Chapter 89 89 Cemetery

Perhaps it is because after becoming ghosts, there has never been such a community gathering place where people can live like humans, and everything now is thanks to Tu Lanxun, so they work very hard to maintain this home.

The most terrible thing is that these ghosts usually live ordinary lives, but ghosts are ghosts after all, and human discipline is far away from them, so when they get angry, they are even more sinister.

If this continues, the life safety of the obsessed murderer may be more worrying than Tu Lanxun himself.

As a result, the convenience store became bustling with activity for a while, mainly because the police officers stationed at the nearby police station often came to buy food and toiletries. Wen Chong came less often, and only when he did, he would bring shocking news.

Wen Chong said, "Have you ever thought about officially developing this place into a ghost community?"

Tu Lanxun: "Is this something I can do?" She just wanted to make some money.

Wen Chong sat down. "Don't be nervous. This is a message from the relevant parties. They want to open a pilot ghost community."

Because it is impossible to eliminate ghosts, most of them are actually family members and friends of living people. Now there are more and more ghosts in the world and exposed to the living society. The coexistence of humans and ghosts has become a new secret policy.

If this can be done, Tu Lanxun's ghost convenience store will be able to exist openly, and the ghosts will no longer have to stay away from the occasional police officers.

Tu Lanxun is very excited.

But Wen Chong added, "For now, it's best to only accommodate ghosts that are real people transformed into ghosts, those with no history of harming anyone. While spooky beings and ghosts are physically the same entity, their social concepts and impacts are ultimately different."

To put it bluntly, we must first make good friends with ghosts, and then thoroughly study the weird things before embracing them. And we will inevitably have to eliminate a large number of weird things that have caused harm to the living.

Tu Lanxun said, "I understand."

Wen Chong remained seated and changed the subject, "We've got a clue about the strange incident at the new middle school campus that we talked about before."

"What clue?" Tu Lanxun's heart tightened.

Wen Chong glanced upstairs, half-consciously, and smiled. "The technical center has isolated a second frequency from the frequencies captured at the scene, and it doesn't match Nan Xishan. If we can prove that it was another entity that harmed people, perhaps the definition of Nan Xishan can be changed a little."

Tu Lanxun really wanted to just ask N about this, but N didn't know what was wrong with him and refused to say a word. He just let the hat be put on his head and acted like he was very wronged.

"Okay." Tu Lanxun said readily, "I'll study it."

Wen Chong glanced at him with a smile and said, "Report before leaving home and be careful about your own safety."

After sending Wenchong off, Tu Lanxun went straight upstairs and found N reading a book in a corner of the warehouse. He pulled him and said, "Are you done yet?"

N lowered his head, his voice a little muffled: "Don't disturb me."

What was going on with this tune filled with petty grievances and resentments? Tu Lanxun closed his eyes, silently repeating several times that he wanted peace instead of fighting. He leaned forward slightly, placed his hands on N's broad shoulders, and whispered quickly, "I...you..."

N didn't look up, but was clearly drawn to his attention. "What?"

Tu Lanxun took a deep breath and said loudly: "I trust you!"

N was still buried in his thoughts, mumbling, "What? I didn't hear you clearly, please say it again."

Tu Lanxun was so angry that he punched him and yelled, "I trust you, I trust you, I trust you! You didn't do those things! Except for the first time, you have been helping me since you showed up! You are me, you are my best friend, okay!"

N was pushed back by her, revealing the corners of his mouth that were tense and unwilling to rise. He just looked up at Tu Lanxun and said, "I am your best friend?"

Tu Lanxun choked, "That, that's because I don't have any friends!"

"Alright." N stood up with a strange look on his face, and said awkwardly, "Then I'll be your good friend reluctantly."

Tu Lanxun suddenly felt like an isolated elementary school student who met a classmate who was willing to extend a hand of friendship... childish feeling.

Next, let’s talk about N.

"Let me take you somewhere." N said, "Don't tell Wenchong."

Tu Lanxun hesitated for a moment, then gave him a look, "Why, you don't believe I can protect you? I'm a good fighter."

This was indeed true, so five minutes later, Tu Lanxun got into the silver-gray Jetta again. Since he didn't know the route, N drove this time.

They drove for a long time, turning many turns, until they left the urban silhouette of Lucheng behind them. Outside the car were trees, grass and sunset glow, and the silver-gray Jetta was speeding on the provincial road.

Tu Lanxun leaned against the car window and suddenly asked, "You are so rich, why do you always drive this old car?"

The Jetta is an old model, a flat, boxy sedan that is almost ready for scrapping given its age. You can hardly see this type of car on the streets these days.

N threw the silver chain to Tu Lanxun, and it landed on her legs. He said, "Because..."

He encountered a problem the first time he opened his heart. He paused for a moment, but then continued, "Because the teacher at the orphanage said that when she found me at the door, she saw the rear end of a silver-gray Jetta disappear around the corner."

"How old were you that year?" Tu Lanxun asked in a low voice.

N replied: "Less than one year old."

"Wait, weren't we talking about the development zone? Why are we starting from the beginning?"

"The development zone's affairs are my affairs." N's tone became cool and light, and he pulled the corner of his mouth, "Let's talk about good friends today."

He turned on the turn signal, changed to the fast lane, and lightly stepped on the accelerator to speed forward. "Later, I kept looking for them. The teacher at the orphanage said that as long as you are obedient and study hard, you will find a home. All the sensible children were adopted. So I studied very hard."

The mist from Tu Lanxun's breath hung on the glass. She looked at N and said, "You think that if you study well and behave well, your family will take you back home."

"Yes." N admitted frankly, but looked straight ahead, "People should always live a life of some value."

"But the internet says healthy children in orphanages are in high demand. Why haven't any families adopted you?" Tu Lanxun asked. N was very good-looking and, as a child, was absolutely the cutest kind of child. Plus, with good grades and a good academic record, he was every parent's dream child.

But he stayed in the orphanage until he was sixteen, then moved out to live on his own and receive management assistance from the community.

N suddenly laughed: "Because I'm very difficult. I've been tried for adoption more than once, but they all gave up."

How difficult is it specifically?

Tu Lanxun felt a little sympathy for those kind adoptive families, but felt more sympathetic towards N.

What child doesn't want a home? It's just that he is too precocious, but not mature enough and still childish. He is worried that after he leaves with his adoptive family, the family he belongs to will not be able to find him.

"You must have been very popular when you were in school." Just like what Ji Jingyan's neighbor said, N was pretty, well-mannered, and a top student. Maybe he was also a famous figure back then?

N stopped laughing and said, "Guess why I was beaten and sent to the emergency room before the college entrance examination?"

Could it be that he applied “difficult” to more people?

Tu Lanxun felt that he had left his brain in the convenience store.

"Then what?" Tu Lanxun quickly changed the subject. "After you joined the Tianguo Group, why did you stay there..."

"I have been working at Tianguo Group for eight years. In the first year, I was a training staff member at the lowest level who rotated around. In the third year, I started to handle business. In the fifth year, I was promoted to assistant to the chairman." N said.

He was probably only 23 years old that year, a college graduate, but he was already valued.

"Chairman Kris thought highly of me and promised to help me find my family. I spent most of my working life overseas, traveling to different countries. I didn't return to Lucheng until I was 26."

That was the year he died. So, he died just over half a year after returning.

Then his soul was extracted to the "Gray City Cave" and became the BOSS Doctor Nightingale. He spent six years there and went through countless reincarnations. It was not until the large-scale invasion of monsters this year that he returned to Earth with the monsters.

Now let's get to the point. Why does N frequently appear at the scene of strange crimes in the development zone?

Tu Lanxun asked this, and N replied: "I'm...looking for someone."

"who?"

"Some people in the gray cave." N said. Tu Lanxun thought of the wordless book he often read.

Tu Lanxun asked, "You have self-awareness in the game."

N nodded. "Yes, I did. But the others didn't. I don't know why. Even Mikhail was just a puppet in the game, and he only woke up after returning to Earth."

Tu Lanxun: "You went to those crime scenes just to find the people from the Gray City Cave... Weird? To prevent them from doing anything harmful?"

N shook his head this time. "No, they won't hurt anyone." A nostalgic expression crossed his face, his eyes darkening. "I don't need to go to the crime scene to find them. Going to the scene is to find the strange part that hurt people. I want to get the information I want from them."

It seems that N's relationship with that weird part is more like friends.

His strange hunting behavior caused him to be captured so frequently that people mistakenly believed he was the murderer.

It's like a clever and stupid black panther, sniffing the scent of jackals everywhere, but falling into the wolf trap.

Tu Lanxun was helpless, "You knew those strange and harmful information, why didn't you tell them?" If he told them, his innocence would be confirmed.

N was a little arrogant, and raised his neck. "I don't need anyone else to give me innocence. I'm already dead, and I just need to do my own thing."

Tu Lanxun wanted to hit him again, but because he was driving, she had to give up. She became sarcastic and imitated him, "Really? What did you say? I can't hear you clearly."

N glared at her.

The setting sun outside had already darkened into the color of coagulated blood, with golden light filling the sky, and the sky behind it gradually turning star-blue. The brightness inside the car was getting dimmer and dimmer, and Tu Lanxun and N were sitting in the same shadow.

He didn't seem to be driving towards any city, but was just speeding through the wilderness. When passing through a field, the car turned, and the tires rolled over the soil with a slight rebound, and they drove onto the dirt road.

When they finally stopped the car, Tu Lanxun and the other man found themselves in a wilderness filled with the scent of grass and trees. This was an undeveloped wasteland, with the grass and trees gradually withering due to the autumn frost and the cold wind blowing.

"What are you doing here?" Tu Lanxun asked alertly.

N opened the trunk, took out an engineer shovel, and went back to Yin Yang, "Plant good friends in the ground, and you will have many good friends next year."

The corner of Tu Lanxun's mouth twitched. Seeing N coming over with an engineer shovel, his elbow felt a little itchy.

N stepped over the blue-painted ox, twisted the second section of the engineer shovel's handle, looked around to determine the direction, poked the shovel head into the grass, stepped on it, swung the long handle and began to dig the soil.

He worked skillfully, shoveling one shovel after another. There was no other tool in the car except a set of wood pulp tableware that Mikhail said he would use for camping. Tu Lanxun had no interest in digging the soil with a paper spoon, so he found a small raised slope to lean against.

The scenery here is really nice, with a strong scent of grass and trees. The dense grass under my butt is fluffy and cool. It’s just that because it is late autumn, most of the grass left is old stems, which are a bit rough, but it is not easy for grass juice to overflow and stain my pants.

Tu Lanxun rested his hands comfortably on his head, leaned back, and gazed at the distant moon and sparse stars.

"What are you digging?" She adjusted her posture and tilted her head to look at N.

N had already created a pile of soil as high as his calf, threw the shovel aside, knelt on one knee to touch the bottom of the pit, and then picked up a box wrapped in plastic film and covered with mud.

He patted the dirt off it and blew on it gently. "Find this."

N walked towards Tu Lanxun with the box in hand. Seeing her sprawled out on the mound, his brow twitched. He handed the box to her, "Open it and take a look."

The cardboard box was quite heavy and contained a lot of things, including videotapes, photo albums, and several glass sealed tubes wrapped with tape, which contained small particles that looked like electronic components.

Tu Lanxun asked, "What is this?"

N sat cross-legged in front of her, "Evidence that can bring down Dong Yijian."

Tu Lanxun was a little surprised. "Did you collect these at the Tianguo Group?"

N sneered, "Of course."

He took the box back and fiddled with the contents. It had been so long that even the tape inside had lost its stickiness. "After I died, they kept looking for these, but couldn't find them. Because no one could imagine it was buried here."

Tu Lanxun shifted his posture on the slope and asked, "Is this place special?"

It is indeed difficult to find something buried in the wilderness, but N's tone revealed something strange.

N stared at her for two seconds, watching Tu Lanxun roll over on the slope like a rolling pony. Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore and asked, "Can you come down?"

Tu Lanxun was puzzled: "Why? Are you worried that I'll be cold?"

N was so angry that he laughed and walked over directly. He didn't step on the small mound, but crossed his arms and looked at Tu Lanxun, raised his head and nodded, "You are sitting on my grave."

Tu Lanxun:?

She jumped up as if she had been electrocuted, and without even having time to brush the dirt off her butt, she looked back at the mound. It looked like any random gentle slope in the wilderness, without any abrupt features.

Tu Lanxun felt cold all over, "Are you buried down there?"

N showed no emotion, still staring at the thick layer of soil. "Yes. My body went unclaimed, and it was eventually taken away by the Kingdom of Heaven Group. They gave the urn to two thugs working downstairs, and told them to take it and bury it far away."

Tu Lanxun asked again, "Then why is this box of evidence also here?"

N said, "Mikhail did it."

Mikhail was the doctor who participated in N's rescue that year, but anyone with a discerning eye could see that N was already brain dead when he was sent to the hospital.

"Later, Mikhail witnessed the soul extraction operation. Deshi Hospital was originally going to train him, but he refused to cooperate and was eventually eliminated. Between my soul being extracted and being put into the game, I was kept in Deshi's storage room."

"That fool Mikhail came to see me once, and I asked him to bury the things here."

Tu Lanxun wondered, "Do you know where your ashes are buried?"

N said, "I know. When they performed the surgery, I wasn't completely dead yet, so my soul was still inside my body, making it easier to extract. But once I became a ghost, I had a strong connection with the corpse."

He looked up at the night sky, his eyes filled with confusion and reminiscence. "Heavenly Kingdom Group conducted soul tests on its employees. We didn't know the reason at the time. I was the one with the highest soul strength."

Tu Lanxun wanted to comfort him by saying that he was born with the talent to be a ghost, but after thinking about it, he decided not to.

N also said: "Maybe it's just that I have a bad fate. I was so hard that I killed myself. No wonder they didn't want me."

Tu Lanxun bent down and gathered the grass-covered slope with her hands to make it look more beautiful. She thought that N was buried underneath.

There was a ghost N standing next to her, and a real living N under her feet. It was a wonderful feeling.

Tu Lanxun asked, "Why are you taking it out now?"

N said, "Because it's useless if we bring it out too early. This evidence is only semi-finished. It will only be effective if it is combined with other evidence and investigations."

After talking about the Tianguo Group for a long time, Tu Lanxun felt very depressed, so he changed the subject to a happier one: "I'll buy you a piece of land for your grave!"

N gave him a questioning look.

Tu Lanxun thought for a moment and said, "We should buy a good cemetery, the kind where he can lie down comfortably. He should be buried properly. If he's buried in the wilderness now, what if a groundhog digs it up? That would be so pitiful."

"Lucheng doesn't produce groundhogs. And when you ask me to cook every day, you don't feel sorry for me." N sneered and emphasized seriously: "The gift mattress I'm sleeping on now is very comfortable, thank you."

The proposal was strongly rejected. N took the things and walked towards the car. Tu Lanxun looked back every three steps, trying hard to remember the location of this place, secretly resolving to find an opportunity to dig up N's grave.

Then give him a proper burial plot.

There must be a tombstone to place offerings on. It should be a high-quality marble tombstone with the three words "Nanxishan" engraved on it in bold. The person who erected the tombstone wrote... my good friend Tu Lanxun.

Tu Lanxun was moved by himself: We met by chance, even if you were still alive standing in front of me, I would have been erecting a monument for you.

She jumped in the car, and N was the one driving the return trip because Tu Lanxun said he couldn't find the way. N sighed, "Didn't we check the way here?"

Tu Lanxun immediately retorted: "Look outside, it's pitch black, what can you see clearly? It's a place I often go to, and the scenery is completely different during the day and at night."

N: …

The two men returned at night, and the box was held on Tu Lanxun's legs. He had to keep it under his eyelids, as someone had lost his life for it.

She wanted to doze off, and just as she leaned back, she heard N twisting the radio button, and a burst of music floated out. It was a song whose name she couldn't remember, with a very melodious and reverberating tune. A female voice hummed wordlessly, which reminded people of images such as wilderness, late night and dawn.

Tu Lanxun suddenly asked, "Did you find it in the end?"

N said: "I found it. I found it myself and called the phone number."

Tu Lanxun opened his eyelids a little and glanced at him, "Did they say anything?"

“I don’t know.” N said, “I didn’t have time to listen.”

Tu Lanxun opened his eyes completely and asked, "What do you mean I didn't have time to listen?"

N's face was split in half by moonlight and shadow, like a mask. He said, "Because the moment I got through, I had a car accident."

Then, the tampered seat belt suddenly broke, and N was thrown out of the car window. A voice answering the call came from the headset. The other party said something, or maybe nothing.

He lay face down in the increasingly heavy rain, the accumulated water gradually covering half of his face. He stared at the empty water curtain. There was no one in front or behind him, and no rescue or witnesses.

And then exhausted in such a rain.

Tu Lanxun was a little dazed by this news and asked woodenly, "You returned to Earth eight months ago, and didn't you go looking for him again?"

N didn't answer this question because they drove home.

There was a black Magotan parked in front of the convenience store. It was Li Ao's car. He was standing outside smoking, his back swaying in the warm light, as if he was waiting for someone.

The silver-gray Jetta slowly stopped at the corner of the street. Tu Lanxun jumped out of the car, turned to the driver's seat and waved at him, "Officer Li, Officer Li!"

They returned to the convenience store. Tu Lanxun's scent of autumn leaves and cold dew was even stronger than Li Ao's. He asked, "Where did you go? So late at night."

Tu Lanxun said, "I went out for a walk." N next to her gave her a look, and she handed the box to Li Ao, "Take this. Inside is Dong Yijian's evidence."

Li Ao took it, a little surprised, "Where did you get it from?"

Tu Lanxun said, "A ghost friend asked me to give it to you. By the way, what brings you to me so late at night?"

Li Ao said, "Something's going on. We've found the middleman who posted the bounty on the dark web."

He was said to be a middleman, in other words, a broker who hired assassins on behalf of Dong Yijian and others.

He said, "After he was arrested, that guy confessed a lot of things, but one of the most important pieces of information was the information about the individual who had entrusted him to post the bounty."

Tu Lanxun was not stupid enough to ask how the criminal was caught, but she was very interested in the information about the owner. Li Ao did not keep her in suspense and directly handed her a folder.

Zhu Hong, male, 36 years old, was once a network security engineer for an Internet company. He was imprisoned for stealing commercial secrets and illegally attacking commercial networks and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Li Ao added: "After being released from prison, this man fled to a small town and joined a group of self-proclaimed righteous hackers. They specialized in attacking corporate and personal computer firewalls, committing fraud and extortion. They also worked part-time as a data theft and trafficking operation, affecting the social reputation and work lives of many people."

Tu Lanxun asked, "Does he work for Dong Yijian?"

Li Ao said, "I guess so. After Dong Yijian was put under surveillance, he's been on the run. We only recently found a clue about him. He passed your reward information around a few times before having a poster on the forum post it."

Tu Lanxun sighed deeply. These people really were haunting.

Li Ao took a sip of hot water, cleared his throat, and continued, "And we believe his decision to offer a reward for his life was entirely personal, not based on orders from anyone. This person has received favors from the Tianguo Group, and his social contacts have also stated that Zhu Hong has a somewhat extreme personality, often taking extreme actions that sacrifice greater integrity for small favors."

"Have they been caught now?" Tu Lanxun asked.

Li Ao nodded. "Since this is a cross-provincial case, the specific results won't be known until tomorrow, but his whereabouts have been tracked. I'm not in a position to reveal more. This time, in addition to telling you this good news to reassure you, I also have a mission for you."

Tu Lanxun refilled their water bottles and asked, "What's the mission? You're not asking me to capture Zhu Hong, are you?"

Li Ao shook his head. "During our investigation into Zhu Hong, we discovered that a small underground hacker group associated with him might be connected to a recent celebrity illness."

Celebrity illness cases?

Tu Lanxun remembered that she had heard Computer Ghost and Mikhail gossip this morning about a male actor who was an idol singer and suddenly had a hysterical attack during his birthday fan meeting.