“Tap, tap,” the sound of high heels gradually faded away, leaving the two brothers standing stiffly in place.
After a moment, Chi Ling reacted and spoke first.
“Little brother, you go first!”
“No, no.” The cousin waved his hands repeatedly. “Older brother, you go first!”
Standing right where they were, the two began to courteously yield to each other.
“You go first! I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too!”
“Then how about together?”
Chi Ling wasn’t all that frightened, but changing burial clothes for a dead person inside a game instance still felt chilling to think about.
The audience watching the live broadcasting room in the game lobby was already immensely amused.
“To think he’s afraid of ghosts! That cracks me up!”
“To be accurate, he’s afraid of dead bodies.”
“I remember when I first entered this game, I was just like him. How things change.”
“He still lacks experience. Once you see more of it, you aren’t scared anymore.”
“Actually, even after seeing a lot of it, you’re still scared.”
“I’m not that scared anymore now, just disgusted.”
After pushing the responsibility back and forth for a long time, the two finally settled on a plan: they decided to work together to lift Grandpa Liu onto the bed and help him change into the burial clothes together.
Chi Ling took a deep breath, held it abruptly, walked quickly to the coffin, and pushed open the coffin lid with force.
He silently observed the corpse inside. Good, it didn’t move; there were no signs of a corpse rising from the dead yet.
Even so, Chi Ling didn’t relax his vigilance. Staring intently at the corpse, he glanced back at the distance to the door, planning to bolt immediately at the slightest sign of abnormal activity.
The corpse did not exhibit the anomalies Chi Ling had imagined. He could only suppress the fear in his heart, call out to his cousin for help, and together they carried the corpse over to the bed.
Trembling all over, the two of them moved the body out of the coffin.
This corpse was truly heavy! Chi Ling silently exerted every ounce of his strength.
“Brother, do you feel like this corpse is getting heavier and heavier?”
Duh!
“Let’s finish moving it sooner and change the burial clothes, then we’ll be liberated sooner.”
“No, really, I genuinely feel like this corpse is getting heavier and heavier.” The cousin was on the verge of tears, his entire body trembling with fat shaking, yet he didn’t know how to explain it.
Of course Chi Ling understood; he also felt the corpse growing heavier, but voicing it out loud right now would only make the two of them panic even more, so he could only do his best to comfort his cousin.
“It’s fine, we’re just a few steps away from the bed.” Chi Ling clenched his teeth tightly.
Having finally placed the corpse flat on the bed, Chi Ling was already breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Ah, ah, ah!” The cousin suddenly let out a sharp, miserable shriek, collapsing onto the floor as his eyes stared fixedly at the corpse on the bed.
The heart that Chi Ling had just managed to set down suddenly leaped back up. He turned his head to look at the bed, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he felt slightly relieved and scolded, “What on earth is wrong with you, always making a fuss over nothing.”
The veins on Chi Ling’s forehead throbbed rhythmically. He clenched his fists and pressed them against his temples, as if the cousin failed to give a satisfactory explanation, he would throw a punch the next second.
Chi Ling really wanted to hit someone. Instead of being scared by the corpse, he had almost been scared out of his wits by his cousin’s howl.
Swallowing hard, the cousin was on the verge of a complete breakdown. Cupping his head in both hands, his speech carried a faint hint of weeping: “I just saw its hand move.”
Who he referred to went without saying.
Chi Ling stepped back a trace without leaving a trace, putting more distance between himself and the bed, deciding that safety lay in distance.
“You must have seen wrong. It probably just wobbled a couple of times because we didn’t place it down steadily.”
In his heart, Chi Ling felt that his cousin probably hadn’t seen wrong, but he had to say this to help ease his cousin’s mind a little. After all, no matter what happened, they had to dress the corpse in burial clothes to report back to Third Aunt. If his cousin bolted right now, he would be left to complete the task all by himself.
“Impossible, I really saw it! I definitely didn’t see wrong.” The cousin’s face turned red with anxiety, wishing he could swear to the heavens to prove himself.
Sigh, what a silly kid.
“What are you screaming and yelling for? Do you want to live?” An angry voice sounded right behind his back without warning, causing Chi Ling to shiver once more.
First he scolded his cousin, and now both he and his cousin were being scolded by Third Aunt. How the tables turned!
“It’s…” The cousin was so flustered he didn’t know what to do. Terrified that Third Aunt wouldn’t believe him just like Chi Ling had, he cast a stealthy glance at Third Aunt before quickly lowering his head once more, looking every bit like a pitiful little creature.
Chi Ling: “…”
“Just now, my cousin said he saw Grandpa Liu’s corpse move.” Though speechless, Chi Ling acted as a considerate older brother and naturally helped explain for his cousin.
Lowering his head as well, he occasionally peeked at Third Aunt’s expression. Seeing her complexion turn drastically dark, Chi Ling didn’t dare look any further, but he still had to finish what he wanted to say: “Aunt, my cousin is probably frightened. If he has to help Grandpa Liu change his burial clothes again, he’ll likely have nightmares tonight. If he doesn’t help, I won’t be able to change Grandpa Liu’s burial clothes all by myself…”
Chi Ling hurried to shoot a glance at his cousin, who instantly caught on and chimed in anxiously, “Aunt, I’m too scared! We don’t want to stay here anymore.”
In a place Chi Ling couldn’t see, the players in the main hall were still watching the live broadcast and passionately discussing it.
“This player is too bold, I don’t even dare watch anymore.”
“I can’t imagine at all. If this Aunt goes berserk, do you think he’ll still have a way to survive?”
“Hard to say! Isn’t it good to just safely survive three days? Why poke your nose into muddy waters?”
“There are a few players who’ve just hunkered down in the west side hall without running into any danger. This player is still way too reckless.”
“Hmph, a player like this is better off dying early in the instance.”
Chi Ling paid no attention to these voices, nor would he ever bother with them.
Right now, he only cared about Third Aunt’s reaction. The pressure bearing down from above grew heavier. Raising his head to meet Third Aunt’s excessively darkened eyes, Chi Ling asked, “Aunt, can the two of us go outside?”
“You get out first! Jiahao stays.” Third Aunt said each word through grates, suppressing her fury.
Hearing this, Chi Ling felt as if granted a general amnesty. Running faster than he walked, he bolted out the door and vanished in a flash of smoke.
Third Aunt: “…”
Cousin: “…”
Audience: “…”
Third Aunt’s furious voice still echoed from behind, “It’s one thing for your older brother to be scared, but why are you scared like this too? You’re usually pretty bold, yet whenever I ask you to do something you’re useless. Are you doing this on purpose to go against me…”
Chi Ling stood outside waiting for his cousin, who drooped like a frost-bitten eggplant. The moment he saw Chi Ling, he couldn’t help venting his grievances.
“I was scared to death! I’m still just a child! How can I bear the heavy responsibility of changing Grandpa Liu’s burial clothes? And Aunt is too biased, why did she only yell at me and not you?”
Chi Ling had been a bit scared himself, but seeing his cousin’s reaction, he inexplicably stopped feeling afraid.
What a child, my foot. When you were scaring me at the ancestral hall entrance, why weren’t you acting cowardly?
He didn’t even know where to start complaining about that remark.
“It’s fine now, go back and play cards with them,” Chi Ling offered a token comfort.
“Then are you coming with me, older brother?”
Looking at the chubby hand tightly gripping his forearm, Chi Ling felt yet another wave of speechlessness. Gently pulling his arm away, he spat out two words: “Of course.”
It was only the first day, so Chi Ling wasn’t in too much of a rush. No matter how much one pursued other tasks, nothing was more important than preserving oneself. It was better to wait and observe before making further plans.
Following his cousin back to that same room in the west side hall, they found that the young people playing cards had mostly scattered by now, retiring to various rooms to rest.
Soon it would be time for dinner. Chi Ling planned to stay in the previous empty room, too lazy to move around.
Perhaps because he was shaken up, his cousin stubbornly insisted on sharing a room with Chi Ling, and Chi Ling simply let him be.
According to the schedule, the ten o’clock dinner time was approaching. Dinner was prepared uniformly by a cook, and everyone in the ancestral hall gathered together for a communal meal.
Chi Ling had no appetite, but judging by Third Aunt’s words, skipping this dinner was likely out of the question.
As the time drew near, people in the inner hall were already calling out for dinner. Following his cousin closely, Chi Ling ate a casual bite before returning to the room.
Chi Ling lay down on the bed fully clothed. Actually, looking back on the day, it had been relatively peaceful. Lying in bed, he opened his panel; his account now held over three hundred points. He originally wanted to browse the store further, but his cousin came in right after finishing dinner, forcing Chi Ling to drop the idea.
Leaning back in his chair, the cousin let out deep, steady breaths of sleep within moments.
Chi Ling found it strange. Why did he fall asleep the moment he stepped in? But soon, his own eyelids also began to grow uncontrollably heavy, demanding to close.
Even when the cousin slumped sideways from his chair to the floor with a loud thud, he didn’t wake up.
Oh no, there was probably something wrong with the food. Chi Ling bit down on the tip of his tongue, trying to stay awake, but abruptly lost consciousness anyway.
How much time passed? Chi Ling’s consciousness slowly drifted back.
A gust of wind carrying a putrid stench rushed straight at his face. Chi Ling sensed a lofty gaze scrutinizing him from above, seemingly judging whether he would wake up.
His heart hammered wildly and fiercely in his chest; he could almost hear the sound of his own heartbeat echoing inside his ribcage.
Regulating his breathing as much as possible, he took shallow, tiny breaths, matching his breathing rhythm to that of a soundly sleeping person.
The gaze from above moved away. Chi Ling stealthily cracked his eyes open by a sliver, discovering a stiff figure standing with its back to him, bending forward to intently listen to his cousin’s breathing on the floor.
Chi Ling quickly squeezed his eyes shut tight. He recognized this figure, or rather, this corpse. The corpse was wearing the burial clothes he had personally retrieved.
Could it be that Grandpa Liu had risen from the dead?
“Damn, getting that close? I got scared just now.”
“Why did this player suddenly wake up? The other players don’t seem to have woken up, and I didn’t see this corpse anywhere else.”
“Better off not waking up at all.”
“The corpse has already run out. I’ll bet 100 points on whether this player will chase after it.”
As for the choice of whether to pursue it, the answer was affirmative in Chi Ling’s mind. Sensing that the putrid stench belonging to the corpse had faded away, he knew the corpse had left.
Various thoughts spun through his head. In a single instant, Chi Ling decided to follow.
Mustering his courage to get up, he closely trailed behind the corpse’s pace and stepped out through the ancestral hall’s main doors. After Chi Ling left, a gust of eerie wind blew past, causing the two red lanterns in front of the door to sway in the breeze.
Chi Ling stayed a safe distance behind the corpse, maintaining enough space to avoid being discovered.
There were no streetlamps in this small mountain village, but fortunately, tonight’s moonlight was exceptionally bright, making it not too difficult to make out the corpse’s direction of travel.
The path grew increasingly remote. Passing through a patch of farmland and bypassing two ponds, the corpse continued marching forward. This was an area Chi Ling had never been to before; judging by the direction, it looked like they were heading up a certain mountain.
The corpse hopped forward like a zombie in a movie. The mountain path was winding, and Chi Ling’s shoes were already caked with mud, making walking progressively harder while the corpse felt no fatigue whatsoever.
This won’t do, Chi Ling mentally pumped himself up, quickening his pace to keep up.
The higher they climbed, the more alarmed Chi Ling became. The mountain was filled from top to bottom with graves, making it an outright burial mountain.
Generations of people from the mountain village were buried on a single mountain; over time, a green mountain had indeed been turned into a mountain of graves.
Every few paces up the mountain, rounded mounds of earth stood prominently, their tombstones reflecting a cold gleam under the moonlight.
What on earth was this corpse going up the mountain for? Surely not to admire its own grave? Chi Ling shook his head, trying to shake the thought out of his brain.
Regardless of what the corpse wanted to do up the mountain, Chi Ling wasn’t going to follow any further. His stamina was nearly depleted, and staying here any longer would likely spell danger. He decided to head back first and investigate again tomorrow night.
Step by step, Chi Ling made his way down along the path he had come. Going down a mountain was harder than going up; holding onto bamboo stalks to inch his way down, his journey remained exceptionally difficult.
It had rained just yesterday, leaving the moisture-laden soil exceptionally soft. Chi Ling had walked for quite a while following the climb, and for a player with low initial attack power and low stamina, hiking this far was already a remarkable feat.
Chi Ling felt that his stamina value must have dropped again because he began to feel dizzy and even accidentally slipped, making a noise.
Chi Ling quickly activated his aura-concealing item. The item had a one-minute time limit, and with no time to recover his footing, he dashed to hide behind the nearest tree.
His face was pale, all color drained from his lips. Some mud had smeared across his face during the slip, which paradoxically made his already exquisite features all the more mesmerizing.
Moving slowly, he seized the moment before the item expired to slip away toward another, more distant tree.
“Three, two…”
Chi Ling counted silently in his heart. If the corpse took one more step closer, he would break into an immediate run.
The audience in the game lobby couldn’t help growing tense over his plight; some turned away unable to bear looking, others made cynical sarcastic remarks, and others began tipping, hoping the points could let him buy items and escape disaster.
[Broadcasting Room S0112103, current viewer count: 895, likes: 517, favorites: 610, tips: 330, please continue to work hard, player.]
The corpse took another step forward. Chi Ling primed himself, ready to bolt, when unexpectedly, the corpse acted as if it had spotted something terrifying, turning tail and hopping frantically up the mountain.
Chi Ling couldn’t help twitching the corner of his mouth. It was his first time picking up the word terror from the back of a corpse. That speed was practically faster than the escape velocity he had conceptualized in his mind.
However, the target of the escape had now changed.
The crisis was temporarily averted, but Chi Ling’s expression grew even more solemn. Whatever could send that corpse fleeing without a backward glance meant there had to be an even more terrifying presence nearby.