Afterlife Account

Digital afterlife runs on monthly subscriptions, and the dead who cannot pay are deleted for good — a second death, this time from the server farm. Liang Cheng has spent seven years collecting on behalf of the dead, talking a hundred families into renewing for relatives who no longer breathe. On Monday morning a new work order appears: Zhou Sufen, 217 days in arrears, queued for terminal deletion. Zhou Sufen is his mother. The executor of record: himself. Complete.