Ghost Exorciser: Is Loved By All-Chapter 815: What Was Mirai Hiding?

Yu Holea narrowed her eyes, suspicious. "Why are you suddenly so afraid of the ring being destroyed?" she asked slowly.

Mirai’s soul form shook harder. "Because it’s... It’s my anchor! If you crush it, I’ll lose the last part of myself! I’ll vanish!"

There was silence.

Even Qiao Jun looked unsure now. He held the ring carefully in his palm, watching it glow faintly.

"Holea," he said softly. "She might be telling the truth. If the ring really does hold a piece of her soul... destroying it could erase her completely. Even I can’t pull a soul back from that."

Holea said nothing for a long moment.

Her eyes flicked between the ring... and the trapped, squirming soul in the vial.

Mirai, seeing their hesitation, doubled down.

"Please! I’m begging you!" she cried. "Don’t crush it! Don’t give it to anyone else! Just... just keep it safe! I’ll tell you everything later! I swear!"

Qiao Jun looked at Holea, waiting for her decision.

"Well then... let’s crush it." Yu Holea’s calm voice echoed in the silent room. Mirai’s expression morphed into one of disbelief and anger.

"You can’t! Just don’t crush it for the sake that I was once your sister! Please! Holea, I know that I have hurt you a lot, but everyone deserves a second chance!"

Seeing her so desperate, Qiao Jun chuckled, and suddenly, even Yu Holea chuckled.

At first Mirai thought that they were mocking her, and was going to crush the ring, but then she heard Yu Holea’s words, which were laced with mirth,

"Did she truly think we would fall for her plan?"

"I don’t know." Qiao Jun chuckled as the laughter died down and he looked at Mirai with an amused smile, "Mirai, you are truly one of a kind. If you had acted a bit more or laid a background story instead of saying that your soul fragment was inside the ring, we might have believed you."

’Did they know?’ That was the first thought that came to Mirai’s mind. Was she failing... or did Qiao Jun’s words hold a different meaning? She hoped for the latter part.

Sure enough, the next second, she heard Qiao Jun say,

"Maybe this is some kind of communication device, which can tell your location to your mother?"

Mirai’s expression turned complicated as she stared at Qiao Jun and muttered in her heart in a dark tone,

"Why... why... why did you appear in this life..."

Qiao Jun didn’t know what Mirai was thinking in her heart. Though he had mind-reading ability and could wield it even in his soul form, he couldn’t read a soul’s thoughts.

Mirai bit her lips and turned silent before saying calmly,

"Yes, you are right. So don’t break it."

Her attitude baffled Qiao Jun. He kept on feeling that Mirai was using reverse psychology on them. She wants them to break the ring. However, her current statement truly made him a bit baffled.

What was Mirai thinking?

Yu Holea rotated the ring in her hand and suddenly said,

"Mirai... is Ou Xiaoxiao’s soul in the ring."

In an instant, Mirai’s face turned ghastly pale before she nodded,

"Yes, so please don’t break it..."

Yu Holea chuckled,

"Mirai, do you think I will fall for your act? You want us to break the ring, but now you are acting like you don’t want to, and even when I told the truth, you are agreeing to it quickly, so I think you are lying. Smart."

Qiao Jun suddenly looked serious.

He held the ring closer to his eyes and whispered something in an ancient language.

A small blue light floated above the gem for a second, then vanished.

"It’s enchanted," he said slowly.

"Old magic. Not just a soul anchor... There is something sealed inside. Something layered, hidden deep. I can’t tell what it is yet."

"So Ou Xiaoxiao is indeed inside." Yu Holea said with certainty, and Mirai glared at her.

’Damn it! How did Yu Holea guess it? I made sure to keep my mouth shut and didn’t even let anything slip off!’

Mirai gritted her teeth. Her tiny glowing soul flickered angrily as she glared at Yu Holea.

"You’re just guessing!" she shouted. "You don’t know anything!"

Yu Holea raised an eyebrow, calm as ever. "But your face says it all."

Mirai looked away quickly, trying to hide her panic. But it was too late. Qiao Jun had already caught on, too.

"She is in there," he said, voice low. "Ou Xiaoxiao... she’s trapped inside the ring."

Mirai stayed silent, but her shoulders dropped. She knew she was caught.

Yu Holea’s fingers tightened around the ring, and her eyes got cold. "So that’s why you were begging. Not for yourself...but because you wanted me to crush Ou Xiaoxiao’s soul with my own hand, am I right, Mirai?"

At this point, Mirai didn’t want to talk with Yu Holea anymore and decided to stay silent. However, Yu Holea wasn’t in the mood to let her off and hence said,

"Fine, don’t say anything. I will unbind the seal."

With that, Yu Holea closed her eyes and channeled her mystic energy to the ring.

..................

Ou Xiaoxiao stared at the endless darkness with a distant gaze. She didn’t know how much time had passed. She only knew one thing.

She would never be able to leave this dark place.

The last thing she remembered was drowning in the river, and when she opened her eyes, she was trapped in this dark place.

She guessed that maybe she had fallen into a coma, and hence she couldn’t listen or hear anything.

As time passed, Ou Xiaoxiao spent her time singing or memorizing the ’abc’ and Chinese words she had learnt. She was afraid that she would forget everything.

Her worries came true when, one unknown day, she suddenly forgot how to write her own name.

It happened so suddenly. She tried to trace it in the dark, using her fingers like a pencil, the way she used to do when she was little.

But the strokes were wrong. The lines didn’t look right. It didn’t feel like her name.

She panicked.

"No, no... it was an ’X’... or was it a hook? No! It started with... O... right? Or was it Y...?"

Her voice echoed back at her in the emptiness. There was no wall, no ground, no sky. Just a black void that stretched on forever. Not cold. Not warm. Just... empty.

Her throat tightened as a lump of fear rose in her chest.

"Who am I...?" she whispered, hugging her knees close. "Who... was I?"

Her mind, once sharp, felt slow now. Heavy. Like her memories were sinking deeper and deeper into the dark, being eaten by it.

She remembered the river, how cold it was, how her lungs burned when she tried to scream.

The water had wrapped around her like chains. And after that... nothing.

She had screamed for help, again and again. But no one ever came.

Time meant nothing here. She didn’t sleep. She didn’t eat. She just was. Floating in silence.

Sometimes, she thought she heard voices. Tiny whispers, like someone calling her name far, far away.

But the moment she focused, they vanished.

"I don’t want to forget," she said softly, voice cracking. "I don’t want to disappear..."

She tried singing again. The same lullaby her mom once sang to her before bed.

"Sleep, little star... shining near and far..."

But even the words felt wrong now. She forgot the rest of the lyrics halfway through.

A sob tore from her throat.

"Someone... anyone... please remember me..." fгeewёbnoѵel_cσm

Her tiny voice faded into the void.

Years passed. Maybe a 50-year. That was Ou Xiaoxiao’s estimation. After all, she had nothing here. Not even a clock.

And by now, she had given up on the hope that she would ever be able to wake up in the real world.

Maybe she was destined to live in darkness. That was her fate, and she should accept it.

She simply existed in the black space.

And then... for the first time in what felt like forever... she felt warmth.

Just a flicker.

A breeze?

A tiny thread of light far, far away... like a pinprick in the endless black sky.

Her heart skipped. "Is... someone there...?"

She crawled toward it. Reaching. Hoping. Her hands trembled as the light grew just a little stronger.

The light pulsed again, faint, but steady this time like a heartbeat.

Ou Xiaoxiao’s breath caught in her throat. She blinked rapidly, as if trying to clear invisible dust from her eyes.

It was real. She wasn’t imagining it. Not like the other times.

She dragged herself forward, each movement feeling like swimming through molasses. Her limbs trembled, weak from years of stillness.

As she reached toward the glimmering thread, the void trembled... like a ripple in dark water. A sudden warmth wrapped around her, not from the light itself, but from outside. From far, far away.

Then she heard it.

A voice.

Soft, steady, familiar.

"Ou Xiaoxiao?"

The source of this c𝓸ntent is fr𝒆e(w)𝒆bnovel