Slipping Away (2)

(Unedited)

Yang Mi walked around the street filled with people. The cars passing through the spacious and wide grey road. In the intersection, the sidewalks, the traffic lights going off and on was quite mind-blowing for her.

When she was still in her ghost form, these things never bothered her. She didn't even care about the activities that were quite popular to most ghosts around the city. As an older being, she'd rather stay away from these boring things and sleep or do something else like for example, ogling a handsome young detective.

But now that she had been given a chance to become a human, albeit it being forced to her, the suddenness of everything came crashing to her like she was hit by a bullet train.

The noises, the senses that weren't present in her before, and the emotions that most humans felt seemed to surreal and overwhelming.

Yang Mi paled and gripped her chest. Frowning and ran away from the crowd gathering around her.

When she first got this body till today, Yang Mi never really opened herself fully to the human world until now. That was why, she felt choked up by everything around her.

After fifteen minutes of mindlessly running without looking where she was going, Yang Mi's feet finally stopped only to see that she had arrived to a wide clearing with few people passing by from a far distance.

['Where am I?] she silently thought as she looked around. It looked like she walked into the park but also didn't as there weren't that many people around. It felt like she had gone to a more rural part of the city.

[Did I actually ran off too far?] Yang Mi was speechless and started to retrace her steps. But then, she stopped once again.

[Well, since I'm already here… I might as well look around and see the barrier in this part.]

After deciding, Yang Mi walked forward where she could see the faint purple light coming from the barrier.

No humans seemed to notice them or feel them when they touched it, and only those who had enough spiritual powers could at most sense it. Being the person who created this barrier, Yang Mi felt proud of herself when she first built it around the city.

The barrier could repel any evil beings that wanted to pass through her territory without permission and burn them away. However, that same barrier was now weakening along with her powers because she suddenly became a human being.

She reached the edge of the path and saw the starting line of the barrier. It spanned from one end to the other and expanded very far. Basically, it surrounded the whole City A along with everything inside it.

Touching the barrier was like touching the surface of the water. One touch caused thousands, no, millions of ripples of waves that slowly moved to one side to the other.

A grim look flashed on her face as she thought that this could be a big problem to the safety of every other ghosts living in her city. Ghosts could be territorial beings like how cats and dogs pee on thei favorite place to mark them theirs. And if some foreign ghosts were to enter the barrier and cause a trouble, she wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

[Damn you, system! I hope you choke up and die!] She didn't have time to be stuck in this stupid system arranged for her. She didn't even know what was the reason behind why she suddenly got a system inside her head and why must she complete challenges and get points!

Giving the barrier a one last glance, Yang Mi bit her lips until it bled. Even if she wanted to stop the barrier from breaking, and help the ghosts living in the city, she couldn't do anything when she can't even help herself out of this predicament.

When Yang Mi returned back to the complex, the sun was already setting. The red crimson light bathe her figure and everything else that could be hit, just as the sun drowned itself into the horizon.

She entered the elevator and pressed the floor button where she currently lived.

'Ding!'

The elevator chimed as it arrived to her destination and she stepped out of it, just in time to see Aunt Wu walking towards her with a dark look in her eyes.

Did she get caught that she didn't go to Kaisar? No… was the d housekeeper upset that she went out for too long? Yang Mi continued to question as the old woman finally stood before her.

Before Yang Mi could dish out some made-up excuse for being out, Aunt Wu suddenly grasped her shoulders.

"Ms. Yang… just where have you been?" The old housekeeper said as her voice cracked.

"A-aunt Wu… Why are you crying?" Flustered at the sudden action of the old housekeeper, Yang Mi didn't know what to do. "It took a bit for me to come back because I got lost. I'm back now, so don't worry anymore."

Which wasn't entirely a lie. She did get lost after running for several minutes and came face to face with the barrier. It took her a while to check on the surrounding barrier and on the way back, she was held back by the people crowding the streets.

Aunt Wu shook her head and had a hard time to speak. Every single time she wanted to utter a word, she would choke up as she couldn't contain herself and the emotions she was feeling right now.

It took a while for the old housekeeper to recompose herself and finally said, "Ms. Yang… something bad happened.'" she paused as her tears flowed down her cheeks like falling rain. "Y- young master Kaiser… ha… he got into an accident!"

"Aunt Wu… What are you saying? What accident?" Yang Mi felt her body growing colder and shivered despite no wind passed through the closed hallway of the condominium.