Chapter 111: Shuangxi Town (5) Night Parade

Ghosts in the game cannot know about the existence of the Eerie Game; being able to state this phrase calmly was enough to serve as proof of identity.

Shang Qingbei breathed a sigh of relief and turned his head to look at Xier, who was lying beside him.

Earlier, to avoid the clearly more dangerous Qi Si, he had retreated back onto the bed. Now, he was only half a meter away from the ghost Xier had turned into. His nose could even faintly catch a damp, foul odor, like the decaying scent emitted by moldy wood.

The ghost in the red bridal gown lay quietly on the narrow wooden bed, staring foolishly at the patterns on the sheets, seemingly without much interest in harming players.

Shang Qingbei tentatively reached out his hand and waved it in front of Xier’s eyes.

Though cautious and thorough, he was by no means timid; otherwise, he wouldn’t have passed the test of the Novice Pool to become an official player.

After discovering that Xier remained motionless and unresponsive, he pulled a ballpoint pen from his English dictionary and reached over to poke the female ghost’s face.

Xier shrank back slightly, her mouth muttering a new line: “It hurts, Xier hurts so much…”

“Judging by the feel, she has a physical form, probably something like a zombie.” Shang Qingbei stuffed the ballpoint pen back into the dictionary, rolled off the bed, and retreated a few steps to the door.

Xier’s entire body emitted a damp, foul odor, like the decaying scent of moldy wood, which made him feel disgusted.

“You must have triggered a special event.” Qi Si bypassed Shang Qingbei and stood in the space between the beds.

“The strategy posts on the Forum say that there are fewer death points on the first day of an instance, and most of what you see and hear are clues related to the world-building. For veteran players, the general process is to gather as much information as possible while it’s relatively safe.”

He lied through his teeth without batting an eye, projecting the aura of a big shot who had been immersed in the Eerie Game for a long time.

Shang Qingbei nodded as if receiving instruction, but he still remained by the door, refusing to step forward even half a pace.

No one’s words could be fully trusted. Those two pokes with the ballpoint pen were already the extent of his benevolence. In the short term, whoever wanted to court death could go ahead; regardless, he didn’t plan on putting in any more effort.

“Xier, do you recognize us?” Qi Si stared down at Xier’s corpse on the bed for a moment, then suddenly leaned down and asked softly.

It was unclear if the corpse understood, as it only tilted its face up without saying a word.

The face was startlingly white, coated in thick powder, with lips painted a blood-like red. It showed no characteristics belonging to the entity known as ‘Xier’ at all, appearing as monotonous as a Paper Effigy.

At this moment, her lips trembled as she spat out blurred words: “Save me… save me…”

A cry for help again? A cry for help identical to Xu Wen’s?

Qi Si’s eyebrows twitched slightly. Just as he was about to ask more, the red shadow lying on the bed flickered. Like a candle flame blown by the wind, it wavered and dimmed. In just two breaths, it scattered into a mass of blood-colored mist, seeping into the floorboards and disappearing.

“You didn’t even explain the cause and effect. Even if I wanted to save you, I wouldn’t know where to start…” Qi Si sighed with compassion and looked back at Shang Qingbei, who was flipping through his dictionary by the moonlight. “Little Qing, did you just say she has a physical form?”

What kind of ghostly nickname is that? Why does it sound so much like a snake spirit?

Shang Qingbei’s mouth twitched as he replied, “She did just now, but now she’s suddenly gone. Is there something wrong with the question you asked?”

Qi Si remained noncommittal, walked over to Shang Qingbei, and patted his shoulder. “Worried about the Gaokao?”

“No one wouldn’t be worried.” Speaking of a familiar field, Shang Qingbei opened up. “After all, it’s an important exam that can change one’s fate and elevate one’s social class.”

“I’m not the kind of bad student for whom it makes no difference whether they take it or not. If I could raise my English to above average, I could easily get into a Top 100 university in the Federation…”

“I can tell your English is indeed very poor.” Qi Si pushed open the door and walked into the courtyard, the night chill giving him a layer of goosebumps.

He turned back, his gaze kind. “You’ve been memorizing for so long, and you’re still on the first page.”

“I was reviewing…” Shang Qingbei’s expression stiffened, and he unconsciously followed. “I originally planned to use my senior year to cram English; I’d even signed up for the prep classes. Who knew I’d suddenly be pulled into this game…”

The two had already reached the center of the courtyard.

A vast white mist curled and billowed in the air, blurring the outlines of the white-walled, black-tiled buildings, unfolding like a hazy ink wash painting.

The western half of the ground was covered in tattered red debris. Faded ‘Double Happiness’ characters and red silk ribbons hung crookedly. On the east side, only a few white paper coins were scattered sporadically.

Qi Si walked on the clean spots and said in a conversational tone, “Little Qing, actually, I think that in your current situation, there’s absolutely no need to worry about the Gaokao…”

Shang Qingbei followed behind, ears perked up.

He thought he would hear encouragement and comfort like ‘your grades are already quite good’ or ‘don’t be too hard on yourself.’ To his surprise, the young man walking in front said in a sincere and earnest tone: “There are still three months until the Gaokao. You most likely won’t live until then. Instead of inefficiently faking effort in an instance, you’d be better off thinking about how to survive.”

Shang Qingbei: “…6.”

He wanted to argue back but couldn’t find an angle for rebuttal. After all, Qi Si’s words sounded quite reasonable, as if he were truly thinking of him… That said, it still felt so stifling!

After bullying the minor, Qi Si was in a good mood, and even his movement to push the courtyard gate became much gentler.

With a soft ‘creak,’ the wooden gate was pushed open. The cold wind outside rushed in as if it had physical form, blowing Shang Qingbei, who was directly facing the door gap, half a step back.

Realizing he had unknowingly walked this far, his eyelids jumped, and he instinctively stopped in his tracks.

Then he heard Qi Si say in a lecturing tone, “See, in a game where you could die at any moment, you’re still thinking about useless things. Your lack of focus is such that you didn’t even know when you were led out of the courtyard. Looking like this, can you really live until June?”

Shang Qingbei pinched the frame of his glasses and retorted coldly, “I was planning to go out and investigate anyway, to see if I could find some clues. Didn’t you also say the first day is the safest?”

“Is that so? Then I’ve wronged you.” Qi Si smiled apologetically and grabbed Shang Qingbei’s wrist without allowing any refusal. “Let’s go together; two people can look out for each other.”

Having just spoken so righteously, Shang Qingbei couldn’t take back his words. He could only let Qi Si drag him out of the residence.

Qi Si had used his rhetoric to tie the tool man to his pirate ship. At this moment, he unceremoniously gripped the minor’s wrist, ready at any time to throw the person out to fill a death point if something went wrong.

If he couldn’t eliminate the anomaly, couldn’t he eliminate his teammate? In terms of clearing mines and being a scapegoat, he had to admit that teammates had many benefits. Before encountering danger, let the teammate go first; after encountering danger, he only needed to ensure he ran faster than the teammate.

A serene smile appeared on the black-haired youth’s face. Shang Qingbei caught a glimpse of it and only felt that the former was likely up to no good.

He tugged at his seized right wrist but couldn’t pull it out for a moment. His bad premonition grew even stronger.

—Was it still too late for him to run away now?

Qi Si calmly pulled Shang Qingbei across the threshold.

The temperature outside was several degrees lower than inside. It felt as if his entire body had been pressed into ice water, causing his internal and external heat to dissipate into the surrounding air without a trace.

Qi Si was only wearing a thin white shirt and couldn’t help but shiver. Fortunately, he was no stranger to the cold; after standing for just a moment, he grew accustomed to the plummeting temperature and stopped trembling.

Although Shang Qingbei was wearing a long-sleeved school uniform for the spring and autumn seasons, it was only two layers of cotton and couldn’t block much of the chill.

He stood in the cold wind, cowering like a quail, hugging his arms and constantly rubbing his exposed skin in an attempt to generate heat.

A gust of wild wind howled past, mixed with bits of white that fluttered down.

A paper copper coin landed right on top of Shang Qingbei’s head, like a bird that had migrated for a long time finally finding a branch to perch on.

As if a switch had been flipped, waves of paper coins were swept by the wind, rustling as they settled. Before long, a layer had accumulated on the ground, like snow or frost.

This scene was too eerie. Even without seeing a single trace of a ghost, it caused one to associate it with horror for no reason.

Shang Qingbei looked up at Qi Si, his teeth chattering. “Are we really going out to investigate at this hour? It’s so eerie during the day, let alone at night. Even if you’re a veteran player on your nineteenth instance, underestimating the weirdness will definitely not end well.”

Qi Si reached out and grabbed a handful of paper copper coins from the wind. Seeing that they were relatively clean and white, he casually stuffed them into his pocket.

Hearing Shang Qingbei’s obvious words of retreat, he stopped his steps, turned his head, and smiled slightly. “Danger and opportunity often coexist, don’t they? Cowering in a room waiting to die won’t find any useful clues.”

“If you always have this mentality, I think it’s better for you to die early and be reincarnated, to save yourself from too much shock and torture.”

Shang Qingbei didn’t take the bait and shook his head gently. “If something happens to the two of us, if those three want to achieve clearance, they’ll most likely have to rely on the ‘guaranteed death count’ mechanism. I think we should wake them up and go out to investigate together.”

Qi Si sneered. “Do you think the commotion you made in the room just now wasn’t big enough?”

Shang Qingbei recalled his series of actions after seeing the ghost.

Although he hadn’t screamed, he had scurried around the room. Coupled with the fact that the floor and wooden bed were in disrepair, he had definitely made a significant amount of noise.

But except for ‘Qi Wen,’ not a single person had been startled awake by him… Qi Si smiled coldly. “Either they don’t care whether you live or die and are intentionally feigning sleep, or some mechanism of this instance has chosen you and me, and only we can move tonight.”

“It should be the second possibility…” Shang Qingbei’s thoughts drifted.

To be chosen by the instance mechanism on the very first day—did this mean he had a chance to encounter some important side quests?

It seemed that not going out to explore was no longer an option. One should not fear scarcity but inequality; he absolutely could not let the morally ambiguous ‘Qi Wen’ possess important clues all by himself.

“Fine, I’ll walk around with you. But let me state this beforehand: if something happens, I won’t look after you.” Shang Qingbei stated his position lukewarmly but received no response.

Qi Si had tucked away the smile on his face at some point. He retreated step by step silently under the eaves, as quiet and careful as a cat walking across a beam.

The wind from afar brought the faint sound of suona horns, mournful and sorrowful, like the wailing of Ghosts.

Shang Qingbei’s intuition told him something had happened.

He followed Qi Si, mimicking him by retreating to the door and pressing himself tightly against the wooden gate.

The shadow of the eaves perfectly concealed their figures. The wooden gate was set deep into the wall, leaving enough space for the two of them to stand. Unless a passing entity specifically looked toward the door, they would never discover two people hidden here.

Qi Si leaned against the wooden gate as if he had no bones, squinting his eyes toward the direction the suona sounds were coming from.

Mist of uneven thickness curled and billowed in the air, twisting and diffusing into a murky expanse. A huge black shadow turned the corner of the street and slowly drove out from the mist, approaching from far to near.

It was an entirely pitch-black Coffin, its surface carved with intricate and complex patterns, even more exquisite than those seen in the photographs. The carved marks didn’t reveal a specific meaning, but the neat and fluid lines alone were enough to make one feel refreshed.

So beautiful. Qi Si’s breathing quickened, and he suddenly felt an impulse to go over and quietly touch it.

The branches of his thoughts connected with the patterns on the Coffin’s surface. He felt as if he could see the corpse lying inside through the thick lid, its body tightly bound by golden chains, its delicate and beautiful face with eyes closed, pale and quiet.

Roots and vines stretched within his blood vessels, making a ‘rustling’ sound, destined to sprout from his flesh at some unknown time. For a fleeting moment, he saw his own face among the layered phantoms.

I really want to open the Coffin and see… I really want to study the patterns on it… I really want to lie inside and try it out… Fragmented thoughts flew at the bottom of his mind, and the humanoid evil spirit in the upper right corner of his vision opened its eyes.

Qi Si snapped back to his senses and found that he had stepped forward at some point. He realized with a start that his current state was very strange; his vigilance had been weakened, and some higher-dimensional existence was sending him a summons… Shang Qingbei was also staring at the Coffin.

In the entry for the 【Soul-Suppressing Coffin】, terms like ‘vicious corpse,’ ‘resentment,’ and ‘great calamity’ symbolized disaster. Xu Wen had mentioned on the phone that ‘they are all coming out one by one.’ Everything conveyed a terrible warning, and the worst-case scenario seemed to be coming true at this moment.

The Coffin drew closer and closer, near enough to see the eerie runes carved on the long nails at the four corners.

The listless suona sounds were mixed with ‘patter’ noises. As the Coffin moved, dark red blood dripped intermittently from the edges, leaving a linear trail on the road.

The scene before him further overlapped with the abnormalities in the photographs. Shang Qingbei stared fixedly ahead.

Distorted black shadows clustered around the Coffin, arranged in a long line like a funeral procession.

Eerie chanting voices rose, shrill and thin:

“Humans walk the human path, Ghosts walk the ghost path. Humans and Ghosts take separate ways; Yin and Yang follow different tracks—”

“Born with nothing, dying with nothing. Fortune and misfortune are fated; do not seek to change your lot—”