Rain fell in silken sheets across Haicheng, cloaking the city in a curtain of grey. The storm overhead growled like a restless beast, echoing through alleyways and rooftop eaves.
Chen Wanli moved through it like a ghost.
He didn't carry an umbrella, nor did he shield himself from the downpour. His pace was calm, measured—like a man returning from war, untouched by bullets, but carrying invisible wounds. The faint light from passing cars reflected in his eyes, giving them an eerie glow—half man, half something else.
The talisman in his coat pocket was gone now. Burned to dust.
And with it, a price had been paid.
---
Back in the hospital, Song Jiaojiao lay awake beneath white sheets, her fingers tracing the IV line in her hand.
She should've been unconscious. Should've had brain damage, or at least memory loss. That was what the doctors whispered outside her room. But Jiaojiao remembered **everything**.
The screech of metal. The windshield exploding. The moment her heart stopped.
And beyond that—darkness.
Cold, endless, suffocating.
Until he called her back.
His voice had reached through the void. Not commanding, not begging—inviting. Like a bell guiding a soul home.
She sat up and turned toward the rain-slicked window.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
--
Meanwhile, in a private study buried deep within the heart of Song Enterprises Headquarters…
Zhao Liren stood before a large monitor, arms folded, eyes locked on the paused frame of hospital footage.
It showed Chen Wanli, his hands glowing faintly over Jiaojiao's chest.
The timestamp read: 3:16 A.M. — eleven minutes after the hospital pronounced her clinically dead.
"You saw this live?" Zhao asked without turning.
"Yes, sir," his assistant replied nervously. "We tapped the hospital's emergency feed. Surveillance went dark for six seconds during the revival, then... she just sat up."
Zhao's jaw tightened.
"That man. Chen Wanli. Who is he?"
"We're still digging. No medical license. No family records after age eight. He vanished from the census for nearly twenty years."
"Then find out where he went," Zhao snapped. "Anyone who can pull a soul from the grave isn't just lucky. He's dangerous."
---
That night, in the slums of Old Haicheng…
Chen Wanli stood in front of a cracked mirror in his apartment, bare-chested, water dripping from his soaked hair onto the wooden floor.
His torso bore strange markings—faint golden traces of ancient script glowing beneath the skin, as if inked by the stars themselves. They pulsed faintly, in rhythm with his heartbeat.
He winced. The backlash from the resurrection had left his meridians strained. His internal energy was in flux—unstable. Had he been even a moment slower in pulling Song Jiaojiao's soul back, it would've shattered both of them.
Still… he'd done it.
"One life saved."
"One thread of karma mended."
He opened the old wooden chest beneath his bed. Inside lay his most precious inheritance: the Ninefold Immortal Healer's Canon, a relic passed down from his shifu before the fire, before the betrayal… before the slaughter of the clan.
He unrolled the next page.
Second Turn: "Sever Shadow. Restore Clarity."
A technique not to heal the body… but to unveil hidden truths.
His fingers hovered over the text.
"There's more to Song Jiaojiao's death than an accident," he muttered.
"Someone wanted her gone. And I need to know why."
The storm outside cracked like a warning.
But Chen Wanli smiled.
Let the heavens tremble.
The Divine Healer had only just begun.
-