After I died, I discovered that my husband, Arthur Sterling, could still see me. He wept tears of joy, saying that we could be together forever. But later, he started coming home less and less. Then, I saw the young woman following him—she looked exactly like I used to. One day, that young woman suddenly fell ill with a strange, incurable disease. A spiritual master claimed that a malevolent spirit was harming her. And Arthur... turned his head and looked directly at me, while I floated there in absolute shock. 1 I still hadn't fully processed what was happening. I shook my head at him frantically. The others couldn't hear me or see me. "Arthur, it's not me! You know me better than anyone!" At the same time, Chloe Sinclair, lying in bed, began to whimper softly. "Mr. Sterling, it hurts so much..." Arthur didn't say a word. He just stared intensely at me floating in mid-air. His eyes were filled with suspicion and resentment. I remembered what the master had just said: "This young lady is likely being haunted by a malevolent spirit." Chloe looked terrified, crying and shrinking into Arthur's embrace. "Mr. Sterling, I've never done anything wrong in my entire life! Why would a dark spirit want to hurt me?" Arthur comforted her, "Chloe, this isn't your fault." I didn't understand what he meant at first. But now I did. He meant it was my fault—the "malevolent spirit's" fault. Chloe asked the master, "Master, is there any way to suppress this spirit?" The master pulled out several talisman papers and a wooden sword. Chloe took the wooden sword, waving it around fearfully. Whether intentional or not, the tip of the sword pointed directly at me. In that split second, I felt an agonizing, tearing pain rip through my soul. I couldn't dodge. I was paralyzed in mid-air. Even without a physical body, the agony was so intense I felt like I would dissipate into nothingness at any moment. And Arthur just watched me, completely indifferent. Chloe dropped the wooden sword, picked up the talismans, and looked at Arthur. "Mr. Sterling, could you please help me stick these talismans around the room?" I watched Arthur walk over and take the talismans from her. Then he smiled and gently patted Chloe's head. "Of course." Once the talismans were placed in all four corners of the room, my already weakened soul was violently blasted out of the house. This was our marital home. The home Arthur and I had shared for seven years. I stumbled upright, trying to walk back through the front door, but it was useless. The lingering pain from the wooden sword throbbed through me. After failing repeatedly, I collapsed and curled into a ball in the corner. The front door opened. I scrambled up, overjoyed. "Arthur..." Arthur looked at me, his expression incredibly complex. "Mia, don't ever come inside again." "Maybe you didn't do it on purpose." "But her health is incredibly fragile. Stop harming her." I didn't know what to say. It's hard to describe how those words made me feel. The man standing in front of me felt nothing like the Arthur who had promised to love me forever. A year ago, when I died, he cried so agonizingly. Why had everything changed? "But this is my home! Our home! Why can't I go inside?" "Because you're dead!" "Because you're a wandering spirit now! You don't have to worry about anything, but she can't handle it! Your presence is making her sick!" "Mia Harrison, you were never this unreasonable when you were alive." As Arthur turned to go back inside, I could only murmur one sentence. "I didn't harm her." He paused for a second, then shut the door firmly. I wasn't entirely fearless either. I don't know if he noticed, but my soul had become slightly more transparent. 2 I used to watch horror movies where people died, became ghosts, and suddenly had all these incredible, terrifying powers. They weren't afraid of anything. They could scare people to death. But after my own accidental death, I realized I wasn't one of them. I had absolutely no powers. Except for Arthur, I couldn't make anyone else see me. In the very beginning, I felt like I could dissipate at any given moment. Because my body would randomly fade into transparency. Whenever Arthur noticed and cried, begging me not to leave him, the fading would stop, and I would solidify again. But today, he probably didn't notice. I huddled in the corner, laughing bitterly. I wasn't the only wandering spirit in this area; there were plenty of other strange, dark things lurking around. Right now, I couldn't even maintain a solid form. I had no idea how I was going to survive the night. When did things between Arthur and me get this bad? Probably starting shortly before he began staying out all night. Before, I could follow him anywhere. But that night, I suddenly found an invisible barrier blocking me. Maybe it was because right before he left, he had said, "Don't follow me today." I remembered his friends tricking him into going to the psychiatric ward at the hospital that day. His friends thought my death had caused a psychotic break, because he was constantly talking to thin air. Later, paparazzi caught him—Arthur Sterling, CEO of Sterling Group—leaving the psychiatric ward. The rumor was that he had developed severe schizophrenia. It caused a massive scandal. For days, Arthur felt like everyone was secretly laughing at him. I still remember his absolute devastation when I died, and his hysterical joy when he first realized he could see me. He was practically out of his mind with happiness. He said the heavens were so moved by our love that they granted us this miracle so we could stay together forever. Looking back now, that "heaven-moving" love had clearly become a burden to him. He didn't want the world to view him as a mentally ill freak anymore. So he aggressively minimized the amount of time we spent together outside, and eventually, our conversations dwindled to almost nothing. Soon after, he brought Chloe home. I had no idea who she was. All I knew was that she sweetly called him "Mr. Sterling," and they could interact openly and normally. And I couldn't. Long before she fell ill, it had been ages since Arthur and I had a real conversation. "Well, well, isn't it the little canary from the big mansion?" "What, got kicked out?" "I told you a long time ago, the living and the dead don't mix. Why don't you come play with me—" There weren't many wandering spirits in this area, but the few that existed were incredibly vicious. I had personally witnessed one of them tear another spirit into literal shreds. I stood up in terror and screamed for Arthur. "Arthur! I'm so scared..." A pale, rotting hand reached out to grab me. "Aren't your man and his new toy madly in love right now? I saw them making out in his car just the other day. Tsk, the guy has no balls, having to act all proper as soon as he steps out of the car." "You're already dead. Why are you still bothering him? Let him find his true love!" I refused to believe it. I only knew that Arthur had sworn he would never, ever betray me. But the harder I pounded on the door, the louder the romantic music inside played. They were dancing to the music, and Chloe was laughing brightly in his arms. Maybe he would post about it on social media. Maybe his friends would congratulate him on finally moving on from the grief of losing his wife. Then he would become a normal person again, instead of a lunatic haunted by the stubborn ghost of his dead wife. 3 When the sun came up, those dark things would vanish. I wasn't afraid of the sunlight. But I was so incredibly weak I could barely move an inch. They loved to tear spirits apart for fun. But I was different from the other wandering spirits. Every time I was torn apart, I miraculously reformed. They found it fascinating. In the past, I spent every night in Arthur's bed. They couldn't get in there. From now on, I probably wouldn't have that protection. I felt incredibly lost. I had no idea how I was going to survive every single night from now on. The front door suddenly opened, and Arthur rushed out, carrying Chloe in his arms. I huddled in the corner, watching him silently. My body felt a little more transparent. "Hurry! To the hospital!" He didn't acknowledge my gaze, only shooting me a deep, resentful frown as he loaded Chloe into the car. That single look was loaded with emotion. Mostly blame. But I didn't even understand what I had done wrong. I just wanted him to stay with me, to ask me if I was hurting. But maybe that was never going to happen again. When Arthur returned from the hospital, I was still huddled in the corner. "Mia. We need to talk." My voice was hoarse as I offered a faint, bitter laugh. "Are we talking out here?" He clearly had no intention of letting me back inside. "Let's just talk here. If you go inside, she might get sick again when she gets back." "There are some things we need to make perfectly clear right now." Before he could start his speech, I cut him off. "I never harmed her." Arthur instantly exploded in absolute fury. He stepped forward and threw a punch straight through my ethereal body, his fist slamming into the brick wall behind me. "Then tell me why, ever since she moved in here, she's been constantly suffering from bizarre, unexplainable illnesses?!" "Don't tell me it's all just a coincidence! Mia, I am not a fucking idiot!" His eyes were bloodshot, his emotions completely volatile. "You know perfectly well that everyone thinks I'm insane. She risked her entire reputation just to help me!" "She's the only one who actually believes I can see you!" I shot upright in shock. "You told her you can see me?!" Arthur clearly didn't think that was the main issue. "If she wasn't willing to believe me and stand by my side, my personal reputation and my company's stock would have plummeted! Do you understand that?!" "Everyone would think I'm a completely deranged lunatic!" I stared at him calmly, feeling a mix of helpless panic and deep resignation. "Arthur... you fell in love with her, didn't you?" I just laid the brutal truth out in the open. But it only made him more hysterical. "Why is your mind always so filthy and paranoid?!" "I promised I would never betray you, and that hasn't changed! Is your paranoid jealousy the only reason you're trying to hurt her?!" I was too exhausted to even repeat myself. "So, what do you want me to do?" He let out a heavy, ragged breath. "Leave for a while. Stay away from me for now." I asked him, "If I leave, and she still gets sick, proving it wasn't me... will you let me come back?" He fell silent. He didn't say a single word. I think I already knew the answer. 4 If I was going to leave, I had to do it now. If I waited until nightfall when those things came out again, I might never be able to leave. I knew perfectly well that once Arthur made a decision, begging him was completely useless. And I wasn't going to beg. I broke eye contact and struggled to stand up, preparing to walk away. "You're leaving just like that?!" "You were probably already sick of this too, right? I just gave you the perfect excuse." My clean break seemed to infuriate him even more. I didn't want to say anything else. My soul felt incredibly heavy, and every step was agonizingly difficult, but I refused to linger for even a second longer. I heard footsteps rushing up behind me. But then they abruptly stopped. Followed immediately by a violent fit of coughing. "Mr. Sterling? What's wrong?" "We need to take you to the hospital to see Ms. Sinclair anyway. Why don't you get a checkup while we're there?" "Could it be... that dark spirit wasn't satisfied with hurting Ms. Sinclair, and now it's trying to hurt you too?" At this point, I had absolutely no desire to defend myself. It was entirely pointless. I didn't care what else Arthur had to say. If he wanted to believe those lies, explaining myself a million times wouldn't change a thing. After leaving the villa district, I wandered aimlessly. Being a wandering spirit was a new experience. I didn't know why I ended up like this. I was dead, but I couldn't move on to the afterlife. Before Arthur explicitly told me to leave, I physically couldn't move far from him. Was it really because, like he said, his love had moved the heavens, binding me to him? Thinking about my current state, that theory was hilariously tragic. Where was I supposed to go now? I didn't know. All I knew was that my body was becoming increasingly transparent. It actually hadn't been that long since I died. But I had already forgotten so many things. Suddenly, I lost consciousness entirely. When I opened my eyes again, I was inside a temple. Even though I had no specific memory of it, being there triggered an overwhelming, inexplicable sense of familiarity. There was no one else in the temple. Just me, and a single oil lamp. The wick was burning weakly; the flame was incredibly dim. But when the wind blew, the tiny flame didn't even flicker. Memories suddenly flooded my mind, crashing over me like a tidal wave. "I ask for nothing else. I only pray that my wife survives this, recovers quickly, and returns to me." "If possible, I want to live with her, and die with her." "I refuse to live in this world without her." A man had climbed the massive stone staircase to the peak, performing a full prostration—kneeling and touching his forehead to the ground—on every single step. When he finally stood up, his forehead was bruised, swollen, and bleeding. I remembered now. That was probably the year Arthur loved me the most. He was giving a speech on stage at his company's annual gala when a massive chandelier above him suddenly broke loose. No one noticed. I sprinted forward and shoved him out of the way, taking the full impact myself and falling into a deep coma. While I was comatose, I occasionally drifted into semi-consciousness, hearing Arthur's desperate murmurs. He said that if I didn't pull through, he was fully prepared to die with me. In my subconscious dreams, I learned that Arthur's profound devotion had manifested a silent "Eternal Flame" in this temple. The wick was forged from our intertwined souls. If one soul disappeared from the other's side, the other would die. I remember thinking: I can't let him die. My sheer will to live dragged me out of the coma. Back then, I thought an Eternal Flame like this was an incredibly beautiful thing. As long as we loved each other, nothing could ever separate us. Standing here today, floating as a spirit, I learned another secret. The reason I remained on earth wasn't because Arthur's love moved the heavens. It was because, shortly after I died, I begged the Judge of the Underworld to let me go back. 5 Because if my soul vanished from his side, he would die. I traded my reincarnation, binding myself to an eternal clerical position in the Underworld, just to return to his side. My original plan was to stay with him until the natural end of his life. The Judge told me he didn't believe in absolute, unwavering love. He said if I could bring the Eternal Flame back to the Underworld completely intact after Arthur passed away from old age, proving him wrong, he would grant me a cushy position guarding the Bridge of Forgetfulness. Time flows much faster in the Underworld, so I would frequently be able to see Arthur's soul passing through the reincarnation cycle. But if the Eternal Flame extinguished, Arthur would die, but he would still enter the reincarnation cycle. I, however, having lingered in the mortal realm for too long, would face complete soul annihilation. At the time, I thought the Judge was just being hopelessly cynical. Looking back now, I was the one who was hopelessly delusional. I died, so my memories faded. But what about Arthur? The flame of this Eternal Lamp was already incredibly dim. My soul had become almost entirely transparent. This proved that our love was practically non-existent. The Judge's voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere. "You can make your choice now." "Take this dying Eternal Flame back to the Underworld with you, or stay and work in the Underworld, though your soul will be permanently damaged and frequently weak." "As for him, he will die in an accident shortly after you leave." "If this Eternal Flame extinguishes while you're still in the mortal realm, he will just suffer a tragic end in this life, but your soul will be instantly annihilated." I glanced down at the wedding ring on my transparent finger. Strange. It was still there. I thought about all the beautiful moments Arthur and I had shared. I never doubted the love he once had for me. That love gave me the courage to sacrifice everything. But this time— "My Lord, I will go back with you." "Before I go, may I return to say a final goodbye to him?" The Judge's voice didn't respond for a long time. "I strongly advise against returning." "A man whose heart has changed is no different from a rabid beast. He operates with zero logic or reason." "Fine. If you insist on saying goodbye, go. I will process your employment intake paperwork. When it's time, I'll send a Reaper to guide you back." The voice faded. I floated in the temple, feeling a dull, hollow ache where my heart used to be. The girls who chose to drink the Forgetfulness Soup and reincarnate were right. Never, ever believe that someone's love for you will never change. No one can promise that. I was just a fool. I drifted slowly back toward the city. The closer I got to the villa district, the more chaotic my thoughts became. Suddenly, an invisible, ethereal net slammed down, binding me completely. "I caught the dark spirit!" "Mr. Sterling, this is the entity that caused you to violently cough up blood! It's a vicious, malevolent spirit! It's specifically attached to you, intent on harming you. Once it drains enough of your life force, it will become unstoppable!" Something within the net paralyzed me, making it impossible to move a single muscle. "Arthur... I just came to..." I looked up at Arthur and met a gaze so incredibly, terrifyingly cold it froze my soul. "Mia. I never, in my wildest nightmares, imagined you would exploit my love for you to harm me like this."
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