In the evening, just as the misty sky was beginning to be tinged with a hint of gray, businesses along a ten-kilometer stretch of Taiping Cemetery began closing up one after another.
At the once-bustling hot pot restaurants, as soon as six o'clock passed, the diners and owners seemed to share a tacit agreement—they only let people out, not in.
...
The aroma of beef tallow drifted out along with the continuous drizzle. Song Mo twitched her nose and took a couple of deep breaths, but she didn't feel anything.
An owner, assuming she was a customer, shook his head and sighed at her:
“Little sister, you won't be able to get any hot pot today. You should hurry home too.”
“Boss, why are you closing so early?”
Song Mo readily went along with the conversation. “Your business looks quite good.”
“Business has been exceptionally good lately. People come to eat hot pot every single day during the daytime. But we aren't allowed to stay around here at night. I heard there's an active Instance here at night!”
The owner smiled, revealing two dimples on his cheeks. A customer nearby chimed in:
“Boss, pack some chili powder for me—seriously, who would have thought we'd live like this? Before all this, who could have imagined that we'd have to check 'Instance alerts' first thing in the morning, even more often than the weather forecast?”
The owner skillfully weighed out the item the customer wanted and replied:
“Exactly. In the past, whenever people talked about 'ghosts' or 'monsters,' they were dismissed as feudal superstitions. Even visiting a grave and burning paper money was called a bad habit.
“Now, look at us. Just yesterday, our neighborhood distributed some 'Citizen Instance Safety Guide.' It's a little red booklet, delivered door-to-door just like the old fire safety manuals.
“My kid's school has even added emergency drills. They say they're teaching them how to hide if they encounter supernatural phenomena, and how to call the Special Investigation Bureau.”
“Tell me about it. My younger sister told me last week that everyone at their university is wearing amulets. Now, peace talismans at temples are selling for ridiculous prices.”
The diner lowered his voice, sharing gossip with Song Mo, a complete stranger, without any hesitation:
“My nephew is an auxiliary officer at the Special Investigation Bureau. He says that although there are only three Instances on the surface right now, there are actually hundreds of unpublicized ones in the dark. Every single one of them is incredibly wicked. If you go in, you're dead!”
Song Mo, the Instance Creator: “...”
She racked her brain but couldn't find any information about "hundreds of Instances."
“Keep it down, don't talk nonsense.” The owner waved his hand, though he didn't disagree.
...
—This was Jiangcheng after the spiritual energy recovery.
Everyone knew about Instances, yet everyone feared them.
No one could say for sure when exactly these changes had begun.
These changes had come rapidly and suddenly, even happening in absolute silence.
Sometimes, a clap of thunder, a summer rain, or a gust of wind.
And the change had already occurred.
Just like ten years ago, if someone had said, “In ten years, the streets will be full of electric vehicles, drones will deliver food from high altitudes, and you can order anything you need online.”
Everyone would have thought it was a pipe dream.
But by the time people truly snapped out of it and realized the "change" existed:
Hybrid cars were already driving on the roads, and drone technology was being applied to every aspect of life.
The changes regarding Instances and the supernatural were just like that, quietly yet overwhelmingly seeping into everyone's daily lives.
Perhaps by the next time everyone realized what was happening, they would have already grown accustomed to it.
Song Mo never doubted the resilience of humanity.
Riding a shared bicycle, she pulled along A'yan, who was invisible to ordinary people, and made her way up along Riverside Road.
On the advertising spaces of the roadside bus stops, half were for real estate and milk tea, and the other half were public service announcements from the Special Investigation Bureau—
“Stay away from Instance containment zones. Dial 12379 if you encounter anomalies.”
The large screens in the plazas broadcasted safety science animations on a loop, with cartoon characters demonstrating rules like "don't look back if you hear strange crying" and "don't enter unfamiliar doors."
The art style was exactly the same as anti-fraud promotional videos.
In the bulletin boards of various communities, besides water and power outage notices and anti-fraud propaganda, the most prominent spot was always plastered with the Instance safety guidelines.
It was written in black text on a white background, with the contact numbers of community workers listed below.
The neighborhood committee aunties, in addition to pushing vaccines and conducting fire safety checks, now had another task:
Going door-to-door to survey if any residents had entered an Instance, registering and filing their details, and conducting regular follow-up visits.
"Emergency Hazard Avoidance" classes were added to the curriculum of primary and secondary schools:
Do not pick up unfamiliar objects on the road, do not accept paper handed over by strangers, do not answer if someone calls your name unless you can see them clearly, and take a detour if you see a containment zone.
In addition to textbooks and water bottles, students' backpacks had to contain an official emergency kit. Inside were a flashlight, a whistle, cinnabar powder, a tracking device, and a one-touch alarm.
Guiyuan Temple on the west side of the city used to be crowded only on the first and fifteenth of the lunar month, but now it was packed every single day.
The pilgrims were not just the elderly anymore; they now included students in school uniforms and white-collar workers in business suits.
Praying for peace and a change of luck, the consecrated amulets in the temple had soared to 188 yuan each, and even then, demand far exceeded supply.
Fortune-telling, physiognomy, and tarot card shops sprang up like mushrooms after rain.
Of course, whether they could actually ward off ghosts was debatable, but they certainly made a fortune.
...
The topics of conversation on the streets and alleys had also shifted.
Previously, everyone talked about housing prices, salaries, and their children's schooling.
Now, as they chatted, nine out of ten sentences would somehow veer toward Instances:
“Have you heard? Last week, Route 404 pulled people in again. The sound of sirens echoed all night long.”
“My colleague's friend's sister supposedly entered an Instance. After she came out, her strength increased so much that she could carry two buckets of water up to the fifth floor in one breath without breaking a sweat.”
“My distant relative, who was originally in the civil service, apparently awakened some Class. Now he's been specially recruited by the hospital with a permanent position and great benefits.”
—Despite the official censorship of information, with the increasing number of unofficial players, some intelligence regarding Instances simply could not be suppressed.
While some avoided Instances like the plague, others naturally flocked to them.
Ordinary people honestly went to work and lived their lives, terrified that they might be pulled into an Instance while walking down the street one day.
Yet, even more people wanted to enter an Instance to take a gamble, hoping to ascend to the heavens in a single bound.
Those with terminal illnesses, those driven to dead ends, the wealthy, the powerful, and those eyeing the extraordinary power within the Instances in search of longevity...
Like sharks keenly sensing the scent of blood, they circled around the Instances.
...
“This is Taiping Cemetery?”
Song Mo took off her helmet and stared at the three-kilometer-long cordon for a long time. It took her a while before she could squeeze out a few words:
“People really do love... gathering to watch a spectacle.”
She had thought she was the only onlooker here.
A cordon had been set up within a three-kilometer radius of Route 404 Bus's activity range.
Armed police kept watch twenty-four hours a day, drones patrolled back and forth along the boundary, and warning megaphones blasted safety alerts on a loop from morning till night:
“Instances carry risks; your life and safety are of the utmost importance!”
“Do not let a moment of curiosity harm you!”
“Instances are not games; you only live once!”
Yet, the originally deserted riverside avenue had somehow transformed into some sort of internet-famous check-in spot:
Even though it was nighttime, the bustle on both sides of the road made it feel like broad daylight.
All kinds of vendor lights and livestreaming ring lights formed a continuous sea of brightness, illuminating the dense, shifting crowd.
The noisy chatter, peddling, and shouting from livestream hosts blended together, wrapped in a layer of aroma from barbecue and grilled sausages:
“Hello everyone, welcome to Lili's livestream room! Lili is here to wait for the Instance with you!”
“Deep-fried giant squid! Who ordered the grilled cold noodles with egg, stinky tofu, and cheese?!”
“Crispy and fragrant royal beef pies, ten yuan each!”
“Where's the Instance? Didn't they say there's a ghost bus? When can we see it?”
“Stop crowding, you stepped on my shoe! Honey, buy a cup of hot milk fermented glutinous rice!”
Vendors sold grilled sausages, grilled cold noodles, deep-fried skewers, mineral water, energy drinks, glow sticks, and night lights—there were even those selling "printed copies of Instance walkthroughs" and "compilations of past Instance exam questions."
In short, there wasn't a single trace of the gloominess that a cemetery's surroundings ought to have.
...
“I really need to reflect on myself. When it comes to the spirit of being an onlooker, I still have a lot to learn.”
Song Mo squeezed through the crowd, carrying two iced coconuts in her right hand and holding a freshly fried starch sausage in her left, taking loud, crunchy bites.
She wore a plain white T-shirt paired with jeans, her canvas shoes stained with a bit of mud.
Blending into the crowd of onlookers, she didn't stand out in the slightest.
No one knew that she was the culprit who had been stirring up storms in Jiangcheng over the past few months.
The fierce ghost A'yan had never been to such a lively place before. Right now, she was so excited that tears of blood were streaming down her face:
“My Lord, My Lord, there are so many people! But Brother isn't here!”
A'yan circled around Song Mo. “There are even more people than when I came to look last time. Huh?”
Song Mo followed her gaze and saw an old man who looked to be in his eighties squatting by the roadside, selling "consecrated Instance amulets."
A question mark slowly rose over Song Mo's head.
...
Seemingly sensing the skepticism in the customer's eyes, the old man glared and blew his mustache in anger, speaking with great vigor:
“This was drawn by a professional Daoist priest! Using lightning-struck wood dipped in century-old cinnabar to draw runes on specially made yellow paper, it's guaranteed to increase your chances of entering an Instance—
“This is a life-saving talisman. Once torn open, you can escape directly from an Instance, just like a god-tier item in a game, you know?
“And this is an evil-expelling talisman. It can slay fierce ghosts and disperse anomalies.
“Little sister, if your home often makes noises in the middle of the night, or if you hear sounds you shouldn't be hearing...”
The stall owner smiled mysteriously and stroked his beard, looking quite like a sage-like immortal:
“If you invite this talisman into your home, I guarantee no little ghost will ever dare cross your threshold.”
The fierce ghost A'yan floated right next to him, slowly tilting her head, and reached out her hand to touch the talisman.
The yellow talisman paper showed no reaction whatsoever.
Song Mo pulled out her phone, preparing to scan the code. “How much?”
“Eighteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight. No bargaining.”
“Ten yuan.”
“Deal. Thank you for your business, come again next time.”
...
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