So, Valeria has agreed with the runaway soul, Lex Lindi, to exact revenge on her husband, Mark Brinstrone, who is cheating on her with Lex Lindi, his secretary, the waitress from the restaurant and who knows how many other women over the years.
She now knows that Mark Brinstrone is a womaniser. When Lex Lindi became pregnant, he told her to abort it and dumped her. In a moment of despair, Lex Lindi took her life. Now, she regretted it and wanted revenge. Valeria wants revenge too. And this is how a substitute reaper and a soul she is supposed to reap planned a revenge together.
Now, a soul can only stay outside for seven days before they turn into evil spirits so Lex Lindi's time is limited. Valeria will need to plan her (or is it their?) revenge that she can complete within seven days.
"I don't think I can seduce him…just standing near him makes me want to kick his balls," Valeria said.
Mild flirting is fine but when he came closer to her and showed interest, she wanted to physically hurt him. Even use the reaping scarf on him.
"Reminder, your 'reaper face and body' only lasts for a day before you go back to you," Ari said. He is lounging on the chair. "And you can only change if you have reapings to do,"
"Fish sticks in fish hell, I forgot about that. Any way I can extend it or do it anytime I wanted?" Valeria asked Ari. He shrugged.
"Check your system, don't ask me, I am not your system administrator," he instructed her in his annoyingly emotionless tone.
She checked for Functions in her system.
Function: Change appearance, voice and identity - 1 day at a time only for reaping
To level up to extend duration of appearance change: Catch an escaped soul in 7 days and deliver to afterlife - Capture one soul extends one hour
To level up to change appearance at will: Capture two evil spirits in 7 days and deliver to after life
To level up to get different appearances: Capture five evil spirits in 7 days and deliver to after life
Fish sticks in stinking fish hell. That's not easy. Where can she find an escaped soul? Except for Lex Lindi, that is. And Lex Lindi doesn't count.
This means she will have to plan the revenge around the same time as her reaping schedule and in under seven days. This feels like such a complicated quest.
"Hah. Told ya, your life will be easier if you just deliver her soul as per your job requirement," Ari remarked to Valeria.
Both Valeria and Lex Lindi glared at him.
"Shuddup," both of them said together.
He raised his hands defensively. "I was just stating a fact, jeez, lady," Ari mumbled and rolled his eyes. He leaned back and closed his eyes, ignoring them.
"Okay, so here's the plan. Mark Brinstrone loves women but I know he loves himself and his reputation more, so we need to ruin his reputation," Valeria said.
"Come to think of it…what he did to you is perfect to ruin his reputation," she said. "Do you have proof of your relationship? Did you leave any notes?"
Lex Lindi nodded. She pointed to her phone, which is on the bedside table, next to her body.
Valeria went over to pick up the phone and Lex Lindi gave her the password to unlock it. There were hundreds of explicit photos between Lex Lindi and Mark Brinstrone. Naked photos. In all sorts of positions. She looked at a few and had to stop.
As much as she hated Mark now, she still can't bring herself to look at photos of her husband with some other woman. Even if that woman is dead and a soul she is supposed to be reaping, standing next to her.
"Now, how do we proof that you were pregnant with Mark's baby and that he had told you to get an abortion?" she asked Lex Lindi.
"I sent him a suicide message actually…he didn't even bother to come to stop me…" Lex Lindi said. "He was supposed to come in time to rescue me…but he didn't" she added, her voice getting higher, her soul turning red again.
Valeria scroll through Lex Lindi's messages and saw the one she sent to Mark.
'Mark, I am swallowing three bottles of pills right now, I know you love me, you will come for me and our baby. If you don't come, our baby, and I will die tonight and I promise, I will come back and haunt you,'
"Well…that's umm…interesting," Valeria said. She took out her own phone and took a photo of the message. Then she took photos of the empty pill bottles lying next to Lex Lindi's body, showing only a small part of her body.
She sent some of the explicit photos from Lex Lindi's phone to hers using bluetooth. She had to choose the most damning ones especially ones that showed Mark's face clearly. After she was done, she wiped the phone and placed it back.
"Okay, I'm gonna post this in his company's intranet message board to all his staff and I am gonna create a few social media accounts and post these up too, of course I'm going to send these to the media, I am sure they love a scandal involving a tech billionaire," Valeria said.
Once done, she walked to the door, looked out to make sure no one is outside and opened the door. She let Ari saunter out first before she closed the door and hurried to the elevators. Lex Lindi followed closely behind her.
"Let me go buy a laptop and get it all set up with a VPN and I will start our revenge," Valeria told Lex Lindi. She had left her laptop at the Brinstrone mansion and she will not go back there to take it. It wasn't as if she had anything personal in it anyway. She had used it mostly to surf the internet and to dabble a bit in designing.
She took a taxi to the mall to buy a laptop. After that, she went to one of those co-working spaces that people can use for a small fee to set up her laptop. They will not be able to trace her in these sort of places as anyone could use the facilities and wifi. Perfect for her plans.
Once she is ready, she hacked into Brinstrone Holdings' intranet easily. She sent the incriminating photos along with photos of Lex Lindi's message and Lex Lindi's body out to 'all staff' with the title "Mark Brinstrone the murderer".
After that, she sent it to several prominent newspapers like Zarin Times and Zarin Daily, Zarin Business and The News Today. Then she used a VPN to set up several social media accounts and posted all of these photos up.
"There, done! Now, we sit back and watch," she told Lex Lindi. The soul did not say anything but stood next to her quietly. She turned to look at Lex Lindi's soul. She appeared to be frozen in place, her expression vacant. She waved a hand over her face but there was no reaction.
"What's wrong with her?" she asked Ari. He is sitting on an armchair, looking like he is chilling and enjoying his time there doing nothing.
"Oh, I thought you knew? The souls gradually lose their human memories as time goes by, sometimes it takes hours, sometimes it takes days, sometimes they zone out like that, it depends on each individual soul," he told her.
Great. So what is the point of her exacting revenge when Lex Lindi might not even remember anything?
"Told ya it is a waste of time," Ari said, almost gleeful that he is right.
"Oh shuddup," Valeria told him.
Lex Lindi's soul suddenly snap to attention and she looked at Valeria.
"So, is it done?" she asked Valeria.
Valeria nodded. She showed what she had sent out on her laptop. Lex Lindi squinted at it and then nodded.
"Good, I am tired, can I sleep now?" she asked Valeria.
"You mean you want to go now? To the afterlife?" Valeria asked her.
Lex Lindi looked at her blankly.
"Who are you? Am I dead?" she asked.
Valeria sighed. She had just exacted revenge for Lex Lindi and the poor soul will not be able to witnessed the downfall of Max Brinstrone. She took out her reaping scarf.
"Lex, you are dead, it is time to go, will you go with me?" she asked. Lex Lindi stared at her blankly before nodding. Valeria went over to her and tied the scarf on her wrist.
Lex Lindi's soul has been reaped.
"Finally, can we move it and go back to headquarters now? It's been hours!" Ari said.
Valeria checked the time. It is nearing 9pm now. It has been 4 hours. Well, 4 hours to plan a revenge and complete it is not bad actually. She only hoped the end results are as fun to watch.
She kept her laptop and left the co-working space. She took another taxi to the Zen Soul Headquarters. Time to deliver Lex Lindi to the after life.