Chapter 53: Jin Yusheng |
[The Flesh Eating (Novice) instance has been permanently closed due to unforeseen circumstances.]
[Last player to clear: ** (Player has not set a display name.)]
In the Sunset Ruins, every player heard the system announcement and saw the changes on the stone monument.
A chorus of discussion erupted.
"What's the deal? How can a novice instance get permanently shut down? What on earth happened in there?"
"This is exactly seventy-two hours after the announcement for the True End clear of Rose Manor. It couldn't be the same person, could it?"
"These rookies are all monsters. I'm more curious about what they did to the Flesh Eating instance. You don't think they blew it up, do you?"
"Who knows? Maybe they'll put together a guide. We can check the forums later."
"Let me tell you from experience, don't get your hopes up. We never saw a guide for that last True End clear, either!"
In the end, it was just a novice instance.
Over the past thirty-six years, countless brilliant rookies had appeared, but most of them met their end in their third instance, fading into obscurity.
Whether they would ascend to godhood or plunge into the abyss was something that would only be decided after they became official players.
...
In the mountains north of the capital, far from the bustling city, stood a silent building completely clad in white metal. Lampposts scattered among the trees cast a stark white glow, projecting sparse, shifting shadows of leaves onto its metallic shell.
There were no signs or markings around the building to indicate its purpose, yet several military trucks were parked nearby. Personnel in black uniforms moved back and forth between the trucks and the building, unloading sealed iron boxes, each wrapped in black cloth.
After being moved inside, the iron boxes were taken by elevator deep into the chilly underground, then distributed to a series of iron rooms, each fitted with only a small window.
Faintly visible on the doors of these rooms were words like "Containment Item," along with various numbers indicating hazard levels.
In a far corner of the fifth basement level was a recording room, from which a steady, measured voice could be heard.
"'Flesh Eating' instance. Type: Eleven-player, large-team survival. A trigger-based, rule-oriented ghost story. Main objective: Survive for five days. The following rules have been determined:"
"'One: The ghosts in Su Clan Village cannot be killed by any force from outside the village...'"
Yang Yundong leaned back in his chair, tired but calm, reciting the rules one by one, along with any minor textual details.
A middle-aged man stood silently beside him, holding recording equipment, his expression grave. His identity was no secret here—he was Shao Qingmin, Deputy Director of Division Two of the Weird Investigation Bureau.
"'Three: The ghosts in the ancestral hall are in a constant state of hunger...'"
"'The danger on the first night comes from hunger; the solution is to eat the divine meat. Sufficient divine meat can be obtained from the village chief's house. The chief's weakness is sunlight. One must pay respects at the ancestral hall, which is only open in the morning...'"
"'Subsequent developments are unknown. Lethal triggers are unknown. The outcome is unknown.'"
The moment he heard "outcome is unknown," Shao Qingmin understood everything.
He knelt, his hand trembling as he gripped Yang Yundong's. "Old Yang," he asked, his voice strained, "what happened?"
Yang Yundong slowly shifted his gaze to Shao Qingmin, meeting an equally exhausted pair of eyes.
He continued in the same detached, reporting tone. "Three individuals, identifying as Zhao Feng, Zhou Yilin, and Chang Xu, displayed a tendency for slaughtering other players. The one named 'Chang Xu' is especially dangerous. If he survived, he should be placed on a priority watchlist."
Through Shao Qingmin's blurred vision, Yang Yundong saw the fresh blood seeping from his own nose and mouth, and only then did he belatedly feel the pain.
For no reason at all, he wondered: could it be as painful as being burned alive?
"Old Yang, are you holding on? Describe that 'Chang Xu's' appearance for me, so I can create a file..."
Yang Yundong remained silent, the young man's sarcastic, barbed words echoing uncontrollably in his mind.
'What is public order? What is justice? To maintain a surface-level peace and stability, the Federation grows pale at the mere mention of ghosts. Children born with the ability to see them are treated as monsters, and victims of supernatural events are thrown into mental institutions... Investigator Yang, you tell me, how is that right?'
His consciousness began to fade, but the pain only grew sharper. Yang Yundong shook his head slightly and subconsciously reached for his pocket.
This time, it wasn't empty. With a trembling hand, he pulled out a cigarette and placed it between his lips.
Shao Qingmin lit it for him. "Old Yang, describe 'Chang Xu's' appearance."
The silvery smoke curled upward like a thread. Yang Yundong took a sharp drag, letting the smoke swirl in his lungs before exhaling.
He stared at the smoke as it hazed the air, and for a moment, it felt as if he had traveled back in time, back to his days as a soldier six years ago.
He saw the faces, long blurred in his memory, and the corners of his eyes began to sting.
"Old Yang, describe 'Chang Xu's' appearance," Shao Qingmin urged.
Yang Yundong didn't answer.
He took another drag, exhaling puffs of smoke. His voice was heavy with the weariness of memory. "That fire back then... my whole squad went in. I was the only one who made it out..."
"I never started a family. They all had wives and kids... Why wasn't I the one who died?"
Yang Yundong's gaze unfocused, his voice and breathing growing fainter together, becoming nearly inaudible, like a gossamer thread. "Old Shao, you tell me... the Federation knew it was a supernatural event, that the place was full of ghosts that people couldn't kill..."
"Why... why did they still make us throw our lives away in there, one by one?"
...
"Why is someone like you still alive in this world?"
Qi Si was having a nightmare.
In his dream, all the beings who had died by his hand were alive again, hurling questions at him filled with contempt and loathing. Children laughed as they tore up his books, announcing in a tone that suggested they'd known it all along, "Qi Si spends all day reading this horrible stuff. He's really rotten to the core!"
His aunt, brandishing a broom and pointing an accusatory finger, jabbed at him. "You jinxed your own parents to death, and now you come here to eat our food and use our things? What bad luck!"
Shovelfuls of dirt raining down on him in a deep pit in a deserted field; vicious dogs from an illegal factory barking madly across the hills; damp snakes and insects coiling around the neck of a boy hiding behind a coffin; military trucks packed with people; saints in white robes; bodies being dragged away; a great fire...
The fragmented images blurred together before his eyes, a lively procession of shadows, one taking the stage as soon as another left.
Qi Si watched this parade of ghouls and demons with utter boredom. Estimating that his brain was now sufficiently rested, he let himself fall backward and woke from the dream.
He was sitting on the sofa. He gave a listless yawn and lowered his head to continue reading the book he'd been halfway through before the instance.
The book was short, and he finished it in less than half an hour.
Out of sheer boredom, Qi Si flipped to the afterword and began to read it, word by word.
[During my field research, I stayed in a village called 'Su Clan Village.' My host was an old woman who called herself 'Su Po.' Many of the stories in this book were pieced together, carefully extracted from her accounts...]
The calm narrative held a wealth of information. Qi Si's brow furrowed slightly.
He took out his phone and searched for "Su Clan Village." After sifting through a mountain of irrelevant digital junk, he couldn't find a single piece of information that matched the description in the afterword.
The author had conducted their fieldwork in Yuzhou, but no matter how he searched for the term "Yuzhou Su Clan Village," he couldn't find an exact match.
The afterword was dated July 6, 2017. Today was March 13, 2035. For an entire village to disappear without a trace in eighteen years was, by any measure, unsettling.
Later that night, once Qi Si was certain he couldn't find anything on the public web, he logged into the game forums.
There was only one post containing the keyword "Su Clan Village."
#New Instance Added to Novice Pool: Flesh Eating, Known Rules as Follows#
The post was made by the Kyushu Guild. Qi Si scanned through it quickly.
The lengthy post simply reiterated the text-based information from the Flesh Eating instance. How the Kyushu Guild had obtained this information was a mystery.
Below, a crowd of players was clamoring in the comments. Some were asking, "Why post a guide when the instance is already blown up?" while others demanded, "Hurry up and tell us who blew it up!"
After searching for a while longer and still finding nothing of value, Qi Si dialed his friend's number directly.
His intention was just to leave a missed call, expecting his friend to call back the next day.
But to his surprise, his friend picked up within a second and launched into a rapid-fire tirade. "Old Qi, what a coincidence! I was just about to call you to report my findings, and here you are calling me! You can count on me to get things done, no need to chase me down..."
"Jin Yusheng," Qi Si cut off his friend's rambling, "if you keep spewing nonsense, I can't guarantee I won't stuff you in a suitcase the next time we meet."
To have survived by Qi Si's side for this long and maintained a six-year friendship, this friend was naturally no ordinary person.
His main profession was a Taoist master, with a side business as an information broker. He operated in the gray areas of society, rubbing shoulders with people from every walk of life, and knew a little something about everything. His self-proclaimed title, "the modern encyclopedia of the underworld," was hardly an exaggeration.
"My bad, Old Qi!" Jin Yusheng instantly groveled over the phone. "Getting back on track, I've investigated eighteen generations of the artisan who made your bracelet. All law-abiding citizens. I've checked everyone short of his third cousins twice removed..."
Qi Si was feeling a little hungry. He got up, went to the kitchen, and opened a pack of instant noodles, dumping the noodles and seasoning into a pot before adding a bowl of water.
"...Not for nothing, but you should really get that persecution complex of yours checked out. I feel like you're not just tormenting yourself, you're wearing out your friends too."
Qi Si turned the stove to high and said, ignoring him, "I have another favor to ask. I need you to look into the 'Su Clan Village' mentioned in the afterword of the book *Records of Yuzhou*. Find out if the place actually exists and what the situation is. And see if there really was a person named 'Su Po.'"
He gazed out the window through the kitchen's glass door.
The low night sky was cast in a golden glow by the headlights and skyscraper billboards, the endless streams of traffic stretching to the horizon. In a city that never slept, prosperity was on full display. All the evil spirits, supernatural phenomena, and ghost stories seemed to exist only in whispered tales, with no place to survive on the city streets.
Qi Si knew there were ghosts in the world. Until he was sixteen, he had been able to see them naturally, and when necessary, he had even used those supernatural forces to do some... less-than-legal things.
But those past memories had faded along with his emotions, growing as faint as water stains, as illusory as a half-remembered dream.
Even after genuinely encountering all sorts of supernatural beings in the Weird Game, Qi Si had always felt there was a barrier between the game and reality—that it was another kind of life...
But it seemed that wasn't the case.
"Hey, I never realized you were so nitpicky. You're really going to investigate some random stuff a novelist made up...?"
Qi Si hung up.
Guessing enough time had passed, he poured the noodles from the pot into a bowl.
Seeing the diced beef floating on the surface, he tapped his little finger, activating the effect of the [Evil God's Finger Bone].
His thoughts drifted. Qi Si suddenly considered that if the supernatural could enter reality, there must be organizations in the world dedicated to monitoring the Weird Game.
The police investigating the Liu Ajiu incident three days ago was suspicious enough.
He had checked the Federation's public reports afterward; Liu Ajiu hadn't committed any recent crimes. So what were those people dressed as police officers really investigating?
—Did they also know about the Weird Game's existence?
The power of the government, and the various civilian forces growing in the shadows—none of it could be underestimated.
Qi Si knew that anyone with a decent weapon could easily eliminate him physically.
He stood utterly alone, trusting no one. The only thing he could rely on was his seemingly unique ability to bring items from the game into reality.
He just wondered if, after accumulating enough power, he too could take a seat at the negotiating table and vie for even greater gains.
Qi Si rested his chin in his hand, his gaze lowered to the diced beef in his noodles.
The effect of the [Evil God's Finger Bone] seemed to be literal: it only changed the taste of the meat.
The diced beef still looked like diced beef, and it might taste vegetarian, but after his recent experience in the Flesh Eating instance, Qi Si had absolutely no desire to swallow the stuff.
So, he picked up his chopsticks and began to patiently pick out the pieces of beef, one by one...
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