Chapter 69: The Old House |
It was already noon when Qi Si arrived at his old family home in the countryside.
He stepped out of the taxi and walked directly toward the house he remembered from his childhood.
Along the way, he passed a few villagers at work in the fields. Most were strangers who shot furtive glances at the unexpected visitor.
A few faces were familiar, however, and they whispered amongst themselves, "That's him, the one who jinxed his parents to death, then his whole family..."
The countryside of this era was in its twilight years, left with nothing but broken bricks and withered grass that resembled flakes of skin and white hair, amidst a boundless expanse of loneliness and desolation.
Qi Si hadn't been back in a long time, but amid a jumble of crooked old houses, he quickly spotted the two-story building that had been renovated six years ago.
He walked up to the door and tried to fit his key in the lock, but it wouldn't go in. He then noticed that the lock had been changed.
The situation had become interesting. Qi Si simply drew a thin wire from his bracelet and picked the lock.
It was lunchtime. A large family sat around the dining table inside, while a child of about three or four zoomed back and forth near the door in a toy car.
A few of the adults were the first to react. They rose to their feet, their expressions turning hostile as they moved toward the entrance.
Before they could roll up their sleeves, Qi Si had already snatched the nearby child by the collar, holding him tight. "I don't recall selling or renting this house out," he said with a humorless smile.
Perhaps they finally recognized him, or perhaps the way he held the child was too frightening, but a woman at the table quickly forced a placating smile. "Oh, it's you! You're back! We're all neighbors, why be such a stranger? Your auntie here just noticed you were gone for years and was worried the house would get filthy if left empty, so I'd pop over to check on it for you now and then."
"Is that so?" Qi Si smiled back. "Thank you for your kindness, but with my uncle's family watching over it, I was already quite at ease. There's no need to trouble anyone else."
Ignoring their strange expressions, he seemed to recall something and asked with an air of sincerity, "By the way, I came back to relocate their graves. Is there any paperwork I need to file?"
"Well... you know the customs. Once someone is buried, you can't just move them. It will not only ruin your family's fortune but also damage the feng shui of your neighbors."
"So?"
"If you really want to do this, you'll have to host a pig-slaughtering feast, and give everyone in the village a red envelope with a thousand or eight hundred..."
"That sounds like too much trouble. Let's just forget it," Qi Si said, pausing for a moment. He lifted his gaze to the man who was clearly in charge, a red glint flickering in his eyes. "I might be back in the future. You should probably change this lock back."
The man burst into laughter. "No problem, no problem! Of course!"
In the dark palace of his mind, a golden quill was rapidly scratching lines of text across a blood-red page.
In the upper left corner of his vision, a new system notification slowly materialized:
[Contract signed. This contract is guaranteed by the rules of the world and cannot be defied by any existence.]
So because he agreed verbally, it bypassed the dice roll and was ruled a success?
Qi Si arched an eyebrow, then bent down to place the terrified child back on the floor before turning to leave.
After crossing the threshold, he glanced back with a grin. "By the way, if you really want to live here, remember to keep the place clean. When they carried my cousin out of here, she left the entire floor slick with corpse oil."
The faces of the people inside turned even uglier. Their appetites were likely ruined.
With a thoughtful air, Qi Si pulled the door shut and made a phone call.
That afternoon, the Jin City Funerary Enforcement Team received dozens of tips: numerous households in Qi Family Village were conducting illegal burials, encroaching on farmland and residential plots. The reports urged the relevant authorities to resolve the matter with haste...
...
On the afternoon of March 20th, Qi Si sat in his home in Jiang City, eating instant noodles while taking a call.
The man on the line spoke coldly. "Mr. Qi, this is the Jin City Funerary Enforcement Team. Our investigation has confirmed illegal burials connected to your family. Please rectify the situation by March 31st, or we will be forced to take action."
On January 1, 2029, the Earth Future Federation had revised its Funerary Management Regulations, mandating that all citizens worldwide unconditionally switch from traditional burials to cremation. The force with which it was implemented was staggering.
In retrospect, it was likely a measure to deal with certain supernatural incidents happening in the real world—an attempt to solve the problem at its very root.
But where there are policies from above, there are always countermeasures from below. Many rural villages, clinging to their long-held customs and clan rules, continued to cover for one another, performing burials in secret.
If it weren't for Qi Si's wave of righteous betrayal, the enforcement team would likely never have guessed people were buried in a forgotten corner of the fields behind the mountain.
"Mr. Qi, this is our job. We expect your full cooperation," the man's tone left no room for argument.
Qi Si set down his chopsticks. "Go ahead and cremate them," he said calmly. "Just scatter the ashes on the land. I appreciate you handling this."
"?"
"My grandparents and my uncle's family believed in returning to one's roots. Let them find peace in the land that raised them," Qi Si concluded in a somber tone, then hung up without another word.
He cheerfully slurped down the rest of his noodles, humming a tune as he washed the bowl and placed it back in the cabinet.
He had two days until the deadline for the next instance, but it seemed there was nothing else left to do.
Qi Si washed his face, lay down on his bed, and allowed his consciousness to sink into darkness.
[Returning to game space...]
[System interface update complete.] Within a dilapidated temple swirling with dust, Qi Si opened his eyes, seated on a high-backed throne.
Two lines of text materialized before him, like a notification after a computer reboot.
An item bar then appeared in the lower-left corner of his vision, displaying icons for a red rose, a stark white finger bone, and a rectangular audio recorder.
The [Ghost Driver's Recorder] was an unexpected acquisition from the "Flesh Eating" instance. The Weird Game had stored it directly in his inventory, but this was the first time Qi Si had actually seen it outside an instance.
He tried to move the recorder from the item bar, only to receive a "Failed" prompt:
[This item is of a special nature. It can only be used within instances and cannot be sold in the store or brought out of the game.]
Qi Si then picked up the Fate Pocket Watch from the table beside him and, sure enough, a watch icon appeared in the item bar.
He put it down, and the icon vanished. He picked it up again, and it reappeared.
It was... kind of fun.
The long, carved blackstone table before him was still diligently displaying the death scenes of other players. To his left, a full-length mirror reflected his profile while slowly materializing a constantly changing countdown:
[Time remaining until forced instance entry: 2 days, 5 hours, 47 minutes, 26 seconds]
Done playing, Qi Si tucked the Fate Pocket Watch into his pocket. The moment the action was complete, his eyelid twitched, and a sudden sense of foreboding washed over him.
He entered the game store and spent five hundred points on an [Item Appearance Modification Coupon].
A yellow paper talisman materialized from thin air.
[Name: Item Appearance Modification Coupon]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: Modifies an item's form within reasonable limits and appropriately reduces its presence.]
[Note: The man is innocent; his treasure makes him guilty.]
Even for official players, the time-rewinding effect of the Fate Pocket Watch was an extraordinary power. Qi Si had no desire to be targeted because of it.
He took the bronze pocket watch from his pocket and placed it upon the yellow talisman.
A flame rustled to life, flickering for two seconds before dissipating, leaving behind a plain, silver wristwatch of unremarkable design.
Qi Si fastened the watch to his left wrist, looking on with satisfaction as a new note appeared under the [Fate Pocket Watch] entry in his item bar:
[Perhaps its proper name should be ‘Fate Wristwatch’?]
With all preparations complete, Qi Si rose from his throne and, as he always did, stepped into the black vortex rippling across the surface of the full-length mirror.
[You have become an official player. Would you like to spend points to select a specific instance?]
[Note: After selecting an instance, you may experience the full process but will not receive point rewards or unlock endings and achievements.]
Qi Si had learned from the forums that if he didn't specify an instance, he would most likely be thrown into one that was completely unfamiliar.
After the countdown ended, many players who had been forced into the game were content to spend points entering safer instances, just to eke out an existence.
There were also the theory-crafters who would run difficult instances repeatedly to master all the mechanics, either to write guides for profit or simply to satisfy their own curiosity and compulsions.
And, of course, there was a small minority of twisted veteran players who would deliberately enter novice instances to slaughter newcomers for entertainment.
However, the points required to specify an instance were often substantial, and the enjoyment was hardly worth the cost. Qi Si despised a bad deal.
"No need," he said. "From now on, unless I bring it up myself, don't ask me again."
[Default settings saved.]
[Your exceptional performance in the novice instances has earned you streaming privileges. Would you like to begin a live stream?]
Qi Si replied, "No."
He certainly possessed a flair for the dramatic, but he was only ever interested in being the director who orchestrated a grand production, not the monkey on stage pandering to the crowd.
The tide of anti-intellectualism can carry a ship, but it can also capsize it. Both the suppliers and the consumers, swept up in its current, are nothing but fuel for the bonfire.
There are always those who believe they can raise their arms to guide public opinion and become thought leaders. How could they know they are merely puppets, pushed onto the stage by a master behind the scenes?
Labeling, fragmentation, entertainment for its own sake... If all this was part of what constituted "evil," then Qi Si only wanted to be the hyena lurking in the shadows, ready to seize the bloody, festering carrion.
[Default settings saved.]
[Randomly generating instance...]
[Loading instance... Load complete.]
Author's Note: Thanks to Fei Shang Wu Rao for the 500-coin tip, and to Man Fen Shuo Mi for the 100-coin tip! And thanks to Jian Ge Tian Qi, Wei Yu 233, and Reader20191219151144628 for the monthly passes! (I don't mean to diss streaming-focused stories in this chapter, just wanted to clarify that this book won't use streaming to pad the word count. The streaming mechanic has another purpose, related to the 'mastermind' plotline I've hinted at, hehe.)
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