"47... 47..."
In the darkness, faint whispers drifted from overhead. They grew faster, the words blurring together until they sounded like a distorted call of Qi Si's real name.
Qi Si lay perfectly still, his eyes closed, with no intention of responding. But the voice was relentless. At first, it came only from the top bunk, but soon it was right beside his ear, breathing a wisp of cold air against his skin.
Without a sound, Qi Si’s hand moved to cover the Fate Pocket Watch by his pillow as he slowly opened his eyes.
After "lights out," the world was plunged into absolute blackness. He had assumed that without any light to reflect, he would see nothing. He was wrong. The moment he opened his eyes, he was face-to-face with a human head.
The base of its neck was hooked over the guardrail of the top bunk, its head hanging down at a grotesque angle. Its skin, a mottled canvas of black and gray, was reminiscent of a traditional ink wash painting.
Its face was uneven and pitted, as if it were about to drip water, and its hollow eyes stared straight at Qi Si.
When it realized Qi Si was looking back, it murmured eerily, "You lying, wicked child. You killed us. You killed us all..."
Qi Si glanced at the rule on the system interface—"No talking in the dormitories after lights out"—and kept his lips sealed.
The face persisted, droning on with the same tired, clichéd lines Qi Si had grown weary of a decade ago.
He stared up at the bottom of the bunk above, his mind wandering with silent complaints. *Don't ghosts get punished for breaking the rules? What a double standard...*
After waiting a while longer and seeing no further action from the face, Qi Si, his hand still on the pocket watch, shifted his body to the side and peered toward Chen Lidong’s bed.
That space was a void of darkness so absolute it seemed to swallow everything. He could see nothing, as if nothing had ever been there.
The world was painted in a high-saturation black, where only the forms of ghosts were visible.
Chen Lidong had remained utterly silent. Whether he couldn't hear the ghost's whispers or was simply too terrified to make a sound, Qi Si couldn't tell.
The sound of gentle breathing came from his right. Qi Si rolled over and saw that the once-empty bed beside him was now occupied.
The figure was as thin as a dried corpse, but its head was perfectly round. Its neck was twisted a full ninety degrees, its wide eyes also fixed on Qi Si.
Qi Si silently met the ghost's gaze for two seconds. Seeing it had no intention of moving either, he simply turned his back and closed his eyes again.
He knew that twenty-nine players had been divided among ten rooms, each with five beds. That meant there were bound to be empty bunks.
It was now fairly safe to assume that the night's scare tactic involved ghosts appearing in the empty beds. He couldn't be the only one experiencing this, so it was unlikely to be a fatal encounter.
And even if something did happen, Chen Lidong was on the top bunk.
By comparison, he was on the bottom. He could definitely run faster than Chen Lidong.
"Tap... tap... tap..."
A soft humming drifted from the far end of the corridor, a strange melody punctuated by footsteps. The rhythm was steady as it drew nearer—not loud, but unnervingly clear.
Light began to seep through the crack under the door. As the footsteps and humming approached, the light intensified from a dim glow to a blinding white in a matter of seconds.
The moment the brightness peaked, the footsteps stopped. Then came the sound of a doorknob turning.
The door swung open, and the intense beam of a flashlight shone directly on Qi Si’s face, lingering there for a long moment.
Even through his eyelids, the light was piercing. Qi Si kept his eyes shut, his gaze locked on the text of the system interface, his eyeballs perfectly still.
Seemingly convinced he was asleep, the harsh light finally moved away. It swept around the room before turning and retreating.
With a soft click, the door closed.
The light footsteps shuffled away, only to pause at the next door, where the process was repeated.
Qi Si silently lifted his eyelids.
By the faint light still filtering through the crack under the door, he glanced at his Fate Pocket Watch.
The hour hand pointed to twelve, the minute hand just one tick past the hour.
What he had just experienced was undoubtedly the room check mentioned in the rules. The first one was over, which left the one at four in the morning...
Qi Si rolled over again, looking at the bed opposite him.
In the dim light, the ghost was gone, leaving behind an empty iron bedframe.
But as the light vanished completely and the world returned to darkness, the ghostly figure reappeared, holding its previous posture, silently staring ahead.
‘Do the ghosts only appear in the dark? Or... can you only see them in the dark?’
Qi Si mused idly as he closed his eyes again, trying to coax himself to sleep.
He didn’t find sharing a room with ghosts particularly frightening. As a child, he’d often cornered all sorts of spirits to have heart-to-hearts or play mischievous pranks, which had the effect of scaring away most of the ghosts in his apartment building.
Though he had outgrown his most obnoxious phase, he still wasn't particularly intimidated by ordinary ghosts.
Besides, when the ghosts clearly couldn't cause any harm, losing sleep and impairing his performance the next day was a far more lethal prospect.
In the silence, Qi Si smoothed out his thoughts, his breathing becoming long and even. Suddenly, he felt a chill.
There were no blankets or mattresses in the dorm. He had initially assumed it was a tropical climate and he could make do. But as night fell, the temperature dropped to an uncomfortable level, making him shiver involuntarily.
*I hope you can't catch a cold in this instance...* Qi Si yawned, curling into a ball, but sleep remained elusive.
A strange sense of detachment wrapped around him like vines. His body was exhausted, yet his mind was unnervingly alert.
His hyperactive thoughts leaped from one pointless idea to another, projecting bizarre, meaningless images in the back of his mind and agitating his entire being.
Even so, he did his best to keep his breathing steady and slow, feigning a drowsy state, as if he could drift off at any moment.
His breathing grew lighter, almost inaudible. In the stillness, he seemed to be sleeping peacefully, lost in serene dreams.
On the top bunk, Chen Lidong tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep.
He heard Qi Si shift twice on the bunk below before falling silent, which only confirmed his suspicion.
His inability to sleep had to be an effect of the instance's mechanics.
The rules didn't explicitly forbid leaving the dormitory at night, and the four-hour gap between the two room checks was practically a flashing sign for players to make their move.
Moreover, the NPCs would soon be asleep after the check, which made things even more convenient—he wouldn't have to worry about being reported.
Chen Lidong lay there for another ten minutes. Once certain that Qi Si was sound asleep, he swung his legs over the side and climbed down.
The dilapidated ladder creaked and groaned under his weight.
He froze, instantly stopping his movement, and looked toward Qi Si's bunk from his perch on the ladder.
In the pitch-black darkness, he naturally couldn't see a thing.
Fortunately, Qi Si's breathing remained even, showing no signs of waking. Chen Lidong didn't dare to linger. He quickly descended, slipped on his sneakers, and tiptoed toward the door.
Yes, he was going to explore tonight.
Normally, he would never take such a risk. But this was his final assessment instance; he was running out of time to earn performance points. The Sila Guild had no use for a failure.
Besides, with this sleeplessness mechanic in place, other players were bound to have the same idea. If he was too slow, he would fall behind on crucial information.
Chen Lidong had entered the Weird Game, but never for himself. It was for his wife.
She was the woman who had married him when he was poor, the woman who had stood by him even when he was locked up by the authorities. Just as he had finally paid off their loans and they truly owned their own home and car, she had collapsed.
The night before she fell down the stairs and was rushed to the hospital, they had been excitedly planning their first family vacation. The next day, a doctor handed him a diagnosis: late-stage brain cancer.
There was no cure for her terminal illness. The Weird Game was his only salvation.
Chen Lidong knew his wife didn't have much time. He had to become an official member of the Sila Guild as quickly as possible so he could borrow points from them to save her life.
He had heard that the points they lent him would come at the cost of his life, but what did that matter?
He had no other choice. All he could do was press forward.
Chen Lidong glanced back one last time. Confirming there was nothing unusual in the room, he gently turned the handle and pushed the door open.
He closed the door behind him and felt his way through the darkness toward the stairwell.
Inside the room, Qi Si listened to Chen Lidong's footsteps fade away, silently counting the seconds.
After counting for ten minutes, certain that Chen Lidong was long gone, he rose from the bed and slipped out of the room without a sound.
He had already intended to gather clues at night. The office was a key location, but Ms. Medina would likely be there during the day, making a thorough search impossible. The only chance was at night.
His original plan, however, had been to wait until the second night for something as risky as a nighttime excursion, after some reckless fool had already tested the waters.
But upon realizing he was just as sleepless as Chen Lidong, he quickly deduced that this insomnia wasn't a coincidence but likely a feature of the instance.
If no one could sleep, many others would surely venture out to investigate, just like Chen Lidong.
When everyone else was making a move, inaction meant losing the advantage—a major setback.
And since someone else was already paving the way, the risk didn't seem quite so high anymore...
The corridor wasn't as utterly dark as the dormitory. A faint light diffused through the void, illuminating the contours of the scene.
Qi Si returned the Human Skin Mask to his inventory, his own face now exposed, and walked toward the stairwell.
Along the hallway, the faint scent of blood seeped from behind a steel door, a grim warning of death.
Qi Si paused, casting an interested glance in the direction of the smell, but he couldn't see anything through the door.
Considering the low reward for the effort of prying the door open just to spectate, he shook his head in disinterest and continued on his way.
...
In Dormitory 4, Jiang Junjue sat on the edge of his bed, a cigarette dangling from his lips, staring blankly at the gruesome corpse on the floor.
The dead player's name was Sun Lin, a freelance player with no guild affiliation. After being assigned to the same room, he had laid on the flattery, clearly hoping to use Jiang Junjue as a connection to join the Listening Wind Guild.
Jiang Junjue had humored him with noncommittal replies. Though slightly annoyed by the pestering, he didn't particularly dislike the man's actions.
He had seen plenty of people like Sun Lin—lacking in strength and the courage to improve, content to cling to a major guild just to get by.
There was nothing wrong with that. Who didn't want to live?
In the face of survival, with all its sycophancy and compromise, who could guarantee they wouldn't one day resort to the same pathetic display? What right did anyone have to laugh at others?
Jiang Junjue had always maintained a friendly demeanor, so right up until lights out, Sun Lin had naively believed he'd made a good impression with a few pleasantries.
If nothing had gone wrong, they would have gone their separate ways after this instance, never to see each other again.
But something had gone wrong.
After lights out, a ghostly image had appeared on the empty bunk.
Sun Lin, on the top bunk, seemed to hear something and began to scream in terror.
"I didn't break any rules! I didn't do anything! Stay away from me!" he had yelled, his voice laced with desperation.
Jiang Junjue listened in silence, his heart sinking. He knew it was over for him.
Sure enough, Sun Lin scrambled over the guardrail and fell from the top bunk with a heavy thud.
The smell of blood exploded into the air. Jiang Junjue put on his night-vision goggles and saw Sun Lin lying on the ground, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles, his body convulsing in agony.
Even then, he didn't die immediately.
Spotting Jiang Junjue watching him, Sun Lin painfully dragged himself forward, extending a bloody hand, begging for help.
Jiang Junjue remained silent and took a small step back, a clear refusal.
Bloody gashes split open across Sun Lin's body, as if something buried deep inside him was bursting forth.
Tiny golden flowers bloomed from his veins, their petals quickly falling to cover his blood-soaked form.
Realizing Jiang Junjue had no intention of helping, Sun Lin's pleas turned into curses against the one who watched him die.
He was still crying for help, but no longer to anyone in particular. It was a primal, instinctual howl against death, a prayer to the heavens or some god for a miracle as he screamed out his terror and pain.
Jiang Junjue calmly observed the manner of Sun Lin's death. He watched yellow butterflies emerge from the man's veins, flutter their wings for a few seconds, then die, falling like petals.
He watched as Sun Lin's struggles ceased and his screams faded into silence. Then, he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.
Clusters of yellow flowers bloomed from death, then turned to dust, burying the corpse. Life subsided in the curling smoke, leaving only a long, profound silence.
Jiang Junjue took a drag from his cigarette, never having made a sound.
He could have saved Sun Lin. He had plenty of life-saving items—ones that could take a fatal blow for him, ones that could heal him. He could have used any of them.
But he was under no obligation to save a stranger, especially one with no value.
Items were expensive, and a human life was cheap.