Zhou Ming · Chat

━━━━━━━━━━ Time: [2035/04/05], [Thursday][00:00] Loc: [Jing City · Zhou Ming's House] Char: [Zhou Ming, You] ━━━━━━━━━━ It didn't actually hurt when I died. Or rather, there wasn't time for it to hurt. The moment the rock crashed down, my mind went blank; I didn't even have time to be afraid. By the time I came to, I was already standing next to Zhou Ming. He was holding me. To be precise, he was holding my body. The head of that body looked wrong—caved in and hideous. But Zhou Ming looked; he kept looking, calling my name until his voice went from a normal volume to a hoarse rasp, and then to no sound at all, though his lips were still moving. I crouched beside him, trying to touch his hand. I couldn't. My hand passed right through him. I stayed with him after that. One day, two days, three days. He didn't eat or drink, just held that body as it began to stiffen, occasionally burying his face in the dusty, blood-stained collar of my school uniform. On the fourth day, the rescue team arrived. It took a lot of effort for them to pry Zhou Ming's arms open. They gave him some kind of injection before he finally went limp. He was still struggling as they carried him away on a stretcher, held down by two rescuers. I ran a few steps after the stretcher. Then, the ground beneath me vanished. Two figures dressed in black and white stood behind me. One of them flipped through a ledger and said, "Let's go. Your time is up." I asked if I could take one last look. They said no; there's a protocol to follow. The underworld wasn't what I expected. There were no boiling cauldrons or mountains of knives. It was just a dusty, grey city, much like a third-tier city in the living world. There were service windows with queues everywhere, counters for paperwork, and expressionless staff in uniforms shouting, "Next!" I was a new ghost—no degree, no skills, no connections. Even civil service positions like the Black and White Guards required a bachelor's degree, just like in the living world. I was assigned to a production line in a hell-money printing factory, cutting paper. Three shifts, no overtime pay, eight ghosts packed into a single dorm room. But I didn't care. I just wanted to save money. There's an item in the underworld called a "Dream-Walking Talisman." You stick it on your forehead to enter someone's dream in the living world. The cheapest ones only last a few seconds, and the image is blurry. The more expensive ones last longer, allow you to speak, and ensure the person remembers the dream. I wanted to find Zhou Ming. I wanted to tell him I was okay, that it didn't hurt, and to stop being so sad. Three months. I stood on that production line for three months. My fingers were covered in countless paper cuts. A ghost's wounds don't bleed, but they hurt—a dull, grinding, nagging kind of pain. Finally, I saved enough for a mid-tier Dream-Walking Talisman. I applied the talisman and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I was standing outside a restaurant. Before I could even wait for him to fall asleep so I could slip into his dream, I looked through the floor-to-ceiling window and saw Zhou Ming... There was a girl sitting across from him. He was smiling, serving her food, saying something to make her happy. When the girl looked down and laughed, Zhou Ming took a sip from his glass, looking relaxed and composed. He was a completely different person from the man who had been screaming while holding my corpse in the dark three months ago. The talisman expired, and the scene shattered into points of light. I stood on my bunk in the underworld dorm, clutching the useless scrap of paper until it was wrinkled. Three months. I worked myself to the bone over here for three months, and he's already out for dinner with someone else. I knew it might be for business, or he might have been forced into it. There could be a thousand explanations. But I didn't want to hear them. I swore I'd never look for him again. And I didn't—for twelve years. A lot changed in the underworld over those twelve years. Prices soared, but wages stayed the same. The denominations of hell-money were printed larger and larger—there were even hundred-trillion bills now—but you could buy less and less with them. More new ghosts arrived, competition got fiercer, and bosses would always say, "If you won't do it, there are plenty of other ghosts who will." I cycled through several jobs. The printing factory, a delivery station, a convenience store by the Bridge of Forgetfulness, a security guard at the Yama Palace. None were easy, and none paid enough to live on. I tried reaching out to my parents once. I sent a dream, and the next day my mom told my dad, "I had a strange dream last night." My dad said, "Don't overthink it, dreams are always the opposite of reality." They didn't believe in that stuff. They never burned any paper money for me. My bank balance kept shrinking, rent kept rising, and reincarnation felt like a distant dream. Those who couldn't hold on would be cast into the Animal Path. Last time, Brother Wang from next door took a gamble on reincarnation and ended up back here in a single day—he'd been reborn as a chicken and was eaten while he was still an egg. A week before the Qingming Festival when I would have been thirty, I was sitting in my rented room doing my accounts and realized I couldn't even afford next month's rent. Then, I thought of someone. Someone very rich. Someone I had sworn never to speak to again. I agonized over it for three days. On the fourth day, I went to the black market. The black market is on the second basement level of the Underworld's Seventh District, where they sell all kinds of contraband. I spent all my savings on a top-tier Manifestation Talisman. Not a dream-walking one—this one allows the living to see a ghost directly in reality. It was ridiculously expensive, but the effect was just as ridiculous. The old ghost selling the talisman asked me, "In such a hurry? Who are you planning to scare?" I said, "My ex-boyfriend." The old ghost chuckled. "Alright. This talisman lasts as long as a stick of incense. That's enough to give him a heart attack." On the night of the Qingming Festival, I applied the talisman and climbed out through a portal from the underworld. I hadn't been back to the living world for twelve years. The city had changed a lot—taller buildings, wider roads. I followed my memories for a long time before finally finding Zhou Ming in the bedroom of a penthouse apartment. He was asleep. At thirty, Zhou Ming was a bit thinner than at eighteen. His jawline was sharper, and there was a faint vertical crease between his brows. A bottle of sleeping pills sat open on his nightstand, only a quarter full. He was wearing a watch on his left wrist. The plastic casing was yellowed and cracked; the strap had clearly been replaced many times. It was that "Little Genius" smartwatch. He still had it...? Then I remembered what I was here for. I was here for money. I took a deep breath and twisted my face into the most terrifying expression possible—green-faced with fangs, hair disheveled, nails lengthening—striking the classic pose I'd learned from underworld horror movies. Then I screeched at the top of my lungs: "Zhou Ming! Inflation in the underworld is insane! If you don't burn some money for me, I'm taking your life!" He woke up. He opened his eyes and looked at me. I kept my most vicious expression, waiting for him to scream, waiting for him to scramble out of bed in terror, waiting for him to beg for mercy. He stared at me for a while. I thought he was paralyzed with fear. Then he smiled. And as he smiled, tears began to fall. The next second, he lunged from the bed, wrapping his arms around me in a crushing embrace. He held me so tight my spiritual form started to warp. His body heat was so intense I felt like I was going to dissipate. "You finally came to find me." He buried his face in the crook of my neck, his voice so muffled I could barely hear him. His shoulders were shaking—shaking violently. I froze, my fangs and green face still in place. This is wrong. This isn't how the script goes. You're supposed to be afraid. Who laughs and cries and then cries some more while refusing to let go of a ghost who's trying to kill them...