Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Afterlife
Is there really an Underworld or a realm of ghosts after death, and are there truly a Hell or a Heaven?
Is there a world after death?
This has been a perennial mystery since humans began to ponder their existence.
Because once dead, one is truly dead, and no one can come back to life to solve this riddle.
So, humanity created religions and various conjectures about the world after death.
But in the end, these are all just conjectures.
At this moment, Lu Yuanming knew for certain that, damn it, there really were souls after death, and damn it, there really was an Underworld!
Falling from an infinite height, when Lu Yuanming came to his senses, he found himself atop the rooftop of a dilapidated building. This was an extremely bizarre occurrence. From the moment he could think, he felt that he had been falling for at least several minutes. From such a height, even an alloy body would be smashed to pieces, yet he, merely flesh and blood, was unscathed, which left him utterly perplexed and could only be attributed to the odd rules of the world of the dead.
Upon landing, Lu Yuanming immediately rolled over and began feeling his body and head.
His head, which had been smashed by a TV, was now perfectly intact, and there was no pain or injury on his body, which was also intact. He hadn't turned into any skeleton, zombie, or ghost. If it weren't for the fact that he had distinctly witnessed his physical death, he might have thought that everything that had happened before was an illusion.
"...I'm dead!? I just died!?"
While Lu Yuanming was astounded, touching his current body, a scream arose not far away—a lavishly dressed... man was screaming at the top of his lungs.
Only then did Lu Yuanming notice that apart from himself, there were three other people on the roof: a black man and two white men. The black man was dressed in a tattered leather jacket, looking like a vagabond by his attire, while one of the white men was dressed flamboyantly—not so much like a drag queen as in bizarre garments, likely a sexual minority from Beili Country. The other white man was wearing a police uniform, seeming tall and sturdy, but his face was fierce, with thick folds that made him look quite ferocious.
These were all the people on the rooftop. The flamboyantly dressed man who had screamed was still howling, while the white policeman watched the sky in silence. He pulled out a handgun, inspected it carefully, and then approached the flamboyant man and kicked him, sending him crashing to the ground like a dog chomping on grass.
"Shut up, damn it, oh God, I'm already seeing ghosts, gone to Hell, and I still have to deal with you guys!" the white policeman said with a tone that was almost one of despair.
The flamboyant man fell to the ground and only after a good while managed to turn himself over. Lu Yuanming was surprised to see him bleeding; it was indeed strange. The man bellowed, "This is gender discrimination, this is gender oppression, this is gender fascism! I'm going to sue you!"
The white policeman rolled his eyes, dragged the flamboyant man over, and pointed at the sky, "Get it clear, we're dead, dead! Now we're all in Hell, or some godforsaken afterlife world. Go find Hades or whatever to sue me!" During the rant, the white policeman slapped the flamboyant man several times.
The flamboyant man was stunned by the beating, and only after staring at the huge vortex in the sky for a long time did he cry out, "Mom, my Winnie, I'm dead, I'm really dead..."
The white policeman sighed, let go of the flamboyant man, and then looked toward Lu Yuanming and the black vagabond. After looking at the two, he sighed again, "I should be the one raging in despair. A junkie, a n**ger... Forget it, it's still better than this thing. So, what are you guys thinking now?"
Before Lu Yuanming could speak, the black vagabond sneered, "N**ger? If not for being dead, do you think just that word would get you ostracized anywhere... But now, we're all ghosts indeed."
The Caucasian shrugged his shoulders, then looked towards Lu Yuanming again. Lu Yuanming didn't know what he looked like at the moment, whether it was his original soul or the appearance after crossing over. However, when he heard the Caucasian policeman mention "junkie," he guessed it must be his appearance after crossing over. At that time, he said, "I died due to supernatural forces. What about you?"
The African American nodded and said, "I was killed by some sort of monster in the subway station."
The Caucasian policeman, however, hesitated. After several seconds, he sighed, "A month ago... those creatures started appearing a month ago. At first, no one believed it; we all thought it was a joke. But their numbers grew and grew, and more people died. Some even said they saw the afterlife world underground... I died in a shootout, but I was killed by an ax. That creature had no head and was over six meters tall. Heaven knows what it was..."
The Caucasian policeman's face showed an expression of pain, while the African American homeless man was indifferent.
After all, they were already dead. The fact that there was actually a world after death, where they still had thoughts and bodies, was good enough for them, at least better than being in a fiery hell or a world full of monsters. The African American homeless man had nothing to hold onto in life; to him, life and death were no different.
But this Caucasian policeman obviously had relatives in New York, possibly parents, a wife, and children, along with many other ties. His sudden death had severed these bonds, causing him immense pain.
While the three were talking, the flamboyant man suddenly walked to the edge of the building. He turned back and shrieked at Lu Yuanming and the others, "You sexist pigs, I will not forgive you, I won't!"
After shouting, he actually jumped off the rooftop of a building that was at least thirty to forty stories high.
The three of them were shocked. They ran to the edge of the rooftop and looked down, only to see a puddle of gore. The flamboyant man's body was completely smashed, no longer resembling a human form. A grotesque flower of flesh and blood had blossomed on the ground beneath the rooftop. He was truly dead beyond all doubt.
The three were horrified as they looked down, then they turned to look at each other. After a while, Lu Yuanming was the first to speak, "It seems that dying again in the afterworld means truly dying?"
The faces of the African American homeless man and the Caucasian policeman both turned pale.
This was actually a result of their mindset.
They had fallen from a vortex, a sheer drop of at least tens of thousands of meters, maybe even more than a hundred thousand meters. They survived such a fall unscathed, so they naturally thought they were now immune to falling injuries. That was probably why the flamboyant man jumped, but who knew that he would actually be smashed to death? It seemed the vortex was unique, not their immunity to the fall.
The Caucasian policeman was about to say something when suddenly, his pupils shrank in fear, and not just his, but also those of the African American homeless man and Lu Yuanming.
On the ground of the building, more than a dozen creatures resembling massive dogs, but whose heads, necks, shoulders, and forelimbs were eerily human-like, surrounded the macabre remains. These anthropoid canine creatures, compared to the bloody remains below, appeared to be three to four meters in length, looking ferocious and terrifying as they circled and tore at the flesh, even attacking one another in a fight for the spoils.
Monsters existed in the afterlife world!!
The Caucasian policeman, the African American homeless man, and Lu Yuanming were all dumbfounded, at a loss for words and thoughts.
Just then, one of the creature-faced dogs looked up, seemingly spotting Lu Yuanming and the others. The monsters began howling, a sound that was not a canine's howl but more like the frenzied screams and chaotic ranting of humans, hysterical roars filled with terror and ghastly cries.
Suddenly, the three of them watched in horror as the anthropoid canines started to scale the building, climbing up the exterior walls and heading their way!
The monsters were coming to eat them!
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone