Chapter 292: April 23rd

April 23rd, cloudy.

Qi Si woke up at noon, twelve o’clock. Only two hours remained until the agreed-upon time to enter the instance.

He lingered in bed for a while, washed his face briefly, took the elevator downstairs, exited the community through the back gate, and walked into the bustling streets and alleys.

After the morning market dispersed, two rows of permanent shops remained. All the restaurants were now busily preparing for lunch.

Qi Si walked into his usual breakfast shop—which at this hour should perhaps be called a lunch shop—but didn’t see the familiar proprietress.

Inside the smoke-filled shop, a young couple had set up a makeshift grill on the counter near the door, grilling skewers, beads of sweat on their foreheads.

Seeing Qi Si look over, the husband raised a skewer of meat, whose raw material was unknown, and asked, “Brother, want some skewers? Ten yuan for three skewers, fifteen yuan for five skewers.”

Qi Si wasn’t interested in barbecue. He stood for a moment and said, “I remember this place used to sell Egg-stuffed Pancake.”

The husband paused, but the wife beside him smiled and said, “You mean Sister Wang’s Egg-stuffed Pancake, right? Sister Wang had to go back to her hometown, so she leased the shop to us for half a month.”

The husband snapped back to attention and added, “We don’t know when she’ll be back. She said if she doesn’t return, she’ll continue to rent it to us.”

Qi Si nodded in understanding.

He suddenly remembered that the last time he came, it was also a cloudy day like this, and the proprietress seemed to have mentioned that she was going back to her hometown in a couple of days to attend a friend’s funeral.

She was quite old, and having witnessed the death of a peer, feeling empathy for her kind, it wasn’t impossible for her to stay in her hometown to enjoy her later years and not return.

Qi Si’s thoughts drifted aimlessly, stirring an inexplicable irritation in his mood, unsure if it was because he found his memory was worsening, or because he disliked familiar environments changing.

In the past, he was accustomed to the people, objects, and scenes around him, always feeling that they would exist perfectly well forever, ready for interaction whenever he thought of them; yet suddenly, one day, he realized that everything changes.

Familiar things would be replaced by unfamiliar ones, and familiar people and relationships might suddenly reveal a strange face.

That undoubtedly meant trouble and variables, especially happening on such a gloomy and damp day; it was truly not a good omen.

Qi Si approached the counter, took out his phone, and scanned the QR code on it, paying one hundred and fifty yuan: “Fifty lamb skewers.”

The young couple, who had initially been somewhat apprehensive, finding Qi Si’s demeanor as eerie as a ghost, now simultaneously beamed with joy. They quickly grabbed handfuls of lamb skewers from the plastic box behind them and placed them on the grill.

Qi Si tilted his head and watched for a moment, then said, “Don’t grill the rest, just pack them for me to take away.”

The husband hesitated, “Brother, how can we sell grilled skewers without grilling them…”

The wife next to him quickly elbowed him, and while pulling out a plastic bag and stuffing the lamb skewers into it, she smiled at Qi Si: “Alright, I’ll bag them for you! Plastic bags are usually one yuan each, but since you bought so many, we won’t charge you.”

Qi Si pretended not to hear the clumsy little calculation in her words, took the plastic bag, and continued walking along the street.

Just as he turned the street corner, he heard a rapid, light pattering of footsteps, belonging to an animal.

A large, all-black dog stood among the garbage piles, burying its head to dig for food with its paws and mouth. Upon sensing Qi Si’s arrival, it wagged its tail and walked over, looking as if it had been reunited with an old friend and was overjoyed.

It had to be said that animals’ memories were much better than humans’ in some respects, or perhaps it was because they had fewer things to store in their brains, allowing them to properly process the few pieces of information.

Seeing Qi Si staring at it in a daze, the black dog clumsily raised its two front paws, brought them together, and bowed, its cloudy dog eyes eagerly looking at the plastic bag in Qi Si’s hand.

It opened its mouth wide, its wrinkled tongue hanging between its teeth, dripping sticky saliva.

To prevent it from excitedly pouncing and splattering garbage juice everywhere, Qi Si simply poured the entire bag of lamb skewers onto the ground.

The black dog, having received permission, lowered its head to lick the lamb skewers on the ground, while not forgetting to wag its tail faster and more vigorously, as a gesture of gratitude to its feeder.

Qi Si threw the empty plastic bag into the trash can and turned to walk back to the community along the way he came.

It was already one o’clock in the afternoon when he returned home. With an hour left before entering the instance, he went to the kitchen, grabbed a packet of instant noodles, threw them into a pot to cook, and quickly had breakfast and lunch.

Having made all preparations, he lay on the bed, pulled out his phone, played happy match for a while, and closed his eyes precisely at two o’clock to enter the Eerie Game.

In the temple-like Game Space, Qi Si slowly opened his eyes, feeling something heavy in his hand, as if he was holding something.

He raised his hand, and after seeing what he held, his eyes narrowed into thin slits.

It was a smartphone, looking exactly like the one he used in reality. The second before entering the Eerie Game, he was playing happy match on it… However, this phone seemed incompatible with the Eerie Game; no matter how Qi Si pressed it, the screen would only light up for a few seconds and couldn’t be unlocked.

【WARNING! Detected (data deleted) illegally loaded into the game… ERROR! ERROR!】

Blood-colored text covered the system interface, spreading like bloody threads beyond its boundaries.

Qi Si instinctively gripped the Sea-God Scepter, and golden vine-like phantoms bloomed from behind him, intertwining with the bloody threads on the system interface, then twisting and fading together until they were indistinguishable to the naked eye.

The system interface was blank, and the phone in his hand had vanished. There was no evidence to prove what had just happened, but Qi Si was absolutely certain that what he had seen earlier was not an illusion.

Following the special bracelet, he had unexpectedly brought his phone into the Eerie Game again… What was the principle behind this? Was there anything they had in common?

Lin Chen’s voice echoed in his mind: “Brother Qi, you probably haven’t entered the instance yet, have you? Could you please not enter the instance first and come to the Guild Residence? There’s something important.”

Qi Si knew he wouldn’t figure out the bracelet and phone issue anytime soon, so he simply put the questions aside.

He got up, took a few quick steps, pushed open the temple door, and after entering the Ruins of the Sunset, he gripped the guild emblem in his pocket and teleported to the Frog Hospital.

Lin Chen was not in the corridor; only a Straw Tiger lay quietly on the floor, with a note beside it:

【Brother Qi, I didn’t play any role throughout the Wraith instance. I took your performance score to become MVP and got the reward item.

【I already have two summoning items, and this item is also useless to me, so I’ll return it to you. Be extra careful during the joint operation, and take care!】

Qi Si picked up the Straw Tiger, and a system prompt flashed before his eyes.

【Name: Straw Tiger (Consumable)】

【Type: Item】

【Effect: Summons a tiger that obeys the item holder, remaining until killed.】

【Remark: A certain evil god, in extreme boredom, indulged in crafting, making countless bizarre animals out of paper and straw and releasing them into various worlds. Although they are discarded works, they still contain considerable divine power.】

This was the reward item Lin Chen received for perfectly clearing the Wraith instance.

He left the item and departed, probably fearing that Qi Si would refuse to accept it and insist on returning it to him.

Qi Si calmly put the Straw Tiger into his inventory and returned to the Game Space.

He didn’t immediately start matching for an instance. Instead, he entered the game mall and spent five hundred points to buy an 【Item Appearance Modification Coupon】, which he used on the Cursed Pendulum.

The crimson pendulum remained crimson after modification, but no one would mistake it for a “red pendulum” at first glance.

It looked more like a throwing weapon, such as a dart, with a black chain attached to its tail, connected to a black ring, making it easy for the owner to retrieve it after throwing.

Qi Si put the ring equipped with the Cursed Pendulum on his right middle finger and the Jiuzhou Guild’s white ring on his left pinky finger.

He tilted his head, then put the Sea-God Scepter into his inventory before walking to the full-length mirror.

The mirror reflected his original face, crimson spreading in his pupils, making his complexion pale and inhuman.

He stepped into the mirror, allowing his surroundings to plunge into darkness.

【Random instance generating】

【instance loading… Loading complete】

…In Yanghua Town, amidst the ruins littered with bones, Liu Yuhan gritted her teeth, stepping over piles of ashes, and looked around.

The Wraith instance had been permanently closed and would no longer be added to the game pool for players to randomly match or specifically enter.

She had to spend more points to get a chance to enter the Yanghua Town ruins, and could only stay for an hour.

She knew an hour was not enough, and that she likely wouldn’t find any clues, but she still searched through the ruins with a wishful thinking.

Maybe? Maybe she could find a few words left by that person? Even fragments would be good… Liu Yuhan carried a lantern, walking step by step, her dazed gaze drifting to the words “Evil God Believer” on the system interface in the upper left corner of her vision.

Previously, she had targeted Lin Chen, wanting to report him to the Jiuzhou Guild and have him listed as a dangerous person, but at the last moment, she was bound by the Contract, preventing her myriad thoughts from turning into action.

She learned for the first time that the scope of that Contract was so wide; as long as she didn’t break the Soul Contract, she wouldn’t be free… Fortunately, since signing the Soul Contract, she had already cleared twenty-six instances.

After the joint operation instance clears this afternoon, she would have seventy-three instances left until she regained her freedom.

Unknowingly, Liu Yuhan walked to a giant mirror.

That mirror stretched north and south, and looking far to both sides, its edges were out of sight.

The mirror surface was bright and clear, reflecting the image of the ruins behind her, like a calm lake, giving the intuition that one could pass through it.

Liu Yuhan tentatively reached out and indeed passed through the mirror surface.

A suction force arose out of nowhere, and she stumbled into the mirror, the surrounding scenery instantly turning upside down.

The intact town stood like an illusion, the wooden buildings on both sides and the dark, towering Residences in the distance were clearly visible, yet not a single person could be seen, only an endless void.

This was an empty town, a ghost town.

Liu Yuhan felt chills down her spine, the coldness seemingly penetrating her heart, congealing into mist, leaving her with a sense of confused bitterness.

A gust of wind came, gently swaying the lantern in her hand, the emerald green candlelight piercing through the thin paper shell, shining with a ghastly green light.

Liu Yuhan looked in the direction the wind came from; there was nothing there, yet she inexplicably had an intuition and cautiously asked, “Tang Yu, is that you? Are you here?”

There was no response, only the vast wind blowing, making the roof tiles rattle, and the lantern in her hand bumped and swayed.

Liu Yuhan grinned a self-deprecating smile, and as she smiled, tears fell.

【Countdown has ended, returning to Game Space】

The cold electronic voice sounded, and the scene of Yanghua Town collapsed into fragments before her eyes. When Liu Yuhan’s vision cleared again, she was already back in the study-like Game Space.

Entering the game at this time today, going to Yanghua Town was just an afterthought; what she really needed to do was participate in the Jiuzhou Guild’s joint operation.

She had volunteered to join this operation after learning that Qi Si would participate. She wanted to understand what was going on with Lin Chen, who had solo-cleared the Wraith instance.

But would Qi Si be willing to tell her?

Even if the answer was no, she had to try… Liu Yuhan raised a hand to wipe her face, put on the white ring issued by the Jiuzhou Guild, opened a large, gold-embossed book on the desk, and allowed herself to be drawn into it.

【Random instance generating】

【instance loading… Loading complete】

…In the coliseum-like Game Space constructed of marble, Chang Xu sat on a stone platform, first putting the white ring on his left pinky finger, then meticulously checking each item before placing them into his inventory.

In the upper right corner of his vision, a black Identity Card hung high.

On the card, a figure in a gold-embroidered black robe stood solemnly on a high platform, holding an open book in his left hand and a crucifix pendant in his right, seemingly about to declare something.

【Identity Card: Dark Judge】

【Effect: You can declare a player guilty. The instance will continuously generate bounty missions targeting that player until you die or the Identity Card is unbound; during the period the declaration is active, your presence will be continuously exposed】

This Identity Card was given to him by Fu Jue. Its effect was extremely radical, and the Eerie Investigation Bureau strictly forbade him from using it privately after learning about it.

This Identity Card seemed to have no other use than as an admission ticket to the Final Dungeon.

But Fu Jue told him to use this card to judge the monsters that harmed humans.

There was still some time before entering the instance, so Chang Xu entered the mall. A recorded video was pushed to him; it was a recording of the Wraith instance, and the cover featured two familiar faces: Luo Haihua and Luo Jianhua.

He remembered he hadn’t seen this couple in a long time, and impulsively bought the video.

With just a glance, he saw the blood-red crystal pendant, half rose and half heart-shaped, on the neck of the red-clothed youth who called himself “Lin Wen.”

Rose Heart, he had seen it on Qi Si’s neck.

It’s Qi Si again… “Chang Xu, hurry up and match for the instance, do your best this time!” Ning Xu’s urging voice came through the Team Ring.

Chang Xu closed the video, clenching and unclenching his fist.

If he remained confined within the organization’s framework, under the Eerie Investigation Bureau’s new policy, he would never have the opportunity to remove Qi Si, this dangerous individual, from the game.

—He had to transcend the rule.

Chang Xu jumped off the stone platform, pushed open the iron door, and walked in.

【Your last live broadcast received unanimous praise from the audience. Congratulations on becoming a rising star in the live streaming room!】

【Would you like to continue live streaming this instance?】

“No. I won’t open it again in the future.”

【Default settings saved for you】

【Random instance generating】

【instance loading… Loading complete】