Chapter 130: Shuangxi Town (24) — A Hundred Ghosts Parade

Du Xiaoyu’s real name was simply “Du Xiaoyu.”

The name was so common—you could find a dozen people with it on any street—that there was no need to embellish or conceal it.

Like his name, he was an extremely ordinary person, possessing only a compulsory education level of schooling, no fixed job, and no outstanding abilities.

After his father was arrested at the age of fourteen for the crime of “endangering Federal security,” and his mother remarried, he started running with local gangs, clinging to the local thugs, filling up crowds at venues, and earning a bad reputation in the neighborhood.

Later, due to the rampant anti-government organizations and cults in the area, the Federation tightened control and cracked down on small gangs. Du Xiaoyu was caught in the crossfire and spent three years locked up.

When he got out, he had lost his aggressiveness and worked peacefully at odd jobs; he only rolled up his sleeves and viciously rushed over to punch those who gossiped about him in the neighborhood.

He was decent at fighting, and those who crossed him often suffered the consequences; gradually, people stopped daring to mock him and avoided him.

He was alone, felt quite lonely, and often sought trouble.

But no one bothered with him over small matters, and major incidents would land him back in jail.

He wasn’t very brave, far from being willing to risk everything, so he could only numb himself with alcohol and the internet, living a muddled, day-to-day existence.

Until the appearance of the Eerie Game.

That day, Du Xiaoyu was drunk. In his stupor, he heard a voice say to him:

【Enter the Eerie Game, and you will be able to obtain everything you desire—wealth, power, health… everything you could possibly want.】

He thought Heaven had finally opened its eyes, and his chance to change his fate had arrived, so he agreed without a second thought.

But after entering the game, he realized that there were tens of thousands of players. Lacking any knowledge of the supernatural, terrified of ghosts and death, he remained at the bottom, merely a stepping stone for those dazzlingly strong experts.

His initial burst of enthusiasm quickly cooled. Every day, Du Xiaoyu woke up thinking only about how to survive and how to leave the game.

Fortunately, although he lacked ability himself, he was quite good at reading people. He could always spot the strongest player most likely to survive in a crowd, then cling tightly to them, suck up to them comfortably, and often manage to get a share of the spoils.

Meeting Qi Si in the ‘Shuangxi Town’ instance was truly unexpected for Du Xiaoyu.

It was true that he had seen Qi Si in the newspapers, but he wasn’t a so-called fan. On the contrary, he was somewhat jealous of this peer.

Why was it that when both their parents died, the other person’s parents were intellectuals who left a considerable inheritance, while his parents left him nothing but bad debts?

Why was it that even though neither of them graduated high school, the other could become a famous taxidermist, while he was nothing?

Du Xiaoyu knew that people couldn’t be compared and that this world was inherently unfair. If he were in reality, he might curse a few times; but in the Eerie Game, he dared not act rashly.

He could only put on an expression of admiration and quickly latch onto the strong player, just like every time before.

Why not suck up to him? He was used to it anyway, and having read the reports just happened to help him close the distance with Qi Si faster.

But now, recalling everything that had happened since entering this instance, that subtle flicker of resentment he first felt could no longer be ignored.

Du Xiaoyu gradually couldn’t suppress the angry thought—no one here respected him; they were all bullying him.

“Du Xiaoyu, hurry up, why are you walking so slowly?” Xu Yao’s gentle voice echoed from ahead.

Du Xiaoyu suddenly realized that while he was spacing out, Xu Yao had already walked quite a distance. She was now standing at the intersection about ten meters ahead, turning her head back to look.

The sky was not as dark as he had imagined. Cold white moonlight sprinkled down from above, casting a silver glow over the streets, houses, and figures.

Xu Yao’s shadow was faint, cast diagonally onto the ground, like a layer of hazy mist.

“Walking so fast without waiting for me…” Du Xiaoyu muttered, lifting his foot to walk forward, but he felt as if his ankle was being grabbed by something.

He lowered his head and saw that somehow, his shadow had split into two!

Besides his original shadow, there was the shadow of a woman with a coiled bun and a petite figure, desperately gripping the ankle of his shadow with both hands. Her form was slightly trembling, seemingly from the exertion.

Cold sweat poured down Du Xiaoyu’s back. It felt as if a large hammer had struck his chest, leaving his body numb and unable to move.

He opened his mouth for a long time before managing to gasp out, “Li Yao,” the sound hoarse and eerie, as if someone else was speaking through him.

“You got it wrong, hehe.” Xu Yao turned her head and smiled at him.

Du Xiaoyu snapped out of his trance and quickly corrected himself: “Xu Yao, save me…”

Aren’t you proficient in supernatural knowledge? Haven’t you cleared five instances? Save me! “Come over here.” Xu Yao’s voice was as sharp as fingernails scraping glass.

Du Xiaoyu dared not delay, laboriously shuffling forward step by step. But for some reason, Xu Yao’s figure grew further and further away, leaving only a blurry silver silhouette in the moonlight, like an untouchable mirage.

“Xu Yao, wait for me…”

Du Xiaoyu called out with a trembling voice, when he suddenly felt a whoosh of wind on his shoulder, instantly turning icy cold.

A woman’s voice rose from below his feet: “Are you calling me?”

A corpse-like face, plastered white like paper, pressed against Du Xiaoyu’s nose tip. Its cheeks and lips were painted a blood-like crimson, and its bloodshot eyeballs were embedded in sockets with no whites, looking vicious and malignant.

Du Xiaoyu screamed, nearly passing out, his body feeling cold as if plunged into an ice cellar.

Something patted his shoulder. He felt his soul float out of his body, and he pitched forward stiffly.

A well had appeared in front of him at some point. He tumbled into it, sinking lightly in a long silence.

In his final glance, he saw his own corpse sitting upright at the bottom of the well… the other end.

Shang Qingbei lagged half a step behind the young man, silently pulling a page of rice paper from his English dictionary and placing it on the dictionary’s hard cover to write down the name “Qi Si.”

【Name: Remnant Page of the Death Register (Consumable)】

【Type: Item】

【Effect: While looking at the target’s face, write down the target’s name and cross it out to cause the target to die within one minute (If a false name is written, the success rate drops to 30%).】

【Note: Who has the right to decide the life and death of others? You?】

This was Shang Qingbei’s trump card, and the key to his smooth journey so far.

Even if he only had one chance, and even if the success rate was only 30% most of the time, it served as an effective deterrent, forcing simple-minded violent individuals to hold back and listen to reason.

He bought the English dictionary from the store and kept it with him not just to pretend to be a scholar, but primarily as a subtle way to store the items 【Remnant Page of the Death Register】 and 【Reading Pen】.

Undoubtedly, his disguise was effective.

And now, with a single stroke of his pen on the paper, he could kill the young man in front of him who had always acted as the leader.

“Qi Si, I want to talk to you.” Shang Qingbei spoke calmly.

When the young man turned to look at him, he held up the page: “As long as I cross out your name, you will die. I believe this is not the outcome either of us wants. So…”

“Shh—” The young man suddenly placed his index finger on his lips.

There was no surprise on his pale, corpse-like face, not even when his real name was called out or when his life was threatened.

“The ghosts are coming.” The young man said with a smile, his voice very low, as if revealing a long-kept secret.

The next second, the sound of the suona horn suddenly rose sharply, almost piercing the eardrums.

“Humans walk the human path, ghosts walk the ghost road. Humans and ghosts are separated, yin and yang are distinct—”

“Born with nothing, leaving with nothing. Fortune and misfortune are numbered, seek neither good nor ill—”

Eerie chanting voices sang the incantation, sounding like wailing at a funeral.

Scattered white paper money fluttered down from the sky, some accumulating on people, some falling to the ground, like snowflakes, quickly covering the entire street.

A huge black coffin emerged from the distant mist, flanked by a procession of paper figures wearing burial clothes, slowly approaching, treading on the paper money scattered across the ground.

Some paper figures were smiling, some crying, some joyful, some mournful, their features grotesquely distorted, their mouths stretched back to their ears.

The mist grew thicker, and the temperature dropped, like the bitter cold after a snowfall.

Shang Qingbei shivered, seeing a portrait embedded at the front of the coffin—it was clearly his own face!

His hair stood on end. He quickly turned to look at the young man, who, however, was completely unbothered, calmly observing the funeral procession with keen interest.

“Qi Si, is this your doing?” Shang Qingbei’s teeth chattered.

The young man’s dark, dull eyes looked at him coldly, reflecting no one’s shadow: “Tonight wasn’t meant for going out.”

What wasn’t meant for it? If he didn’t go out, how was he supposed to find a way to clear the instance?

Shang Qingbei was momentarily confused.

The sutra paper clearly contained those seemingly contradictory rules that actually held the key to survival. He refused to believe his deduction was wrong.

The young man merely looked at him with a half-smile, sighing with a mixture of pity and mockery: “I told you it was fake. Why did you still believe it?”

Shang Qingbei’s pupils contracted, and he instantly grasped the crucial point—

The text written on the sutra paper had never refreshed on the system interface!

Those rules… were likely false clues, just like the entries in the phone dictionary!

The scene at the God of Joy Temple flashed through Shang Qingbei’s mind.

At the time, Qi Si burned several sheets of sutra paper by the brazier and vaguely claimed he was burning them for an acquaintance.

It was known that by silently reciting one’s thoughts while burning sutra paper, those words would materialize as a letter on the side of the deceased.

Qi Si went down the well once, and there were plenty of dead people down there. It was highly likely that the sutra papers he brought up were the ones he had burned himself!

The content on them was all made up by him!

Shang Qingbei gritted his teeth and asked, “Why would you do this?”

The young man laughed carelessly: “Don’t you think it’s fun? Participating in the design of the instance’s death traps as a player—what an interesting mechanism…”

Fun and interesting, my foot!

Shang Qingbei wanted to rage, but he couldn’t find the exact words for a moment.

At the same time, another sharp chanting voice hesitantly sounded from behind him:

“Whose daughter is clumsy and foolish, silly and easy to raise.”

“Whose ruined, wandering son, buys a bride in splendor.”

“The coffin is carried as a red sedan, white paper flies across the sky, opening the ghost path.”

“We only seek for husband and wife to share life and death, their souls returning to the same tomb on the same day.”

Shang Qingbei stiffly turned around and saw a bright red bridal sedan chair being carried by eight statues, moving toward them.

The statues carrying the sedan chair were the same ones encountered at the God of Joy Temple, their faces greenish-gray, painted with red lacquer, their movements stiff and sluggish.

Ghosts were on both sides. Shang Qingbei realized he was trapped in the alleyway.

Based on the experience of the first night, he should have deduced that Shuangxi Town was fraught with danger at night. Moreover, after the morning’s events—Xier’s death and the encounter with ghosts at the God of Joy Temple—it seemed much safer to lay low and observe for another day.

It could be said that without the “rules” Qi Si brought up from the well, he would never have chosen to go out tonight.

But now the situation was clear: Qi Si, whether out of malice or some other reason, fabricated clues and tricked him step by step into a death trap… Looking at the young man leaning loosely against the wall, watching the show, Shang Qingbei’s heart turned utterly cold.

He raised the 【Remnant Page of the Death Register】 high, threatening with false bravado: “If I die tonight, you won’t live either!”

The young man looked at him and smiled dismissively: “I don’t believe you. Why don’t you try it?”

His tone was utterly nonchalant, as if life and death were irrelevant to him.

Shang Qingbei was furious.

He realized that Qi Si was a mentally disturbed person who enjoyed harming others without benefiting himself, and he had no intention of sitting down and reasoning!

Judging by all his actions, Qi Si had likely become psychologically twisted, just like the massacre-stream players!

He would likely not survive tonight, so he might as well take the culprit with him… A vicious intent grew in his heart. Shang Qingbei stopped wasting words, picked up the pen, and crossed out the two characters for “Qi Si” on the paper.

He saw the prompt 【Item Effect Activated】 and a relieved smile curved his lips—he should have done this long ago, instead of being hindered by meaningless considerations.

In the Eerie Game, killing people wouldn’t lead to punishment from real-world law enforcement agencies, so what was there to hesitate or shrink from?

At this moment, he even felt a glimmer of hope: he had completed the transaction with the entity in his dream; perhaps that entity would save his life… Amidst the silence, the young man suddenly asked, “What is the success rate of this item of yours?”

“One hundred percent,” Shang Qingbei answered casually. “If the real name is known, success is guaranteed.”

“Then I am relieved.” The young man nodded solemnly.

What did he mean?

Shang Qingbei was momentarily confused but had no intention of arguing further. Speaking to a dying person seemed foolish and beneath him.

He silently counted the seconds, one by one, until he reached sixty.

One minute had passed, but the young man in front of him was still standing perfectly fine, appearing completely unharmed.

What was going on? Did Qi Si possess a more advanced life-saving item?

Shang Qingbei’s heart jolted. Then he saw the young man lean in close, his smile exaggerated: “Of course, it’s because I’m already dead… I am a ghost now.”

The young man’s face was an unnatural greenish-white, his features flickering under the LED light, his pupils—lacking whites—occupying the entire eye socket.

Even though he was so close, Shang Qingbei couldn’t feel any breath, only an icy coldness emanating from him.

All the inconsistencies since the other party came up from the well were replayed in his mind. Shang Qingbei felt a chill climb up his spine, and a cold wind seemed to be whistling across his back.

“Your Yang Fire is extinguished.” The young man said something inexplicable and placed his hand on Shang Qingbei’s shoulder.

At the same time, Shang Qingbei felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck, as if it had been sliced by a sharp object, and warm liquid gushed out.

He suddenly realized that he was going to die, that he had been killed by Qi Si… In his final moments, he used all his strength to snap and tear apart all the items he couldn’t put into his inventory.

He absolutely refused to let the person who killed him profit from his things… The World Beneath the Well.

Qi Si lay in the coffin, submerged in overwhelming pain, with only the instinct to struggle remaining.

If he hadn’t added the clause 【Must not tell any entity the details of the plan】 to the contract earlier, allowing him to use the power of the rules to restrain himself, he probably would have quickly revealed the whereabouts of the contract authority.

After an unknown amount of time, in a single instant, Qi Si felt all the pain in his body vanish. His body became light and airy, as if detached from the mortal world.

He knew he was finally going to die.

Combining everything he had seen and heard over the past few days, he quickly deduced the cause and effect.

“Shang Qingbei, thank you. I’ll remember to burn you an extra stick of incense during the holidays.” Qi Si felt genuinely grateful.

And when he saw the golden eyes in the darkness go through stages of astonishment and fury before helplessly disintegrating into dust, his pleasure reached its peak.

“What did you do?” The God’s voice asked.

Qi Si choked himself with laughter, and his soul continued to laugh maniacally, following the last trace of his breath:

“You guess—ahahahaha!”