Lin Yue has never been afraid of being alone.

At twenty-four, he has already lived through more than most people ever will—not in grand, tragic ways, but in quiet, suffocating ones. Growing up as an orphan passed between cold institutions and indifferent guardians, he learned early that attachment leads to pain. By adulthood, he lives a detached, monotonous life, working night shifts and avoiding unnecessary human connections. To him, living is simply continuing.

Everything changes on a rain-soaked night when he returns to his apartment. The hallway feels wrong—too long, too silent. Then, a voice calls his name from behind. Calmly, without hesitation, Lin Yue ignores it and keeps walking. That single decision triggers something unseen.

When he reaches his door, the number has changed to “404.”

The moment he steps inside, reality fractures.

Lin Yue is pulled into a game called the Flow, a system of endless horror instances where players must survive deadly scenarios governed by obscure and shifting rules. Failure means erasure. Survival means being dragged into the next nightmare. Unlike other players, Lin Yue adapts quickly, relying on observation, emotional detachment, and his ability to remain calm under pressure.

But something is wrong.

Despite breaking rules and defying logic, Lin Yue is never punished by the System. Instead, he is marked—singled out by an unknown force. His actions begin to distort the behavior of instances, as if the world itself cannot fully process him.

That is when he notices him.

Gu Yanchen, known as the Arbiter, is a being feared by all players—an enforcer of the System who exists to maintain order and eliminate anomalies. Cold, precise, and seemingly inhuman, he should have killed Lin Yue the moment he deviated from the rules.

Yet he doesn’t.

Instead, Gu Yanchen watches.

As their paths intertwine, Lin Yue is forced to confront something more terrifying than death—connection. Gu Yanchen, who should be nothing more than a mechanism of judgment, begins to act with intention, even obsession.

Faced with this impossible choice, the Arbiter hesitates—for the first time. That hesitation fractures the system itself. Rules collapse, instances distort, and the Flow begins to unravel.

In a world where everything is designed to erase humanity…
What happens when two people refuse to let go?

“The System wants me dead. But its Arbiter won’t allow it.”

The grin did not fade. It stayed fixed, a jagged, impossible tear across a face that was now a distorted mirror of Li Qiang's own. The eyes were too wide, the pupils slightly mismatched in size, and the corners of the mouth were pulled back so far that the skin seemed to be humming with the tension of a breaking string.


For three seconds, the hall was a vacuum. No one breathed. The only sound was the distant, rhythmic drip of something wet hitting the floorboards.


There was no warning. No shift in posture, no telegraphed tension. One moment, the mourner stood frozen, Li Qiang's handprint still invisible on its sleeve, its face wearing that stretched, impossible grin.


Chapter 37 - Chapter 37: Paper for the Dead