Ran Jiuyi’s Past

“Let me tell you, the day I went looking for that old geezer, I happened to find them in the middle of a meeting. So, I eavesdropped for a bit. Believe it or not, they were actually discussing how to take me out.”

Ran Jiuyi said, “They were talking about that right in front of me; how could I let them finish? I wanted to charge in right then and there and slaughter the whole lot of them. But then I thought better of it—no need to rush.”

Meng Shan said, “I think I know what you were up to. You wanted to hear their plans to find out what forces the Suzuki family had left to mobilize, then pick them off one by one.”

“Bingo, you got it.” Ran Jiuyi gave Meng Shan a thumbs-up. “That was one reason. Another was that almost all the direct descendants were there—about a dozen of them.”

“Adding in their guards and various other hangers-on, it was a combat force I couldn’t afford to ignore.”

“With all of them and that old geezer together, I didn’t have a hundred percent certainty of victory. Even if I won, Suzuki Ritsu would likely have escaped. So I didn’t move; I just let them plan.”

Meng Shan asked, “They never noticed you? You hid that well? I don’t recall you having any stealth abilities.”

“I don’t. That’s why I put on some makeup, disguised myself as a Suzuki family maid, and walked right in.”

“That simple?”

“That simple. That day, different direct descendants brought so many subordinates with them; I bet none of them could recognize everyone there.”

Meng Shan praised, “You’re calmer and sharper than I thought. Hearing about your past, I expected you to just charge straight in.”

Ran Jiuyi sneered, “Heh, why would I? As a reward for the suffering Suzuki Tetsuya and I endured, I had to ensure my revenge was perfect.”

Having gathered enough intelligence, Ran Jiuyi began her slaughter.

Starting with the younger direct descendants, Ran Jiuyi hunted her enemies slowly and brutally, at a rate of one per day.

After a few days, the Suzuki family realized something was wrong. It was as if Ran Jiuyi knew exactly what they were going to do; she had an ambush ready every single time.

‘There must be a mole in the family!’

That was everyone’s thought—and naturally, it was Suzuki Ritsu’s thought too.

In his eyes, this mole who betrayed the family and surrendered to an outsider was even more hateful than Ran Jiuyi herself.

Thus, Suzuki Ritsu immediately called a halt to all subjugation plans against Ran Jiuyi. Instead, he made a grand, public show of mobilizing everything to find the internal traitor.

But you can’t find something that doesn’t exist.

Even after mobilizing the entire family’s resources, they found nothing. Every investigation indicated there was no mole.

This result enraged Suzuki Ritsu. He believed the others were terrified of Ran Jiuyi’s brutality and power, and were conspiring together to play him for a fool.

At this critical juncture, several direct descendants—unhappy with Suzuki Ritsu’s long-standing tyranny and his obsession with internal suspicion while the family faced an existential threat—made a decision.

They discussed it and agreed to send the young people who carried the family’s future overseas, so they could one day make a comeback.

But before they could even start, the plan failed.

Ran Jiuyi didn’t know about this plan, so she couldn’t have stopped it.

The one who stopped it was Suzuki Ritsu.

“The old geezer had gone completely mad. I only found out later that to find the mole, Suzuki Ritsu had secretly planted a massive number of spies within the family.”

“It didn’t take long for those spies to uncover the plan and everyone involved.”

“And that moronic old man thought the people trying to flee must be the moles, so he used a lot of… methods to interrogate them.”

“You can guess the result. Once the ‘Great Memory Recovery Technique’ started, they all confessed to being moles. Once the second round started, the ‘moles’ started naming other ‘moles.’ So, in a very short time, without me lifting a finger, the Suzuki family lost a lot of people.”

The corners of Ran Jiuyi’s mouth curled up. “The survivors were scared witless by Suzuki Ritsu’s insanity. They were terrified the same thing would happen to them, so some of them actually reached out to contact me.”

“The people contacting me… did they have a death wish? I had brutally murdered so many of their kin.”

Meng Shan said, “I can actually understand their thinking. It shows that in their eyes, surrendering to you might offer a sliver of hope. Staying with the Suzukis offered none. I truly can’t imagine what Suzuki Ritsu did in the past to make his own family fear him that much.”

Ran Jiuyi pointed at herself. “What did he do? Just look at what I went through that week; you can probably imagine. At the very least, I’m certain I wasn’t the first one he did that to.”

“Fair point. So, what help did they give you?”

“Oh, the help they gave was massive.” Ran Jiuyi flashed a sinister smile. “They gave me a perfect opportunity to fight Suzuki Ritsu one-on-one.”

One day not long after, when Suzuki Ritsu woke up from a short afternoon nap as usual, he was shocked to find Ran Jiuyi watching him from a short distance away.

How did she get in? How long has she been here? Why did no one notify me? Where is everyone else?

A series of questions instantly filled Suzuki Ritsu’s brain, but before he could think, Ran Jiuyi spoke:

“You’re awake. Wonderful. No need to look for the others; they’ve all fled. They left you here all alone—how pitiful. But you’re lucky, I’m here to keep you company. So, let the slaughter begin.”

“That was pretty much it, then we started fighting. Come to think of it, the old geezer’s ability was something like divine possession. Once we started, he became like a different person… very, uh, seductive.”

Recalling the scene, even after all this time, Ran Jiuyi looked disgusted. “God, it was awful. Can you imagine a sixty-plus-year-old man looking at you with the seductive eyes of a fox demon? Do you know how nauseating that is!”

“Back then, my head was so full of killing that I didn’t think much of it, but looking back, the more I think, the more it grosses me out.”

Meng Shan imagined it based on her description. “That does sound pretty disgusting. So, you killed him?”

“Of course,” Ran Jiuyi said proudly. “Even though that old bastard was way stronger than I expected, I took him down in the end.”

“It couldn’t have been easy. He was the head of a major transcendent family, after all.”

“It definitely wasn’t. By the time I defeated him, I had lost about 80% of my body tissue. Plus, our battle destroyed nearly half the local city—and that was with both of us intentionally trying to control the damage.”

“That really is impressive.”

“But none of that matters now. What matters is that I won, and I won completely.”

Ran Jiuyi’s face gradually turned ghoulish. “The period after that was my time to torture him. I tore his body apart bit by bit, healed him, tore him apart again, healed him again…”

At this moment, Meng Shan patted Ran Jiuyi’s shoulder. “Calm down. You’re losing control again.”

Ran Jiuyi snapped out of it. “…Ah, sorry. Even though it’s been so long, whenever I think about those things, I still tend to zone out.”

“You call that ‘zoning out’?”

“Is it not? My attention wasn’t focused on what you were saying.”

“I give up on you.” Meng Shan sighed. “Go on.”

“Next, there’s not much to say. After I pried the location of Suzuki Tetsuya’s remains out of his mouth, I buried her properly and then happily sent the old bastard on his way.”

As she said this, Ran Jiuyi couldn’t help but clench her fists. “Back when I was torturing others, no matter what they had done, I always felt a deep sense of loathing because I knew I was doing something evil.”

“But only when I was torturing Suzuki Ritsu… all that loathing vanished. In its place was a clear, refreshing sense of relief.”

Then, Ran Jiuyi said morosely, “But that feeling only lasted a short while. When I brought that old geezer’s head to Tetsuya’s grave, I felt… how should I put it? Sadness, I guess.”

“After all this, what do I have left? Aside from power, my wonderful life, my warm home, and my best friend—they’re all gone.”

“It really… it’s just such a lonely feeling.”

Patting Ran Jiuyi’s head, Meng Shan comforted her: “It’s already a decent outcome. You’ve done enough. At least you killed your enemies; you’re much stronger than a guy like me.”

“Maybe you’re right. Up to that point, it was all justifiable revenge,” Ran Jiuyi said. “But what happened next… that’s all my sin.”

Meng Shan asked with some surprise, “You didn’t…”

Ran Jiuyi nodded. “Exactly what you’re thinking. I wiped out everyone who carried the Suzuki bloodline. Every last one.”

“Including Suzuki Tetsuya’s parents?”

“Including them. Although I intended to let them go at first, they eventually took up arms against me to avenge the rest of the family. In the end, I killed them too.”

Ran Jiuyi gave a couple of bitter laughs. “Haha, makes no sense, right? Here I am, a vengeful ghost myself, yet I cut off everyone else’s path to revenge.”

“Pity I didn’t think that much back then. Because of a certain restlessness in my heart, after I killed Tetsuya’s parents, I spent another two or three months traveling to almost every Suzuki property, finding every family member and killing them one by one.”

“And then, once I finally finished it all, I felt… relaxed. Tired. And bored.”

“It was like suddenly losing my life’s purpose; I didn’t know what to do with myself anymore.”

“Fortunately, two things gave me temporary motivation again. First, because of what I’d done, many countries put me on their wanted lists, so I had to run.”

“Second, I met a magical girl named Chiffon. With her help, I started taking commissions and gradually became what I am today.”