Capturing My Demon King Costar

MY COSTAR AND I WITNESS SOMETHING UNPLEASANT

tw: non-explicit prostitution

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Yao Shen's first instinct is to jump back in shock at the grisly sight, but then he remembers poor Sun Yi, and how she didn't pose any threat, and tries to steady his breathing.

"Sorry to disturb you," Yao Shen says, approaching the woman in the bed quietly. "Is there something we can do to help you?"

The woman scoots back up the bed, drawing her knees up her face and wrapping her arms around her legs tightly. "What do you want from me?"

Yao Shen inspects her more closely and notices she's wearing a modern version of a qipao, it's cheaply made and awkwardly cut, the complete opposite of the elegant, fine version the female ghost king wears. It's hard to tell because of all the blood running down her face, but the woman must have been around middle-age by the time she died.

He kneels down by her side and asks, "Ma'am what happened to you?"

"I didn't see anything, I didn't see," she says, shaking her head.

Yao Shen shoots Xin Hulei a perplexed look. This woman is clearly too traumatized to explain anything about her current condition.

Yao Shen isn't even sure she knows she's dead.

"How did you end up here?" Xin Hulei asks, his tone much less friendly than Yao Shen's.

The woman's head shoots up in the direction of his voice, and while she keeps cowering, something in Xin Hulei's tone makes her answer him. "It was that man...he made me, made me do it."

"What man?" Yao Shen asks, confused by the whole disorganized account.

Xin Hulei pulls him up from the floor by the back of the shirt and towards a corner of the room.

"She died under very gruesome circumstances," he tells Yao Shen, nodding towards the sobbing woman.

"Like Sun Yi?"

Xin Hulei shakes his head. "No, she stayed behind because she had unfinished business, this woman can't handle the circumstances of her death, for one reason or another."

Yao Shen chances another look at her hunched form, sobbing rivers of blood that disappear from the white duvet before ever staining it.

"Are there usually these many ghosts around? Or is just Gao Wu bringing them out?" Yao Shen asks, looking into Xin Hulei's dark eyes.

Xin Hulei has his arms crossed in front of his chest and a thoughtful look on his handsome face. It's a good look on him, and Yao Shen is momentarily distracted.

It takes him a moment to come out of his reverie and notice Xin Hulei is speaking.

"...something must be happening in the Underworld."

"Sorry, what was that?" Yao Shen asks, slightly shamefaced.

The corner of Xin Hulei's lip hooks up. "Am I distracting you?"

"Shut up, this is not the place," Yao Shen says, shooting the woman on the bed a look over his shoulder. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like she's paying them any attention.

The faint trace of amusement doesn't leave Xin Hulei's face. "As I was saying...while it's undoubtedly Gao Wu's presence that's making them visible when that's not their intention, it's still odd for so many ghosts to be walking around unchecked."

Something flashes in his dark eyes, a trace of childish giddiness to it, almost. "After all, it is the Underworld's job to collect the souls of the dead and prepare them for the cycle of reincarnation."