Blood-red pillars of light tore across the River of Forgetfulness's sky.
That hand was enormous.
Large enough to inspire despair.
Its fingers hooked around the edge of Yellow Springs Station, like a giant about to lift the lid off a toy box. The wooden pavilions shattered between its fingers. The stranded guests' screams rose and fell, then were swallowed by the river.
“How much longer?”
Chen Mo asked.
“How much longer?” Meng Po braced herself against the bamboo pole as the small boat bucked across the churning river. “Once that hand is fully out, this place is finished.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
Chen Mo clenched the fragment.
“I’m asking how much longer until I reach that door?”
Meng Po looked back at him.
A flicker of surprise passed through those excessively ancient eyes.
“You’re going to open the door?”
“No.”
Chen Mo tucked the fragment against his chest.
“I’m going to close it.”
Meng Po stared at him for a long time.
Then she smiled.
“Just like back then.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Meng Po tapped the bamboo pole once, and the boat’s speed suddenly surged. “Hold on.”
“I haven’t taken this route in three hundred years.”
The small boat shot toward the pillar of light like an arrow.
The pavilions on both banks whipped past.
Chen Mo saw countless couriers evacuating.
They carried packages, rode flying swords, and some were even clutching coffins as they scrambled toward the station exit.
There was only one person coming upstream.
That golden figure dropped from the sky and slammed onto the bridge in front of the boat.
The bridge broke.
But the man landed firmly on his feet.
“I knew you wouldn’t run.”
Big Bro One brushed the dust off himself.
His courier uniform was torn in several places, and there was still blood at the corner of his mouth, but his smile remained dazzling.
“How about it?” He reached a hand toward Chen Mo. “Want to hitch a ride?”
“This boat’s not very big.”
“No problem. I’ll stand.”
Big Bro One jumped onto the stern.
Meng Po shot him a glance.
“You’re hurt this badly and you still came?”
“What, you think I’d let the new guy get lost?” Big Bro One rolled his shoulder. “Besides, with a spectacle this big, if I miss it now, I might not get another chance in my next life.”
Before he finished speaking, the river ahead suddenly bulged upward.
It wasn’t a wave.
It was a bridge.
A bridge made of countless piled-up bones slowly rose from the riverbed, blocking their path.
The bridge was crowded with figures.
Gray courier uniforms.
Bronze masks.
Every last one of them was a Sweeper.
And standing at the very center of the bridge was one person.
The ghost courier.
His mask had already been repaired, and the character “Rogue” glimmered in the blood-red light.
“Welcome.”
His voice still had that eerie quality of a chorus sung by ten thousand people.
“Welcome to the place before the door.”
Meng Po stopped her bamboo pole.
The small boat halted ten zhang from the bone bridge.
“We can’t get through.”
She said it plainly.
“This river belongs to him now.”
Big Bro One let out a cold laugh.
“Belongs to him?”
He pulled the Judge’s Brush from behind his waist.
“When I was delivering packages across the Three Realms, he was still soaking in the Reincarnation Well.”
“Chen Mo.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll make you a path.”
Big Bro One held the Judge’s Brush across his chest, dazzling golden light blooming from its tip. “You just charge straight ahead.”
“Charge to where?”
“To the door.”
“And then?”
Big Bro One looked back at him.
The usual irreverence had vanished from his eyes.
“Then do what you’re supposed to do.”
“Just like you did in your past life.”
Chen Mo wanted to ask, “What exactly did I do in my past life?”
But there was no time.
Big Bro One had already charged out.
“Yellow Springs Station, Gold-Rank Courier No. 1—”
His figure became a golden shooting star and slammed straight into the bone bridge.
“Door-to-door delivery!”
“Boom—!”
Golden light exploded.
The Sweepers on the bone bridge flew backward like leaves caught in a hurricane.
Big Bro One barreled across the bridge.
Every swing of the Judge’s Brush reduced several Sweepers to ash.
But he was only one man.
There were too many enemies.
Endless Sweepers surged out of the riverbed like a black tide, wave after wave crashing toward Big Bro One.
“What are you waiting for!”
Big Bro One’s roar rang out from within the golden light.
“Go!”
Meng Po tapped the bamboo pole once.
The small boat raced past the side of the bone bridge.
Chen Mo looked back.
Big Bro One had vanished beneath the gray tide.
“Big Bro One!”
“Don’t look back!”
Meng Po’s voice was unusually stern.
“He can’t die.”
“If a Gold-Rank Courier could die that easily, Yellow Springs Station would’ve gone out of business long ago.”
The small boat shot past the bone bridge.
The end of the pillar of light lay ahead.
The bronze door was right in front of them.
Only then did Chen Mo realize that the door was even larger than the one he had seen in his dreams.
It was so huge he had to crane his neck back to see the top.
Its surface was covered in densely packed runes.
And between the runes were seven grooves.
Six of them had already been filled.
The things filling them were six gray fragments.
They were identical to the one in Chen Mo’s hand.
Only the colors were different.
Chen Mo’s fragment was black, streaked with golden cracks.
The other six were a lifeless gray.
“The Six Apostles…”
Meng Po’s voice came from behind him.
“They embedded their own fragments back into the door.”
“Only one is missing.”
“Only you.”
Chen Mo jumped out of the boat.
Both feet landed on the ground before the bronze door.
The ground wasn’t stone.
It was something warm and faintly undulating.
Almost like…
Skin.
[“Rogue-level” energy source detected.]
[Insufficient system permissions. Unable to scan.]
[Note: Host, I really can’t help you this time.]
[Good luck.]
Chen Mo gave a bitter laugh.
“At least you’re honest.”
He raised his head toward the bronze door.
The door was open a crack.
The gap was very narrow.
Only one hand could fit through it.
But from that gap, Chen Mo sensed some kind of gaze.
Not one pair of eyes.
Six.
Deep within the crack stood six blurry figures.
They wore gray courier uniforms and stood silently behind the door.
The one in front slowly raised a hand.
It pointed at Chen Mo.
Then it made a gesture inviting him forward.
“They’re waiting for you.”
The ghost courier’s voice came from behind him.
Chen Mo spun around.
The ghost courier stood thirty feet behind him.
The “Rogue” character on his mask looked ready to burn.
“Waiting for me?”
“Waiting for you to embed the fragment.”
A trace of fanaticism colored the ghost courier’s voice.
“Waiting for the reunion of our seven fragments.”
“Waiting for this door to…”
“Open completely.”
Chen Mo tightened his grip on the fragment.
“And then what?”
“And then?” The ghost courier laughed. “Then we can go home.”
“Go home?”
“Beyond the door is our true home.”
The ghost courier slowly removed his mask.
Beneath it was a young face.
It looked seventy percent like Chen Mo’s.
“The seven people back then weren’t trying to close the door.”
“They were trying to steal what was behind it.”
“We stole the power, established Three Realms Express, and became gods.”
“Then we locked the door and left the people from our homeland…”
“Trapped inside.”
Chen Mo’s mind thundered.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m lying?” The ghost courier threw his mask onto the ground. “Then ask Meng Po. Ask her who that bowl of soup was for back then.”
Chen Mo turned to look at Meng Po.
Meng Po stood at the bow of the boat, silent.
Her silence was louder than any answer.
“The six of us have already awakened.”
The ghost courier extended a hand.
“Only you’re left, No. 7.”
“Give me the fragment.”
“Let’s go home together.”
Chen Mo lowered his head and looked at the fragment in his hand.
The fragment was growing hot.
Hot as if it were urging him to make a choice.
The six pairs of eyes in the crack.
The hand extended by the ghost courier.
Meng Po’s silence.
Big Bro One’s roar.
Every sound intertwined in his mind.
Then Chen Mo smiled.
“You’re right.”
He said it aloud.
“This fragment really does belong in there.”
Wild delight flashed through the ghost courier’s eyes.
“But not the way you mean.”
Chen Mo turned around.
He faced the bronze door.
He didn’t press the fragment into the empty groove.
Instead, he raised it, summoned every ounce of strength in his body, and smashed it hard against the crack in the door—
Against the giant hand reaching out through it.
“Bang—!”
The instant the fragment touched the giant hand, an indescribable light exploded.
It wasn’t golden.
It wasn’t blood-red.
It was pure, primordial white, as if it had existed since the birth of the world.
The giant hand let out a deafening roar.
It wasn’t a roar of pain.
It was rage.
Shock.
The fury of a ritual interrupted.
The crack in the door began to shrink.
The six pairs of eyes twisted and blurred in the light.
The ghost courier let out a shrill scream.
“No—!”
“What did you do—!”
The light swallowed Chen Mo.
In the final moment before he lost consciousness, he heard a voice.
The voice belonged to no one.
It came from deep within the door.
From the place called “home.”
“An interesting choice.”
“We…”
“Will meet again.”
The light faded.
The bronze door disappeared.
The River of Forgetfulness returned to calm.
On the ruins of Yellow Springs Station, only Meng Po remained.
She stood at the bow of the small boat, staring at the empty river.
In her hand, she held half of a shattered token.
It belonged to Big Bro One.
“Such a fool.”
She spoke softly.
“I told you not to look back.”
In the distance, amid the remains of the bone bridge, a hand reached out from the gray ashes.
A golden courier uniform, torn to shreds.
Big Bro One crawled out with difficulty and spat out a mouthful of black blood.
“Damn…”
“Bad review…”
“Definitely a bad review…”
He looked toward where the bronze door had disappeared.
Yet the corner of his mouth curled into a faint smile.
“Not bad, rookie.”
“This delivery…”
“Counts as delivered on time.”
And somewhere without light,
Chen Mo opened his eyes.
He lay in a void.
A person stood before him.
The person looked exactly like him.
The only difference was the golden courier uniform and the “7” embroidered on his chest.
“Welcome back.”
That “Chen Mo” smiled.
“I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”
“Your past-life…”
“Myself.”