Cyber Ghosts Chapter 1: Are You From The Underworld?

There was a bright moon in the dark sky, s.h.i.+ning through the thin clouds to the forest below.

There was a stone square in the forest, but it was broken by age.

I didn't know why, but I was hiding in the corner of this ruined wall, as if I was waiting for something or escaping from something.

"Bring that person here!" I heard a voice behind the broken wall, "Pick another animal and just pick a sika deer! "

"It's them!" Startled, I turned around quietly and leaned on the broken wall. I turned my head to the side and looked slowly over the side, only using one of my eyes to watch them, making sure they couldn't see me.

There were seven or eight black clothed men, while two of them were pressing down on a young man. This young man's clothes were fas.h.i.+onable, and his skin seemed whiter than the others'. Due to the moonlight, I could clearly see his face. Isn't he that popular young star? Why were these men in black pressing down on him?

"I heard you are disobedient?" One man in black said. "Someone asked us to help you."

That young star was stubborn. He stared at the man and said, "It's not that I'm disobedient, but I just don't want to be in cahoots with them."

"Oh?" The black clothed man sneered, "You have your own way of thinking, don't you? I'm so sorry! We are only taking money from others to help them get rid of the sc.u.m. "

With that, the man turned his head and said, "Let's begin."

After this person finished speaking, I saw another man in black pulling a sika deer over. The man extended his hands and grabbed at the young star and then the sika deer. At that time, from each of their body, he caught some light. In the night, I could see inside the light was also a man and a deer, and the figure in one ball of light was exactly as the same as the young star.

The man in black grabbed the two b.a.l.l.s of light and said to the young star, "Since your soul doesn't listen to you, then exchange your soul for this deer's!"

I got to know that these two b.a.l.l.s of light were the souls of the deer and the star!

After saying that, the man in black crossed his arms. The soul of this deer entered the body of the young star, while the soul of the young star entered the body of the deer.

"The soul in your body that is the deer's should be more obedient." The black-clothed man laughed, pointing towards the young star and spoke to the surrounding people, "From now on, this person will have a deer's soul, so his name is Lu Han!"(Note: Lu in Chinese is 鹿, which means a deer. )

"Lu Han?" The other man in black asked, "Which character is the Han? Is it the Han that means inclusion, or that contains a Chinese characters radical 日?" (Note: 日 is a Chinese characters radical, meaning the sun.)

"Look at the moonlight!" The black clothed man pointed at the pitch black sky, "Since we make it in the dark night, how can we find any sunlight? Moreover — "The man looked at the young star and said, "The Han that contains a Chinese characters radical 日 refers to dawn break, and it's a sign of hope. Do you think that he needs hope? Just call it Lu Han (Note: the Han here is that Han which means inclusion)! "

"Alright!" The other black-clothed man took out something unknown and wrote two words on the young man's forehead. Although I was very far away from them, I could still see it clearly, and the two words were Lu Han. After the two glowing words were finished, they quickly entered between the young man's eyebrows, and at this moment, this young man seemed to be in extreme pain.

As the young star kneeled on the ground, he saw me standing behind the wall with only half my head exposed. He looked at me and struggled to say, "Help …me …"

His eyes were full of pain, struggle, and misery, but he seemed to be looking for hope.

Just as I was looking at this young star, my neck tightens and I was lifted up by a black-clothed person. The other person was holding a little white rabbit, smiling coldly at me. He pointed at the rabbit, then pointed at me, "Your soul will be changed to the soul of this obedient rabbit, ok?"

"No!"

I let out a scream and rolled off the desk onto the floor. When I opened my eyes, I saw that I had actually fallen asleep at my colleague's house! And made a dream!

My colleague Zhou Yuan who was at the side had a book in his hands as he read expressionlessly, as if he did not care about my disrespectful actions just now.

I looked at Zhou Yuan with mixed feelings. This was already the seventh time I had had such a dream in this week.

"Hao Ning, come here," auntie Zhou looked at Zhou Yuan who was sitting on a chair with a book in hand but had a lifeless look in his eyes, quietly pulled me out of the door, and asked me in a low voice, "What happened to Xiao Yuan?"

"What?" I braced myself to ask.

"For the past few days, I've been feeling like Xiao Yuan's mind has been wandering around and he's not eating much. After eating two bites, he'll go back and lie on the bed, and he won't talk to me." Auntie Zhou sneakily glanced at Zhou Yuan who didn't care what we said at all.

"Well, maybe," I said, scratching my head, not knowing how to say it. "Well, Auntie, I have to get back to work. It's urgent."

"Overtime?" Auntie Zhou was even more surprised when she heard it, "Isn't today Sunday?"

"Yes," I smiled awkwardly. "I have something to do …"

After saying that, I ran back to my home as if I was running for my life. I was the only one in my house. I got a large cup of ice water and gulped it down. My body immediately turned cold, but my heart was in turmoil.

"He's still like that?" A sound came from the mirror beside the TV.

"That's right," I said, looking into the mirror. The mirror was facing me, but in the mirror, besides me, there was another man. His handsome face was devoid of any color. I looked around me. It was empty. I was alone on the couch.

"You're still in the mirror," I said to the man in the mirror. "Can't you come out yet?"

"I can't …" That man looked at me and ruffled my hair in the mirror. I subconsciously hid myself, and that man involuntarily smiled, "What are you hiding from? What can you hide from?"

If it were a week ago, I would have gone mad with fear if I found someone in the mirror, but now I didn't even have the strength to go mad.

A week ago.

It was Friday afternoon.

"Hao Ning," As I was organizing the doc.u.ments, the designer Zhou Yuan suddenly asked me, "How do you plan to spend this weekend?"

My name was Hao Ning, and I was an Internet pract.i.tioner. I was mainly involved in product planning. This t.i.tle might sound grand, but it was actually a bitter one, the one who had been scolded by his boss and hated by his colleagues.

Zhou Yuan, who asked me a question just now, was a picture designer in our company. People said that the eyes were the windows of the soul, and the most distinctive feature of his face was his pair of unusually large eyes. However, those extraordinarily large eyes were mostly used for nothing, and there were always quite a few problems with the patterns created by the pair of eyes. The strangest thing was that even as Zhou Yuan was a designer, his eyes could not tell whether the drawing he made was pretty or not. As a result, the director always ridiculed him for his work.

The most frustrating thing was that sometimes, after the director ridiculed him a lot, he would criticize me along the way. Hao Ning, as a product planner, you don't care about the works of the designers? How could he take out such a result? and so on…

However, I also admired Zhou Yuan's mental state. Also, he had a specialty, which was that he liked to eat. He knew all the good food in the city, and every weekend, his job was to eat all kinds of food. So when he asked me how I was going to spend my weekends, I knew there would be something good to happen.

"What else can I do?" I took a glance at him. Because of his "work product," I was criticized by the director just now, and was now furious, so I sarcastically said to him, "The boss just said that I have no feelings for design and can't guide the work of a designer. I plan to go to Nanshan Book City on the weekend and choose a few books on design to improve myself."

"Hey, don't say it like that. I think your aesthetic feeling is good. Besides, there's still me. I'll help you!" I rubbed my forehead, helplessly listening to him continue, "But speaking of the aesthetic feeling, we are just planning to go to Heaven Eye Lake. The scenery there is especially good, and there is also a hot spring that can not only relax one's body and mind, but also give one the chance to enjoy the scenery as well as cultivate one's taste. You have been under a lot of pressure recently, why don't you come with us to play. There are plenty of wild game, and we will....."

"We will eat wild game?" I looked at him with disdain, "With your eyesight? Or with your big eyes and your big face that was as much as a basin? If you draw a picture, you can match the colors wrong. Hey, don't beat me up - I didn't say that, it's the director who just said this - so how can you hunt wild game?"

"Of course I can't, but we can get local people to help us hunt — whose face is as big as a basin? You know? No matter how much I eat, I won't be fat!" He argued that he had completely ignored my statement that he was doing the wrong thing.

Anyway, I felt that it was a good idea. I was under great pressure in these days, especially after that strange dreams I had a while ago, where some unknown devil, Heavenly Book, and Divine Seal had come out. It seemed that I needed to study less ancient legends, so I agreed to go with them.

Heaven Eye Lake is two hours away from S City. Zhou Yuan drove us there. He was also with our colleague and good friend, Liu Shuai.

Liu Shuai was a bookworm. Even though he was in the biomedical department and knew a lot about the growth of human hair, he was still unable to stop his hair from falling off before graduation. His typical theory couldn't guide his practice.

After his hopes turned into dust, Liu Shuai actually taught himself to be a programmer after graduation. Everyone would have a sympathetic look when they saw him. What they thought was that, IT work did take a lot of mind, so look, Liu Shuai only graduated a few years ago and now all his hair fell off.

"How much further away is it?" The scenery was pleasant, but looking at it for a long time was also somewhat boring. I couldn't help but ask, "How about Zhou Yuan tell a story?"

"Alright," Zhou Yuan said as he drove. "Then I'll tell an extremely long story that will last until we reach our destination."

"Okay, okay," I said, trying to listen.

"Once upon a time, there was a mountain. On the mountain, there was a temple. In the temple, there was an old monk telling a story. What story was that?" Zhou Yuan laughed and lectured, "In the past, there was a mountain, and on the mountain there was a temple, and in the temple there was an old monk, who was currently —"

"Stop!" Before I could say anything, Liu Shuai interrupted Zhou Yuan, "You are telling the story of this death cycle, and don't even mention until we reach our destination, you can continue telling it all the way until the end day of the earth without stopping."

"Haha," Zhou Yuan couldn't help but laugh, "I wasn't lying. See, haven't we already arrive just like that?"

The car ferociously turned its head and entered a verdant mountain forest with many villas. There were birds flying in the mountains from time to time. Since it was still early, there was still a bit of fog on the mountain.

"The mountain is more secluded while the birds are singing!" After getting out of the car, I took a deep breath of cool air and sighed.

"Don't be emotional. Let's enter the villa," Zhou Yuan stopped the car, signalled for us to take our things, and got the hotel's attendants to open the door for us.

This was a typical hotel villa, you can cook in the villa, and you can ask the local people to do it, or do it yourself. The so-called wild game was probably a "half-family" type that the locals grew in the mountains for tourists to hunt, but it was somewhat different from the one found in the breeding grounds.

"Brother w.a.n.g, you're really awesome. We have a lot of food to eat tonight!" As I was about to go in, I suddenly heard a burst of laughter that sounded like silver bells coming from not too far away. Looking for the source of the sound, I saw three men and a woman walking over, one of them was carrying a few wild rabbits, while the other two were carrying bags, and the woman was dressed very neatly, looking at me. They were also looking in our direction, but the woman's eyes just saw me and frowned slightly, thinking of something, and her expression flickered for a moment. Zhou Yuan also heard it and came out to greet them:

"Sister Lan, it's you!"

While I was hesitating, Zhou Yuan called me, "Hao Ning, let me introduce you" and I could only go over. "This is Sister Lan, a foodie like me. Sister Lan, this is Hao Ning, my colleagues. Sister Lan, these are?"

I took a closer look at these people. I couldn't tell how old Sister Lan was, but the rest of them looked simple and honest. It was obvious that they didn't talk much. Sister Lan interrupted Zhou Yuan's words and said, "These are a few of my friends, and they also like the air and the wild game here. Look —" She pointed at the rabbit in one of the person's hand, which didn't seem to be dead, and even flopped down a little from time to time, "Tonight, we'll have something good to eat. Will you join us? We also have something else."

"How can I accept this," Zhou Yuan laughed, "No gains without pains."

"There's no need to be polite. We will go and clean up first. This is your villa, right? We will talk about your matters later," Sister Lan smiled at me, which was considered polite, at the same time she pointed at the villa next to ours while she was speaking to Zhou Yuan, "This is our villa, we will talk about it later."

"Um," When Zhou Yuan heard this, he laughed a little unnaturally, "Is it actually true?"

"Of course, foolish boy. You finally got lucky," Sister Lan laughed happily and turned to leave.

"What is it?" I felt that it was a little strange. Looking at Sister Lan's back figure, I asked Zhou Yuan, "Do you need her for something?"

"It's fine..." Zhou Yuan seemed to be replying to me, but it also seemed that he was muttering to himself. "Maybe I'm going to go lucky."

In the afternoon, we were chatting and playing cards in a few rooms. Midway, Zhou Yuan said that he had something he wanted to find Sister Lan for, and when he returned, he calmly came back and told us that he would eat dinner with Sister Lan. We teased him and asked if he had taken Sister Lan down, and Zhou Yuan said goodbye with a reddened face.

"Sigh, Hao Ning …" Zhou Yuan sneakily ran over and showed me his phone, "What do you think of the design of this map?"

"What? It's already the weekend and you still don't want people to get a good rest?" I snappily took his phone, but when my eyes looked at the screen, I was unable to s.h.i.+ft my gaze away from it. The design of this map was extremely high level, no matter if it was in terms of color, layout, or even the details, they could be described as perfect. I was worried that I alone would not be able to make a correct judgement, so I handed the phone over to Liu Shuai.

"Alright you brat!" I praised as I returned the phone back to Zhou Yuan, "Your appreciation level is great. If you can find such an exquisite map, and copy it according to this level, our director will definitely praise you!"

"Yes, yes," Liu Shuai nodded his head in agreement as he pointed to the diagram. "Look at the designer, if you had this level, no, one-third of that level, you wouldn't be ridiculed by everyone." Saying that, Liu Shuai laughed bitterly, "It's not because I'm talking about you, but Zhou Yuan, the pictures that you design are really not good enough in our project team, and sometimes, I have to say a few words about you."

"Go to the h.e.l.l!" Zhou Yuan curled his lips, "This is the map that I made earlier, okay?"

Liu Shuai was currently admiring the map. After hearing Zhou Yuan's words, he laughed out loud, touching his forehead, pulling his face: "Have you lost your mind? Or did some great designer wear Zhou Yuan's mask to fool us? Don't we know what level you are? Did you forget the other night, our programmer brothers thought that your drawing was too bad, and scolded you so much that you had to work all night long to change your drawing? "

My heart sank as I thought: Liu Shuai, why do you bring up the topic and talk about it over the weekend?

Since Zhou Yuan's design was really unsightly, it was often disdained by the project team's programmers, that made him difficult to get off the stage. But when a designer was told that his drawing was too bad, it would be considered a great insult to him. If Liu Shuai said this now, it really could cause the atmosphere to turn awkward.

Unexpectedly, Zhou Yuan didn't mind at all: "That's the me of the past, and I'm no longer the me of the past. From now on, my design will forever live in your hearts."

Nothing had happened. Liu Shuai seemed to not have a good appet.i.te. He only ate a few vegetables, but he didn't eat any meat at all. We even laughed at this baldy for treating himself like a monk.

It was getting dark after dinner. They were going to take a hot spring bath, and I had some work to do, so I went back to my room and planned to catch up quickly.

"Today's data is relatively normal," I said to myself, looking down at the computer.

Just as I said that, the lights in the room suddenly flickered, as though they were in contact with something bad. I raised my head to look at the lights, and suddenly, a man appeared on the sofa in front of me. He was handsome, but his face was pale, as though he had been staring at me for a long time and was smiling at me!

"Ah!" My scalp went numb, and I felt like I was about to explode. I had heard about stealing things while people were asleep in hotels, but I didn't expect someone to come here before I fell asleep! I couldn't help but shout, "Who are you!? What do you want? "

I quickly picked up the notebook, intending to throw it at him as he approached me.

"Don't you know me? Have you forgotten that you wrote an story about our meeting and chatting that night in your wechat post?"

"Ah? Wechat post? I? Wrote an story?" I stared at him, "Is it 'The Devil Visits Mr. Hao Ning'? That story was just a dream. Are you really a demon? "

"What devil? Don't spout nonsense! According to what I have heard, I am the person in charge of souls transmigration in the Greater China Region, and my name is Yan," he took out a name card and was about to stand up and give it to me, but he was stopped by the look in my eyes.

"Don't try to fool me. Just tell me what do you want?" I stared at him, worried about my own safety, grabbed my notebook and said, "I won't sell. I won't buy insurance. I won't lend. I only have 500 yuan in cash,and you can have this computer, but you have to let me back up the stuff inside first, and this phone —"

"Alright, alright, I don't want your things. This time, I came to collect a soul and since you're here, I came to visit you …" He stood up and put his hands in his pockets. He took out a small bottle that was glowing brightly, but not clearly. "Look, it's a soul." He waved the bottle at me.

"... You can starve yourself to death by lying like that. " I looked at him with disdain, "Your scam is on par with Master w.a.n.g. Why don't you change into a snake and let me see?"

He smiled awkwardly and scratched his head before walking over to me. "I forgot one thing. You still can't see this."

"What are you doing!" I screamed and clutched my notebook, ready to strike at any moment.

"The awake you are much more stubborn than the sleeping you are. I really don't know why it's you …" He frowned and snapped his fingers, and I realized I couldn't move.

This time, he grabbed my hand, placed it on his forehead, and said with extreme coldness, "Follow me and chant this line — — Borrow Me Your Mana!"

"Borrow Me Your Mana?" I realized that I could speak, so I couldn't help but ask, "What are you talking about?"

Just as I said that, I saw the whole room become unreal. The light emitted by the bottle in his hand gradually shrank and gathered into the bottle. It gradually turned into the appearance of a small person.

As the outline of the little person became clearer, I felt that it was getting colder and colder. My teeth couldn't help but s.h.i.+ver because I saw that the little person was also crying as he looked at me. He was someone I'm very familiar with. It was Zhou Yuan!