Big Bro One looked awful.
Like someone had just clubbed him over the head.
“Say that again.”
Chen Mo looked at the bowl shattered on the floor.
“Guiyi.”
“Is there something wrong with that name?”
Big Bro One didn’t answer.
He spun around and grabbed Chen Mo by the collar.
His strength was astonishing.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“In the void…” Chen Mo gasped, choking. “My past life… me…”
Big Bro One let go.
He took two steps back.
As if all the strength had been drained from him in an instant.
“Impossible…” “Guiyi died a long time ago…” “Three hundred years ago, when he personally shut the bronze gate, his soul should have been annihilated…”
Chen Mo rubbed his neck.
“Then who exactly was he?”
Big Bro One raised his head.
The complexity in his eyes was frightening.
“The founder of Three Realms Express.”
“The forger of the Seven Keys.”
“The first person back then to bring something out from behind the gate.”
“And also…”
Big Bro One paused.
“The first person to realize we were wrong.”
Before the words had even faded, Chen Mo’s phone began vibrating furiously.
These weren’t system alerts.
Countless messages were flooding in at once.
[Emergency Notice: Headquarters communications have been severed.] [Emergency Notice: Reincarnation Well Station has lost contact.] [Emergency Notice: The courier locker at King Qin Guang’s palace has opened abnormally.] [Emergency Notice: Large numbers of stranded packages are awakening.] [Warning: Three Realms Express network coverage has fallen to 67%.] [Warning: Rogue Logistics signal intrusion in progress.]
Chen Mo stared at the screen filled with blood-red warnings.
His heart sank to the bottom.
“This is…”
“Headquarters is offline.”
Big Bro One’s voice was hoarse.
“Without headquarters’ rules supporting it, the Three Realms Express network is just a pile of scrap metal.”
“The barriers, passageways, and safe zones maintained by the system…”
“They’ll all fail.”
The instant he finished speaking, a thunderous crash came from outside the window.
Chen Mo rushed to the window.
In the distant sky, a gray pillar of light shot into the heavens.
Countless gray courier uniforms drifted within it.
Like some bizarre snowfall.
“Rogue Logistics…”
Big Bro One came to stand beside him.
“They’ve been waiting three hundred years for this day.”
“As soon as headquarters goes down, they can take control of all the stranded packages.”
“And what’s inside those packages…”
“They’re all the things Three Realms Express has spent the last three hundred years not daring to deliver, being unable to deliver, or simply failing to deliver.”
Chen Mo clenched his fists.
“What do we do?”
“What do we do?”
Big Bro One gave a bitter laugh.
“I can’t even open my own system interface anymore.”
“A Gold-Rank Courier?”
“Right now, I’m just an ordinary man carrying a busted pen.”
Chen Mo lowered his head and looked at his palm.
The bronze Express Courier Token was still there.
But its luster had dimmed considerably.
However…
The Rogue Mark on his wrist was burning hot.
Not the searing pain it had caused before.
This was something else…
Warmth.
As if something were slowly awakening.
“That’s not right…”
Chen Mo murmured to himself.
“My system… it’s still here.”
Big Bro One whipped his head around.
“What?”
“Your systems were issued by headquarters.”
Chen Mo lifted his head.
“My system…”
“Seems to be something else.”
He closed his eyes.
An interface he had never seen before surfaced in his mind.
It wasn’t the blue UI of Three Realms Express.
It was gold.
Ancient and austere.
As if written in seal script—
[Guiyi System starting up.] [Current authorization: Basic.] [Available functions: Karmic Search, Gate-Crack Positioning, Key Resonance.] [Note: Welcome back, Guiyi.]
Chen Mo opened his eyes.
A streak of golden light flashed through them.
Big Bro One sucked in a sharp breath.
“You…”
“What is it?”
“Your eyes…”
Big Bro One pointed at him.
“They just… turned into vertical pupils.”
Chen Mo froze for a moment.
He walked over to the mirror.
His reflection’s eyes had already returned to normal.
But he could feel it.
Something.
Deep within his eyes.
Quietly opening its eyes.
“Big Bro One.”
“Yeah?”
“I know where headquarters is now.”
Chen Mo turned around.
His voice was unnervingly calm.
“Under the Reincarnation Well.”
“There’s a backup gate.”
“From there…”
“We can go straight in.”
Big Bro One opened and closed his mouth.
For a long while, no words came out.
“How would you know that…”
“I don’t know.”
Chen Mo answered honestly.
“But there’s a voice…”
“Telling me.”
Outside the window,
the gray snow was falling harder and harder.
A chorus of shrieks rose and fell in the distance.
That was the sound of the stranded packages fully awakening.
Chen Mo pushed open the window.
Cold wind poured inside.
It carried the rotten smell of spirit money.
“Big Bro One.”
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“The Reincarnation Well.”
Chen Mo swung onto the battered old-fashioned roadster.
The netherfire engine let out a deep roar.
Golden flames ignited around the wheels.
Not the ghostly blue from before.
Pure, blazing gold.
“To headquarters.”
“To find out exactly…”
“Who Guiyi really was.”
“And also…”
He paused.
“Why do I feel…”
“That I caused all of this?”
Big Bro One looked at him.
For a long time.
Then he smiled.
“Fine.”
“It’s not like I have anything else to do.”
He hopped onto the back seat of the bicycle.
“But let’s get one thing straight.”
“When we reach the Reincarnation Well, you’re buying.”
“Buying what?”
“Meng Po’s Soup.”
“…You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Big Bro One patted him on the back.
“Because I have a feeling.”
“This trip…”
“At least one of us is going to lose his mind.”
The bicycle charged into the gray snow.
Its wheels rolled over the ground,
leaving behind a golden trail.
And behind them,
deep in the ruins of Yellow Springs Station,
that drop of black liquid had already begun to spread.
It became a tiny puddle.
In the puddle,
the faint outline of a door could be seen.
Through the crack in the door,
an eye
slowly opened.