A month drifted past like leaves on a slow river before Nana Toki’s body finally mended.

Aside from that first ride in the game pod, she never logged in again; the login screen sat like a cold pond.

Han Feng stopped by now and then like a wary sparrow at a windowsill, and he didn’t dare pry.

The woman was loaded, rich as a deep sea; after more than a month out of the game, she bought an apartment building.

You heard that right. Not one floor—an entire building, a concrete cliff.

It stood right across from their police station, thirty steps at most; you could toss the trash and look up to see it.

Han Feng kept scratching his head like a dog at a shut gate. With that kind of power, how did she get grabbed for “human experiments” three years ago?

Poisoned and drugged? Maybe. That pill would go down like bitter tea.

People like her lived like a glitch in the world’s code; ordinary snares were spider silk on a tiger’s whiskers.

He’d asked once. Her answer was a cold “Get lost,” sharp as frost on stone.

Han Feng’s heart cracked like ice on a basin. He drifted through work for days, fog in his chest, while his buddies nudged and pointed.

He finally stopped thinking about her. If she was a bug in the system, then miracles were just her default; no need to clutch smoke.

That thought balanced him like a scale settling flat.

Meanwhile, Nana Toki kept her eyes on the main quest like a hunter on a trail. Before discharge, she hired movers to haul the game pod home.

She flagged a taxi by the curb, sleeve fluttering like a white flag, and headed for the family home Nan Jin had mentioned.

She’d asked the people at Moonlit West River. Nan Jin’s home was in a tucked-away village, quiet as bamboo in mist.

Nana searched the nearby cities and found no trace, only concrete rivers. On her way back, she met a few elders, weathered as old pines.

They knew Nan Jin. In their village, she’d been a legend, fingers quick as rain over keys, better than many gray-haired experts.

She earned a fortune young, then vanished after joining some “project,” swallowed like a pebble by a black lake.

Seeing Nana, the elders gathered close like sparrows, curious what project that was, and why it meant three years of silence.

Nana wasn’t Nan Jin; her memory was a blank scroll. She offered a few vague lines, bowed, and left for Nan Jin’s old home.

It was a tile-roofed house long in the tooth, lime on the walls flaking like winter bark, eaves missing teeth.

Holes gaped here and there, webbed by spiders big as coin-lotus leaves. Nana pushed the door and glanced up, wary of the roof dropping like a cleaver.

She covered her nose. Inside, furniture wore dust like frost. Wooden chairs bloomed with black-green mold, a damp mountain in miniature.

She prowled the rooms, turning and lifting, like a cat among shadows. At last, in a small wall cabinet, she found a rusty tin box.

The lid fought her like a stiff hinge of fate. She pried it open. Nothing flashy inside—just a blue USB drive, calm as a pebble.

She cleared a space on the floor, sat, and slid the USB into her laptop; the screen lit like a lantern on ink water.

System: “...”

So where did that laptop come from?

It had watched this host arrive empty-handed, sleeves clean as the moon.

The files spilled out like a hidden stream. They covered the human experiments, and why the original host became a vegetative patient.

Three years ago, the original host pushed Nan Jin away from a car’s teeth, saving her like a hand pulling from fire. That became Nan Jin’s heart-knot.

Soon after, Nan Jin heard Aoto Game Company was “uploading” vegetative patients’ minds to the network, a second life like spring after frost.

She wanted the original host to try. Then her careful mind saw the snare: not charity, but a baited test for security holes.

“Benefiting patients” was a paper lantern; the real flame was using their minds to probe the game’s defenses.

The original host’s consciousness got caged in the game as surely as a bird in a bamboo trap. Even Nan Jin, deft with the net, was helpless.

She confronted the company, but they waved her off like smoke. The truths she posted were swept as “rumors,” leaves burned to ash.

The original host’s body couldn’t last; with her mind imprisoned, brain death came like a candle guttering in a draft.

Heartsick, Nan Jin took the risk herself. She became their test subject, walking into the net like a warrior into snow.

To pull the original out of the Lost Cavern of the Hundred Ghosts’ Cycle, she set her own body to accept the original host’s return.

To dodge company suspicion, she turned her memory and a transfer key into two game codes, hid them in items like needles in silk.

She was ready to trade life for life, one breath for another.

But the original’s mind wasn’t in that cavern. Aoto had already shredded it into raw game data, set adrift like pollen on a river.

Poor Nan Jin—her real-world body data altered—couldn’t leave the game on her own. She wandered the cavern like a lone ghost, forever circling.

The files ended there, clean as a cut reed.

Nana finished reading and let out a long breath, white as mist on morning tiles.

No wonder Nan Jin said her body couldn’t be found; the brain died three years ago, a lamp snuffed in rain.

She’d expected a low-tier world to be tea-and-sun, a place to loosen the shoulders. Instead, the drama splashed like chili oil.

Where exactly was she supposed to relax in this mess?

She sent the USB’s contents to Han Feng, who was skiving off at the police station, drifting like a leaf behind his desk.

She searched the house a while longer, turning the dust like soil for roots, found nothing else, and left Nan Jin’s home in a hurry.

Almost as she stepped out, her phone rang like a cicada. It was Han Feng from the station.

“Ms. Xia, where’d you dig up all this?”

His voice was calm, a lake after wind. He was used to it; since she left the game, trouble followed her like a shadow.

At first, he’d been thrilled. Aoto had stopped the so-called experiments long ago; without hard proof, it was at best unlawful detention.

With this pile of evidence, though, you could stack sentences like bricks—fixed terms, even life.

He’d almost drafted a Friendly Citizen Award in his head. Then he saw the sender: Xia Xiaoyou.

His pulse went flat as a drumhead. He even wanted to laugh. This woman was something else.

Fresh out of the hospital, and she delivered a feast on a lacquered tray.

“Found it while visiting Nan Jin’s place,” Nana said, voice lazy as afternoon heat. “You guys were sweating the charges, right? Now you’ve got proof. Go nail them.”

“Oh, and I found my corpse—cough, body. Buried in Nan Jin’s backyard. When you’ve got time, call your buddies and help relocate it. I’ll pay.”

Han Feng: “...”

Was she wired wrong?

“Someone already buried a perfectly good corpse. Why dig it up?”

Three years on, the grave grass must be waving like a field.

“I don’t want to travel miles next Qingming to sweep my own grave...” Her reason was the wildest thing he’d ever heard.

“...”

“Besides, I’m not asking you to work for free. I’m paying. What more do you want?”

She pouted; passersby stared. Her words sounded eerie, like bells in fog.

“Ma’am, this is a police station! We’re law enforcement, not a moving crew. If you want a reburial, hire specialists!”

“Lately you’ve had me chasing Aoto already, and that’s wrung me dry. Now it’s intel and graves—am I your housekeeper?”

“Name your price. I don’t care how much,” Nana said, cutting clean as a blade.

Han Feng: “...”

“Don’t think money lets you do whatever you want!”

“Sorry, money really does let you do whatever. (～￣▽￣)～”

Silence flowed down the line like night.