Jing Pei returned to the Long family estate and powered up her computer to get to work, because the wealthy client had already transferred the money, confirming his decision to purchase the intelligence.

She first locked onto the residential area surrounding the client’s home as the central point, then infiltrated the electronic devices of nearby houses and residents. Anyone who regularly purchased large quantities of milk, or had left even fragmentary clues online, would immediately stand out. From that, it was essentially possible to pinpoint where the Undead Clan’s body was being kept.

Because that body needed milk to maintain its nourishment and sheen. And after death, Undead Clan members would emit an enchanting, bewitching allure across their entire body in order to make others fall in love with them, all for the sake of eventual rebirth—so whoever was caring for her would certainly buy milk for her to bathe in.

The old tycoon waited anxiously at home for several hours. The night grew deep; even his young, handsome butler came by to wish him good night. Just as he was beginning to suspect he might have been scammed, an email finally arrived.

He opened it impatiently.

A name leapt into his sight.

He froze.

Because that name belonged to his butler.

An outstanding young man—only twenty-four years old—fluent in multiple languages, exceptionally capable at his job, never complaining of fatigue, always reliable in everything he handled.

The day the young man arrived with his suitcase to apply for the position, so spirited and handsome, the tycoon had chosen him at first glance. With such a capable presence at his side, it felt as though he himself had become younger.

And the butler’s room was directly beneath his own bedroom.

Could it be… that the body he had searched for in vain all these years had been in this house the entire time?!

…

The young man, dressed in a white tailcoat, with dignified features and elegant movements, returned to his bedroom with light steps after confirming that all duties were complete and he was off work.

He never allowed anyone else to enter this room. And so, no one had ever discovered that there was more than just him living inside it.

—There was also a miraculous, headless woman, alive in a special way.
【Please spare me, reviewers: this headless woman is not a corpse. She is alive—a special being in this story known as the Undead Clan. Their heads and bodies can survive separately and deliberately emit a special attraction to make others care for them. This is not necrophilia; it is explained in the previous and following chapters.】

Calling her a “corpse” would be completely inappropriate. Her exposed skin was fair and lustrous, not the pallor of death. When touched, it even retained warmth. Her nails were carefully trimmed and painted with pink polish, and she wore a beautiful red spaghetti‑strap dress. If not for the absence of her head, she looked no different from a living person.

“Sorry, my love,” the young man said softly as he came to her side, tenderly lifting her hand and pressing a kiss to it, filled with devotion. “I left you alone for so long today. Were you lonely? Once they’re all dead, we’ll be together forever. I swear—I’ll be your most loyal believer. I’ll stay with you forever.”

His eyes brimmed with obsession. She was the love of his life. He had loved her for more than ten years now—ever since the day his father brought her home.

That night had been rainy. His father had returned from visiting his maternal grandfather, carrying a bundled object and rushing straight into the house. He hid it away in the storage shed. Over the next few days, he seized every opportunity to slip inside, even buying a heavy lock to seal the shed so no one else could enter.

One day, the young man bought a camera and secretly attached it to his father. From then on, the truth of what lay inside the shed was revealed to him.

Heavens above—it was unbelievable. Even through the lens, it was love at first sight. She radiated a melancholy, lonely aura that stirred in him an overwhelming urge to help her. And somehow, instinctively, he knew—she was still alive.

So when he discovered that his father had committed those nauseating, perverse acts upon her, his shock was overwhelming. And after the shock came a rage so intense it drove him nearly mad.

Because he knew—she had been stolen from his maternal grandfather. If so, what had his grandfather done to her? How many times had she endured such things?

So one day, his father slipped and fell. Somehow, there just happened to be a pair of scissors there.

Snip.

With his “tool” gone, his father spent his days drowning himself in alcohol and paid less and less attention to her, allowing the young man to care for her instead.

His love for her was both distorted and pure—completely unlike anyone who had ever possessed her before. He never committed any act of desire toward her. He bought her beautiful clothes, told others he had a girlfriend, celebrated holidays with her, prepared surprises. Even when bathing her in milk, he would close his eyes and repeatedly murmur apologies for the offense.

He treated her as a person—someone who could move, who had a soul—showing her nothing but respect and tenderness.

Until one day, he suddenly felt as though he could hear her speaking.

She was guiding him, telling him to help her find her head. She wanted to be reborn. But before that, she needed some vitality.

“I’m willing to give you my life,” he said devoutly, clasping her hand.

Though the goddess could not truly speak, he somehow knew—she refused. She did not want to take his life force. Others would offer themselves to her.

When the old tycoon burst in with his people, the butler had just carefully helped her change into sleepwear and lay down beside her. Startled by the sound of the lock being forced open, he looked up to see the tycoon’s face contorted with fury and shock.

“You… you lunatic! Pervert!” the tycoon roared. “How dare you conspire with this monster to deceive me!”

The butler’s expression quickly settled into calm. He lifted the blanket and stepped off the bed, veins standing out on his forehead.

“She’s not a monster. She was walking perfectly fine down the road when you ran her over—and then cut off her head!”

“No! It was an accident! She seduced me into doing it! She wants to destroy my entire family!” the tycoon screamed. “Give her to me—I’ll burn her to death! Otherwise she’ll devour me and my granddaughter sooner or later!”

As he spoke, he ordered the bodyguards behind him to seize her.

The butler scooped up the body and retreated, shouting furiously as he did so. “That’s bullshit! This is all your fault! She never harmed anyone—everything that happened was voluntary! Your wife, your son, even your daughter‑in‑law loved her! You’re the only idiot who didn’t know!”

The old tycoon had brought a woman’s head home and, from that day on, no longer shared a bed with his wife, spending every night instead with that head—talking to it, doing all manner of unspeakable things. Could his wife and children truly have been unaware?

But ever since that head had entered their home, the family’s fortunes had soared. Wealth, reputation, status—greed drove them to pretend they knew nothing. And that was precisely what sowed the seeds of disaster.

Like the old tycoon, they grew more and more enamored of her the longer they looked. When he wasn’t around, the head he kept hidden would be secretly stolen away by his own wife and children. Just like him, they would spend nights facing her, speaking to her, doing things that would horrify any normal person.

Not a single one of them escaped her demonic allure—men and women alike. All of them fell in love with her, and in the end, all of them became possessed, willingly offering up their own lives to her, letting her drain their vitality until they withered into shriveled, mummified corpses.

That night when he woke suddenly and found the head beside his wife, it hadn’t moved there on its own. It was his old wife who had secretly carried it over. She simply hadn’t expected him to wake in the middle of the night despite having taken sleeping pills.

Deep down, the old tycoon had always known the truth—he just refused to accept it.

Several bodyguards wrested the body from the butler’s arms, and the group surged toward the living room, where a massive fireplace roared with blazing flames. It had been lit in advance on the tycoon’s orders.

“Quick! Throw her in!” the old tycoon shouted at the guards holding the body. He was a selfish man; fear of his own death had torn him free from the fog of infatuation. Now all he wanted was for this woman to die.

The bodyguards hesitated.

Seeing this, the old tycoon rushed forward, seized the body himself, and half‑dragged, half‑carried it toward the fireplace. A rug in front of the hearth was shoved in along with it.

Then he snatched the head from another guard and hurled it into the flames as well. Fire swallowed her instantly.

At last, the old tycoon laughed in unrestrained relief.

“No!” The young butler burst into the room just in time to see this. His eyes split with rage. Without a moment’s hesitation, he charged into the fire, ignoring the searing pain as flames licked his skin. He dragged both the head and the body back out—along with the rug that had been thrown in. The rug was still burning.

The old tycoon and the guards rushed to seize them, but several of the bodyguards seemed affected by her demonic allure as well, their movements hesitant—half trying to grab, half trying to protect. In that moment, the butler managed to hurl both the body and the head out through the window before grappling with the others.

The vast living room was filled with flammable furnishings. As they struggled, the fire spread from the rug to the sofa, then to the thick carpets, the curtains—

In the stillness of the night, some unseen link seemed to form between the beautiful, bewitching head and the body. A strange force drew them together. Slowly, they moved closer, the severed neck reconnecting, becoming whole once more.

She slowly opened her eyes.

She rose to her feet and stood there, dazed, gazing at the grand villa engulfed in flames. After the car accident that killed her, her consciousness had fallen into dormancy; everything that followed had been the automatic response of her atavist nature. But the body retained memory—she remembered everything that had been done to her after her death.

Including those gentle hands that held no trace of desire, and his strange yet pure, sincere love.

When the Tribunal Division arrived, the entire villa was ablaze. They saw an atavist standing amid the fire. As they rushed to restrain her, she moved first—newly reborn, her head and body finally reunited, she charged back into the burning house.

By the time fire‑resistant atavists entered and found her, her beautiful eyes had closed once more. She was clutching a man tightly. Together, they had been burned to death.

There were few creatures more afraid of death than the Undead Clan. It was precisely this overwhelming fear of death that gave rise to their eerie abilities. In life, they were ordinary beings; only upon death did the prelude to resurrection begin. No matter how long it took, as long as they were not burned or corroded, their bodies would never decay—forever waiting for the chance to be reborn.

And yet, such beings often relinquished that eternal life for the sake of love.

The local Tribunal Division contacted headquarters in Yunjin Prefecture, reporting that the Undead Clan atavist and all parties involved in the incident had perished together in the fire.

Fortunately, the old tycoon’s only remaining granddaughter had been sent away earlier and escaped the catastrophe.

Yunjin Prefecture, Tribunal Division Headquarters.

The assistant had just hung up the phone when he turned around and nearly jumped out of his skin—Qiu Fa was standing silently in the doorway, half his body hidden behind the wall, only one eye visible as he stared. He almost shouted: Director, could you please fix this atavist habit of yours? Don’t stalk your subordinates like cattle!

“Director, our people arrived a step too late. There was an accidental fire—they’re all dead,” he said, swallowing the shout that nearly burst from his throat.

They had learned of the incident through the old tycoon’s email.

“Understood,” Qiu Fa replied in a low voice.

The old tycoon had committed hit‑and‑run. The Undead Clan atavist had lured others to their deaths in order to resurrect. The butler was also suspected of deliberately harming his maternal grandfather and his own father. Each had their own crimes. Now, past and sin alike had been reduced to ashes.

And through the orchard murder case and this incident, they could now confirm that the intelligence broker’s information was indeed accurate—though they still had no idea how he possessed such abilities, or where he obtained such intelligence.

So, “Yuan Qing” wouldn’t disappoint him… after all, this vile piece of information was worth ten million.

Ten million.

Hmph.

“Book me a ship ticket to Bohai Prefecture,” Qiu Fa said.

After this period of investigation, they had already confirmed which “Yuan Qing” was the one he had been searching for. The truth he had been chasing for so long—could this woman finally help him pry open a corner of that secret?

…

At the same time, someone else was also in Bohai Prefecture.

Wearing a cap, Tao Ze moved through the night with light, agile steps, closely tailing a man ahead of him. The instant he predicted the man would turn around, Tao Ze had already slipped behind a wall.

The man relaxed and led him all the way to his own front door. Voices drifted from inside. Tao Ze didn’t need to know what they were talking about—he only had to wait until the lights went out and they fell asleep before picking the lock and slipping inside.

He waited about two hours. The lights finally went out. To be safe, he waited another two hours. Only deep into the night did he begin to move.

Twenty years spent hunting a killer and searching for his daughter had honed far more than just his resolve. His surveillance and counter‑surveillance skills were first‑rate, and lock‑picking was second nature. He’d been hauled into the station by Officer Chen countless times because of this—but thanks to that, he’d even figured out how to pick the locks used at the station itself.

The lock opened smoothly. After confirming that no one inside had woken, he switched on his phone’s flashlight and stepped in as quietly as a shadow.

He cautiously opened one door and found the master bedroom, where the man he’d been following lay sleeping beside his wife. He quickly closed it again and went to check the other rooms.

The flashlight suddenly swept over a pale, ghostly child’s face.

Tao Ze froze for a split second.

“You’re looking for me?” the eerie child said. His pitch‑black eyes raked over Tao Ze from head to toe. “Tao Ze—the most critical figure in cracking the Qingniao Prefecture orchard murder case. Less than a month after the case is solved, you show up in another prefecture, break into an ordinary person’s home… to look for me?”

He didn’t look more than twelve, yet neither his gaze nor his words were childlike.

But seeing him kept in an iron cage like a dog, it was hard not to think that being abnormal was only natural.

Once he realized it wasn’t a ghost, Tao Ze finally relaxed. In twenty years, there was little he hadn’t seen. He calmed down immediately and said, “That’s right. I’m here for you. My employer wants you.”

…

Just as the sky was beginning to pale with dawn, the phone on the bedside table started vibrating incessantly. The screen already showed nine missed calls—all from the same number.

An arm stretched out with difficulty. A man’s well‑defined hand reached for the phone.

But for some reason, just as his fingers were about to touch it, the hand suddenly withdrew, as if restrained by something irresistible.

“Huuus‑band~”
A succubus’s voice, sweet, seductive, and dangerous, whispered by his ear. “Who’s so rude, calling at a time like this?”

The phone continued to vibrate for a moment longer before finally falling silent, unanswered.

Fang Bihe stared at her phone in disbelief. Why? Why hadn’t Xiao Cheng answered? He hadn’t called her either, and when she called him, he didn’t pick up! Surely he couldn’t still be in bed with Mei Yanlan at this hour?!

Impossible. Mei Yanlan was utterly unappealing—he’d said himself that even facing her for a second too long was tedious. The phone must have fallen somewhere else. She’d try again later.

But that wait dragged on until noon.

Because it was the weekend, Mei Yanlan—who didn’t have classes—was downstairs humming to herself while making lunch. Their marital home was one of Xiao Cheng’s duplex apartments, not shared with his parents, and without maids or servants.

For Xiao Cheng, this was simply because he couldn’t be bothered to arrange such things. For Mei Yanlan, it was wonderful—such a free, unrestrained space.

At this moment, Xiao Cheng was bracing himself against the wall, the hand holding his phone still trembling slightly. Listening to Fang Bihe’s tearful voice, he felt nothing but pity for her—and at the same time, burning resentment toward Mei Yanlan.

How could a woman like Mei Yanlan even exist? Did she have no sense of shame at all? He shuddered just thinking back on it.

But still… this way, their objective should have been achieved smoothly, right?