The darkness wasn't empty. It was thick, like cold oil pressing against Qingxue's skin. She expected the white, sterile halls of the Bureau or the familiar chime of the System. Instead, she felt a heavy, suffocating stillness.
When she finally forced her eyes open, she wasn't in a hospital bed. She was standing in a room that felt like a void. No walls, no floor, just an endless, inky black. And right in front of her stood a girl.
The girl looked exactly like the body Qingxue had just inhabited. She wore the same school uniform, but they were shredded and stained with dark, dried blood. Her limbs were bent at unnatural angles, a gruesome reminder of the fall from the thirtieth floor. This was the original soul, Qin Huifang.
Qingxue froze. In all her years of hopping from world to world, she had never once met the original soul face to face. They were usually scrubbed away by the System the moment she arrived.
