The capybara slowly drove its bus away again, leisurely as though it were touring a scenic area.
But Lu Jin felt that something was wrong.
The first time, perhaps they had simply boarded the wrong bus and accidentally entered the game. But this time, he had used an official Netherworld app. The bus summoned should have belonged to the Netherworld.
So what exactly was going on?
The matter had dragged on for too long, leaving Lu Jin in a foul mood. Irritated, he flipped through his phone and discovered that apart from the soul-bus function, every other page in Netherworld Services lagged so badly that nothing would open.
He checked his contacts as well, but could not reach anyone. Even the "Happy Netherworld" group chat was completely dead. Nobody posted anything, and none of his messages or private chats received a response.
After struggling with the phone for quite a while, Lu Jin eventually returned to the lock screen and looked at Huang Youquan inside the phone prison.
Huang Youquan was slumped in one corner of the cell, staring blankly like a dead fish. Apparently, after realizing that he could neither escape nor reset, he had begun questioning the meaning of his existence as a ghost.
Lu Jin poked the screen.
Huang Youquan exploded. "What do you want, what do you want, what do you want?! You've already locked me up! What else are you planning to do? Ghosts don't have rights, is that it? Ghosts just deserve to be humiliated by you?!"
Lu Jin: "…"
He withdrew his finger and said calmly, "I only wanted to ask how you usually return to the Netherworld."
Huang Youquan: "?"
He awkwardly rubbed the tip of his nose. He had thought Lu Jin was about to stab him, so he had thrown caution to the wind. Apparently not…
Truthfully, Huang Youquan was now terrified of Lu Jin. NPCs could revive after dying inside an instance, but if they died somewhere else, they would truly disappear.
Humans who died could still reincarnate.
When a ghost died, it simply vanished like smoke.
His life was now in Lu Jin's hands, so no matter what happened, he had to behave himself.
Huang Youquan coughed twice, cleared his throat, and sat up a little straighter.
"I don't know either. When an instance ends, our memories of it are erased. Then we're sent back to the Netherworld. When the next instance begins, we're dragged back again."
Lu Jin frowned. "How exactly are you sent back?"
Huang Youquan spread his hands. "Just like what happened earlier. Once the instance ends, we disappear!"
That was obviously useless information. Huang Youquan probably did not understand the underlying mechanism either.
Lu Jin asked another question. "How has the Netherworld been lately?"
Huang Youquan blinked, sounding surprised. "You don't know? After the Yellow Springs Game launched, the Netherworld Capital was sealed off. Since then, I haven't seen a single Reaper."
He stared resentfully at Lu Jin. "You're the only one I've seen recently."
If the Netherworld Capital had not been sealed and the Reapers had not vanished, Huang Youquan would never have dared sneak along behind a bus into the human world to cause trouble. That would have been asking to die.
Lu Jin fell silent. The Netherworld was centered around the Netherworld Capital, where reincarnating souls gathered alongside the ghost officers carrying out official duties. If the entire capital had been sealed… the situation was even worse than he had imagined.
Xu Moyang had been listening with his ears practically perked up. He could not resist leaning closer and asking Huang Youquan, "Then do you know what's going on with this game?"
"How would I know?!" Huang Youquan waved his hands. "You people were dragged in to be players. We were dragged in to be NPCs. Who knows what this thing is?!"
Lu Jin asked several more questions about the Netherworld. Huang Youquan answered everything he knew, but his understanding of the game was too limited, so Lu Jin gained little useful information.
Xu Moyang tried to comfort him. "It's okay, Brother Lu. We'll figure something out eventually. If you can't return to the Netherworld right now, just treat it like a vacation!"
Lu Jin gave Xu Moyang a suspicious look, as though staring at an idiot.
"It doesn't matter if I can't go to the Netherworld. You have to. Otherwise, how are you going to return to life?"
Xu Moyang: "!!!"
How had he forgotten that?!
He cautiously asked, "…What happens if I don't return to life?"
"You'll become like Boss Huang."
Evil ghosts were the final destination of all wandering souls. After humans died and became ghosts, their obsessions, regrets, fear, and unwillingness at the moment of death gradually transformed into resentment that polluted the soul.
Later, because ghosts no longer received nourishment from living spiritual energy, resentment accumulated more and more heavily within them. They became hungry, thirsty, obsessive… and eventually began craving human souls, because an unpolluted human soul contained the spiritual essence they needed for nourishment.
Xu Moyang's voice trembled, and his fingers clenched Lu Jin's clothes. "Then… what do I do?"
Lu Jin said, "Either reincarnate or return to life."
Xu Moyang's temporary identification card was only keeping him alive for the moment. Because of that, he would also gradually show signs of becoming an evil ghost.
Lu Jin simply did not know how long the temporary identification card could sustain him.
"Let's go." Lu Jin stood.
Xu Moyang hurried after him. "Brother Lu, where are we going?" They could not contact the Netherworld or enter it. Where else could they possibly go?
"the Capital," Lu Jin said. "If we find him, there may be a solution."
Hearing that there was hope, Xu Moyang immediately brightened and hurried to Lu Jin's side. "Who are we going to find in the Capital?"
Lu Jin paused. "The King of Hell."
…
A few minutes later, the capybara bus returned yet again.
The door slowly opened. Seeing the same two familiar faces outside, even the emotionally stable capybara's expression cracked slightly.
Perhaps deciding that anger would be out of character, it merely sighed deeply, picked up the orange from the control panel with its little paws, and balanced it carefully on its head.
"Mm. Let's go."
The capybara bus moved extremely quickly. The instance scenery flashed past the windows, and within only a few minutes the view outside had transformed into bustling Shanghai.
The bus stopped steadily outside the university. Lu Jin and Xu Moyang got off one after the other.
It was only eleven in the morning. Students came and went through the school gates, and many cast curious looks at Lu Jin because he was still wearing pajamas.
After they got off, the capybara habitually reminded new players to check the Yellow Springs app on their phones, where the beginner's guide could be found. Yet when it looked outside, it saw only Lu Jin. Xu Moyang had somehow disappeared.
Very strange. Very frightening.
But the capybara was an emotionally stable capybara. Although it found the situation strange, it showed no panic, simply closed the door and drove away.
Xu Moyang floated beside Lu Jin. "It actually can't see me!"
Lu Jin said, "Because we've left the Netherworld's range."
Once outside Netherworld territory, ordinary ghosts became invisible.
"But everyone could see me inside the instance! Could the instances somehow be connected to the Netherworld…" Xu Moyang stopped midway and exchanged a look with Lu Jin.
Neither needed to say anything more. Since all the NPCs inside the instances were ghosts from the Netherworld, the game and the Netherworld clearly had countless connections.
"Brother Lu!"
A familiar shout came from behind. Lu Jin and Xu Moyang turned at the same time and saw Bun and Keyboard approaching quickly with luggage bags in their hands.
Seeing Lu Jin's clothes, both froze and looked him up and down in his pajamas.
"Brother Lu? Are you… sleepwalking? You came outside wearing pajamas?" Bun could not help asking.
Lu Jin looked down at himself and finally understood why so many people had been staring.
"…Yes. I was sleepwalking."
And apparently had sleepwalked through an entire night.
Bun & Keyboard: "…"
"Brother Lu, you probably haven't heard yet." Bun's voice became heavy. "Something happened to Moyang. He just finished surgery. We packed some clothes for him and were about to visit him at the hospital."
Keyboard asked, "Do you want to come with us?"
Lu Jin glanced at Xu Moyang beside him. Since learning that he might become an evil ghost, Xu Moyang's mood had visibly fallen.
Lu Jin nodded. "Let me go back to the dorm and change first."
*
Half an hour later, the three entered Xinhua Hospital.
The moment they stepped through the doors, Xu Moyang was startled by what he saw.
…There were far too many ghosts!
Countless mindless spirits wandered through the hospital. Most still looked as they had at the moment of death, creating an extremely bloody scene.
Xu Moyang instinctively hid behind Lu Jin. "I never saw this many ghosts before…"
Lu Jin: "…That's because you couldn't see them before." Besides, this was a hospital.
Normally, ghosts would be transported by bus to the Netherworld Capital for reincarnation. But now there were no buses, and the Netherworld Capital itself had been sealed. Even Lu Jin did not know where these wandering souls would eventually go.
Passing one ghost after another who had died of illness, Lu Jin followed Bun and Keyboard upstairs to the inpatient ward.
Xu Moyang's body remained unconscious in the hospital bed, his face pale as paper. An IV needle was inserted into the back of his hand, and nutrient fluid dripped slowly into his veins.
Only one doctor was in the room, looking down while recording clinical data.
Hearing footsteps, the doctor raised his head. "Are you the patient's friends? Have you contacted his parents?"
Bun and Keyboard exchanged an awkward look.
The doctor set down his pen and spoke sternly. "You're students, aren't you? Something this serious happened. Of course you need to contact his family!"
"We asked our academic adviser to contact them…" Bun scratched his head. "But his parents said something came up at home and they don't have time to come."
The doctor froze.
Lu Jin also raised his eyes.
Bun looked uncomfortable. "I explained Moyang's condition to them, but they still said something was happening at home and they wouldn't come. From the way they spoke, it sounds like Moyang doesn't have a very good relationship with his parents."
But not coming even after their son had been hospitalized following a traffic accident? That relationship was worse than merely bad.
Xu Moyang was normally cheerful and energetic, an incurable optimist who never seemed troubled. As a result, neither Bun nor Keyboard knew much about his family situation.
Lu Jin looked toward Xu Moyang.
Nobody else could see him, but Xu Moyang heard every word. His eyes had reddened, and his long lashes lowered to hide the emotions within them.
"They're really not coming…"
He had thought they would at least come look at him once. After all, they had shared so many years together.
Noticing Lu Jin's gaze, Xu Moyang hurriedly wiped his eyes. When he looked up again, the usual carefree grin had returned to his face.
"Well, it's normal that they didn't come! I'm not their biological son anyway!"
"They used to treat me really well," Xu Moyang recalled. "Back when I was their only child, they gave me the best of everything. Whatever I wanted, they bought it for me!"
When had things started changing?
Probably in his second year of high school, when they finally had a biological child of their own.
They had once believed they could not have children, so they adopted one from an orphanage. Unexpectedly, after many years, they conceived naturally.
Because the child had been so difficult to obtain, they treasured him even more.
Xu Moyang's adoptive parents were wealthy. After adopting him, they never publicly revealed that fact and raised him as though he were their biological son.
Because of that, all through childhood, Xu Moyang heard relatives and family friends tell him he needed to study hard so that one day he could inherit his father's business.
When there was only one child, those words were encouragement. Once there was a biological son, they became something almost sarcastic.
Even though Xu Moyang had never wanted the inheritance, his parents became worried… worried that their biological son might someday lose to Xu Moyang, worried that the large Xu family fortune would eventually fall into the hands of an outsider.
An outsider.
Back then, Xu Moyang had been carrying chicken soup to his father's study when he happened to overhear the concerns his parents were discussing.
In the end, he had become an outsider.