Mysterious Revival

Cold, silent warehouse, ice coffins laid out next to Zhao Kaiming.

He had been sitting here for a full three hours now.

Unmoving, like a wooden carving.

The hope in his heart had been gradually extinguished as these three hours passed.

The time agreed upon with the ghost had far exceeded its limit.

During this period, there was not a single sign of Resurrection within the ice coffins where the bodies of his deceased relatives lay; those who had died remained dead, and the only person alive was himself.

As for the ghost that followed him, even now, he couldn't define its existence.

Zhao Kaiming only knew that every time he asked the ghost to do something, someone close to him would die, yet he would remain unharmed.

This was the price paid for utilizing the power of the ghost.

At first, he hadn't realized this. By the time he did, it was already too late. His wife, daughter, parents, relatives... everyone had been killed by the ghost because of him.

Compared to fear and death, what tormented Zhao Kaiming was the guilt and the grief of having killed his loved ones with his own hands.

And sometimes, he had no choice but to act.

From the day the nightmare began, Zhao Kaiming had no way back; he could only walk down this dark path, placing all his hope in fulfilling the ghost's conditions to resurrect all his deceased relatives and start everything anew.

Although he frequently doubted that this might be a deceitful trick of the ghost.

Even so, Zhao Kaiming could only cling to belief, daring not to harbor a shred of doubt.

For any wavering would snuff out the last glimmer of redemption's light.

Nearly four hours had passed.

The time had reached around two o'clock in the morning.

Zhao Kaiming, who sat like a wooden carving in the middle of the ice coffins, suddenly laughed—a pitiful, mad laugh.

As if he had gone insane.

He had accomplished his plan, yet lost everything.

Unable to reverse the consequences of his own actions, Zhao Kaiming felt he had lost the will to live.

He didn't blame anyone because he had no right to.

He slowly drew a handgun from his waist.

The golden handgun, cold and heavy, was loaded with ten specially made bullets.

But whether the bullets were specially made no longer mattered; now he was just an ordinary man, and it was easy to be killed or to commit suicide.

Without much hesitation, he shoved the handgun into his own mouth.

Suicide was the only path left for Zhao Kaiming.

"Sorry, I'm coming down to join you," Zhao Kaiming closed his eyes.

But just before he was about to pull the trigger.

"Tap tap~!"

In the silent warehouse, the sound of something tapping against the glass window could be heard. Though the sound was not loud, it was exceptionally clear, and its source was right beside Zhao Kaiming.

"Bang~!"

However, a gunshot suddenly rang out.

Zhao Kaiming's decision to end his life was too decisive, leaving him with little to no hesitation. He was unable to retract the gun and had already pulled the trigger.

Possibly due to an improper angle or the incorrect position of a suicide by gun in the mouth, the bullet didn't penetrate his skull but went through his mouth instead.

There was no pain, only dizziness.

Zhao Kaiming's mouth was full of blood, but he was still alive, albeit severely injured.

The tapping against the glass continued.

He thought it was a hallucination, but it wasn't. He saw with his own eyes that in the ice coffin holding his daughter's body, a pair of pale little hands were frantically tapping against it.

His daughter had been resurrected?

Zhao Kaiming's eyes, which were about to sink into oblivion, suddenly burst with light. He fell to the ground covered in blood and crawled towards the coffin, then used all the strength in his body to push the ice coffin open.

A little girl cried as she crawled out from inside.

"Daddy, Daddy...." The little girl saw Zhao Kaiming and hugged him, crying.

Zhao Kaiming tried to stand up, but the gunshot from his suicide attempt had severely wounded him, leaving him drained of all strength and slumped on the ground. Yet, he smiled, a joyful smile filled with tender love as he held his daughter, feeling her breath and heartbeat, stroking her soft hair that lay within the room.

"Don't cry, don't... cough cough, Daddy's here."

His daughter's resurrection made him realize that he hadn't been deceived after all, but this outcome had come too late, only manifesting at the moment he had attempted suicide.

His daughter was the first to die and the first to be resurrected, so according to that order, the ones to be resurrected next would be... his own parents.

At this moment, Zhao Kaiming had lost too much blood and his injuries weighed down on him, leaving his mind hazy as he said, "Xiao Ya, do as Daddy says and open those glass doors, Mommy, Grandpa, Grandma, they are all sleeping inside, you have to wake them up... cough cough."
Your journey continues at empire

Speaking was already difficult for him.

He wasn't sure if it would work, but he had no choice but to trust his six-year-old daughter.

Zhao Xiaoya, though young, was very obedient. As soon as Zhao Kaiming told her to, she immediately ran to the glass coffins, crying as she tried to open them.

But the little girl didn't know how to open them at all. These coffins were custom-made by Zhao Kaiming, of very high quality, and precisely because of that quality, the opening mechanism was quite special.

"Daddy, Daddy, I can't open it." Zhao Xiaoya ran back, crying.

But Zhao Kaiming was sitting on the ground with his head lowered, unresponsive, as the blood still flowed incessantly from his body.

He wasn't dead, just unconscious.

If an ambulance were called at that time, Zhao Kaiming could still be saved.

Yet fate likes to play tricks; he realized everything had succeeded only after his suicide attempt, mistakenly believing it to have been a scam all along.

Zhao Kaiming, lying unconscious, had no concept of how much time had passed.

It might have been a day, or perhaps half a day, but in reality, he miraculously woke up again an hour after falling unconscious.

Zhao Kaiming groggily felt someone pressing down on his wound.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself surrounded by people.

"He's awake, he's awake, our son has woken up, thank goodness," an elderly woman excitedly exclaimed.

Zhao Kaiming saw that his family had been resurrected; his wife, parents, and relatives were all there.

"Has the ambulance not arrived yet? Why can't I get through on the phone? Zhao Kaiming, hang on, hang in there, we're contacting nearby hospitals," a relative said anxiously.

Zhao Kaiming didn't speak. His consciousness was in an odd state, and he felt as if his awakening was just the final flicker of light before death.

"Daddy." Zhao Xiaoya was crying at his side.

"Good girl, don't cry, Daddy is fine, how did you do it?" Zhao Kaiming touched her head and said with a pale smile.

"This uncle helped me," Zhao Xiaoya said through her tears, pointing behind her.

Zhao Kaiming struggled to lift his eyelids, but behind his daughter, he saw no one, just a murky darkness.

He was slow to process at first, but then realization hit, and his eyes widened in shock. He grabbed his daughter's hand tightly, wanting to say something, but a mouthful of blood clogged his throat, and combined with his fleeting recovery, he found himself unable to speak.

The ghost... was still there.

At that moment, the ghost had chosen his daughter.

It had helped the girl open all the coffins in exchange for a family member's death.

Dealing with a ghost, no matter the size of the task, the price was always the same.

Yet looking around, none of the relatives beside him had died.

However, Zhao Kaiming soon realized something, let out a piercing, awful laugh, then, with all his tragedy, took his final breath.

Before dying, his eyes remained fixed intently on the spot behind his daughter where she had pointed.

Compared to the despair of his previous suicide attempt and the subsequent failure followed by a last breath of hope, this outcome was the most terrifying.

Because Zhao Kaiming knew that the tragedy he bore would be replayed upon his daughter.

Why did it have to be Xiao Ya...

In his lingering consciousness, that was the last thought Zhao Kaiming held onto before he died.