After disembarking, Lin Xiang, accompanied by his good friend, ventured to the milk tea shop near the school gates to purchase their favorite beverage. Lin Xiang now shared a three-year friendship with Xia Bai, who he found to be a person of modest desires. Xia Bai seemed indifferent to wealth, uninterested in beauty, and not keen on pursuing fame or academic rigor. His sole fondness appeared to lie in milk tea, particularly the red bean and taro bubble tea.
Of course, Lin Xiang now knew that Xia Bai’s apparent lack of desires was simply due to the fact that his interests lay in an unusual direction. Good friends, Lin Xiang mused, had to have milk tea together. He bought two cups, handing the double-topped one to Xia Bai, and together they strolled towards the school, sipping their drinks.
“Xia Bai, I’ve amassed over 1.1 million points as a reward. I spent 550,000 on treatments, leaving about 600,000. What about you?” Lin Xiang inquired.
“I’ve got 1.9 million in rewards and also acquired a soul skill,” Xia Bai revealed.
Lin Xiang, nearly choking on his bubble tea in excitement, asked in a hushed, eager tone, “You really got a soul skill?”
Xia Bai nodded and was about to elaborate, but was swiftly interrupted by Lin Xiang, “Don’t tell me what it is. It’s safer kept secret. If I were ever captured by enemies, I’m not sure I could keep from revealing it under duress.”
Xia Bai was stunned. Lin Xiang had actually thought so far.
They reached the campus, halting their conversation about the game. The school buzzed with activity on this reporting day. They wandered, taking in the sights. The historic Heping Medical College, though not new, radiated a sense of profound history, not eeriness. It was founded during a time of war, with the deeply embedded motto, “Devotion to nation and kin, healing the fallen within,” inscribed on a central stone monument – a symbol possibly stained with blood but devoid of any terror.
The freshmen, bustling with excitement and anticipation, dreamt of futures as respected doctors, healing and helping, their paths illuminated with glory.
“It’s wonderful,” Lin Xiang remarked, feeling his game-induced fears of the medical college starting to fade.
Xia Bai, chewing on the sweet red beans, gazed across the spacious campus streets, the hopeful faces bathed in bright lights, and couldn’t help but wonder if a girl named Chu Xuelin had truly reported here several years ago, the fervor in her yes just as dazzling as theirs.
She would’ve likely been dressed simply. Perhaps she was clad in a white dress, carrying a large suitcase and an old green backpack, her mouth slightly agape in awe of this dream-laden campus.
Due to the busy first day, the dorm supervisor was preoccupied and wasn’t familiar with the freshmen’s faces, allowing Lin Xiang and Xia Bai to slip unnoticed into dorm 312. Only Meng Tianyou was there.
Lin Xiang asked, “Where’s Song Mingliang?”
“He left,” Meng Tianyou stated, a deeper meaning in his words.
“Where did he go?” asked Lin Xiang, missing the implication.
“After dropping me off, he left with his luggage,” Meng Tianyou explained.
Xia Bai paused, momentarily lost in thought. He recalled the scenes in this dormitory and in the game where Song Qiang scolded and hit Song Mingliang, the way Song Mingliang lowered his head in silence, and the indelible image of Song Mingliang crawling into Song Qiang’s mouth.
How they interacted daily was clear to all, so what then was the essence of Song Qiang’s existence to Song Mingliang?
It was plausible that Song Mingliang harbored no affection for him and the only emotions he felt were a cocktail of fear and revulsion. Yet, following Song Qiang’s demise, Song Mingliang became a silent specter in the world, as if he himself had vanished or as though the world had faded from his view.
The trio settled into a silence. After washing up, they lay in their beds.
Fully in sync, they each turned to the gaming app on their phones, browsing the forum.
Lin Xiang suddenly asked, “Now that you two entered the game once, what are your plans? I’m thinking of buying a few properties near your school. Brother Hua mentioned that your dormitory is the safest, and the surrounding area is relatively safe, right?”
“…”
What plans could they possibly have? It wasn’t like they could afford to buy a few properties.
Meng Tianyou said, “I want to get a prosthetic first, then take on some simple bounty tasks on the forum to earn credits and heal my leg. If the simple tasks on the forum don’t offer many credits, then I might enter the game again.”
Entering the game again meant putting his life at stake.
Many might choose to live with a prosthetic, and Meng Tianyou’s choice to do so indicated his desire to live with without giving in to his circumstances.
Xia Bai: “I don’t have any plans at the moment.”
“…”
Xia Bai truly hadn’t decided what to do yet. There were things he wanted to do, but his current abilities were limited.
He seemed to possess a very promising soul skill, but it was a growth-type skill. Without corpses, it was as if he had no skills at all, so he dared not act recklessly.
If possible, he wanted to first figure out where his Xishen had gone.
Hua Haoming said they were probably swallowed up by the game, but there were too many game instances; where was he to start looking?
Xia Bai had an idea—to search nearby.
There hadn’t been many game occurrences in Jiangqi City, but games frequently occurred in the neighboring Quanguang City. Moreover, his Xishen had disappeared after Quanguang City was sealed off due to a surge in games, so he wanted to search there.
However, Quanguang City was still inaccessible to ordinary people right now. He wondered if he could get in.
Did he need to go through the Game Management Bureau?
While pondering this, Xia Bai received a message from Hua Haoming.
Hua Haoming: [Were your talismans for controlling corpses given to you by your grandfather left you?]
Xia Bai: [Yes.]
Hua Haoming: [I spoke to a reliable senior about this. We think your grandfather was a player, and a very powerful one at that.]
Xia Bai was momentarily taken aback.
Hua Haoming: [You remember what I said in the game, right? Only skills obtained in the game are effective in the game. Even if your grandfather was a corpse herder, and the talismans were effective for the corpses he herded, they wouldn’t work on the corpses in the game. Unless, he obtained the skill of drawing talismans in the game.]
Hua Haoming: [Think back carefully, were there any signs of him being a player?]
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Xia Bai: [Not when he was with me. I didn’t notice anything when I was at home; he always stayed at home and didn’t like going out. However, I don’t know what he did when I was at school, and I often stayed at school.]
Hua Haoming: [We believe it could be a soul skill or item skill. The soul skill matches very well, fitting with his experience of herding corpses when he was young.]
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His grandfather had been a corpse herder, but there was no need for such a role now. Naturally, he didn’t take on apprentices like his own master had. However, he sometimes couldn’t resist teaching Xia Bai how to draw talismans.
Xia Bai, when idle, would follow his teachings, and after discovering Xia Bai was quite good at it, his grandfather let him use his old cinnabar brush, as if passing down the craft.
—These were what Xia Bai had once believed.
The talismans included those left by his grandfather and those drawn by Xia Bai were all kept together. After realizing there might be something strange with their world, he took some for peace of mind.
He truly believed in his grandfather’s talismans’ effectiveness on corpses. His grandfather was incredibly attentive to his work, and the Xishen at home represented his achievements. Back then, Xia Bai didn’t know that the talismans from the real world were ineffective on corpses in the game, so he gave one to Lin Xiang.
He wasn’t sure if the talisman he gave Lin Xiang included any he had drawn himself. If his own drawing could suppress corpses, then it was due to the cinnabar brush.
As Hua Haoming said, if it was an item obtained in the game, it came with its own skills. His grandfather… was a player with an item skill.
His grandfather’s face and smile appeared before him, the only family member who had always been with Xia Bai in his memories.
He was a good-natured man who lived freely and comfortably. The only downside was that he liked to brag a little, often sitting in the yard’s rocking chair, fanning himself, claiming to have been the best corpse herder in his youth.
But besides herding corpses and knowing a bit about feng shui, he didn’t seem to have any special abilities and lived an ordinary life.
Was he really a player?
If he was, how did he die? The player’s market had even treatments for cancer, so how could he have died?
On that day, it was snowing. Normally, on snowy days, Xia Bai’s grandfather would patiently await him at the village entrance—but that day was different. Not finding his grandfather there, a wave of concern had washed over Xia Bai, prompting him to hasten back home, only to discover his grandfather’s lifeless form, already cold and stiff.
He had died quietly.
Had he died in the game?
But Wen Dong and Wen Qiu had died in the game too, and their bodies didn’t come back.
Xia Bai then recalled, on the night he heard about Quanguang City’s lockdown, the photos he saw on the mysterious forum showed players who had died in the game.
He pulled back his thoughts, suppressing his emerging emotions, and continued reading Hua Haoming’s message.
Hua Haoming: [Based on the fact that your grandfather was a player, and considering the disappearance of your family’s Xishen, we reasonably speculate that those Xishen were not homeless corpses taken in by your grandfather when he was young, but corpses from the game world. In other words, NPCs.]
Hua Haoming: [You said your Xishen were not just bones, but after so many years, how could they not have decayed? You’re a student at Heping Medical College, you should know better than me. This assumption would explain it.]
Xia Bai thought it was because their family’s yard was a geomancy treasure, which could preserve bodies for many years.
Xia Bai knew saying this now was pointless.
Hua Haoming: [Because they were originally corpses from the game world, when your grandfather died and the game approached our world, they returned to the game. This would explain everything.]
Yes, everything was explained.
Xia Bai curled up in his blanket. Had they all returned to their families?
But they were his family.
Hua Haoming, unaware of Xia Bai’s emotional fluctuations, continued: [Your grandfather’s talismans not only suppressed corpses but could also bring them out of the game. Perhaps he can even use them to control the corpses found in the game world. When you think about it carefully, this skill is rather terrifying. He must have been a very powerful player.]
[But we didn’t find him in the Game Management Bureau’s registered player list.]
[Some players aren’t registered with the Game Management Bureau. Regardless of registration, if he was high in the rankings, he would appear on the game app’s leaderboard. The Game Management Bureau’s Information Department records daily rankings. I’ll get someone to help you keep an eye out and check if someone matching your grandfather’s identity has appeared in the past.]
Xia Bai: [Thank you.]
After finishing the conversation, Hua Haoming finally realized the significance of the Xishen to Xia Bai. He had solemnly including them in his genealogy book, and his feelings for them even suppressed his penchant for corpses in-game. Their importance to him was evident.
And now, he had discovered that the Xishen didn’t belong to his family and that they had returned to the game.
He wouldn’t be upset, would he?
Would that quirky Xia Bai who was perpetually spacing out be heartbroken? He seemed like someone who wouldn’t get heartbroken.
Hua Haoming put away his phone and was about to join his teammates for dinner when he irritably returned and asked: [What are you thinking?]
Xia Bai: [I’ll enter games and find them, then ask if they were forced to or willingly returned to the game.]
Hua Haoming: “…”
Did he really love them so much?
Hua Haoming: [What if they were forced to return to the game?]
Xia Bai: [I’ll bring them back.]
Hua Haoming: [What if they returned willingly?]
Xia Bai: [Then I’ll just visit them. See where they’re staying, check if they’re doing well.]
Hua Haoming: “…”
He really loved them a lot.
Since he had already made up his mind, Hua Haoming didn’t say much.
However, he felt he needed to remind him of one thing, [You know that soul skills can affect a person’s soul, right? If your soul skill is related to corpses, you must be careful not to overuse it. Otherwise, as the influence deepens, you might end up obsessed with them, just as you were in the Heping Medical College game.]
Xia Bai understood.
His skill was indeed related to corpses, and it even came with a +100% affinity for dead bodies. The skill book had warned about soul influence, which, in his case, meant he would like corpses more when using the skill.
Xia Bai: [Yup, I’ll be careful.]
Though he didn’t think this was much of a side effect.
Hua Haoming reminded him again: [Three players have been to your house to investigate. The woman in the video yesterday, Su Xue, is alright, but the person beside her is a game research fanatic. He probably knows about your situation from Su Xue. Be careful, and let me know if you encounter him.]
Xia Bai: [Okay.]
Their conversation seemed to be coming to an end, but two minutes later, another message sluggishly arrived.
Hua Haoming: [By the way, do you still have any corpse-suppressing talismans? Are you selling them?]
Xia Bai: “…”
Hua Haoming: [I have quite a lot of points. You can charge me more if you want.]
Xia Bai: [Can I sell them for money instead of points?]
Hua Haoming: […]
Are there still players these days who prefer money over points?
Hua Haoming: [How much for one?]
After some thought, with the minutes of effort it took to draw one in mind, Xia Bai boldly asked: [Ten thousand?]
Hua Haoming: […]
Hua Haoming agreed to buy ten corpse-suppressing talismans from Xia Bai for one hundred thousand each.
Xia Bai was a bit dazed; a million yuan could sustain his modest lifestyle for decades. He could even afford plane tickets if he wanted to travel.
Xia Bai then wondered if the cinnabar brush could still produce such talismans.
Not only corpse-suppressing talismans, but his grandfather had also taught him to draw corpse-controlling talismans. According to Hua Haoming, his grandfather must have used these to bring the Xishen out of the game.
Without bothering Hua Haoming further, Xia Bai searched the player’s forum on the game app.
Many new players came here with questions. Using specific keywords, Xia Bai quickly found the answer he was looking for.
After a player’s death, the game app on their phone would automatically log them out. Their profile would be wiped and disappear, along with their identity and skills.
This meant that even if he found the cinnabar brush at home, he couldn’t draw talismans that would be effective in the game anymore.
Fortunately, he still had some left.
Just like how his middle school textbooks were still at home, the talismans he and his grandfather had drawn were also kept. Corpse-controlling talismans were much harder to draw than corpse-suppressing ones, so they had fewer, but there were still some.
With these, even if his own soul skill was currently completely useless, he could still enter games to find his Xishen and collect corpses to level up his skill.
Knowing the Xishen might have been brought out from the game, he was even more determined to enter games to find them.
Xia Bai decided to find a way to go to Quanguang City this weekend.
By the time he sorted out these thoughts, Lin Xiang and Meng Tianyou, who were exhausted from the game, were already asleep. Xia Bai, on the other hand, still had one last thing to do.
He opened his personal skill and item page in the game app, looking at the [Parasitic Xuemu].
Parasitic Xuemu fed on love and blood.
Xia Bai didn’t know how to nourish her, so he tried pricking his finger with a needle and dropping a bead of blood onto the Xuemu’s image on the screen. The blood was absorbed by the screen.
Reassured, Xia Bai went to sleep.
Hua Haoming had said that their dorm was now one of the safest places in the world, and that anyone who could move in was no ordinary person.
They had expected visitors, just not so soon, and two at once.
They were woken up early by a knock on the door. Lin Xiang, who was closest, grumbled as he got up to open it.
“Hello, we’ve just been transferred to live in dorm 312.”
One of them said, “Song Mingliang has dropped out.”
The three were taken aback but didn’t comment.
Lin Xiang invited them in, apologizing, “Sorry, I stayed over last night, didn’t expect you to come so early.”
“It’s fine,” said one of the newcomers with glasses. “We don’t sleep much now anyway.” They both seemed easygoing.
Two new roommates arrived. One was a freshman named Wu Chu, and the other was a Year Three senior named Zhong Zicang.
After chatting for a bit, Wu Chu asked, “Xia Bai, Meng Tianyou, do you want to switch dorms? Feel free to set your conditions.”
Meng Tianyou remained silent.
Lin Xiang, who was washing his face, glanced at him and thought to himself that he never expected this day to come. Then, he loudly declared, “Xia Bai’s not moving out! Not even for ten million!”
Seeing their stance, the topic was dropped.
After washing up, Lin Xiang left, not wanting to hold Xia Bai back on his first day of classes.
Before leaving, Xia Bai gave him several corpse-suppressing talismans, “Be careful.”
Lin Xiang happily accepted them, “You too, Xia Bai. I’ll come find you to hang out after I enroll.”
Lin Xiang was also attending a local university in Jiangqi City’s University Town, but he was enrolling late, six days later.
After Lin Xiang left, Hua Haoming came by at noon. He was here to buy the agreed-upon corpse-suppressing talismans.
After playing two games in a row, he had a long vacation. After buying the talismans, he leisurely had lunch at the relatively safe school before leaving.
After both of them left, Xia Bai began his normal college life for a few days.
He attended classes at the school while also taking online courses about gaming from the Game Management Bureau, looking for opportunities to enter Quanguang City.
His initial plan was to silently enter the city with a team found on player forums. If that failed, he would seek help from the Game Management Bureau.
Unexpectedly, an opportunity arose nearby.
Rumors were spreading that a source of pollution had appeared in Quanguang City, leading to many people being contaminated and a shortage of medical resources.
Heping Medical College was organizing a volunteer team to support Quanguang City, encouraging upperclassmen, especially those with internship experience, to participate.
Xia Bai heard the news immediately, as the organizer was his new roommate, the president of the Heping Medical College Student Union, Zhong Zicang.
Upon hearing the news, Xia Bai’s heart skipped a beat.
He knew that players with healing skills were rare and were struggling to cope with the frequent game incidents in Quanguang City, necessitating civilian assistance. But this meant volunteers would know that the issue in Quanguang City wasn’t just pollution, revealing the game’s existence to a portion of the populace.
Perhaps there were some civilians that already knew, considering that the Game Management Bureau had branches in every city with many administrative and logistical staff members, not all of whom were players.
Xia Bai asked Zhong Zicang, “Did a lot of people sign up?”
Zhong Zicang moved away from his laptop screen, which was filled with names, “We only need a hundred, but over three thousand have already signed up.”
Xia Bai called Lin Xiang to tell him about this.
“But they could easily get dragged into the game,” Lin Xiang said. “It’s such a pity; they are the future elite pillars of our society. How could your school’s leaders allow this? They should let others go instead.”
“It’s not a pity; everyone is equal,” Xia Bai said calmly.
Lin Xiang understood through his calm tone.
He almost forgot that this top national medical college was established during the most perilous times of war. Generation after generation grew up under the motto “Devotion to nation and kin, healing the fallen within.” How could they shy away from difficulty at such a time?
The school’s leaders knew the situation in Quanguang City, so they decided to form a volunteer team for support. They were confident that even if the students knew about Quanguang City’s situation, the vast majority would not back out halfway.
Lin Xiang clenched his phone, “Xia Bai, you’re calling me because…”
“I’ve also submitted an application,” Xia Bai said.
“But they encouraged upperclassmen to go. You’ve only been in school for a few days as a freshman!” Lin Xiang said anxiously.
“I may not have as much medical knowledge or practical experience as them, but I can sew corpses and embalm. I’m also a player with game experience. Senior Zhong told me my application has been approved,” Xia Bai said. “Don’t worry, I still have a soul skill.”
Lin Xiang was silent for a while on the phone, then said, “Okay, I understand.”
Xia Bai also paused for a few seconds, “My grandfather is buried to the left of my family’s front door. While I’m away in Quanguang City, if there’s a heavy rain or something, can you check on him for me?”
Lin Xiang replied, “Sure, when are you leaving?”
Xia Bai answered, “Monday.”
Early Monday morning, Lin Xiang drove a SUV to the front of Heping Medical College, pulled down his sunglasses, and messaged Xia Bai.
Lin Xiang: [Xia Bai, I’ve been inspired by you guys. I’ve decided to stop idling away my days and be of some use.]
Lin Xiang: [I’ll accompany you. I’m now at your school’s west gate. Can you ride in my car?]
Xia Bai: [I departed in the early morning and am already in Quanguang.]
TL Note: We’ll get to meet ML in the next chapter! 
ml finally! though i wouldn’t mind if this novel was not even bl as i like the plot so much, doesn’t happen to me often
Yay!! Looking forward to meeting the ML and the next instance. Thanks for the chapter!! 💜💜💜
Oh oh, I forgot there was going to be an ML!! Can’t wait to meet him! ><
Looking forward to meeting the ML
Thanks for the chapter
… I forgot about the ML lmao.
Ok ok, big question now, is the ML going to die? It could go either way, either living to be a badass ML and eventually seducing the MC, or dying and being adored by Xia Bai and evolving until he’s a high undead or something lmao.
I was also thinking he’d be raising a vampire/zombie king or something 😆
LMAO I love Lin Xiao so much
We are being intoduced to the ml, I thought Lin Xiang was the Ml lol he does give the vibe. I hope our mc meets his xishen.
He feels like a puppy ml ( 〃▽〃) like a golden retriever and being an enabler to our xia bai’s whims and corpse herding tendencies.
I think the ml might be threatened by our mc xishen. So mc might be a Ghost king if he can follow the whimsof our mc.
Oooo the ML is coming? Please give us a chapter earlier then🙏🏻🙏🏻
xD I forgot there was a ml again…
I assumed HH was the ML lol
ml is finally showing up!
Thanks for the chapter!!! ❤️❤️❤️
thanks for the translation :,)) aaaa i wish i found this later when it’s been completed cause it’s genuinely so interesting i love it so far