Chapter 104: The First Mission
The weather in the City of Wrongful Death remained clear, with pale sunlight spilling across the murky river to create shimmering ripples.
Lin Huai stood on the bank, gazing into the flowing water, her slender silhouette poised with quiet determination against the shifting reflections.
Unconsciously, she took a half-step forward, the toe of her boot almost grazing the damp earth.
“This river connects directly to the one in the world outside.”
A gentle voice drifted from behind her. “If you jump in, you will die.”
Lin Huai turned. The speaker was a man in his early thirties with fair skin, handsome features, and a faint, polite smile. Dressed in a plain white T-shirt and dark trousers, he looked no different from an ordinary player at first glance.
Yet dark blood oozed continuously from the back of his head, soaking the white cotton across his shoulders.
Beneath his left sleeve hung an empty, severed forearm, while brutal rope burns encircled his throat. One pant leg flapped hollow in the breeze, severed at the thigh.
He was an NPC.
Lin Huai already knew the river served as a threshold between realms and had no intention of jumping into the depths. Even so, she appreciated the stranger’s gentle warning. Stepping back onto solid ground, she walked toward him. “Thank you.”
She paused, her eyes resting on his open wounds. “How did you end up here?”
The man turned his gaze back to the murmuring current, his tone light and calm, as if speaking of someone else: “I am waiting for my comrade.”
“In life, I was a police officer, working deep undercover inside a criminal syndicate.”
Fresh crimson ran down his temple, yet he seemed not to notice the cold stain. “Right when our operation was about to close in, my identity was blown. They severed my limbs and tortured me to death…”
He lifted his shortened arm as if reaching for something out of reach, then let it drop. “In the end, they dumped my body into the river.”
“When I opened my eyes again, I was here in the City of Wrongful Death.”
Lin Huai’s hands curled into tight fists, her fingernails pressing deep into her palms.
“My partner was exposed too,” the man continued, his steady tone finally cracking with quiet grief. “So I wait by the water every day, hoping that when his spirit arrives, he will see a familiar face right away. But…”
He turned to look at her, the embers of an unresolved duty burning in his eyes. “I need to know what happened to those beasts. Did our headquarters receive the final report we sent? Did justice ever catch up to them?”
“Could you go up to the observation deck on the city wall, check their fate, and bring me word?”
Lin Huai looked closely at him. Even after enduring unimaginable torment, the man’s eyes carried the clear, unyielding resolve of a protector of the peace.
She drew a steady breath, the metallic scent of blood and river water filling the air.
“I will help you.”
With that nod, she officially accepted her first quest in the city.
Before leaving, she added softly, “Could you also watch for someone here? My adoptive father. He drowned while trying to save someone from the water. He was over fifty, with a distinct red birthmark between his eyebrows… If you ever see him drift through, please tell him his daughter is searching for him.”
The man nodded in earnest agreement.
As his head bowed, Lin Huai’s eyes widened slightly. Driven deep into the crown of his skull was a heavy steel nail, its head still protruding from the bone.
The weapon remained fixed in his spirit form, meaning his physical remains had never received a proper burial.
When Lin Huai used to collect bodies alongside Old Lin, they had always treated the dead with reverence. Even when remains were badly damaged, they would stitch the flesh together or fashion limbs from clean straw, ensuring the deceased went into the earth whole.
The rusted nail in his skull meant no one had prepared his body, and his grievances had never been settled.
Though she already suspected the truth, Lin Huai made her way to the city tower.
Dozens of wronged spirits clustered along the stone battlements, watching the mortal world below to see whether their killers met with retribution.
Arranged along the ramparts were several viewing mirrors that required a true name to call up past records.
Using the special vision granted by Old Man Ren, Lin Huai easily read the officer’s real name and entered it into the stone console. Faint ripples ran across the mirror before settling into several distinct scenes.
His physical body had been carried downstream into a remote patch of reeds, undisturbed and undiscovered.
Fortunately, the encrypted intelligence he and his partner had secured had reached their precinct. Preparations had been underway to crush the syndicate. Yet just as the raid was about to launch, the survival trial descended upon the world, dragging the living onto the endless highway.
Lin Huai shifted the search terms, tracing the current whereabouts of the syndicate’s key figures.
The glass flickered through several transitions before splitting into three live views. Eight men—the very individuals who had tortured and murdered the officer—appeared on the surface.
They had survived the transition and were scattered across different regional districts.
Lin Huai carefully committed their district numbers, usernames, and true names to memory. Her lips curled into a cold, sharp line.
“Welcome to my home turf.”
Stepping away from the tower, she returned to the riverbank where the officer stood vigil.
She quietly recounted everything she had uncovered on the mirrors.
Hearing that his killers were still breathing, a shadow of disappointment passed over his face, but it was quickly replaced by a renewed, burning light as he looked at Lin Huai.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion. “I am bound to this city and cannot step outside. May I ask you to carry out justice for me?”
Lin Huai did not hesitate. The moment those eight names were etched into her mind, her course was already set.
The officer bowed deeply to her, then turned back to face the dark water, resuming his quiet watch.
Lin Huai took a step back, but seeing his lonely figure, she remembered one last detail from the mirror.
She called out gently, “Your partner was not thrown into the river. They buried him alive in the hills, and his body rests beneath the earth. You should search the inner districts of the city. If his mortal lifespan has not fully expired, you may still find him here.”
The officer’s eyes reddened instantly. He offered her a long, heartfelt look of gratitude, then finally turned and drifted away from the riverbank he had guarded for so long.
On the damp grass where he had stood, a soft orb of white light remained, hovering quietly.
Lin Huai knelt down and reached out, wondering what reward the quest had yielded.
The instant her fingertips brushed the glow, a wave of raw memory that did not belong to her crashed into her consciousness:
The rank stench of rot and blood inside a pitch-black warehouse. The gleam of cold steel falling across a bound figure.
A set, unyielding jaw clenched against unbearable agony, blood trickling through locked teeth, refusing to give the tormentors a single scream. And finally, the cold plunge into dark water, his fading vision locked on the last sliver of daylight filtering through the current—reflecting the sneering faces of the eight executioners standing on the barge above.
The vision snapped shut.
