The night was quiet. In a rented room of an old residential building in Jiangcheng, a single lamp was lit.
Various sizes of words floated in midair, each seeming to have a life of its own as they flipped and tumbled through the air.
Branching frameworks, character maps, and worldbuilding tree diagrams.
Song Mo stared at the floating text, her face filled with sheer delight and ambition.
The script she wanted to write this time was not just a simple story of underworld messengers borrowing longevity—that would be too thin.
If scripts were treated like novels, then all the scripts and Instances she wrote would ideally be rooted in folklore and mythology.
—To build an infinitely expandable, super Eastern IP universe.
In this IP universe, there would be the Huaxia underworld system, as well as Western supernatural systems.
Underworld Judges, Day and Night Patrol Gods, and City God Temple ghosts.
Hellish demons, angels descending to earth, and incarnations of the Seven Deadly Sins.
A complete system of rules stretching across centuries could spawn countless Instances, plotlines, monsters, and legends.
Not to mention Huaxia's thousands of years of folklore, the underworld's Heavenly Dao, the karma of reincarnation, underworld messengers and Judges, the Ten Yama Kings, the Yellow Springs, the Naihe River...
Though these legends, etched into the very bones and blood of the Huaxia people, were scattered and fragmented, she would be the one to manifest these myths and make the legends reality—
Just thinking about it made her blood boil with excitement.
《Underworld Messengers Borrowing Longevity》 was the very first cornerstone of the entire Eastern underworld worldview, and the opening catalyst for all subsequent yin-yang plotlines.
Therefore, Song Mo had to write it to absolute perfection.
Then, she would facilitate its descent, allowing it to completely transform from a “written script” into “rules of the real world.”
The shadows cast by the desk lamp flickered slightly. A fierce ghost's hair drifted in through the window along the shadows, crookedly spelling out three characters on the desk:
“Lu Bingkun.”
...
The red figure landed without a sound.
“My Lady, Lu Bingkun is being detained by the officers of the Special Investigation Bureau. He hasn't left yet.”
A'yan spoke softly, her voice carrying an irrepressible anger:
“Following your instructions, I first went to the ruins of Taiping Cemetery to capture the newly deceased, lingering soul of the Lu clan's unfilial son, Lu Jianming.
This boy's body is dead, but his soul remains. He is greedy for wealth and benefits, and incredibly foolish.
Even though his soul is trapped in the Instance, he still longs for the riches of the mortal world. With a bit of probing, I uncovered the Lu family's secrets.”
“Afterward, I slipped into the intensive care ward on the top floor of Jiangcheng First People's Hospital and entered the dream of that dying old scoundrel, Lu Bingkun.”
At this point, the fierce ghost flew into a rage. Bloody mist dispersed around her, and her intense resentment almost overflowed the room.
A'yan's pupils turned entirely black, and tiny ice crystals began to condense on the floor and walls around her.
Upon touching the ice, the Mud Calabash dissolved into a clump. In the next second, a newly born, even smaller clay sculpture ghost emerged from it.
Seeing that the fierce ghost was about to lose control, Song Mo casually cast a pill-refining technique, dispelling the malevolent energy with a single light sentence:
“It's fine. Take your time.”
Only then did A'yan calm down. Floating in front of Song Mo, she reported everything in detail:
“That scoundrel has the ambition of a wolf and the heart of a viper! He is a cold-blooded, ruthless man rarely seen in a thousand years!
There are no lies in dreams. It turns out his lifelong wealth and decades of prosperity were built upon the bones of his first wife and his own young son.
His hands are stained with blood, and his sins are monstrous. He deserves to be cast into the Eighteen Levels of Hell after death!”
Song Mo tapped her fingertips on the desk and said softly, “Go on.”
“Yes.”
A'yan lowered her eyes, suppressing her surging malice, and slowly recounted what she had seen.
In dreams, people have no defenses. Thus, when a fierce ghost enters a dream, they see the most authentic past.
...
Lu Bingkun was poor in his youth. Born in the countryside, he had absolutely nothing.
In his early years, he traveled far to Hong Kong to drift and survive. At his lowest point, he was just a low-level lackey who brought customers to casinos. He had to read people's faces, and getting beaten up was a daily occurrence.
But he was ruthless enough—especially to himself.
If a casino customer spat, he would bend over and catch it with his hands. When players gave him tips, he would turn around and hand them all over to his boss.
Whether by luck or sheer gambling skill, Lu Bingkun schemed and climbed his way up.
In just three years, he earned the right to sit at the table and gamble.
Of course, he knew the wealthy only treated him as a plaything to pass the time when they were bored, but that was exactly the opportunity Lu Bingkun wanted.
At that time, the Hong Kong casino tycoon, Old Mr. Chen, had spent half his life in the business, owning a vast enterprise and immense wealth, but his only offspring was a single daughter, Chen Shulan.
Chen Shulan was a genuine high-born lady, well-read since childhood and possessing a refined beauty.
From the bottom of her heart, she looked down on Lu Bingkun, who came from a humble background and relied on opportunistic scheming.
However, limited by the era and prevailing mindsets, Hong Kong businessmen valued practical capability over family background.
Old Mr. Chen, in his advanced years, appreciated talent. Seeing Lu Bingkun act neither obsequiously nor arrogantly, while being sweet-tongued and patient, he believed the young man could uphold the Chen family name in the future.
It was strange back then; no matter how much Old Mr. Chen doted on his daughter, he still refused to teach her the skills to make a living and stand on her own.
No matter how much Chen Shulan resisted, she ultimately could not sway her father's expectations.
In utter helplessness, she could only marry down to the penniless Lu Bingkun, becoming his first wife.
...
During the first few years of their marriage, Lu Bingkun hid all his cruelty and greed, acting filial and respectful, performing hypocrisy to absolute perfection.
If Chen Shulan wanted a late-night snack, he would drive a luxury car in the middle of the night to the other side of Hong Kong just to buy back piping hot pastries.
At that time, whenever there was an auction, Lu Bingkun was sure to attend.
Antiques, calligraphy, paintings, jewelry—as long as Chen Shulan took a fancy to it, he would bid and win it with a massive sum, making everyone else green with envy.
—Back then, the local Hong Kong tabloids constantly ridiculed the Chen family for finding a “lackey” of a son-in-law.
They also said Lu Bingkun was “henpecked,” spending his wife's money to maintain his own prestige.
In his later years, Old Mr. Chen suffered from a chronic illness and was bedridden. Lu Bingkun attended to his every need daily, serving tea and water.
He even traveled back and forth between the mainland and Hong Kong multiple times just to seek a cure and ensure his father-in-law's well-being.
He scaled mountains and crossed rivers to visit folk sorcerers, spent fortunes to have altars set up for blessings, performed rituals to dispel disasters, and chanted scriptures for salvation...
It could be said that while no one knew how he behaved in private, to the outside world, Lu Bingkun had always maintained the perfect persona of a “loyal, righteous, and grateful” man.
It was during that year that Lu Bingkun became a highly praised, rare good son-in-law in the Hong Kong business community.
...
A few years later, Old Mr. Chen passed away.
With the giant tree fallen, the Chen family was leaderless. The old officials and subordinates were in a panic, and the vast enterprise was in jeopardy.
Lu Bingkun stepped forward at this moment. In his capacity as the son-in-law, he naturally and rightfully took over all of the Chen family's businesses, connections, resources, and channels.
From then on, it took him only ten years to go from a despised street lackey to formally entering the top tier of the Hong Kong business circle.
Surprisingly, while many speculated whether Lu Bingkun would take a second wife, he remained as attentive to his wife as always.
But correspondingly, the Chen family enterprise existed in name only.
The massive family wealth fell entirely into Lu Bingkun's pockets, and the once-mighty Hong Kong casino dynasty was devoured clean by him.
District real estate and business transactions between Hong Kong and the mainland became increasingly frequent. Sensing the opportunity, Lu Bingkun made drastic reforms and ventured into real estate.
Just as he was at the height of his success, disaster struck suddenly:
Chen Shulan was traveling by car when a horrific accident occurred, killing her and her six-year-old son with Lu Bingkun, Chen Dongdong.
Due to the victims' prominent status and the sensitive timing, the tragedy caused a national uproar as soon as it happened.
Not only did the Hong Kong business circle shake, but even foreign media reported on it:
“Wealthy Family Wiped Out! XX Group Chairman's Wife and Son Die on Highway; Suspected Hit Ordered for Blocking Others' Wealth!!”
“An Outrage to Gods and Men! Cold-Blooded! 'Lackey Son-in-Law' Suffers Vindictive Retaliation; Wife and Son's Hearse Tampered With, Multi-Million Bounty Offered to Find the Culprit!”
“Wiping Out Your Entire Family! Real Estate Tycoon's Wife and Son Suffer Tragic Death Under the Wheels; Underworld Manhunt: Find the Mysterious Mr. X Behind the Scenes!”
“Casino Tycoon's Daughter Dies Tragically, Chen Family Line Cut Off! Eyewitness Shockingly Reveals: Truck Deliberately Rammed Them, Clearly an Execution-Style Hit!”
...
All sorts of sensationalist, eye-catching news emerged in an endless stream.
Some went so far as to use the horrific photos of Chen Shulan's accident scene as a selling point.
At that time, the Lu Group was bidding against another real estate company.
Lu Bingkun immediately seized the opportunity of public opinion, holding a press conference where he broke down in tears and fainted several times.
Public opinion was deliberately guided.
As a result, the outside world believed for a time that Chen Shulan's death was a deliberate contract killing ordered by a competitor who resented the rapid rise of the Chen family.
Not a single person suspected that this horrific car accident was directed and acted out by Lu Bingkun himself.
After all, who would suspect a devoted husband who had lost his wife and child?
...
Through this shocking tragedy, Lu Bingkun earned immense public sympathy and a stellar reputation.
Afterward, he made a high-profile investment, spending an astronomical sum to build an extremely luxurious double tomb in a prime feng shui location in Hong Kong.
He declared that he would forever cherish his beloved wife and mourn his young son, intending to be buried with them after his death.
It was precisely by leveraging this massive wave of public opinion about “building a tomb to honor his love for his late wife” that the Lu Group successfully completed its transition and secured the bidding project.
Subsequently, Lu Bingkun officially entered the mainland real estate industry—focusing on a high-end cemetery real estate concept of “auspicious feng shui lands that bless descendants.”
Capitalizing on the hype surrounding the tragic deaths of his first wife and son, Lu Bingkun successfully opened up both the high-end funeral and real estate markets in the mainland.
In the end, he completed his final leap of primitive capital accumulation.
The Chen family business was already an empty shell.
The Lu Group started from here.
...
“This thief is incredibly insidious and utterly detestable!”
Speaking up to this point, A'yan was so furious that she bit the tiny soul doll of Lu Jianming in her hand, bloody tears streaming down her face:
“Murdering his wife and child, devouring his father-in-law's entire estate, and using the lives of his closest kin to pave his own path to success—there is no greater evil in this world!”
“I entered his dream and peered into his mind. He spent half his life in smooth waters, with overwhelming wealth and dominant power, yet he listened to the slander of a heretical Daoist and performed defying, sinister arts!”
“That heretical Daoist told him that his wife, Chen Shulan, possessed a precious fate and profound blessings, being a natural magnet for wealth and luck.
“If Lu Bingkun wanted his wealth to last forever and his career to remain smooth, he needed to use his first wife's bones to arrange a wealth-gathering array, and bind his young child's lingering soul as a ghost servant to anchor his fortune.
“This way, Lu Bingkun could borrow the blessings of his closest bloodline to defy heaven and change his fate!”
Hearing this, Song Mo's face finally showed a strong flicker of emotion. “You mean—”
“Yes. After Chen Shulan died, Lu Bingkun dug up her bones to make a bone pagoda, and turned his own son into a ghost servant, hoping to alter his destiny.”
“No wonder he is obsessed with extending his life, believing that the Instance can save him.”
As Song Mo listened, she searched for the policies and trends of the era when Lu Bingkun made his fortune.
—Before she came to life, there were no “ghosts or monsters” in the true sense in this world.
All those metaphysical Daoist techniques, raising ghosts to gather wealth—none of it could possibly alter one's fate against heaven.
Indeed.
Song Mo found the information she was looking for and nodded with understanding:
“At the time Lu Bingkun's net worth skyrocketed, it just happened to coincide with the opening of national policies, support for Hong Kong capital moving inland, and the massive real estate boom.
In that era, infrastructure was surging ahead at breakneck speed; there was gold literally everywhere.
It is no exaggeration to say that even a pig placed at the center of the trend Lu Bingkun caught could have taken flight.”
Lu Bingkun held the Chen family's resources in his hands, occupied the moral high ground of public opinion, and sucked the marrow from Chen Shulan's bones—yet he believed it was because of his own ruthless, brilliant methods.
He was greedy and malicious to the absolute extreme.
...
“Since no one is digging up these old debts, I will write them into the script and show everyone the side of the underworld where 'karma goes around, and retribution never fails.'”
Song Mo raised her eyes to look at A'yan, who was still seething with anger beside her, and spoke softly:
“Lu Bingkun's greed and malice make him the best writing material.”
“That's too easy on him!”
A'yan's malevolence receded slightly, but her face was still filled with indignation:
“May my Master's pen doom him to have his soul scattered, never to meet a peaceful end!”
“Very well.”
Song Mo pondered for a moment, then raised her hand to modify the details of the script.
【Draft One: ...With the recovery of spiritual energy, the long-dormant gates of hell loosen, and rogue underworld messengers escape to the human world...】
As the ink-wash words were written, invisible rules from a higher dimension seemed to quietly descend.
In the sky above a certain bone pagoda built somewhere in Hong Kong, a sudden bolt of lightning cracked from the blue, followed by a downpour.
The lower dimension remained oblivious to the writing from the higher dimension, still immersed in the hollow obsession with longevity.
...
At the exact same moment, thousands of miles away.
Jiangcheng First People's Hospital, top-floor detached VIP intensive care unit.
Money and power piled up to create a forbidden zone of life and death.
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