Because when you die, you’re really dead—no one can come back after death to answer this riddle.

So humanity created religion, and all sorts of speculations about the world after death.

But in the end, all of this is just speculation.

At this moment, however, William Clark knew that when people die, there really is a damn soul, and there really is a damn underworld!

Falling from an infinite height, when William Clark came to his senses, he found himself on the rooftop of a ruined building. This was truly bizarre. From the moment William Clark could start thinking, he felt he had been falling for at least several minutes. Falling from such a height, even a body made of alloy would be smashed to pieces, yet his mere flesh and blood body was completely unharmed. He couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard he thought, and could only chalk it up to the strange rules of the world of the dead.

As soon as he landed, William Clark immediately rolled over and began feeling his body and head.

The head that had been smashed by the TV was now perfectly restored, and his body was uninjured and pain-free—completely intact, not turned into a skeleton, zombie, or ghost. If he hadn’t clearly witnessed his own physical death earlier, he might have thought it was all just an illusion.

“?? I’m dead!? I just died!?”

Just as William Clark was anxiously feeling his current body, a shrill scream rang out. Not far away, a flamboyantly dressed... man was shouting at the top of his lungs.

Only then did William Clark notice that besides himself, there were three other people on the rooftop: a Black man and two white men. The Black man was wearing a tattered leather jacket—judging by his appearance, probably a homeless person. Of the two white men, one was flamboyantly dressed; rather than looking like a drag queen, he was more like someone in bizarre clothing—probably a sexual minority from America. The remaining white man was wearing a police uniform, tall and burly, but with a face full of rough features, looking quite fierce.

That was everyone on the rooftop. The flamboyant man who had just screamed was still howling, while the white police officer silently looked up at the sky. He pulled out a handgun and carefully inspected it, then walked over to the flamboyant man and kicked him, sending him sprawling face-first.

“Shut up, damn it. God, I’ve already seen ghosts and gone to hell, and I still have to deal with you people!” the white police officer said in a tone bordering on despair.

The flamboyant man fell to the ground and only managed to get up after a long while. William Clark actually saw him bleeding, which was truly strange. The flamboyant man then shouted loudly, “That’s gender discrimination! That’s gender oppression! That’s gender fascism! I’m going to sue you!”

The white police officer rolled his eyes, grabbed the flamboyant man, and pointed at the sky. “Get this straight—we’re dead, dead! Now we’re in hell, or whatever kind of afterlife this is. Go find Hades or whoever to sue me!” As he spoke, the white police officer slapped the flamboyant man several times.

The flamboyant man was stunned by the beating, staring blankly at the gigantic vortex in the sky. After a long time, he suddenly wailed, “Mom, my Winnie, I’m dead, I’m really dead…”

The white police officer sighed and let go of the flamboyant man, then looked at William Clark and the Black homeless man. After glancing at them, he sighed again and said, “I should be the one screaming in despair—a junkie, a n****r… whatever, still better than that thing. So, do you two have any thoughts?”

Before William Clark could speak, the Black homeless man sneered, “N****r? If we weren’t dead, do you know that just saying that would get you kicked out of anywhere… But now, we’re all ghosts.”

The white man shrugged, then looked at William Clark again. William Clark didn’t know what he looked like now—whether it was his original soul or the body he’d crossed into. But since the white police officer called him a junkie, it was probably the latter. So he said, “I died from supernatural forces. What about you guys?”

The Black man nodded. “I was killed by some kind of monster in the subway station. No idea what it was.”

The white police officer hesitated for a moment, then sighed after a few seconds. “A month ago… those things started appearing a month ago. At first, no one believed it—we all thought it was a joke. But their numbers kept growing, more and more people died, and some even said they saw the afterlife underground… I died in a shootout, but was actually killed by an axe. The monster had no head, was over six meters tall—God knows what it was…”

A look of pain appeared on the white police officer’s face, while the Black homeless man seemed indifferent.

After all, they were already dead, and it turned out there really was a world after death. They still had minds and bodies, which was good enough—at least it wasn’t a fiery hell or a world full of monsters. The Black homeless man had no attachments, so life or death made little difference to him.

But the white police officer clearly had family in New York—maybe parents, maybe a wife and kids, and many other ties. Now that he was dead, separated from them by life and death, it was unbearably painful for him.