The payment chime was crisp, like a coin dropped into a porcelain dish.
In the rental unit, Lu Jin's finger still rested on the screen. The tip had gone pale from how hard he'd pressed.
On the feed, three corpse hounds were already on top of Li Xing. Rot-stink drooled from their jaws and spattered the concrete beside her face.
"Blow," he hissed between his teeth. "Up."
—
On the A-11 wasteland, the air tore.
No holy chants. No long charge-up animation. Three meters above Li Xing's head, reality simply split—one hair-fine golden crack, as if someone had peeled the texture off the sky.
Something dropped out.
A silver-white metal sphere, fist-sized, wrapped in a trail of gold light, slammed straight into the lead hound's nose.
Thump.
The impact froze the beast mid-pounce. It blinked, dazed, then lowered its head to sniff the thing that had just appeared between its eyes.
The sphere's casing gleamed smooth as a mirror. Along one side, a neat line of tiny letters caught the wasteland light like divine script:
[Made in Shenzhen · Industrial Sonic Repeller (Export Model)]
A second later, the red light at the top flicked green.
Bzzzz—!
Sound exploded.
Not the kind you "hear." Something higher, meaner, that went straight for nerves and balance. A ring of pressure blasted out from the sphere like an invisible shockwave.
The hound facing it never even had time to howl.
Its eyes flooded red, bulged, and then its whole skull jolted. Not a cinematic slow break. Just a sudden, ugly crack and everything inside went loose. The body flopped sideways and hit the ground like a dropped sack.
The other two hounds were still in mid-air when the wave rolled through their heads. Their limbs jerked once, twice, then every muscle went slack. They hit the dirt, twitched faintly, and stayed there.
All of it happened in under three seconds.
Only Li Xing, sitting there with her knees drawn up, stayed untouched. The wave slid around her like water around a stone, only lifting the blood-stuck strands of hair at her forehead.
Silence dropped in.
Wind moaned through the ruins again. The dead hounds didn't move. The only sound close by was the silver ball hissing as it spat black smoke from an overworked core.
—
In the rental unit, Lu Jin watched the carnage play out in HD.
His shoulders finally loosened. Sweat had gathered at his hairline; he wiped it away with the back of his wrist and let out a slow breath that wasn't quite a laugh.
"Hundred and ninety-eight yuan…" he muttered. "Can't get a decent hotpot here for that, but over there it buys 'Divine Punishment.'"
The absurdity of it sat in his chest like a stone. He wanted to laugh properly, but something under his ribs tugged in warning, so the sound died halfway.
On-screen, the silver sphere coughed one last puff of smoke and gave up. Right on cue, Deep Space Echo painted his vision with confetti again.
[Victory! Congratulations, Savior, for eliminating the threat!][Battle Rating: S (Observed Target: unharmed)]
Lu Jin was aiming for the close button when the background art flipped.
Bright gold turned to a cold, wet red.
[Warning: High-density blood scent detected.][Environment scan: A-11 ruins are home to numerous carrion ghouls. Fresh hound blood is a beacon in the dark.][Your cloud-adopted girl is extremely weak. Movement speed: 0.5 m/s. Estimated ghoul arrival: 5 minutes.]
[Linked Sale · Limited Time Offer]Item: High-Grade Scent Suppression Spray (Military, aerosol)Effect: Breaks down blood odor and releases "Apex Predator" deterrent pheromones. Creates a temporary kill-zone aura within 100m.Original Price: ¥500.00Current Price: ¥288.00Note: During newbie protection period, first use of this item type is covered by the system.
"Are you kidding me?!"
Lu Jin finally lost it. He grabbed the sofa cushion and smashed it into the mold-stained wall.
"Hundred and ninety-eight for three seconds of noise, and now you throw in a two-eighty-eight spray? This isn't saving people, it's a combo scam!"
His chest heaved. The familiar metallic taste crept up his throat again, hot and sour.
It was the perfect trap, and he knew it.
Sunk cost. The old con.
He'd already paid. He'd already watched her almost die once. If he stopped now, every yuan he'd sunk into this would just go up in smoke. That girl would die for real, and those earlier "savior" acts would be about as valuable as deleting his hospital file.
On the feed, Li Xing was trying to push herself up. Her bad leg folded and threw her straight back into the mess of blood and mud. She turned her head, panicked, sniffing the air like an animal that knew the smell would bring in worse things.
Lu Jin focused on her eyes.
In their frantic searching, in the way they darted and failed to find a way out, he saw his own reflection. The part of him still clawing for any excuse to stay alive.
"…Two-eighty-eight," he said quietly.
His fingertip hovered over the payment icon. Two seconds. Three.
Then a tiny line of text, blended almost completely into the corner of the UI, flicked into focus.
[Detected: Host has completed "First Top-Up" and "First Battle Win." This defensive item's cost will be covered by the system.][Actual charge this time: ¥0.00]
"Now you play the good guy," he said, voice flat.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
"Hook them on spending first, then make sure they can't leave. That's the plan, right?"
He still hit confirm.
[Deploying item…]
—
On the ruined ground, the smell of blood lay heavy.
Li Xing knew what it meant. Even if she hadn't grown up being told bedtime stories about what crawled toward that scent, her nose and spine understood.
End.
She tried to crawl, but the sonic blast that had left her body untouched had still scrambled her joints. Her limbs were weak. The best she managed was to drag herself a hand's length through the slick mix of snow and gore.
"So this is it…"
The thought was dull in her head, almost resigned.
The sky rippled again.
No thunder. No show. Just a slim metal canister tumbling out of a point in the air, hitting the ground beside a dead hound, and hissing.
A pale blue mist burst from the nozzle, rolled outward in a low cloud, and flooded the area.
It swallowed the three hound corpses first. Then it washed over Li Xing.
The change was immediate.
The thick, metallic stink faded like ink wiped from a slate. In its place came a thin, cold edge of scent that didn't belong to prey at all.
Something old. And dangerous.
In the distance, shapes moved in the rubble. Bodies that had been stretching forward froze. A few pairs of faintly glowing eyes lifted, sniffed.
The ghouls whined under their breath, turned, and fled the other way with their tails metaphorically between their legs.
The ruins fell quiet again.
Li Xing stared at the blue haze as it thinned and broke apart.
First, thunder from the sky to crush the hounds.
Then, a holy fog to erase their trace and scare off what came next.
You could call the first one luck. The second one… not so much.
Her hand shook as she reached for the sphere that had killed the dogs. It was half-charred now, casing warped from overload. There was just enough residual warmth in the metal to sting her fingers.
She held onto it anyway.
In a world the gods themselves had abandoned, full of radiation, monsters, and old war ghosts, something had still reached down. For her.
"…Listener," she whispered.
The title had been sitting at the bottom of her mind this whole time. It fell out now without effort.
Her voice cracked. No answer came.
She didn't expect one.
Real gods didn't chat. The fact that this one acknowledged her with miracles at all was more than she had any right to.
Knees complaining, she pushed herself up until she could kneel. Both knees sank into the bloody slush. She didn't notice. Facing the empty air—the place she had decided his gaze lived—she bowed her head slowly.
She didn't dare touch the still-hissing "relic" of a spray can. Instead she leaned forward and rested her filthy forehead in the shadow cast by the ruined metal ball.
That posture said everything. Submission. Trust. Clinging devotion.
Her mouth opened.
A thin sound slipped out.
It wasn't any song anyone else would recognize. No lyrics. Just a line of melody she'd pieced together alone in a lab cage to keep from screaming.
The first notes were rough, scraped raw by hunger and cold. A little off key.
But as she poured more into it—relief, gratitude, that aching sense of having been chosen—the tune steadied. The edges smoothed out. The notes landed clean, as if someone were dropping small stones into still water, each one sending a ring outward.
She sang for being alive.
She sang for him.
—
On the couch, Lu Jin was just getting his breath back when the status bar in the corner of his view blew open like a flared fuse.
This wasn't the gentle sparkle from before. Gold roared out, a whole stream of light slamming straight through the screen and into his chest.
[Detected: "Extreme" gratitude emotion.][Detected: Holy Song resonance.][Conversion rate critical hit: 500%.][Holy Resonance Energy +5.]
He threw his head back and bit down on a shout.
This hit was not subtle.
If the first point of Holy Resonance had been a drip, this was a burst pipe. Warmth surged through him, slamming into dried-out veins and wheezing organs like it was offended by their existence.
It hurt.
Not the tearing, infected hurt he was used to. More like the ache when a frozen limb started to thaw, that itchy, heavy swell that meant blood was forcing its way back in.
He could feel it. The gnawing, rat-bite pain deep in his spine eased as if someone had smoothed a hand down each nerve. The ragged pull in his lungs—the broken bellows feeling—quieted. Air went in and out without catching on knives.
It was obscene how good that felt.
Better than any painkiller. Better than the sweet, stupid float of a sedative. This wasn't "not feeling anything." This was the sensation of being less broken.
By the time it faded, his T-shirt was stuck to his back with sweat. His breaths came fast but clean. He raised his hand, stared at his palm.
There was still pallor there. But underneath, faintly, his skin no longer had that corpse-wax look. A little color had dared to come back.
[Life countdown adjusted: +12 hours.][Current remaining: 89 days 14 hours.][Spinal nerve pain reduction: 50%.]
On the side, the quiet "Observed Target" panel lit up like a slot machine.
[Observed Target: Li Xing][Life Status: Extremely weak → Barely stable][Holy Song Realm: Mortal Echo · Afterglow Stage][Level: LV1][Growth: 12 → 80 / 100][Emotional Resonance: Extreme gratitude / Absolute reliance +++][Note: Near-death survival + voluntary singing. Growth efficiency +300%.]
A progress bar sat beneath the text. Only a thin strip of grey remained.
Lu Jin tapped it lightly, thinking.
Twenty more points, and that "Afterglow" skin would crack. She'd step into the next tier.
Next time, he didn't need to stage something this extreme. But he'd be an idiot not to find ways to squeeze more songs, more "gratitude" out of her.
His gaze stuck on the almost-full bar. Something sharp flicked on in his eyes, bordering on obsessive.
"Twelve hours…"
He'd just spent over two hundred yuan in theoretical cost, and in return he'd bought half a day of life—and a few hours of remembering what it felt like to breathe normally.
Worth it?
It wasn't even a question.
For a man dying of thirst, that sip was priceless.
"Okay," he exhaled, long and slow.
He peeled himself off the couch. His body felt wrong only in that it didn't feel as wrong. Along with the lightness came an ugly wave of hunger, like his gut had just remembered its job.
He picked up his phone and, on muscle memory, opened his food app. His thumb drifted straight to a high-rated Japanese place.
Before he got sick, their eel rice had been his one indulgence. One set: ¥128.
He wanted it. He wanted, for once, to celebrate. For the extra twelve hours. For the fact that he'd found a crack in this world's wall and wriggled halfway through.
His thumb hovered over "Pay."
Balance at the top of the screen: ¥7,489.00.
That number tripped a different circuit.
How many more sonic bombs did that buy? How many sprays? What if the next "pack" cost twice as much? Ten times?
How many times did he plan to sit there watching her die and then not press "confirm"?
His thumb froze.
A moment later, his face went neutral. He closed the restaurant page. Closed the delivery app altogether. Pushed himself up and padded into the tiny kitchen.
One dusty packet of braised beef instant noodles. He dug out a single vacuum-sealed sausage from the back of the cupboard, stared at it for a second, then tossed that in too.
Boiling water. Three minutes.
For the special occasion, he allowed himself the full sausage.
Back on the couch, bowl in hand in the half-dark, his gaze didn't leave his phone. On the screen, Li Xing had tucked herself into a corner now that the blue mist had dispersed. She was asleep, arms wrapped around the scorched metal ball like it was a stuffed toy, expression slack in the rare peace of someone who believed, for one night, that she was safe.
He slurped noodles. The heat hit his nose, made his eyes sting more than the spice.
"God in the game, refugee in real life," he said, chewing a piece of sausage that wasn't fully hydrated yet. He tapped his plastic fork lightly against the rim of the bowl, as if toasting someone.
"Honestly? Checks out."
Right as he tipped the bowl back to drink the last of the broth, Deep Space Echo crashed another window into his view.
No pop-up sale this time. Just a line of red text that cut through everything else.
[Warning: Deep scan completed.][Observed Target "Li Xing" has temporarily stable life signs, but gene-level "irreversible collapse" is in progress.][Cause: As an artificial weapon, her gene sequence has inherent defects. Food and topical medicine cannot repair the root issue.][Without intervention, estimated collapse time: 72 hours.][Note: Treatment requires large Holy Resonance Energy expenditure, or purchase of S-Class Gene Repair Fluid (shop not yet unlocked).]
The fork stopped halfway to his mouth.
A drop of broth slid off the edge and splashed onto the back of his hand, hot enough to sting.
"…Gene collapse?"
The three characters on the panel dug into his nerves like hooks. His mind slammed back to his own diagnosis file, the lines about "accelerated degeneration."
Same sentence. Two copies.
Same curse. Two lab rats.
So she wasn't just some random wasteland orphan who'd gotten lucky. She was broken from the blueprint up. A product that hadn't passed quality control.
Just like him.
Lu Jin set the bowl down, pulled a tissue, and wiped his mouth slowly. His movements were calm. Something in his gaze was not.
"Thinking about dying already?"
He looked at the girl on the feed. Still asleep. Still clutching that dead bomb like a gift.
His voice dropped, low and cold.
"After everything I've already put into you, without asking me first? The king of hell doesn't get to take you."
He brought up his real-world balance again. ¥7,489.00 floated there, smug.
Not enough. Not even close.
To keep himself alive, to drag her along with him too, he needed more. A lot more.
The soft, almost warm light of Holy Resonance in his chest met something harder and older in his head.
Fine.
If the world had decided both of them were defective stock, then he'd just have to rob the world blind.
Whatever it took.
Lu Jin leaned back, eyes narrowing as numbers and options began to arrange themselves in invisible columns.
He needed money.
And this time, he was done playing fair.