Did Souls Grow Stronger?

Lu Yuanming woke up.

Ever since he'd become a vegetative patient, he hadn't really slept.

In this vegetative state, he couldn't feel anything. There was only darkness. Thankfully, he could still hear the sounds of the outside world; otherwise, he probably would have been driven mad by now.

Lu Yuanming was grateful that he could still travel back. It was simply unbelievable.

The body of the drug addict he'd traveled to had definitely died. By now, he should have been something like a soul in the world after death.

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(But I crossed over as a soul in the first place, while my body is lying in a hospital. So even though I died after traveling there, it's not impossible to accept that my soul crossed back here. What I need to consider now is, if I travel to another world again, will I appear directly in the afterlife as a soul, or will I attach myself to another living person's body?)

After waking up, Lu Yuanming gradually began thinking about the world he'd traveled to.

The other world was the future, in Year 2028, and something seemed seriously wrong with it.

In the world after death, he'd had a little contact with the White Police Officer and the Black Homeless Man. From them, he'd learned that the supernatural incident he'd encountered in the slum apartment wasn't an isolated case. Similar things seemed to be happening everywhere. Monsters, ghosts, curses, and the like were running rampant. It had even reached the point where the government and the public were all aware of them.

And that world after death... was it really the world after death?

There were too many unsolved mysteries. At the very least, Lu Yuanming couldn't make sense of what he'd been through.

Compared to ghosts, monsters, curses, and the afterlife—all those terrifying things—the world where his Original Body lived was at least safe. He might be a vegetative patient now, but what if he could regain control of his body and wake up tomorrow?

That would be better than being torn apart and devoured by a monster after traveling there, wouldn't it?

The agony of having his leg smashed, the torment of having the flesh on his thigh torn away bite by bite, and the despair of being driven to the brink by a monster—he remembered it all vividly. He was an ordinary young man who'd grown up in a peaceful era and a peaceful world. He'd never even dreamed of anything so terrifying.

He couldn't bring himself to travel again.

Even if it meant staying in the darkness, able to hear only a few sounds from the outside world.

So Lu Yuanming stayed in his Original Body for a long time. He couldn't sense the exact passage of time, but he could judge it from the sounds he heard. For example, the noises around him were louder and more varied during the day, while at night, most of the time it was completely quiet. By that measure, he'd been in his Original Body for at least ten days, maybe more than that, when he noticed something unusual.

He seemed to be able to feel his body—faintly, very, very faintly.

There was a barely perceptible pinprick on the back of his hand. It didn't hurt; it was only the slightest sensation. At the same time, he heard a nurse giving him an injection, or something like that, and he also heard his parents' voices.

"...Minmin's about to take the college entrance exams, but she still has to come over..."

"Why don't we take Mingming home, so we can celebrate the reunion festival together..."

"There's still plenty of compensation money, but..."

Lu Yuanming couldn't hear clearly. Sound was the only way he could sense the outside world, but it was often indistinct. Since becoming a vegetative patient, that faint pinprick-like sensation on the back of his hand had been the only physical sensation he'd experienced.

Lu Yuanming had been hit by a car and left in a vegetative state the summer after he'd graduated. He vaguely felt that about half a year had passed, which meant it was probably around the Spring Festival.

His younger sister was named Lu Yuanmin. In their Chongqing accent, her name sounded almost exactly like his, Lu Yuanming. That was something he and his sister often complained to their parents about; they both thought their parents had just been lazy when they named them.

Lu Yuanmin was eighteen this year and in her final year of high school, five years younger than him. Unlike him, she was a hardworking top student. She wasn't a once-in-a-generation genius, but her grades were still far better than his. She had a good chance of getting into a top-tier university, and if she did well on the exams, even Peking University or Tsinghua University might be within reach. Hearing those few words from his parents made Lu Yuanming feel awful.

And... it was the Spring Festival, a time for family reunions, and he'd become a vegetative patient...

Only after his parents had left did Lu Yuanming gradually calm down from the pang of longing.

Then he immediately began thinking over that pinprick-like sensation on the back of his hand.

It was clearly a sign that he was recovering.

But it was only a sign.

Lu Yuanming also had a feeling that, after traveling back this time, his consciousness felt somehow more substantial.

It was actually very hard to make sense of. Everything he'd gone through after traveling there—one broken leg, the flesh on his lower body a bloody mess, wounds all over him—was more than enough to call him seriously injured. After returning in that condition, he'd immediately fallen unconscious. But now, more than ten days later, his consciousness felt more substantial and stronger.

Then Lu Yuanming remembered the Light Particles that had risen from the monster's corpse after he killed it. A few of them had fallen into his mouth. At the time, things had been too urgent for him to think it through, but after returning to his Original Body, he'd gone over that whole experience countless times. He hadn't forgotten the Light Particles, either.

(Could it be that my soul has grown stronger?)

Lu Yuanming was a young man. Aside from gaming, his favorite pastime was reading web novels. Naturally, he started making reasonable connections, and he formed a few theories about what was happening to him.

(Could killing monsters in that afterlife earn me spirit, essence, or something else? And after I absorbed it, did the essence of my soul grow stronger too? Spirit, energy, and essence are all connected, so if my soul grew stronger, it would naturally affect my body to some extent—for instance, by strengthening my connection to it and making me more aware of it. If so...)

(If my soul gets strong enough, could I wake up from this vegetative state!?)

The thought made Lu Yuanming incredibly excited.

During the six months he'd been in a vegetative state, he'd heard the doctors and his parents talking many times. He'd gathered that he might never wake up again. Of course, he might get lucky and wake up in a few months or within a year. But if he was unlucky, remaining in a vegetative state for the rest of his life was the most likely outcome.

He didn't want that!

To waste away in this darkness, never see the world again, and never be able to care for his parents... No family, friends, classmates—nothing...

He couldn't accept it!!

And now, he'd seen a chance to wake up. Even if that chance was tiny, even if the dangers were immense, he wanted to try!

(Every time I travel to another world, I have to wait seventy-two hours before I can return. Based on what happened last time, I should return to the same place I returned from before. If nothing has changed, then I should end up back in that hollow. More than ten days will have passed, so all those monsters should have left by now.)

(So I should hide in the Abandoned Building as much as possible and search for information about that afterlife. I should wait until it's almost been seventy-two hours before exploring a wider area. If I run into a monster or face some other danger, I'll have a chance to travel back and escape.)

Lu Yuanming thought through all sorts of possibilities. What if he ran into a monster the moment he arrived?

What if the monsters killed him instantly?

What if he encountered something even more terrifying, like Ju On or Sadako?

And when he traveled back, would he still be crippled? Both his legs were basically gone, and one of his arms was probably half-ruined!

All of it was possible!

But... but...

His parents, his sister, his friends, his classmates...

This imperfect, yet vivid world...

The Spring Festival, the family reunion...

That was his home...

On the day Lu Yuanming heard his parents say they would take him home, hoping he could spend the Spring Festival with the family, he charged toward the only light in the darkness.

When Lu Yuanming came to, he was lying unharmed on a concrete floor, and beneath his feet, a rotting monster's corpse still blocked the entrance to the hollow.