Midnight was always when Rose Island was at its liveliest.
The game’s login screen was exceptionally immersive. Whenever players went idle, they remained inside a private capsule apartment of their own.
The apartment’s address corresponded to the island city map in-game. By default, players were assigned a unit in a low-income apartment building in the Lower City. There was even rent: five hundred game coins per month.
Naturally, players with deeper pockets could pay higher rent for somewhere better.
After leaving an instance, players often threw themselves into decorating their homes. Some would rather lie on the narrow bed in their apartment, listening to the endless rain outside while scrolling through World Chat and the built-in forum on their rainbow-neon phones, than log out.
Tonight was especially lively.
It started when every player holed up in their apartment heard a heavy knock at the door precisely at midnight.
An oil-paper parcel was shoved through the mail slot and rolled across the floor.
Inside was a copy of the Rose Daily.
On the final page, under “Game News,” was an announcement from the developers, IMM., regarding a maintenance update that would not require taking the servers offline.
According to the announcement, the team consisting of Three Ks, ^ ^, and Sushi Bar had completed the hidden side quests “Escape to Freedom” and “The Ferryman of the River Styx,” reopening the long-sealed seaside ferry terminal and thereby affecting the world storyline.
From now on, the seaside ferry terminal would officially become the sole exit from every instance.
Each time a player entered an instance, they would automatically receive one boarding gold coin. If that coin was lost or destroyed inside the instance for any reason, no replacement would be issued.
World Chat exploded.
…
…
For a while, practically everyone was curious about this team. Whatever their motives, countless players were itching to send them friend requests.
Sushi Bar was the first to blow up, showering World Chat in a burst of stars:
He was also the only one who blew up.
The money-grubbing Three Ks had hugged his hard-earned fortune to his chest and logged out at light speed the instant he left the instance.
As for ^ ^…
Someone in World Chat soon asked:
Only a few scattered comments about sending requests appeared among the endless messages before the conversation was swept away by a new topic.
Mi Xiaobai knew nothing about any of this.
More accurately, he had not even looked.
Thanks to the game’s standby interface, which had generously bestowed upon him a… cramped, shabby, broken-down, dim, damp… all things considered, fairly decent little apartment.
For the moment, at least, he had somewhere to stay.
It was worlds apart from the place where he had once lived in the island city…
But the apartment did, at the very least, contain a creaking bed, a three-legged table—not even a chair—and a bathroom with a faucet that would not shut properly but technically still allowed him to shower.
Who could possibly say this wasn’t a blessing?
Mi Xiaobai thought sarcastically.
At that moment, he was leaning beside the window.
The ceiling of the low-income apartment was a little too low, and Mi Xiaobai was tall enough that he had to bow his head slightly whenever he stood there.
Rain streamed endlessly beyond the glass. Bathed in neon light, Mi Xiaobai fiddled with his phone.
Everyone in World Chat was trying to add him as a friend.
Meanwhile, he was trying to add one particular person.
The deities worshipped by other players would “eat” their Wish Slips, grant blessings, raise Favorability, and even appear as portraits in the Friends tab.
The one he worshipped, however, was exceptionally picky.
Not only had he refused to eat the Wish Slip, he had practically spat it back at Mi Xiaobai with a ptooey.
Which meant Mi Xiaobai had no choice but to try adding him manually.
He opened the Friends tab and entered “Yu Qing” into the Add Friend field.
The game did not allow players and deities to share the same name, and searches had to be exact.
The search results remained completely blank.
Mi Xiaobai narrowed his eyes.
He deleted the name and entered “Painted Skin” instead.
This time, a portrait finally appeared.
It showed the skeletal kitten in profile. Perched on the tip of its nose—if that could even be called a nose—was a blue-winged swallowtail butterfly.
The image was utterly at odds with the rumors describing Painted Skin as cold-faced and colder-hearted.
But it was unquestionably him.
Mi Xiaobai stared at the familiar portrait, bit lightly at the tip of his tongue, and tapped “Add.”
A system message appeared.
[You have not yet unlocked a Deity Bond with this deity. A friend request cannot be sent while Favorability is below 10.]
Mi Xiaobai: “…”
The system even helpfully tempted him with suggestions.
Complete quests or hidden events to increase Favorability.
Give gifts to randomly increase Favorability.
Mi Xiaobai opened the gift interface.
[This deity is extremely difficult to please. Preferred gifts have not yet been unlocked. You may attempt to increase Favorability by giving gifts.]
Fruit-Flavored Squeeze Jelly a Kitty Might Like
Price: 1,500
Iridescent Supercar
Price: 12,000,000
The squeeze jelly was one thing.
The iridescent supercar even had the audacity to impose a purchase limit.
Daily Limit: 3/3.
Mi Xiaobai laughed in disbelief.
The Deity Bond could not be unlocked, and the friend request could not be sent.
Annoyed, Mi Xiaobai straightened slightly and looked toward one corner of the room.
On the three-legged table stood a tiny deity statue identical to the Painted Skin statue from the deity-selection screen.
This one, however, was only the size of his palm.
A candle stand sat before it, but there was no eternal flame burning there, so for the time being it could not serve as an object of worship.
Cracks had already appeared across the little statue.
Mi Xiaobai frowned faintly and stared at the Painted Skin statue for a while.
Then he abruptly walked to the apartment door and gave the lock a hard tug.
It did not budge.
Clearly, this interface existed only for players to remain idle in. The door could not actually be opened.
After thinking for a moment, he picked up his phone, entered the built-in forum, and once again messaged the game booster named Definitely Not Scallop.
Shan Bei had never expected to hear from that client again.
He had assumed the white-faced client had finally realized that spending three thousand yuan just to have an account created was a stupid-as-hell thing to do and had come looking for after-sales support.
Instead, the client made a strange request.
^ ^: Do you still remember my game account and password?
Definitely Not Scallop: ?
Definitely Not Scallop: Boss, don’t tell me you STILL haven’t changed the account password???
^ ^: Correct.
Definitely Not Scallop: Aren’t you seriously afraid someone’s going to steal your account???
^ ^: Ah. That’s fine. If it gets stolen, I’ll come find you.
Definitely Not Scallop: …
Definitely Not Scallop: So what do you want me to do?
^ ^: Log into my account again.
Shan Bei’s head filled with question marks.
He could not resist typing:
Definitely Not Scallop: Why? Is there some troublesome quest you want me to grind for you?
^ ^: No.
^ ^: Just log into the account. I’m logging out now.
Shan Bei was deeply disappointed.
If a client this generous ordered a few more jobs from him, he could have covered next year’s tuition and living expenses too.
Disappointed or not, he agreed.
Once he saw the client’s profile picture gray out, Shan Bei logged into the account.
This client had always been mysterious. Shan Bei could not begin to guess what he was planning.
Afraid to touch anything unnecessarily after logging in, he simply sat upright inside the cramped, run-down apartment and looked around.
The entire apartment had only one enormous glass window.
Through the hazy rain, the tallest building in the island city could be seen in the distance.
Rumor had it that the most luxurious apartments in the entire city were located there.
With the assets players currently possessed, probably no one could afford to live in one.
Shan Bei was gazing into the distance with envy when his phone suddenly vibrated.
Another message from the client.
^ ^: Stay logged in. Don’t quit. I’m getting on now.
Definitely Not Scallop: ?
What the hell?????
Inside the game.
A strong wind had risen over the island city late at night, sending rain smacking against the glass windows.
Yu Qing came back to himself by the window.
As if suddenly remembering something, he took out his antique emerald pocket watch and flipped it open.
Like an ordinary clock, the watch had twelve sets of markings, corresponding to the twelve double-hours of the old system of timekeeping.
But it had only one hand.
That hand resembled a long, slender bone.
With a soft click, it moved backward from 2 to 1.
The pocket watch only began moving on the final day before his disappearance, counting backward counterclockwise.
Now that it had reached 1, Yu Qing had only one double-hour remaining.
In modern terms, two hours.
The little skeleton seemed to understand everything.
It came over and rubbed against his leg. It had no eyeballs, only hollow sockets, yet somehow it looked on the verge of tears.
Yu Qing picked it up by the scruff and tossed it onto the bed.
“Two whole hours left?”
He actually sounded surprised.
Before he had been dragged into the instance, his time had already been nearly up.
Then he had spent at least one full night inside Blue Bay Hotel.
Ordinarily, he should have dissolved the moment he returned.
Yet somehow he still had two hours left.
Which meant time inside the instance did not move at the same rate as time here.
Still, two hours would pass in the blink of an eye.
This time, surely nothing else would interrupt him.
There could not possibly be that many accidents in the world.
Mr. Painted Skin was particular about such things.
Even disappearing had to be done neatly, quietly, and with dignity.
He snapped his fingers, recalling the blue-winged swallowtail butterfly that had been flying through the island city, and was just about to lie down fully dressed when he heard a faint rustling outside the door.
Puzzled, Yu Qing opened the bedroom door.
Uncle Yuan, who had apparently been lurking outside, lost his balance and toppled forward. He barely managed to stay upright by grabbing his employer’s sleeve.
Yu Qing stared at his now-wrinkled sleeve.
“?”
Uncle Yuan: “…”
“What are you sneaking around for?” Yu Qing asked.
Uncle Yuan released the sleeve and looked straight ahead with exaggerated innocence.
“Nothing, nothing… it’s just… well…”
Yu Qing had only two hours left, and the old man was still standing there putting on an impressive performance as a stutterer.
He was just about to let his expression darken when Uncle Yuan finally gave up and confessed outright:
“I eavesdropped.”
Yu Qing: “Have you lost your mind?”
Even Yu Qing had not expected him to be that direct.
Is this what happens when a Ghost Deity is about to disappear? Society decays and the housekeeper rebels?
Before Yu Qing could pin the charge of insurrection on him, Uncle Yuan hurriedly explained:
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, sir.”
“What? Did I force you to listen?”
Uncle Yuan waved both hands frantically.
“Of course not, of course not. After you told me not to come near the bedroom and said I could stay or leave as I pleased, I was going to stand farther away and guard the front door. Then I started hearing strange noises coming from your bedroom.”
Yu Qing frowned.
“Such as?”
Uncle Yuan sucked in a breath through his teeth.
“Hsss…”
The old man suddenly began hesitating again as though his teeth hurt.
Yu Qing urged him coldly, “Speak. Stop hissing.”
Uncle Yuan scratched his chin.
“Well… sometimes I heard someone talking quietly, sometimes it sounded like somebody was cursing, and there were a few laughs in between. Then there were these huge rumbling crashes. In short… terrifying beyond description. Utterly inscrutable.”
Yu Qing: “…”
He stared at Uncle Yuan without blinking.
After a long moment, he finally processed what the old man had said and asked ominously:
“Was it all my voice?”
Uncle Yuan shook his head so violently it resembled a rattle drum.
“No, no! Absolutely not! That would be terrifying!”
“You just said it was terrifying beyond description.”
“That was merely a description of my emotional state at the time.”
As he spoke, Uncle Yuan pulled out his phone.
“It really wasn’t all your voice! I even recorded it. Don’t believe me? Want to hear?”
Yu Qing’s voice became even softer.
“You recorded it too?”
Uncle Yuan: “…”
Uncle Yuan declared decisively, “I can also delete it immediately.”
He raised the phone to do exactly that, only for Yu Qing to stop him.
“Play it.”
Uncle Yuan: “…”
The housekeeper aged ten years on the spot.
But unable to withstand the freezing, murderous look from his employer, he fidgeted helplessly and eventually obeyed, tapping Play.
Fortunately, the recording was not clear.
Only a few collapse-like rumbles and the faintest ringing of bells had been captured.
The human voices were even less distinct.
Almost inaudible.
Like sounds from a dream.
Uncle Yuan was constitutionally incapable of keeping anything to himself. Before Yu Qing could interrogate him further, he confessed again:
“I was really worried, so I also opened the bedroom door just a ti—tiny crack and looked inside.”
Yu Qing stared at him in disbelief.
Silently, he began calculating.
If Uncle Yuan says he saw me talking to myself and putting on a one-man show in there, I’m killing every living thing present.
Fortunately, Uncle Yuan said, “I don’t know why, but the room was full of mist. I couldn’t see anything.”
Then he sighed regretfully.
“Ah, it was my own fault for not being brave enough. And I really was afraid you’d blame me. Otherwise, I absolutely would’ve gone in to see what was happening.”
No need.
If he had actually seen anything, someone would have had to die.
Uncle Yuan had no idea that he had already escaped death several times over.
He continued sighing to himself.
Yu Qing, meanwhile, ran through the contents of the instance again while listening to him.
Every sound corresponded.
Especially those few laughs…
It did not exactly require deep thought to guess who had made them.
After all, there had probably only been one person in that entire instance who had been in the mood to laugh.
Yu Qing was suspicious by nature.
He stared at Uncle Yuan and asked again:
“You truly didn’t see anything?”
Uncle Yuan shook his head repeatedly.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Good.”
Yu Qing’s handsome face remained frosted over as he muttered:
“Otherwise I’d kill that bastard.”
Uncle Yuan: “Hm?”
He had already folded his hands into his sleeves and was prepared to make himself scarce.
The moment he heard that, however, his ears practically shot upright.
“Bastard? What bastard?”
This middle-aged-to-elderly gentleman’s greatest hobby was painstakingly studying every scrap of gossip in the Rose Daily. He had nearly rolled up his sleeves before and personally joined in the rumor-mongering under the username “Anonymous.”
Hearing only half the story now left him unbearably curious.
“Who are you talking about, sir?”
Fortunately, his mind moved quickly. He immediately remembered the note that had once been left on the table.
“That bastard who writes everything at an angle?”
Yu Qing gave a low, heavy “Mm.”
He was not naturally inclined toward conversation.
Uncle Yuan was talkative, meddlesome, and prone to making a fuss over everything, so Yu Qing normally had very little desire to chat with him.
Perhaps it was because he was about to disappear.
For some reason, he added:
“He… reminds me of someone.”
Uncle Yuan seemed surprised that his employer was actually continuing the conversation.
He froze for a moment.
“You mean the bastard? Who does he remind you of?”
Yu Qing frowned in thought before answering:
“Wuchang.”
Two simple syllables nearly knocked Uncle Yuan off his feet.
His voice cracked.
“WHO?”
“Wuchang.”
“Didn’t he disappear years ago?!”
Uncle Yuan looked deeply unsettled.
In the island city, if a deity had vanished from all notice for years—body gone, no trace remaining, even their deity statues destroyed—there could only be one outcome.
They were dead.
Gone.
No longer present anywhere in the island city or this world.
Nobody would use an ambiguous word like disappeared to describe such a thing.
For all these years, Wuchang had been the sole exception.
Perhaps the rumors surrounding him in the island city were simply too vicious, too sinister, too unpredictable.
Everyone—ghosts especially—feared him so much that they instinctively believed he could not possibly die.
He had merely disappeared.
And disappearance meant that someday, he might return.
Uncle Yuan clearly belonged to the category of people especially terrified of him.
Because, in a certain sense, Uncle Yuan could also be considered a ghost.
And Wuchang specialized in dealing with ghosts.
The better outcome was being helped to pass on.
The worse was being devoured outright until not even ashes remained.
That was a fate ten thousand times more terrifying than death.
Just hearing the name “Wuchang” made Uncle Yuan’s knees weak.
He even tried to drag his perpetually cold employer into sharing his panic.
“He absolutely cannot come back. Even if he really does, sir, you must stay eight hundred yards away from him!”
Yu Qing raised his eyes slightly.
Uncle Yuan immediately began fearmongering.
“Don’t forget—the reason Lady Meng went from being twin sisters to only one person is because he devoured and killed the other.”
Stories that deities could devour and kill one another had circulated through the island city for a very long time.
But to date, Wuchang was the only deity known to have actually done it.
At this, Yu Qing unconsciously touched the side of his neck.
There was a scar there roughly the length of a finger joint.
It was not particularly deep, but it had remained for many years.
Uncle Yuan saw the movement and immediately became animated.
“Oh, right! You and he got along quite well for a while back then, sir. Didn’t something nearly happen because of that?”
After blurting it out, he noticed a subtle shift in his employer’s expression.
Uncle Yuan: “Hm???”
Perhaps because the exaggerated tone of his voice had not yet subsided, that “hm” snapped Yu Qing back to himself.
Yu Qing glanced at him.
“What are you hming about? Keep insulting him.”
Uncle Yuan: “…”
Having been interrupted, he suddenly ran out of material.
After struggling for a long while, he finally offered his concluding statement:
“In any case, he’s a bastard. He’d better never come back.”
Yu Qing gave a small nod.
He took out the pocket watch again and flipped open the cover.
The lonely hand had crept a little closer to zero.
If a Ghost Deity could be considered alive, then Yu Qing had spent nearly half of the final two hours of his life listening to Uncle Yuan curse that bastard.
It was not particularly boring.
With a snap, Yu Qing closed the watch.
He was about to ask Uncle Yuan to leave the bedroom when he heard the faintest tapping against the window.
Yu Qing turned sharply.
It was the blue-winged swallowtail butterfly he had recalled.
Over the many years past, this butterfly had listened to and carried the voices of countless believers for him, endlessly circling through the vast mortal world.
Now that there were no believers left, it could finally return and rest.
Just as Yu Qing instructed Uncle Yuan to open the window and let the butterfly in, a voice suddenly said:
“Finally got in. Hope I made it in time.”
Yu Qing: “?”
The voice was far too close.
So close it was as if someone were standing directly behind him, leaning down slightly to speak beside his ear.
Yu Qing spun around.
There was no one there.
Yet the voice itself was unmistakable.
He had heard it far too many times inside the instance.
Yu Qing stared at the empty space within arm’s reach and frowned.
“Mi Xiaobai?”
The voice froze too.
“You can hear me?”
Yu Qing hesitated, then nodded.
Laughter entered Mi Xiaobai’s voice.
“Ah. That’s wonderful. I almost had to be a bastard for once.”
Yu Qing: “?”
Yu Qing remembered the bed covered in origami and the infuriating drawings all over his palm.
Immediately wary, he asked:
“What were you planning to do?”
“Don’t be nervous.”
Mi Xiaobai paused.
“This isn’t exactly polite, but I was planning to borrow primary control for a while.”
It was the first time in Yu Qing’s life that anyone had ever said such a thing to him.
More than angry, he was astonished.
His eyes widened slightly.
“Have you lost your mind, or do you think I have? You want control, so I’m simply supposed to give it to you?”
“I was originally going to wait until you fell asleep and take it quietly,” Mi Xiaobai said. “I didn’t expect you to be able to hear me. So much for doing it quietly.”
His voice was low and simply too close.
Yu Qing felt a faint flicker of annoyance.
“Can’t you stand farther away when you talk?”
“Ah…”
For once, a trace of helplessness entered Mi Xiaobai’s shamelessly casual tone.
“I’m afraid that’s a little difficult at the moment.”
Uncle Yuan, meanwhile, had been staring open-mouthed for quite some time.
Silently, he took one large step backward.
The blue-winged swallowtail butterfly was still circling them.
The little skeleton stood blankly on the edge of the bed. It wanted to hiss at Yu Qing but did not quite dare, opening and closing its mouth like a fish trying to blow bubbles.
Uncle Yuan stood several paces away, bewildered and horrified.
Very cautiously, he asked:
“Sir… sir, are you all right? Who are you talking to?”
Yu Qing had had enough.
“You can only hear me?” he asked Uncle Yuan expressionlessly.
Uncle Yuan nodded, trembling.
“Who else am I supposed to hear?”
Yu Qing imagined what this scene must look like from Uncle Yuan’s perspective.
He closed his eyes.
For several seconds, Mr. Painted Skin felt that perhaps he could simply disappear on the spot.
He listened to someone breathing right beside him.
After a moment, he finally opened his eyes again and asked quietly:
“Why do you want primary control?”
“I want to go to the low-income apartment building in the Lower City.”
“And then?”
“I’d very much like to explain everything clearly,” Mi Xiaobai said, “but we’re a little short on time. Why don’t we go first?”
Yu Qing frowned faintly and was just about to speak.
Then that smiling voice added:
“Ah. Forgot to say please. I’d like to… ask you to go to the low-income apartment building?”
Yu Qing stood where he was for a moment.
Then he turned and walked out.
Mi Xiaobai’s voice came again.
“Best bring incense and candles for worship.”
Without even raising his eyes, Yu Qing told Uncle Yuan:
“Bring incense and candles for worship.”
Uncle Yuan looked horrified.
“We’re the ones who receive offerings! Where are we supposed to get incense and candles for worshipping somebody else?”
“Buy them.”
Uncle Yuan: “…”
Fine.
Even the rain seemed louder around the low-income apartment buildings, hammering against neon signs and metal awnings with a relentless clatter.
The last time Yu Qing had come here to return a skin, he had already seen these corridors from afar.
Each floor held countless rusted old doors, stretching so far that they seemed to have no end.
The blue-winged swallowtail butterfly still followed closely beside him.
The skeletal kitten lay across his shoulder, peering curiously around.
Uncle Yuan clutched the hastily purchased incense and candles while checking door numbers one after another.
“Which one was it again?”
“1019,” Mi Xiaobai answered.
Yu Qing folded his arms, pinched his earlobe with a deep frown, and repeated the number aloud for Uncle Yuan.
“Found it.”
Uncle Yuan stepped forward to push the door.
It was shut so tightly there was barely even a seam.
He put all his strength into it and still could not move it.
He was about to dig through his pockets for a tool when his employer raised a hand and stopped him.
Yu Qing flipped open the pocket watch.
The bone hand was already nearing zero.
There was almost no time left.
He had no patience to wait.
Yu Qing brought two fingers together like a blade and drew his pale fingertips down the edge of the door.
Then, expression cold, he kicked.
The iron door crashed inward.
Dust billowed everywhere.
Yu Qing covered his nose against it.
Uncle Yuan stepped inside first.
“Good grief,” he muttered. “What kind of person lives somewhere like this? There’s practically nothing here. It’s like a prison cell. One bed, a table with a broken leg, and…”
His voice abruptly stopped.
On the three-legged table sat a deity statue.
It was only the size of a palm, yet the deity’s features were perfectly clear.
He sat with his head propped on one hand in a high-backed armchair.
A little skeleton rested on his shoulder.
At the fingertips of his bone-white right hand perched a blue-green butterfly.
It was none other than Yu Qing.
Uncle Yuan turned around in astonishment and pointed at the statue.
“Sir, there’s actually one of your deity statues here?”
Yu Qing had already seen it before Uncle Yuan spoke.
In the silence, Mi Xiaobai’s voice said:
“This time I can’t make the housekeeper do it for me. I’ll have to ask you to light the offering candles yourself.”
Yu Qing said nothing.
He simply walked over, took the incense and candles from Uncle Yuan, and stopped in front of his own deity statue.
Inside his pocket, the pocket watch was still counting backward.
Its sound was extraordinarily faint, almost impossible to hear.
But because every movement represented the approach of his disappearance, Yu Qing could sense each one clearly.
He had possessed neither heartbeat nor pulse for a very long time.
Yet now the ticking of that bone hand felt like the heartbeat of a living person.
In the final ticking seconds, Yu Qing lit the altar lamp before his deity statue.
The instant the flame caught, warm candlelight spread a gentle circle across the table.
The heartbeat-like ticking stopped.
It was perhaps the longest second of his entire existence.
One second later—
the long bone hand snapped backward through an entire revolution.
Then it stopped moving.
Yu Qing did not know how much more time he had gained.
But at the very least, for the rest of this day, he could continue existing without fear.
Uncle Yuan had watched him take out the pocket watch.
Now he stared at the hand restored to its starting point, no longer frantically counting down.
His eyes widened.
“It stopped! It actually stopped! That worked?!”
“I thought…”
Uncle Yuan murmured.
“I thought that skinny little Chen Shuang was your last believer in the entire island city.”
“So he wasn’t?”
Still unable to believe it, Uncle Yuan rummaged through every pocket on his person until he finally produced the register of believers.
Whenever someone worshipped Yu Qing, the register would automatically display that believer’s name and address within the island city.
Uncle Yuan flipped through it while firing off questions.
“So whose room is this? Who else has been worshipping you, sir? How could they have kept themselves this well hidden? How have I never known about them? Was it because the lamp wasn’t lit before, so they never appeared in the register?”
All that rambling became a single sentence when it reached Yu Qing.
“Mi Xiaobai, whose room is this?”
Mi Xiaobai’s low voice sounded beside his ear.
“Mine.”
Then he gave a self-deprecating laugh.
“It’s only a temporary place to stay. Though it does seem a little too shabby.”
The instant he finished speaking, a heavy object struck the floor with a dull thud.
Yu Qing turned.
Uncle Yuan had collapsed onto the floor, his face drained of all color.
The register of believers in his hands lay open to its final page.
“What’s wrong with you?” Yu Qing asked.
With trembling fingers, Uncle Yuan pointed at the newest name displayed in the register.
“Th-this—this believer’s name in the island city just appeared.”
From where he stood, Yu Qing could not see it clearly.
Yet for some reason, he already seemed to know what Uncle Yuan was about to say.
He remained silent for a moment.
Then he asked anyway:
“What’s his name?”
Uncle Yuan jabbed a shaking finger at the register.
“Wuchang.”
His voice trembled.
“His name is Wuchang.”