Chapter1

I am the last true Revival Tattooist in the world.

There are strict rules to my craft: the death must be violent, the body must not be older than seven days, and the price must be paid in blood. Could I bring someone back? Yes.

In my past life, I proved it. I saved my fiancé, Hunter, from a fatal car crash.

I used my ancestral Bone Needle and the sacred Return Ink to carve a Sympathy Sigil directly over his heart. The toll was agonizing. I permanently lost my sense of taste and sacrificed ten years of my lifespan to anchor his soul back to his flesh.

When he woke, he held me tight, weeping and swearing to love me for all eternity.

But just three years later, that eternity ended.

He tied me to my own tattoo chair. Ignoring the fact that I was five months pregnant with his child, he pressed a live, high-voltage electro-cautery pen hard into my swelling belly.

He sliced me open, desperate to extract the secrets of my bloodline, before driving a blade through my heart.

Through fading vision, I saw him standing over me, sneering.

"Scarlett, a vain wretch like you doesn't deserve to bear my child. Your sister Wendy can save me too, and she uses actual science, not stupid witchcraft!"

"You ruined everything for her. You made her so ashamed she tried to kill herself. So I'm sending you to hell to apologize."

"You've been tattooing your whole life. Bet you never thought you'd die on your own chair."

It turned out he had always loved my fake-heiress sister, Wendy. I was just a disposable blood-bag.

The agonizing murder of my unborn child made me swear a blood oath: If I ever got another life, I would grind his bones to dust.

"Thud!"

The heavy, sickening sound of a corpse hitting the floor jolted me back to reality.

I snapped my eyes open. The cold leather of the tattoo chair pressed against my spine. Several bodyguards were clumsily hauling Hunter's bloodied, lifeless body onto my workstation.

"Sister! Please, save Hunter!"

Wendy knelt by the bed, weeping pitifully, though the resentment and greed in her eyes were unmistakable. "I know you know that resurrection tattoo! If you save him, I'll move out of the Thorne family immediately. I'll give back your rightful place as the true heiress!"

Hunter's father, his eyes red and bulging, slammed his fist on my cabinet. "Scarlett! What are you waiting for? You are his fiancée! Take out your needle and save my son right now!"

I looked coldly at this pack of butchers from my past life. A mocking smile curled on my lips.

I had been reborn. Reborn to this exact moment: Hunter freshly dead, and the Thorne family storming my shop to demand a miracle.

In my past life, I was manipulated by their threats and Wendy's fake tears. I foolishly bled myself dry to save a monster. But now?

I walked calmly to the workstation, picked up a black drape, and tossed it to cover Hunter's pale, dead face.

"I won't save him. Prepare for the funeral."

Dead silence suffocated the room.

Wendy's eyes widened in exaggerated horror. "Sister, how can you be so cruel? You clearly have the power! Are you still jealous that I had our parents' full love? I'll do anything—just save him!"

"Are you deaf?" I sneered, pointing a sharp finger at the door. "Could I save him? Yes, the seven-day window is open. But will I? Never. He's dead. Whoever wants to save him, go ahead. I am not lifting a finger."

Hunter's mother trembled violently, pointing a shaking finger at my face. "You cold-blooded wretch! Hunter always indulged your weird obsessions, and now you let him rot?"

"The engagement? Fine. I don't want it. Give the corpse to my sister." I stepped back, my gaze turning lethal. "Now get out of my shop. Don't dirty my floor."

Just then, Wendy stood up. The ambition in her eyes completely eclipsed her grief.

"Uncle, Auntie—since my sister is so heartless, let me do it!"

She reached into her designer bag and pulled out a vial of foul-smelling black liquid and a cheap, plastic replica of a Bone Needle.

"I stole... I mean, I learned enough while living in the Thorne house. I combined her ancient symbols with modern science!" Wendy proclaimed, holding up the vial. "If I tattoo this chemical sigil over Hunter's heart, the biochemical reaction will bring him back!"

His parents, blindly grasping at straws, immediately agreed to Wendy's insane proposal, promising her anything she wanted if she succeeded.

I crossed my arms, looking at her smug face with sheer pity.

The fool didn't understand the ironclad boundaries of the Revival.

The Bone Needle acts as the physical bridge. The Return Ink binds the ethereal soul. The Sigil charts the path back from the underworld. But without the pure Bloodline to pay the ultimate toll of life-force, the ritual is just a child's drawing.

If chemical ink and stolen sketches could defy death, my true parents wouldn't have spent eighteen years searching for my pure blood.

Let's see how the fake heiress plays God.

Wendy ordered the guards to strip Hunter's chest. She circled the corpse, clumsily dipping her plastic needle into the pungent chemical mix.

Her techniques looked dramatic to the untrained eye, but I could see it instantly—her strokes were chaotic, and she was drawing the Soul-Guiding Sigil completely backward.

Ten minutes later, she stepped back, sweating profusely. Nothing happened.

I opened my mouth to laugh at her pathetic display, but suddenly, a sickening crack echoed through the room.

The rigid corpse convulsed violently.

"Thump—!" A dull, unnatural sound emanated from Hunter's chest.

Hunter—who had been dead for over twenty minutes—slowly opened his eyes.

"He's alive! My baby is alive!" His mother screamed in ecstasy, throwing herself at the body.

Wendy turned to me, a victorious, malicious grin spreading across her face. "See, Sister? Science beats your primitive witchcraft."

I didn't panic. Instead, my smile grew wider, colder.

Because as Hunter sat up, his eyes weren't clear. They were murky, bloodshot, and entirely devoid of human light. And beneath the metallic smell of blood, the overwhelming, sickening stench of formalin and rotting flesh began to fill the room.

That wasn't a resurrection.

Wendy hadn't brought back a man. She had just activated a zombie.