...
Nathan Road was bustling with traffic. One after another, the missing Hong Kong residents appeared at the intersection, some looking utterly dazed, some ecstatic, and others with completely lifeless eyes.
No one could see clearly how they had appeared.
It was as if, in the blink of an eye, they had returned to reality from an alternate dimension.
A driver pushed open his car door, got out, and pointed at a man in a crumpled suit, cursing loudly:
“Are you crazy?! Standing in the middle of the road, looking to die! If you want to die, don't drag others down with you!”
The man looked at the driver yelling at him, then at the surrounding cars, the people, the glowing sign of a milk tea shop by the roadside, and the flashing traffic lights.
“I'm back?”
He muttered to himself, his voice trembling. “I'm really back?!”
The man suddenly burst into laughter. Spreading his arms, he spun around in place like a madman.
“I'm back! I've returned to the living world! Hahaha! I'm not dead!”
He rushed forward and grabbed the arm of a nearby uncle who was watching the commotion, his strength surprisingly immense.
“Uncle! Is this Nathan Road? Is it 2026 right now? Tell me! Is it?!”
The uncle, in pain from the tight grip, broke free with a terrified expression. “Yes, yes! Are you okay? Did you really return from the underworld?!”
“Yes! Yes, really!” The man laughed hysterically, tears streaming down his face. “I got out! I got out of the underworld!”
The onlookers buzzed with chatter.
“What is he talking about? The underworld? Has he gone mad?”
“Where did these people come from? They look so strange.”
“Wait a minute... Look at his hair!”
Someone suddenly shouted.
Everyone's eyes focused on the man's hair.
His originally pitch-black short hair was turning white from the roots at a visible speed.
Bit by bit, like spreading frost, it went from his temples to the top of his head. In just over ten seconds, half of his temples had gone completely white.
At the same time, fine lines began to appear on his face, and his skin gradually sagged.
In just a brief moment, he seemed to have aged ten years all at once.
The man felt it too. He raised his hand to touch his hair, feeling the wrinkles on his skin, and froze for a moment.
“So... it was real... I stayed there for so long...”
The surroundings instantly fell dead silent.
Everyone stared with wide eyes at his half-white hair, a chill running down their spines.
The driver who had been cursing at him just now also subconsciously took two steps back, his face pale. “A g-ghost...”
“It's an Instance!”
“They all went into an Instance!”
Someone whispered.
The crowd instantly went into a commotion. Some shrank back, while others pulled out their phones to take photos, their fingers trembling.
“Did he really return from the underworld?”
“Is what he's saying true or false?! His hair turned white in an instant!”
“Hurry up, record it and post it online! This is too eerie!”
“Where are the police? Call the police quickly!”
“Entering an Instance shaves off your lifespan? I've never heard of that before!”
Amidst the chaotic noise, the wail of sirens approached from the distance.
A patrolling police car quickly arrived. Two Hong Kong patrol officers got out and were momentarily stunned by the scene, but they quickly recovered and stepped forward to restrain the man.
The man didn't resist either, obediently following them. He only looked back at the high-rise buildings along the street, his eyes filled with extreme complexity.
The crowd didn't disperse, lingering around the scene to point and gossip, their phone cameras continuously recording the man's departing back.
One onlooker watched the man being taken into the police car, then glanced at a gold paper coin that had landed near his feet. He quickly wrapped it in a tissue and threw it far away.
“Eerie... too eerie...”
...
Before the news from Nathan Road could even spread, missing persons who “returned out of thin air” appeared almost simultaneously in Central, Tsim Sha Tsui, Sham Shui Po, and other areas.
In front of Landmark in Central, during the peak lunch hour.
A woman wearing a shirt suddenly appeared on the steps right in front of the mall entrance.
Her eyes were sunken, her gaze fixed forward, and she was repeatedly muttering something under her breath.
The people around all looked over curiously.
In the next second, the woman suddenly shrieked:
“Hubby, son! Where are you?!”
She searched around frantically like a madwoman, her eyes bloodshot like a cornered beast.
“I'm back! Where are you?!”
The woman spotted a gold paper coin drifting on the ground. Her eyes lit up instantly, and she lunged forward to pick it up.
“Paper money! Yes! Paper money! If I pick it up, I can go back! I can see you! We'll be together forever!”
Her movements were too fast, carrying a sense of desperation, so much so that even the nearby security guards couldn't react in time.
But just as her fingertips were about to touch the paper coin, two security guards rushed over and grabbed her.
“Ma'am! What are you doing?!”
“You can't touch that! It's very dangerous!”
“Let me go! Let me go!”
The woman struggled desperately, her face filled with despair.
“I want to go back! My husband and son are still over there waiting for me to live with them! I have to go back and accompany them!”
“Let me go! I don't want to stay here! They aren't here!”
The woman cried heart-wrenchingly like a child, struggling to pick up the paper coin.
The onlookers were all dumbfounded.
“What is she saying? Her husband and son? Her family isn't here?”
“There was someone just like her on Nathan Road saying he returned from the underworld?! Is this really true...”
“I recognize her! Her husband had late-stage bone cancer, and her son died in a car crash... Oh, she must have seen ghosts in the Instance!”
“Really... is it that eerie?”
Everyone simultaneously raised their phones to record videos, whispering among themselves.
The woman struggled for a long time but couldn't break free. In the end, she collapsed to the ground, covering her face and weeping bitterly.
“I don't want to come back... I want to stay there with them...”
“We can meet even in death... but if I stay here, I'll never see them again...”
Her mournful, piercing cries made everyone feel a heavy weight in their chests.
The security guards stopped being harsh with her, merely holding her back while waiting for the police to arrive.
In the crowd of onlookers, some felt sympathy, some felt fear, and others fell into deep thought.
If one can really meet deceased relatives in the underworld...
Once this thought emerged, many people felt a stir in their hearts.
After all, who didn't have someone they longed to see but couldn't, separated by life and death?
...
At the same time, at the Tsim Sha Tsui Star Ferry Pier.
A young girl wearing a dress stumbled out from behind a pillar at the pier.
Holding onto the railing, she looked at the Star Ferries crossing the harbor and the night view of Hong Kong Island on the opposite shore. Her legs gave out, and she squatted onto the ground.
“Ugh... sob, sob...”
After crying for a long time, she finally shivered as she borrowed a phone from a passerby and tremblingly dialed her mother's number.
【...Hello? Sweetheart?! Is that my baby girl? Where did you go! You scared Mommy to death!】
After three seconds of silence on the other end, a tearful, tentative voice immediately came through.
“Mommy...” Hearing her voice, the girl cried even harder. “Mommy... I'm back... I'm okay... I missed you so much...”
“It's good that you're back! It's good that you're back! Where are you? Mommy will come pick you up!”
“I'm at the Star Ferry Pier...”
After hanging up, the girl continued to cry. Passersby gathered around, asking curiously yet with a sense of detachment about what she had experienced.
A lock of hair at the girl's temple had also turned white, but after she finished speaking—
The onlookers all shared the same expression: “...???”
What did she mean she ended up in the underworld?
What did she mean the underworld looked exactly like Hong Kong, and looking up, she could see reality?
What did she mean there was Black and White Impermanence in the underworld?
What did she mean she was captured by Black and White Impermanence and locked up by a dried-up riverbed to dig river silt for three days???
What did she mean Black and White Impermanence deducted five years of her lifespan???
The group of people was utterly dumbfounded, feeling as if they were listening to some fantasy or supernatural novel.
Even TVB wouldn't dare write a trashy drama like this, right?
...
The streets of Sham Shui Po were incredibly lively.
A young woman wearing a gray hoodie, looking to be in her early twenties, stood triumphantly in the middle of the sidewalk, surrounded by a circle of people.
She held a ceramic pillow in her hands. It was only about the size of a palm, celadon-colored, and painted with a chubby baby holding a carp, looking rather tacky.
“Watch closely!”
Clearing her throat, the young woman looked at the phone cameras around her with a smug expression. “Don't blink! I'm going to show you what a real treasure is!”
Saying this, she sat cross-legged on the ceramic pillow.
“Rise!”
Following her low shout, everyone's eyes widened.
—That palm-sized ceramic pillow actually began to float up slowly.
It hovered about a meter off the ground, wobbling slightly as it carried her forward for dozens of meters.
Though the flight was unstable and a bit crooked, it had indeed taken off!
It was actually flying.
“Whoa—!!”
Gasps of astonishment instantly erupted from the surroundings:
“It's... it's flying?!”
“Is this for real? A magic trick?”
“What magic trick! Go up and try it yourself! This is a real superpower!”
“What kind of treasure is this? Did she really bring it back from the underworld?”
Hearing the surrounding marvels, the girl grew even more smug. She controlled the pillow to float back, deliberately triggering another round of gasps—
“Let me tell you, this is called the Dream-Riding Pillow, a game item brought back from the underworld! Not only can it fly at low altitudes, but sitting on it can also ward off minor ghosts!”
“Not just this, I also have a protective talisman! Wear it, and you'll be invulnerable to blades and spears!”
The more she spoke, the more excited she became. She pulled out the talismans and small copper bells from her pockets, laying them out on the ground like a street vendor.
The crowd pressed forward, everyone eager to catch a glimpse of these novelties.
Someone reached out to touch it. “Pretty girl, is this pillow for sale? I'll give you a hundred thousand!”
“A hundred thousand?” The girl sneered, pocketing her talismans. “You want to buy my Dream-Riding Pillow for a hundred thousand? You're dreaming! Don't even talk to me for anything less than a million!”
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