I'm the mayor of a simulated ghost city

"When I first arrived, I didn't understand the rules and broke the taboos, which led to a disaster." Lu Ming recalled, the dead man's face full of regret.

This time, Lu Yao did not interrupt him and continued to listen to him. In just a moment, she seemed to see some scenes from the past.

As soon as Lu Ming reported to the factory, he met Fan Shichang. Although the girl's name was a bit harsh, she was actually a very gentle beauty. Lu Ming couldn't find the way, so he asked Fan Shichang for directions, but unexpectedly, Fan Shichang was slightly stunned, as if it was incredible that he was talking to her. After a long time, she finally showed him the way.

But I didn't expect that when I met her for the second time...

It was in the cafeteria, he was eating with a colleague, he greeted her, she didn't respond to him, and the strangest thing was, the colleague looked at him inexplicably and asked him: "Who are you talking to?"

Lu Ming pointed at Fan Shichang. At that time, he didn't know her name was Fan Shichang. He said, "It's that girl. She's from our factory, right?"

However, her colleague didn't seem to see her and left while yelling at Lu Ming: "What nonsense are you talking about? There's no one there?!"

Lu Ming was frightened by his colleague's words, and when he turned around, Fan Shichang had disappeared.

......

Afterwards, as the protagonist of a horror film who can destroy a factory, Lu Ming must have something that drives the plot that he cannot comment on, and that is his curiosity.

Although the non-existent Fan Shichang frightened him, he did not give up. Instead, he went to block Fan Shichang every time and asked him if he was a ghost whenever he saw him.

At first, Fan Shichang didn't intend to pay attention to him, but after repeating it over and over again, he got annoyed and finally started talking to him.

"You shouldn't talk to me. I don't exist." This was the second sentence Fan Shichang said besides helping him show the way.

Lu Ming was puzzled: "Why? Are you really a ghost?"

Lu Ming's question made Fan Shichang laugh, and he realized that it was the first time he saw her smile, so gentle and like a spring breeze. In that era of pure love, he fell in love with her, the girl with a big ponytail and a plaid skirt.

Fan Shichang smiled and said, "I'm not a ghost. I'll talk to you again when we have safely passed this year and next year becomes an odd number."

But after that, Lu Ming always followed Fan Shichang, went to Fan Shichang's home, and met Fan Shichang's honest father who worked the farmland. I don't know if it was Lu Ming's persistence that made Fan Shichang always unable to help talking to him.

After a while, the factory director found out about their affair and had no choice but to talk to Lu Ming. Only then did Lu Ming find out the truth about whether Fan Shichang was a human or a ghost.

The plant manager said, "In fact, our power plant had an accident when it was being built ten years ago. There was a worker who was very popular among the construction workers at the time. Unfortunately, he died in an accident. Because we couldn't bear to see him go, we pretended that he was still alive. We always prepared his bowls and chopsticks and kept his bed. But we didn't expect that when a reporter came to interview us, something went wrong..."

"The reporter took a photo of everyone and developed it. His figure appeared in the group photo. He stood with everyone else, with his back to the camera!"

----

When Lu Ming recalled this, Lu Yao got goose bumps all over his body.

Isn’t this the photo she saw on Tieba?

So he hurriedly asked Lu Ming: "Wait! So the photo you posted on the forum is of a dead co-worker?"

"No, that's a group photo of me and my colleagues. You didn't see Fan..." Lu Ming almost blurted out Fan Shichang's name. Perhaps he was led astray by Lu Yao. He hadn't mentioned this name for more than 20 years.

Fortunately, he stopped talking in time. Lu Ming changed his tone and said, "Didn't you see my girl is also on top?"

Lu Yao twitched his lips: "I don't know her, but there is indeed a beautiful girl in the photo." And... your girl, oh~ I'm afraid that others don't know~ I have goose bumps~

Lu Ming did not read her mind and continued: "I took the photo after I took her place, but I later realized that bad luck will not be an exception for anyone. You continue to listen to me..."

Having said that, Lu Ming continued his recollections.

Since they discovered that their dead co-worker had returned to life, everyone was not actually afraid at first.

But unexpectedly, since then, the surviving workers on the construction site have died one after another.

At first, everyone thought that the deceased worker was lonely, so he asked for the other people to accompany him. Then, they found a knowledgeable master to take a look and wanted to send the worker away, but the master said that it was not the worker's problem.

"It turns out that our factory was built on the original Caishikou, which is the intersection of yin and yang. The workers' behavior in commemorating the dead disrupted the yin and yang aura, causing confusion between the dead and the living. The dead thought they were not dead and mixed into the crowd. The dead's aura was too heavy, and the yin and yang were unbalanced, affecting the luck of the entire place. Misfortunes would ensue, and most people would die."

This is what the factory director said to Lu Ming, and then the factory director also mentioned to Lu Ming the method mentioned by the master: "If you want to avoid bad luck, you must balance yin and yang, that is, have someone act as the deceased, act as the non-existent person, and then it can be resolved."

At this point, Lu Ming understood. No wonder Fan Shichang was a living person, and he existed, but no one talked to him. Some even treated him as an invisible ghost. It turned out that she needed to act as a non-existent person to offset bad luck for others.

"But...but is it really effective?" Lu Ming felt that the master's statement was only one-sided. Of course, his mood at the time was nothing more than because he liked Fan Shichang, so he didn't want Fan Shichang to be treated like this.

However, the factory manager was very sure: "Yes, since we have people who replace the dead, there have been no accidents. In addition, we have concluded in the past ten years that not every year there will be real dead people sneaking into the factory. When the number of people in the factory is an odd number, there will be no extra dead people that year, and no misfortune will happen. But once it is an even number, it means there is an extra dead person who died suddenly before. That dead person will exist for one year, and two-thirds of the people will encounter misfortune during that year."

"Then why not just find the deceased?"

"That's easy to say." The factory director shook his head helplessly. "We once thought about finding the deceased and sending him back to where he belongs, but the scary thing is that due to the confusion of yin and yang, our memories are also confused. We can't tell who died before. In everyone's eyes, the 16 people in the factory are all alive. Even the dead one among the 16 doesn't even know that he is dead."

As soon as the factory director said this, Lu Ming suddenly understood. Thinking back, since he came to the factory, everyone he saw, including himself, was a living being. No one looked dead, and he didn't remember anyone dying accidentally. How could he find them?

But he was unwilling to let the gentle Fan Shichang replace the deceased. For a whole year, everyone treated her as if she didn't exist. That was unfair!

Although Fan Shichang volunteered to be the non-existent person, she could obviously make friends freely and laugh happily.

So, Lu Ming made a decision. He would replace Fan Shichang and become the non-existent person that year. It was this wrong decision that ruined the entire factory.