Empty Grave and Apology

The noise was deafening, and the faces of the clergy were grave, as if some momentous disaster had occurred.

Surrounded in the center were Li Wei's three roommates; one of the boys answered the question with a trembling voice.

"We, we went to the cemetery to sweep the graves. While cleaning the headstones, we noticed some of the soil was quite fresh. I tripped, and after climbing back up, I realized that one corner of a coffin—which should have been buried deep underground—was exposed."

"Other people from the church who came to pay their respects saw the exposed coffin too. They, they discovered right away that the coffin was damaged, and there was nothing inside! La-later, they all realized the soil on their own relatives' graves looked wrong. Some people dug them up directly; the coffins inside had been moved, and then, then those coffins were empty too."

The boy stuttered through the account, and the entire church hall fell into a heavy silence.

The priests and nannies looked at one another, clearly unable to comprehend why the graves were empty, but they all understood the impact this would have on Yuguang once the news spread!

Since the church had overseen the construction of this cemetery, almost every corpse in Yuguang had been buried here—the parents, wives, husbands, and children of countless people.

Now that only a few graves had been found empty, what would happen when everyone else returned to open their coffins for verification? If all tens of thousands of graves in the cemetery were empty, how could they possibly answer to these people?

The clergy members all realized this, and none of them could bear the weight of such a situation.

"We must inform the Sun Bishop immediately! We need to find out as soon as possible exactly how many graves in the cemetery are empty!"

A priest hurried away, and no one paid any more attention to the three boys. The other nannies and priests, knowing a major crisis was imminent, rushed off to make preparations.

Li Wei sat on a bench watching this scene, his eyes narrowing.

This matter seemed to have nothing to do with him or Feng Zi, but in a game, would the plot team ever arrange for players to encounter completely useless events?

He was highly skeptical of that.

Just after the lunch break, exactly as the priests had feared, news of the empty graves spread throughout the entire Labor District.

Many elderly people unable to work and laborers resting for the day flooded into the cemetery behind the church.

This was a public space, usually managed and maintained by the Twilight priests, and anyone with relatives buried here could visit at any time.

Almost everyone who arrived carried a shovel. The news of the empty coffins had spread, and no one still at home could sit still!

Because of the Twilight Project, the people in this world cared deeply about the afterlife; they were extremely wary of bodily disfigurement and terrified of their remains being left to rot in the wilderness.

Unable to resist the hardships they suffered while alive, they naturally clung to the belief that they would live a good life after death.

The incident alarmed the entire church, and normal work became impossible for the rest of the afternoon.

Even the choir stopped their scheduled training. They came to the church's backyard, watching as hundreds and thousands of people climbed the hill to dig up their relatives' coffins.

No one could stop them, and no one dared to try.

Li Wei glanced around and noticed that Nanny Cheng, who usually supervised them, was nowhere to be found.

Under the excavation of the laborers, hundreds of graves were opened. The coffins were pried open in public, and without exception, every single one was empty!

This discovery caused an absolute uproar!

It was now nearly certain: the bodies in every grave in the church cemetery had been stolen!

No one suspected the coffins had been empty at the time of burial, as these people had watched with their own eyes when their relatives' bodies were placed inside and the coffins were lowered.

Once it was confirmed that all ten thousand graves in the cemetery were empty, a barrage of questions followed.

"Who could possibly dig up the entire cemetery right under the church's nose!"

A laborer shouted the challenge at the priests.

His question silenced the chaotic scene. Every eye turned toward the clergy, waiting for an answer.

But neither the priests nor the nannies had any response; they were completely at a loss.

No one knew who could have the capability to steal these bodies right under the church's watch!

And what was the point of stealing these laborers' corpses?

The church had always tried to dispel the rumors, claiming that whether a human body was disfigured or unburied did not affect the composition or life of the human form within the Twilight Project.

But such denials had little effect. In the minds of the laborers, who were largely uneducated and lacked understanding, they believed that to become a "newly created person" in the Twilight, they had to maintain the integrity of their current physical bodies.

As time passed, the sky gradually darkened. The whistle of a train echoed from afar, and the laborers who had worked all day in the Barrier Field District returned to their homes as night fell.

This meant that even more people learned of the cemetery incident and swarmed to the hill behind the church!

Soon, tens of thousands had gathered. Laborers from over forty districts near Yuguang had practically torn the entire cemetery apart; every coffin had been dug up, and all were empty!

Such a major event naturally alarmed the nominal government of Yuguang, the Labor Union, and even Tian Yuan, the Police Department chief stationed there for the case involving Li Wei and Feng Zi, arrived with all his officers.

Though the status of laborers was lowly, they were the lifeblood of the Sun!

If these people rioted, how would the true citizens of Yaoguang live? How could the councilors sit securely in their seats? Who would earn the wealth for the great factory owners?

When Tian Yuan arrived at the church, his expression was grim to the point of ugliness.

The investigation into Feng Zi's case had yielded absolutely nothing for days; it was as if the two of them had evaporated into thin air after fleeing from the Border Market into Yuguang.

Now, with the laborers on the verge of a riot over the cemetery, he had to handle it!

With over ten thousand laborers gathered, the situation was becoming uncontrollable. Tian Yuan ordered his officers to act decisively, and they all fired their guns into the air.

Only when the gunshots rang out did the chaotic scene quiet down, driven by the laborers' fear of firearms.

At that moment, the Sun Bishop—a man in his twilight years who had personally overseen the construction of the church cemetery and held immense prestige in the Council, Yaoguang, and Yuguang—was pushed forward in his wheelchair to face the masses.

When the wheelchair came to a stop and ten thousand pairs of eyes fixed upon him, he struggled to climb out of the chair with great difficulty, his frail, decaying body suddenly kneeling before all the lowly laborers!

"Regardless of the cause, this is the church's responsibility. As the Sun Bishop, I owe you all an apology."