# DEATH IS JUST THE BEGINNING
## CHAPTER 10:
Bangkok was hot and loud.
Jiang Yue stepped off the plane into a wall of humidity. The airport buzzed with tourists and travelers, oblivious to the supernatural war brewing in the shadows.
Feng Yichen walked beside her, scanning the crowd.
"Bureau contacts traced Xu Meilin to a hotel in the Sukhumvit district. She's been there for three days."
"Alone?"
"Seems like it. The Circle abandoned her once she became a liability." He handed her a photograph. "Room 1407. Fourteenth floor."
Jiang Yue studied the image of the luxury hotel.
"She has nowhere to run now."
"What's the plan? Karma extraction like the Lins?"
"That depends on what she tells me." Jiang Yue pocketed the photo. "I need to know everything about Wu Zhenyi. His schedule, his security, his weaknesses. Xu Meilin was their agent for fifteen years. She has information we need."
"And after she talks?"
Jiang Yue didn't answer.
---
The hotel was expensive. The kind of place where people paid for privacy and discretion.
Jiang Yue walked through the lobby like she owned it. Confidence was the best disguise. No one questioned a woman who moved with purpose.
The elevator ride to the fourteenth floor felt endless.
She thought about Xu Meilin. The sleepovers they'd had as teenagers. The secrets they'd shared. The tears they'd cried on each other's shoulders.
All fake. Every single moment.
How do you mourn a friendship that never existed?
Room 1407.
She knocked.
Silence.
Then shuffling. A pause. The door cracked open an inch.
Xu Meilin's eye appeared in the gap.
It widened with terror.
"No—"
Jiang Yue kicked the door open.
---
Xu Meilin stumbled backward, crashing into a coffee table.
She looked terrible. Dark circles under her eyes. Hair unwashed and tangled. Clothes wrinkled like she'd been wearing them for days.
The glamorous snake had become a cornered rat.
"Please!" She held up her hands. "Please, Yue Yue, let me explain—"
"Don't call me that." Jiang Yue stepped inside and closed the door. "You lost that right when you helped drown me."
"I didn't want to! They made me! Lin Haoran threatened—"
"Save it."
Jiang Yue grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall. Xu Meilin gasped, clawing at her hand.
"Fifteen years." Jiang Yue's voice was ice. "Fifteen years of lies. Of pretending to be my friend. Of reporting my every secret to the people who murdered my mother."
"Your mother?" Xu Meilin's eyes flickered with confusion. "I don't—"
"The Obsidian Circle. You've been their agent since we were teenagers." Jiang Yue tightened her grip. "They killed my mother. Then they sent you to watch me. And when the time was right, they sent Lin Haoran to finish the job."
Understanding dawned in Xu Meilin's eyes.
"You know about the Circle."
"I know everything." Jiang Yue released her. "And you're going to tell me the rest."
---
Xu Meilin collapsed onto the bed, coughing.
Jiang Yue stood over her, arms crossed.
"Start talking. Wu Zhenyi. What do you know about him?"
"He's the Chairman. The leader of everything." Xu Meilin's voice trembled. "I've never met him personally. Only the inner circle has direct contact."
"What about the Lin family? How did they connect to the Circle?"
"The Lins have served the Circle for generations. They provide money. Influence. And..." She hesitated. "Sacrifices."
"The women they killed."
"Yes. Each death fed the Devourer. Weakened the seal." Xu Meilin looked up with haunted eyes. "I didn't know at first. They recruited me when I was sixteen. Said I was special. Said I'd be part of something important."
"You helped murder Zhao Lianhua. You helped murder me."
"I didn't have a choice! They said if I refused, they'd kill my family!" Tears streamed down her face. "I'm not a monster, Yue Yue. I was just trying to survive."
"Don't lie to me." Jiang Yue's voice hardened. "I saw the recording. I heard you laughing while you lured Zhao Lianhua to her death. That wasn't fear. That was enjoyment."
Xu Meilin flinched.
"You liked it," Jiang Yue continued. "You liked having power over people. You liked watching them suffer. The Circle didn't make you a monster. They just gave you permission to be one."
Silence fell.
Xu Meilin's fake tears dried up. Something colder replaced them.
"Fine." Her voice changed. Harder. More honest. "You want the truth? Here it is. I hated you from the moment we met."
---
The transformation was startling.
The scared, crying victim disappeared. In her place sat someone else entirely. Someone with dead eyes and a cruel smile.
"You had everything." Xu Meilin's voice dripped with venom. "Money. Family. A future. I had nothing. A drunk father who beat me. A mother who left when I was five. No way out of the poverty I was born into."
"So you sold your soul to a death cult."
"I did what I had to do." She stood slowly. "The Circle offered me power. Wealth. Revenge against people like you who were born with silver spoons in their mouths."
"I was your friend. I cared about you."
"You were my assignment." Xu Meilin laughed. "Every kind word, every gesture of friendship—it was all an act. And you fell for it completely. Just like your mother fell for the friend who poisoned her."
Jiang Yue went still.
"What did you say?"
"Your mother's killer. It was her best friend too." Xu Meilin's smile widened. "History repeating itself. The Jiang women are so trusting. So pathetically naive."
Rage boiled in Jiang Yue's chest. Her hands shook with the desire to wrap around Xu Meilin's throat and squeeze until she stopped breathing.
But she needed information first.
"Who killed my mother? Give me a name."
"Why should I? You're going to kill me anyway."
"Because there are worse things than death." Jiang Yue stepped closer. "I destroyed Lin Haoran's mind. Made him experience every moment of suffering he ever caused. He's alive, but his consciousness is trapped in an endless loop of his victims' pain."
Fear flickered in Xu Meilin's eyes.
"I can do the same to you. Or I can make it quick." Jiang Yue's voice dropped. "Give me the name."
---
Xu Meilin was silent for a long moment.
Then she laughed. A broken, hysterical sound.
"You think you're so strong. So righteous. But you don't know anything." She placed a hand on her stomach. "Kill me if you want. But you'll be killing more than just me."
Jiang Yue froze.
She looked at Xu Meilin's hand. At the slight curve of her belly that she hadn't noticed before.
"You're pregnant."
"Three months." Xu Meilin's smile turned triumphant. "Lin Haoran's child. The last heir of the Lin bloodline. Are you really going to murder an unborn baby, Jiang Yue? Is that the kind of person you've become?"
The world tilted.
Jiang Yue stared at her former friend's stomach. At the innocent life growing inside the woman who had helped kill her.
Lin Haoran's child.
The offspring of the man who drowned her.
But also a baby. A human being who had done nothing wrong.
"You planned this." Jiang Yue's voice was hollow. "You got pregnant deliberately. As insurance."
"I'm a survivor. Unlike you, I think ahead." Xu Meilin sat back down. "So here's my offer. Let me go. Let me disappear with my child. And I'll tell you everything you want to know about the Circle."
"Why would I trust anything you say?"
"Because I'm done with them." For once, Xu Meilin sounded genuine. "The Circle abandoned me the moment things went wrong. Fifteen years of loyal service, and they threw me away like garbage. I owe them nothing."
Jiang Yue's mind raced.
Every instinct screamed that this was a trap. That Xu Meilin would say anything to survive. That she couldn't be trusted.
But the child complicated everything.
Could she really kill an innocent baby to punish its mother?
Could she live with that?
---
"Talk first," Jiang Yue said finally. "If your information is valuable, I'll consider your offer."
Xu Meilin nodded slowly.
"Wu Zhenyi isn't just the Circle's leader. He's the Devourer's chosen vessel." She paused. "When the seal breaks completely, the Devourer will need a physical form to manifest. Wu Zhenyi has spent decades preparing his body for that purpose."
"He wants to become the Devourer?"
"He wants to merge with it. Become a god." Xu Meilin shuddered. "I saw the rituals once. What they do to prepare vessels. It's... inhuman."
"When is this supposed to happen?"
"The next lunar eclipse. Three weeks from now. The seal will be weakest then. If Wu Zhenyi completes the ritual, the Devourer will wake permanently."
Three weeks. They had three weeks to stop an apocalypse.
"Where will the ritual take place?"
"The Circle's main temple. It's hidden beneath Wu Zhenyi's estate outside Shanghai." Xu Meilin described the layout. Security measures. Entry points. "But you'll never get close enough. He has an army protecting him."
"Let me worry about that. What about my mother's killer?"
Xu Meilin hesitated.
"The woman who poisoned Jiang Mei was named Su Lianfang. She died ten years ago."
"Dead?"
"The Circle disposed of her after she became a liability. Loose ends and all that." Xu Meilin's voice turned bitter. "That's what they do. Use you until you're no longer useful, then throw you away."
Su Lianfang. Her mother's murderer was already dead.
Jiang Yue felt cheated. She had wanted to avenge her mother personally. Wanted to make the killer suffer like her mother had suffered.
But that satisfaction was denied to her.
"What about my father?" She had to ask. "Does the Circle have plans for him?"
"They've been monitoring him for years. But he's not a priority." Xu Meilin shrugged. "He doesn't know anything useful. They planned to eliminate him after your death, but now that their cover is blown..."
"They might accelerate their timeline."
"Probably."
---
Jiang Yue pulled out her phone and called Feng Yichen.
"Get Bureau protection for my father immediately. The Circle might target him."
"Already done. I sent agents this morning." Feng Yichen's voice was reassuring. "What about Xu Meilin?"
She looked at the woman sitting on the bed. Hand on her stomach. Eyes watching warily.
"I'm still deciding."
She hung up.
"The information you gave me checks out," Jiang Yue said. "Wu Zhenyi's estate. The lunar eclipse. The vessel ritual."
"Then we have a deal?"
"I have one more question." Jiang Yue knelt before her, meeting her eyes. "That night on the bridge. When Lin Haoran pushed me into the water. Why did you wave?"
Xu Meilin blinked. "What?"
"You waved goodbye. You watched me drown, and you waved like we were at a party." Jiang Yue's voice cracked. "I need to know why."
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, Xu Meilin answered.
"Because I wanted you to know." Her voice was quiet. "I wanted the last thing you saw to be me. To know that your best friend was never real. That everything you believed was a lie."
"Why? What did I ever do to you?"
"You existed." Xu Meilin's eyes glistened. "You existed, and I didn't. Not really. I was just a shadow. A tool. A performance. You got to be real while I pretended."
"That's not my fault."
"No. It's not." Xu Meilin looked away. "But hating you was easier than hating myself."
---
Jiang Yue stood slowly.
She had every right to kill this woman. Every justification. Xu Meilin had helped murder her. Had betrayed her for fifteen years. Had served a cult dedicated to destroying the world.
But the child...
"I'm going to let you go."
Xu Meilin's head snapped up. "What?"
"Not for your sake. For your baby's." Jiang Yue's voice hardened. "But there are conditions. You disappear completely. New identity. New country. Never contact me, the Circle, or anyone from your old life."
"Done."
"If I ever see you again—if you ever threaten me or the people I care about—I will kill you. Pregnant or not. Understand?"
"I understand."
"And the child..." Jiang Yue paused. "They deserve a chance. A chance to be better than their parents. Don't raise them in hatred."
Something flickered in Xu Meilin's eyes. Surprise? Gratitude?
"I... I'll try."
Jiang Yue walked to the door.
"The Bureau will provide you with a new identity and relocation assistance. Feng Yichen will contact you with details. After that, you're on your own."
She opened the door.
"Jiang Yue."
She paused.
"I'm sorry." Xu Meilin's voice was barely a whisper. "For what it's worth. I'm sorry."
Jiang Yue didn't turn around.
"No, you're not. But maybe someday you will be."
She walked out and closed the door behind her.
---
Feng Yichen was waiting in the lobby.
"Did you get what you needed?"
"Yes. Wu Zhenyi. Three weeks. Lunar eclipse." Jiang Yue walked past him toward the exit. "We need to move fast."
"And Xu Meilin?"
"Alive. Relocate her somewhere far away. New identity. Complete disappearance." She pushed through the hotel doors. "She's pregnant."
Feng Yichen stopped walking.
"She's what?"
"Lin Haoran's child. Three months along." Jiang Yue turned to face him. "I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill a baby, no matter how much I hate its mother."
"That's not weakness. That's humanity."
"Is it?" She shook her head. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm losing myself in all this. If the revenge is turning me into something I don't recognize."
Feng Yichen took her hand.
"The fact that you're asking that question means you haven't lost yourself yet." He squeezed gently. "You're still Jiang Yue. Still human. Still capable of mercy."
She looked at him—really looked at him.
In all of this chaos and darkness, he had been her anchor. Her light.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For being here."
"Always."
They walked into the Bangkok night together.
Three weeks until the lunar eclipse.
Three weeks to stop Wu Zhenyi.
Three weeks to save the world.
No pressure.
END OF CHAPTER 10
Next Chapter Preview:
Jiang Yue returns to China to prepare for the assault on Wu Zhenyi's estate. The Veil Keepers agree to join forces with the Bureau, forming an alliance against the Obsidian Circle. But Wu Zhenyi is always one step ahead. When he kidnaps Jiang Yue's father as leverage, she's forced to make a terrible choice: surrender herself to the Circle, or watch her only remaining family die.