One tap deletes three monsters like they're tutorial mobs. Another tap is "free." By the time Lu Jin realizes how hooked he is, the app drops a harsher truth—his cloud-raised girl is also on a ticking gene-time bomb.
The payment chime was as crisp as a coin landing in a porcelain dish.
In the cramped rental apartment, Lu Jin's finger was still pressed against the screen, knuckle white from the force.
On the display, three carrion bone hounds had already lunged in front of Li Xing. Their rancid drool dripped down, splattering beside her bloodless cheek.
"Blow the bastards up," he hissed through clenched teeth.
Wasteland, Sector A-11.
The air tore open without warning.
No angelic chorus. No ritual chanting. Three meters above Li Xing's head, reality itself split into a thin, golden crack, as if someone had grabbed the texture of the world and ripped it apart.
A fist-sized silver-white metal sphere dropped out of the tear, wrapped in streams of golden light. It slammed straight down onto the lead hound's snout.
Thud.
The impact sounded like a sledgehammer hitting wet stone. The hound's charge stalled for a fraction of a second.
It snorted, confused, and lowered its head to sniff the strange object. The sphere's surface gleamed like a mirror, flawless and cold. On one side, a neat line of tiny letters was stamped in a foreign script:
[Made in Shenzhen · Industrial Sonic Repulsor (Export Model)]
The tiny red indicator on top flicked from red to green.
Then the world screamed.
A sound no normal ear could catch—ultra-high frequency, pure pressure—erupted from the sphere. The wasteland itself seemed to flinch.
The lead hound's bloodshot eyes bulged. Its whole head jerked once, and then its skull buckled under invisible force, cracking like a ceramic pot under a hammer. Its body was flung sideways and crashed into the rubble, landing limp and silent.
The two behind it didn't even get a chance to howl.
The invisible shockwave slammed through their skulls mid-leap. Their bodies spasmed violently, legs jerking, and then they dropped like sacks of sand, hit the ground, twitched once or twice, and went still.
From start to finish, it took less than three seconds.
Only Li Xing—sitting in the blast zone, arms wrapped around her knees—remained untouched. The kind of sonic assault that could pulverize rock skimmed around her like a polite breeze, merely ruffling the bloody strands of hair sticking to her forehead.
Silence crashed down.
Only the wind keened through the ruins, and the silver sphere sizzled softly, shedding thin wisps of black smoke as its circuits burned out.
Reality.
Watching the feed on his screen, Lu Jin's shoulders finally sagged.
That scene had been straight out of a B-grade horror flick—monsters charging, heads cracking, bodies falling. His back was soaked in cold sweat.
He wiped his forehead and let out a shaky breath, lips curling into a crooked smirk.
"¥198…" he muttered. "In this shitty city that doesn't even buy you a decent hotpot. Over there it's a full-on divine smite."
The absurdity of it made something in his chest want to laugh. The lingering ache there shut the laughter down halfway.
On-screen, the silver sphere spat one last puff of smoke and died.
Right on cue, the blood-pressure-raising rainbow pop-up plastered itself across his vision again, accompanied by obnoxiously cheerful fanfare.
[Decisive Victory! Congratulations, O Savior, for eliminating all threats!][Battle Rating: S (Observed subject is completely unharmed!)]
Lu Jin reached for the [Close] button.
The background suddenly went from celebratory gold to icy, pulsing red.
[Warning! High-concentration blood scent detected!][Environment Analysis: Numerous "Carrion Ghouls" roam the ruins of Sector A-11. Fresh hound blood is their favorite beacon in the dark.][Your cloud-raised daughter is in a severely weakened state. Movement Speed: 0.5 m/s. Estimated ghoul arrival time: 5 minutes.]
Another panel slid in underneath.
[Bundle Sale · Limited-Time Synergy Offer][Item: High-Potency Scent Blocker (Military Spray Model)][Effect: Breaks down blood scent and releases "apex predator" intimidation pheromones. Creates a temporary kill-free zone within 100 meters.][Original Price: ¥500.00][Current Price: ¥288.00][Note: During newbie protection, the first use of this item type will be covered by the system.]
"You greedy sons of—!"
Lu Jin finally snapped. He grabbed a throw pillow and slammed it into the wall.
"¥198 for three seconds of noise, and now you want ¥288 for a can of air? This isn't rescue, it's a scam chain!"
His chest heaved. The taste of iron rose at the back of his throat again.
This was the worst kind of trap.
The system designers knew exactly what they were doing. They'd nailed his psychology down to the decimal—sunk cost, guilt, desperation.
He'd already paid. He'd already saved her once. If he stopped now, everything he'd spent would be pointless. She'd still die, just a little later, and all his money would be buying was regret.
On the screen, Li Xing was struggling to get up. Her injured leg buckled and dumped her back into the muddy mix of blood and dust. Panic flickered across her face.
She could smell the blood too. She knew what it meant.
Lu Jin locked onto her eyes—the fear in them, the way they mirrored the fear he'd seen in his own reflection countless times.
His own desire to live stared back at him from that ruined world.
"…Two hundred and eighty-eight," he muttered.
His thumb hovered over the [Pay] button. One second. Two—
A tiny line of text slid into the lower corner of the screen, almost the same color as the background.
He almost missed it.
[Detected: Host has completed "First Top-Up" and "First Battle Victory" achievements. For this defense, the item cost will be covered in full by the system.][Actual Charge for this transaction: ¥0.00]
"Tch. Playing the good guy now?"
Lu Jin let out a cold laugh.
"Get people used to spending first, then make sure they can't quit, right?"
In the end, he still hit [Confirm].
[Item drop in progress…]
Wasteland.
The stench of blood was a physical thing, clawing up Li Xing's nose and down her throat.
She knew what it meant.
That smell was a written invitation to everything that hunted by night—a stamped, signed letter addressed: Fresh Meat Here.
She tried to crawl away, but the sonic blast, painless as it had been, had left her limbs trembling and weak.
"So this is it…"
Her fingers dug into the dirt.
At that moment, the air above her shimmered again.
This time, there was no thunder, no blinding light. A slim metal spray can simply popped into existence and dropped beside her, hissing softly as it landed.
With a muted pfft, a cloud of pale blue mist burst from the nozzle.
The mist moved like it was alive.
It rolled out in a wave, smearing over the three dead hounds, curling around Li Xing's body, seeping into every crack in the rubble.
The miracle was instant.
The thick, coppery stench of blood vanished the moment it touched the blue haze, erased like chalk wiped from a board. In its place rose a faint, cold pressure—an aura that made the hair on Li Xing's arms stand up.
That wasn't the smell of prey.
It was the scent of something that sat at the top of the food chain.
In the shadows among the broken walls, a few restless shapes froze.
They sniffed the air again.
Their bodies shuddered. Low, frightened whines leaked out of their throats. One by one, they tucked their tails and slunk back into the darkness, then broke into full-on panicked runs in the opposite direction.
The ruins fell quiet again.
Li Xing could only stare.
First, thunder from the heavens had blown apart the beasts.
Now, sacred mist had descended to drive away the carrion.
That wasn't luck.
Her fingers trembled as she reached for the scorched metal sphere, now cracked and blackened. The leftover heat burned her fingertips enough to make her flinch—but she didn't pull back.
In a world abandoned by gods, choked with radiation and monsters, something was still looking at her.
Protecting her.
"…Great Listener?" she whispered.
The title slipped out of her cracked lips, the name she'd rehearsed a hundred times in the dark, for the one who might someday hear her.
No one answered.
But she didn't feel let down.
Why would a god respond to every mortal call? The fact that he'd lowered his gaze at all was more grace than she'd ever thought she'd receive.
Li Xing forced herself upright, pain slicing through her leg. She knelt in the blood-stained mud, both knees digging into the ground. Facing the empty air—the invisible direction that gaze came from—she bowed her head.
She didn't dare touch the spray can still humming with blue light.
Instead, she lowered her dust-and-blood-smeared forehead into the shadow cast by the ruined silver sphere.
It was a posture of complete surrender. Of absolute dependence.
Then, softly, she began to hum.
It wasn't any song that existed in the old world. No words, just a simple melody. Something she had cobbled together in a metal cage in a frozen lab to fend off fear when she was younger.
At first the sound was thin, dry, a little off-key.
But as her emotions poured into it—gratitude, relief, fragile happiness—it smoothed out, turning clear and weightless. Each note was like a small, polished stone dropped into unseen water, sending ripples somewhere just out of sight.
It was her joy at having survived.It was all the thanks she didn't have the language to express.
Reality.
Lu Jin had just slumped back on the sofa, letting his breath even out, when the status bar at the bottom of the screen detonated in light.
This time, it wasn't a trickle of golden motes.
A river of gold burst from the corner of the feed, overflowing the screen and slamming straight into his chest.
[Extreme gratitude detected.]["Holy Echo" resonance detected.][Conversion rate critical boost: 500%.][Holy Resonance Energy gained: 5 points.]
"—gh!"
Lu Jin's head snapped back. A muffled growl tore out of his throat.
The feedback this time was insane.
If the first Holy Resonance he'd earned was a narrow stream, this was a flash flood.
The warmth rampaged through his veins, seared along every brittle capillary, thundered through each cell that had been slowly giving up on him.
It hurt.
Not the dull, rotting pain of his illness, but the raw ache of something knitting back together.
He could feel it—right down to his bones.
The gnawing agony in his spine, the constant chewing on his nerves, was wiped clean stroke by stroke. The awful pulling in his lungs, like breathing through a torn bellows, smoothed out, replaced by deep, easy breaths that didn't scrape.
This—
This was what living felt like.
Lu Jin lay there, drenched in sweat, chest heaving. His shirt clung to his back, soaked through. He lifted his hand.
The skin of his palm was still pale, but underneath, a faint flush of color pulsed.
Panels filled the air.
[Life Countdown Recalibrated: +12 hours][Current Remaining Lifespan: 89 days 14 hours][Spinal pain index reduced: 50%]
He stared at the numbers. Light burned in his eyes, bright and sharp, edged with something close to madness.
"Twelve hours…"
He'd just traded the theoretical value of over two hundred yuan for half a day of life—and one brief moment of breathing like a normal person.
Worth it?
More than worth it.
To someone dying of thirst, a sip of water is priceless.
Lu Jin exhaled slowly and pushed himself upright. His limbs felt strangely light; the absence of pain was disorienting.
Then the hunger hit.
His stomach twisted, growling loud enough to make him flinch.
He grabbed his phone and, by sheer habit, opened the food delivery app. His thumb hovered over a familiar icon—a high-rated Japanese place he used to love, back when he was just a broke student and not a walking corpse.
Unagi rice bowl. ¥128 a serving.
He wanted it. He wanted to celebrate—celebrate the extra half day, celebrate the fact that he'd found a crack in the wall the world had built around him.
But right before he could hit [Pay], his gaze slid up to the top of the screen.
¥7489.00.
That was all he had.
How many sonic bombs could that buy? How many cans of miracle spray? What if next time the monsters were stronger and the price tags were higher?
His thumb froze above the confirm button.
A beat passed.
He closed the restaurant page. Closed the app.
Walked to the cramped kitchenette and pulled out a pack of instant braised beef noodles.
Boiling water. Three minutes.
For "celebration," he added half a sausage. Luxury.
Back on the sofa, he cradled the steaming bowl. The glow of the screen lit his face.
On it, Li Xing had curled up in a corner where the blue mist had faded. She hugged the ruined metal sphere like a child clinging to a stuffed toy. For the first time since he'd seen her, she was sleeping without a frown, completely unguarded.
He slurped a mouthful of noodles. The hot steam stung his eyes.
"God in the game, refugee in real life," he muttered around a bite of half-cooked sausage.
He lifted his fork and clinked it against the air like a toast.
"Kind of on brand for this world."
He tipped the bowl to drink the last of the broth—
And Deep Space Echo shoved another window into his face.
No confetti this time. No smiling mascots. Just a line of blood-red text.
[Warning: Deep scan complete.][Observed subject "Li Xing" currently stable on the surface. However, gene-level "irreversible collapse" is in progress.][Cause: As a bioengineered weapon, her gene sequence has inherent defects. Ordinary food and trauma medication cannot repair the core damage.][Without intervention, predicted collapse time: 72 hours.][Note: Treatment protocols require large amounts of Holy Resonance Energy or purchase of S-grade Gene Repair Serum (store not yet unlocked).]
His hand jerked.
A drop of noodle broth splashed onto the back of his hand, searing hot.
"…Gene collapse?"
The words crawled across his vision, overlapping for a moment with his own electronic diagnosis.
Different names.
Same verdict.
She was defective too.
Just like him—a piece of flawed merchandise stamped "unqualified" and tossed onto the scrap heap by the world.
Lu Jin set the empty bowl aside. He took a tissue and wiped his mouth, slow and precise, even as his eyes sharpened to a predator's focus.
"Trying to die on me, huh?"
He stared at the sleeping girl on the screen, voice low and cold.
"After I've already spent this much on you, nobody—not even the King of Hell—gets to drag you off without my say-so."
He pulled up his balance again. ¥7489 stared back at him.
Not enough. Not even close.
If he wanted to live—and if he wanted her to live too—this wouldn't cut it.
He was going to need more money.
A lot more.
"Fine," he said softly.
"If I have to live like a pay-to-win whale, I'll be the kind that bites back."
Whatever it took—he'd find a way to get the cash.
By any means necessary.
[Glossary Update]
Industrial Sonic Repulsor – A one-time-use sonic bomb dropped by Deep Space Echo. Emits ultra-high-frequency sound waves that shatter monster skulls while sparing the protected target.
High-Potency Scent Blocker – Military-grade spray that erases blood scent and projects the pheromonal "presence" of an apex predator to drive lesser creatures away.
Listener – The reverent title Li Xing gives to the unseen entity watching over her—Lu Jin, though she doesn't know his name.