All Chapters of My Scourge Wife can't be this Cute: Chapter 41
- Chapter 50
64 chapters
CHAPTER 41: THE BLACK-EYED SOUL-SUMMONING BANNER
At the base of the mountain, a row of black vehicles sat in the dark.Headlights off. Doors sealed. The suited figures stood scattered around the entrance to the stone steps, silently guarding the area as though determined that no one passing by would notice what was happening.Kujou Renya stood beside the lead vehicle, looking up the stone path leading to the shrine.His suit was as impeccable as when he had left. Collar undisturbed, shoes untouched by dust, hair combed so precisely that not a single strand was out of place. But the composed smile from earlier had faded considerably.He did not like what had just happened.Not because of Hikaru's resistance.A young disciple with some ability, some pride, willing to stand before him and say a few cold things. Renya had encountered this kind of person before. They usually believed they had a backbone, but as soon as family connections, legal pressure, money, and authority came down simultaneously, even the hardest spine eventually cra
CHAPTER 42: PAPER CRANES IN A SEA OF BLACK
The first dark shape crawled through the Torii gate.It no longer held the complete form of a person. Its neck was bent entirely to one side, the head nearly fused to the shoulder, two unnaturally long arms bracing against the stone. Each time it pulled itself forward, the joints produced a dry cracking sound like dead wood being crushed underfoot.Behind it were many more.Dark shapes packed the stone steps, clung to tree trunks, crawled across rock faces, skimmed close to the ground like a current of foul water running uphill. No wailing. No weeping. Only the sound of nails scraping stone, black mud dragging across the earth, and the acrid smell of Yin Energy growing denser.Miyuki stood before the Torii gate.Her Miko robes swayed faintly in the night. Her face was still composed, but the cherry-blossom colored eyes had gone cold. She raised her hand, a white talisman held between two slender fingers."Purify."The talisman caught fire.Not the ordinary red of flame, but a clear, c
CHAPTER 43: THE BRIDE BENEATH A BLOOD-RED SKY
The sky turned red.Not the red of fire.Not the red of dawn.But a deep, dense, cold red, like blood that had clotted beneath the fingernails of the dead. That red light fell across the old roof tiles of the shrine, the Torii gate, the cherry blossom tree that held not a single flower, pulling the entire mountain out of the world of the living.A foul smell poured out.Dense.Cold and sharp.Like hundreds of corpses buried long underground being unearthed simultaneously, the rotted mud and dark blood from their coffins spilled open under this dying light.Hikaru stopped breathing immediately.He had smelled this before.At the summit.Inside Shime's coffin.But Miyuki had not.She stood behind Hikaru, one hand still pressed to her chest, her face drained of color from the old wound. When the Yin Energy swept across the shrine courtyard, her cherry-blossom colored eyes contracted sharply. Not because she failed to recognize what had just appeared.But because she recognized it far too
CHAPTER 44: THE FEMALE DEMON HEEDS HIKARU
Hikaru pulled his hand back immediately.The blood eye on the banner was still looking at him.Not blinking.Not moving further.But the cold sensation clinging to his fingertips remained very distinct. As though in that brief moment just now, the malevolent thing inside the banner had genuinely recognized him: had registered his breath, his spiritual energy, the scent of his Yang energy.Hikaru frowned."This thing is still alive.""Not entirely."Miyuki's voice came from behind.Hikaru turned.Miyuki had stepped down to the base of the mountain. Her face was still pale, her lips still slightly drained of color from the old wound flaring. But the cherry-blossom colored eyes had returned to composure. Only this composure was too quiet, and Hikaru felt the pressure from it more heavily than he had felt her jealousy.She bent down to look at the Black-Eyed Soul-Summoning Banner."Something inside is being sustained by remnant souls." Miyuki said. "Not a complete spiritual entity. Not an
CHAPTER 45: RED THREAD SOAKED IN BLOOD
The night had returned to normal.The blood-like red faded from the sky. Mountain wind moved through the treetops again, carrying the early-night cold and the familiar smell of damp grass. Only the dark streaks still clinging to the stone steps, a few talismans half-burned before the Torii gate, and the Black-Eyed Soul-Summoning Banner sealed within white cloth reminded Hikaru that what had just happened was not a nightmare.Urakami Shime had disappeared.No one knew where she had returned to. Perhaps the grave at the summit. Perhaps some darkness that the living could not see. Or perhaps she had never truly left, only standing somewhere just beyond sight, silently watching him the way a bride who had waited too long would watch.Just thinking about that last possibility made the back of Hikaru's neck go slightly cold.He carried the Black-Eyed Soul-Summoning Banner into the storage room behind the main hall, pressed nine additional evil-warding talismans onto the outside of the white
I won't let you run away so easily
Hikaru looked at Miyuki. "Is it because of my fate?""Possibly."Miyuki exhaled very faintly."I forcibly altered your Fate. Certain things that were not supposed to appear so early were drawn to your side because your Romance Providence is so strong."She smiled very faintly."I opened that door with my own hands.""Then you don't need to apologize."Hikaru said it immediately.Miyuki stilled."You don't feel burdened by it?""No."Hikaru answered quickly.He looked at her, his voice slowing slightly."You did everything for me. Without you, four years ago I would have starved in some corner of a street, or been torn apart by a Wraith long before now.""And besides..."Hikaru paused slightly."Shime saved me. I can't treat her as a catastrophe to be discarded simply because I'm afraid of her."Miyuki looked at him for a long time.The cherry-blossom colored eyes gradually softened."Perhaps that is precisely why she refuses to let go."Hikaru did not know how to respond.Miyuki lower
CHAPTER 47: A MIDNIGHT MESSAGE
Hikaru returned to his room when the night had grown very deep.The old shrine was completely still. Mountain wind moved through the wooden corridor outside, occasionally causing the small chimes beneath the eaves to brush together and produce a few thin, threadlike sounds. The smell of old wood, faint incense, and the early-night cold mingled together, bringing a rare sense of quiet after a day that had been far too long.Unfortunately, Hikaru's mind was not willing to settle.He had barely set his pack down beside the door when the image of Miyuki leaving the main hall surfaced in his thoughts again.The flushed face.The ear redder than usual.The hand that had rested on his shoulder longer than necessary.And the footstep that had paused in the corridor for one beat when he said he wouldn't let her run away so easily next time.Miyuki was not refusing.She was only running.Recognizing that, the corner of Hikaru's mouth curved slightly without his realizing. He pulled at the colla
CHAPTER 48: THE BRIDE IN COLD MIST
The washroom at the back of the shrine was not large.Old.Simple.But Hikaru had repaired it with considerable care in the two years he had tended the place. The wooden tub still held a faint pleasant scent. The stone floor was clean. A small lamp on the wall cast a soft yellow glow, just sufficient to light the thin mist that drifted through the room.Hikaru turned the tap.Cold water filled the tub.The steady sound of running water rose in the quiet space, partly covering the very distant sound of wind chimes from the corridor.He took off his outer shirt, stepped into the tub, and slowly sat down.Cold water immediately surrounded his body.The chill seeped into his skin, making the wounds on his shoulder and back ache sharply for a moment. But the pain, counterintuitively, pulled the heat in him down bit by bit, helping his mind become clearer.Hikaru rested his head against the edge of the tub.He closed his eyes.In the darkness behind his eyelids, Maruhi's photograph appeared
CHAPTER 50: THE EYE IN THE MIST
The place where Momiji lived looked nothing like the residence of someone connected to an unorthodox Onmyoji.No underground rooms.No altars covered in blood.No sound of souls weeping, no smell of corpses, no black talismans plastered across every wall.Only an old Japanese-style villa set deep within a maple forest.Black roof tiles spread under the moonlight. A wooden corridor ran around a quiet garden. Stone lanterns along the path cast a dim yellow glow, enough to light the red leaves scattered across the white gravel.At the center of the rear courtyard was a natural hot spring.Thin mist lay over the surface of the water and drifted slowly through the night, making the maple trunks in the distance shift between clear and obscured. The sound of water flowing over stone came at a steady pace, soft enough to feel like music composed specifically to make one forget the world outside was still full of frightening things.Momiji was submerged in the spring.She leaned back against t
CHAPTER 51: A MORNING WITH NO REPLY
The first light of day filtered through the curtain's edge and fell as a thin streak across the slightly disheveled silk blanket.Hashira Maruhi slowly opened her eyes.The room was still quiet. The faint scent of camellia from the oil diffuser near the window mingled with the fresh wood smell of the southern villa. This place was much smaller than the villa at the base of the mountain, but it was clean, safe, and free of the dark corridors that made a person remember the sound of nails scratching at a window.At least, that was what Maruhi had thought when she moved here.She lay still for a few seconds, long brown hair falling softly across the pillow. Her cheeks were still faintly flushed, her breathing not entirely settled. After a night of near-sleeplessness, her body still carried a restlessness she could not quite name.Maruhi pulled the silk blanket back up, then reached for the phone beside her pillow.The screen lit up.No new messages.The photograph she had sent last night