Shen Mo, twenty-eight, a web novelist who writes twenty thousand words a day and specializes in horror fiction. He is utterly indifferent to the real world.
His last words before dying from staying up too late: “Stop asking for updates. Even the dead need to sleep.”
When he opened his eyes again, he had become the grandson of the last heir to the Zhenwu Bureau.
His grandfather had just died, leaving behind a book called The Guide to Subduing Spirits and one instruction:
“Our family’s rule: Go down, don’t take anything, finish the job and come back up, then get on with your life.”
Shen Mo thought this was an inheritance from a family of tomb raiders.
That is, until his phone automatically linked him to something called the [Fear Income and Expenditure System] in the middle of the night.
The System said: Your fear level is 89. If it reaches the maximum, you’ll turn into a monster. How do you reset it? Do good deeds, the kind where you expect nothing in return.
The System also said: Your shadow has already turned against you. It’s been squatting in the corner, watching you all night.
The System’s final message was: Oh, and your grandfather’s lower half is still pinned underground. You figure out what to do.
Shen Mo stared at the shadow waving to him from the corner and fell silent for three seconds.
“...System, could you stop being such a jerk?”
System: [No. Also, those old things underground have been waiting for you for twenty years. They heard you’re a writer, and they’ve already started asking for updates.]
Later, a legend spread through the tomb-raiding world:
There was a lunatic who went into tombs without taking anything, and devoted himself to charity: delivering letters for ghosts, writing biographies for vengeful spirits, and hosting story nights for monsters sealed away for a thousand years.
Most incredible of all, the stories he wrote could actually move those things... to tears.
