“I counted the chimes marking the hour and watched broad daylight sink into night.”
It always seemed to be raining in this island city.
A train cut through the heart of the city, while loops of neon track wound around buildings rising and falling in uneven tiers, all of it fading into a hazy vista beyond the window.
It was nine at night.
Normally, this little noodle shop would have closed half an hour ago.
The owner was an old woman, half-blind and hard of hearing. Wrapped in a worn blanket, she reclined behind the counter listening to an old opera record she had picked up at a secondhand market.
After yawning three times in a row, she finally raised her voice.
“Walnut. Walnut—”
Walnut was the grandson she had taken in off the streets. He had just turned sixteen this year.
He was hopeless at pretty much everything he tried, except cooking. His modest talent in the kitchen was the only reason he and the old woman had managed to keep this shabby little hole-in-the-wall alive.
“What time is it, Walnut?” the old woman called. “Isn't it time to close yet?”
Walnut was standing beside the counter, clutching the metal tube of a battered vacuum cleaner so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
His eyes were fixed nervously on one corner of the shop.
Their only customer was sitting there.
It took him a long moment to squeeze an answer past his throat.
“Uh... not yet.”
The old woman muttered to herself.
“Then why am I so sleepy?”
Of course you're sleepy. By this time, you'd normally have gone to bed twice already.
Walnut kept that thought to himself.
Right now, he didn't dare move.
He didn't dare act strange, either.
It wasn't because the customer looked particularly frightening.
Quite the opposite.
The man was thoroughly unremarkable. He wore a washed-out gray-white T-shirt with a sagging collar and was so emaciated that, tucked away in the corner, he looked like nothing more than a small patch of shadow.
Walnut could probably beat two of him to death with his bare hands.
The reason Walnut didn't dare move was because he knew this customer.
The man lived in the low-rent housing complex in the Lower City, on the same floor as Walnut and his grandmother.
They could almost be called neighbors.
And this particular neighbor had died a week ago.
The last time Walnut had seen him was outside Apartment 1716.
Police tape and flies had surrounded the door.
The dead man had been roughly stuffed into a body bag, while what few possessions he had owned were looted clean.
The next day, the incident appeared in the Rose Daily, a paper everyone in the island city seemed to get.
One human life had been squeezed into an obscure sliver of the page, beneath the shortest possible headline:
MURDER DISCOVERED IN LOWER CITY HOUSING COMPLEX—KILLER STILL AT LARGE!
The rest of the paper had been devoted to some rich young man surnamed Yu, who had thrown money around at an auction and purchased an antique emerald pocket watch for an astronomical sum.
They hadn't even gotten a photograph of the watch.
All they had was the instant a sports car pulled away, with the fleeting outline of a man's profile visible through the window.
They hadn't even caught his face clearly.
And somehow that blurry photograph had been worthy of an entire page.
·
Walnut had sighed over the dead man's fate.
But now that the dead man was sitting inside his restaurant, Walnut was too frightened even to breathe properly.
“Lose your soul on the first night, call it home on the seventh... call for a hundred days, and the wandering soul returns...”
The old woman's broken gramophone warbled unsteadily.
Walnut approached his neighbor's table with equally unsteady steps.
He was supposed to say, We're closing soon.
Instead, what came out was:
“Would you like something to eat?”
The neighbor seemed not to recognize him anymore.
Hair hanging over his eyes, he answered in a voice eerie enough to make Walnut's skin crawl.
“No.”
Then what are you doing sitting in a restaurant?!
Misery was written all over Walnut's face.
As though the man had heard his thoughts, he added:
“I'm waiting for someone. They'll be here soon.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, the entrance chimed.
Ding-dong.
Two drenched men ducked inside, wiping rainwater from their faces as they complained at each other.
“I told you we should've left earlier. You had to drag your feet!”
“How was I supposed to know it'd suddenly start pouring? It's only been drizzling the last few days.”
“You think the heavens owe you an explanation? ‘But it was only drizzling’—give me a break! Now the tunnel's malfunctioning, the whole main road is jammed, and the underpass is flooded again. There's no way through!”
The underpass was flooded again?
There was only one underpass in the entire island city that flooded all the time, swallowing cars whenever it happened.
It stood right beside Walnut's housing complex.
Walnut looked over at the men.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the dead neighbor lift his head as well.
“That little fortune-teller said when every road is blocked, it means a vicious ghost is barring your way. Let's just come back another day.”
“Another day?! I told you, I think one of my buttons popped off there last time. I—”
The more hot-tempered of the two abruptly cut himself off.
He swept another glance around the restaurant and said nothing more.
The booth seats blocked his view of the corner. He clearly thought the only people inside were an old woman and her grandson working the shop.
“Let's eat first.”
The two took the nearest table.
One of them slapped a handful of coins onto it.
“Two bowls of braised pork noodles.”
Walnut froze.
The bad-tempered man snapped at him.
“What are you staring at? You're running a business, aren't you?! Hurry up! We're in a rush!”
“Coming right up.”
Walnut swept up the coins and hurried into the kitchen.
******
The ill-tempered man tore open a pair of disposable chopsticks, his face twisted in irritation.
His knee bounced impatiently beneath the table, making it creak.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a pair of faded sneakers.
Someone had walked up beside their table.
A cool, detached voice said:
“I hear you're in a hurry. Where are you going? My place?”
“What do you mean, your—”
The man jerked his head up.
Then he saw the newcomer's face.
“!!!”
They remembered that face.
A week ago.
Inside that low-income apartment building.
They had ground that face into the floor beneath their shoes.
The man had kept crying, bruised and bloodied all over. Touching him with their hands had felt filthy, so they had pinned his neck down with the leg of a chair instead.
Then they sat on the chair and forced him to tell them where he had hidden his money and valuables.
After that...
They had picked up the chair and beaten him to death with it.
So why was a dead man standing in front of them?!
Every hair on the hot-tempered man's body stood on end.
Instinct took over.
He sprang to his feet and kicked viciously at the skinny figure.
“I killed you when you were alive! I can kill you again now that you're dead!”
He remembered what that body had felt like.
Skin and bones.
Dry kindling.
Something you could snap with your hands.
Even the hardest bones had turned to mush after a couple blows from the chair.
So what if he'd become a ghost?
What could he possibly do?
The next instant, a skeletal hand clamped around the back of his head.
The fingers were sharp as slender steel spikes.
It felt as though they were being driven straight into his skull.
“Aaaaaaagh—!”
The man shrieked.
Through the blur of pain, he saw his companion's head caught in another hand.
Bang!
Their skulls were smashed violently together.
The pain exploded through the crown of his head.
His companion's blood splattered across his face in an instant.
The man's knees buckled involuntarily.
He tried to clutch his head, only for that hand to seize him by the hair and haul him back up.
Such a thin man.
Such a thin arm.
Yet it lifted him from the floor by nothing but his scalp.
For the first time, real fear began creeping in.
His head was yanked back until his face turned upward.
That voice spoke again.
This time, it said something strange.
“The owner of this skin asked me to make absolutely certain the two of you paid your blood debt in full.”
“Come on.”
“Look at this face and say what you ought to say.”
Blood covered the man's face.
He could barely see anything.
“Fuck you—”
He didn't get the rest out.
His head and his companion's were smashed together again.
Blood burst outward.
“Try again.”
The voice remained perfectly calm.
Cold.
Indifferent.
The hot-tempered man spat out a mouthful of blood along with several broken teeth.
His face was barely recognizable anymore.
“We were wrong... we were wrong...”
“Insincere.”
The judgment came in that same terrifyingly cold voice.
Then his hand was seized.
Twisted backward.
Crack.
Crack.
The bones broke completely.
“Aaaaaagh—!”
His scream had gone hoarse.
There was hardly any strength left in it.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...”
He apologized desperately, over and over.
Then he felt the other hand being grasped.
He nearly screamed the words.
“Please! Please—!”
At last, those hands let go.
Pain and terror had drained every ounce of strength from him.
He collapsed limply against the chair.
He was just about to exhale in relief when he sensed that skeletal figure moving behind him.
A cold hand slid beneath his chin.
“I've always been particular about these things. And your voice...”
The speaker grew even calmer.
“...is truly awful.”
The man's bloodshot eyes flew wide.
His pupils contracted.
Crack—
As he began to struggle violently, he heard the sound of his own neck snapping.
...
It was the last sound he ever heard.
*******
Walnut had turned the kitchen exhaust fan up to maximum.
Amid the deafening roar, he tossed ingredients in the wok.
He poured a full pan of minced meat sauce over two portions of noodles, then scattered a handful of bright green scallions on top.
Holding the two plates, he hooked the kitchen curtain aside with his head.
And saw this:
His skeletal neighbor was twisting the neck of the second man with his bare hands.
As for Walnut's grandmother—
Whether from sleepiness or sheer terror, she was lying unconscious in the recliner.
Walnut stared.
“........................”
The neighbor tossed the corpse aside as casually as if disposing of trash.
He pulled out a wet wipe.
Then carefully, meticulously, cleaned his fingers.
When he wiped away the final drop of blood from his fingertips, his body suddenly began to change.
That small, skeletal frame peeled away from him like discarded clothing.
The restaurant lights abruptly short-circuited.
Darkness.
Then the lights came back on.
A completely different person stood there.
He was astonishingly young.
His black hair was slightly long, half gathered at the back into a loose wolf-tail.
He wore an immaculate black suit that looked prohibitively expensive. Tailored, probably—the cut emphasized his straight posture and long, slender frame.
He tossed away the wet wipe.
Then drew a pocket watch from his coat.
An emerald set into its case flashed brilliantly beneath the restaurant lights.
Walnut suddenly remembered the Rose Daily from a week ago.
That blurry photograph that had taken up an entire page.
The lean profile glimpsed through the window of a sports car...
It overlapped perfectly with the young man before him.
His surname had been Yu, if Walnut remembered correctly.
Only after Mr. Yu turned around did Walnut notice the tiny skeleton perched on his right shoulder.
A real skeleton.
No flesh.
No fur.
Nothing but snow-white bone.
At a glance, Walnut couldn't tell whether it had once belonged to a kitten or a puppy.
“Mew.”
The little skeleton jumped down.
Its tiny bones clicked and clattered as it landed.
It stretched out one paw, then lowered its head beside the two corpses.
A moment later, Walnut heard wet slurping sounds.
The two bodies collapsed inward before his eyes.
In seconds, nothing remained except thin sheets of skin and their clothes.
Walnut's eyes rolled back.
Slowly, very slowly, he slid toward the floor.
In the final instant before terror dragged him into unconsciousness, he saw Mr. Yu turn sharply toward a mirror on the restaurant wall.
“There a camera behind that mirror?”
“No,” Walnut answered.
His head tipped sideways.
He passed out completely.
The tiny skeleton cocked its head in confusion.
“?”
But Mr. Yu walked straight toward the mirror anyway.
He was quite tall.
Seen this close, the way he looked down into the glass carried an almost oppressive air.
“No?”
His suspicious gaze swept along both sides of the mirror before returning to its center.
He stared directly into it for a long time.
Then, without expression, he said:
“Then why do I feel like someone is watching me?”
*******
After a brief black screen, the world chat in the game lobby began flying by at a ridiculous speed.
There were still more than three minutes left before the servers officially opened, yet the chat was already in full frenzy.
Lines of luminous blue text appeared one after another.
The sheer number of voices somehow gave the screen the visual equivalent of a roaring crowd.
— What an incredible character trailer. What an incredible face!
— What an incredible character trailer. What an incredible face!
...
The copy-paste brigade flooded the screen, with the occasional different comment bobbing between them.
— Did this **** game suddenly hire an art team? Then who were those hideous creatures jumping around in the promo videos?
— They were there to personally insult your dog eyes.
— From now on, I support the artists riding the game designers to work every morning.
— They can ride the programmers too.
— I want this character's full name on my desk within ten seconds!
— Didn't the promo literally say it? Painted Skin: Yu Qing.
— Painted Skin? No wonder he can swap outfits with one click.
— If we all start acting insane right now, will the devs open the servers early?
— No. Three minutes left.
— WHY ARE THESE THREE MINUTES SO LONG?!
— WHY ARE THESE TWO MINUTES AND FIFTY-SIX SECONDS SO LONG?!
— WHY ARE THESE TWO MINUTES AND FORTY-ONE SECONDS SO LONG?!
...
— The devs saw how desperate you all are and burst into tears.
— You think I'm doing this for the developers? I'm here for the NPCs' faces.
— I'm here for the money.
...
The game was called Rose Island.
It was a full-dive holographic game.
Its setting was an odd fusion of Chinese cyberpunk and folk fantasy.
Neon skyscrapers could stand beside lantern-lit opera stages.
Black-canopied wooden boats and dazzling supercars could appear along the same riverbank.
The setting was chaotic.
The art was mediocre.
And every street and alley was steeped in “superstition.”
Strange little shrines stood everywhere, housing statues of all manner of gods.
The character trailers alone had introduced more than ten different groups and archetypes—Night-Wandering Gods, Lady Lu, Wuchang, Painted Skin, and more.
One trailer per week.
They had dragged the reveals out so slowly that the final one had only been released just before launch.
It was hard not to suspect the developers simply didn't have enough content ready.
Even the explorable game map currently consisted of a single unlocked region.
Everything beyond it remained veiled in rain and fog.
Yet despite not having officially launched, Rose Island had already shattered a long list of records.
And that was probably because of one thing alone—
the game was deeply connected to reality.
Anything you obtained in the game—whether through quests, achievement rewards, exploration, or sheer luck—could be converted into real-world currency at a fixed ratio, provided you survived the instance and brought it back out with you.
In plain language:
You could make real money playing this game.
Tens of millions of players had arrived with the same basic attitude:
Well, I'm already here. Might as well log in and see just how this “making money” thing works.
And so tens of millions of people sat there counting down the seconds until launch.
·
— WHY ARE THESE THIRTEEN SECONDS SO LONG?!
Luminous blue messages were still appearing in the chat as the countdown reached its final moments.
...
— 3
— 2
— 1
Every server went black at once.
Then a new line of text appeared before countless players.
Welcome to Rose Island.
Here, faith grows wild and confusion runs rampant.
Traveling alone is rarely wise. Those without divine protection often meet an early death.
Before setting foot upon the island, choose the deity you wish to worship.