Mr. Painted Skin absolutely could not allow something like this to keep ruining his body.
When the holographic screen popped up with another number for the third time, and Mi Xiaobai went so far as to call himself a “bastard,” Yu Qing pinched one ear and finally lost his patience.
“Uncle Yuan.”
Uncle Yuan’s legs were shorter than his, and he barely managed to catch up. Bracing one hand against the wall, he panted so hard it seemed he was taking in more air than he could breathe out.
“S-Sir… did you… need something?”
“There’s a scoundrel causing trouble inside my body,” Yu Qing said. “Get him out.”
Uncle Yuan nodded furiously out of habit. “Of course, of course, right away—wait.”
He froze.
“What exactly is causing trouble?”
After thinking about it for another second, he realized there was more than one problem with that sentence.
“Sir, sir, I don’t think I understood. Where exactly is this thing causing trouble?”
The old steward looked far too bewildered and sounded far too earnest.
The thing causing trouble burst out laughing.
“…”
Yu Qing closed his eyes.
He raised a hand and accurately pinched the fluttering wings of the blue-green butterfly, as though trying to pinch the scoundrel’s mouth shut along with them.
“Wuchang is clinging to me and refusing to leave,” he told Uncle Yuan. “Get him out.”
Yu Qing said it calmly.
Uncle Yuan nearly went insane.
With a thud, he collapsed onto the floor again.
His ancestor was asking him to deal with Wuchang.
Uncle Yuan told himself there was practically no difference between that and ordering him to hang himself.
At least hanging himself would be quicker.
Besides, even taking ten thousand steps back, even if he—
“No, wait. Wait.” Uncle Yuan finally seized on the most important point. “Why is Wuchang inside you???”
The shock was so great that he even forgot his usual nonstop “sir” and respectful forms of address.
“Good question.”
Yu Qing temporarily let the breach of etiquette slide and turned toward the empty air beside his shoulder.
“Explain.”
Mi Xiaobai drew out a thoughtful, “Mm,” indicating that he currently couldn’t speak.
Expressionless, Yu Qing released the butterfly’s wings, as though releasing Mi Xiaobai’s mouth.
“Speak.”
“How can your little butterfly be so cruel? That’s really going too far…”
Even when Wuchang complained, there was usually teasing in his voice. It was almost impossible to tell when he was being serious.
But what he said next was serious enough.
“This might sound a little hard to believe, but…”
He paused, apparently searching for the right way to phrase it.
“Someone turned the island city into a game.”
A game?
Yu Qing frowned deeply, seemingly trying to process the answer.
Mi Xiaobai was still looking at him through the reflection in the window.
Or perhaps observing him.
Painted Skin had never been particularly expressive.
In years past, Wuchang had occasionally become obsessed with a certain game—watching the minute changes around Yu Qing’s eyes and brows and predicting what he would say next.
Sometimes he would even silently mouth the words along with him.
There was no reward for guessing correctly.
When he guessed wrong, he merely shrugged and moved on.
It was unbelievably boring, yet the bastard never seemed to tire of it.
Seeing Yu Qing thinking, Mi Xiaobai seemed to do it deliberately.
“I’m not sure whether you understand what I mean by ‘turned into a game’—”
“…”
Yu Qing was already thoroughly irritated.
“Shut up. I’m not an idiot.”
Mi Xiaobai laughed.
The next second, the utterly tactless holographic screen popped up again.
[ Favorability -2. ]
Mi Xiaobai: “…”
The abrupt end of the scoundrel’s laughter made Mr. Painted Skin feel slightly better.
Only slightly.
But at least he was willing to continue speaking.
“People play games in the island city. It isn’t as though I’ve never seen one.”
Of course he understood what Mi Xiaobai meant.
He had merely needed a little time to digest it and connect it to the questions he had already accumulated.
In truth, he had already guessed part of it during the previous “instance.”
The holographic screens appearing from nowhere.
The inexplicable visitors from another place.
The chat channels on the phone.
And the “quests” and “Beginner Guide” those people kept talking about.
Even an idiot would have started suspecting something.
He could have confirmed his suspicions simply by asking his teammates, but he hated showing confusion or uncertainty in front of irrelevant people.
It no longer mattered.
Mi Xiaobai had confirmed it for him now.
But why had the island city been turned into a game?
An enormous city filled with endless crowds of people coming and going—how could it suddenly become part of a game?
Who could possibly accomplish such a thing?
How had they done it?
And why?
Yu Qing still had far too many questions.
Mi Xiaobai said, “The specifics will probably take some time to verify.”
Yu Qing lowered his gaze to his own hand, his expression strange.
“…So I’m a character in a game now?”
“For the time being.”
Mi Xiaobai deliberately added that qualifier for him.
“And something went wrong when I tried to return to the island city. You can think of it as a game bug. So I accidentally ended up inside your body.”
His voice was always low and lazy.
Only when he said the word accidentally did he place obvious emphasis on it.
After saying that, apparently anticipating that Yu Qing would not believe him, he added,
“It really was an accident.”
Yu Qing gave a cold scoff.
In the island city, this sort of behavior could be called invasion, occupation, parasitism, possession, even inviting a deity into one’s body.
No matter what term one used, not a single one of them sounded like something that could happen “accidentally.”
“Nothing but lies.”
He snapped the words out, then immediately reached the obvious conclusion.
“If this place has temporarily become a game, and you only ended up here because something went wrong when you entered, then you must have a way to leave.”
“…”
The bastard gave another noncommittal, “Mm.”
Yu Qing: “…”
Fine.
He would still have to make Uncle Yuan deal with it.
That thought settled in his mind, and Yu Qing turned to call the steward—only to discover that the poor man had been listening from the side for so long that he had barely understood half of it and now looked completely dazed.
“What…”
Uncle Yuan had only just begun to ask when Yu Qing cut him off.
“Go get something for me.”
The steward’s instincts immediately overwhelmed his curiosity.
“Yes, yes, of course, sir. As long as you don’t ask me to deal with Wuchang, I’ll get you anything.”
Yu Qing recalled the events in the Ferryman of the River Styx instance and thought for a moment before describing what he wanted.
“Find a little fortune-teller who knows how to draw talismans. Have her make me a…”
He paused.
Mi Xiaobai’s current behavior was not much different from ghostly possession anyway.
“A standard exorcism talisman. Any normal fortune-teller should know how to make one.”
As soon as he finished, he heard someone click his tongue softly beside his ear.
Apparently, Mi Xiaobai was not pleased.
Hearing that pleased Mr. Painted Skin immensely.
He was just about to send Uncle Yuan on his way when Mi Xiaobai suddenly said,
“Little fortune-tellers vary wildly in skill. What if the exorcism talisman doesn’t work? Won’t that only put you in an even worse mood?”
Yu Qing thought, What business is it of yours???
Mi Xiaobai continued,
“Have you considered looking for Lady Meng?”
“What would I want with Lady Meng?”
Yu Qing immediately grew suspicious.
When he had been younger, Wuchang had tricked him far too many times, so Yu Qing was always wary whenever he spoke—especially in that faintly coaxing tone.
Though, admittedly, that was simply how Wuchang naturally sounded most of the time.
“Lady Meng used to be one of a pair of twins, but their situation was unusual. Supposedly, when they were born, both sisters’ souls inhabited the same body. They only separated later. There’s only one of them left now, but she should have at least some experience with this sort of thing.”
Mi Xiaobai described Lady Meng’s circumstances in his usual offhand tone.
If Yu Qing had not already known that one of those twins had died at Wuchang’s hands, that tone might almost have made him suspect Lady Meng was one of Wuchang’s friends.
“Don’t tense up so much. I’m making a serious suggestion,” Mi Xiaobai continued. “It took me quite a bit of trouble to get back. I’d really hate for some unreliable exorcism talisman to send me straight back where I came from.”
In an exceedingly reasonable tone, he murmured into Yu Qing’s ear,
“How about we compromise? Separate me from you instead of sending me away entirely. What do you think? Consider it?”
Mr. Painted Skin clearly had no intention of negotiating.
He waited until Uncle Yuan had straightened himself, then urged him downstairs. Yu Qing followed a few steps behind, completely ignoring the voice carried to his ear by the blue-green butterfly.
He maintained that cold silence all the way to the bottom of the low-income apartment building.
Only then did he finally deign to ask,
“Where is Lady Meng?”
In the island city, the Ghost Deity Painted Skin was famously solitary.
He concerned himself only with his believers’ prayers and listened only to the voices in their hearts.
For many years, apart from Uncle Yuan vaguely knowing that he had once been on good terms with Wuchang, Yu Qing had almost no dealings with any other Human Deities or Ghost Deities.
He did not covet the abilities of other deities.
Nor did he care where they lived, what they looked like, or what they were doing.
As for a deity like Lady Meng, who was rumored to hide among ordinary people, he knew even less.
But Wuchang was different.
One of Wuchang’s ears listened to human voices.
The other listened to the voices of ghosts.
And Ghost Deities were ghosts too.
Even if he had no desire to listen, he inevitably knew far more than most.
Mi Xiaobai clearly knew where Lady Meng was.
He could have simply given Yu Qing the address.
Naturally, he refused to.
Instead, like some invisible navigation system, he directed him from beside his ear.
“Turn left.”
“Mm. See that bridge? Cross it.”
“There’s an underpass over there. The smell might be a little unpleasant. I suggest covering your nose in advance.”
Yu Qing: “…”
While walking through the rancid-smelling underpass, he finally snapped.
“I could have driven over the road above us. Why am I listening to you lead me around like this?”
The irritating culprit merely coaxed him,
“Keep going. Once you climb those stairs, we’re almost there.”
Yu Qing: “…”
For the first time, he regretted never learning how to swear.
But when he emerged from the underpass and entered a narrow alley in the Lower City, his expression gradually turned strange.
This road was not unfamiliar.
In fact, he had walked it only a few days ago.
At the end of the alley was a small noodle shop with an unassuming storefront.
Its owner was a half-blind, half-deaf old woman who often sat behind the counter listening to opera and could sleep for half the day at a time.
The person who normally helped her run the shop was a young man she had adopted.
Walnut.
Only a few days earlier, Yu Qing had fulfilled a believer’s wish in this very noodle shop by snapping the necks of two murderers with his own hands.
“You’re sure this is the way?” Yu Qing asked.
Mi Xiaobai’s voice sounded low beside his ear.
“Yes. Keep going. She’s in that noodle shop.”
The instant Yu Qing stopped in front of the little noodle shop, the holographic screen appeared with a chime.
[Congratulations! You followed the correct path and arrived here. You seem to have discovered a small secret hidden within this noodle shop and have therefore triggered a special encounter instance quest.]
[Failure to enter the instance within 3 minutes will be considered passive gameplay. Account lock: 24 hours.]
[Matching teammates: 5/5.]
[Prioritizing Friends.]
[What a shame. You don’t have any friends.]
[Prioritizing teammates from the previous round.]
[Correcting player appearance set.]
[Filling vacant teammate slots.]
[Teleporting. Loading…]
Yu Qing: “…”
This unreasonable thing had never actually given him three minutes.
After his experience last time, the instant he saw the word Loading, Yu Qing grabbed Uncle Yuan tightly.