Chen Mo, a Lueleme delivery rider, three years on the job, with a 0.3 percent bad-review rate.
His last order that night was to an old textile factory dormitory in the south of the city. The note said: Knock three times, leave it and go. Don't look through the peephole.
He looked.
Through the crack in the door, he saw a funeral hall. The person in the memorial portrait wore a Meituan delivery uniform and looked exactly like him.
The next day, the local news reported: A male body had been found at the textile factory dormitory. Time of death: three days ago. Identity: delivery rider, Chen Moumou, 26 years old.
Chen Mo looked down at the delivery slip in his hand. The signature was in his own handwriting.
He wasn't dead. But he didn't seem to be alive, either.
The underworld was short on delivery workers, so he became employee number 41313 on the System's platform. By day, he delivered meals to the world of the living. By night, he delivered orders to the underworld. His customers included: Meng Po (mildly spicy, no scallions), Zhao, the Ghost King (beer must be ice-cold), and the King of Hell (extra-spicy hot pot, bad review if it's late).
Three rules of the System: Don't look at the customers' faces. Don't eat their food. Don't shoot the breeze with them.
He broke every one of them.
Because the eyeless girl in a school uniform had waited eighteen years for her mother on Seventh Street.
Because behind the door on the fourth floor of the textile factory dormitory stood a "person" who looked exactly like him.
Because the "him" on the other side of the underworld was waiting for him to come back.
"Soon," that "him" said.
Soon what?
Chen Mo didn't know.
He only knew he still had thirty deliveries to make tonight.
