It’s okay, Sister Lingdang. If you can’t remember—or don’t want to—it doesn’t matter. Don’t think about it. Just let it go.”
Ling Dang’s body trembled. Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed. “I had no idea it would end like that for them. I really didn’t… At first, with the very first group I seduced, they just lost a bit of their luck. But by the second round…”
Liang Sheng patted Ling Dang’s back softly. “Easy, Sister Lingdang. Take it slow. I’m not in any hurry.”
“During the second round, Akino came to me and said my time was up. I asked what she meant, and she told me my lifespan had run out. That’s when I remembered—back in prison, I’d already tried to kill myself once. I thought she’d come to take my name away. But instead, she said…”
“‘Your lifespan is up. If you want more time, start a new round of seductions!’”
Ling Dang’s sobs eased, but her body still shook. “Those days were too good. I wanted more years with Da Hai, so… I chose to keep going.”
“In the end, that second round saw them turning on each other for me. One lost his official position and ended up a prisoner. Another lost his fortune and became a penniless pauper. The rest—the worst off—lost a leg.”
Ling Dang burst into tears again. “I had no idea why they’d turn to slaughtering each other like that. Why did it happen? I blamed myself, but I still thought it was just a freak accident.”
“And so, I passed another… eighteen years in peace.”
The time was getting shorter. Liang Sheng and Akino Kazuko exchanged a glance.
“She came for me again. By then, I was already in my fifties. I felt like I’d lived enough.”
“But Da Hai dropped to his knees and begged me to stay with him a few more years. Seeing him in tears like that, my heart softened, and I agreed to another round.”
“Even in my fifties, I still looked young and vibrant. But Da Hai… he’d become a middle-aged man.”
“Back then, when I went off to seduce other men, I didn’t fully grasp the look in Da Hai’s eyes when he watched them. Looking back now, it was pure, crazed jealousy.”
Watching himself age while his wife stayed young—that wouldn’t sit well with anyone. Liang Sheng felt a twinge of sympathy.
“I succeeded again. This time…” Ling Dang paused. “Two men died. The other five were left worse than dead.”
“I was terrified. Truly terrified!” Her voice rose with agitation—guilt, no doubt. “It was all my fault! If I hadn’t clung to those extra years of life, or to my happy days with Da Hai, so many people wouldn’t have died!”
“And just like that, amid my guilt and fear, I lived on for another… fifteen years.”
Sure enough, the intervals were shrinking.
“This time, I really didn’t want to go on. I was nearly eighty, an old woman. My body was still healthy, still full of vitality, but I didn’t want to live in constant dread anymore.”
“Da Hai knelt again, begging me to keep living. He was almost seventy by then. Seeing how frail he’d become, I asked if he hadn’t had enough. He said he wanted to be with me forever—he couldn’t bear the thought of me dying in his arms again.”
Liang Sheng drew in a sharp breath. No way—Su Ze had yandere tendencies lurking inside him! But after what he’d done, ruining so many innocent lives, there was no forgiving that!
“I still refused. As I closed my eyes for the last time, I thought it was finally over. But…”
Ling Dang wept uncontrollably. “I woke up! I woke up again!”
“When I opened my eyes, I saw Da Hai as he’d looked in his twenties. In that moment, it all clicked.”
“I wailed. I screamed and beat at him like a madwoman, but it was no use! He held me close and said he hadn’t lived enough. He wanted to keep living—keep living with me forever!”
By now, Ling Dang was clearly on the verge of a breakdown. She clawed at her hair. “But I didn’t want to live anymore! I really didn’t! Trading innocent lives for my own—what meaning is there in dragging out a twisted existence like that?”
In that instant, Liang Sheng felt her pain viscerally—the utter helplessness weighing on this woman.
“The deaths piled up, and in inverse proportion, the time Da Hai and I gained shrank: from twenty years, to eighteen, to fifteen, to twelve… until it took killing one woman just to buy us another year.”
“I begged Da Hai on my knees more than once to end it all. I really didn’t want to live anymore. But…”
Ling Dang wiped the tears from her eyes. “He went ahead and erased my memories anyway. My days turned into a fog.”
“But now you’re remembering it all, right, Sister Lingdang?” Liang Sheng consoled her.
Ling Dang shook her head. “It’s not my willpower. It’s you, Liang Sheng.”
Liang Sheng blinked in surprise. “Me?”
“Yeah!” Ling Dang nodded vigorously. “Other rivals before you—I’d get brief flashes of the past too. I figured out the pattern: the stronger you get, the more Da Hai’s Canon Law gets sealed away. What’s left becomes wildly unstable. So…”
She turned a hopeful gaze toward the Green-haired Girl. “Liang Sheng, I’m begging you—defeat Da Hai. No, Su Ze. End this madness!”
Liang Sheng fell silent for a moment. Then she took Ling Dang’s hand and pressed it to both their hearts. “Sister Lingdang, promise me one thing. Try it. If you fail, it’s okay.”
“What is it?”
“Take Su Ze with you when you go.”
