“...Why is this guy spitting up blood?”
Song Mo leaned back, tilting her head in confusion.
Was the pressure too much? Or did Jiang Chen have some pre-existing medical condition?
On the screen, the paper bus wobbled precariously along the winding mountain road.
For some reason, Jiang Chen suddenly stiffened in the driver's seat. He coughed up a mouthful of blood, spraying it directly onto the paper windshield.
The dark red blood splattered and spread, resembling a twisted flower.
Immediately after, his grip loosened, and he slid down the seat, completely losing consciousness.
The bus instantly veered off course, hurtling toward the cliff on the side of the road.
This terrified Zhou Chang and Kang Xiaojia in the back. They screamed and lunged forward to grab the steering wheel, throwing the cabin into utter chaos.
...
Hearing the commotion, A'yan floated over and asked cheerfully, “My Lady, what happened? Did someone die again?”
To a ghost, humans were merely ghosts who hadn't died yet.
Having been a ghost for hundreds of years, A'yan had long forgotten what it felt like to be human, as well as why humans feared death so much.
She was always hoping for more pests like Liu Laosan to irritate Song Mo so she could have some new toys.
She had torn Liu Laosan's soul apart and pieced it back together so many times. Now, his head was attached to his rear and his hands were on his soles. He was starting to get a bit boring.
“No,” Song Mo said.
She lost interest after a brief glance at Jiang Chen, turning her attention back to Su Ya and her group.
...
The summer wind in the mountains was refreshing, carrying the fragrant scent of vegetation.
Inside the sanctuary constructed with her technique 【High-Rise from Flat Ground】, A'yan floated beside a bonfire, watching the Mouse Servant roast chestnuts.
It was only June, so she had no idea where the Mouse Servant had found ripe chestnuts in the mountains. They were small, about the size of a human thumb, but they tasted very sweet once cracked open.
Song Mo, however, didn't have the luxury of enjoying them.
She watched without emotion as the Mouse Servant shook its fur, causing ordinary rats to drop from its body and scurry into the shadows.
Wenshan Village had been abandoned for a long time, and the place where humans once lived had quickly turned into a paradise for snakes, insects, and rodents.
The Mouse Servant easily found plenty of its own kind to manipulate.
These rats didn't look particularly repulsive. In fact, because they fed on wild fruits and grains all year round, they resembled field mice.
The Mouse Servant's arrival made these descendants of the rat clan jump with joy.
There were plenty of natural predators in the village. But suddenly, a massive kin had appeared among them, one that munched on rat snakes like snacks.
Almost every rat in Wenshan Village swarmed out of their holes, bringing offerings to their new "Rat King" one by one.
They brought hidden grains, fresh and plump ears of wheat, wild fruits still wet with dew, dried nuts they had hoarded in their burrows, and even juicy, wriggling bamboo grubs.
The rats voluntarily embraced the Mouse Servant as their king. They then watched their king meticulously select the finest quality "tributes" to offer to the towering black mist in the distance.
“Squeak, squeak!!”
“Squeak, squeak!”
“Squeak!”
Whenever Song Mo's gaze swept over, the rats would immediately squeal in terror, collapsing to the ground in droves to play dead.
Animals possessed the sharpest instincts. Even if they couldn't see A'yan, they still kept their distance from the sanctuary.
As for Song Mo?
Within a five-meter radius around her, not even a single buzzing insect could be found. Even birds flying down would consciously or unconsciously avoid this zone.
It was as if this area was a forbidden zone.
...
“I can't help but feel that these rats... are smarter than normal ones. Is it just my imagination?”
Song Mo rubbed her chin, lost in thought.
In these Instances, dead players would immediately turn into ghosts.
In the real world, spiritual mice on the verge of awakening had appeared, and animals were generally smarter than before. This phenomenon had already existed before she arrived in this world.
Could she interpret this to mean that the world itself was undergoing some sort of transformation beyond human comprehension?
Perhaps this change occurred over years, centuries, or even millennia—silent, subtle, and day after day.
It was just that humans had short lifespans and couldn't perceive it.
If so, what were the Instances and her Screenwriter System? Catalysts? Drivers?
Ordinary people awakening Classes, animals turning into spirits and speaking human tongue, and the dead turning into ghosts...
In the long run, would the entire world welcome a spiritual energy recovery?
Like a massive, invisible wave, humanity remained oblivious before the storm, yet she had already glimpsed the future.
Song Mo squeezed the lump of Rouge Mud in her hand, her expression remaining calm.
A'yan floated over, staring curiously at the mud in her hands. “My Lady, are you making a new toy for me?” she asked happily.
Because she kept dismantling and reassembling Liu Laosan's soul, some parts were always going missing, like fingers or eyeballs. Song Mo had promised to sculpt a container for her "toy."
“You could say that,” Song Mo replied.
She kneaded the lump of mud in her palm. The texture was incredibly fine and smooth, unlike riverbed silt. Instead, it felt like specially prepared dough.
This "special-grade supernatural sample," which the authorities carefully stored in incubators and agonized over using even a tiny pinch of, was as abundant in her hands as the yellow clay dug up from the village fields.
While she couldn't enter the Instances, A'zhu could.
Song Mo had been practicing her technique 【Clay Sculpting Soul-Infusion】 diligently lately. Thus, she had sent the fierce ghost A'zhu into the 《Campus Ghost Stories》 Instance specifically to dig up mud.
...
...
Song Mo pinched off an egg-sized piece of Rouge Mud and rolled it in her palm.
A'yan squatted nearby, watching. Her ghost eyes, dripping with bloody tears, squinted as she held back her comments.
Her Ladyship's sculpting skills... even the young servants in the old Shen residence could sculpt better than her. Her style was purely freeform.
When she tried to sculpt a bird, one wing would end up longer than the other. It would flap twice, crash to the ground, and splat into a puddle of mud.
When she tried to sculpt an insect, its six legs would be as thin as cotton threads. They would snap after two steps, dissolving even faster than the bird.
Song Mo frowned. She seriously analyzed the reasons for her failure and tried to sculpt a rat modeled after the Mouse Servant.
As a result, the head ended up larger than the body, and the legs were so short they were virtually invisible. After she infused it with a soul, the "thing" could only roll around on the ground.
It would roll two steps and get stuck in a crevice between stones. It was too foolish to look at.
...
After trying three or four times, Song Mo finally gave up on "detailed modeling." She decided to settle for the next best thing and began sculpting round lumps without hands or feet.
If it could roll, it could move. Why obsess over the shape?
As long as it could move, what more could she ask for?
Song Mo sculpted with great focus, dipping her fingertips in some mountain spring water to smooth out the surface of the clay balls.
Though they were still ugly, at least they weren't rough to the touch.
She poked two small holes in the round body for eyes, then used her fingernail to carve a curved line for a mouth. With that, a Clay Sculpture Ghost was complete.
At first, the lump wobbled on the ground before slowly "standing" up.
In reality, it just bounced upward and hopped over to her feet, circling her ankles like a loyal little potato spirit.
Then came the second, the third...
Soon, Song Mo was surrounded by seven or eight Clay Sculpture Ghosts of various sizes.
The larger ones were the size of a fist, while the smallest were only the size of a fingernail. Every single one was perfectly round. When they hopped, they made soft thudding sounds, looking foolish in perfect unison.
By the time she sculpted the twentieth one, a text prompt slowly popped up.
【Detected that the Screenwriter is mass-producing supernatural creatures for the first time. Please name this supernatural species.】
Song Mo glanced at the round clay lumps around her feet and said without hesitation, “Let's call them Mud Calabashes.”
They were made of mud, and their round bodies resembled calabashes. It was simple, straightforward, and easy to remember.
...
【Supernatural Creature No. 004: Mud Calabash】
【Quality: Common】
【Core Characteristics:
Absolute Harmlessness: Possesses no offensive capabilities. Gentle and cowardly by nature, they prefer to live in groups. When startled, they will curl into mud balls and play dead.
Gossip Instinct: Naturally drawn to damp and dark crevices in corners, they enjoy eavesdropping on human conversations. If the occupants of a house are diligent and clean with abundant Yang energy, they will not stay. However, if the occupants are lazy and messy with heavy dark energy, they will gather and breed in large numbers, multiplying continuously.
Fear of Water and Sun: Dissolves instantly upon contact with clean water. Direct sunlight for over an hour will also cause them to slowly melt. They have an extremely high mortality rate in the wild on rainy days.
Fission Reproduction: Once melted, the clay body can hatch two to three juvenile Clay Sculpture Ghosts within twenty-four hours in a damp and dark environment. No mating is required; they reproduce through fission.】
...
Creating these Mud Calabashes cost Song Mo almost no Screenwriter Points. She glanced at their attributes and reached out to poke the largest Mud Calabash near her feet.
The creature immediately stopped hopping. It tilted its round head and "gazed" at her with its two small hole-eyes.
Even though they possessed no intelligence and Song Mo hadn't designed brains for this species, the little thing seemed to have a sliver of self-awareness as it rubbed against her fingertip.
...
“Actually, they're quite fitting.”
Song Mo's eyes practically ached from how ugly her creations were. But she shook her head. Forget it. So what if they were ugly? At least they didn't cost any Screenwriter Points.
With that thought, they began to look a little more endearing.
A'yan floated over and blew a puff of black energy at the group of Mud Calabashes. They tumbled to the ground, flattening into thin mud pancakes, before slowly puffing back up into round spheres.
“My Lady, they're so silly,” A'yan giggled, the cinnabar mole at the corner of her eye shining as red as a drop of blood. “What did you sculpt them for?”
“Silly is good. Silly is cute,” Song Mo replied, pinching off another piece of Rouge Mud to knead. “They will have a grand purpose.”
As she sculpted the Clay Sculpture Ghosts, she kept an eye on the situations across the three Instances.
Everything was proceeding as expected, with no major disruptions.
Unexpectedly, among this batch of players, there were four other Class Users besides Su Ya:
【(Player...): Swordsman (Yellow-Tier)】
【Talent: Sword Mastery: When using cold weapons such as swords and blades, damage is increased by 15%, and weapon durability consumption is reduced by 20%.】
【(Player...): Cowherd (Green-Tier)】
【Talent: Companion of Cattle: Familiar with livestock habits. Possesses strong perception and can predict risks through animal reactions.】
【Active Skill: Ox Eyes (Briefly grants the user a pair of ox eyes, allowing them to see invisible low-grade spirits, traces of dark energy, and residual resentment.)
Skill Duration: 10 seconds. Cooldown: 12 hours.】
【(Player...): Physician (Green-Tier)】
【Passive Effect: Pharmacological Mastery: Able to identify common herbs and basic medicine. Reduces the consumption of all healing items by 15%.】
【(Player...): Silkworm Raiser (Yellow-Tier)】
【Passive Effect: Silkworm Molt: Uses the body as a cocoon to molt and reincarnate. Cooldown: Ten years.】
“A ten-year cooldown... Well, it is basically a free resurrection. But given how much potential this Class has, its rating shouldn't be just Yellow-Tier.”
Song Mo raised an eyebrow, somewhat unsure about the Class grading system.
Meanwhile, in the Instance, Ouyang Qiu's sickly, weary face appeared on the screen.
Clearly, the second group was also having a dispute over who would undertake the quests.
Rate on N.U.
