Oh, no. We've got a pervert on our hands.
That was Uncle Yuan's first thought.
He stared at the note, looking rather alarmed. "Sir, does this note mean that someone managed to sneak in without anyone noticing and..."
"Possessed me?" Yu Qing finished the sentence Uncle Yuan hadn't dared to say aloud.
Uncle Yuan could barely stand to hear the words. He waved his hands frantically. "Impossible, impossible! How could that possibly happen?"
It was common knowledge on Rose Island that no one in their right mind would provoke Yu Qing without good reason. Human Deity or Ghost Deity, living or dead—it made no difference.
After all, the man was practically a god of slaughter.
Uncle Yuan fell silent for several seconds before another possibility occurred to him.
"Could it be... Hmm..."
Yu Qing frowned. "What are you humming about?"
Uncle Yuan hesitated. "Well, um... Could you have written it yourself without realizing?"
Yu Qing: "..."
A trace of disbelief appeared on Yu Qing's icy face.
"Are you suggesting I sleepwalk?"
Uncle Yuan: "I wouldn't dare, sir."
Yu Qing replied expressionlessly, "You clearly would."
Uncle Yuan tucked his hands into his sleeves and stood obediently for a while, his gaze lowered.
"Then someone must have taken advantage of a lapse in my vigilance."
Yu Qing glanced at him. "Go on."
Uncle Yuan thought back over the previous evening before offering his analysis.
"My guess is that someone found a way to get past me while you were away last night and entered your bedroom. They probably wanted to test you or see how you've been doing lately."
"But I'm hardly someone who can be trifled with, either." Uncle Yuan paused. "So whoever managed something like this certainly wasn't an ordinary person. It was probably one of your... colleagues."
There was an unwritten rule in the island city: unless people had something to ask of the deities, they avoided calling them by their titles for fear of being overheard.
Uncle Yuan couldn't casually mention Wuchang, Lady Lu, the Martial God, or any of the others. He could only refer to them collectively as Yu Qing's "colleagues."
Despite that seemingly cordial designation, the relationships between these deities were far from harmonious.
Because they could devour one another.
Devour a fellow deity, and you would acquire their divine power.
And Painted Skin's powers of disguise, together with his nature as a god of slaughter, were precisely the things that many feared most—and coveted most fiercely.
At first glance, there seemed to be nothing wrong with Uncle Yuan's analysis.
Yu Qing, however, gave a quiet, mocking laugh.
"If that's what they're after, there's no need to test or provoke me beforehand. They only have to wait for me to disappear."
He fell silent for a moment, then added, "It won't be much longer anyway."
Uncle Yuan froze. He wanted to say something, but there was nothing he could say to refute it.
Over the years, disasters had multiplied throughout the island city. Malevolent spirits roamed freely, and corruption and chaos had spread everywhere.
People were afraid of being alone. They wanted to gather together for safety, but lacked reasons to unite, so they began erecting stone tablets and building temples.
That was how the deities came into being.
They were born from their believers, and their divine power grew as more people worshipped them. Naturally, without anyone left to worship them, they would eventually cease to exist.
Yu Qing was a Ghost Deity on the verge of disappearing.
Both he and Uncle Yuan knew that perfectly well.
The conversation had reached this point when Yu Qing suddenly grew tired of it all.
He couldn't be bothered to investigate who had left the note anymore. After all, there was one last matter he had yet to settle.
Yu Qing snapped his fingers.
The skeletal kitten, which had been clinging to the edge of the desk, instantly flicked up its tiny tailbone and sprang onto his shoulder.
"Are you going to that low-income apartment building, sir?" Uncle Yuan asked.
"To return the skin."
"Shall I come with you?"
"Suit yourself."
Uncle Yuan had already walked several yards when he realized Yu Qing wasn't following.
He turned around and discovered that his wealthy young master had stopped again just as they were about to leave. Yu Qing was staring at the note, his brows tightly furrowed.
"What's wrong, sir?"
Yu Qing said coldly, "It's a perfectly good sheet of paper, with clearly marked lines. Would it kill this person to write straight? Why insist on writing diagonally?"
Uncle Yuan: "..."
You're the one who can beat everyone up. Whatever you say goes.
He immediately agreed.
"Exactly! What outrageous arrogance! I'll tear it up right now!"
Uncle Yuan was well acquainted with Yu Qing's peculiar habits.
Yu Qing had always disliked touching objects of unknown origin. If he could order someone else to handle them, he would never lift a finger himself.
Funny how you never stop when you're killing someone, even with brains splattering everywhere.
Uncle Yuan kept that observation to himself.
As usual, he was about to perform the humble duty of tearing up a piece of paper for His Majesty when he saw Yu Qing take matters into his own hands without waiting another second.
Yu Qing shredded the note into tiny pieces, stuffed the scraps into the little skeleton's paws, and asked, "Want to eat these?"
The skeletal kitten: "?"
That goddamn cat-abusing ghost.
Uncle Yuan hurriedly took the scraps with both hands and threw them into the trash.
******
The low-income apartment building in the Lower City was leaking rainwater.
By the time they reached Apartment 1716, the dilapidated corridor was thoroughly damp. The lights buzzed and flickered as though the wiring were faulty, while moldy police tape hung limply onto the floor.
Yu Qing raised a hand and pushed.
The door creaked open.
Someone had died inside, and the apartment had been shut up for several days. The smell was far from pleasant.
Yu Qing held a hand over his nose and began issuing his customary orders to Uncle Yuan, sparing as few words as possible.
"Basin."
"Clothes."
"Take it."
Uncle Yuan rummaged around the apartment until he found an iron basin and a clean set of clothes belonging to the body's original owner. Then he took the skin, wrapped in white linen, from Yu Qing's hands and carefully placed it in the basin.
There was something quietly horrifying about the scene, but for Yu Qing, it was familiar territory.
He took out a gold-plated lighter no larger than a ring, flicked it to produce a flame, and tossed it into the iron basin containing the clothes and skin.
Whoosh!
Scarlet flames shot high into the air, and a ghostly figure gradually emerged from the curling smoke.
If timid little Walnut from the noodle shop had happened to pass by, he would have recognized the figure at once.
It was painfully thin, dressed in a faded T-shirt with a wide collar, and had enormous dark circles beneath its eyes.
It was the murdered neighbor.
Yu Qing's register of believers contained his information.
His name was Chen Shuang.
A rather delicate-sounding name.
He had been subjected to such horrific abuse before his death that his body had been left in a filthy state. Now that his skin and clothes had been burned together, his ghostly form actually looked somewhat cleaner.
Chen Shuang lowered his head and stared at his smoke-like body.
"How did I end up like this?" he asked blankly.
Uncle Yuan comforted him. "You've become a ghost. Unless someone helps your soul pass on, you'll stay like this forever."
Chen Shuang: "..."
He was clearly frightened. He hurriedly turned to Yu Qing.
"Th-then could you help my soul pass on?"
Yu Qing: "..."
Yu Qing: "I don't know how."
Chen Shuang: "Huh?"
Acting as Yu Qing's spokesman, Uncle Yuan stepped in to explain.
"You must have heard when you were worshipping him that Painted Skin governs slaughter and nothing else."
"I did know that," Chen Shuang admitted.
But I never imagined he really couldn't do anything else!
The newly minted little ghost looked as though he were about to cry.
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Find a fortune-teller when you get the chance," Uncle Yuan said.
"I don't know where to find one."
Yu Qing: "Keep looking."
Chen Shuang: "..."
Seeing that the exceedingly distinguished Ghost Deity was about to turn and leave, Chen Shuang glanced at the bloodstained floor and hurriedly asked, "C-could I follow you two for now? I don't want to stay here."
Mr. Painted Skin, whose heart was as cold as ice, thought to himself:
Can you eat shredded paper? Slurp up dead bodies? Can you wag your tailbone? If you can't do any of those things, what use would I have for you?
He was not a particularly patient man.
He was just about to refuse outright when he turned and saw Chen Shuang's tearful face.
Perhaps Uncle Yuan was getting on in years, because he was standing beside the little ghost with tears streaming down his own cheeks.
Even the little skeleton was trembling on Yu Qing's shoulder, apparently trying to join in the performance for reasons known only to itself.
Yu Qing: "..."
He frowned at the skeletal kitten's stark white face.
"You never used to behave like this. What filthy thing have you been learning from?"
The little skeleton tilted its head in confusion and let out a small meow.
Yu Qing looked at Chen Shuang and offered one more sentence of explanation.
"I don't even have many days left myself. What's the point of following me? Go find a fortune-teller."
With that, he turned and walked away.
Chen Shuang froze, watching the tall, handsome figure of the Ghost Deity disappear through the doorway.
He was exactly as the rumors described him.
According to those rumors, Painted Skin was a Ghost Deity of extraordinary beauty who had slaughtered countless people.
And beneath his bones, there was no heart.
Uncle Yuan merely shook his head and said to the newly made ghost, "Well, take care of yourself."
Chen Shuang looked at him blankly.
"Why did he say he doesn't have many days left? What does that mean?"
Uncle Yuan sighed.
"You were the last person in the island city to worship him."
Every deity in the island city possessed a register of believers, and the people recorded in those registers had made countless wishes.
Each time a deity fulfilled a living person's wish, their power of faith grew a little stronger, and their following gained more believers. In this way, their influence continued to expand.
But Yu Qing was different.
His register had always contained only a handful of names. The number of believers almost never increased; it only dwindled.
Chen Shuang had been the last.
And at the very moment he made his wish, he was dying.
He could no longer be counted among the living.
Thus, when Yu Qing killed the two murderers for him and fulfilled his wish, no new believer was added to the register.
Instead, the last name disappeared.
Without any believers, the deity himself would also cease to exist.
His temples would decay and collapse, and his deity statues would be eroded and destroyed.
The entire process of disappearance would take just two days.
...
The process of his impending disappearance left Yu Qing terribly sleepy.
He gave Uncle Yuan a single instruction: "Stay or leave as you please, but don't come into my bedroom."
Then he fell asleep.
Even in his sleep, he was plagued by an irritation he could not dispel.
Everything had become unbearably dull.
It was said that deities did not dream, but Yu Qing remained conscious of his surroundings even as he slept.
He could sense the process of his own disappearance.
His temple was crumbling and rotting beneath the island city's endless rain, tottering on the verge of collapse.
Enormous cracks snaked upward along his deity statue.
He could even hear the soft patter of fragments of stone breaking loose and falling.
He had no idea how much time passed like this before, in the midst of his disappearance, he suddenly heard a voice.
"Not planning to wake up?"
The voice was rather... Hmm. Not unpleasant.
It was like wind passing through the cracks in a deity statue, carrying clouds of dust.
It seemed to come from his own body.
But it was not his voice.
...?
The instant Yu Qing realized this, he jolted awake.
He had never been pleasant upon waking, and his face was already dark with displeasure.
Yet the moment he opened his eyes, every trace of sleepiness vanished.
Because there was an enormous pile of paper beside his pillow.
Origami, to be precise.
It looked as though someone had been passing the time by taking sheet after sheet of gold-flecked paper and folding them into all kinds of shapes.
Rabbits, cats, dogs, birds, fish...
There were even pine trees and roses.
The paper was not particularly thick, and he could faintly make out writing inside the folded shapes.
Yu Qing recalled the note he had torn to pieces two days earlier.
A terrible premonition formed in his mind.
He sat up expressionlessly and unfolded the assorted little creations.
Sure enough, there was writing inside.
Every single sheet bore that same familiar, wildly extravagant handwriting, dashed off with complete disregard for the rules.
The bastard had ignored the lines again.
He absolutely had to write diagonally!
But even more infuriating was the content.
^ ^: I saw the note you threw in the trash. You certainly tore it into tiny pieces.
^ ^: You look very unhappy. If I'm the cause, then I'm sorry.
^ ^: You may find this difficult to believe, but as a gentleman, I feel it's only courteous to let you know that I accidentally borrowed your body for a little while.
^ ^: It really was an accident.
^ ^: But I can only occupy it for a very short time, and I can never get out of this room. No matter which corner I walk to, the next time I take over, I'm back on the bed again. My beautiful friend, have you been sealed to your bed?
^ ^: Your skeletal kitten is quite adorable, though. It willingly played with me for a while, but it keeps hissing. Such a shame it can't speak. Otherwise, I could have asked it to say hello to you for me.
^ ^: I rarely write this much to anyone. I hope these messages will help ease some of your displeasure.
"..."
The more Yu Qing read, the more displeased he became.
He was just about to throw the filthy things off his bed when something in the corner of his eye caught his attention.
There was writing on the palm of his left hand, too!!!
He spread his fingers in disbelief.
That bastard's outrageous handwriting had finally been reined in somewhat and could just barely be considered neat.
The content, however, was every bit as irritating.
^ ^: I'm worried these notes will meet the same fate as the last one, and that you still won't believe I exist. So I had no choice but to take the liberty of borrowing your hand for a moment. How about it? Will you pay me some attention?
Goddamn it.
The bastard had even had the nerve to add a tiny postscript underneath.
P.S. A friendly suggestion: take a look in the mirror.
Yu Qing: "..."
He was certain now.
He had encountered a pervert.
A pervert who was using his body as writing paper.
With the air of a storm about to break, he strode into the dressing room and stood before the mirror.
First, he felt a small measure of relief.
At least that goddamn bastard hadn't written anything on his face.
A moment later, his expression darkened again.
He stared at his reflection, trying to see through the glass to the unfamiliar visitor behind it.
"Who are you?" he demanded in a low voice.
As his words fell, the face in the mirror rippled like water.
For a fleeting instant, he thought he saw a figure standing in a vast expanse of fog.
Its face was indistinct, but its silhouette was tall and sharply defined.
Then, in the next instant, the reflection became his own again.
Yu Qing was about to take a closer look when a soft ding sounded before his eyes.
A transparent holographic screen appeared.
Glowing blue characters displayed a set of personal information.
Player Nickname: ^ ^
Player Name: Mi**
Player Level: 0
Starting Assets: -470,000
Beneath those few short lines was an exclamation mark enclosed in a square box, flashing incessantly.
Yu Qing stared at it in silence for a while.
It was rather difficult not to notice the thing jumping about, so he reached out and tapped the exclamation mark.
The glowing blue characters instantly broke apart and rearranged themselves into a new message.
【Congratulations! You have accepted a beginner instance quest.】
【Failure to enter the instance within 3 minutes will be considered passive gameplay, and your account will be locked for 24 hours.】