I Now Look More Dead Than My Actual Corpse

"It's already noon, but she's still sleeping. How long does one need to sleep? By the time she wakes up, even the largest shrines would have run out of incense sticks to burn."

Murmurs of unfamiliar voices resonated throughout the room, passing by Yu Xuelan's ear.

"Lady Lin!" a young girl's voice called out, but that voice was extremely penetrating to her head, causing her to knit her brows.

"Please wake up!" The voice continued calling, even louder than before.

Yu Xuelan slightly lifted her eyelids, thinking that they wouldn't even open at all. Yet somehow, she was greeted with the view of an unfamiliar wooden ceiling.

The room permeated with the burning scent of incense that travelled into her room from the window, causing her nose to sting. She blinked sluggishly, as her mind was still yet to be awake.

The mumblings of two strange voices from outside the door filled the spacious room, and she attempted to sit upright, rubbing her temples with her fingers.

The puzzled girl tried to adjust her eyes to the bright glow of the sun that pierced through the window near the bed but ultimately whipped her head the other way. She touched her sleeping robe in confusion, noticing they made it out of the finest silk that shimmered in certain angles when it came in contact with the sun's light.

Yu Xuelan sat idly for a while with her sunken eyelids until she realized this place was definitely too bright to be in the afterlife.

"Lady Lin! You're going to be late for the meeting with Master Xiao! It's already midday, but you have yet to leave your room. Be ready soon!"

"Lady Lin?" she muttered in utter confusion, but she drew her attention to the young girl's informal speech.

"Can't we just go in and check? What if she's not even in her room?" One girl whispered.

"You idiot! Lady Lin has specifically told us to never enter her room!"

"She was a slave not too long ago! So what if the master favours her?"

Yu Xuelan closed her heavy eyes and reopened them. Then closed them again and reopened them. The girl repeated this process for a full thirty seconds and began touching all parts of her body that if someone was to see her, they would think she was a narcissist who was groping their own body.

She stayed silent as her face grew pale. She looked down at her palms and lifted them up.

Then slapped her face.

"Lady Lin?! What are you doing? I heard a loud noise!" The servant worriedly questioned.

"Are you alright in there, Lady Lin?"

Yu Xuelan, "..."

"I'm alive?!"

The sudden yell caused the two maids outside to jolt where one asked in concern, "Lady Lin? Lady Lin? Are you alright in there?"

She jolted and replied, "Huh? Uh, yeah?"

She caressed her face and all parts of her body, once again in shock and disbelief. Not once did she think she would feel living flesh ever again; because she had definitely died a brutal death. It was impossible for her body to suddenly regenerate unless she was an actual demon.

"Lady Lin, it is okay if you don't make it to this meeting if you are feeling unwell, I am sure the master would not mind."

She scratched the back of her head, as her mind was still above the clouds. What master? What meeting? Why was she even alive? What was going on?

"Well, whenever Lady Lin is ready, the master will wait for your presence at the northern pavilion." One maid informed and the two girls walked away.

Yu Xuelan dashed to the table in front of her, carefully avoiding the scattered papers. The room was an absolute wreck. It was as if this room had been through a hurricane and all the books, loose papers, and food scraps scattered everywhere.

She rummaged through a small drawer that had quite an intricate design, she finally found a small hand mirror. Gazing into the glass, her eyes widened from the shock upon seeing the reflection.

Stepping back from surprise, she was expecting someone much older, but the girl that was reflected in the mirror seemed to appear around nineteen.

The youth's skin was pale like snow as if all her blood was washed away into the river. Her pupils, dyed in black ink, had hints of brown that complimented the eye bags underneath.

Basically, she looked like a ghost.

"Wow, my corpse probably didn't even look this pale and... dead. And I was actually dead!" Yu Xuelan laughed jokingly while examining her appearance in the mirror.

But why did this maiden appear familiar?

After being distracted by her new appearance, Yu Xuelan realized this was not a time to be intrigued and amused.

To connect her thoughts into a linear line, she glanced around the messy bedchamber to see if she could find more information about this entire situation. She instead, stumbled across a calendar that lied below an old serving tray.

Yu Xuelan grabbed the calendar and flipped through the pages.

"Eight days?" She mumbled, "Wait no."

Yu Xuelan, "...."

Upon seeing the date, her eyes sunk into dark shades and she exclaimed in shock, "Eight years have passed?!"

She looked back at the calendar, double-checking that her fresh eyes were not playing tricks on her. There was no way she could believe that eight years had passed since her death. Well, she could not believe that her soul came back at all!

The girl sighed in confusion and anxiousness until her eyes landed on a spread of sheets that had a red stamp of a fish on the corner and, out of curiosity, she picked up the papers.

These papers that she picked up were actually slave documents.

She started putting the pieces together and just as she flipped through the papers, a small slip of paper fell out.

—————————————

Snow Flower,

I want you to silence those four who look down on me.

-Lin Yuhe

—————————————

"Is this a commandment note?" Yu Xuelan mumbled, holding her chin with her hand. "Wait, this is..."

"The [Soul Bound] technique? But this technique was sealed hidden in the demonic realm! How could this girl get her hands on it, let alone successfully pull this off? If anyone practised methods of the demonic realm, it would've led to an immediate execution..."

Transferring souls require an available sacrifice and the right amount of resentment energy and determination. Yu Xuelan was calmer now since this was a technique she was familiar with because she once tried this during her times in the demonic realm. When she was thrown in there by her beloved uncle, that is.

However, no library or sect had traces of this cultivation manual ever since, so Yu Xuelan found it strange that this 'Lin Yuhe' girl knew how to draw this array.

"Lin Yuhe?" she muttered, "That must be the young maiden's name."

Yu Xuelan choked on her saliva by the absurdity and vagueness of this note, leading her to crouch down in despair once again as imaginary tears began falling from her eyes.

"Ah Lin Yuhe, ah Lin Yuhe, who are 'those four' and what do you mean by silence? Do you want me to make them shut up or do you actually want me to kill them??" Yu Xuelan questioned and smacked her forehead with the note of distress.

The girl fell back onto the ground in despair.

If the transferred soul doesn't complete the commandment that was stated on the client's note, then their life force would diminish and after the body succumbs to a brutal and slow death, both the sacrifice's soul and the transferred soul would go through the Eighteen Levels of Hell before reincarnating.

She stared at the ceiling and pondered for a while before she started drooling. After all, she had read in books that the king of the tenth hell was pretty handsome.

She sat on the ground silently, her mind drifting away for a while before snapping back to reality. Yu Xuelan shook her head in denial and rubbed her drool with her sleeves.

Who cares if he was handsome? She'll be suffering half of the time to even get a good glance at his face!

If she remembered correctly, the note would tremble when near Lin Yuhe's targets, making it easier to identify the people Yu Xuelan needed to dispose of. She definitely did not want Lin Yuhe's soul and hers to go through the levels of hell and suffer for eternity.

"Wait, am I supposed to be somewhere right now?"

After searching for a while, she finally found the area where she was supposed to be an hour ago.

Three people sat at the tea table and all their appearances contrasted with one another. She was guessing the muscular man sitting next to the well-dressed lady was the master of this residence.

The man noticed she was looking at him and stood up. "My fiancée, you're finally here. It took you long enough."