You made all the streamers on the internet kneel before you when you were asked to make a game.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye, as all the players in the Federation eagerly awaited their return.

Midnight.

The entrance to the "Underworld Zone" on the Nebula Platform opened silently through an ancient wooden door.

This time, what's behind the door isn't just a simple list of games.

Instead, it was an endless void filled with swirling gray mist.

In the center of the void, a massive vortex composed of countless fragmented memories floated.

【Reincarnation】

[Click to enter]

Tens of millions of players pressed that button at the same time.

Haeund City.

Lu Zhixing lay in the pod of his apartment and closed his eyes.

The process of consciousness leaving and then reassembling happens in an instant.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing on a muddy path.

The air was filled with a damp, earthy smell, mixed with a faint whiff of ashes from burning paper money.

The sky was an eternal twilight.

Under the hazy sky, neither the sun nor the moon could be seen.

Only a huge, blood-red disc radiating a pale light hung high in the sky.

That's not the moon.

It was more like a giant, cold eye, indifferently watching over this land.

Lu Zhixing looked around.

The path was lined with waist-high, withered yellow weeds.

The wind blew by, making a "rustling" sound, as if something was moving quickly through the grass.

At the end of the path, the outline of a village can be seen.

Low mud-brick houses, crooked fences, and wisps of gray-black smoke rising from chimneys.

Everything looked like an ordinary village in a remote area three hundred years ago, before the "Great Integration" period.

But this is the village of the unjustly killed.

Every "person" here is a soul who died unjustly.

Welcome to the world of Reincarnation.

[Generating an initial identity based on your soul traits...]

[Identity generated.]

[Name: Lu Zhixing (can be edited)]

[Identity: Outsider (Scholar)]

Age: 22

[Status: Living Soul (Your physical body is still in the mortal realm, but your soul has been drawn here for unknown reasons.)]

Starting items: 1 worn-out book box, 10 blank scrolls, 1 broken calligraphy brush.

[Talent: Photographic memory (You can clearly remember everything you see and hear.)]

Main quest: Survive and find a way out of this place.

"A scholar?"

Lu Zhixing looked at his identity panel and raised an eyebrow slightly.

This identity does bear some resemblance to his real-life identity as a scholar.

The talent of "photographic memory" is also extremely useful for exploration and puzzle-solving.

It seems that this identity generation system does indeed take into account certain traits of the player.

He tried to take a few steps. His body felt light and airy in his soul form, but the sensation of stepping on the mud was incredibly real.

Lu Zhixing could even smell the faint musty odor emanating from the coarse cloth robe he was wearing.

The realism of this world is higher than any previous work.

Lu Zhixing did not rush to the village, but followed Professor Chen's advice.

Observe more and listen more.

Lu Zhixing stood still, carefully observing the surrounding environment.

He discovered that the weeds swaying in the wind were not falling in the direction the wind was blowing, but all of them were falling towards the village.

Like countless outstretched hands, guiding those who come to that one and only destination.

Lu Zhixing listened intently again.

Besides the sound of the wind, he also heard a very faint sound, like teeth grinding.

The sound came from the soil beneath his feet.

It was as if countless things underground were wriggling excitedly at his arrival.

Lu Zhixing remained expressionless, silently memorizing these details.

In this world, any seemingly insignificant detail may conceal a deadly danger.

Or, a crucial clue.

After observing for about ten minutes and confirming that there was no immediate threat in the surroundings, Lu Zhixing began to walk towards the village.

The closer you get to the village, the stronger the smell of ashes from the paper money becomes.

When he reached the village entrance, he finally saw the crooked stone tablet.

【Village of the Wrongfully Dead】

The words on the stone tablet were written in a dark red color, like dried blood.

Beneath the stone tablet, there was a broken rough porcelain bowl, half-filled with a dark, unidentifiable liquid.

At the village entrance stood an old man with a hunched back, wearing a tattered cotton-padded coat covered in patches.

He was holding a long pipe and tapping it on the ground.

The "bang, bang, bang" sound was particularly jarring in the quiet twilight.

Upon seeing Lu Zhixing, the old man stopped tapping and looked up.

One of his eyes was normal, but the other was an empty, dark hole.

He used his one eye to look Lu Zhixing up and down.

"An outsider?"

The old man's voice was hoarse, like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

Following the etiquette of the ancients, Lu Zhixing bowed slightly to the old man.

"Old man, I am just passing through this place. It is getting late, and I would like to enter the village to ask for a drink of water and to stay the night."

At this moment, Lu Zhixing's demeanor was that of an ordinary scholar on his way.

The old man's one eye flickered.

"Want to stay overnight?"

He grinned, revealing a set of yellowed teeth.

"It's been a long time since any living person has come to our village."

"You may come in."

"However, we have rules here."

He pointed to the village with his pipe.

"Once you're in the village, you're one of us."

"Life is the soul of our village."

"Even if he dies, he'll be a ghost of our village."

"Have you thought it through?"

[Warning: Entering the Village of the Wrongfully Dead will bind you to its "rules," restricting some of your actions.]

[Confirm entry?]

Looking at the system prompt in front of him and the eerie smile on the one-eyed old man's face, Lu Zhixing chose "Yes" without hesitation.

"I've thought it through," Lu Zhixing replied calmly.

"Okay, okay, okay."

The one-eyed old man said "good" three times in a row, his smile growing even wider.

He stepped aside.

"Come in."

"Village chief, I'll be waiting for you in the ancestral hall at the end of the village."

"He has something to ask you."

Lu Zhixing bowed again and then stepped into the village of the unjustly killed.

The moment he stepped into the village, the surrounding air seemed to thicken.

The muddy path behind us, which we had come from, was instantly swallowed up by a thick gray fog.

He looked back, and behind him was an endless fog.

There is no way out.

Lu Zhixing took a deep breath and turned his gaze back to the village.

The village looked even more dilapidated than it did from the outside.

On both sides of the road, there were mostly half-collapsed mud-brick houses, with dark, gaping doors and windows that looked like the open mouths of wild beasts.

Occasionally, there are a few houses that look relatively intact, with white lanterns hanging at their doors.

The lantern, bathed in the dim light of the day, emitted a pale glow, and was covered with distorted, ghostly faces drawn in ink.

There wasn't a single living person in sight on the road.

Only the wind swirled and danced the paper money on the ground.

Following the one-eyed old man's directions, Lu Zhixing walked along the only main road in the village towards the end of the village.

He walked slowly, observing the houses on both sides as he went.

He noticed that the doors of the houses with the ghost-face lanterns hanging on them were all tightly closed.

But through the crack in the door, he could feel that there were eyes watching him.

Those gazes were filled with undisguised hunger and desire.

It was as if he were not a scholar, but a piece of fresh flesh and blood walking around.

Just as he passed a large house with two lanterns hanging on it, the tightly closed wooden door suddenly creaked open a crack.

A childish voice, like that of a little girl, came from the crack in the door.

"Big brother, have you seen my ball?"

"My ball has rolled into the middle of the road."

"Could you help me retrieve it?"