When Liu Laosan died, his mind was completely blank.
He had just wandered out of the residential community, with two hundred yuan he had dug up from his home stuffed in his pocket, planning to play mahjong all night at the parlor at the end of the alley.
Although the neighborhood committee and the community group chat had been warning everyone not to go out at night recently, there were always some people who wouldn't listen.
Liu Laosan had even had some alcohol before leaving the house.
Now, as the night breeze blew over him, the alcohol rushed to his head, making him feel completely lightheaded.
When he reached the edge of the main road, he suddenly realized something was wrong.
He couldn't lift his left foot.
A chill crawled up from the sole of his foot to his back. His left foot felt as if it had been nailed to the ground, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pull it up.
“...What the hell?”
He cursed and tried his best to lift his leg, but it felt as if it were filled with lead, refusing to budge in the slightest.
Most of his drunkenness instantly faded.
He looked down at his leg.
It was perfectly fine—not tripped by anything, and not injured.
Why couldn't he move it?
“This is really bizarre...” he muttered, reaching down to rub his leg, but in the next second, his arm froze as well.
His outstretched right hand hung in midair, stiff, like a marionette.
Liu Laosan's heart skipped a beat, and he panicked instantly.
“What's going on?!” He wanted to shout, but as soon as he opened his mouth, a clump of sticky thread grew out of his flesh, stitching it together stitch by stitch:
“Mmph! Mmph!”
The airflow from his chest could only go in, not out, flushing his face a deep red. But the most excruciating part was the physical pain.
Had he run into a ghost?
Liu Laosan's eyes darted around as he looked about in sheer panic.
The late-night road was empty, the streetlights dim and yellow, with not a single soul—or ghost—in sight.
The wind swirled fallen leaves past his feet, making a rustling sound that was exceptionally clear in the silent night.
At the distant intersection, the traffic light blinked lonely. A truck was waiting for the red light.
He could even see the driver looking down, playing on his phone.
Look at me! Look at me, you bastard!
Liu Laosan wanted to scratch his face like crazy, but his entire body was rigid; he couldn't move a muscle.
He could only feel the needle-like pricking and the agony of thread piercing through his flesh.
Just then, his right leg suddenly moved.
He wasn't the one controlling it; it lifted on its own, taking a mechanical, stiff step toward the road.
The red light had turned green, and the truck driver had already started the vehicle.
No...
Liu Laosan screamed in his mind over and over, his eyes nearly splitting, but he couldn't utter a single sound.
His body was no longer under his control!
One step, then another.
His legs moved mechanically. He wanted to stop but couldn't; he wanted to shout but couldn't make a sound.
Yet his consciousness was incredibly clear.
He could clearly feel himself walking toward death, step by step.
Two blinding beams of light drew closer and closer.
The roar of the engine grew louder and louder, a rumbling sound that made the ground nearby tremble.
In Liu Laosan's pupils, there were only the headlights drawing closer.
Tires screeched against the pavement, kicking up billows of white smoke.
Bang!
The moment the massive impact slammed into his body, Liu Laosan even heard the sound of his bones shattering.
“Hello? Traffic police? Someone suddenly rushed out here on Jianguo Road... Yes, he seemed drunk... reeked of alcohol...”
“He looks like he's not going to make it... I went through the green light normally... Yes, yes, I have insurance... This person suddenly jumped out, I couldn't brake in time at all!”
Under the headlights, Liu Laosan's stitched mouth rapidly returned to normal.
A'yan, shrouded in pitch-black darkness, held a clump of soul in her hand, smiling exceptionally happily.
...
...
Having dealt with Liu Laosan, A'yan drifted back into the rented apartment through the window.
Seeing Song Mo deep in thought, she obediently refrained from disturbing her. Instead, she sat on the floor and began playing with her newly acquired “toy.”
It was a lifelike “doll” only the size of a palm, a perfect miniature version of Liu Laosan.
Over a dozen sticky red threads seeped from the red-clothed fierce ghost's fingertips. As if manipulating a puppet, she gently wiggled them, causing the miniature figure to writhe in agony.
“Mmph—bang!”
Mimicking the sound of a truck, A'yan suspended the doll in midair, watching its limbs stretch into twisted angles, its mouth wide open in a silent scream.
Tears of blood leaked from its eyes, dripping onto the tabletop.
A'yan was having a wonderful time.
...
Song Mo raised her head, glanced at the clearly delighted female ghost, and then lowered her head to continue writing.
The rented apartment was very quiet, save for the occasional faint whimpering of the doll.
Looking in from outside the window, everything appeared completely normal.
A warm yellow desk lamp, a girl bent over her desk in thought—it was just another peaceful night.
Yet within the actual space, a completely different scene had already unfolded:
Countless ink-wash characters drifted out from Song Mo's body, filling the entire room.
Every single character represented a hazy, unformed Instance world.
A faint scent of blood permeated the air, accompanied by the eerie laughter of the red-clothed fierce ghost.
The shadows on the wall twisted and deformed, resembling countless ghosts baring their fangs and brandishing their claws.
A new script was slowly taking shape in Song Mo's mind.
Like an elegant spider, she meticulously wove web after web, spreading them across the entirety of Huaxia.
—When the webs were pulled in, how many moths would willingly throw themselves into them?
Song Mo did not know.
She only knew that this script would be far more interesting than any of her previous ones.
Song Mo traced her finger in midair, leaving behind lines of ink-wash characters:
【Draft 1: 《The Cave Deity》】
【Draft 2: 《The Seventh-Day Return》】
【Draft 3: 《The Cat-Faced Old Lady》】
【Draft 4: 《The Wishing Livestream Room》】
...
...
Inside the Instance, time continued to pass.
Swoosh—
Deng Ziwen pulled the heavy curtains shut, blocking out the handprints left by the window-tapping ghost outside.
On the other side of the room, Ding Feifan was pushing a tabletop against the door. “It's just like what Weng Yang and the others said. As long as we don't look and don't make a sound, the things outside can't get in.”
Zhao Weilai sat huddled in the corner. The courage she had shown when driving the pole into the water ghost's eye socket that afternoon had completely vanished by now.
After escaping from the Lake-Center Pavilion, the three of them had been walking along the main road toward the old school building.
—According to Ding Feifan, the restroom in the old school building was highly likely the second ghost story check-in point.
But the fog along the way was too thick, and the three of them couldn't find the path at all.
Seeing that night was about to fall, they had no choice but to seek shelter in the nearby administration building, choosing the innermost office to settle down.
Following Weng Yang and the others' example, they blocked the door, pulled the curtains, went to sleep as soon as it got dark, and absolutely refused to look out the window.
Tap... tap-tap...
The window-tapping continued, slow and rhythmic, as if someone were pressed against the glass, slowly patting it with their palm.
Separated by the curtains, they couldn't see what was outside and could only hear the sound.
This made Zhao Weilai's skin crawl even more.
In fact, not long after night fell, they had received the announcement of player elimination.
【Announcement: Player Luo Yiming failed the ghost story check-in and has died.】
【Announcement: Player Fang Wei failed the ghost story check-in and has died.】
【Remaining Surviving Players: 4/6】
The ink-wash characters hovered in their vision for three seconds before slowly fading away.
The office instantly fell into a dead silence.
Deng Ziwen's Adam's apple bobbed, but he couldn't say a word for a long time.
Death had originally seemed like a very distant concept to them.
Yet how much time had passed, and already two young lives had vanished in this damned Instance.
Could they really make it back alive?
Rate on N.U.
