Chapter 1 Burning Paper Money for Oneself

After the burning, blackish-gray embers churned in the airflow, and the white candlelight emitted a faint glow, flickering like the eyes of some kind of creature.

It was eleven o'clock at night. In this cemetery, aside from the scattered tombstones and the pale light of the streetlamps, there was only this faint firelight and a woman in her early twenties.

She wore a loose printed T-shirt on top, cycling shorts on the bottom, and gradient sneakers on her feet; her entire outfit consisted of just three items, yet she managed to pull off a style that looked like it divided her body into three distinct segments.

To her left was a small tricycle piled high with pots, pans, bowls, and clothes; to her right were dozens of empty cardboard boxes. She held the last one in her arms, which still contained half a box of paper money and a half-eaten apple.

Not many people bought plots in this cemetery, and the distance between tombstones was quite far.

The tombstone in front of the young woman was still very new. On the granite material, there was only the owner's name and photo, without much of an epitaph, as if it had been hurriedly placed here in a rush to get it done.

And that was indeed the case.

Lin Xiangjun ignored the unburnt fragments of paper money below and expressionlessly threw another stack of underworld currency into the brazier.

The airflow swirled the embers, letting them settle into the grooves of the inscription.

Tomb of Lin Xiangjun.

The girl in the photo stared back at Lin Xiangjun. Two identical faces, in the silent cemetery, were quiet and ominous.

Finally, the last stack of underworld currency was burned clean, and a ripple of emotion finally appeared on the expressionless girl's face.

"Damn it, I've been burning this for three days. My legs are as stiff as sticks."

She stood up grumbling, packed away the folding stool she had sat on for three days, and stretched, her joints popping and cracking.

The quiet and ominous atmosphere of the cemetery was broken. The young woman counted "one, two, three, four; two, two, three, four" while doing the 'Colorful Sunshine' calisthenics to stretch her muscles, muttering complaints all the while. From time to time, she reached out to pick away the eye crust accumulated from not washing her face for three days and the paper ash that had blown onto her face.

Exhausting.

Lin Xiangjun had arrived in this world three days ago, and on July 15th—which was tomorrow morning at eight o'clock—this world would be completely covered by Rule-Based Weird Tales.

The identity she had transmigrated into was a minor character in the original instance world. Her only purpose was to be possessed by a ghost when the female lead entered the instance, turning into the hidden big BOSS lurking in the team, only to be killed in one strike by the male lead who had noticed her long ago.

...Shit.

She had no choice but to grumble while selling off all the assets left to her by the original host's parents to buy a large amount of funeral supplies and a cemetery plot.

Yes, all the money was spent on these paper things. Lin Xiangjun now had only thirty cents left on her entire person, not even enough to buy a pack of spicy strips.

If the weird world didn't arrive tomorrow, she would have to find a job that provided room and board immediately, or she would starve to death.

While doing her radio calisthenics, Lin Xiangjun stared blankly at the flickering fire in the brazier.

Looking at it this way, it was better for the weirdness to descend; at least she had made ample preparations.

According to the book, the weird entities liked underworld currency. Only underworld currency burned for oneself before July 15th could be circulated; any physical currency burned for oneself or kept unburned after that would not be recognized.

However, underworld currency wasn't the most important thing; the most important things were the daily necessities and paper figures burned in advance.

paper figures could bring back precious items, and these daily necessities burned in advance would not be contaminated. These two types of things were treasures that couldn't be bought with any amount of underworld currency after the apocalypse.

So she had bought a massive amount of underworld currency and various odds and ends for herself, hauling dozens of cartloads back and forth from seven or eight funeral supply shops. She had lit three braziers simultaneously just to barely keep up with the burning. She had burned so much over the past two days that she suspected she had contributed to the smog these past two mornings.

But entering an unfamiliar world so abruptly, this was the only life-saving method she knew. How could she dare to be careless?

She wasn't like the novel's female lead, who was born with Yin-Yang eyes and some Taoist magic, able to pull out talismans and fight head-on whenever things got uncertain.

These items were her life-saving charms.

Lin Xiangjun's thoughts wandered.

Following the instructions in the book, she first lit two white candles, folded red paper into a memorial tablet, wrote her birth dates and name, lit the brazier, threw in yellow paper also inscribed with her name and birth dates to burn completely, and kowtowed three times. When the white candlelight turned blue, the ritual was complete.

After that, it was endless burning.

The burning left her in a trance, and she almost fell asleep leaning against the tombstone several times. She had forced herself to drink two large cans of coffee over the past two days just to hold out until now.

She looked at the tombstone in front of her, her lips barely pulling into a stiff arc—she hadn't made many expressions for days, and her face was frozen.

This cemetery plot would be her safe house for a long time to come. Without it, Lin Xiangjun would have to live in a residential complex, which wasn't as safe as a cemetery. She would have to enter a unified rent instance right at the start, and after passing it, she would have to pay rent every month—regardless of whether you bought or rented the house.

Can't pay the rent? You'd be a meal for the weirdness the next second.

Fortunately, everything was going smoothly so far. She had settled her basic living issues; next, she would have to face the 'Novice Instance' and random instances that descended at irregular intervals.

Don't ask why she had to keep entering instances even with money. If she didn't upgrade her strength, no matter how rich she was, she would just be an exceptionally wealthy buffet for the gradually strengthening weirdness.

Lin Xiangjun was certainly unwilling to be that.

After finishing the third round of radio calisthenics and loosening up her limbs, Lin Xiangjun patted her head, which was abnormally hyper after staying up for so long, and let out a yawn.

She turned on her phone, the screen's light reflecting on her pale, corpse-like face caused by lack of sleep.

Eleven twenty-three.

After eight o'clock tomorrow morning, the weird world would descend, and humans would be pulled into instances one after another within twenty-four hours.

She set an alarm for seven-fifty tomorrow morning.

She couldn't wake up exactly at eight, or she wouldn't have any preparation time at all.

"The ghosts are coming in eight hours and thirty-seven minutes," she murmured, her vacant gaze falling back onto the tombstone in front of her.

The girl in the photo stared at her expressionlessly.

Lin Xiangjun's brain, which hadn't slept for four days due to the busy paper-burning, was like a rusty mechanism. She struggled to try and think, but the stiff mechanism lacked lubrication; forcing it to start would only lead to a breakdown.

Lin Xiangjun's eyes suddenly lit up.

Clearly, her nerves were already a bit abnormal.

Otherwise, she wouldn't have jumped through 'Colorful Sunshine' three times before going to sleep just now.

Lin Xiangjun did a sliding kneel, thumping down in front of her own tombstone, and began to wail at the top of her lungs:

"Namo Amitabha! Great Merciful and Compassionate Guanyin Bodhisattva! Infinite Merit Celestial Worthy! Patriarch Bodhi! Please bless me to draw a few more items! This child is begging you! This child will burn paper for you! Amen!!!"

She hugged her own tombstone, wailing heart-wrenchingly with her raspy voice.

After the weird tales descended, the underworld currency burned before death would be returned in full to one's personal account.

Odds and ends like houses, clothes, and jewelry would also appear in the form of Tribute Cards.

There was only one exception.

And that was the paper figures.

In folklore, there are always many taboos regarding things that are very similar to humans themselves, the most famous being that one must not dot the eyes of a paper figure.

On this point, the weird world and the human world had reached a consensus.

paper figures were also very special existences in the weird world.

Burned paper figures had a chance of bringing back different weird items for their masters. Unlike the paper figures that occasionally brought back trash items after the weirdness descended, the ones burned for oneself before the descent mostly brought back powerful items, and the probability of bringing back an item was very high.

Lin Xiangjun had burned a total of six hundred and eighty-three paper figures.

This was all the stock she could find after scouring the entire county. paper figures weren't like underworld currency; according to the customs near the original host's home, a funeral only needed two paper figures, so the demand wasn't high. Even with an expedited order, she only managed to buy this many in the end.

Even for the unluckiest person, throwing in this many paper figures would definitely yield quite a few items. She only remained skeptical about whether the items could be called "powerful."

She still remembered a poor soul in the book who, after the weirdness descended, was tricked into buying a paper figure that supposedly had a high probability of bringing back a powerful item, only to almost die of anger on the spot after using it.

That paper figure did indeed bring an item, but that item was complete junk. The item's effect was to give someone a head of dark, thick, beautiful hair, but the price was that the hair would grow all over their face, directly disfiguring them.

Please bring me some useful items.

She thought this before falling into a deep sleep.