Chapter 246: Lost Relics

After becoming a Ghost, earning points will become difficult, but Qi Si does not intend to skimp on items.

Among the effects of 【The Undying】, the inability to self-heal from injuries is troublesome from any perspective, forcing him to start considering some questions:

For example, how can he avoid getting injured in a instance as much as possible?

For another example, can he find a way to ensure his blood doesn’t drain completely inside the instance?

The current stock of items is undoubtedly insufficient for the endless stream of crises.

The Cursed Pendulum allowed Qi Si to move freely within the Frog Hospital instance, and he finally experienced the convenience brought by force—

Firstly, it makes others listen to him calmly; secondly, it often saves him the trouble of talking.

The cost-effectiveness of purchasing items was thus further enhanced in Qi Si’s eyes.

If he can’t even protect himself, and has to exhaust all his energy just to kill someone, it would undoubtedly be a pipe dream to survive until he saves a million points.

Qi Si entered the Mall and brought up the items he had previously saved and intended to purchase.

The icon for 【Water Mirror Mask】 was grayed out. He didn’t know if it had been bought by another player, or if the seller hadn’t renewed the listing after the display time expired.

But that didn’t matter; he already had the Human Skin Mask.

The Human Skin Mask was superior to the Water Mirror Mask in all aspects, so there was no need for him to seek the inferior option.

Qi Si’s gaze fell upon another item.

【Name: Self-Mutilator’s Paper Cutter】

【Effect: Regardless of the wound inflicted, the injured person will neither lose consciousness nor truly die】

【Note: Its original owner was submerged in immense despair, yet ultimately lacked the courage to achieve final liberation, and could only release pain through self-harm】

【Price: 150,000 Points】

Previously, Qi Si paid attention to this item only because he thought it was suitable for severe interrogation; now, Qi Si was very curious about the priority level of this item’s causality effect.

“Can I try out this item?” Qi Si asked the Eerie Game.

【You may try it out in the Game Space anytime after the transaction is complete】

Established rules could not be changed, and spending more words was useless, so Qi Si did not intend to haggle.

For Official Players, it is not difficult to gather sixteen thousand points in a short period—selling an item cheaply, investing in a live broadcast room, or entering another instance—there are various ways to accumulate the amount.

Of course, for Qi Si, who controls several human tools and the leek patch that is Qijia Village, the above methods were too troublesome.

The golden vine on the right side of the High-backed Chair lowered a branch, presenting the large golden fruit hanging from its tip to Qi Si.

Qi Si raised his hand to grasp it, sinking his consciousness into it, unfolding the panorama of Qijia Village before his eyes.

After the third instance, most of the villagers had died again; only five people survived.

A sixty-year-old couple, a solitary middle-aged woman, a delinquent youth, and a boy about ten years old.

They all became Official Players. Qi Si could see the phantom images of their respective Game Spaces above their heads: some were simple country houses, some were dazzling arcades, and others were fantasy-colored castles.

Because Qi Si had intervened beforehand using the 【anchor point】 and the World-Fruit, their Game Spaces could not connect to the Ruins of the Sunset, nor did they have functions like the Mall or live streaming, thus they would not escape Qi Si’s control.

The points they earned were stored in the World-Fruit, totaling twelve thousand points, waiting for Qi Si to redistribute them.

After Qi Si took all the points, he distributed a few Scarlet Points to each of them at a ratio of six hundred to one.

He intentionally reduced the rewards given for clearing instances and strengthened the role of real-world missions.

He was very clear about the strength of these villagers; in the Official Player pool, they were destined to serve as live targets and consumables. The value brought by a single person was limited, so he could only win by quantity.

Rather than encouraging them to risk death by entering more instances, it was better to accumulate points steadily at a frequency of once every seven days.

Another, more subtle reason was that the Eerie Game was ultimately territory cultivated by Large Guilds for many years, and operating under the rules of others inevitably required significant concessions.

Qi Si knew he lacked accumulation, and competing for profit with the deeply entrenched forces in the game meant the risk and reward were disproportionate; a slight misstep could lead to losing everything.

It was better to utilize his unique ability to bring Eeriness into reality and develop his own power in the real world, a domain few others were capable of accessing.

He was still short four thousand points. Qi Si habitually raised his hand to touch the new leaf that had appeared on the vine.

That leaf belonged to Lin Chen, displaying an ominous scarlet color, pulled by a blood-colored branch, drooping from the right side, conspicuously out of place among the golden ones.

Perhaps the difference in color from the other Soul Leaves was due to the different Divine Name invoked when the Contract was signed.

If the previously harvested Soul Leaves carried the risk of the Contract being interfered with midway, then Lin Chen’s Soul Leaf belonged completely to Qi Si.

The deity he believed in and prayed to was Qi Si, from beginning to end—whether it was the youth who helped him survive to the end in Rose Manor, or the False God who reshaped the Divine Name using the villagers of Qijia Village after obtaining the Crimson High Priest card.

When the scarlet leaf was touched, the settlement interface for the Frog Hospital popped up.

【Frog Hospital Evaluation Rank A, Reward Points 3000】

【Frog Hospital True End Route Cleared, Reward Points 5000】

【Frog Hospital Dual World Route Unlocked, Reward Points 5000】

【Worldview Decryption 80%, Reward Points 3000】

【Achievement Unlocked: “Lucky Guy” (Made the correct choice at a critical moment with remarkable luck), Reward Points 1000】

【Achievement Unlocked: “Executor” (Successfully executed most clearance steps and completed the ending), Reward Points 1000】

【Total Reward Points 18,000】

Qi Si withdrew his hand and turned to touch the other leaves.

He temporarily did not plan to let Lin Chen realize the harshness of the Soul Contract, so naturally, he couldn’t touch the latter’s points.

Most people are inert; as long as an obvious fact hasn’t yet occurred, their minds will settle into false peace, unable to grasp the hidden dangers and secrets lurking behind it.

Qi Si was happy to gloss over the truth for his recyclable human tools. Certain methods only achieve maximum value when they remain unused, and can even unexpectedly reverse the situation at a crucial moment.

Besides Lin Chen, Dong Xiwen, Liu Yuhan, and Zhang Yiyu had all had their points harvested before and could be disposed of freely.

Among them, Zhang Yiyu had become a discarded piece, locked in a Containment Room by the Eerie Investigation Bureau. Since it was unknown when she could enter a instance again, she was not considered for the moment.

Liu Yuhan was quite diligent in entering dungeons; she only had eighty-five more instances left to complete the requirements of the Contract.

In the latest instance, she entered as a team with a core member of the Jiuzhou Guild named “Tang Yu.” The two were laughing and chatting—it seemed she had gained Jiuzhou’s trust.

Dong Xiwen’s frequency of entering instances had decreased; he had only cleared one more instance in the past few days. Perhaps his enthusiasm had been dampened because the points weren’t reaching his hands.

Previously, to prevent the human tools from spending their points immediately upon receiving them, Qi Si had specifically set up the system to aggregate the points they earned into a Point Pool, which would then be issued after redistribution was complete.

Now, Qi Si drew 30% of the points from each of their Point Pools before returning the remaining points to their respective accounts.

Doing everything personally and manually seemed fine for now, but when he had more Soul Leaves in the future, the handling of various affairs would become delayed and troublesome.

Fortunately, after the Sea-God Scepter absorbed a large amount of sin, Qi Si’s control over the Game Space and the anchor point was further strengthened, allowing him to implement more complex settings.

To put it simply, he could formulate rules that were effective within a small range.

He wrote a rule into the World-Fruit: 【Directly deposit points into the account and issue them converted into Scarlet Points at a six hundred to one exchange rate】. He also added the entry 【Automatically draw 30% of points】 into the Soul Leaves of Liu Yuhan and others, thus barely achieving automation.

Next, as long as he kept the Sea-God Scepter in the Game Space, some basic operations would automatically run according to the rules he set.

Qi Si bought the Self-Mutilator’s Paper Cutter, leaving him with twenty-three thousand points in his account—not generous, but not tight either.

He entered the second page of the Mall and bought a pair of Long White Gloves and a can of candy.

The former was to account for the characteristics of the Ghosts, preventing the awkward situation where shaking someone’s hand resulted in a patch of black skin; the latter was just to round up the number.

Qi Si looked at the number 【22900】 displayed in his account and was quite satisfied.

Since he still had some remaining stay duration, he simply picked up the Sea-God Scepter again, using the Scepter as a medium to let his consciousness spread out toward more distant places.

Gold and red flickered faintly within the gray mist. The High Priest of Calamity held up a black crucifix, turning their crimson eyes toward the distant starry sky.

In the dense darkness deep within the Hall of Thought, blood-colored gazes connected into tangible threads, and at the joining ends, faint scarlet stars flickered into and out of view.

Qi Si knew that those were the people affected by the 【Insomnia Syndrome Pathogen】 he had spread.

Thousands of infected individuals lurked among ordinary people, passing the bacteria on through contact.

In just a few days, the impact of the new eerie entity on reality far exceeded the scale of Qijia Village.

Qi Si noticed that some of the stars were dim and lifeless, while others shone brightly, varying in size and unevenly distributed.

The moment the question formed, a language belonging to no world gently imparted information, telling him the reason—

Different physiques have varying levels of affinity for the eerie.

The more suitable a person is for the Eerie Game, the brighter and larger their corresponding star; conversely, the stars are as small as grains of moss.

Similarly, the sequence of infection also played a significant role.

The 【Insomnia Syndrome Pathogen】 originating from the Eerie Game cannot naturally reproduce in reality. The later the infection, the fewer bacteria each person receives, and the weaker the effect.

It is even possible that one day, all the bacteria will be consumed, causing the number of infected individuals to stop increasing.

Qi Si was not surprised by this.

The eerie invasion of reality must be subject to certain restrictions. If it could expand its territory endlessly, the real world would have turned into a Ghost Domain thirty-six years ago.

The number of people currently infected by the bacteria is a full ten thousand, which Qi Si found quite satisfying.

He selected the hundred people whose stars shone the brightest, controlling golden vines to extend the Eerie Game’s tendrils toward them, repeating the exact words he had used a week ago when pulling the villagers into the game.

Faced with the threat of death, those people had no reason to refuse.

Moreover, most of them were Yingjun people who loved courting death; they might even think they had encountered an adventure reserved for the Protagonist.

【Stay duration has been exhausted. More duration can be exchanged using points.】

【Do you wish to spend 100 points to exchange for 1 hour of stay duration?】

Qi Si put down the Sea-God Scepter and said calmly, “Exit the game.”

…”Sunday is Gloomy, My hours are slumberless…”

The timid, hesitant telephone ringing sounded in his ears, distorted in the lingering darkness, ethereal and illusory like a butterfly that couldn’t be caught in a dream.

Qi Si listened for a moment, then reluctantly opened his eyes, staring blankly at the pure white ceiling.

He placed his hand on his forehead. The sensation was not the stiffness and coldness of a corpse as he had imagined, but rather a soft warmth, and if he concentrated, he could even feel the faint pulse of his blood vessels.

On the surface, his real-world self was a genuine human being—at least, that’s what he felt like to the touch.

Undoubtedly, the Eerie Game had put effort into the disguise. As long as he didn’t post things out of boredom like Zhang Yiyu, he likely wouldn’t be detected by the Eerie Investigation Bureau.

By extension, the number of Ghosts hidden among the populace was likely considerable. Those who remained silent, diligently concealed themselves, and possessed a bit of cleverness must have carried out significant infiltration over the past thirty-six years… The Hall of Thought was pitch black, and no corresponding images surfaced during the extension of his thoughts. Qi Si looked at a small corner of the blue sky outside the window; the color was faint, like a colored pencil dipped in water.

The phone ringing had stopped.

Qi Si climbed out of bed, left the bedroom, and looked around the living room.

He saw the brightly colored bookshelf dripping color downward like a water-splashed oil painting. The spilled colors flowed like water, uncontrollably leaking through his fingers, presenting the texture of an old photograph alongside the black, white, and gray philosophy books and serious works.

The entire world was fading. No, to be precise, the world in his vision was fading.

Everything seemed to have reduced transparency, displaying a pale, misty hue of natural wear and tear. The remaining colors hung listlessly in various parts of his vision, forcing him to rely on memory to fill in the vivid original appearance.

And soon, even the colors in his memory began to disappear. The Hall of Thought was as dark and lightless as ever, as if he had returned to the monotonous world of his life before the age of twelve.

Qi Si thus learned another negative consequence of becoming a Ghost—

He had lost the perception of the world that he had painstakingly gained after his first murder.

Emotions of joy or sorrow and fluctuating moods vanished along with the colors. Feelings that were once easily obtainable were now blocked by an insurmountable barrier, plunging him once again into complete stillness and silence, making him feel out of place and isolated.

“The negative effects generated in the game don’t seem to be as severe as they are in reality.”

Qi Si recalled that in the instance, although various colors tended to fade, they hadn’t given him such an abrupt and uncomfortable feeling. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have waited until he returned to reality to realize something was wrong.

“Is this commercial fraud, tricking me into accepting the Ghost identity? Or… are they trying to force me to increase the frequency of entering instances?”

Qi Si shook his head, feeling no particular emotion.

He returned to his room, picked up the phone beside his pillow, and checked his missed calls.

It was an unfamiliar number, yet not entirely strange. After he gave his contact information to Lin Chen late in the instance, Lin Chen had also given him his contact information.

He therefore knew it was Lin Chen’s phone number.

It looked like Lin Chen had called him immediately upon exiting the instance, probably wanting to confirm his safety.

After all, late in the instance, he hadn’t had a single piece of good flesh on his body, looking like a Ghost ready to die at any moment.

Since the call hadn’t gone through, he wondered how worried Lin Chen must be.

Qi Si casually saved the number to his contacts, added a name, and called back.

“Hello, is this Lin Chen?”

“I’m fine. I was just a bit dizzy and weak in the limbs when I first returned to reality, so I couldn’t pick up the phone.”

“You don’t need to worry about me… By the way, are you free tomorrow afternoon? Let’s meet at the Ruins of the Sunset.”

…Jiangcheng University, Men’s Dormitory Building.

Lin Chen hung up the phone, pushed the door open, and returned to his dorm room, finally letting out a sigh of relief.

Late in the instance, although he had risked using the effect of 【Plague Doctor】 to revive Qi Si, seeing Qi Si’s terrible condition at the time, he always felt that things weren’t that simple.

Qi Si had risked the consequence of mutating into a Ghost by activating his skill for the fourth time, all to help him escape the Puppeteer’s control.

If something truly happened to Qi Si because of this, he feared he would never be able to forgive himself in this lifetime.

Fortunately, he had overthought it; the worst-case scenario hadn’t happened, and Qi Si was alive and well… “Lin Chen, who were you talking to on the phone?”

His roommate leaned down from the top bunk and teased him with a playful smile.

“When you couldn’t get through, you were almost crying, but the moment they called back, you smiled so happily your mouth wouldn’t stop twitching… Don’t tell me you’re dating a girl behind our backs?”

Only then did Lin Chen realize he had been too expressive.

He adjusted his expression in a second and explained softly, “Don’t guess randomly, it was a guy.”

“Tch, I don’t believe it. Why would you be so attentive for a guy?”

Lin Chen remained silent, picked up his phone, entered the Game Forum, and diligently started scrolling through posts.

He was meeting Qi Si at the Ruins of the Sunset tomorrow, so he needed to familiarize himself with the landmarks of the Ruins of the Sunset beforehand, lest he wander around aimlessly like a headless fly.

His roommate quieted down for a moment, then, energized somehow, climbed down the bed in a few steps and leaned close to Lin Chen: “So, who was it exactly?

“Scams have been rampant lately. Don’t tell me you ran into a fraudster and got tricked…”

“He’s not a fraudster.” Lin Chen shook his head solemnly.

He turned off his phone screen, looked up at his roommate, and said seriously, “He is someone who has helped me a lot, who saved my life… ‘A friend.'”