130: Chapter 122 That name, he had seen it before.

Xu Mo pulled out his phone and brought up the architectural blueprints he had screenshotted earlier.

A six-story building. Six floors above ground, three levels below. The parts renovated after the foreign acquisition were all underground; the above-ground structure remained untouched.

Silver threads pierced from underground into the spines of the puppets, who lay on hospital beds on the first floor above ground.

What happened after the silver threads passed through the spines?

He had previously defaulted to assuming the terminal for the silver threads was the operating table beneath his feet—that Thanatos was extracting souls from the bottom and pouring them all the way into the depths of the earth.

A standard "downward extraction" model.

It was logically consistent.

But the signal frequency given by the fragment turned this model completely upside down.

The signal wasn't traveling from the bottom up.

It was going from the top down.

Simply put—

Something was upstairs, constantly "feeding" toward the underground.

Xu Mo placed the underworld emissary token flat at the bottom of the pit, its bronze face pressed tightly against the vitrified scorch marks.

The Ghost Seal Script lit up.

It wasn't a steady glow—it flashed on and off. It synced perfectly with the frequency of the heart within the fragment.

He stared at the intervals of those flashes.

The signal bounced back from the surface of the scorch marks, and its direction wasn't toward the deeper underground.

It was upward.

At an angle of about seventy-two degrees. It passed through three underground levels plus one ground floor, landing at—

His mind processed for three seconds.

The sixth floor.

Xu Mo stood up.

His knees gave a loud crack. He had been crouching for too long.

Ignoring it, he flipped the token over so the bronze back faced up. The faint light of the Ghost Seal Script seeped out from the bronze crevices, turning into a beam of light as thin as a strand of hair, pointing straight overhead.

Direction confirmed.

He walked up the fire escape stairs.

—

First floor.

Greyish-white lights.

The reception desk was empty; the two "nurses" had vanished at some point. Indentations remained on the plastic chairs—the outlines of the buttocks were too round, too symmetrical, as if pressed out by a mold.

Xu Mo didn't stop.

Second floor.

The ward corridor. The light tubes hummed with a high-frequency vibration that made one's back teeth ache.

The puppets on the hospital beds were still breathing in sync, the rise and fall of their chests identical, even the curves where the corners of the blankets were pushed up were precise to the millimeter.

But their eyeballs no longer moved.

Before, they had been swinging left and right at a constant speed, like the pendulum of an old-fashioned wall clock.

Now, they had all stopped.

Dozens of pairs of eyes were uniformly staring at the same spot on the ceiling.

—Also looking upward.

The hairs on the back of Xu Mo's neck stood up.

He didn't look back and continued upward.

Third floor.

Empty.

The lights were on, and the corridor was clean. There was a stuffiness in the air—not the smell of disinfectant, but the kind of deathly air that comes from a sealed space with no living thing entering or leaving for a long time.

Like opening an empty shoebox after keeping it closed for half a year.

Fourth floor.

Also empty.

The smell was stronger. The stuffiness carried a hint of sweetness. Not the sweetness of food.

It was the kind of sweetness from organic matter slowly rotting away.

Xu Mo's pace didn't change. Neither fast nor slow. His soles stepped on the concrete stairs, one after another, almost in sync with the flashing frequency of the underworld emissary token.

Fifth floor.

Empty.

He stopped at the stairwell entrance for three seconds.

Not because of hesitation. It was because the blueprints clearly marked it—the fifth floor was the administrative office area, and the sixth floor was the equipment room and the rooftop.

There was a door on the fire escape leading to the sixth floor, with a sign on the blueprints: "Equipment Floor, No Entry for Non-Staff."

A sentence so normal it couldn't be more normal.

So normal there was nothing much to think about.

He continued up.

The final flight of stairs was a size narrower than the ones before. The walls weren't tiled; on the exposed concrete, one could see the wood grain left by the templates during construction.

The air changed.

It went from stuffy-sweet to dry. That metallic, fishy smell from the basement had completely disappeared.

It was replaced by a fainter, cleaner coldness.

In June in Jiang City, it was thirty-two degrees outside, so muggy it could steam a person through.

But this section of the stairs was roughly fifteen or sixteen degrees.

The fire door to the sixth floor was closed.

A sheet metal door. Grey painted surface. A thin layer of dust had accumulated on the handle.

The light from the underworld emissary token probed out from the bronze crevice, as thin as a needle tip, piercing straight into the door crack.

The signal source was right behind the door.

Xu Mo reached out and placed his hand on the handle.

The metal was ice-cold.

It wasn't the kind of cold blown out by an air conditioner—it seeped out from inside the door panel. It was like pouring ice water into the palm of his hand.

June. Rooftop equipment floor.

Ten degrees.

He gave it a twist.

The door wasn't locked.

It opened.

—

The corridor wasn't long, about seven or eight meters.

There were two doors on each side, all closed. Only one fluorescent tube was lit on the ceiling, its white light flickering, making the corridor alternate between brightness and shadow.

Like a fish turned belly-up, not yet fully dead.

Xu Mo took three steps.

The first door, on the left.

Open. Inside were power distribution boxes and several bundles of unopened cables.

Dusty and normal.

The second door, on the right.

Locked. A wad of newspaper was stuffed under the door crack, its corners yellowed.

The third door.

On the left.

...

There wasn't one.

There was no third door on the blueprints.

But the wall on the left side of the corridor extended about three more meters after the second door.

At the very end, an extra doorframe appeared.

An A4 sheet of paper was taped to the doorframe.

White paper. Printed text. Size 10.5 Songti font.

"Under Renovation, Please Do Not Disturb."

Xu Mo stared at that piece of paper for five seconds.

The paper was very new, its corners not curled.

But the transparent tape fixing the paper had already turned yellow.

It had been posted for at least several months.

A new piece of paper. A piece of old tape.

Someone was regularly replacing the paper.

He looked down at the underworld emissary token.

The light of the Ghost Seal Script stopped flashing.

From an on-and-off heartbeat rhythm, it had become a continuous, steady glow.

The signal source was right behind this door.

Distance—zero.

Xu Mo put the token back at his waist, freeing both hands.

He took a breath.

His right hand gripped the doorknob.

The metal was as cold as a steel pipe pulled out of a freezer. Less than ten degrees. The moment his finger pads touched it, the sweat on his palm condensed directly into a thin film.

He gave it a twist.

The door opened.

—

The room wasn't large. About fifteen square meters.

The windows were sealed tight by blackout curtains, the thick dark fabric blocking every trace of light. There was no ceiling light. Only a wall lamp at the head of the bed was lit, its warm yellow light casting a glow over a very small area.

A hospital bed.

A standard medical adjustable bed. The bed rails were halfway up. White sheets, white pillowcase. The corners were folded neatly, and the surface of the blanket was stretched so tight there wasn't a single wrinkle.

An ECG monitor stood on the left side.

The green waveform on the screen slid at a steady pace.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Each interval was exactly one second.

It was identical to the frequency of the heartbeat in that fragment downstairs, without the slightest deviation.

A person was lying on the bed.

A young woman. In her early twenties.

Her hair was very long, black strands spreading across both sides of the pillow, making her face look even paler. Her features were well-proportioned, her frame small, and her jawline soft. There was a layer of dry skin on her lips, but her complexion wasn't the sallow yellow of someone bedridden for a long time.

It was a normal paleness.

A paleness that came from being well-cared for.

Her breathing was steady. Her chest rose and fell regularly.

As if she were asleep.

No—

Xu Mo took a step forward.

A nasogastric tube.

A thin, long tube was inserted through a nostril and fixed to her cheek with medical tape. The other end of the tube was connected to a nutrient solution bag on a stand beside the bed.

The liquid in the bag was almost at the bottom.

But it was still dripping down, drop by drop.

Xu Mo stared at the drip rate for two seconds.

It wasn't the "neglected" kind of almost empty.

It was the "just about time to change to the next bag" kind of almost empty.

Someone was regularly changing the nutrient solution.

The timing was controlled so precisely that there was almost a seamless transition between bags.

Xu Mo's gaze moved away from the nutrient solution bag.

It landed at the foot of the bed.

A plastic card.

White background with a blue border. A standard patient information card, inserted into the slot of the metal frame at the foot of the bed.

He walked to the foot of the bed.

He looked down.

Name: Shen Ruocheng

Gender: Female

Age: 22 years old

Reason for Admission: Brain injury due to traffic accident

Date of Admission: July 14, 2021

Diagnosis: Persistent vegetative state

Three years.

A traffic accident from three years ago.

Comatose until now.

Xu Mo's gaze shifted down two centimeters.

Emergency Contact:

His hand began to shake.

Not because of fear.

Not because of the cold.

It was because of the name written in that column—

He had seen it before.

When Xu Mo came out of the fire escape, the expression on his face was normal.

Lin Sa glanced at him and didn't speak. Pei Duo looked up at him. His steps were even, his breathing steady, and the corner of his mouth still carried that "everything is under control" relaxation typical of a veteran player.

But the index finger of his right hand was repeatedly rubbing the bronze back of the underworld emissary token.

Pei Duo had seen this small gesture before. The last time she saw it was on the White Jade Plaza of Luofeng Mountain, at the moment when Meng Tian's spear pointed to the sky and thousands of underworld gods knelt in unison. Xu Mo had been rubbing the bronze back then too.

Her brother had mentioned it casually afterward: "This kid's brain moves fast enough, he just can't control his hands when he's nervous."

"Sixth floor," Xu Mo spoke. His voice was steady. His hand was still rubbing. "There's a person."

Lin Sa's dagger spun half a circle on his knee and stopped.

"A living person?"

"Living. Vegetative state. Been lying there for three years." Xu Mo pulled his phone from his pocket, brought up the photo he had just taken, and handed it over. "Medical card. Look at the emergency contact column."

Pei Duo took the phone.

The photo was taken very clearly. Xu Mo never slacked when working; even the batch number of the nutrient solution on the nightstand was captured in the frame.

Name: Shen Ruocheng.

Emergency Contact—

Pei Duo's thumb hovered over the screen.

A name was written in that column. Very short. Two characters.

Chen Muyu.

Her gaze slowly shifted toward the wheelchairs. The fourth row. The woman on the back of the chair whose heart had stopped, her head tilted, silver threads piercing out from her chest into the floor. The nasogastric tube was hanging, and her eyeballs had stopped.

Pei Duo handed the phone back.

"What's their relationship?"

"It's not noted on the medical record. An emergency contact isn't necessarily a relative." Xu Mo took back the phone and pushed up his glasses. "But there's one thing—Chen Muyu was assessed as having SSS-grade soul purity, the only one in the whole city. Her silver threads weren't nailed in from the outside; they grew out of her own heart."

He paused.

"The reason for voluntarily accepting parasitism—I previously thought it was a 'sense of being needed.'"

"And now?"

"That room on the sixth floor." Xu Mo's index finger finally stopped. He wasn't rubbing anymore. "The nutrient solution is changed on time, the nasogastric tube is clean and sterile, and the bedsheet corners are so neat they could pass a morning inspection at a top-tier hospital. The entire building from the basement to the fifth floor is full of puppets, silver threads, and altars—but that room on the sixth floor is as clean as an ICU standard."

He looked at Pei Duo.

"Someone is keeping her alive."

There was silence for two seconds.

Lin Sa spoke: "Thanatos?"

"The signal source is on the sixth floor. Every time the heart in the fragment beats, it's sending a minute amount of... not the authority of death, to that room." Xu Mo's choice of words became very careful. "The frequency detected by the underworld emissary token doesn't match. The authority of death is cold and decaying. But the waveform being sent to the sixth floor is stable and constant in temperature, not like it's extracting anything. It's more like—"

He couldn't go on.

Meng Tian's voice emerged from the shadows, finishing it for him with a single word.

"An offering."

Those two words landed in the reception hall.

Quieter than the ticking of the monitor at the end of the corridor.

Pei Duo lowered her head, looking at the fragment on the desk.

Silver, semi-transparent.

Then she saw it.

The original line of Greek text on the inner wall of the fragment—'This is your second exchange opportunity'—was fading. The dark etchings were like being washed by flowing water, stroke by stroke becoming fainter until they completely disappeared.

New text surged up from the bottom.

It was no longer Greek.

Chinese.

Crooked Chinese. The strokes were stiff and the structure awkward, like someone who had never touched square characters was following a copybook, tracing it up one dot and one horizontal stroke at a time.