“More than three years ago, this Shen Yi, he went mad.”
The sky remained draped in an unrelenting gloom. In the midst of the drizzling rain, the Village Chief slowly recounted the events of the past.
“He was possessed,” the Chief’s voice was hoarse. “That day, he laid hands on Lin Wu’s father and killed him.”
“He was such a sensible child, but suddenly, starting from that day, he began hurling vile abuse at his own mother. Even worse, he took a knife and went around the village hurting people, many men couldn’t even hold him down. He slashed a young man from the village, then attacked Granny Wang, acting like a hysterical lunatic.”
The Chief continued, “Granny Wang said he was possessed. A fierce ghost had taken over his body, causing that sudden change in temperament.”
“Later, Granny Wang tried many methods, but none worked. He became more depraved by the day, eventually turning to murder. We had no choice but to lock him inside the ruined temple…”
Thump.
Shen Yi’s heart suddenly gave a violent jolt.
It was just a single heartbeat, yet it felt like suffocation, like an explosion, as if his flesh and blood were about to burst from his chest.
The world suddenly went silent. The Village Chief was still speaking, but Shen Yi could no longer hear him. He watched the withered old man’s cracked lips open and close, revealing jagged, uneven teeth, but no sound reached his ears.
His head began to thrum with a persistent buzzing. Even though he couldn’t hear a thing, a sudden fire erupted within his body and roared toward his mind.
“Hold him down!”
“He’s crazy! Hurry, pin him down!”
After the ringing in his ears subsided, he felt a heavy weight. It felt as though several people had suddenly piled onto him, slamming him into the ground.
“Damn it, he’s still trying to run!”
“You unfilial wretch, you lunatic breaks his legs! Let’s see how he runs then!”
“Snap his arms!” someone bellowed. “Break every limb. I want to see how this ‘Old Ghost’ possesses him then!”
“Only by burning him could we exorcise the ghost from his body.”
Shen Yi snapped back to reality.
The voices in his mind receded, replaced by the rhythmic patter of the rain. The old man sighed, and the villagers behind him wore expressions of guilt. They bowed their heads, sighing along with the Chief as if they truly couldn’t bear what had happened.
“Burning him alive in that ruined temple, we did do that,” they said. “But if we hadn’t”
The girl in the black leather jacket listened thoughtfully. Just as she was weighing the Chief’s words, she was suddenly shoved aside with brute force.
She stumbled two steps, caught off guard. She was about to snap “Watch it!” at whoever pushed her, but then she saw Shen Yi. His face was pale; his features contorted with fury as he marched toward the Village Chief.
He looked as terrifying as a real vengeful spirit. The girl’s heart skipped a beat: “Shen Yi?”
Shen Yi grabbed the Village Chief by the collar and jerked him forward violently. The players cried out in alarm.
The girl gasped, “What are you doing?! That’s—”
That’s an NPC!
“Say that again.”
Shen Yi finally spoke. His voice was a suppressed, raspy growl, his eyes bloodshot. “Say it one more time if you have the guts, you murderous piece of filth, say it again!?”
The Village Chief remained impassive, his clouded eyes staring blankly at him. “Only by burning him could we exorcise the ghost from his body. Locking him in the temple and burning him to death, that was indeed what we—”
The blood rushed to Shen Yi’s head. A metallic tang of blood filled his mouth, and the veins on his neck bulged. He balled his hand into a fist and raised it, but just as he was about to strike, his wrist was caught in a firm grip.
Someone had stopped him. Shen Yi froze and turned his head.
Wen Mo was standing beside him, holding his wrist.
Shen Yi was furious. Wen Mo could see that.
The Village Chief had barely spoken a few words before his “Brother Yi” had frozen up. Wen Mo knew he must have remembered something. Even now, as Wen Mo stepped in to stop him, the expression Shen Yi turned toward him was hideously frightening.
Shen Yi had never looked at him that way before. Seeing those crimson, trembling eyes, Wen Mo’s heart felt a momentary pang of speechlessness.
He shook his head at Shen Yi. He signaled for him to stop.
Shen Yi didn’t pull back; his fist was still straining. His rage only intensified as he wrenched his wrist, trying to break free of Wen Mo’s grip to land a heavy blow on that wretched old man’s face.
Wen Mo frowned and did not let go. Shen Yi couldn’t break free.
Shen Yi was driven mad with rage: “Let—”
Suddenly, screams erupted behind them.
“The Night Watchman!” someone shrieked in terror. “It’s the Night Watchman!?”
“What?!” “No way, it’s not even dark yet!”
Wen Mo remained expressionless. He had known the players would react this way if he revealed himself.
The fury on Shen Yi’s face flickered and faded slightly. For some reason, he lowered his fist. Wen Mo was momentarily confused, not understanding why Shen Yi had calmed down so abruptly. However, since he no longer intended to strike, Wen Mo released him.
Shen Yi stared at him with reddened eyes. After a moment, he took a deep, shuddering breath.
“You knew,” he said, his voice trembling. “You knew, didn’t you?”
Knew what? Shen Yi didn’t specify, but Wen Mo had a faint idea of what he was asking.
Shen Yi’s eyes grew redder. Wen Mo suddenly lacked the courage to look at him and turned his face away.
Why is he so angry? Wen Mo wondered. Is he still capable of such rage? Even though it supposedly had nothing to do with him anymore, even though he only remembered a fragment—was the subconscious anger still this potent?
Wen Mo offered no answer. Silence stretched between them.
“Come here.”
Shen Yi grabbed Wen Mo by the arm. “Get over here!”
Caught off guard, Wen Mo stumbled as he was hauled away. Without any room for protest, he was dragged out of the old woman’s courtyard by Shen Yi.
Shen Yi slammed him against a wall. The impact sent a jolt of pain through Wen Mo’s spine, and he inwardly winced. He looked up to find Shen Yi still wearing that same expression fire burning in his eyes, veins pulsing at his temples, his eyelids twitching.
Yet, his eyes were wet.
“This was a ‘breakup’?” Shen Yi pointed toward the courtyard, his voice cracking with emotion. “Do you have the damn guts to say it again? To say it to my face?! You call this a breakup? You call this ‘losing touch and drifting apart’!?”
Wen Mo was speechless. He looked away, refusing to meet his gaze. He heard Shen Yi’s breathing turn ragged, gasping as if he couldn’t get enough air. Shen Yi rarely got this angry; Wen Mo was suddenly reminded of the man from decades ago.
That was the first time Wen Mo had seen him that furious.
“Wen Mo!”
Shen Yi shouted his full name. Wen Mo flinched. He looked up helplessly and froze. Two lines of tears were streaming down Shen Yi’s cheeks, Wen Mo could see clearly that it wasn’t rain.
Shen Yi was crying.
He was panting so hard he couldn’t speak, tears falling in heavy droplets. He swallowed hard and took another deep breath.
“Tell me…” he sobbed. “How could this have nothing to do with me? How could this…”
The tears fell, mixing with the rain as they tracked down his face into his clothes or splashed onto the ground. His eyes grew increasingly bloodshot, and he struggled for air.
Wen Mo watched his weeping face and his crimson eyes in silence for a long time.
Shen Yi reached up to wipe his eyes, but the tears seemed endless, surging out faster than he could clear them. His sobs grew more violent; he himself didn’t seem to understand why he was crying like this. Wen Mo heard him let out a confused, hitching gasp.
After a long moment of helplessly wiping tears in front of Wen Mo, he finally broke down. He slowly sank to the ground, buried his face in his hands, and began to wail in heart-wrenching agony.
Wen Mo stood before him. The rain grew heavier. The wind picked up, slanting the falling raindrops. The trees rustled violently, and the ripples in the puddles grew frantic, circle upon circle.
Standing by the wall, Wen Mo watched Shen Yi huddled on the ground, his shoulders shaking with grief. The wind whipped Wen Mo’s hair across his face. He turned his head, staring down the long village road, listening to Shen Yi’s piercing cries.
In a daze, he remembered that day.
It had rained just like this. After the secret was exposed and they returned home, the house felt like the sky before a storm stifling and terrifying.
A heavy atmosphere permeated the room. Suddenly, without a word, Wen Wenxue had snatched up a chair and smashed it over his head. The chair shattered.
His head rang, his consciousness faded, and he slumped over. He crashed into the table, then to the floor; the dinner dishes were swept off the table, shattering with a deafening clatter.
Through blurred vision, he heard his mother’s screams and his father’s cursed insults, followed by a wine bottle shattering against his skull.
Blood blinded him. He curled into a ball on the floor, slowly losing consciousness amidst the barrage of curses.
It had rained outside the whole time Wen Mo was being beaten.
And it was the same for Shen Yi.
Later, Wen Mo didn’t see him for several days. When they finally met again, Shen Yi’s head was wrapped in white gauze. He was blind in one eye.
Yet, back then, he could still smile. He had smiled and said, “It hurts a bit, A-Mo.”
Now, Shen Yi was clutching his head and crying his heart out. It was a piercing sound. Wen Mo had heard many cries and screams every day in this place, someone made such sounds but Shen Yi’s crying felt more agonizing than anyone else’s.
Wen Mo didn’t answer him. He turned and walked away.
He walked quite a distance without looking back. After a while, he heard Shen Yi’s trembling voice call out from behind: “Wen Mo.”
Wen Mo did not respond. Then, Shen Yi’s voice became desperate: “Wen Mo!”
“Wen Mo!!”
Wen Mo still didn’t look back. He shouldn’t have looked back years ago.
Wen Mo thought: If I had been more cold-hearted back then, if I had just left sooner, maybe Shen Yi wouldn’t have died.
He should have been this heartless a long time ago.
He walked back into the old woman’s courtyard.
Seeing him return, the group of players scrambled backward to huddle together.
“What are you doing!” someone shouted, their voice shaking. “The game rules say you only come out at night! You can’t kill people during the day!”
Wen Mo ignored them. The villagers were still busy. Wen Mo scanned his surroundings and walked straight toward the old woman’s house. He reached the door and stepped over the threshold—
Clap.
Wen Mo paused. He turned his head. Someone had grabbed his wrist.
But the hand holding him was clearly not Shen Yi’s. Its fingers were as fair as jade but long and powerful, as if the hand itself were a blade.
Wen Mo looked up. Yan Pan was smiling at him this player, who dared to walk up and risk her life to grab the Night Watchman, was Yan Pan.
“You can’t,” she whispered. “The game must continue.”
Wen Mo’s face darkened. He knit his brows and stared at her silently.
“So fierce,” Yan Pan chuckled, letting go of his hand. She said nothing more and turned to leave.
Just as Wen Mo was wondering why she had cut the conversation short, a familiar aura drifted in from the courtyard gate. He looked back and saw Shen Yi entering, looking like a drowned rat.
His eyes were still very red, and he was wiping his face with his sleeve. He didn’t look as furious as before, but he wasn’t entirely mollified either; a trace of stubbornness remained on his face.
When Wen Mo looked over, Shen Yi glared at him. Wen Mo had nothing to say nor could he speak.
Shen Yi didn’t say anything else to him. He turned and walked to a corner of the yard, found a spot under the eaves, and plopped down.
Shen Yi pulled out his phone, his red eyes focused as he tapped the screen. An unspoken, eerie, and utterly misplaced atmosphere instantly spread through this horror-movie setting.
No one knew what was going on in Shen Yi’s head, but seeing that Wen Mo still hadn’t reacted, he actually turned his phone volume to the maximum. In a place with no internet, no one knew what he was doing on his phone, but the keypad tones began to beep and bloop incessantly highs, lows, rises, and falls as if he were using the beeps to scream across the courtyard that Wen Mo was a bastard.
The group stood in silence amidst the “tenor” of the keypad tones: “…”
What a bizarre atmosphere.
“Wow,” the girl in the leather jacket commented, “reminds me of high school. That one couple that would fight during lunch, go outside to duke it out, and then come back to class… the vibe was exactly like this.”
The others: “…”
It actually is kind of like that.
Wen Mo let out a silent sigh.
A village woman brushed past him and ran into the house. Moments later, she ran back out and said to the players, “Alright, the things for the ghost wedding are ready. Go help with the bridal procession. They’ve already taken the sedan chair; go to the banquet hall to fetch the groom and the bride.”
The yellow-haired youth blinked. “Huh? The groom sits in a sedan chair too?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “It’s a ghost wedding; we don’t distinguish much between men and women. Hurry now. Once you bring the groom and bride back, we’ll perform the burial.”
After speaking to them, she turned to the Village Chief. “Chief, please come inside and sit.”
The Chief nodded and, leaning on his cane, walked shakily inside. A few chairs had been set out in the yard; the Chief walked to the front one and sat down.
The players filed out to fetch the deceased groom and bride. Shen Yi was the last to stand up and follow the group. At the doorway, he paused and looked back.
Wen Mo had just stepped forward twice. Under Shen Yi’s gaze, Wen Mo froze and came to an awkward halt.
The two stared at each other for a few seconds before Shen Yi retracted his gaze and walked out. Wen Mo followed.
“I’m telling you,” Someone said uneasily, “he’s following us…”
The girl in the leather jacket looked back and saw the black-clad Night Watchman indeed following them step-for-step.
“It’s fine, the game has hard rules. It’s not dark yet, he can’t kill,” Yan Pan said. “Though I don’t know why he’s appearing in the daytime, if he wants to follow, let him. He can’t do anything.”
“But why is he appearing in the day? That’s weird no matter how you look at it.”
“Yeah, and he seems to have a huge connection with that Shen Yi… that Shen Yi is a problem too. Why did he suddenly try to hit the Village Chief?” A player spoke with a face full of dread. “As expected, that newbie Shen Yi is definitely related to the Shen Yi in this game, right?”
“I agree. His behavior is too strange,” another seconded. “And the Chief’s story sounded perfectly fine. Why did he react like that?”
“Exactly. According to the Chief, the dead Shen Yi was suddenly possessed by a fierce ghost, and after they tried everything, he didn’t get better and even killed people. They were forced to act… the logic is sound.”
“And if that Shen Yi was crazy, they had to lock him in the temple and burn him,” one player said. “They couldn’t be sure if the ghost had truly left, right? So, their fear of Shen Yi makes sense too.”
Shen Yi walked at the very back, half-listening to their analysis. He only felt more agitated.
That’s not it at all, he thought. How can a bunch of modern people with sound minds believe the bullshit coming out of that old corpse’s mouth?
But the truth was, Shen Yi didn’t actually know what had happened either. He just felt a bone-deep fury.
He looked back. Wen Mo was walking behind him, maintaining a significant distance not approaching, just trailing at the end.
He wouldn’t say a word.
What is he thinking? Why won’t he say anything?
Shen Yi held his breath, his anger having no outlet, leaving him to grit his teeth in frustration.
Bastard. He thought. Wen Mo is a total bastard.
“We’re here.”
Shen Yi looked up. The banquet courtyard was right in front of them. The wedding sedan was parked at the entrance, likely moved there by the villagers to transport the dead pair to their ghost wedding.
The players entered the yard, shouting, “Is anyone here? Where are the groom and bride? Are they in the sedan yet?”
The crowd swarmed inside.
While the others went to work, Shen Yi didn’t feel like joining the commotion. He found another spot outside the house, sat down, and waited for them to finish.
He suddenly craved a can of beer. In this moment, Shen Yi finally understood why people said they used alcohol to drown their sorrows. He really needed something carbonated right now.
He tilted his head and saw Wen Mo standing in the distance. Wen Mo was looking at him, but when Shen Yi shifted his gaze, Wen Mo looked away.
Shen Yi was silent for a moment.
“Come here,” Shen Yi said.
Wen Mo didn’t move.
“Come here,” Shen Yi repeated. “I want to ask you something.”
Wen Mo still didn’t move.
“I won’t ask about the past,” Shen Yi said. “If you won’t come over, then just stand there; it won’t stop me from talking to you. Wen Mo, tell me.”
“—Why did you turn these old, ruined memories into this game?”
“…”
Wen Mo stiffened for a split second. Upon hearing those words, his eyes flickered, and he suddenly realized something.
Oh.
So that’s what he meant.