Fang Xiu stared at the photo, his frown deepening with every passing second.
'Why’s it my face? Could I be Zhou Qingfeng? Is that why the Specter Pawnshop said Zhou Qingfeng’s in the Land Between—because it’s me? No, hold on. That doesn’t add up. I’ve seen Zhou Qingfeng’s corpse before. That body… its face…'
He stopped cold. A shiver ran through him as he realized he couldn’t picture Zhou Qingfeng’s corpse.
The face—it was gone, like his memory had wiped it clean. He dug back to the photo he’d seen at Green Mountain Hospital. Same thing: a blank spot where a face should be.
He pushed harder, willing the memory to come into focus. Bit by bit, the fog cleared, and a face took shape—his own.
Fang Xiu’s frown tightened. 'Is this some Specter mind game, or has Zhou Qingfeng been me all along?'
Right then, a rush of ideas crashed over him.
'Zhou Qingfeng’s letter, the Pokers, the Genesis Mask, Human Specterization, the Specter Train, the Land Between… What if I set all this up way back when? Maybe I am Zhou Qingfeng. Maybe the fight against the Other Side went south, I died, and then came back. All these steps—supposedly guiding fate—were they really just for me?'
Caught up in his head, he almost didn’t catch it—a quick flicker. 'Did the black-and-white photo of himself just smile, or am I seeing things?'
Before he could figure it out, everything spun. His vision blacked out.
When he came around, he was flat on his back in a tight, dark space. He tried to sit up—his head bumped a solid “ceiling” right away.
Fang Xiu put it together quick. 'A coffin?'
Had he ended up in the one from the hall somehow?
He pushed on the lid. With a little effort—crack—it split open. A thin gap formed, and dirt came rushing in, spilling all over him.
'Buried alive?' His brow creased again. Then he shoved harder, putting some real muscle into it.
BOOM!
The coffin lid burst off, dirt flying everywhere. Fang Xiu sat up slow, brushing off soil as he took a look around.
He was in a graveyard—the Grave Yard. Endless rows of mounds stretched out under a bright, sunny sky. It clicked right away: the Specter Train’s fourth stop. The setup was almost a dead ringer.
But something felt wrong. No Grey Fog clogging the air—just clear, happy sunlight.
'Did I… get out of the Land Between? Is the coffin a way out? Did it yank me from there and drop me here at the Grave Yard by some strange pull?'
It started to make sense. The Grave Yard’s sea of tombs—maybe they’d all been sent over from the Land Between. That could explain how Zhou Qingfeng’s body wound up here. Shipped out.
'But… was that all there was to it?' Fang Xiu wondered. 'Why no Grey Fog? And if I've really left the Land Between, why isn’t my Spiritual Energy back online?'
Before he could sort it out, BANG, BANG, BANG!—more coffin lids started popping open nearby.
One after another, Yang Ming, Lu Ziming, and the rest clawed their way up from the dirt.
“Pfft, pfft!” Yang Ming spat, wiping mud off his face. “Man, what a rotten break. First, I see my own freaking obituary photo, then bam—I’m stuck in a coffin. What’s next?!”
'Obituary photo?' Fang Xiu’s brain locked in. Did everyone see themselves in that picture?
“Yang Ming,” he said, keeping his tone even, “that black-and-white photo back in the Zhous’ Mansion hall—who’d you see in it?”
Yang Ming huffed, still fuming. “I saw myself in that photo, Xiu. Can you believe the nerve of that Specter? Jinxing me to kick the bucket early—what a jerk!”
Before he could rant further, Xiao Chuxia piped up, her voice tinged with disbelief. “Wait, you saw yourself? But I saw me in the photo.”
“Same here,” Xiong Tianguang chimed in. “It was my face staring back at me.”
Fang Xiu’s mind clicked into place. He’d been wrong—he wasn’t Zhou Qingfeng. The black-and-white photo wasn’t some cosmic clue about his identity; it was a trick, reflecting whoever looked at it.
But hold on.
Something gnawed at him. If the photo just mirrored the viewer, why did his memories of Zhou Qingfeng—both the corpse and the hospital picture—morph into his own face?
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something. Near each person’s coffin stood a tombstone—some toppled over, others still upright. And every single one bore the name of the person who’d just crawled out.
It hit him like a brick. This was just like the Grave Yard from the Specter Train’s fourth stop.
Back then, the same rule applied: get buried alive, and a tombstone with your name pops up. That’s how he’d learned Xiao Chuxia’s real name after she got swallowed by the dirt—used it to get the upper hand on her.
Which brought him to himself.
Back in the Grave Yard, he’d been the last to die. He’d seen everyone else’s true names carved in stone—everyone except his own.
Fang Xiu whipped around to his own grave. The white stone slab marking it had flipped over when he’d busted out, half-buried in mud. He crouched down, brushing the dirt aside with a steady hand.
The words etched into it stared back at him: Tomb of Zhou Qingfeng.
Zhou Qingfeng?!
His brow knitted tight. My real name’s Zhou Qingfeng? So… I am him?
Had the photos of Zhou Qingfeng, the corpse—all of it—been fakes? Stand-ins? Some elaborate setup by his past self?
But something felt off. Way off.
Then it clicked: the ideals didn’t match.
His whole deal was wiping out every Specter on the planet. Zhou Qingfeng? That guy wanted to turn all of humanity into Specters. Those weren’t just different playbooks—they were flat-out opposites.
If he really was Zhou Qingfeng reborn, how the hell could he go from that to this? What kind of reboot flips your entire core like that?