Chapter 3

In an instant, the creature reached the playground.

It strolled around at leisure.

As though its prey were already in its grasp.

“Sweetheart…”

“Where are you?”

Its voice was as gentle as ever.

Now it sounded like death calling.

I bit my lip, not daring to make a sound.

“Sweetheart.”

“Come out.”

“Didn’t you always say you wanted to be with me forever?”

“Why are you breaking your promise?”

The footsteps drew closer.

I looked up at the slide’s entrance.

A dark shadow passed over it.

The creature’s grotesque feet went by.

I held my breath.

It was dark in here.

Perhaps… it wouldn’t find me.

That tiny hope vanished.

A moment later, the entrance went dark again.

The light from above was completely blocked.

“Sweetheart.”

“I found you.”

I looked up, my pupils shrinking.

The scholar-tree corpse had thrust its head inside the slide.

Empty eye sockets stared at me.

Blackened yellow teeth opened and closed.

“Sweetheart.”

“Aaah!”

I screamed.

Letting go with my hands and feet, I hurtled to the bottom of the slide.

I landed painfully in the sand, but there was no time to care.

I scrambled up and ran blindly.

A few steps later, I fell flat on my face.

Horrified, I looked at my ankle.

A branch had wound itself tightly around it.

It stretched all the way back into the slide.

The creature crawled slowly out, its joints creaking horribly.

It jerked the branch.

I was dragged toward it, my back scraping over stone.

Pain darkened my vision.

Then it seized my throat.

“Sweetheart.”

It leaned close to my ear.

“You haven’t been good.”

Cold finger bones brushed the back of my neck.

One light cut.

Warm liquid ran down my spine.

Blood.

I went rigid, unable to move.

But I could hear it clearly.

The sound of skin being peeled away.

Right behind my ear.

It was… skinning me.

It was skinning me!

This time, I was going to die.

An immense terror engulfed me.

I could almost smell death.

In a matter of hours, my life had turned upside down.

My handsome boyfriend had become a scholar-tree corpse.

And I was about to go from an ordinary young woman to… a skinless body.

What an utterly undignified way to die.

Tears rolled down my cheeks.

“Heavenly Fire, God of Thunder—let lightning descend from the five directions!”

A clear female voice rang out behind me.

My eyes widened.

Tân Di!

She was finally here.

I could have sobbed.

Something struck the creature’s hand.

With a harsh, ugly roar, it flung me away.

Just as I was about to hit the ground, a slender hand caught my arm.

Once I regained my footing, I saw her clearly.

She wore a plain white T-shirt and jeans.

A wooden hairpin held her soft hair back.

The slight upward tilt of her eyes gave her delicate face a bold edge.

“Sorry.”

“I’m late.”

My nose stung with the urge to cry.

My knees gave out.

I dropped to the ground, clung to her legs, and burst into tears.

“Oh God…”

“You’re finally here!”

“I was scared out of my mind!”

“It… it was skinning me!”

Tân Di pressed her lips together.

She bent to inspect the back of my neck, then quickly took a yellow talisman from her cloth bag.

Smack.

She slapped it onto the wound.

The pain vanished instantly.

“This talisman stops bleeding and eases pain,” she explained.

I stared at her.

A fierce conviction rose in me.

Tonight… I might actually survive.

“…”

Completely ignored, the scholar-tree corpse seemed furious.

It looked at its injured arm, then slowly turned its head.

The branches wrapped around the arm squirmed.

Within moments, it was whole again.

“You’re asking to die!”

It spun and charged at Tân Di.

She frowned and shoved me away.

“On the night of a full moon, the gap between its bones and skin is greatest. That’s when they’re easiest to separate.”

“Only after the skin comes off is its weak point exposed.”

“Of course… it also becomes stronger.”

“You’re in my way here. Hurry and—”

Before she finished, I had turned and run.

“It’s all yours, Master Tân Di! I promise I won’t slow you down!”

Watching me sprint away, Tân Di’s eye twitched.

“…Good.”

“You know your place.”

She turned back and drew a yellow talisman from her waist.

Her fingers swiftly formed a ritual seal.

The talisman became a small sword.

“The Dao follows nature; Heaven and Earth are boundless… By my command!”

She brought her palms together.

When she parted them, one sword became ten.

They wheeled through the air, all their points aimed at the creature.

So cool!

Watching from my hiding place, I felt my blood race.

The ten swords shot toward the scholar-tree corpse.

They pierced its torso and limbs with unerring precision.

It stopped short and looked down in disbelief at the holes in its body.

But a few seconds later, beneath the moonlight, the branches crawled over them.

Every wound rapidly closed.

Tân Di swore under her breath.

“Damn it!”

“I hate monsters that regenerate!”

In the blink of an eye, the creature was in front of her.

They fought so fast I could barely follow.

As the battle drew nearer to my hiding place, I inwardly cursed.

I turned to run farther away.

“Don’t run!”

Tân Di’s voice reached me.

Too late.

The instant I emerged, a branch snared my leg.

Oh no. I’d dragged her into trouble after all.

Before the thought had fully formed, I was being hauled away at terrifying speed.

The creature used the opening to escape Tân Di’s range.

It lifted me and looked at her.

“You damned Daoist.”

“Stay out of my business.”

“I’ve cultivated this skin for so long.”

“At last, it’s nearly time to change.”

“Must you ruin everything?”

It hesitated no longer.

Sharp claws closed over my head.

One more second, and they would pierce my skull.

Regret crossed Tân Di’s face.

She was too far away to save me.

Was I going to die tonight after all?

Pain pressed into the top of my head.

Trembling, I struggled desperately.

My phone fell from my jacket pocket.

My earphones disconnected.

At that moment, a woman’s heartbroken sobs filled the empty park.

“Cố Tu Minh! Cố Tu Minh!”

“You killed Cố Tu Minh!”

Tiêu Dao.

She had stayed in the livestream all along.

I couldn’t imagine her despair, watching this monster peel off her fiancé’s skin.

At the sound of her voice, the creature suddenly froze.

It tilted its head and stared blankly at the phone on the ground.

Tân Di seized the opening.

She rushed forward and kicked it hard beneath the chin.

Crack!

The scholar-tree corpse flew backward at a grotesque angle.

She pulled me close and retreated cautiously.

But something was wrong with it.

It wrenched its crooked head back into place and walked toward the phone.

Bending down, it stared at the sobbing woman onscreen.

One second of silence.

Then it stamped down.

Once.

Again.

And again, in a frenzy.

Frightened, I gripped Tân Di’s shirt.

“What’s happening?”

Her expression grew grave.

“It’s Cố Tu Minh.”

“What?”

“The creature has worn his skin for three years.”

“During that time, it has absorbed traces of his consciousness.”

“I suspect…”

“His soul has been following it all these years.”

She stopped.

Closing her eyes, she murmured an incantation.

When she opened them again, a shadowy gleam flashed through them.

I stared in astonishment.

Was this… the legendary opening of the Heavenly Eye?