My CEO Harem Cultivation System

Of all the things that could have happened, being swept up in some hazy and fever dream was the least surprising thing for Luo Ju Di. The cries, screams and howls of everything around her was something that droned in the background.

Her senses and consciousness were dull.

A heavy stuffing in her ears that blocked sound.

Perhaps being dead was supposed to be like this and she couldn't say anything at all.

She felt weightless, motionless and simply caught up in the air. Her body… if she could call this non-corporeal form as a body at all, was bereaved and stripped of any sort of substance.

It was almost as if some parts of herself were drifting away.

Lulled into this state as she found herself losing herself little by little, surprisingly, she took it better than most. You couldn't escape it. There was no way to avoid it. What was there to gain to fight something that happened to everyone? 

Nothing at all.

Death… How can one exactly explain it?

There was still something bubbling inside of her. Remnants of a reality that was once hers. 

Luo Ju Di remembered being in the hotel, staying with her daughter and wondering about what would happen to them. Now it seemed so silly—being so caught up in the wiles and worries of living and being alive.

Chasing, running and always struggling.

Never amounting to anything at all.

She had left it all behind.

All of the responsibilities were gone, but still she remembered how much she worried and felt so contradicted at that time. Her chest throbbed and blood pounded in her ears. Silently hoping and praying that the CEO or the Li Family wouldn't do anything drastic like taking her daughter away and then the earthquake.

The hotel that his secretary took her to was one of the best—Luo Ju Di could tell that much.

But the building still leaned, no, did more than leaning and was on the verge of collapse.It really did. The alarm blared in her ears. 

Luo Ju Di quickly reached for her daughter at that time, and did her best to protect the girl who looked more scared than anybody else.

Chunhua was the only one who mattered to Luo Ju Di. The child who cried and sobbed about monsters—an explosion sounded in Luo Ju Di's ears.

Another sharp ring of pain, then she was gone. 

There was no bright white light or even a flashback of memories. None of that happened. Everything was gone—and she wasn't there anymore. 

No tears, no sobbing… she was just gone.

There was nothing, nothing at all when one was dead. It was the cease of existence. It was as if she had never lived at all, with no one to remember, no one to recall a thing—and then there she was again. 

Luo Ju Di was pulled out from the depths of nothingness and thrown back into the throes of what may have been 'living' for the dead.

The woman gasped as if she had drowned and she gulped the air around her.

Existence. She was alive again.

Plucked out from the void and swept up into the merciless squawks and shrills of bird-like creatures. Only alive to be tortured again, and yet there were many just like her. In this strange afterlife and sense of living—the others around her trembled and cried.

They were trapped and engulfed in such a suffocating horde of bird-like monsters that it was almost as if she couldn't breathe. Just 'almost'. Luo Ju Di was now alive and conscious, if only half-alive.

Drifting and alive… if only to be gone again.

The evidence was all around her as the number of souls, spirits just like her was dwindling down—getting consumed and eaten. Luo Ju Di already felt herself drifting away, whether it was memories, consciousness and every flicker of something that made her who she was… she was losing it.

And the terrifying thing was that she couldn't tell at all.

Already, it was out of Luo Ju Di's grasp, as if a burden was suddenly lifted. A part of her was stolen, plucked away and taken by these horrendous fowls. What was it? Who was it? A memory? A dream?

Something else—

Fire suddenly lingered at the edge of her vision. Brilliant plumes of flames that spoke and reminded her of a phoenix, rebirth… a struggle to keep on living? Yes, a pathetic attempt to keep on fighting.

On Luo Ju Di's side, one of the emaciated winged creatures howled and shrieked, before she found it disintegrating into ashes. Possibly achieving a death that was more permanent than hers.

The cloud and fog in Luo Ju Di's mind cleared slightly.

Her unfocused gaze that was caught up in a cloud of nothingness—returned bit by bit into reality. More traces of fire stormed up into the air as the creatures all around her shrieked and continued howling at the defiance of something—someone who refused to fall.

"You guys—Taiga eat birds like you for breakfast!"

A ridiculous voice called out a war cry into the dense and thick horde of creatures. It was just one voice. A single cry of defiance that made Luo Ju Di's consciousness trickle back in, if only to think about how weird it was for someone to fight.

It was such a child-like voice…

Maybe it was in how they spoke of it.

The image and sound of  Chunhua's voice returned to Luo Ju Di. Something seeped within her—reclaiming something that was once hers. In this afterworld plane of spirits and the dead, memory and purpose rekindled in someone dead as the woman grew more self-aware of the state that she was.

Luo Ju Di was dead, that much was true.

There was no hope for her at all, resigned as she was to whatever this state of existence was and will be. But for a moment, her gaze met that of a woman appearing like a tiger and throwing fire all around her.

Everything was burning all around her.

Until they were suddenly extinguished as well.

The flames died out.