As the Ghost King, Ju Qing's daily work is dull and repetitive:
By day, she reviews the merits and sins of the dead. By night, she punishes wild ghosts lingering in the mortal world.
One day, a male ghost appears. His ledger of merits and sins is completely blank, and his name is nowhere in the Book of Life and Death.
He can't be sent to reincarnate or thrown into the dungeons. Ju Qing is about to send him off to Ghost City when a line suddenly appears in the ledger:
"If you kill the Ghost King, is it merit or sin?"
She looks up. The male ghost kneels below, one shoulder half exposed, his face flushed with shyness. "I only wish to remain in the Underworld and serve Your Majesty..."
Ju Qing looks at him, then at the ledger, and is overjoyed.
Who cares if it's merit or sin? This ridiculous Ghost King job never takes a day off. She's been wanting to vanish into nothing for ages!
Ju Qing eagerly orders her attendants, "Quickly, bring that sultry male ghost to me!"
On his first day assigned to assassinate the Ghost King, Cang Ji kneels below. Seeing the dignified, solemn woman delighted, he scoffs inwardly: The Ghost King is this desperate for a pretty face!
On the thirtieth day assigned to assassinate the Ghost King, Cang Ji nestles in the Ghost King's arms, watching her take a pastry from his hand and waiting for the soul-shattering poison to take effect.
The Ghost King remains unharmed. Late at night, Cang Ji wakes from a dream and stares blankly at the fingertip her tongue had unwittingly brushed.
After an uncountable number of days assigned to assassinate the Ghost King, Cang Ji decides to give up.
He sheds his affected, seductive disguise, confesses everything, and waits to be thrown into the inferno.
But the Ghost King kisses him and gently takes the artifact he'd never quite worked up the nerve to use, the one capable of killing ancient gods.
Only Cang Ji can activate the artifact. She takes his hand and moves it toward the switch.
The first god in heaven and earth cannot be resisted.
Before vanishing, she proclaims with her final law: "Killing the Ghost King is merit."
The law takes effect, and Cang Ji earns merit and becomes a god.
There is no longer a Ghost King in heaven and earth, but there is now a mad new god.
*Bonus scene
People discover something strange.
Every temple dedicated to the new god turns into a shrine to the Ghost King overnight.
In the world's largest Ghost King Hall, the site where the new god ascended,
the only believer kneels in the palm of the statue and presses his forehead to its cold lips.
Tears of blood fall. He carefully catches them and rubs them onto his own lips.
White hair, red lips, exquisite and bewitching.
The beautiful ghost drapes a wedding veil over himself, gazing through its red gauze at the statue's solemn, emotionless eyes.
"Bow to each other as husband and husband." He smiles, gorgeous and lush.
Cang Ji rises after bowing three times and presses the artifact to his own heart.
"My King, your servant is coming to follow you."
Outside the hall, the corpses of countless gods are piled into a mountain.
[The dignified female Ghost King who has no desire to live and wants to vanish into nothing every day x The beautiful male ghost who seems seductive but is actually inexperienced, and fails to assassinate her only to be devoured completely instead]
[The fake-death plot is expected around one-third of the way through! The precise term is: vanishing-into-nothing fake-out.]
[One-on-one, happy ending!!]
First version of the blurb published on July 21, 2026
Theme: Never fall in love with your assassination target!
