Floating in the air, Lin Yuhui reflected on her emotional patterns. Should she stop projecting her own emotional needs onto others? If she hadn't made her feelings clear, it was time to let go, move on with her life, and no longer be held back by anyone.
Yet as time passed, a more urgent sensation took hold: her body felt increasingly weightless, as if it were dissolving and dispersing into the vast expanse of space. This brought heightened perception, but the fragments of sensation had lost their temporal order. She could no longer discern the cause-and-effect of events or their impact on reality.
Though winter had arrived, the morning sun remained intensely scorching at these low latitudes. Lin Yuhui felt his tolerance for its heat had diminished compared to before. He searched the forest, then flew into it. The dense canopy blocked the sunlight, and the space beneath the shade felt refreshingly cooler.
While aimlessly wandering through the woods, he was drawn by a commotion beyond the trees on the other side. Though he'd never been one for crowds, now that he'd lost his purpose in life, boredom had set in. He found himself killing time by watching others' affairs.
“Reverend Father, dear family and friends, distinguished guests, good afternoon. Today, with profound sorrow, I join you in bidding farewell to the love of my life—my husband, Theodore Jaden.”
The speaker was a woman dressed in black. This was a funeral; her husband had passed away. Had he been alive, Lin Yuhui would never have lingered here—bad luck. Had he been alive, he wouldn’t have wasted time watching this spectacle either—it wasn’t worth it. But now, as if transformed into a different person, he found himself observing with genuine interest.
Another reason he found the funeral intriguing was that his senses seemed to connect with those present, allowing him glimpses into their perspectives and thoughts—unbound by time. Among the attendees were the deceased’s relatives and friends, colleagues, and business associates.
Lin Yuhui could sense each person’s feelings toward the departed, along with fragments of their interactions during life. After drifting through the crowd, his focus returned to the speaker:
"... Before bed, you'd tell your children stories from the Bible, instructing them, ‘Be kind and responsible people. The Lord blesses those with good intentions...’
She wasn't old, and her children were young—a girl around kindergarten age and a younger boy. Standing beside her, they seemed uneasy, perhaps not fully grasping what had happened. They stared blankly at the crowd, clutching their mother's skirt tightly.
“...You left us, like a seed returning to the earth, but I know this is not the end. As the Bible says, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ You have merely shed the weariness of this world...”
The woman continued her eulogy, but Lin Yuhui was also curious about how her husband had passed away. He couldn't see the scene—the man lay in the coffin, and he couldn't access the deceased's consciousness. So he chose to drift among the mourners again, glimpsing firsthand information from his colleague's memories: the man had died of illness, seemingly a heart issue, collapsing suddenly.
Did he have a congenital heart defect? Lin Yuhui wondered. As he drifted among the mourners, he sensed faint traces of schadenfreude and mockery.
Teleporting beside the source, he tapped into the man's memories. Not a colleague of the deceased—they didn't share the same office building. His social connections were complex. Lin Yuhui observed in his past experiences that he had interacted with many people, all kinds of people.
"...Lord, we pray that You grant them and all who rest in Christ's embrace entrance into the heavenly homeland of eternal bliss, light, and peace. May holy water wash away the sins of the departed, allowing their souls to rest in the Lord's embrace, awaiting the day of resurrection. May all souls of the faithful, through God's mercy, find rest and peace."
When he pulled his attention back from the crowd, the priest had finished the prayer, and the coffin had been lowered into the grave. Yet the woman's grief over her husband seemed to have captured his focus. Before he knew it, he had followed her back to her residence. His nature, it seemed, remained fixated on women even in death.
This was an affluent neighborhood, perched on a small hill southeast of Las Vegas where many mansions stood. Yet her home wasn't built on the barren mountaintop, which felt lifeless. Instead, the villa was situated lower down, where the vegetation was lush. Trees encircled the courtyard, The main and secondary buildings formed a connected whole. Before the connecting corridor lay a swimming pool, flanked by lounge chairs. A swim, a sunbathing session on the chairs, followed by ice cream or a fruit cocktail—and if a beauty were by his side, who cared if she was the one he loved? He had money to burn, after all. He wanted her body, plain and simple. If she wasn't compliant, he'd just find another. Ha ha ha, Not even a divine emperor could rival this. Lost in such fantasies, Lin Yuhui couldn't help but feel pity for the deceased—how tragic that such a lavish life went unlived.
Following her retreat into the room, one could faintly sense the emptiness and sorrow within her heart. The spacious room, once shared by another, now felt half-empty, doubling the void.
Was it this very luxury that claimed his life? Lin Yuhui wasn't foolish. He understood that everything came at a price—how many would break their necks, resorting to any means, just to live here? So, the divine emperor's life he'd imagined moments ago? What price would it demand? Like the unfortunate soul who'd just met his end.
Having followed these people here by chance—after all, this wasn't his home—Lin Yuhui wanted to leave and explore elsewhere. But as soon as he stepped into the courtyard, the blazing sun beat down unbearably, driving him back indoors. Then he recalled the traditional Chinese ghost movies he'd seen in the past. A sudden worry crept in: had he drifted too long after death? Was his soul about to scatter into nothingness? Now he was already afraid of the sun. He figured he'd just have to stay indoors for now and slowly think of other solutions.
Fortunately, this family was wealthy enough. With so many rooms in the villa, he could wander around here for an entire afternoon. Leaving the lady's room, he walked along the corridor, its walls adorned with decorative paintings.
The first was an impressionistic oil painting: the brilliant Mediterranean sun illuminated the roofs and walls of seaside buildings, along with stone paths dotted with flowers and plants. No one walked there; only the deep blue of the distant sea remained. Yet the colors seemed like something Lin Yuhui could only imagine now.
The next painting seemed to defy appreciation through color alone. Between the lines and blocks of pigment, it was impossible to discern any recognizable subject—a Picasso-esque abstraction. Just as he was deeply immersed in contemplating the painting's essence, faint sobs drifted from the distance.
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