Everyone Can Go Online, Even the Sickly Ancient God [Infinite]

Updates resume on October 3. I'm recovering after surgery and will write at a leisurely pace.

[Already started]: Abyss of Sin [Crime Investigation]. If you like crime stories, please add it to your collection!

[Mystery Box 1 opened]: Pilgrimage Along the Aotai Route

[Mystery Box 2 opened]: The Lab Where the Virus Leaked (a touch of post-apocalypse; the stockpiling tag still applies). The second instance will branch into Mystery Box 2 once opened.

[Blurb]: Paranormal-investigation influencer Qiao Xingshu finishes work and heads home. Her husband Nan Shengbing has come to pick her up, and the two of them stumble into a subway station that collapsed in a fire ten years ago. The announcement system, which should be announcing train times, starts broadcasting a set of strange rules:

“1. If the station announcements have background music, do not trust what they say.”

“2. Do not trust any ticket sellers in the station. Buy your subway ticket from a machine.”

“3. If blood flows from the ticket slot, do not take the ticket.”

“4. Beware of the impostors around you. Unless you know someone well enough to spot anything unusual about them, do not speak to them.”

“5. When the lights in the station turn red, board the train at the platform.”

“6. The rules above, including this one, are a mixture of truth and lies. Passengers must judge for themselves.”

Qiao Xingshu and Nan Shengbing exchange a look. “?”

Five seconds later, Qiao Xingshu snaps back to her senses and immediately pulls out her outdoor livestream gear, pointing the camera at herself and Nan Shengbing. “We're live again, everyone! Welcome to the stream. Today's theme is rule-based horror.”

Top supporter: “Gift: Dream Amusement Park”

Top supporter: “Shu, didn't you just stream? Take care of yourself.”

Second-ranked supporter: “My favorite sickly little beauty and his princely husband are streaming together! More streams with both of you, please. I love watching.”

Third-ranked supporter: “Rule-based horror? This is really interesting. I'll be watching.”

Qiao Xingshu and her husband Nan Shengbing analyze the rules with their viewers as they livestream the subway station, which vanished after a fire ten years ago but has suddenly reappeared. At last, the two board a train that seems to be the right one. They think they can leave the area safely, but the train heads in the opposite direction from the real world, into a scene where the surroundings have completely fallen apart.

Now Qiao Xingshu and Nan Shengbing face one piece of good news and one piece of bad news. The bad news is that the train won't stop, and there's no way back to the normal world. There's also card draws to enhance supernatural ability traits, SSS+ rated instances, and a System that says entering one means certain death.

And the System says only an “Old God” can kick an instance's ass. But who is the Old God? Where are they? What kind of Old God? No idea.

Still, things aren't entirely hopeless for Qiao Xingshu and Nan Shengbing.

The good news: Full signal, stable internet, and their phone batteries never run down, so they can livestream forever.

The bad news: That's all the good news there is.

Nan Shengbing: ?

Qiao Xingshu: ??

#No, even a donkey can't keep streaming like this, can it?

#Is this an amusement park? What gives you the right to clear an SSS+ instance just because you feel like it... Huh? Test subject Qiao Xingshu possesses forbidden power? That power is the Old... Cleared! Of course you can clear an SSS+ instance. Welcome, Mr. Qiao Xingshu! This is your amusement park!

#Anyone can go online and share their life, even a sickly beauty of an Old God.

#So you're saying my wife is basically an octopus?

Rule-based horror world itinerary:

1. Xian'an Subway Station (including the hidden-world instance in the mystery box: the Aotai Route): Was the desire of certain beings to become immortals the reason the station burned down?

2. A secluded mountain village built on a corpse-raising site (including the hidden-world mystery box: the Lab Where the Virus Leaked): What's beneath human skin isn't necessarily human, and hearts aren't necessarily red.

3. Scavenging and stockpiling in the apocalypse: Visitors who are more frightening than zombies often come calling. Some bring food and hope, while others bring panic and destruction.

4. Black Peach Haven (including the hidden-world mystery box: locked): The villagers in this secluded paradise eat human flesh and consume a strange parasite to live longer. They reproduce foul-smelling, rotting monsters, but those monsters eventually become “human.”

5. The Old God's Rules: Beneath the deep sea lies a cruise ship shimmering with an uncanny light. No one knows when it sank. Its shattered hull is covered in flesh and blood vessels like umbilical cords.

6. To be continued.

Note: Only mystery-box instances can receive an SSS+ rating.

Character setup: A beautiful, pale, sickly, cool-looking bottom who is outgoing on stream but a little introverted alone with his husband x a wealthy, devoted, chivalrous top, the eldest son of a powerful business family, not merely a playboy prince. Both are faithful, age gap of five years, with the top older.

Both are devoted to their one true love, an absolute one-on-one pairing.

Same-sex marriage is legal in this setting. The bottom and top are married and have sex. They're married, so of course they can have sex whenever they want.

[About the blurb]: Screenshots of the third version of the blurb were taken on April 18, 2026. The date and content are both documented; plagiarism will be pursued.

Theme: True love can cross mountains of blades and seas of fire