Chapter 65 - CHAPTER 65:Shinigami Meets a Ghost?

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At the entrance of a grand dance hall adorned with elegant signage and a hint of faded glamour, a young man wearing a captain's haori loitered beside the door, craning his head this way and that, his gaze darting around with growing suspicion as he tried to peek inside unnoticed.

"Where is everyone hiding? Why is this place completely deserted? Where in the world did all the women and sisters vanish to?" Su Li muttered under his breath, his brows knotting with evident confusion as he tilted his head. "Surely, by this hour, someone ought to be working already, right?"

His bewilderment radiated authenticity, not the slightest bit of exaggeration in his tone or posture. He had trekked all the way to this particular venue, spurred solely by the hope of witnessing an actual geisha performance live and unfiltered—yet, instead of music and movement, he had been greeted by utter stillness and a haunting emptiness. The disappointment clung to him like an unwelcome fog, refusing to lift.

Since his descent into the Human World, Su Li had quite thoroughly abandoned his responsibilities in favor of self-indulgent diversions, and now, having wandered here early in the day with the absurd expectation of catching a cabaret act before noon, he found himself sulking like a child denied a toy.

He squatted there at the entrance for an embarrassingly long time, the morning dragging on in slow, sun-bleached monotony until, at last, shortly after noon, the silence fractured under the groan of the front door's hinges. A half-conscious security guard shuffled forward, clearly hungover, with disheveled hair, red-rimmed eyes, and a gait that screamed regret.

Su Li brightened instantly, his disappointment vanishing like mist beneath sunlight. With exaggerated poise, he straightened his robes, adjusted his posture, ran a confident hand through his perfectly arranged hair, and sauntered through the threshold with the kind of theatrical flair that would make any stage actor envious.

Existing in a soul state came with conveniences—chief among them the fact that humans didn't notice him at all, their eyes sliding past his presence like wind through tall grass. Su Li moved with an air of delighted weightlessness, soaking in the surreal freedom of this moment with childlike glee.

To finally witness a real geisha performance wasn't merely a passing whim—it was the fulfillment of a long-deferred dream. In his previous life, crushed beneath the grind of modern existence and smothered by inescapable deadlines, he had never once been able to indulge in such refined pleasures. Now, reborn in a world where spiritual rules outweighed physical ones, and no mundane law could restrain him, Su Li had resolved that no cherished ambition would go unrealized.

With flamboyant sway and rhythmic steps, he ventured deeper into the dimly lit venue, where echoes hung in the air like perfume. Then, suddenly, his ears caught the faint lilt of song.

A gleam flickered in his eyes, and with renewed vigor, he quickened his stride in the direction of the melody's source, like a sailor chasing the siren's call across dark waters.

"Punctuality has its rewards," he murmured, half-grinning to himself. "Looks like I stumbled upon a rehearsal. What exquisite luck."

The voice he heard at first drifted softly, as though carried on a breeze from some distant room. It was delicate, ethereal—almost lullaby-like in tone—and as he advanced, the song gradually grew in strength and clarity.

What caught him by surprise, however, was the nature of the voice itself. Contrary to his expectation of a smoky, sultry timbre befitting a seasoned geisha, the voice instead sounded unmistakably young—light, melodic, and far too innocent to belong to a woman of the stage.

Tilting his head with curiosity, Su Li chuckled and muttered, "So, not a mature lady after all? A young girl rehearsing at this age? Now that's rare, and quite impressive."

Rather than deter him, the discovery intrigued him further. Whether the voice belonged to a child or an adult, it mattered little—art was art, and if there was something to enjoy, Su Li had no complaints.

The sound led him toward a broad, heavy-set door that presumably opened into the performance hall proper. Yet when he reached for it, he found the door locked tight, the handle unmoving beneath his hand.

"What kind of rehearsal demands this much secrecy?" he murmured, cocking an eyebrow. "They even locked the door—how dramatic."

With a proud lift of his chin, Su Li reminded himself that such barriers were meaningless to someone like him. Reinforced doors, wood or steel, even spiritual seals—none of it held weight in the face of a Shinigami's spiritual intangibility.

Without hesitation or fanfare, he passed cleanly through the thick metal like a specter slipping through a dream, emerging in complete silence on the other side, greeted by shadowed stillness.

Inside, the performance hall lay cloaked in dimness, the lighting low and strangely diffused, casting long, unsettling shadows across the aged wooden floors. The space was unmistakably meant for performances, yet something about the air felt off—dense with quiet tension, as though it held its breath.

Instead of being alarmed, Su Li's grin widened with delight. "This kind of eerie vibe… strange, suspenseful… now this is my kind of ambiance," he said, almost laughing as he advanced further into the gloom.

The song, faint and haunting, continued without interruption. The longer he listened, the more convinced he became that the voice belonged to a child—pure, a little untrained, yet uncannily sorrowful. There was something in it that chilled him in the most curious way.

But although the voice felt almost close enough to touch, he could find no singer, no figure on stage or behind the curtain—just empty air.

"This is ridiculous," Su Li muttered, irritation starting to creep in. "It sounds like it's right beside me. Where the hell is she hiding?"

Determined to solve the mystery, he scoured the room once again, this time examining every inch more thoroughly. However, so focused was he on the elusive voice that he failed to register the brittle talismans tacked to the walls—yellowed seals, long forgotten, used by human exorcists to bind malevolent spirits.

Elsewhere in the same building, in a side lobby not far from the performance space, a group of security guards had gathered in a tight huddle, their voices hushed and their eyes flickering nervously toward the corridor leading to the old performance hall.

"Hey… do you feel that shift in the air?" one whispered, lips barely moving. "It's started again."

"My skin's crawling," another murmured as he rubbed his arms. "I'd have quit long ago if the paycheck wasn't this damn good."

"What in the world are you all talking about, Tony?" a new recruit asked, frowning.

"You haven't been here long enough to know," Tony replied grimly. "This place? It's haunted. No question about it."

"AHH?! You're kidding, right? Don't joke like that. I'm working night shift tonight!"

"This isn't a prank," Tony replied darkly. "Three guards quit just last month after hearing the same thing. None of them came back to collect their pay."

"I'm done. No more. I don't care how much this job pays—this isn't worth my soul. I quit. I QUIT!!"

Their chatter died instantly as all eyes turned to the reinforced door—the one Su Li had passed through not long ago.

Nearby, an incense burner began trembling ever so slightly, its ash shifting despite the complete absence of wind.

Back in the hall, Su Li's patience had all but evaporated. He had examined every possible hiding place: the stage, the seats, the lighting rig, even the upper beams, but the voice had neither ceased nor revealed its source. It was disembodied, yet uncomfortably close—taunting him with its elusiveness.

Shutting his eyes tightly, he inhaled through his nose, pushing away all lingering distractions as he focused entirely on the sound's origin. Gradually, with calculated calm, he isolated the vibration of the voice and determined that it was emanating from the farthest row of seats in the rear.

Without wasting another second, he strode there purposefully, scanning each row as he went. Yet once again, he saw nothing. No person. No child. Just stillness.

With a sigh, he lowered himself into a seat and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The voice hadn't changed direction; it continued to echo from beneath him.

His gaze dropped to the chair's underside.

"She can't possibly be… under the seat, right?" he muttered, crouching to investigate.

From the darkness below, a pale face emerged. Skin drained of color, eyes hollow and unblinking, hair knotted and greasy, fingers so filthy they scraped wood with audible grit—the apparition stared directly into his soul.

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF—?!"

With a startled yell, Su Li rocketed into the air, twisting in place as though launched by fireworks, his limbs flailing in reflexive panic.

The haunting song came to an abrupt halt.

A scream—piercing and spectral—ripped through the hall like the shriek of tortured wind, loud enough to freeze bone.

Outside, the security guards broke ranks, erupting into full-blown chaos.

"That's it—I'm gone! No job is worth this horror!!"

"I don't care about severance! Just let me live!!"

"Call someone—an ambulance, a monk, a priest—I think I'm dying here!!"

"..." (By now, one of the guards had collapsed flat out, unconscious on the floor.)

Back inside, Su Li had instinctively clung to the high ceiling beam, body coiled in terror, fists jabbing at shadows, his mouth spilling out garbled threats he himself didn't understand.

A moment passed, then another.

Finally, one eye fluttered open, peeking down cautiously.

"Wait… I'm a Shinigami."

The absurdity of his terror hit him like a falling brick. A Soul Reaper—frightened by a ghost? The shame scorched his insides. This wasn't just personal disgrace—it was a blow to the entire Soul Society.

With a grunt of effort and a furious scowl, Su Li shoved his fear aside, steeled his heart, and dropped from the ceiling like an avenging spirit.

"COME OUT!!" he bellowed, landing with dramatic flair. His expression brimmed with rage, but anyone observant would see it for what it truly was: a mask for the humiliation that still burned behind his eyes.

The room remained silent.

Not a single response echoed back.

He gritted his teeth, stormed toward the same cursed seat, and without hesitation, dropped to a crouch and reached beneath it—

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

Another banshee shriek detonated in the chamber like spiritual shrapnel.

Outside, whatever security guards were still conscious gave up the ghost, quite literally, either fleeing the building or collapsing in gibbering heaps of madness.

Inside the haunted hall, Su Li—Soul Reaper, trained warrior, supposed defender of spiritual order—was locked in a one-sided confrontation with an unseen ghost whose eerie voice had not wavered once.

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