“A Painted Skin Ghost?! Where on earth did it come from?”
Nanzhi, brush in mouth, almost dropped her tablet.
“What kind of normal game has monsters that sneak attack players in the middle of the night? This setting is insane!”
She stared at the grey screen, nearly losing it.
“Players don't enter an invincible state while idling? What is this? So I have to sleep with one eye open while playing??”
How was she supposed to keep having fun in the game like this?
Had the game designers lost their minds?
Or did Honghe Technology not pay their employees enough overtime?
How did such an outrageous game setting even get approved??
You're just a single player game!
She scrolled through the player log from while she was idling:
【The Cultivator falls into a dream...】
【Night deepens. The watchman strikes the gong. It is the middle of the third watch. Owls shriek. Heavy footsteps seem to echo in the courtyard.】
【A “Painted Skin Ghost” has entered the room.】
【The “Painted Skin Ghost” has killed “Nan Dazhuang”.】
【The “Painted Skin Ghost” has killed “Chen Jingui”.】
【The “Painted Skin Ghost” has killed “Nan Ye” and peeled off her skin.】
【The “Painted Skin Ghost” has heavily wounded you.】
【The “Painted Skin Ghost” has gouged out your heart.】
【The Cultivator has died.】
【Misfortune may strike at any moment, just as the moon waxes and wanes. Brave Cultivator, do not fear hardship!】
【Please keep trying, Cultivator! Bravely forge ahead on the immortal path!】
No matter how Nanzhi looked at it, the black exclamation point at the end of the text seemed to be mocking her.
“Painted Skin” is a story from 《Liaozhai》. It tells of an evil ghost who uses human skin to paint a disguise, transforming into a beautiful woman to seduce scholars and gouge out their hearts to eat.
Although later generations often adapted the “Painted Skin Ghost” into a lonely, kind, and beautiful female demon longing for love, it could not hide the fact that it was still a heart eating evil ghost.
“I remember the Painted Skin Ghost is considered a powerful ghost in Liaozhai.”
Nanzhi spat out the foam in her mouth and thought:
“The black footprints at the Qiao house must have been left by it. Did I trigger some special mechanism that caused the Painted Skin Ghost to kill me?
No wonder no one online has played this game. The freedom is too high, and the difficulty is also high.
The game automatically rewinds when the player dies. Without a bit of patience, you really couldn't play this.”
Nanzhi rinsed her mouth, ordered takeout on her phone, and then squeezed back onto the sofa to continue grinding the game.
...
...
【The Cultivator has died.】
【The Cultivator is resurrected. The game has automatically rewound.】
Accompanied by a light and cheerful sound effect, the grey filter on the screen rippled away like a stone thrown into a pond.
The game character opened her eyes. The lively Nan Ye was standing right in front of her.
Not far away, Qiao Dalang looked worried as he poured spoiled tofu into a bucket.
“You want to catch a ghost for my family?”
“Don't joke with me. This ghost business is just nonsense from others. If there really were a ghost, why haven't I seen it?”
The dialogue was exactly the same.
Nanzhi glanced at the top right corner of the screen. The time showed the start of the Chen hour, which was seven in the morning, matching the real world time.
The middle of the third watch was half past midnight.
In other words, excluding the death standby time, the game had rewound a full seventeen hours from midnight to seven o'clock the previous morning.
Beside her, Nan Ye took a step forward and said indignantly:
“My Big Sister says your house has a ghost, so there's a ghost! She's kindly trying to help your family solve the disaster, so why are you being so ungrateful?”
Nan Ye's lines hadn't changed either.
Nanzhi stared at the young girl. The two of them were very close, and she could even see the faint blue veins beneath the girl's fair neck.
Although the game hadn't shown a death cutscene for the NPCs, she could guess from the words “peeled off her skin” that the moment of death must have been agonizing.
“Big Sister, why are you staring at me?”
Nan Ye felt her skin crawl from the stare and couldn't help but shiver. “Could it be... is there something wrong with me?”
Nanzhi shook her head.
This game wouldn't set up a nonsensical cause of death for no reason.
Therefore, the “Painted Skin Ghost” could only have been picked up at the Qiao house.
That meant the Qiao house really was haunted, and the one causing trouble wasn't the Grey Rat Spirit.
That rat was lying.
Thinking of this, Nanzhi walked straight past Qiao Dalang, barged into the Qiao family tofu workshop, and snatched the gourd ladle from Lady Qiao's hand.
“Hey, hey, hey—isn't this the Nan family's eldest daughter? Why have you come to my house to play around?”
Lady Qiao was startled. Seeing Nanzhi holding the gourd ladle as if to scoop boiling water from the pot, she coaxed her gently:
“Be careful not to burn yourself. We have Candied Fruits at home. Would you like some to sweeten your mouth?”
Perhaps because she ate tofu often, her skin was as white as snow, surpassing even many daughters of wealthy families.
Everyone in Dingyuan County knew that there was a “Tofu Qiao” in Lingbai Alley, and his wife was the famous “Tofu Beauty”.
Nanzhi didn't say a word. Carrying the ladle of boiling water, she walked to the woodpile in the courtyard. She quickly found a rat hole inside and made a gesture as if to pour:
“I'll count to three. If you don't come out, I'll have them pour boiling water into this rat hole. Three, two...”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait! Young lady, you can't pour it! You can't!!”
The yellow named Grey Rat Spirit scurried out, its plump body wobbling. Its wrinkled face looked strangely pitiful:
“I still have my old mother and thirty seven rat pups in this hole! You absolutely cannot!”
“Be honest. What is your relationship with that Painted Skin Ghost?!”
Nanzhi stepped on the grey rat's tail and said fiercely:
“Don't think you can deceive me with excuses, saying you were in this courtyard first and only caused trouble because you were annoyed by the sound of the Qiao family grinding tofu at night—”
She had underestimated the game's difficulty before, taking it for granted that this fat rat was the culprit.
But thinking carefully, if the grey rat really caused trouble because Qiao Dalang ground tofu at night, why did it only start finding it noisy recently?
One must know that the Qiao family had been grinding tofu for several years!
However, there was one thing Nanzhi couldn't understand.
If the Qiao family really had a Painted Skin Ghost, why hadn't there been any deaths yet?
Nanzhi didn't believe for a second that the Painted Skin Ghost was being merciful.
After all, in the previous round, this ghost had directly wiped out the entire Nan family.
Well, almost. After all, the eldest son, Nan Yi, was on duty at the magistrate's office and had escaped the disaster.
“This, this, this, this...”
The Grey Rat Spirit broke into a cold sweat. Its black beady eyes darted around frantically, and the whiskers around its long snout trembled violently.
Good heavens!
How did this young lady know what it was going to say!
Most importantly, how did she know that the one causing trouble at the Qiao house was a Painted Skin Ghost!
It hadn't said a word!
“No, no, no, no, it's not a Painted Skin Ghost! What Painted Skin Ghost!”
The grey rat was terrified. It covered its long snout with its paws, trying to cover up its slip of the tongue:
“I'm the one who ate the Qiao family's tofu! I'm also the one who crouched under the window at night to cough and cause trouble!
I didn't say anything! It wasn't me who told you!”
“You're afraid? That's why you won't tell the truth.”
Nanzhi suddenly understood and raised the gourd ladle in her hand:
“But think about it. If you tell me the truth, I don't know if the Painted Skin Ghost will kill you.
But right now, your life, your old mother's life, and those thirty seven rat pups' lives are in my hands.
Will you be honest and turn over a new leaf, or should I catch you right now and feed you to a cat?”
The Grey Rat Spirit immediately fell into a dilemma, its whiskers twitching incessantly.
That Painted Skin Ghost was incredibly cruel. Not only did it eat human hearts and livers, but it also never showed mercy to small spirits like them.
If it knew it had been betrayed...
It feared its entire nest of rats would not escape being skinned alive!
But... the young lady before it was also very fierce and seemed to have some ability, actually seeing through the fact that a Painted Skin Ghost was causing trouble at the Qiao house at a glance.
The grey rat's eyes flickered between Nanzhi and Lady Qiao, its dark little eyes filled with cunning.
Rate on N.U.
