Chapter 264 – Wraith (11): White Hair into Ruins

Each player carried a lantern and, led by the Scholar, walked out of the western Residence’s grounds.

“Pat, pat,” their footsteps tapped in rhythm as the dense wooden houses drifted away behind them.

Great swaths of architectural shadow shrank like clouds scattered by wind; bright daylight poured overhead, turning the ground mirror-bright.

Yanghua Town bustled by day: every wooden building lining the road housed shops—clothes, rouge, curios, pawnbrokers—an endless, dazzling variety.

A faint incense drifted in the air, evoking bamboo or wildflowers; the breeze carried it onto players’ clothes.

Townsmen in every hue moved among the storefronts—blue, teal, white, yellow, grey—a riot of color.

Lin Chen clearly remembered Qi Si’s earlier claim that “different trades wear different colors”; now he studied every passer-by’s dress and face from the corner of his eye.

Blue belonged to the sons of the rich, trailed by yellow- and grey-clad attendants; teal to Scholars, white to beggars… Indeed, each rank dressed alike, while everyone within a “trade” looked near-identical.

It was as though… people had been sorted and labeled on purpose.

Lin Chen couldn’t help recalling third-rate games where developers, too lazy to build new models, copy-pasted NPCs.

Yanghua Town’s population felt the same—crudely mass-produced outfits, zero individuality.

In an instant the human warmth turned unreal, like blossoms glimpsed through fog—only to draw close and find rotting sores.

“Brother Qi, the townsfolk really do dress by trade and status. Plenty of faces don’t match their clothes—looks like people really swap roles…”

Lin Chen spoke silently to Qi Si through their soul Contract.

After realizing unseen “Nothingness” might be trailing them, he felt like meat on a block, watched by countless hostile eyes.

Better not voice clues aloud; an NPC might overhear.

Finishing his report, he silently asked, “Why would the Eerie Game design it like this? Easier control? Constant swapping only breeds chaos…”

“Who knows?” Qi Si drawled. “Once we meet Master Meng we can ask; if he’s in a good mood he might tell us.”

…Ask an NPC about a rule that creepy—won’t that backfire?

Lin Chen clicked his tongue, gaze roaming, and spotted a blue-clad middle-aged man fingering pricey curios in a shop.

The man had a weather-beaten face, dark furrows—clearly a lifelong farmer—yet wore the garb of wealth, perfectly at ease in the mismatch.

Like this morning’s Scholar, he’d switched roles; only the clash showed even more starkly.

Seeing it, Lin Chen sighed, “If every rank in Yanghua—rich or poor—gets shuffled at random, I suppose that’s fair, haha.”

He passed the remark to Qi Si, and the youth’s cool voice returned: “Do you truly call that fair? Or—does fairness even mean anything here?”

Lin Chen had spoken casually; he had no ready answer.

Qi Si went on evenly: “Old capital vanishes overnight; the merely lucky reap without work; rights without duties, labor without reward—none of that is just.”

“I doubt the core NPC ruling Yanghua is some naïve dreamer. His utilitarian streak shows in how he locked us in the Residence to rot on mere suspicion.”

“I suspect the swaps are random, chaotic—only a few deliberate, the rest left to chance.”

Lin Chen half-understood: “But… swapping roles is messy. True ‘chance’ would leave folk in one rank till death…”

“That’s how normal humans think. Who knows what the townsfolk of Yanghua really are?”

“Huh? You mean whether they’re human or ghost depends on their role?”

“Not sure yet. We’ll see.”

While they talked privately, Tang Yu suddenly pointed toward a distant knot of people and asked the Scholar, “What’s happening there?”

The spot lay at the far end of the players’ street.

Open on every side, it formed a small square now jammed like a rally; surrounding foot-traffic, like sheep, surged toward the crush, piling into a black clump that blocked the road.

The Scholar halted, turned to Tang Yu: “Someone’s died; they’re going to gawk. People die every day—every day the same.”

Birth, age, sickness, death—commonplace in any city; in reality it’s nothing unusual.

But inside the Eerie Game, anything involving life and death demands caution.

Tang Yu gripped his saber hilt. “Your town is strict with outsiders and Wraiths, yet people still die daily? How?”

The Scholar’s pale face rotated ink-dark eyes exactly once, fixing on Tang Yu: “The Mountain God eats one person a day—that’s the rule. Someone must beat the night-watch at Zi Hour—also the rule. Everyone in town knows these rules.”

Rules again.

The players all recalled what the Scholar had said yesterday:

‘Each newly dead Wraith must kill one person a night or be scattered to nothing. Tomorrow we’ll see if anyone dies—then we’ll know whether a Wraith hides among you.’

‘We’ll ask Master Meng to deal with any rule-breaking Wraith that sneaks into town.’

The phrase “breaking rules” had sounded odd; now it made sense.

Townsmen and the Mountain God—the tiger—had clearly struck a deal: both townsfolk and the tiger’s “Wraiths” must obey the rules.

Tang Yu frowned: “So your rule is: one death a day for the tiger, and the tiger keeps its Wraiths from harming anyone else?”

The Scholar nodded, each word deliberate: “Yes. Rules are rules; whoever breaks them first will be punished.”

Of course, that was only if you were caught red-handed breaking the rules, the players silently added in their minds.

After all, as far as the three of them knew, a Wraith like Qiu Xin had already slipped into town.

Lin Chen thought of a question and blurted it out. “Hang on—if you’ve got rules like that, why invite people here to hunt the tiger? Doesn’t that break the agreement? And didn’t the old lady running the Residence say it’s only because the Mountain God is here that you’ve been spared from war…”

The Scholar turned his face toward Lin Chen, a strange smile tugging at his lips. “Master Meng is the one who invited you. If you don’t understand, perhaps you should ask Master Meng.”

Fine—ask Master Meng again, Lin Chen grumbled to himself, though he already had a few guesses about what was really going on.

At the end of the day, rules are toys for the strong and wishful thinking for the weak; they can be shattered by sheer force at any moment.

If humanity wants to endure, it must stay vigilant in times of peace.

Even with rules in place, Wraiths still sneak into town to kill; who’s to say the tiger won’t lose its temper one day?

Better to deal with the threat once and for all than to let this Sword of Damocles hang overhead indefinitely.

Besides, no one is obliged to sacrifice themselves; trading one life for the safety of others is no long-term solution.

“Everyone’s gone to watch. Would you gentlemen like to join them?” The Scholar swept his gaze across the players, utterly indifferent.

“Mm, let’s take a look.” Qi Si nodded and followed the flow of the crowd.

As he walked, he added in a mournful tone, “If it’s truly as you say, and the man knew he would die yet still insisted on sounding the night-watch at Zi Hour, then he was a hero willing to give his life for everyone. We should see him off.”

The speech sounded noble and righteous, yet to Lin Chen and Tang Yu it rang hollow—every word dripping with sarcasm.

Fortunately, the Scholar sensed nothing amiss.

He smiled and said, “Good, then let’s wait here a moment. When the funeral procession arrives, the onlookers will thin out and you can follow.”

“By the rules, we townsfolk of Yanghua Town may not look when the dead are carried out. You’re outsiders—perhaps it won’t matter.”

Lin Chen blinked. “Really? Then can we tag along with the funeral and leave town today?”

The Scholar said, “You may. But keep your distance—at least thirty paces away.”

“Mm-hmm! So… we’re not in a hurry to see Master Meng?”

The Scholar twisted his neck with a soft rasp and spoke meaningfully, “If you wish to watch the funeral, I can make an exception and take you to Master Meng later.”

As he spoke, several townsfolk were already edging away along the walls, slipping through gaps at the sides of the road.

They walked and talked, their voices anything but low:

“Old Li’s gone. Sigh, he did it for us. He was the only one who died last night.”

“He passed peacefully, no pain—just like falling asleep.”

“That’s for the best. The old folk die off one after another; it’s no different from dying of old age.”

Tang Yu shot the Scholar an inquiring glance. Before he could ask, the man said, “Every night the watchman is chosen by everyone together—everyone knows.”

When the topic turned to the dead, the Scholar became unusually talkative: “Usually the chosen watchman is the oldest in town. At their age they’ve lived long enough, and they’re happy to trade their life for their children’s safety.”

Lin Chen muttered to Qi Si, “No wonder the tiger sends Wraiths into town—eating an old person every day can’t be to its liking either…”

Qi Si gave no reply; instead he looked at the Scholar and asked casually, “How old is Master Meng? And how old is the old lady of the Meng family?”

At the question, visible confusion blanketed the Scholar’s face.

His eyes stared vacantly into space as he mumbled, “How old… how old…?”

As if bewitched, he repeated the words, hands clawing at the air as though countless invisible shapes circled him.

Tang Yu’s expression darkened; he flicked his wrist and drew the blade at his waist, holding it across his body.

Qi Si pulled Lin Chen a step back, keeping a safe distance from the dazed Scholar.

“Make way—the funeral party is coming!” a shout rang in the distance, carried on the wind.

The Scholar’s muttering broke off; instantly he looked normal again.

Smiling at the players as if nothing had happened, he repeated, “If you go to watch the funeral, I can take you to Master Meng later.”

“All must die—Let the Earth Bring Peace!” the shout came again, nearer than before.

“Let the Earth Bring Peace…”

“Clear the Road for the Dead…”

Fragmented responses overlapped, townsfolk passing the words along in every direction like an ancient shaman’s chant, driving the crowd to ebb like a tide into the side streets.

Soon the townsfolk had vanished into the alleys, swallowed as the sea splits into a hundred rivers.

Only the three players and their scholarly guide remained in the street.

Qi Si looked toward the direction the call had first come from.

Four figures, stark white, rode four equally white donkeys, swaying forward at a leisurely pace.

The riders were paper people—thin as a single sheet, crudely cut into human shape with no faces, just blank whiteness.

The donkeys were paper too, but they had faces: eyes, blush, and smiling mouths painted in blood-red, eerily human and unsettling.

Qi Si’s gaze dropped to the corpse lying in the road.

A small old man in a conical hat and black robe, eyes closed as if asleep.

His wrinkled face and yellowed teeth were familiar to every player: the old man who had run the Residence yesterday and vanished this morning.

All the players knew clearly that Qiu Xin had killed him.

Time of death: before Zi Hour.

Cause: a Wraith must kill one person every night.

He had been chosen because he had once cast a human shadow, proving he was undeniably alive.

The players had made the kill, acting purely from their own standpoint—what did that have to do with Yanghua’s rules, the “Mountain God,” or the townsfolk’s Contract?

Something was off.

While they stood stunned, the four paper riders reached the corpse, dismounted with airy grace, and fluttered into a circle around it.

Without even a reed mat, two lifted the old man’s arms and two his legs, hoisting the body high.

In perfect unison they remounted the donkeys, balancing the stiff limbs across their shoulders, and swayed off down the long street.

The corpse, rigid as wood, never slipped from their grasp.

Even stranger.

The players exchanged glances and followed.