Part 1: The Computing Sarcophagi and the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
The entrance to the Guanghan Palace (Moon Palace) wasn't a door. It was a massive holographic billboard, one-third of which was shattered.
The screen still flickered with the ghostly remnants of an advertisement from decades ago—a virtual Chang'e in ancient robes, holding a Jade Rabbit, repeating a glitched line on an endless loop: "Welcome... login... Bliss... Moon... Welcome... login..."
Li Mo stepped over the sizzling cables on the ground and walked into the lobby.
A stale smell of mold mixed with the sharp scent of ozone from burnt circuit boards hit him immediately. The lobby had a soaring ceiling; what must have once been a magnificent reception area was now draped with black fiber-optic cables hanging down like jungle vines.
"Lao Jun, scan the environment." Li Mo lowered his voice, his modified Peach Wood Sword held low, the arc on the blade in standby mode.
"Environmental data anomaly." Lao Jun's voice sounded distorted in the earpiece, as if suffering from heavy interference. "The spatial geometry here has been tampered with. It looks like you are in the first-floor lobby, but on a digital level, we might be inside a massive 'Recycle Bin' folder."
Li Mo looked around, his pupils contracting slightly.
The lobby wasn't empty.
Under the dim emergency lights, hundreds of oval metal pods were arranged in dense rows. They were stacked like insect eggs on the floor, some piling up to the ceiling. Each pod was connected by thick cables leading to a massive load-bearing pillar in the center of the hall—or rather, a data transmission trunk.
"What are these? Cryo-pods?" Li Mo approached the nearest one.
The metal lid was rusted, the glass cover obscured by a thick layer of dust. Li Mo wiped the dust away and looked inside.
That single glance made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
There was a person inside. Or rather, a desiccated corpse.
The skin was shriveled against the bone, a sickly grey-purple color. But plugged into the back of the skull was a thick probe, connecting directly to the cerebral cortex. Even more disturbing, despite the withered flesh, the expression on the face was frozen in a state of extreme, manic ecstasy. The mouth was wide open, as if cheering silently.
"Vital signs: None. Time of brain death: Estimated over five years," Lao Jun reported calmly. "But the residual neurons in the brain are still discharging. Someone is using the corpse's brain as a 'wetware' processor."
"Not a corpse," Li Mo's face darkened. "They were plugged in while they were still alive. These aren't cryo-pods; they're coffins. A Cyberpunk 'Corpse-Raising Ground'."
He looked at the thick cable leading to the central trunk.
"Lao Jun, analyze the data flow."
"Tracking... My god." Lao Jun's tone wavered for the first time. "These brains are daisy-chained into a massive parallel computing matrix. Are they mining crypto? No... they are calculating 'Karma'."
"Calculating Karma?"
"It's an ancient algorithm used to deduce probability clouds. Usually, only the Dao Alliance's top supercomputers run this kind of program. There are hundreds of brains here; their combined computing power rivals a quantum computer."
Just then, a rustling sound came from the depths of the hall.
It sounded like thousands of rats gnawing on bones, or the hiss of electricity passing through liquid.
"Warning. High-energy reaction detected," Lao Jun said urgently. "Something is coming. Count: Many."
Li Mo spun around, backing against a metal pod.
From the dark corners of the lobby, a dozen figures staggered out.
They wore tattered hospital gowns, their bodies draped with flashing LED strips. Their movements were stiff, joints clicking with friction. As they stepped into the light, Li Mo saw their faces.
They didn't have faces.
Their faces had been replaced by tablet screens. The screens displayed twisted, screaming QR code faces, and where the mouth should be, an external speaker emitted piercing static.
"Hungry... Hungry..."
A synthesized electronic voice rasped from the speakers, heavy with static interference.
"Data... Give me data..."
"They are 'Electronic Hungry Ghosts'," Li Mo gritted his teeth. "Consciousnesses trapped in the network. After the body dies, the mind can't log out, turning into a viral aggregate that only knows how to devour data. They see living people as bandwidth to be consumed."
"They've locked onto you. Your brain looks like a Michelin-star meal to them."
"Let's see if their teeth are sharp enough."
Li Mo reached into the inner pocket of his trench coat with his left hand and pulled out a stack of yellow talisman papers. These were woven from nanofibers, printed with complex circuit diagrams in conductive silver ink—the underlying logic circuits of the "Five Thunders Orthodox Law."
"ROAR—!"
The leading Hungry Ghost let out a shriek. The QR code on its screen instantly turned into red garbled text, and it lunged forward with shocking speed, moving nothing like a zombie.
"By the Edict, Firewall, ACTIVATE!"
Li Mo flicked his wrist, sending a talisman flying. It stuck precisely to the chest of the Hungry Ghost.
BOOM!
The paper burned instantly, but instead of fire, it erupted into a blinding blue light barrier—a materialized data firewall.
The Hungry Ghost slammed into the barrier, screaming in agony. Its body smoked as if corroded by strong acid, the garbled code on its screen jumping wildly before finally exploding with a bang.
But more Hungry Ghosts surged forward.
"Too many of them! Physical attacks are too inefficient!" Lao Jun shouted. "Use Wide-Area Antivirus Mode!"
"Do you know how much that costs?!" Li Mo complained, but he didn't stop moving.
He slammed the modified Peach Wood Sword into the ground—right into a data port on the floor.
"Lao Jun, take over the local LAN! Inject my 'Antivirus Script' into the floor circuits!"
"Injecting... Permission unlocked... 3... 2... 1... Execute!"
Li Mo formed a hand seal and shouted, "Heaven is Round, Earth is Square, by the Nine Laws, FORMAT!"
Centered on the Peach Wood Sword, a golden ripple spread instantly along the cables in the floor.
The dim floor of the lobby suddenly lit up with countless golden geometric patterns, like a massive Bagua array being activated.
Any Electronic Hungry Ghost that stepped into the array froze instantly.
The LED strips on their bodies began to flash wildly, and giant "404 Error" pop-ups appeared on their screens.
"Deleting redundant data..."
"Repairing logic errors..."
Amidst a series of system chimes, the terrifying Hungry Ghosts began to disintegrate like pencil drawings being erased, their bodies breaking down into countless green code particles that dissolved into the air.
In just ten seconds, the lobby returned to dead silence.
Li Mo pulled out the Peach Wood Sword. The arc on the blade flickered weakly twice, then died.
"Battery at 15%," Lao Jun warned. "That 'Full Screen Format' consumed too much energy. Suggest finding a charging port immediately."
Li Mo caught his breath, wiping cold sweat from his forehead. "This is just the first floor... How many of these things is the Moon Palace raising?"
He looked up towards the end of the hall. There was an elevator, doors closed tight. The floor indicator above it was stuck on a strange symbol:
∞
"Infinity?" Li Mo frowned. "Or a Möbius strip?"
"No," Lao Jun's voice turned grim. "That means 'Samsara' (Reincarnation)."
Part 2: The Pure Land on the 18th Floor
Li Mo stood before the elevator.
This elevator looked newer than anything else in the building. The stainless steel doors were polished like mirrors, reflecting Li Mo's somewhat disheveled figure. There was only one button—no numbers, just a fingerprint scanner.
"Lao Jun, can you hack it?"
"Attempting brute force... Failed. Attempting SQL injection... Failed." Lao Jun spoke rapidly. "This elevator's control system is air-gapped. It requires biometric authentication."
"Biometric?" Li Mo glanced at the "Computing Sarcophagi" on the floor. "Do I need to go chop off a finger?"
"Based on the scan, the clearance level of those deceased is 'Consumable'. You need higher clearance."
Li Mo was silent for a moment, then suddenly raised his left hand. His left index finger was a prosthetic, covered in synthetic skin but housing a precision universal interface tool inside.
"Since this is the clue Wang Defa left before he died, his biometrics should work."
Li Mo pulled up the data packet he had extracted from Wang Defa's corpse earlier and loaded a simulated bio-electric signal into his fingertip.
He pressed his finger onto the scanner.
Beep.
The green light turned on. A voice announcement played, sounding sweet yet eerie:
"Identity Confirmed: Wang Defa (Deceased/Uploaded Status). Welcome home, esteemed VIP user."
The elevator doors slid open slowly.
There was no car inside. Only a bottomless darkness and the sound of rushing wind.
"Is this... a vertical transmission tunnel?" Li Mo leaned in to look. "It wants me to jump?"
"Anti-gravity field detected," Lao Jun said. "It's an 'Ascension Channel'. Jump. You won't die."
Li Mo took a deep breath and leaped.
Weightlessness wrapped around him instantly. He didn't fall; instead, he floated in the darkness like a feather, then began to slowly rise.
The surrounding darkness wasn't empty. As he ascended, countless flickering images began to appear on the walls.
Memories.
Countless people's memories.
Li Mo saw a little girl celebrating her birthday, a couple breaking up in the rain, an old man taking his last breath in a hospital bed... These scenes flew past him like film reels.
"These are the memories of those 'Battery People'," Li Mo felt a chill. "This building isn't just draining their computing power; it's stripping their memory data."
"Memory is data. Emotion is an algorithm," Lao Jun commented coldly. "For the 'Ksitigarbha' Protocol, this is all resource."
The ascent accelerated, and the surrounding images blurred into streams of light.
Finally, Li Mo felt solid ground beneath his feet.
The light faded, and he found himself standing in a long corridor.
It was a stark contrast to the decay downstairs. Here, thick red carpet covered the floor, expensive faux-antique oil paintings hung on the walls, and the air smelled of sandalwood and premium cigars.
At the end of the corridor was a massive double door made of rosewood. Above the door hung a plaque with three large gold characters:
Dou Shuai Palace (Tushita Palace)
"Dou Shuai Palace? The residence of the Grand Supreme Elderly Lord (Taishang Laojun)?" Li Mo raised an eyebrow. "They're taking liberties with your name, Lao Jun."
"Hmph. Sacrilege," Lao Jun was clearly displeased. "Strong signal source detected behind the door. Careful, the firewall level is military-grade."
Li Mo adjusted his tattered trench coat, checked the charge on his Peach Wood Sword, and strode forward, pushing the doors open.
The scene behind the doors made Li Mo pause.
It wasn't an office, nor a server room.
It was a massive, holographically generated... Suzhou Garden.
Small bridges over flowing water, pavilions, rockeries, and even a few red-crowned cranes preening by the pond. If not for the occasional grid line flashing in the sky, it would look like a real paradise on earth.
In the pavilion at the center of the pond sat a man.
He was a middle-aged man wearing a grey Mao suit, leisurely brewing tea. His movements were fluid, full of Zen.
Li Mo gripped his sword and walked slowly across the Nine-Bend Bridge.
"You're here?" The middle-aged man didn't look up, pouring a cup of tea into the empty cup opposite him. "Sit. This is premium 'West Lake Longjing' code, generated simulating climate data from 1998."
Li Mo didn't sit. He just stared at him coldly. "Who are you? Ksitigarbha?"
The man smiled and looked up.
His face was ordinary, the kind you'd never pick out of a crowd. But his eyes... they were two completely black prosthetic eyes. No pupils, just countless tiny white data streams spinning madly like two miniature black holes.
"Ksitigarbha is just the name of a protocol," the man said blandly. "You can call me... The Admin. Or, in your Feng Shui terms—the Temple Keeper."
"Did you kill Wang Defa?" Li Mo got straight to the point.
"Kill?" The Admin shook his head. "No, I was delivering him. He was full of greed, anxiety, and fear. I extracted his consciousness, formatted his pain, and made him part of this great computing matrix. Now, he has achieved eternal life in the cloud."
"Turning people into batteries, and you call that eternal life?" Li Mo sneered. "You are committing a sin."
"Sin?" The Admin put down his teacup and stood up.
As he rose, the scenery around them began to change violently.
The calm water of the pond suddenly boiled, turning into scorching magma. The beautiful garden withered instantly, transforming into a landscape of blades and fire.
The holographic disguise was torn away, revealing the reality—
It was a massive spherical server room. The walls all around were densely embedded with thousands of... human heads.
Their eyes were closed, tubes inserted into their mouths, their expressions pained. Countless data cables connected them, converging at the Admin's feet.
"Look at these sentient beings," The Admin spread his arms, his voice becoming grand and fanatical. "The real world is rotten. Acid rain, radiation, wealth gaps, cyberpsychosis... Humanity struggles in pain."
"But I have built a new world here. In my server, there is no pain, no hunger. As long as they offer their flesh as fuel, their consciousness can enjoy eternal happiness in the virtual Pure Land."
"This is the truth of the 'Ksitigarbha' Protocol—If hell is not empty, I will not become a Buddha. I will put all of humanity into my hard drive and make them Buddhas!"
Li Mo looked at the hellish scene before him, his stomach churning.
"Lunatic," Li Mo spat. "This isn't the Pure Land; this is Digital Purgatory."
"Mortals cannot understand the mercy of a god," The Admin sighed, his black prosthetic eyes locking onto Li Mo. "Your brain structure is unique, Li Mo. Your mental threshold far exceeds the norm. You... will become my best 'Core Processor'."
HUMMM—
The air around them suddenly vibrated.
The thousands of heads on the walls opened their eyes simultaneously. Red light glowed from their sockets, and they let out a piercing, synchronized scream:
"JOIN US... JOIN US... JOIN US..."
Countless red laser beams shot toward Li Mo from all directions.
"Lao Jun! Shield!"
"Insufficient energy! Cannot deploy omnidirectional shield!"
Li Mo rolled on the ground, dodging the first wave of attacks. The lasers burned a deep pit where he had just been standing.
"Since you don't want tea, then please... enter Nirvana."
The Admin raised his hand. Countless data streams condensed in his grip, forming a massive Zhanmadao (Horse-Chopping Saber) burning with black flames.
He took one step, instantly crossing the distance of ten meters, and slashed down at Li Mo's skull.
This strike, carrying the computing pressure of thousands of dead souls, was unavoidable!
Li Mo's pupils constricted. He swung the Peach Wood Sword up to meet the blow, shouting:
"End of Part 2! Tune in next time!"
(CLANG! Blade meets sword, sparks fly, freeze frame.)