Chapter 1: Rules
In this sea as dark as ink, countless vessels were drifting.
Small wooden boats for single passengers,
Or ferries carrying multiple people,
Occasionally, large ships with hundreds of people could be seen,
However, regardless of which vessel they were on, all the people were in a state of confusion,
Their memories were slowly being swept away by the sea, no one knew where they would ultimately go, no one knew they had already died.
Yet,
In this sea that should lead to the realm of death, a lighthouse appeared, half-hidden in the mist.
The light from its top happened to fall on a wooden boat,
The light guided,
The wooden boat, carrying a young man, approached the lighthouse.
As the increasingly intense light shone, the black eyeballs embedded in the young man's face slowly faded and became more lively.
Gradually feeling the burning sensation from the light,
When the wooden boat approached a certain distance, scorching patterns pierced through the skull. It carried a voice, as if calling from the world of the living.
Buzz!
No longer was it the pitch-black sea before his eyes,
Instead, it was replaced by an old wooden table full of wrinkles,
The young man, slowly opening his eyes, found his pupils directly facing an old-style kerosene lamp at the upper right corner of the wooden table,
The flame burning within it coincidentally overlapped with the lighthouse in his consciousness.
Moreover,
Beneath his arms pillowing his head, there was a rough paper texture, corresponding to a yellowed paper with messy handwriting.
A water cup was placed on the left side of the desk, with strange-smelling transparent liquid remaining inside.
Seeing such an unfamiliar scene,
The young man's first thought was neither fear nor curiosity... but a thought that unconsciously emerged, which was extremely important to him:
"My thesis!"
The last segment of memory in his brain was pulling an all-nighter in the lab revising his graduation thesis.
At the same time,
The end of this memory was accompanied by severe chest pain and blurred consciousness,
Thinking of this, the young man realized the problem.
"Did I die from overwork?"
Examining his own hands,
The yellowed palms were covered with numerous wear marks, there were many calluses on the fingers, and the fingernails were filled with dirty stuff similar to soil,
The young man recognized at a glance that these were certainly not the old companions that had accompanied him through decades of being single.
"I... I've transmigrated?"
The young man's name was Yi Chen, a poor graduate student majoring in chemical engineering.
Fond of reading various novels and playing games in his daily life, he immediately associated with a key word - [Transmigration].
Upon reaching this conclusion,
There was no anxiety, no panic,
Instead, he showed an extremely relieved expression, and even his whole body relaxed... because the feeling of not having to write a thesis, not having to worry about review and subsequent defense was really too good.
Having come out of an orphanage, he had experienced 24 years of single life and didn't have much attachment to his original world.
However,
This relaxation didn't last long,
The putrid smell floating in the air made his nerves tense up again.
"I need to figure out the current situation as soon as possible..."
Yi Chen shook his head and stood up to survey this wooden cabin of no more than forty square meters.
To the left of the desk,
There was a single wooden plank bed tightly against the wall.
Obvious mold stains could be seen at the foot of the bed, which had a lot to do with the humidity in the wooden cabin,
Furthermore,
The entire wooden cabin had no window design.
The only connection to the outside world was a heavy gray iron door, tightly fitted into the door frame.
The old gray paint, with an extremely rough and bumpy texture, had probably been applied forty or fifty years ago.
The key to the iron door was hanging on Yi Chen's belt.
And on the wall beside the door, an old-fashioned landline telephone was installed.
In Yi Chen's memory, he had only seen this type of telephone in the orphanage during his childhood... it had been completely phased out in the later era when smartphones became prevalent.
The rubber-coated telephone wire extended upwards, piercing through the roof to connect to the outside world.
Another thing worth mentioning is that,
The entire wooden cabin had no light source, the only lighting device was the portable kerosene lamp on the wooden table.
Such a simple, sealed wooden cabin design, plus the rotten smell in the air, made Yi Chen think of something ominous - [Coffin].
It was as if he was sealed in a coffin-like wooden cabin,
Returning to the wooden table,
Due to the lack of a phone or mirror, he couldn't examine his own appearance,
Roughly feeling his face with his hand, apart from some unclean stubble, the overall features felt quite good, seemingly even more handsome than his original self.
Judging from the roughness of the skin, the age should not exceed thirty.
Next came the exploration of detailed information,
His gaze returned to the initial wooden table, focusing on the [letter] left on it.
"English? Is this abroad?"
Yi Chen brought out his usual standard of reading papers, quickly scanning through it,
The first word of the first line was written with the unsettling term - [die]
As he read deeper, the words on the letter crawled into his body like maggots, making him feel uncomfortable all over.
≮I'm going to die, I'm sure I'll die.
But at least, I still have the right to choose how I die.
Thinking carefully, there seems to be nothing worth lingering for in this world, the only one I've let down is Dean Fran, I messed up the first job I got after leaving the orphanage.
I'm always so careless, I made mistakes like this in the orphanage too.
The third rule in the manual... even though I review it every day, I still made a mistake.
There's nothing much to say, I just hope whoever sees this letter can forgive my cowardice and incompetence, I really don't dare to face the [consequences] of my mistake.
If possible, please burn my corpse.
Whatever you do, don't bury me here!≯
"A suicide note?"
Yi Chen grabbed the water cup from the corner of the wooden table, smelling the remaining liquid inside.
He could now fully determine the basic situation of the original owner of this body.
"This guy's childhood was also spent in an orphanage? Because of similar experiences, similar appearance and physique, as well as the overlap of death, I just happened to transmigrate into his body?
Knowing he would die, so he chose to commit suicide by poisoning?
Just because of not following some rule, he had to pay the price of death? What kind of place is this?"
The in-depth analysis made Yi Chen smell the unease and crisis permeating the air,
While also pondering his own 'predicament'.
"Since I've transmigrated over, naturally I'll have to deal with this [mess]... This guy didn't even write more useful information in his suicide note.
After making a mistake, what danger will there be exactly?
Will assassins from some organization come to eliminate me? Or will some strange thing come knocking?"
Thinking of this, Yi Chen once again looked around.
Even though the entire wooden cabin was sealed tight like a coffin, there was still no sense of security.
"Calm down~ I've already died once, there's nothing to be afraid of.
First, let's find the [manual] mentioned in the suicide note, see what exactly this guy did wrong, and what his job was."
Opening the drawer of the wooden table,
A parchment map and a special manual with black fur binding were inside.
According to the map,
This place was a [cemetery]
The wooden cabin was in the center,
Surrounded by graveyards numbered 1-6 in a clockwise direction,
Additionally, at the corner of the map, there was a strange graveyard No. 7, completely separated, requiring passing through a hundred-meter-long path to reach.
"This is a cemetery? Is this guy's identity a gravedigger? No wonder there's a faint smell of decay even inside the wooden cabin."
Yi Chen then picked up the manual containing important information.
[Employee Manual (Easton Town - Cemetery)]
The first page detailed the work schedule arrangement,
The gravedigger needs to patrol the corresponding numbered graveyards at fixed time periods, for example:
The patrol time for graveyard No. 1 is 7:00-9:30.
The patrol time for graveyard No. 2 is 1:00-3:00.
And so on
Additionally,
Graveyard No. 7 has no patrol time and doesn't need patrolling, it's a special area.
The timetable was barely normal.
When Yi Chen turned to the second page of the manual, his expression immediately became serious.
Right at the start were red letters marked with asterisks,
*Please read carefully and memorize each of the following cemetery rules. Failure to comply with or any mistake in any one of them will bring disaster, and you will pay a price beyond death.*
Ⅰ.[Strictly patrol each graveyard according to the timetable, the start and end time error should be less than one minute]
Ⅱ.[When patrolling graveyard No. 2, ensure that the cross tombstone is not inverted, or has items similar to goat skulls hanging on it.
If the above situations occur, you must restore the tombstone and remove the miscellaneous items within the patrol time.]
Ⅲ.[When patrolling graveyard No. 4, ensure that the number and order of tombstones remain consistent with the original.
If there are abnormalities in number or order, you must remove the extra graves or rearrange the disordered tombstones during the patrol period.]
*For easy memorization, the appendix of the manual contains a miniature map of the original layout of graveyard No. 4.
Ⅳ.[Before carrying out the patrol task of graveyard No. 5, make sure there is no sound inside.
Once any form of strange sound is heard, the patrol time should be postponed by one hour. If there are still sounds coming out after one hour, report the information to the manager.]
Ⅴ.[If new corpses are found at the cemetery gate, carefully check the corpse transport vehicle to ensure the correct 'organization mark' is printed on the bottom.
If the mark is correct, transport the corpse to the entrance of the corresponding graveyard according to the number engraved on the surface of the corpse, and the corpse will be buried by itself.
If no mark is found, or the mark is incorrect, please send the corpse transport vehicle and the corpse on it to graveyard No. 7 during daytime hours.]
*See appendix for details of the organization mark.
Ⅵ.[Other graveyards only need basic inspection to ensure that the graves have not been damaged and there is no abnormal activity.]
Ⅶ.[During non-patrol periods, stay in the safe house as much as possible to reduce the possibility of accidents.]
Ⅷ.[If there is a mistake in work leading to the descent of disaster, the organization is willing to give a chance for survival.
Pry open the floorboards under the bed, take the self-defense tool, and handle and solve the problem.]
(End of Chapter)