Mi Xiaobai had not been plunged into the silence brought on by the vengeful ghosts.
The building was shaking too violently, the fire was too fierce, and the sound of its collapse drowned out almost everything else. He hadn't heard what Yu Qing said.
"What?"
Yu Qing gazed quietly at the mirror for a moment, then turned and headed downstairs without looking back.
The instant he stepped out of the building, Blue Bay Hotel collapsed with a thunderous crash. Dust billowed into the sky, only to be caught by the island city's unceasing drizzle and carried back down to earth.
The hotel's once-glorious past, along with the endless urban ghost stories that had followed its decline, was buried beneath the ruins, never to be seen again.
Three Ks had hurtled down eighteen flights of stairs and exhausted every last ounce of his strength. He lay sprawled in a corner of the beach, panting and vomiting.
Sushi Bar stood a short distance away, looking disgusted. With his hands on his hips, he struggled to catch his breath.
He glanced at Yu Qing from afar and pointed at his wrist.
"Hey, you're still bleeding. Are you seriously not going to bandage that up? It looks pretty damn nasty."
Yu Qing glanced down. The back of his hand was stained crimson. He flicked the blood away.
"It doesn't matter."
"Doesn't matter? What the hell are you talking about? At the rate you're bleeding, you'll fucking bleed to death before we even get out of here!" Sushi Bar said.
Three Ks finally managed to lift his head out of the hole in the sand and stared at Sushi Bar in astonishment.
He was about to say, Keep running your fucking mouth like that and you'll be dead too, but the words had barely reached his lips when—
"Bleurgh—"
"Vomit in the fucking hole, not on me!" Sushi Bar snapped.
Three Ks buried his face in the sand again. He raised a thumb at Sushi Bar, changed it to a middle finger, and finally managed to rasp out a warning.
"Hurry! Hurry up and figure out how to get out of here. I can't stand another fucking second in this place."
Having spent the entire instance unconscious, Sushi Bar opened his phone and was stunned by the red notification badge displaying 99+ on his chat interface.
He assumed they were all Team Chat messages, but to his surprise, many of them were system notifications.
He opened them and found an entire string of achievements.
Apparently, quite a lot of exciting things had happened while he had been lying unconscious on that lousy sofa, missing the whole damn thing...
The realization was almost physically painful.
"What the fuck am I supposed to look at?!" he demanded, cursing. "My quest guide is still stuck on buying a weapon! Everything after that is a fucking mess of achievements and hidden-quest completion notifications... Fuck me, you guys even unlocked a hidden storyline?!"
Three Ks fell silent.
Somewhere beneath the glittering stars, someone was playing music.
"Can you stop with the fucking Morse code and just open the last notification? Please. I'm begging you," Three Ks said, his head resting on the edge of the hole.
Sushi Bar finally located the notification about the exit among the jumble of messages.
"'On the vast, fog-shrouded shore, where the mist is thickest, lies a long-abandoned marina,'" he read aloud.
Where the mist was thickest?
He looked around until he spotted the far end of the beach, which had disappeared beneath an immense bank of fog. Then he hauled Three Ks out of the hole.
He had intended to drag Yu Qing along as well, only to discover that their teammate was no longer standing beside the ruins.
"That's weird. Where'd he go?"
Sushi Bar and Three Ks searched around the wreckage but found nothing. With no other choice, they set off into the fog.
By the time they felt their way to the marina, however, they discovered that Yu Qing had already arrived ahead of them.
"This fucking marina is a nightmare to find. How the hell did you get here so fast?" Sushi Bar asked.
"I know this place," Yu Qing replied.
Sushi Bar stared at him in confusion.
He had missed everything that had happened earlier and had no idea what kind of person Yu Qing really was.
Three Ks, on the other hand, found nothing strange about the answer. He even asked with remarkable meekness, "Then do you know how to summon the ferryman?"
Yu Qing glanced at Three Ks's bulging pockets and said disdainfully, "Throw away all that junk. Keep the conch shell bell and the gold coin."
"The conch shell bell and the gold coin?"
Three Ks had been frightened so badly throughout their journey that he could barely remember what items he possessed.
Yu Qing looked at him expressionlessly.
"You don't remember the thing you bit?"
"Oh! Oh, right!"
Three Ks nodded, his face turning bright red, and began emptying his pockets.
He had a habit common among veteran players: when he didn't know which items might prove useful, he stuffed absolutely everything he could carry into his pockets.
Sushi Bar edged closer to Three Ks and whispered suspiciously, "He knows everything before we've even done the quest. Is this guy some kind of fucking cheater?"
Three Ks fell silent.
"It's a long story. Really hard to explain. Just trust me, do what he says. Get the conch shell bell and the gold coin out first."
As he spoke, Three Ks rummaged through a pile of hotel notepaper, pens, room key cards, and a battered telescopic knife that was completely useless to him now.
At last, he unearthed the little conch shell bell.
A sudden flash of inspiration struck him, and he shook it.
The last time he had shaken this bell, the system had told him that the timing was not right and to try again later.
Sure enough, a different notification appeared this time.
[A lost wandering ghost has heard the long-forgotten ringing of a bell.]
[It was a gift from his two precious daughters.]
[The bell has gathered dust for many years, and its chime has grown faint. The sea fog is too thick. He cannot hear it clearly.]
"He can't hear it clearly?"
Three Ks slapped Sushi Bar hard on the shoulder.
"Quick, quick, quick! Get your bell out too! Shake it with mine!"
He wanted to give Yu Qing a similarly vigorous slap, but he didn't dare.
Fortunately, Yu Qing was already holding a small bell in his hand. He gave it a shake.
Three bells rang out together, their combined sound a little louder than before.
A moment later, a dark figure emerged through the fog, like a solitary soul that had wandered the sea for countless years.
The ghostly figure wore a broad black conical hat that concealed most of his face. A black windproof scarf covered his chin, making his features almost impossible to discern.
The only splash of color on his entire person was the scarlet cloth pouch hanging at his waist.
He looked as though he had just climbed out of the sea. Water dripped incessantly from his hat and the chains draped around his body.
In his hand was a long black-and-gold pole, one end thrust diagonally into the seawater. A dusty conch shell bell hung from the other end.
Sushi Bar froze.
"The Ferryman of the River Styx?! One of the Ghost Deities from the character preview? The Ferryman of the River Styx?"
Before the game's launch, the preview had shown only a distant silhouette against the vast sea. It hadn't even revealed his name.
Now, seeing him up close, Sushi Bar realized that the things draped around his body bore certain similarities to those worn by the father who had died in the beginner instance.
Three Ks glanced at the conch shell bell, stunned.
"Luo Yao? Is the Ferryman of the River Styx actually Luo Yao?"
He turned toward Yu Qing, seeking confirmation.
In truth, Yu Qing was somewhat surprised himself.
As a resident of the island city, he naturally knew that the Ferryman of the River Styx lived at the far end of the shore.
He was one of the city's Ghost Deities, frequently ferrying people safely across these waters in exchange for a single "gold coin" per crossing. Every year around this time, the ferryman would disappear for quite a while.
Yu Qing also knew that every Ghost Deity had a past, a life they had lived before becoming a deity.
But deities never addressed one another by name.
Thus, today was the first time Yu Qing had learned that the ferryman's name was Luo Yao, that he had once lived such a life, and that he had treasured it so dearly.
"Oh! Now I know what that gold coin is for!" Three Ks exclaimed.
He took out the coin and offered it to the ferryman.
"We give you a gold coin, and you take us out of here, right?"
At last, the ferryman spoke. His voice was unmistakably Luo Yao's, though it sounded somewhat more weathered.
"I do not ferry passengers on these days of the year."
Not just these days, Yu Qing thought.
According to the island city's rumors, the ferryman frequently vanished for months at a time.
But now that Yu Qing knew the reason, he could understand.
Three Ks and Sushi Bar could not.
For the two men desperate to escape the instance, it felt as though the sky had fallen.
"We don't have another boat!"
"What if I swim out?" Sushi Bar asked, already talking nonsense.
Three Ks couldn't help asking, "Why can't you ferry anyone on these particular days?"
Luo Yao answered slowly.
"My wife, children, and their grandmother died many years ago. No one has helped their souls pass on. Every year, on the anniversary of their deaths, they become especially frightened. I must keep them company."
The instant he finished speaking, the holographic screen appeared once more.
[The Ferryman of the River Styx has guarded these shores for many years, ferrying the living away and the dead home.]
[Yet he cannot send away those he longs for most.]
[Please help the souls of those he cannot bear to let go pass on.]
Three Ks immediately said, "So we just have to complete another quest? That's easy! No problem!"
After all, as far as he was concerned, they had an "all-powerful" teammate.
As soon as he finished speaking, Luo Yao raised his head. His eyes finally emerged from beneath the brim of his broad hat, and he stared directly at them.
Three Ks turned as well, gazing expectantly at Yu Qing.
Then he heard Yu Qing say calmly, "I don't know how to help souls pass on."
Three Ks fell silent.
He could hardly believe it.
But aren't you a deity? How can a deity not know how to help souls pass on?
Then he remembered that Luo Yao was a Ghost Deity too, and evidently lacked that ability himself.
Three Ks asked in bewilderment, "Is there some particular deity who specializes in helping souls pass on? Can't anyone else do it?"
As soon as the question left his mouth, he saw Yu Qing's expression change.
It was barely noticeable. He simply pressed his lips together, lowered his gaze, and frowned ever so slightly.
The expression vanished almost immediately.
Three Ks nearly convinced himself that he had imagined it.
But Luo Yao had already begun to speak.
"There is indeed a deity who specializes in helping souls pass on."
"Who?"
"Wuchang."
Three Ks stared.
"...Wuchang? As in the Black and White Wuchang? Aren't there supposed to be two of them?"
Luo Yao looked puzzled. He had no idea what Three Ks was talking about.
"No," Yu Qing said suddenly, his voice cold. "Wuchang, as in the impermanence of life. Life is like a fleeting bubble or shadow; in an instant, all things change."
Three Ks looked at him blankly.
Luo Yao said, "According to the island city's legends, he is an elusive Ghost Deity who comes and goes without a trace, whose powers are unfathomable, and who excels at beguiling people's hearts."
"A fraud," Yu Qing said.
Three Ks fell silent again.
There's definitely a story there.
But he didn't dare ask.
Besides, what mattered most right now was getting out of the instance. He still had all that hard-earned money stuffed in his pockets!
"So are we supposed to find this Ghost Deity?" he asked.
Luo Yao shook his head.
"He disappeared many years ago."
"He's dead," Yu Qing said.
Three Ks had nothing to say.
"Then we're completely fucked! What was the point of telling us all that?!" Sushi Bar cried in despair.
They said desperation could sharpen the mind.
Three Ks suddenly remembered something Sushi Bar had said earlier.
"Wait! Where did you say you got stuck on your quests? Buying a weapon?"
Sushi Bar nodded.
"Yeah!"
"Quick, quick, quick!"
Three Ks felt that this was the smartest he had been since entering the instance.
"Look over there. Can you see three little shops standing side by side?"
He pointed in the direction of the weapon shop below the hotel.
Sushi Bar nodded.
"Yeah, I can."
Three Ks grabbed Sushi Bar and broke into a sprint, dragging him straight toward the weapon shop.
"We've already completed that quest, so we can't see the shop anymore. It's perfect that you can still see it! They sell talismans in there! Talismans for helping souls pass on! Hurry up and buy some! Whether we get out of here depends on you!"
Having spent the entire instance unconscious, Sushi Bar finally felt as though he had something to contribute.
He marched into the shop with his head held high and asked Three Ks, "How many people are we supposed to help pass on again?"
"Five altogether in Luo Yao's family."
With a grand sweep of his hand, Sushi Bar ordered five talismans.
For an instant, Three Ks was struck by an uncanny sense of déjà vu.
He remembered the scene when Just Plain Rude had come here to buy talismans. He, too, had bought five without a moment's hesitation.
Three Ks suddenly froze.
What had Just Plain Rude been thinking when he bought those five talismans for helping souls pass on?
Had it been pure coincidence, or had he once felt even the slightest trace of remorse?
But none of that mattered anymore...
Three Ks shook his head, dragged Sushi Bar back to the shore, and triumphantly held up the five talismans.
"Will these work?"
The sea breeze swept across the talismans, carrying the scent of the candles that burned before the deity's altar.
Yu Qing immediately turned toward them with a frown. In the darkness and sea fog, his handsome face was a cold splash of white.
Three Ks shrank back and silently pulled Sushi Bar, who was proudly waving the five talismans around, a little closer to himself.
Luo Yao had caught the scent as well. A faint light returned to his eyes.
"These talismans appear to have been blessed with incense before a deity's statue. But they are very old. I don't know whether they will still work."
"Then let's try!" Sushi Bar declared. "No point talking about it. We won't know until we try!"
He paused, then asked with somewhat less bravado, "Uh... how do we use them?"
Luo Yao fell silent.
How was he supposed to know? He had never witnessed Wuchang helping a soul pass on.
The light in his eyes dimmed again, and he was about to sigh when a voice suddenly spoke.
"Press the talismans against their faces."
Luo Yao looked up in confusion.
Three Ks nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned toward Yu Qing, who had spoken.
"Are you sure that's right?"
Back when that arrogant, free-spirited Ghost Deity helped souls pass on, he had indeed been fond of doing precisely that.
If he encountered a particularly unpleasant ghost, he would sometimes even take a pen or knife and draw directly on its face.
Yu Qing had witnessed it countless times.
But there had also been occasions when...
On those rare occasions when the Ghost Deity had deigned to be kind, he would place the talisman in a wandering ghost's palm instead.
Yu Qing remained silent for a moment. Then he pushed aside the irritating fragments of memory that had begun surfacing in his mind.
"You can put them in their hands, too," he said coldly.
*
The sea fog stretched endlessly before them.
Luo Yao gave his long black-and-gold pole a gentle shake, and the conch shell bell hanging from its tip rang softly.
When Yu Qing and the others turned around, four figures had appeared in the mist that had shrouded these waters for so many years.
They had seen these people before in the instance.
Luo Yao's wife, his twin daughters, and the girls' maternal grandmother.
Sushi Bar hesitated for a moment before walking over to them. Lowering his head, he placed a talisman for helping souls pass on into each of their palms.
Yu Qing had witnessed too many extremes of human emotion, most of them hatred and despair, surging like a raging fire that could consume everything in its path.
But he had rarely witnessed anything like this...
It was a quiet, gentle farewell.
How many years had they waited? How many years had they watched over one another? How many years had they wept before their parting could finally become something so peaceful?
The two little girls watched in innocent bewilderment as Sushi Bar pressed the talismans into their tiny palms.
Suddenly, they turned toward the ferryman on the boat.
"What about Daddy?" one of them asked softly. "Isn't Daddy coming?"
The ferryman gazed at them.
After a long while, he said, "Daddy wants to remember all this... Daddy still has to write you letters and bring you flowers every year."
For these departed souls, passing on meant release.
But release meant letting go, forgetting, and never returning.
There would always be people in this world who did not wish to be released.
The talismans in their palms dissolved into delicate wisps of smoke. The smoke scattered in the wind, then gathered together again.
Perhaps because the talismans had been blessed with incense before a deity's candle stand, the gathering smoke actually took on something of a deity's silhouette.
Yu Qing instinctively looked toward it.
A moment later, he frowned and turned his gaze away.
It was at that very instant that the smoke dissipated.
The four figures vanished along with it.
And so did the little girls, leaving behind only their final question.
"What flowers will Daddy bring?"
The ferryman answered softly, "Mommy likes wild daisies, Grandma likes daffodils, and you two like jasmine. I remember all of them. I won't get them mixed up."
But by the time he finished speaking, not a trace of his treasures remained on the shore...
Sushi Bar stood before the ferryman, holding the last talisman.
"Uh, you're a Ghost Deity. Will a talisman for helping souls pass on actually work on you?"
It took the ferryman a long time to recover his composure.
"It would make all these chains disappear."
"Well, that's something! You'd feel a bit lighter!"
Sushi Bar was about to place the talisman in the ferryman's hand when Luo Yao moved one hand behind his back.
"No, thank you. I think I'll keep these chains."
With that, he turned his long black-and-gold pole, bringing the wooden boat around until it came alongside the marina.
He pulled down the brim of his black hat, concealing his eyes, and addressed the people on shore.
"One gold coin grants passage. The River Styx is boundless. I will ferry you out."
Three Ks and Sushi Bar took out their gold coins and boarded the boat.
Then they turned to look at Yu Qing.
Yu Qing was about to speak when the ferryman pointed at him.
"There seems to be a visitor from another place within you. You may board as well. When we reach the end, he will leave of his own accord."
Yu Qing froze.
After a long while, he finally stepped onto the boat.
At the far edge of the horizon, Three Ks and Sushi Bar shouted at the top of their lungs.
"HOLY FUCK! I'M FINALLY OUT—!"
It was at that exact instant that Yu Qing's vision went dark.
*
When he opened his eyes again, he was standing in the familiar bedroom of his penthouse apartment, at the very top of the tallest residential building in the island city.
Everything he had experienced seemed like a dream.
It was as though he had merely stopped in the middle of his bedroom and stood lost in thought for a while.
Yu Qing lowered his gaze to his hand.
A gold coin, the one used to board the boat, lay in his palm.
Presumably, because his physical body could not leave this place, he had never needed to use the coin.
He turned it over between his fingers for a while, flicked it into the air with a sharp ping, and caught it again.
Then he turned toward the little skeleton perched on his shoulder and held out the coin.
"Clean it, then take it away and put it somewhere safe."
He might as well keep it as a souvenir.
The little skeleton had shed the fluffy white fur it had worn inside the instance and returned to its original form.
It caught the coin in its mouth and scampered away with a clatter of bones.
Numerous notes were still scattered across the bedroom floor.
Yu Qing casually picked one up and read what was written on it.
Your skeletal kitten is quite cute, actually. It played with me for a while of its own free will. It just kept hissing at me.
As he read the words, he could almost hear Mi Xiaobai's voice in his ears.
He remembered the flames sweeping down the hotel corridor, and the figure running alongside him in the mirror.
The name was different. The voice was different. Even the reflection in the mirror had shown Yu Qing's own face, giving him no way of seeing what the other person really looked like.
And yet, he could not shake the feeling that Mi Xiaobai resembled someone he knew.
...
Wuchang.
According to the island city's legends, Wuchang was a mysterious Ghost Deity, ever-changing and unpredictable, whose whereabouts were impossible to pin down.
He was said to carry himself with an air of habitual laziness. Tall and handsome, he could even be described as charming and elegant.
It was also said that one of his ears heard the voices of the living, while the other heard the speech of ghosts.
For that reason, he often wore a single ear cuff, sealing his left ear to keep the clamor of ghosts from disturbing him.
And there was another rumor.
When his black hair turned completely white, everyone was supposed to get away from him immediately.
For that was his vicious ghost form.
...
But Yu Qing had met Wuchang long before those rumors became widespread.
He had been fifteen years old.
It had happened right here, in this very bedroom, beside the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the entire island city.
He had encountered a young Ghost Deity who appeared to be about his own age.
It was his first year living here alone, on a summer night before the oppressive heat had arrived.
Outside the window, the city's perpetual drizzle continued to fall. A train passed through the city, its lights cutting through the darkness before it disappeared into the dense fog in the distance.
Yu Qing withdrew his gaze from the train's neon-lit silhouette.
When he turned his head, he discovered that someone was sitting on the narrow ledge outside his window.
The building stood nearly a hundred stories tall, and the outer windowsill was barely a foot wide.
Yet the figure sat there with one leg bent, leaning back in the summer night breeze, lazily surveying the city lights and the endless stream of traffic far below.
After watching the city for a while, he caught sight of Yu Qing out of the corner of his eye and finally turned his head.
The night wind swept past the high-rise, ruffling his short black hair and exposing a few equally unruly strands of white.
The city's pink neon lights reflected in his eyes, lending them a hazy brightness.
He removed the matching pink ear cuff from his left ear, smiled at Yu Qing, and said, "Mind if I borrow your windowsill for a bit? I've got a disobedient wandering ghost to catch."
According to the rumors, whenever Wuchang removed his ear cuff, that ear could hear the countless voices of ghosts.
Yu Qing watched as the young deity narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Ah," he murmured. "Found you."
Then he slipped the ear cuff back into place and gave Yu Qing a casual wave.
"Thanks."
Without even turning around, he leaned backward with a smile and threw himself off the building.