A rat funeral procession, with paper dolls carrying a coffin.
This bizarre funeral procession seemed to have noticed the bus. The music paused for a brief moment, and then, with the suonas blaring and the paper coffin hoisted high, they began marching toward the group.
There were human-headed rats with eyes glinting with malice, paper dolls with painted-on smiles and eerie red blush, and the clattering of the instruments.
It was like a scene straight out of a horror movie.
“Holy shit... Holy shit...”
Zhou Chang's voice shook violently, his teeth chattering. “W-what the hell are those things? Did the rats turn into demons? Is the whole village made of rats?”
Kang Xiaojia tightly covered her mouth, trying her best to steady her breathing.
Wang Lei huddled in his seat in terror, pulling his head down as his half-paper body rustled and shook violently.
Jiang Chen's mind, however, was filled with nothing but excitement.
“Don't make a sound,” he whispered, suppressing his emotions as he leaned over to Wang Lei. “Drive forward slowly. Don't stop, and don't hit them. Let's see what they want to do.”
There was only one road out of the village. If they weren't careful, these things might be trying to force them back.
If so, it meant there was something even more dangerous waiting for them in the village.
Wang Lei drove with trembling hands, and the paper bus continued to crawl forward at a snail's pace, looking like a clumsy cardboard beetle.
The distance between them shrank.
Five meters, three meters, one meter...
The rat-man holding the banner at the very front of the procession came to a halt. It raised its head, its tiny, beady eyes staring straight into the bus.
Immediately after, the entire procession stopped. The suona players went silent, the wailers stopped, and even the floating paper dolls raised their heads in unison.
A dozen rat faces and seven or eight paper faces stared fixedly at the paper bus. Then came an absolute, suffocating silence.
The group held their breath, waiting.
...
The plump rat-man leading the way opened its mouth, a greedy light flashing in its eyes. Suddenly, it moved.
It grabbed a large handful of pale paper money, scattered it into the air, and turned to circle the bus. The rat-men behind it followed suit.
The coffin-bearers, suona players, and paper-money scatterers swarmed forward in a rush, circling the paper bus.
The pale paper money drifted down from the sky, landing on the car windows. They were thin sheets of paper stamped with the shapes of copper coins.
Kang Xiaojia instantly recoiled from the window, grabbing Zhou Chang's arm in a death grip. The latter had clearly never seen anything like this either, his lips pursed as he frantically chanted prayers.
—From the Jade Emperor to the Tathagata Buddha, from Guanyin Bodhisattva to the Victorious Fighting Buddha, from the Virgin Mary to Jesus. He was covering all his bases with ultimate devotion.
The paper dolls drifted over and pressed themselves against the windows, their pale faces squished against the glass, leaving streaks of thick white powder behind.
The paper boy and girl maintained their smiling expressions. Up close, Kang Xiaojia could even see that their eyes had been drawn with a calligraphy brush, the ink outlining large, elongated eyes.
One of the rat-men reached out and knocked on the window. A paper doll raised its hand and tapped its palm against the glass, making a dull, thudding sound. Once, then twice.
“Hehehehe.”
It felt as if they were urging the group to turn the car around. Or perhaps they wanted to drag them out to join the funeral procession.
“Do they... do they want us to follow them?” Kang Xiaojia said with a sob. “What do we do? Are they going to bury us alive with them?”
If they stayed in the car and didn't start it, some unknown ghost would drag them out and hang them to dry like cured meat. If they got out of the car, they would fall right into the hands of this bizarre rat funeral procession.
“Drive. Run them over,” Jiang Chen gritted his teeth, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding rat-men. “Since they have physical bodies, it means they can die. They're just rats and paper dolls—”
It was about to get completely dark. Once night fell, the thing that killed their teammates would arrive.
The rat-men knocked harder and harder, the thuds merging into a continuous barrage. The paper dolls pressed their entire faces against the glass, and the distorted paint began to slowly seep through.
Wang Lei finally snapped. “Go! Just go!” He shrieked, spinning the steering wheel frantically, and the bus began to move again—
Suddenly!
“Meow!!!”
An incredibly sharp, agonizing cat meow suddenly exploded from the village, rushing closer! The meow was high and piercing, carrying the ferocity of a predator. Its immense penetration drowned out all the suonas and wailing, stabbing straight into everyone's ears.
The rat-men surrounding the car panicked as if they had met their natural enemy. Immediately after came a second meow.
The sound was much closer now. Amidst the fluttering paper money, over a dozen black shadows bolted out from the village, moving as fast as lightning.
They were cats. The group could even feel the bus shudder violently, as if some large creatures had leaped onto the roof.
Wild cats let out sharp, eerie screeches, their eyes glowing a ghostly yellow in the dark as they growled. The funeral procession, which had been so orderly and sinister just moments ago, instantly descended into absolute chaos.
“Squeak!!!”
“Squeak! Squeak!”
“Squeak, squeak, squeak!”
Sharp rat squeals echoed from all directions as the mourning-clad rat-men shrieked and fled.
Night fell completely, and a yellow, oval moon rose over the horizon.
The cats scattered, hunting the rat-headed figures. With every snap of their jaws, rat heads would go rolling across the ground.
Huddled inside the bus, the group didn't dare to move a muscle. They could only listen to the squeals of the rats and the sharp meows of the cats outside.
Occasionally, something would land heavily on the roof of the bus, causing it to rock violently, and they would hold their breath in terror.
“Look!!” Kang Xiaojia suddenly pointed out the window, her eyes wide with shock. “T-the people... they're turning into rats!”
Following her gaze, they saw the clothes of the rat-headed figures discarded on the snow, lying flat and empty like human skins. And from within those “human skins,” human-headed rats crawled out.
They had tiny rat bodies, but their heads were fully human, complete with facial features twisted in terror. They shrieked and scattered in all directions, scrambling toward the hillsides, the woods, and the crevices in the rocks, trampling over one another in their panic.
Seeing this, the cats grew even more excited and pounced.
“Squeak! Help!!”
“Help!”
“I was wrong!”
The slower human-headed rats were pinned down under the black cats' paws, letting out agonizing shrieks. They spoke in human voices, but their tones were high and shrill, and when mixed with the squeaking of rats, it was enough to make anyone's skin crawl.
A wild cat leaned down and snapped one's neck in a single bite. The human-headed rat twitched twice and went still.
The cat picked up the body in its mouth, shook its head, and leaped onto a nearby rock to feed. A crunching sound echoed, like someone chewing on cartilage.
The other cats joined the hunt, chasing down the fleeing human-headed rats. Cries of “Help!” and “Don't eat me!” echoed across the snowy field.
Though they were human cries for help, they came from the mouths of rats, sending shivers down the spines of everyone listening.
The eerie funeral procession was utterly decimated in the blink of an eye. Nothing was left but mourning clothes scattered across the ground, shredded paper dolls, and splatters of blood.
...
The four people in the bus were stunned. The rat-men who had just cornered them were completely defenseless against the cats.
Had these cats... saved them?
Zhou Chang was the first to snap out of it. He shoved Wang Lei, who was still in a daze. “What are you spacing out for? Drive! Get us out of here!”
The paper bus lunged forward, charging through the chaotic snowy ground. The wheels rolled over the discarded mourning clothes, the shredded paper, and even ran over several human-headed rats that failed to escape.
The faint popping sounds of human heads bursting sounded like grapes being stepped on. The body of the bus was stained with dark red blood and fine rat fur.
The paper bus sped forward for a good mile or two until the screeches of the cats and the squeals of the rats finally faded into the distance. Only then did Wang Lei slowly decelerate.
A dead silence filled the bus.
Familiar ink-like text appeared in the upper right corner of their vision.
【Announcement: Congratulations to Player Wang Lei for killing “Human-Headed Rat Huang Fasheng,” “Human-Headed Rat Huang Youyun,” and “Human-Headed Rat Huang Cuicui.”】
【Player Wang Lei has achieved the First Kill of the Instance: 《Old Lady Huang's Birthday Celebration》!】
【First Kill Reward: Personal Inventory Slots x5 (Bound), Rat Skin x1, Rat Tail x1】
Everyone's eyes immediately locked onto Wang Lei.
Envy, greed, annoyance, urgency... countless complex emotions intertwined as a bizarre atmosphere spread throughout the vehicle.
...
The Second Mirrored Instance.
“...That coward Wang Lei got the first kill?” Lin Hao stood in front of the ancestral hall, letting out a cold sneer. “He probably relied on his teammates. He doesn't have the guts to do it himself.”
Zhou Hui and Ouyang Qiu stood beside him.
Rate on N.U.
