Mid-July is the time when spirits roam freely. It is said that during the Ghost Festival, the gates of hell swing wide, and the souls of the deceased wander the streets at night. Many villages also choose the day of the Ghost Festival to offer sacrifices to their ancestors.
Behind a small mountain village in Anyang County lay a massive graveyard. In earlier years, this land had been farmed by local peasants, but now, leasing it to the crematorium to use as a cemetery proved far more profitable.
Rows of brand-new tombstones looked exceptionally mournful in the night. A wicked wind blew, picking up the joss paper left behind by daytime mourners. In an instant, white and yellow paper money was swept into the sky, adding a few more degrees of terror to the graveyard.
At this very moment, inside a coffin, a man opened his eyes. Seeing the pitch-black darkness before him and feeling the rectangular shape surrounding him, he knew he was in a coffin and immediately ground his teeth.
“Damn it! You idiot 818, you actually put me in a coffin!”
Despite his words, there wasn’t much fear on his face. Instead, fueled by rage, he drew his left leg back, and in the next moment, he kicked out his right leg directly against the top of the coffin!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Such eerie sounds echoed through the silent graveyard. If anyone had been passing by, they likely would have been scared senseless. Fortunately, given the special timing of the Ghost Festival, even the graveyard keepers wouldn’t stay at their posts, so no one was there to be frightened.
The coffin was buried in the ground, and its wooden lid was nailed shut. If a normal person had woken up inside, they likely would have suffocated and died in short order. But the man inside, after a few kicks, managed to force a gap in the coffin! He followed up with a punch—Bang!
Among the numerous graves, in a corner of the cemetery, a sudden thump rang out as someone kicked the coffin lid and the soil above it aside. Soon, in the darkness of the night, a man in his early twenties crawled out from within.
The man was not wearing burial shrouds, but a simple set of black sportswear. After crawling out of the coffin, he almost blended into the night, looking even more uncanny.
Just then, a blue light suddenly flickered beside the man, floating around him.
【Host, Host, I didn’t want to put you in a coffin either, but the holder of this Golden Finger just died. I don’t have the energy to reverse time right now, so I could only reconstruct your body and return you to your youthful peak. Otherwise, do you think you could have kicked your way out of a coffin?】
Indeed, this floating blue orb was the system 818, the Execution Shuttle System of the Transmigration Department.
“Then why didn’t you just let me die in the coffin? It would have saved me the trouble of doing the mission.”
Xie Tingzhou gave a cold laugh. He fumbled his way through the darkness, yet he seemed completely unafraid of the graveyard’s atmosphere as he walked toward the only house with a light on.
【Host, didn’t I simulate your peak state for you? I believed you could definitely break out of the coffin. You are the most formidable host in our Transmigration Department! A mere coffin couldn’t hold you!】
818 began to flatter Xie Tingzhou. Its words weren’t wrong; though there were many hosts in the Transmigration Department, Xie Tingzhou was the one who had completed the most missions and lived the longest. Following Xie Tingzhou, 818 had even risen to the number one spot among systems.
“That’s enough out of you and your chatter. Give me the mission briefing.”
Xie Tingzhou walked forward through the darkness, the blue light circling around him—a sight that would have looked terrifying in a graveyard.
【The Golden Finger to be recovered this time is—the Infinite Black Card. This black card will issue missions to the host. Completing tasks within the specified time limits will grant a lot of money, but failure results in death.】
As 818 spoke, the blue light floated down toward Xie Tingzhou’s trousers and tucked itself into his left pocket. Then, it pulled out a black card with faint golden patterns.
It floated up, the blue light illuminating the shimmering black card in the darkness. The Transmigration Department had locked onto this Golden Finger, waiting for Xie Tingzhou to use it before it could be fully recovered.
Continuing forward, Xie Tingzhou reached out and pinched the black card between his fingers. Instantly, he heard a voice that didn’t belong to 818—a different, mechanical voice.
[Infinite Black Card binding successful. Bound to: Xie Tingzhou. Does the host wish to initiate missions?]
This was a Golden Finger that gave one no choice.
The moment Xie Tingzhou obtained the Infinite Black Card, the memories of this body surged into his mind like a stream of data, informing him of the body’s entire history.
“No.”
Xie Tingzhou refused to start the mission for now and finally reached the small room glowing with dim yellow light.
Approaching it, he found that although the light was on, the door was locked. Xie Tingzhou huffed, broke off a small piece of wire from a trash can on the ground, and inserted it into the lock cylinder. With a click, the door opened.
Opening the door, the warm yellow light fell upon Xie Tingzhou’s jade-like face, finally giving him a touch of the living.
Xie Tingzhou walked in and scanned the tiny room, which was barely five square meters. This was likely where the gravedigger stayed. Besides a bed, there was a table and a chair. The room was kept very clean, with a potted flower and a mirror on the table, indicating that the occupant was someone of refined tastes. There was even an old-fashioned telephone on the clean desk.
Xie Tingzhou had no interest in that for the moment. He sat in the chair, stretched out his hand, and saw his well-defined, youthful fingers. He then picked up the mirror on the table and soon saw his young reflection.
The man in the mirror indeed possessed a strikingly handsome face. His cold, pale skin gave off an air of indifference, his nose was high-bridged, and his phoenix eyes slanted slightly upward, carrying a hint of casual scrutiny. His eyebrows were dark and sharp, and even his thin lips were pressed together—a perfect image of a sophisticated egoist’s ruthless appearance.
No wonder he could do such things…
At this moment, the man in the mirror looked no more than twenty, but in reality, this body was already forty-five years old. His true name was Xie Tunan, a wretch favored by a Golden Finger—and a greedy wretch at that.
Xie Tunan and his wife, Huang Xinyue, were both orphans who grew up in the same orphanage. As a child, Xie Tunan had been adopted once; he was a beautiful child, appearing incomparably well-behaved, but he was returned before long.
The reason was simple: a year after adopting him, the foster parents became pregnant. Once they had their own child, the adopted boy became a stumbling block to their biological one. The reason given for returning Xie Tunan was that he was always stealing things at home.
Perhaps adults are just like that; when they want to return something, they must find a flaw in it.
After being returned, Xie Tunan was ostracized by the other children in the orphanage, who believed he was a thief. Only Huang Xinyue knew he wouldn’t steal. She knew he had been sent back only because his foster parents were pregnant.
Huang Xinyue had been abandoned at a hospital. She had congenital heart disease, and perhaps her parents, unable to afford treatment, saw no other option. Despite a police investigation, her parents were never found. Eventually, a kind-hearted person at the hospital paid for her first heart surgery, and she was later sent to the orphanage.
Xie Tunan and Huang Xinyue grew closer and closer, moving from childhood companionship to adolescent love. Xie Tunan was handsome but poor at his studies, incomparable to Huang Xinyue, who was always at the top of her class. It seemed only natural that he would fall for such a girl.
Huang Xinyue loved Xie Tunan as well. Even when better boys liked her, she remained devoted to him.
Starting from middle school, Huang Xinyue, who always won scholarships, would buy Xie Tunan clothes and good food, which contributed to his six-foot height. During their final year of high school, Xie Tunan finally confessed his feelings, and the two officially became a couple.
Xie Tunan had once loved Huang Xinyue. As a poor student, he naturally admired her academic brilliance. Moreover, Huang Xinyue looked very gentle, with long hair cascading over her shoulders—the very image of a first love that every boy dreamed of.
Their eighteen-year-old romance was passionate and sincere. Huang Xinyue was admitted to a prestigious university in Shangjing, while Xie Tunan couldn’t even get into a regular college. His college entrance exam score was only in the two-hundreds, meaning he could only attend a high-tuition vocational college.
The turning point of their lives arrived quickly. Huang Xinyue planned to use her school scholarship to pay for Xie Tunan’s tuition, but Xie Tunan worried she wouldn’t have money for living expenses. In the end, he secretly dropped out and started working, intending to provide her with a monthly allowance.
By the time Huang Xinyue found out, it was already the second semester of her freshman year. Xie Tunan had been working various odd jobs and buying her everything a girl could want. With a monthly salary of five thousand yuan, he would spend four thousand nine hundred on her.
Four years of university passed this way. When Huang Xinyue graduated, they had already tasted the forbidden fruit. The twenty-two-year-old Xie Tunan and the equally aged Huang Xinyue successfully registered their marriage. Even though Xie Tunan had nothing, Huang Xinyue never looked down on him.
What followed were two years of peaceful, loving life. With her excellent education, Huang Xinyue found a job at a company with a monthly salary of sixteen thousand yuan, much better than Xie Tunan’s five thousand. Within two years, she was promoted to a salary of twenty thousand.
Watching his wife become more and more successful, Xie Tunan felt both fear and distress. Fortunately, at twenty-four, they welcomed a new life—Huang Xinyue was pregnant with twins.
During the year of his wife’s pregnancy and childbirth, Xie Tunan was happy. It was only after she gave birth, when her colleagues came to visit, that Xie Tunan overheard them whispering about him in the hallway. They spoke of how useless he was—an orphan with no education and no money—wondering what Huang Xinyue had ever seen in him.
A man’s pride can be a terrifying thing. He suppressed it all, but he couldn’t help taking his frustrations out on Huang Xinyue. He became increasingly irritable and aggressive, even picking fights while she was caring for the children, until they finally parted on bad terms.
The Infinite Black Card appeared before Xie Tunan at that very time. It was a magical black card that would occasionally issue shopping tasks. As long as you completed the purchase within a short period, you would become increasingly wealthy. But if you failed, you would lose your life.
Xie Tunan was both excited and terrified when he received the card. Excited that he could have infinite wealth, yet terrified of being discovered.
Thus, after he completed the first mission, the black card system provided him with a new identity.
From then on, Xie Tunan became Xie Tingzhou.
He changed his appearance and his identity. Xie Tunan vanished from the world, and Xie Tingzhou appeared.
To sever ties with his past identity, Xie Tunan never notified his wife, nor did he consider his infant children. He discarded his old clothes and phone into a river as a farewell to the poverty of his early life.
From then on, he was Xie Tingzhou. He continuously completed various spending tasks and, through the returns from the Infinite Black Card, became a mysterious billionaire envied by all. he became a miraculous tycoon whom beautiful women constantly flocked to, a top-tier billionaire who navigated high society with ease.
Nineteen years passed in a flash. If one walks at night for too long, one is bound to encounter ghosts. As the spending limits of the Infinite Black Card increased, he was forced to hide everything. He didn’t dare let those around him know, fearing they would seize his assets or steal the black card. In the end, when a sudden task appeared, Xie Tingzhou died.
He died at forty-five, and after his death, the Infinite Black Card reclaimed all his assets.
And that was how the top expert of the Transmigration Department, Xie Tingzhou, came to recover this Infinite Black Card. The moment his soul bound with the card, he would eventually carry it back to the Transmigration Department upon his next death.
【Host, your current body is at its twenty-year-old peak. I believe you can complete the mission! I’m off to write my report! I’ll see you back at the Transmigration Department!】
Seeing his host’s dark expression, 818 sensed trouble and fled immediately after leaving those words.
Left alone in the room, Xie Tingzhou, now possessing all the memories of this body, finally spoke.
“Black card, I want to start the mission.”
According to the memories, the first missions were always simple and easy to perform.
[Ding! Hello, Host. Making money is a game for the greedy; spending money is a paradise for the hedonists. Please spend ten thousand yuan within twenty-four hours. Countdown starts now: 23:59:59…]
Xie Tingzhou didn’t have a phone, only the black card in front of him. He knew the ten thousand yuan was already in the card.
A memory flashed in his mind of a taxi driver’s business card he had glimpsed when he removed the wire from the trash can earlier. He picked up the phone on the desk, dialed the number, and waited.
Someone answered quickly.
“Hello?”
Xie Tingzhou spoke.
“Master, could you please come to the Anyang County graveyard to pick someone up?”
There was instant silence on the other end. The driver, terrified by the word “graveyard,” was tempted to hang up immediately, until he heard Xie Tingzhou speak again.
“Five thousand yuan. Are you coming?”
“…”
The driver, who hadn’t hung up, fell silent for a moment before finally gritting his teeth.
“I’m coming!!”
So what if it was a graveyard? So what if it was the Ghost Festival? Life could be forfeited, but five thousand yuan could not be passed up!
With a hardened heart, the driver steered his car toward the Anyang County graveyard…