Tan Shihong stared down at Chang Fa, whose expression had rapidly become one of bewilderment. This situation truly… was very quickly becoming much too awkward! 

[I’m pretty sure you were too OOC just now.] The system commented lightly. 

‘Do I get punished for that?’ 

[Lucky for you, you’re dead, so even if I wanted to give you a few shocks your free nerve endings are already like, dead as well, so it’s not like you’d be able to feel anything. You basically just have a body with a very chronic Sensory Processing Disorder at this point. So, no pain! Good, huh?]

‘No feelings of warmth, or softness, or anything else either.’

[Oh, stop whining, at least you can see. It’s your fault for dying anyways!] 

Oh right. He was dead. Ever since he returned to his body he seemed to have forgotten, but thanks to the system his mind flashed back to that fact. He couldn’t forget the feeling of dying… nor the centuries of floating in nothingness...  

Chang Fa felt sweat drip down his back as Tan Shihong gazed at him with eyes gone cold with the memory of bleeding out to death. 

That’s right. Tan Shihong was dead. He had died. He had lost himself, gone cold, floating for centuries in what might as well have been a torture chamber. He had gone from being a model student, to seeing this body’s master slaughtered in front of him just before he himself was killed and sent to despair in nothingness for over 500 years all because of the system. Who was the system to order him around? Who was Tan Shihong to fear his soul being eradicated? He would do what he wanted! The lethal intent aimed at Chang Fa surged around him, making the air so thick you’d choke on it. 

He lost himself to the want to protect and eliminate all those who were threats! He was just about to finally finish swinging down his saber when a thought hit him-- How could he protect his master’s things once his soul was eradicated..? Tan Shihong wasn’t quite sure why he felt such an overwhelming emotion to protect things he cared nothing about for a master that was already dead, that he also cared nothing about, but… Tan Shihong had to acknowledge the emotion was the only thing keeping him sane after so many years. He wasn’t about to disregard it so quickly. Even now, since he still couldn’t feel sensations this emotion was all he had. 

He paused, and instead opted for merely knocking out the protagonist. He sheathed his saber and roughly picked up the protagonist’s weak, limp body. He walked to the edge of the cave he had woken in and stared down, just to see a steep drop. The cave seemed to be on the side of a rocky cliff wall. 

[Hey, hey, hey! What did I tell you? What are you doing to my protagonist?!] 

‘He’s much too weak, allow me to act as strength training before I allow him to rob my master’s grave. Will he die if I drop him?’ 

[NO NO NO! He will not die, but don’t drop him or I swear--] 

The system was cut off by the sound of Chang Fa’s body rapidly descending to the ground, his hair and flowy robes floating gently around him as he became a speck amidst the heads of trees. 

[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!]

[I… I-I-I!!!! I hate humans so much!! I will be back, and you-- you’ll regret this!] And with that cheesy last line, the system seemed to rip itself from his mind and speed after the new protagonist’s body. 

Tan Shihong felt like he could actually be in a good mood for the first time in 500 years before the image before him seemed to pop and he found himself floating back in the black wasteland of nothingness. 

What… What? What??? 

The image of him hitting the new protagonist with the blunt edge of his sword and the protagonist’s eyes rolling into the back of his head swirled around his mind in disorder. Now that the urge to murder him wasn’t coarsing so hot through his veins, Tan Shihong found the new protagonist was quite attractive! His black hair ran straight, like satin down his shoulders, his face was shapely, his nose straight and his eyes covered in lashes. He looked colder, even more like a young master than Tan Shihong did! Unfortunately, his personality truly was a bit…

Wait, Tan Shihong was back in the void. Was this because his master’s things were no longer in need of protecting…? This sure was a cruel joke! Tan Shihong would’ve snorted had he a body, and accepted that, were his hypothesis correct, he was going to have to wait for the protagonist to return for his consciousness to come back. 

Ah… New protagonist come back soon, Tan Shihong sighed, who would’ve thought, after all this time… the afterlife is still so boring.