Watching herself and Liu Bingding lie down in the coffin, Li Yao breathed a sigh of relief.
Despite the lack of clues, she had a gut feeling that the coffin meant safety—a refuge from the paper figurines and other ghouls.
It felt as if... this scene had replayed itself over and over, and she knew her part by heart.
‘Wait, if I'm already in the coffin, how can I be watching myself? How can I... be watching the lid close right in front of me?’
Li Yao was leaning against a massive, waist-high sarcophagus. The chill of its wall seeped into her back, and a faint sense of wrongness prickled at her.
Confused, she stood up and looked down, staring at the coffin Xu Yao and Liu Bingding had just entered.
"Hee hee hee... hee hee..."
A paper figurine's sharp laughter echoed behind her. A shiver ran down Li Yao's spine, and she whipped her head around.
A ghastly white face was suddenly inches from her own, its scarlet smile stretched ear to ear in a grotesque mockery.
It was a cheap jump scare, but despite not being easily frightened by ghosts, Li Yao was still startled.
"Li Yao... Li Yao... *sob*..." Mournful weeping followed the laughter, soon replacing the 'hee-hees' with a cacophony of sobs.
The eyes and painted red cheeks on the paper figurine's face remained fixed, but its mouth suddenly turned down. In an instant, the smile became a tearful frown, brimming with resentment.
"Li Yao, you're the most experienced player here. If you don't go down that well, then no one can."
"Li Yao, I don't want to die... We're so close to finding those last few clues. They have to be at the bottom of the well..."
Coercion, pleading—a chaotic jumble of voices echoed in her memory. And then, a sudden realization struck Li Yao:
‘That's right. I'm not Xu Yao. I'm Li Yao. The one in the coffin with Liu Bingding is Xu Yao... I'm still outside...’
‘The three of us—me, Xu Yao, and Liu Bingding—went back to explore Xi'er's house. We triggered a side quest...’
‘Wait, who is Xu Yao? Qi Wen only sent two of us back to Xi'er's house. Where did this third person come from?’
The thought flipped a switch in her mind, illuminating a blind spot. Suddenly, all the details she had unconsciously ignored came flooding back.
Hiding in the corner of the courtyard, a faceless woman had followed her like a phantom, cowering right beside her...
Inside the coffin, when she had been muttering to herself to solidify her memories, another voice had echoed her words, its timbre growing increasingly similar to her own...
And then, when Liu Bingding pried the coffin open, the woman clinging to her side finally had a face... and it was *her* face.
If the clues were right, then the young lady from the Xu residence, the one who drowned herself in the well and was worshipped by the townsfolk as the Joy Goddess... her name was Xu Yao.
A glacial chill spread through Li Yao's limbs. Her thoughts were in turmoil.
Xu Yao was a ghost! The one lying in the coffin with Liu Bingding was a ghost!
And she had been alone with that... thing... for so long!
Overwhelmed by terror, her mind blank, she acted on pure instinct, whirling around to tear open the closed coffin lid.
The lid felt as if it had been welded shut. No matter how much strength she used, it wouldn't budge.
She could only hammer her fists against the coffin's exterior, screaming, "Liu Bingding, can you hear me? Xu Yao is a ghost!"
There was no response. Her words vanished as if she'd thrown a stone into a swamp, swallowed whole by the silence.
Gasping for breath, Li Yao belatedly realized she couldn't even save herself, let alone worry about anyone else.
She reached for the dagger at her waist, but her hand closed on nothing.
There was nothing there, as if she hadn't carried anything on her belt for a long, long time.
‘Did I drop it on the road? Did one of the ghosts take it? Or... did I never bring it into the dungeon in the first place?’
Li Yao racked her brain, but she couldn't conjure a single memory of the weapon.
Resigned to her fate, she looked up, only to find that the horrifying paper figurines were merely surrounding her. They showed no signs of aggression. Instead... they watched her with a peculiar expression, their gazes filled with a sort of scornful pity.
A few of the faces seemed strangely familiar, as if she'd seen them before, somewhere in the depths of her memory.
"Xiao Xi...?" Li Yao winced. "Brother Zhang, is that you?" She pressed a hand to her forehead as memories from countless buried cycles rushed back like a tidal wave.
The scene before her shifted. A dark, foreboding river flowed between towering cliffs that blotted out the sun. A lone wooden raft drifted on the water's dead-still surface.
It was the very scene that greeted players upon first entering the Double Happiness Town dungeon.
This time, however, there were only five people on the raft: Li Yao, the ferryman, and three unfamiliar faces.
It was November 19, 2009. After purchasing the [White Blade] item, Li Yao had entered the dungeon before the countdown finished, meeting three teammates.
The tall man with a scar by the corner of his eye was Brother Zhang. The timid, scrawny youth was Ah Shu. And the girl who tried too hard to seem cheerful and outgoing was Xiao Xi.
As a supernatural fiction author, Li Yao's knowledge of folklore and feng shui made her the natural choice for the team's leader.
At first, she lived up to their expectations, using her experience and knowledge to guide the team through one death trap after another.
But the dungeon was massive. An NPC named Auntie Xu would appear on a schedule, leading them from place to place. A white mist periodically shrouded the land, crawling with monsters. The players were helpless, able to do little more than passively follow the plot.
On the first day, all four of them had the same dream—of a woman sitting by a well—and awoke with a jolt.
On the second day, they attended Xi'er's wedding feast and visited the Joy God Temple to offer incense, where they were tormented by moving statues and a weeping coffin until they were a complete mess.
Ah Shu was injured during a fight, and Brother Zhang made it clear he wanted to leave him behind. Li Yao harshly shut him down.
On the third day, Xi'er was found dead in the well. By its edge, the four of them discovered a fragment of a compact mirror.
Xiao Xi recognized the brand—it was new and likely belonged to a woman named Xu Wen.
Brother Zhang insisted it was a clue left by Xu Wen, a message telling them she was at the bottom of the well.
On the third night, the ghosts walked. Xi'er's spirit returned to visit, possessed Xiao Xi, and began hunting for lives to take.
During the struggle, Li Yao plunged the [White Blade] into Xiao Xi's heart, only realizing afterward that Xiao Xi had still been alive during the possession...
By the fourth day, the players were still completely lost, with no leads on the main quest or the dungeon's lore. Xiao Xi's death hung over them like a dark cloud, and cracks began to form in the remaining trio.
The fog in town grew steadily denser. Even in broad daylight, horrifying figures could be seen moving within it.
The players had the same dream from the first night again. This time, the woman in red was sprawled over the mouth of the well, her limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Tears of blood streamed from her eyes as she venomously begged passersby for help.
On the fifth day, Brother Zhang proposed that someone go down the well to investigate. As the leader, Li Yao couldn't refuse her duty.
She tied the rope around her waist, glancing first at Brother Zhang's ruthless expression, then at Ah Shu, whose face was pale from his injuries. Finally, right in front of Brother Zhang, she pressed the [White Blade] into Ah Shu's hands.
She reasoned that after she was in the well, if Brother Zhang tried to hurt Ah Shu, Ah Shu would have a means of self-defense. And if Brother Zhang tried to betray her, Ah Shu could stop him.
Clinging to this naive, wishful hope, she jumped into the well. She landed on the soft earth below and never returned.
In the darkness, her consciousness drifted in a formless void, aware only of the conversation above. Ah Shu's quiet, questioning voice reached her. "Zhang... Brother Zhang, what are you doing? Li Yao is still down there..."
Brother Zhang scoffed, his tone cold and hard. "Heh, that's the point. I want her to die down there. Her death is our only chance of survival."
"But... she's the one who got us through all the death traps so far..."
"It was just a few death traps. You really think she can get us to the end? Even she admitted she's clueless about the main quest."
"But... but we can't just..."
"Heh. Based on the clues we have, figuring out this dungeon's lore is impossible. It's almost certain this will come down to the minimum death count mechanic. Li Yao is the most experienced one here. She has a much better chance of surviving to the end than either of us."
"..."
"If we don't kill her, we all die. Take her out first, and at least we'll have a fighting chance!"
In the cold, damp darkness, Li Yao's perspective seemed to ascend into the heavens, allowing her to look down upon that scene from all those years ago.
She watched as Brother Zhang drew a black broadsword and sliced through the rope.
And the very next second, she saw Ah Shu plunge the [White Blade] into his throat...
Li Yao didn't know how long she drifted above Double Happiness Town. She watched wave after wave of players arrive by boat, only to die and become paper figurines or other monsters. A profound, baseless sorrow washed over her.
Then one day, she heard the voice of a god.
The god spoke: "Your soul is trapped within this game. Henceforth, you shall exist as an NPC in this dungeon, endlessly repeating its cycle."
Li Yao asked, "As an NPC, what will I have to do?"
The god laughed. "Ordinarily, I might have you feed them false clues, leading the foolish lambs astray. But now... I've thought of a much more amusing game to play."
The voice dripped with a bone-chilling malice. Li Yao trembled uncontrollably, and when she looked up, she saw only the god's blazing scarlet eyes.
"I will seal your memory of death, but preserve the emotions you felt at that moment. And I will grant you the knowledge to control the fates of others." A card of interwoven red and black hovered at the god's fingertip. His voice was laced with delight. "I am quite curious... Will you choose to act as a human, or as a monster?"
From that day on, the ferryman's raft had a new passenger: an NPC named Li Yao.
She was indistinguishable from a player and could even randomly copy a skill from one of them each round.
Every time, she would join the players' party into Double Happiness Town, tirelessly offering them vital clues about the dungeon's lore.
There were betrayals and alliances. She was killed by those she tried to help, but she was also genuinely thanked and admired... Yet no matter what she experienced, every memory was wiped clean when the dungeon reset.
Until now. Scenes, so similar yet so different, overlapped in her mind, a deluge of images washing over her exhausted consciousness.
Li Yao covered her eyes, tears streaming from between her fingers.
"So I was already dead... I've been dead all this time... And all of you... you're dead, too..."
...
"Not born to life, not born to death."
"Not of shadow, not of light."
"The false is true, the true is false."
"Mourning is joy, and joy is mourning."
At the bottom of the well, a long, narrow passage stretched into the darkness. Qi Si picked his way forward through the gloom.
A voice screamed a chant in his ear, the sound like a funeral dirge. The mournful wailing seemed to come from all directions at once, a surround-sound lament pouring into his mind.
He frowned, irritated, the incessant noise compelling him to walk faster and faster.
Finally, a sliver of light appeared ahead. It was a listless glow that outlined a circular opening, neither dazzling nor offering the slightest hint of hopeful rebirth.
Qi Si stepped into the light without a moment's hesitation, leaving the noise behind.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in a small town shrouded in fog.
The town's layout was nearly identical to the Double Happiness Town above ground, but the overall palette was dimmer, more washed-out. The white walls and black-tiled roofs on either side were half-swallowed by the fog, and none were adorned with the familiar red silk.
Gray fog, as thick and clinging as gauze, swirled around him in dense layers, reducing his visibility to almost nothing. He could only make out the faint, shifting shadows of figures moving within it.
White paper money for the dead rained down from the sky, fluttering through the air like a storm of white butterflies emerging from the underworld.
Though it should have been afternoon, the world was cast in a hazy gray, like the sky over a heavily polluted industrial district.
Phantom figures drifted past him. Some were hunched over, others skipped playfully. Some shuffled along unsteadily while others moved with hurried purpose. Men, women, old, and young, from all walks of life—aside from their blurred faces, they all seemed to be going about their business just as they had in life.
Qi Si was now one of them, a wandering spirit about to attend this gathering in his own fractured state.
He walked on, step by step, as countless gray spirits passed right through him. A deep chill settled into his bones, and gradually, he began to feel what they felt.
Sorrow, resentment, confusion, acceptance...
A woman, long confined to her sickbed, thought of the young children she left behind as her weak arm fell limp;
A merchant in the prime of his life, falling from a cliff, his last thoughts on all his unfulfilled dreams;
A child, with no concept of death, wondered why he was in this strange place, unable to find his parents;
An old man, having seen his fill of the weariness and complaints from his family at his bedside, felt only relief as his pain finally faded away with his last breath...
The sharp blast of a suona horn cut through the air, followed by a mournful, winding dirge. Someone began to weep along with the music, and even Qi Si felt a pang of sorrow.
And so, within the palace of his own mind... he began telling himself jokes.
"Young man—" a low, hoarse voice called out from behind him.
Qi Si turned, intrigued. An old man in a long cyan robe was gesturing at him, his eyes vacant. "Excuse me, have you seen a young woman? She's about this tall, with slender eyebrows and bright eyes. She has two dimples when she smiles..."
The old man was dressed in ancient attire, his long, graying hair hanging in a tangled mess. He looked like a madman. "I've been searching for her for so long. She has to be here... They're the ones who hid her..."
Ordinarily, Qi Si might have considered that this old man could be an important NPC and indulged him in conversation. But now, with nothing to his name, all Qi Si wanted was to die as quickly as possible.
He paid the old man no mind, simply turning and walking away at a brisk pace.
Behind him, the old man's muttering followed: "Please, help me find her... Oh, that's right. Her name is 'Xu Yao'..."