"Birthday Death Anniversary": Dead Again and Again and Again

[This newbie looked so serious, I thought there was something huge in there.]

[All that effort, and it turns out the door's locked. I'm dying.]

The viewers had seen the newbie player press his ear against the door and look so serious that they thought he knew there was an important but dangerous clue in the master bedroom and was hesitating outside. They never expected him to be unable to open the door at all.

Xu Xi couldn't see the bullet comments, so naturally, he didn't feel embarrassed. He was standing in front of the bathroom now. After steeling himself, he slowly pushed the door open. Like the kitchen, it was very clean, as though it had been specially cleaned.

Xu Xi didn't dare go inside. He was afraid the door would slam shut behind him the moment he stepped in, and a ghostly face or hand would pop out of the mirror or toilet and ambush him.

Standing in the doorway, he carefully scanned the room. Nothing was visibly out of the ordinary.

Just as he was debating whether to go in for a closer look, a thought suddenly struck him. He remembered the knocking he'd heard before his last death.

There had been no knocking on his first two runs!

Compared to the unknown bathroom, this was a known new clue!

Xu Xi's eyes lit up, and he felt a sudden pang of frustration. How had he forgotten it?

He then began trying to remember what had triggered the knocking.

He remembered that after overturning the coffee table, he had thrown the cushions off the sofa. He seemed to have touched the remote, accidentally turning on the TV.

He had been angry at the time and hadn't paid much attention to the screen. He only remembered that it seemed to be a cartoon. Then the knocking had started, prompting him to open the door. In the end, he had run outside and been swallowed by the darkness.

So the knocking had most likely been triggered after the TV was turned on!

Xu Xi immediately turned and headed straight for the living room. He hadn't heard any strange noises from the ceiling fan, but he still glanced up every so often to check whether it was loose as he quickly pulled the remote out from behind the sofa cushions.

Remote in hand, he stepped back several paces. Once he was sure the ceiling fan couldn't hit him even if it suddenly fell, he used the remote to turn on the nearby TV.

The TV screen flickered twice, and sure enough, a cartoon soon began playing.

Xu Xi watched for a long time but still couldn't make sense of it, so he gave up in exasperation.

Even if there were clues hidden in the cartoon, they were beyond him. He really couldn't understand it.

At the very least, he couldn't understand how a knight could be fighting a dragon to save a princess one second, only for superpowered doggies to go save the world the next.

It was as though a bunch of fairy tales had been mashed together in the cartoon, making it messy and disjointed.

Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long before the knocking came right on cue.

[Wait, I don't get it anymore?]

[Can some expert analyze what this newbie's doing? I'm kind of lost.]

[Is this cartoon a mashup? Still, I've been watching for a bit, and it's actually pretty interesting.]

[Is the cartoon really the point here?!]

[Look at the birthday cake on the dining table over there. I think that's a clue too.]

[Am I the only one curious about this newbie's leaps of logic? He woke up and headed straight for the master bedroom. When he couldn't open it, he went to the bathroom. Then, all of a sudden, it was like he'd discovered something, and he ran over and turned on the TV. He's also been keeping an eye on the ceiling fan above him, like he's afraid it'll fall. I think he seems to have some clues, but I've been following his perspective the whole time and haven't noticed anything unusual. Did I miss something?]

[Same here. I didn't see any unusual clues either.]

[Aren't you guys overthinking it? Maybe this newbie just does whatever comes to mind and is a little reckless.]

[After watching so many sensible, methodical players, both new and old, I came to this stream. Great, there's no pattern at all.]

[Maybe he's a hidden expert. It's not like we haven't seen newbies whose actions we couldn't understand before.]

[Yeah, I think he could be a pro too, like that newbie who suddenly rose to prominence half a month ago. What was his name again? I even followed him.]

[Cheng Xu, right? I followed him too!]

[Yes, yes, that's him!!]

The viewers in the livestream didn't know Xu Xi had the ability to be reborn after death, so most of them found his actions baffling. A few, however, thought there might be more to this newbie than met the eye.

As he approached, the knocking grew clearer.

Xu Xi knew that simply opening the door wasn't dangerous, so he opened the front door without hesitation.

The bullet commenters, however, couldn't stand it. One after another, they began freaking out.

[He just went and opened it, just like that???]

[Come on, bro, at least look through the peephole?!]

[I believe it now. This guy's either an expert or a real genius.]

[I'm going with real genius.]

[Real genius +1.]

[Hmph! Since you've all picked real genius, I'll... pick real genius too!]

Word got out about a newbie player who was reckless and strange yet somehow still alive and kicking, and quite a few viewers came to see for themselves. The bullet comments became unusually active as a result.

As the front door opened, the sound of a casual conversation slowly rang out.

"What happened? I could hear the commotion from your place over at mine. Every few days, there's such a racket. Anyone who didn't know better would think you two were competing to see who could shout louder every day!"

"I'm really sorry, Auntie Wang. I couldn't hold back and got into another argument with my husband."

"Fighting like this all the time isn't going to solve anything. Whatever the problem is, you two should talk it out properly. Like the old saying goes, a couple fights at the head of the bed and makes up at the foot. Isn't that right? Oh my, what happened to your forehead? Did Tong Guoliang hit you?!"

"No, nothing like that. I was so angry just now that I turned around without watching where I was going and walked into the wall."

"Oh dear, it hurts just looking at it. Is your Binbin watching TV? It sounds pretty loud."

"Yes. He finished his homework, and since it's his birthday today, I'm letting him watch cartoons for a while as a reward. All right, Auntie Wang, it really isn't anything serious. We'll talk it over later, and that'll be that. We won't disturb you anymore. You're going to buy groceries, aren't you? Go on. If you're late, all the good stuff will be snapped up."

"All right, all right, I'll be going then. You two really shouldn't make such a racket again. It doesn't sound good from outside, either."

"Don't worry, Auntie Wang."

As soon as she finished speaking, silence fell outside the door.

Xu Xi waited a while, but nothing more followed. Feeling a chill begin to seep into the room from outside, he hurriedly shut the door again.

The viewers, who had listened to the whole conversation along with him, began posting their analyses in the bullet comments.

[That came out of nowhere and went nowhere. What's going on?]

[You can tell right away that the woman's being abused. The neighbor heard the commotion and came over to ask, but the woman lied and said she'd hit her forehead on the wall.]

[That theory sounds plausible.]

[Yeah, it sounds pretty obvious.]

[So the birthday cake on the dining table must be for that kid called Binbin, right?]

[Definitely. The woman said it was her kid's birthday today.]

[So what's going on in this instance? There's domestic abuse and a birthday. Are they connected somehow?]

[There are no clues except that conversation. Even an expert would have a hard time with this.]

Unlike the livestream viewers, who didn't have the other clues, Xu Xi had died several times. As soon as he finished listening to the conversation, he thought of the eerie scribbled portrait beneath the pillow in the child's bedroom.

He strode toward the guest bedroom, intending to retrieve the picture. But the moment he pushed the door open, he felt an endless weakness well up in his body, and he immediately lost consciousness.