Chapter 254: Wraith (I) – Killed by a Tiger

When individual and collective are set on opposite ends of the scale,

the choice of sacrifice or salvation has long been decided by others.

— Volume IV: Alone and Together

The night was moonless; only a few stars hung overhead, a cluster of ghostly green fire floated before him.

Fog bound the mountain forest; pale smoke coiled among forked branches, blurring the farther shadows of wandering Ghosts.

Lin Chen opened his eyes and saw a mirror, glimmering silver in the thick night, reflecting his image.

He wore a grey long robe, hair tied back with cloth, a lantern in his right hand, a wooden medicine box in his left—clearly the dress of an ancient physician.

The mirror flashed and vanished like an illusion.

Lin Chen held the lantern pole in his teeth, lifted the lid of the medicine chest: atop a heap of unidentifiable herbs lay an opened letter, refolded.

He drew the paper out with two fingers, snapped it open, and by lantern light read the inked words:

【To Doctor Lin…】

The letter, written in classical Chinese, asked “Doctor Lin” to go to a place called Yanghua Town and treat the old matriarch of the Meng household.

A map attached warned that Yanghua Town lay deep in the mountains; paths were easily lost. If he strayed into the illusions of Mountain Spirits, no cure could save him.

A hundred words sketched the instance’s premise—why players appeared here—and hinted at coming danger.

Lin Chen returned the letter, lifted the lantern again, and felt suspicion everywhere.

In ancient times one sent a trusted servant to fetch a doctor; if roads were hard, a guide was essential.

A letter alone—never mind whether the doctor would come—was so slow that by the time it arrived the patient could be dead.

Clearly this “Yanghua Town” was trouble, luring people for unknown purposes.

Lin Chen rubbed the red ring on his right ring finger, unease rising.

He should have entered in a party with Qi Si—so where was Qi Si?

Why was there not a soul in sight, only himself alone?

He raised the lantern and looked around.

In the wavering light, emerald bamboo crossed overhead; several straw dolls leaned crookedly at the roots, their faces painted with red smiles.

The flame flickered; when it steadied, the dolls’ smiles had widened, almost ear to ear.

Lin Chen instinctively stepped back; the doll spun halfway, its grin shrinking to the original curve.

The scarecrow was painted on both sides; a breeze would spin it, making the face seem to change—simple but startling.

Yet… in this place the fog hung like solid wool for half the night—where would wind come from?

“Roaar—”

A monstrous sound burst from deep in the forest—like landslide, thunder, or the roar of some colossal beast.

The ground shook; the bamboo clattered, and droplets drummed onto Lin Chen’s head.

Were they drops from leaves, or beads of condensed mist?

He wiped the back of his neck; the liquid felt thick and slippery.

“Gurgle…”

A round object rolled down the slope behind him and stopped at his foot.

A reek of blood curled into his nose; heart pounding, he lowered the lantern—and saw a gore-smeared human head.

A gory head lay at his feet!

“Drip-drip… drip…”

The shower overhead continued to patter.

Lin Chen, rigid, slowly tilted his head back.

Half-eaten carrion hung upside-down from a bamboo, swaying like smoked meat.

Headless, its neck torn into a ghastly gaping wound still dripping blood.

A drop of pus-laced blood slid to the tip of his nose and crept toward his lip… 【instance Name: Wraith】

【instance Type: Team Puzzle】

【Forewarning: Men die and become Ghosts; Ghosts die and become Ji; Ji die and become Xiyi.】

Three lines of silvery text scrolled across the system panel, followed by a strangely pronounced voice-over:

【Those devoured by tigers become Wraiths, bound to serve the beast and dare not stray. At dead of night they lure people to open doors so the tiger may feed.】

【Yanghua Town has long suffered a sick tiger; slayers of the beast all died and turned into Wraiths haunting the town.】

The voice chanted, thin and giggling, “hee-hee” amid the words.

Clouds overhead scattered; cold white moonlight speared down and lit the bamboo grove.

Lin Chen, still looking up, stared eye-to-eye with the swaying corpse.

He edged backward step by step, while quietly calling up a crumpled case file from his inventory and gripping it in his right hand.

【Name: Psychiatrist’s Case File】

【Type: Item】

【Effect: Randomly summons a patient’s spirit for 30 s (cooldown 24 h);

observe and record a new case for a chance to extend duration or shorten cooldown.】

【Note: Psych patients think big; when in doubt, maybe ask them?】

This reward from the Frog Hospital instance was a summoning item like Umbrella Filled with Pain, but gentler—no backlash risk, enough for an opening scare.

More silver text refreshed on the system panel.

【You are a renowned doctor of Yangzhou. One night a Crow brought a letter begging for treatment.】

【Though startled, your healer’s heart would not ignore it, and curiosity urged you on.】

【Next morning you set out, followed the clues, and reached Yanghua Town after midnight.】

【main quest updated】

【main quest: Enter Yanghua Town and cure Old Lady Meng.】

Lin Chen kept half his attention on the prompts, half on his surroundings; after a while no new threat appeared.

Apparently the smiling scarecrow, the head and the corpse were only opening jump-scares and clues, not instant-death Ghosts.

Puzzle instances seldom began with lethal traps; survival difficulty and combat demands were usually low.

“Lin Chen, I finally see you… come this way…”

A familiar voice drifted in, broken and faint.

It seemed carried on distant mountain air, yet also echoed through the Team-up Ring inside his mind.

Lin Chen clenched his right fist, thumb brushing the ring finger, and silently asked, “Brother Qi, where are you? I’m in the bamboo forest outside Yanghua Town, lost; there are creepy scarecrows and a corpse.”

“I’m here… walk along the path and you’ll see me…”

Qi Si’s voice, thinned by mountain mist, sounded distorted, but now had a clear direction.

Lin Chen looked toward the voice.

What had seemed solid bamboo now revealed a seam wide enough for one person; the earth there was packed, grass flattened—clearly a man-made trail.

A small path, paved with white stones every half-step, large and small, as if guiding the way.

Had this road suddenly appeared? Why hadn’t he noticed it before?

Lin Chen sensed something was off, swallowed, and cautiously said, “Brother Qi, you texted me before we entered the instance, mentioning something important. I can’t quite remember.”

Qi Si seemed to notice his concern and praised him with a smile, “Good vigilance. You suspect I’ve been replaced by a Ghost?”

Lin Chen said nothing.

Qi Si continued on his own, “Right, my alias in this instance is Lin Wen. If anyone asks further, say I’m your cousin. Have you thought of your alias?”

“I have—call me Lin Ya, the Ya from Crow.”

With no more worries, he followed the white stones and slipped through a narrow gap in the bamboo grove.

After a short walk, the view opened up; the bamboo grove receded behind him and several clusters of firelight came into sight.

In the dim light, the towering archway looked like a hill, beneath which several figures stood or leaned—clearly players.

Every one of them had, under the instance’s influence, changed into ancient attire and carried identical lanterns.

Lin Chen spotted the young man leaning against a stone pillar at first glance.

His brows were faint as mist, his eyes deep and lightless, his features striking, yet his lips and complexion so pale they were almost bloodless.

The youth’s long hair hung loose, the blood-red robe draped loosely over him, dragging along the ground, making him look listless.

Though the face and image were completely unfamiliar, Lin Chen still recognized him as Qi Si by instinct.

Seeing Lin Chen, Qi Si’s brows twitched imperceptibly; he took a handkerchief from his pocket and tossed it over.

Lin Chen caught it and hurriedly wiped his face and hands clean of the dripping blood.

Qi Si looked away without another word, as though handing a stranger a handkerchief had been a casual courtesy.

Lin Chen took the hint, stepped forward and greeted the others with a nervous, friendly smile, “Hello everyone, I’m Lin Ya—this is my eighth instance since the Novice Pool.

“My spawn point was in the bamboo grove—lots of straw men with smiling faces and human remains, but I think it’s just a scare clue, not a death spot.”

“My role in this instance is a doctor from Yangzhou City. Yesterday I received a letter asking me to come to Yanghua Town to cure Old Madame Meng. My main quest is to enter Yanghua Town and heal her.”

“What a coincidence—I got a letter too,” said a youth in black with a baby face who looked easy to get along with.

A sword hung at his waist, giving him the air of an ancient knight-errant. “The letter says Yanghua Town is plagued by tigers and is recruiting warriors to kill one, with a reward of a hundred thousand.”

“My main quest is to ‘kill the Mountain God’; Teacher Luo says ‘Mountain God’ is just another name for the tiger… Oh, you can call me Tang Yu.”

The one called Teacher Luo was a middle-aged woman named Luo Haihua—short, slightly plump, energetic, with two dimples when she smiled.

She claimed to be a high-school Chinese teacher; in the instance her role was a lost scholar in the mountains, and her main quest was to find the way out of Yanghua Town.

She wore a sapphire-blue straight-robe and a cloth cap; under the instance’s polish she looked valiant—silent, one could hardly tell she was a woman.

Luo Haihua had entered with her husband; both were peripheral members of the Jiuzhou Guild.

The husband, also surnamed Luo, was Luo Jianhua—tall, solemn, taciturn, giving only a concise account of his profession and quest.

Right—this one is a high-school physics teacher, a failed scholar like Luo Haihua, also lost; his main quest is likewise to leave Yanghua Town.

The girl in the purple ruqun, silent until now, introduced herself, “I’m Qiu Xin, majoring in Traditional Chinese Medicine. My setting is coming to Yanghua Town to fetch a rare herb to save someone; my task is to ‘kill the Mountain God’.”

The girl looked in her early twenties, her expression tinged with inexplicable sorrow, giving off a gloomy air. “I know my identity and quest don’t logically connect; if you doubt me, I won’t explain. It’s a team instance—there’s no need for me to lie.”

Tang Yu frowned. “What attitude is that? We haven’t said anything, yet you assume we suspect you?”

Luo Haihua laughed amiably to smooth things over, “Come on, this is a team instance; our main quests must be connected. We’ll need to cooperate and share info to figure out the key—no point being suspicious, and suspicion won’t help anyway.”

Qiu Xin glanced at her and stayed silent.

While the others talked, Qi Si—using the Team Ring that were secretly a Soul Contract—had already asked Lin Chen for every line of narration and hint he knew.

He straightened up, stepped among the players, and said flatly, “Lin Wen, specimen preparer, ninth instance.

“In reality a friend of mine is a Daoist priest; from him I picked up a bit, so in this instance my role is a Daoist invited to deal with the Wandering Ghosts.”

The youth looked indifferent and detached, casual and aloof—clearly a hard-to-approach senior expert.

“My main quest is to cure Old Madame Meng. The Meng family suspects her illness is caused by Wandering Ghosts, so they sent a Crow to deliver a letter, hiring me at great expense to exorcise the evil.”

Listening at his side, Lin Chen felt there were too many holes to even start poking at.

Identical quests were one thing, but every other player’s quest also came in pairs—and even the letter-delivery method was the same… Was the Eerie Game too lazy to write fresh copy?”

“I forgot to add—my letter was delivered by a Crow too,” Lin Chen chimed in.

Tang Yu raised an eyebrow. “Fancy that—so was mine.”

Indeed, the Crow had been terribly busy.

After waiting a while longer and seeing no one else arrive, Luo Haihua smiled, “Old Luo and I need to leave Yanghua Town. Since the instance just started and there are few death spots, let’s look around first.”

Tang Yu lifted a hand to stop her. “Don’t even think about it. It’s late at night, we’ve barely seen any plot or clues—any search would waste energy for nothing, even if we won’t die.”

“Right, that makes sense,” Luo Haihua agreed, looking past the archway into the pitch-black town. “Then tonight we’ll enter Yanghua Town and find a place to stay.”

She was bold, strolling casually into the town. Luo Jianhua nodded to the remaining players before following her.

Tang Yu walked behind them; Qi Si and Lin Chen also followed silently, side by side with him.

The instant they stepped past the archway, Tang Yu suddenly blurted, “Damn.”

Qi Si halted as well, narrowing his eyes.

The town beyond the archway was nothing like the dead silence seen from outside—it had sprung to life, full of human activity.

Peddlers and porters, shouting shopkeepers and waiters, heavily made-up women, scholars in blue robes with white fans—all moved about, enjoying themselves, vivid and real.

Strangely, while it had clearly been night outside, inside the town it was broad daylight!