Chapter 127: Shuangxi Town (21) New rule

Du Xiaoyu stood at the well, counting the seconds in his head while holding the pulley wrapped in hemp rope, ready to pull it up at the first sign of trouble.

‘Qi Si better come up. I’ve already offended that kid Shang Qingbei; if only two of us are left, heaven knows how he’ll deal with me…’

Du Xiaoyu muttered to himself, and estimating that enough time had passed, he hurriedly turned the pulley, winding the rope back up loop by loop while chanting, “God and Buddha protect me, please don’t let me pull up a corpse or a Ghost.”

Though his heart was uneasy, his hands were steady.

Even though he hadn’t held a proper job in years, he had never missed a fight; supporting a person’s weight with both arms only left him slightly out of breath.

Half a minute passed, and the rope had been retracted to its end.

A pair of pale, slender hands grabbed the edge of the well, fingers clutching the stone wall so tightly that the knuckles turned white.

He wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but Du Xiaoyu felt the hands looked wrinkled from being soaked in water, like a water ghost that had just floated up from the bottom, ready to drag someone off a boat to take its place.

The terrifying imagination lasted only a moment. In the next second, the person below poked their head out, and somewhat sluggishly used their hands to push off the edge and climb out of the well, standing up unsteadily.

The young man who emerged from the well had the same black hair and white shirt as before he went down, except his eyes were deeper, and the crimson glow had vanished.

Sensing Du Xiaoyu’s gaze, the young man pulled a damp piece of yellow Sutra Paper from his pocket: “I didn’t see Xu Wen, but I found the rules of the instance. Do you want to take a look?”

Since he could say the words “instance” and “rule,” it was unlikely he was a Ghost.

Both people on the ground breathed a sigh of relief.

Shang Qingbei was closest to the young man and unceremoniously took the Sutra Paper to read it.

Du Xiaoyu wasn’t about to be left behind and leaned in close.

On the Sutra Paper, lines of text were written in neat, small regular script:

【Welcome to Shuangxi Town. Our town has the following rules. Please be sure to believe and remember them:】

【1. Ghosts will not attack sleeping people. Please go to sleep as early as possible at night.】

【2. Dreams are dangerous. If you die in a dream, you will die for real. Please do not dream.】

【3. Ghosts will not kill humans without reason. Please believe that you are human.】

【4. Most people and Ghosts in town are friendly, provided they do not feel offended.】

【5. The Ghost Gate will open at night. Please do not go out, please do not go out, please do not go out!】

【6. There is one and only one path to leave Shuangxi Town; the other two lead to the Ghost Gate. Please do not enter them!】

【7. If you must violate certain rules in an emergency, please ensure you violate as few rules as possible…】

While the two were reading the rules, the young man continued on his own: “Xu Wen tried everything to encourage me to go down the well, so I thought there must be something hidden down there. But for some reason, I didn’t encounter anything.

“This might be for personal reasons. Why don’t you both go down the well and see if you can trigger anything?”

The young man’s tone was calm, as if he were stating something perfectly natural.

Shang Qingbei didn’t plan to take the bait; heaven knew if “Qi Wen” would classlessly cut the rope after he went down.

He pretended not to notice the young man’s words, looked down at the Sutra Paper, and murmured, “I didn’t expect this to be a rule-based supernatural instance. With rules, everything becomes simple.”

“Are you sure the rules are real?” the young man tilted his head and asked back. “The phone clue was fake, after all.”

Suddenly being countered, Shang Qingbei was a bit dazed—wasn’t finding fault and being argumentative supposed to be his job?

He twitched the corner of his mouth, adjusted his glasses, and said, “I believe these rules are highly authentic.

“First, if none of us three were willing to go down the well, we wouldn’t have obtained this clue. There’s no need for the game to set a trap in advance on a chance event.

“Second, high risk should usually yield high rewards for a healthy reward mechanism. If the game faked a clue we worked hard to obtain, it would be equivalent to breaking the rules.

“Finally, I feel these rules correspond exactly with the events we’ve encountered, and there are no logical errors.”

Shang Qingbei didn’t know the fake clue came from the malice of a higher being; he just assumed it was a mechanism of the instance itself, so he analyzed it from a game design perspective, speaking with sound reasoning.

Du Xiaoyu nodded in agreement: “Yeah, if this clue is still fake, how are we supposed to clear the instance? It can’t be that they really want to kill us all and only let one person survive.”

The young man was noncommittal and asked, “What do you think of these rules?”

Shang Qingbei analyzed: “The first and second rules seem contradictory, but if you look closely at the wording, you can find the solution.

“‘Please do not dream’ is a clear requirement, but we can’t control whether we dream after falling asleep. From last night’s situation, we will most likely fall into a dream after falling asleep. And ‘falling asleep’ is an instantaneous action; waking up after falling asleep doesn’t count as violating the rules.

“The third and fourth rules are vague. We need to figure out the definition of ‘offending Ghosts.’ I’m inclined to believe this refers to entering a Ghost’s territory; after all, we were attacked by the Statue Ghost after entering the God of Joy Temple.”

He paused for a moment, and once he felt the audience understood, he continued: “The remaining three rules should be looked at together. Of the three paths, two lead to the Ghost Gate and one is the path to life. If we want to leave Shuangxi Town, we must distinguish the Ghost Gate at night and find the path to life. This means we will inevitably violate one rule.

“And the seventh rule tells us that the fewer rules violated, the better, implying that rules can be violated. As long as we all violate the same number of rules, nothing will happen.”

At this point in his analysis, Shang Qingbei slowly raised his eyes and scanned the two people in front of him: “So, we need to go out and explore together at night.”

“Impressive, I didn’t realize you had it in you!” Du Xiaoyu intended to smooth over his relationship with Shang Qingbei and didn’t hold back his praise.

Shang Qingbei smiled slightly and looked at the young man standing loosely to the side: “Brother Qi, what do you think?”

The young man seemed to have just snapped out of it and gave a slight nod: “Then let’s go out and take a look tonight.”

Tonight? It’s only the second day; is there a need to be in such a hurry?

Shang Qingbei vaguely felt something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

However, the solution was his own deduction; even if there were problems, it shouldn’t go too far wrong.

Since entering the instance, “Qi Wen” had always liked to take the initiative; acting immediately after finding a solution did seem to be his style.

Shang Qingbei looked up at the listless young man. The latter’s shirt was soaking wet, his face was whiter than paper, and he looked like he might collapse at any moment.

He rarely felt a bit of sympathy: “Qi Wen, your clothes are wet. Are you cold?”

The daytime temperature in Shuangxi Town wasn’t low, but it wasn’t warm either. The wind blew with mist, carrying a bit of late autumn chill.

And at night, it would get as cold as winter; even wearing dry long sleeves wouldn’t be enough to withstand it.

“I’m not cold,” the young man’s lips curled up stiffly in a perfect smile. “I have a shirt in my backpack. The backpack is in the room.”

“Then let’s hurry back. Or should I give you my jacket?” Du Xiaoyu belatedly realized the young man’s state wasn’t right and quickly took off his own jacket, making a move to drape it over the young man.

His fingertips touched the young man’s icy elbow. The young man pulled his arm back as if he had been electrocuted, quickly pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the spot that had been touched, as if he had come into contact with something filthy.

Du Xiaoyu’s face fell, and he was about to lose his temper.

But the young man turned his head and stared into his eyes, adding as if to explain: “I’m not cold at all.”

How could he not be cold? His elbow was clearly as cold as ice.

Stared at by the young man’s eyes, which were as deep as a stagnant pool, Du Xiaoyu instinctively felt there was no benefit in dwelling on this issue further. He could only turn his head away and stop speaking.

The three of them walked back in silence along the path they had come. The young man slowed his pace at some point, trailing alone at the back.

When no one was paying attention, the young man lifted the handkerchief covering his elbow.

On his pale arm, a small, dark-blue burn mark was particularly eye-catching.

On the first day, Sister Xu had told the players: ‘A newly dead ghost can’t become a malevolent spirit. Living people have Yang Fire on their shoulders. As long as this fire isn’t extinguished, it can burn a minor ghost until its soul dissipates!’

New Ghosts fear Yang Fire; even an inadvertent touch can cause damage.

The young man pulled his sleeve down a bit, rubbed his chin, and thought silently: ‘It seems I have to find a way to kill them off sooner…’

…In the town below the well, the sound of suona horns finally stopped after blowing for a while.

Qi Si also finally got rid of the old man.

He walked to a spot under the eaves where the ghostly shadows were sparse, pulled his phone out of his trouser pocket, and dialed Xu Wen’s number.

This time, the call went through immediately, and Xu Wen’s voice rang out anxiously: “You’ve arrived, right? Don’t wander around for now. Be careful not to run into those Paper Effigies… if you do, run quickly, or they’ll stuff you into a Coffin!”

Qi Si asked, “Where are you? Where should I find you?”

“I’m in the Sangshen Temple. It’s safe once you enter the temple; Paper Effigies can’t go inside…” Xu Wen said, “But you won’t find the temple by running around blindly. I searched for a long time before I found it. Find a place to hide first, and I’ll come to lead you…”

“Will you be okay coming out?” Qi Si moved the phone a bit further away and heard the sound of the wind that had previously been drowned out by the phone.

That wind wasn’t natural; it was too sharp and hurried, and it was mixed with the rustling sound of paper pages flipping, conveying a warning of danger.

“I’ll be fine,” Xu Wen’s tone was certain. “I’ve been wandering here for over a month and already know how to hide from them.”

Qi Si didn’t intend to continue asking questions like “Why are you only calling now?” or “What have you been eating this past month?” knowing he likely wouldn’t get a reasonable answer.

He thought for a moment and asked, “Then do you know how to leave this place?”

He poked his head out from under the eaves and saw dozens of suspended shadows through the mist. Their outlines were roughly human, but their hemlines and arms swayed lightly; they were likely the Paper Effigies Xu Wen had mentioned.

The Paper Effigies wore ancient costumes made of paper. Their pale faces were decorated with rouge on the cheeks, and a grinning mouth was drawn on them; they looked ridiculous no matter how one saw them.

Blown by the wind, they were like an ancient military formation, spanning the street and floating forward.

On the phone, Xu Wen was silent for a while and said, “I’m not quite sure, but I found a path. I saw them carrying Coffins in that direction. If we follow them, we should be able to get out… But I always lose them every time. I heard it takes two people to walk it—one leading, one following…”

Qi Si gave an “oh,” took a step forward, and made a move to walk toward the formation of Paper Effigies.

“Do you want to die?” the voice on the phone and a female voice behind him shouted simultaneously in a terrified tone.

A slender but powerful hand reached out without warning, grabbing Qi Si’s arm from behind: “Don’t let them see you. Come with me.”

The texture of the phone in his right hand changed, becoming a piece of paper roughly shaped like a mobile phone.

Qi Si turned around and saw a young girl, about twenty years old, wearing a gray down jacket, with long hair and a baby face. She was half a head shorter than him and was precisely the NPC in the photo who had been holding “his” arm.

It was Xu Wen.

As expected, as soon as he showed a tendency to seek death, Xu Wen would come out to save the day. It seemed he couldn’t die before reaching the Sangshen Temple… As for why Xu Wen didn’t appear at the very beginning, she likely wanted him to be tormented by the crisis for a while to trigger the “Suspension bridge effect”… The Suspension bridge effect?

Qi Si remembered the photo he saw at the beginning that triggered his mental germaphobia, and a smile curled on his lips.

Xu Wen didn’t notice Qi Si’s expression and familiarly pulled him into a house, closing the door behind them: “We’ll go to the Sangshen Temple after those Paper Effigies finish patrolling this street.”

“Patrolling?” Qi Si raised an eyebrow. “What are those Paper Effigies patrolling for?”

“Patrolling for us, of course.”

Xu Wen chuckled: “Did you know? They trick girls into coming here, drug them, and then put them into Coffins to be sold. To avoid being discovered, they want everyone to keep this secret from life to death; no one can escape… The living are watched by Sister Xu, and the dead Ghosts are guarded by Paper Effigies to see who dares to gossip in public. Everyone who knows the secret must stay, even outsiders…”

Xu Wen lifted her eyelashes and stared at Qi Si without blinking: “And I know all their secrets.”