Chapter 1: The Three Realms Have Faith, All Things Can Reach
In the middle of the night,Zhou Xiaoya had been pushed by Hua Bai for the past few days. Her mind had broken down and she was lost.
Spirit once wanted to run away from home, hair is a lot of off, every day is wearing a heavy black eye show people.
She was anxious because she owed a sum of money recently and was bombarded by phone calls from all over the country every day.
When she was woken up by a phone call in the middle of the night, she was upset and anxious. She closed her eyes and instinctively grabbed the phone with one hand and pressed the hang up button with the other hand.
He kept cursing,
“A bunch of losers. Don’t they just owe more than 4,000 yuan?”
" Those scammers cheated me out of my family. Otherwise, would I have collapsed because of this debt?”
" And that little brat, he still owes me 20,000 yuan for the machine. When can he return it to me? It’s almost New Year, but I didn’t call him like this. He owes me 4,000 yuan and he’s just like this…Ah…”
BeforeZhou Xiaoya could finish her rant, she did not know what was going on. Her vision went black and she did not know anything else.
When she woke up again, she found herself in an unfamiliar and empty space. Silence and panic seized all of her mind at once, and her brain could not be rational and calm at all!
Her imagination ran wild, but none of it matched the facts in front of her, even though she suspected that she had died suddenly.
But where was this place? Hell?
Do people really go to hell when they die? Is there really a netherworld?
Zhou Xiaoya did not even think of pinching herself to verify if it was real!
She desperately wanted to find an exit and return to her room!
However, as far as she could see, there was no place for her to exit. Her panicked heart became even more anxious!
She took a deep breath and chose a direction. With a rush of energy and fear of failure, she ran around in the limited space, waving her hands, trying to touch something!
Unfortunately not.
Sweat trickled down her forehead, and her heart beat wildly in silence.
Just asZhou Xiaoya was about to go crazy from this boundless emptiness and silence-
“Buzz…”
A slight vibration came from her empty right palm.
This feeling was so familiar that it made her tremble-it was her phone!
But the phone should be at the bedside!
She opened her palm in disbelief. A glimmer of light seeped out from under the skin of her palm, spreading and shaping quickly.
In the blink of an eye, her old phone with some curled edges appeared out of thin air in her hand.
The screen automatically lit up, but the familiar lock screen wallpaper and App icons disappeared, leaving only a pure black background as deep as the night sky.
And in the center, a simple, almost cold, silver icon: an abstract symbol composed of three intersecting arcs, both like a bird’s trajectory and like three doors leading in different directions.
Below the icon, a line of small words appeared:
[The Three Realms have letters, and all things can be reached.]
The phone was slightly hot, but the vibration did not stop. Instead, it carried a regular pulse that could not be ignored, as if it was urging.
Zhou Xiaoya subconsciously (or rather, based on her muscle memory of unlocking countless slides) pressed her thumb towards the icon.
“Ding-”
A clear but cold notification rang out in the open.
The phone screen instantly lit up, and a beam of light projected into the void in front of her, expanding into a translucent holographic screen.
At the top of the light screen was the silver icon, and below it were a few lines of clear information:
User:Zhou Xiaoya (Temporary ID:8888 )
Status: Waiting for Onboarding [Vital Signs: Anxiety/High Debt/Strong Survival Desire-Basic Anchoring Conditions Met]
Binding medium: Personal communication terminal (model: old, soul binding completed)
Current Mission: None
Accumulated HP: 0 (Exchange Rate: 1 HP ≈100CNY≈24 hours Basic HP)
Debt to be paid off: Spend- 4257.33 yuan (about 42.57 health points)
Tip: Before debt is repaid, HP can only be converted into currency in one direction.
When the repayment progress reaches 100%, unlock the health point free control and official employee assessment channels.
If you pass the assessment, you will be eligible to enter the Lifelong Sequence.
[Do you want to sign the Temporary Employee Contract of Three Realms Express?]
[Yes/No]
(Note: Select ‘No’ or no action within 30 seconds, the system will unanchor.) The medium (cell phone) will be restored and returned while the memory is erased. You will return to the original world, the corresponding debt collection strength will increase to 300%, and may trigger an unknown chain of bad luck.)
Cold words,“life” and “debt” naked quantitative link.
The words ” 300% collection intensity ” and ” chain misfortune ” were like two icicles piercing intoZhou Xiaoya’s already tense nerves.
Go back? In the face of increased phone bombardment, possible job insecurity, social death, or worse?
She thought of her despair when the money of the swindler disappeared, and of the humiliation of being blackmailed instead of begging for money.
" Health points…pay back…longevity?” She muttered to herself, her voice dry.
This is all ridiculous, even more ridiculous than the most outrageous scam text messages.
However, the real touch and temperature of the phone in her palm, the screen in front of her that surpassed common sense, and the fear of debt and collection that was about to drown her in her heart were all pulling at her crumbling rationality.
The countdown ticked silently at the corner of the screen: [15…14…13…]
There is no time to weigh the pros and cons!
It was like a no-winner bet, but on one side there was a known and falling abyss, and on the other side there was at least a layer of unknown and perhaps glimmering fog.
" A liar lied to me. He owes me. Even a broken APP forced me…”
A fierce force mixed with anger, unwillingness, and broken cans rushed up to her head. Her eyes were red, and she used all her strength to point at the cold [Yes] word on the light screen!
“I’ll sign it! Delivery, right? I’ll give it to you! Even if you send it to the ends of the earth, you have to fill in that broken flower first!”
Buzz!
The phone vibrated violently, and the light screen exploded into countless streams of silver light. Like living vines, it instantly wrapped aroundZhou Xiaoya ’s body and penetrated through her skin.
She felt a slight tingling pain, then something cold ran through her blood and finally “embedded” in her heart.
In the depths of his mind, the cold synthesized voice sounded again, clearer than before, as if it was directly imprinted in his consciousness:
[Contract established. Temporary employeeZhou Xiaoya, identity binding confirmed. The medium ‘Universal Door’ activated.]
[HP exchange channel opened.] Debt association lock.]
[Beginner Guidance Mission Generating…]
[Destination: Nether World, Seventh Region, Forgotten River Tributary, Wandering Ferry.]
[Package: An unaddressed letter from home (triggered by the recipient’s thoughts)]
[Time limit: 49 minutes and 37 seconds left until Yin Time ‘Soul Dead’.]
[Mission Reward: Basic Health Points 5 (approximately 500 RMB, will automatically give priority to paying back the minimum repayment amount).]
[Warning: The rules of the ferry--do not drink river water, do not whisper, do not turn around, leave immediately after handing over goods.]
The moment the voice fell,Zhou Xiaoya felt the surrounding void recede like a tide.
The screen of the phone turned into a bottomless vortex, and an irresistible suction force came from it.
“Wait-!”
She only had time to cry out before her entire body was sucked into the phone screen.
The sky spun and the shadows distorted, as if he had been thrown into a high-speed sliding tunnel. Countless blurred fragments of the scene flew by his side. There were bones, neon lights, palaces, and wasteland...
Seconds, or centuries later, the weightlessness suddenly disappears.
Zhou Xiaoya staggered to the ground. A cold, damp air that carried stale steam and a faint fragrance of Nirvana (a name she had never smelled before, but somehow felt should be called this name) instantly enveloped her.
She steadied herself and looked up in shock. She couldn’t help but gasp.
In front of her was an endless river that was as dark as ink. The river flowed silently, and the surface of the river was suffused with a dim light, but it could not reflect the sky or her shadow.
The mist drifted slowly between the river and the gray sky.
She was standing on a rough stone dock. At the end of the dock, an old white paper lantern hung on an askew wooden pole. The light was like a bean, and it blurred into a faint yellow halo in the fog, barely illuminating the area under her feet.
Next to the lantern was a small wooden boat that looked so old that it could fall apart at any time. It swayed gently with the waves.
The other side of the river was obscured by an impenetrable mist.
There was a dead silence, except for what seemed to be a faint, intermittent sound in the distance, like a whimper and a stream.
This was…the Netherworld Realm? Forgotten River? Wandering Ferry?
Zhou Xiaoya ’s hair stood on end as she subconsciously hugged her arms tightly.
Then she noticed that her rumpled pajamas were gone and replaced by a fitted, oddly textured dark gray suit that tightened around her wrists and ankles for easy movement.
A shimmering silver emblem, homologous to the mobile phone icon, was placed on the heart of the left chest.
Her right hand, which was originally empty, was tightly gripping a cold envelope.
The envelope was neither paper nor silk. It was a dull butter color. There was no word on it, but there was a thin gray mist that seemed to have a life.
At this moment, Zhou Xiaoya did not know that every delivery she sent from now on contained the faint soul power of the other party.
Every time she successfully delivered a parcel, the soul power attached to the parcel would be absorbed by her soul, and she would obtain soul power from it.
Quantitative changes would cause qualitative changes, and eventually, they would be converted into a portion of her health points!
The phone was still in her left palm. The screen was lit up, displaying a simple navigation interface. An arrow pointed to the boat at the end of the dock, and beside it was a countdown that kept beating: [48:22].
There was a lantern in his right hand!
The first order of “express delivery” began like this.
In this ghostly ferry, holding a letter to someone, bearing the double pressure of debt repayment and struggling to survive, he swallowed hard. His fingertips were cold, but a weak and stubborn flame gradually ignited in his eyes.
Zhou Xiaoya swallowed hard. Her fingertips were cold, but a weak and stubborn flame gradually ignited in her eyes.
“Whatever,”
She encouraged herself in a low voice, faint but clear in the fog,
" After giving away this order, I can pay back 500 yuan…The first step is to step out.”
She gripped the envelope and the phone tightly, raised the lantern a little, leveled her eyes, and extended her arm a little further away from her eyes so she could see better.
Taking a deep breath of the cold air, he carefully took his first step toward the small boat that was flickering with a lone lamp.
