“The secret passage is behind the portrait.”
Big Bro One reached out and pressed his hand against the wall.
“Go through here, walk straight for three hundred steps, and don’t look back. The exit is a mass grave on the outskirts of the city.”
Chen Mo didn’t move.
“What about you?”
“Me?” Big Bro One flashed a grin and pulled something from behind his waist… a ballpoint pen?
“I’m obviously staying behind to…”
“Write your will?”
“Write a bad review.”
Big Bro One spun the pen around his fingers.
“Those bastards dared tear apart my station. I’m going to show them what a ‘logistics complaint’ looks like.”
Chen Mo looked at him.
“I’m not leaving.”
Big Bro One raised an eyebrow.
“Why not?”
“Because if I leave”—Chen Mo tightened his grip on the handlebars—“who’s going to ride the bicycle for you?”
Big Bro One froze for a moment.
Then he burst out laughing.
“Good kid.”
“You’ve got guts.”
He spun around and kicked open the secret room’s door.
“Old Zhou!”
“Here!”
“Seal the station!”
“On it!”
Old Zhou dragged a bronze gong out from beneath the counter and struck it hard—
“Clang—!”
Every lantern in the station went out at once.
The darkness lasted only an instant.
The next second, all the lanterns lit up again, but their light had changed.
It went from warm yellow to ghastly white.
Countless runes appeared on the walls lining both sides of the corridor, moving like golden chains winding through the air.
[External rule domain detected.]
[Yellow Springs Station defense mode activated.]
[Current area: Absolute Neutral Zone.]
[Effect: All unauthorized acts of violence prohibited.]
Chen Mo let out a sigh of relief.
“So they can’t fight their way in now?”
“It’ll only hold them for thirty breaths.”
Big Bro One rolled his wrists.
“Rules are meant to be broken. The only question is…”
“Whose fists are harder.”
Before he could finish—
“Boom—!”
The station’s main doors exploded.
Amid the flying splinters, a figure slowly walked inside.
It was a man wearing a gray courier uniform.
The style was almost identical to Chen Mo’s, but the color was a ghastly gray, as though it had been unsuccessfully bleached countless times. A bronze mask covered his face. It had no features, only one enormous character: “Rogue.”
Behind him, twenty Sweepers stood in two rows.
Not a sound.
Yet their killing intent was so thick it seemed impossible to disperse.
“A ghost courier…”
Old Zhou’s voice trembled.
“One of the seven apostles of Rogue Logistics…”
Big Bro One walked three steps forward.
He positioned himself in front of Chen Mo.
“Well, well. If it isn’t an old acquaintance.”
“Last time I saw you, your mask wasn’t this ugly.”
The ghost courier stopped.
He raised his head, and the gaze beneath the mask settled on Chen Mo.
Chen Mo felt the Rogue Mark on his wrist suddenly burn.
It was as if something was calling out to it.
“Courier No. 9,742,001.”
The ghost courier’s voice was strange.
It sounded as though many people were speaking at once—men and women, old and young.
“I’ve finally found you.”
Big Bro One held the ballpoint pen horizontally across his chest.
“Spit it out.”
“I’m not a patient man, as you know.”
The ghost courier ignored him.
He slowly extended one hand toward Chen Mo.
“Come with me.”
“Rogue Logistics can give you what you want.”
“Your memories from your previous life.”
“All the Three-Lives Stone Fragments.”
“And…”
He paused.
“Your true name.”
Chen Mo’s heartbeat skipped.
“My true name?”
“Chen Mo isn’t your name.” The ghost courier’s voice carried a strange, seductive quality. “It’s just a designation randomly assigned by the reincarnation well.”
“Your true name is carved into the Three-Lives Stone.”
“Carved into that door.”
Big Bro One suddenly laughed.
“Oh, go screw yourself.”
The ballpoint pen in his hand suddenly burst with golden light.
It wasn’t a pen at all.
It was a miniature… Judge’s Brush?
“Chen Mo, close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Because the scene you’re about to see”—Big Bro One’s figure vanished in an instant—“isn’t suitable for children.”
“Boom—!”
Golden light exploded.
Big Bro One moved faster than Chen Mo’s eyes could track.
All he saw was a golden afterimage plunging into the ranks of the Sweepers, and then—
The Sweepers burst apart one after another, like tomatoes thrown into a meat grinder.
Before the black blood could even splash down, the golden light vaporized it into mist.
Three breaths.
Only three breaths.
Twenty Sweepers were annihilated.
Big Bro One stood in front of the ghost courier, the tip of the Judge’s Brush pressed against the other man’s mask.
“One of the seven apostles?”
“That’s it?”
The ghost courier didn’t dodge.
He didn’t even take a step back.
“You’re still as fast as ever.”
“Unfortunately…”
The character “Rogue” on his mask began to glow.
“You can’t block karma.”
The ghost courier gently raised his hand.
He slapped it against Big Bro One’s chest.
The motion was slow, like an old man taking a stroll.
But Big Bro One flew backward as though he’d been hit by a mountain, smashing through three walls before crashing into the station’s pile of discarded goods.
“Big Bro One!”
Chen Mo tried to rush over.
But his body wouldn’t move.
The Rogue Mark on his wrist burned furiously, and an immense force surged out of it, instantly spreading throughout his body.
His vision changed.
The world became a gigantic web.
Countless threads intertwined.
And on the ghost courier, he saw a thread.
It wasn’t red.
It was gold.
It was as thick as a cable, extending from the ghost courier’s chest all the way to…
Chen Mo’s own chest.
“See it?”
The ghost courier’s voice was right beside him.
Only then did Chen Mo realize that the other man was already standing in front of him.
“That thread is called karma.”
“You and I are bound by the same thread.”
“Because we’re both…”
The ghost courier pressed his mask against Chen Mo’s forehead.
Cold.
“Keys.”
“The keys to opening the bronze door.”
The enormous bronze door appeared in Chen Mo’s mind once again.
The character “Rogue” on the door snarled savagely.
Through the gap, that hand large enough to blot out the sky reached out once more.
This time, it grabbed Chen Mo.
“Ahhh—!”
A howl that sounded nothing like a human cry burst from Chen Mo’s throat.
His eyes instantly turned blood-red.
The Rogue Mark on his wrist blazed with dazzling light, and a pillar of blood-red light shot into the sky from his body, piercing straight through the station’s roof.
The ghost courier was blasted back seven steps by the force.
Cracks appeared across his mask.
“As expected…”
“So it really is the reincarnation of ‘that person’…”
Chen Mo felt himself losing control.
Something inside his body was awakening.
Not the system.
Not the Rogue Mark.
Something deeper—something that seemed to have slept through countless cycles of reincarnation…
Rage.
“Get the hell out of here!”
He threw a punch at the ghost courier.
There was no technique behind it.
Only pure, savage strength.
The ghost courier raised both arms to block.
“Bam—!”
His body flew backward like a cannonball, smashing through the station’s doors and then through the outer wall, before finally vanishing into the darkness at the end of the street.
One punch.
Only one punch.
Chen Mo stood where he was, gasping for breath.
The blood-red color slowly faded from his eyes.
He lowered his head and stared at his hands.
His palms were completely unharmed.
But he could feel that the power behind that punch…
Didn’t belong to him.
“What was that…?”
Big Bro One climbed laboriously out of the pile of discarded goods.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and looked at Chen Mo with a complicated expression.
“That was your ‘true form.’”
“Every soul touched by a Three-Lives Stone Fragment has a ‘true form’ hidden inside it.”
“Your true form…”
Big Bro One smiled bitterly.
“It’s even more terrifying than I imagined.”
Chen Mo wanted to say something.
But his vision went black.
He passed out.
[Warning: Host soul load exceeding limits.]
[Forced entry into sleep mode.]
[Transferring to a secure area…]
[Transfer complete.]
After an unknown amount of time,
Chen Mo opened his eyes.
He found himself lying in a carriage.
The carriage rocked and jolted along.
An oil lamp burned inside the cabin, its flame swaying and casting eerie shadows across the walls.
Big Bro One sat opposite him, wrapping a bandage around his chest.
“Awake?”
Chen Mo pushed himself upright.
“Where are we?”
“On the road.”
“Where are we going?”
Big Bro One looked up at him.
The corner of his mouth pulled into a meaningful smile.
“The real Yellow Springs Station.”
“The one in the Mortal Realm is just a transfer station,” he said. “Next, we’re heading to…”
“The station’s headquarters.”
“At the source of the River of Forgetfulness.”
“There,” Big Bro One said, his gaze turning deep, “someone has been waiting a long time for you.”
Chen Mo frowned.
“Who?”
Big Bro One didn’t answer.
He lifted the carriage curtain.
Outside was endless darkness.
But at the edge of that darkness, there was a point of light.
A lantern.
Beneath it stood a hunched figure.
Her hair was white as snow.
Meng Po.
She looked up at the carriage, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly.
“Earlier than I expected…”
“You’ve arrived a little sooner than I thought.”