The apocalypse begins with a dungeon game.

Chapter 193 Are you a ghost?

It's different from the definition in textbooks.

It's also different from the neat font the teacher writes on the blackboard.

Only through personal experience can one truly understand.

"Death" means losing everything: the little fish you catch are no longer fun, it's meaningless to spray water on your playmates, it doesn't matter if the weather is good or bad, and you no longer have the thrill of tasting the first sip of ice-cold soda in summer.

Being alive is a miracle in itself.

When a person closes their eyes forever, this world ceases to exist.

"Human, are you alright?"

That was the first unfamiliar voice Li Can heard after she had given up the will to live.

It wasn't the voice of Li Lan, the younger sister who came to play with me that afternoon, nor was it the voice of my childhood friends Qi Xin or Lin Ya.

They had already happily led the little fish far away...

Who could it be at this moment?

Li Can felt as if his body weighed a thousand pounds in the turbulent river, with countless large rocks pressing him down and dragging him underwater.

But after that question, a tremendous buoyancy lifted his body and carried him toward the shore.

That's right, it's the "floating" motion.

It wasn't being pulled or dragged, nor was it being carried on someone's shoulders.

Instead, it was being supported, like on the flat back of a small animal, soft and delicate.

If it weren't for this dream, he would have almost forgotten what that feeling was like.

Even though Li Can had begun to be rescued by something, he still felt that he was going to die, or that he was already dead; it was a feeling of impending death.

Countless complex sounds were simultaneously coming into his head and around his ears.

One of the sounds was the faint whirring of a mechanical gear.

It was as if some kind of machine had taken root inside his body.

As a child, he didn't understand what it was.

All he knew was that he was finally able to force himself to open his eyes a crack.

Li Can was very excited. He weakly raised his eyes, trying to find the figure of the guy who saved his life. He wanted to see what his savior looked like.

But after his body was lifted to the riverbank and set down, he only managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of white.

It's like... the afterimage of a ghost.

"Cough, cough cough, are you a ghost...?" he whispered, trying to ask.

Having narrowly escaped death, Li Can's senses were numb, and he had no idea what it would be like for a child to encounter a ghost by the river.

But the white figure did not respond, nor did it turn its head, leaving Li Can's increasingly distant back view, growing ever more blurred towards the high sky.

Until it became a tiny dot, no longer visible, merging with the scattered clouds in the sky.

"It doesn't seem like a ghost... but it does seem like a ghost... floating... cough cough, cough... in the sky..."

……

When Li Can woke up from his coma as a child, he didn't know how many days had passed since he fell into a coma with a high fever after drowning.

"Mom, Dad..." He opened his eyes and this time saw the concerned looks in his family's eyes, as well as the faces of his younger sister Li Lan and his childhood friends who had gone to play by the river with him.

"Ah Can, I'm so sorry, waaaaah, it's all my fault for dragging you to the river to catch little fish, waaaaah, I was wrong, please don't die." That was young Qi Xin's face, his eyes swollen from crying, looking like walnuts.

It was summer, and every part of his exposed skin suffered terribly.

At first glance, you can tell that the child has been disciplined by his parents with a stick.

"Brother... Waaaaah..."

"Xiao Can, waaaaah, you're finally awake! Mommy was so worried..."

"It's good that he's awake, it's good that he's awake. Everyone, please make way and give the patient some breathing space."

From Li Can's perspective, there were many people talking at the same time, which he found very noisy.

My mind is a mess.

There was only one person whose words he could clearly hear.

"Little boy, you're drowning. Can you tell the police officer whether you fell into the river by yourself or were pushed in?"

"Do you remember who rescued you and brought you to shore?"

She was a policewoman in plainclothes, speaking softly and gently, unlike the noisy people around her.

"I accidentally fell into the river," he heard his childhood self answer.

"Later... I was saved by a white ghost..."

The policewoman: "..."

Doctor: "...This may be a sequela of the child's drowning. He needs to stay in the hospital for further observation."

Li Can's mother: "...Oh no, I need to find the contact information for that fortune teller under the overpass..."

……

The dream then shifted to the scene of Li Can returning home from the hospital as a child.

He could clearly hear himself in his dream, and the sound of mechanical gears turning could be heard from time to time in his head, along with some words that he couldn't understand.

It's very complicated.

He hadn't studied it at the time.

I only recognize one character.

However, when Li Can looked back on her dream as an adult, she experienced intense emotional fluctuations.

What appeared in my mind during the dream was simply a notification that my "near-death value" had been triggered.

The so-called mechanical sound is actually the gashapon machine starting up and assembling itself from scratch.

However, ever since he nearly drowned, when he, as a child, told the adults about these unusual things, they automatically interpreted it as him being possessed by evil spirits and needing to be exorcised.

However, this cannot be blamed on the parents at the time. It was mainly because young Li Can's expression was unclear, which made it easy for people to misunderstand.

"Xiao Can, tell Mommy again, who saved you? And what happened to your head?"

In the dream, little Li Can said, "Mom, I was saved by a white ghost."

"There's always a crackling sound in my head, like Uncle Qi next door chopping bones with a knife, it's very noisy."

"There are always words floating around, including the word 'death,' and I'm so scared."

"Mommy, what's wrong with me? Do other kids do this too?"

The mother didn't respond to Xiao Li Can, but instead turned directly to another stranger: "Master, look at this... we still have to rely on you."

An unnamed old Taoist priest with gray hair sighed, "Alas, your child is possessed by a ghost."

"The riverbank is filled with yin energy, and he is at the age when he has opened his eyes to see yin and yang. Now that he is haunted by a water ghost, it is inevitable that he will see things he shouldn't see and hear things he shouldn't hear."

"This word 'death' means that your child's time to die in place of you is coming soon. As an exchange for being saved by the water ghost, your lifespan no longer belongs to you, and you don't have much time left."

"This is really troublesome..." The old Taoist priest talked nonsense with a straight face, and he actually fooled all the adults.

Li Can's father: "Master, please, you must save my son! No matter the cost, our Li family is willing!"

Little sister Li Lan clutched her small cloth bag: "Please, Grandpa, save my brother, boohoo... I have New Year's money."

Qi Xin, his childhood friend, blinked his still swollen, red eyes and held a ceramic piggy bank in his arms: "This is all my pocket money, I'll give it all to you."

Qi Xin's father: "My Qi family will also do our part. We can't let our child die at such a young age. Name your price; if it's not enough, I'll go to the bank to withdraw more!"

The old Taoist priest sighed and made a "six" gesture to the crowd.

"Sixty thousand?" Mom asked cautiously.

The old Taoist shook his head. "To defy fate for others consumes my own fortune and shortens my lifespan by 600,000 years."