Chapter 3
Chapter 3: A Perilous Fall into the River of Oblivion
Song Wei Chen felt the weightless drop in her bones—an endless falling that turned her stomach inside out. Wind screamed past her ears. Her hair whipped her face. Her head spun so hard she nearly blacked out.
Then—
Bang.
She landed in something. Not pain. Not ground.
Something hollow.
A robe.
More precisely, she dropped without injury into a standing shell of white robes—as though she had fallen into an empty skin.
The White Robe stood on a small boat. The boat hovered above the water, and beneath it stretched endless Blackwater. The current churned, yet it made no sound at all.
The robe fit her as if it had been made for her.
Something was in her hand. She lifted it and found herself holding a bone lantern that shone with a pale, tooth-like glow.
The image hit her with a jolt of déjà vu.
Hadn’t she seen this—
“My lord, please… give me three more days in the living world. Just three days!”
A voice sounded behind her.
Song Wei Chen jerked so hard she nearly stumbled. She turned and saw a woman kneeling at the stern, dressed in ancient skirted robes, pleading in grief.
Song Wei Chen looked down at herself. At the boat. At the lantern.
A single thought struck like lightning.
This was the drama.
The one on her iPad.
She went cold.
W-what did that mean? Had she been pulled into the show?
Impossible.
And she was dressed like White Impermanence—
[No. This is still a dream.]
She clung to the thought, desperate for it.
Then she pinched her arm hard.
It hurt. Sharp, real, immediate.
Pain.
Her blood turned to ice.
If it hurt, then—
She took a step back, staring at the kneeling woman like an animal cornered.
“…Who are you?”
The woman froze, confusion creasing her face. “My lord, what do you mean?”
She lifted her head.
It was Chen Liang’s face.
“Sister Liang?!” Song Wei Chen’s breath burst out of her, half relief, half disbelief. She started toward the stern, words spilling as fast as panic. “What is this? I was streaming. The power went out, and then—”
She stopped.
Something was wrong.
Her spine tightened. Every hair on her body rose.
The face was identical, but the presence behind it was not.
This was not Chen Liang.
The thing in that body felt cold and venomous, like a snake coiled in the dark.
Song Wei Chen backed away on instinct.
“My lord,” the woman said softly, “you seem… off.”
Black qi seeped from her sleeves in thin, ribbon-like strands, slithering toward Song Wei Chen like living snakes.
“No, no—sis, you got the wrong person.” Song Wei Chen retreated, palms up. “I’m not any lord. Let’s talk, okay? We can talk.”
Her eyes locked on the black strands. “This isn’t real. This has to be special effects. This has to be a dream.”
Her fear seemed too genuine to fake. The woman paused, eyes narrowing.
“You’re not White Robe?”
“Miss, please believe me.” Song Wei Chen nodded so hard she almost choked. “I fell off the bridge above and just happened to land inside these clothes.”
“I know it sounds insane—insane with a side of insanity—but I swear I’m telling the truth.”
The woman studied her. Then she laughed, unable to hold it back.
“So even White Robe can end up like this.”
Her tone shifted, lazy and satisfied. She smoothed her skirt and sat on the bench at the stern as though taking her rightful place on a throne.
“You’re weird, but you did help me. By rights I should thank you.” Her eyes gleamed. “So—what do you want to know?”
Her gaze said the rest: You helped me by accident. I’ll let you die with answers.
Song Wei Chen swallowed again. “Miss, who are you? You look exactly like my sister. Seeing you makes me want to get close.”
The flattery poured out on instinct, frantic and clumsy.
“You can call me Nian Niang.” The woman leaned back, calm as a judge. “Like every mother in the world, I only want to be with my child. Why are you all targeting me?”
“Ah…” Song Wei Chen nodded, eyes darting between the black qi and the lantern. “Then this—this lord was going to take you where? Dressed like that… is he White Impermanence?”
Nian Niang laughed. “Do you think this is the Underworld?”
“Then where is this?” Song Wei Chen blinked, her face screaming that no sane person would call this the living world.
“This is the Dream Realm.”
The words slammed into Song Wei Chen’s mind.
Her memory snapped back to that tall silhouette in mist. Upright. Broad. A face she couldn’t see.
“The Dream Realm…” she whispered. “So it’s real?”
Nian Niang ignored the question. “I’m not some wandering ghost. I’m just a mother who misses her child. If you want me to stop making trouble, it’s simple. Fulfill my wish.”
Then her eyes sharpened, hard and bright.
“But you people from the Dust Warden Office are all cold-blooded. Once we’re caught, you don’t ask why. You just kill us.”
“I’m a mother who longs for her child. What’s my crime?”
“The ones who should die are you.”
“Miss,” Song Wei Chen said quickly, voice small, “curse them all you want, but don’t drag me into it. I’m not from that office.”
The hatred in those eyes made her stomach twist.
A moment ago she’d been thinking of begging for help getting out. Now that thought died instantly.
“Listen… sis. I think you’re a good person who got wronged.” She forced a shaky smile. “If you can leave, then leave. I know nothing. I saw nothing.”
She tried to shoo the terrifying “grandmother” away with words, the way you shoo a storm cloud.
Nian Niang watched her, amused.
“You say you appearing here was a coincidence.” Her gaze slid over the White Robe. “And yet you wear that robe. I understand what it means to raise a tiger and be bitten.”
Song Wei Chen nearly bit through her tongue. “It was a coincidence! A coincidence so coincidental it has to be true!”
“We’re both women. Back home we say, ‘Girls help girls.’ Women should help each other, not hurt each other.”
“Right, sis?”
For a heartbeat, Nian Niang looked like she might laugh again.
Then her smile vanished. Her face grew colder.
“So you really don’t know how the Dust Warden Office chooses people.”
She rose.
“Fine. Since you met me today, you’re lucky. Compared to the danger and pain you’ll face later…” She tilted her head, as if considering mercy. “Little sister, I’ll be very gentle.”
Song Wei Chen lifted off the boat without warning.
Air.
Nothing under her feet.
She hovered over Blackwater, panic obliterating thought.
The snake-like black qi had already wrapped around her body. It held her like ropes, controlling her limbs. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even scream properly.
Her mind went blank.
“I’m so good to you,” Nian Niang said sweetly, smiling. “I’m letting you die this easily. Remember to thank me when you’re a ghost.”
That smile—
It matched the smile Chen Liang had worn in the livestream when the lights had flashed and she had looked at Song Wei Chen.
“No—!”
There was no time to struggle. No time to beg.
The next second, Song Wei Chen dropped into the black water.
It didn’t matter that she couldn’t swim. Even if she could, it wouldn’t help.
Blackwater was poisonous. It clung to souls, trapped spirits. Once you fell in, you didn’t leave alive.
Darkness swallowed her whole.
She couldn’t breathe—and the darkness itself was suffocating, heavy, alive.
As her consciousness frayed, one last thought rose, ridiculous and desperate:
[Where’s my alarm? Why isn’t my alarm ringing?]
She sank toward the bottom of Blackwater.