[Rule-based horror + System + niche profession + Shan Hai culture]
When Lin Shen takes charge of Corpse No. 734, he has no idea that the cold body holds the key to turning the world upside down.
The instant his fingertips touch the crystalized mermaid’s tear in her chest, a mechanical voice explodes in his mind: [System 037 bound. Welcome to the World of Rules.] Scales that move are frozen in the refrigerator, the neighbor’s smile looks eerily foxlike, and his reflection is always half a beat behind. These are the deadly rules of the “Mom’s Note” scenario, yet the System is forcing him to smash the mirror and retrieve the crystal.
He is driven into more bizarre and nightmarish prisons. In the Silent Library, the red-dressed librarian tears apart anyone who makes a sound, but Su Wang dares to shatter the rules, at the cost of a wrist that rots and oozes pus. In the Nine-Tailed Fox Shelter, a white-clad nurse removes her mask to reveal fox ears. Lin Shen uses his mortician’s suturing skills to save a cub named A Yue, unexpectedly unlocking “Karmic Reversal” but losing his sense of smell in return.
The Taotie train forces him to eat until his stomach ruptures. Qiongqi sentences him to death through a moral dilemma, and the mechanical Xing Tian needs a living heart transplant every hour. The System wants him to devour monsters and steal their power, while the rules carve a countdown to death into his skin. When Su Wang suddenly raises a knife and says, “Destroying the Second World is the only way to save reality,” Lin Shen realizes that the date on his mortician’s license is 2099.
Was he sent from the future to save them, or is he a vessel about to be devoured by the rules? The mermaid’s tear in his arms is growing hot, and the Classic of Mountains and Seas pattern over his heart is clamoring: Become the key, or... become the sacrifice.
