"Death Anniversary": He Didn't Die This Time

This was the seventh time.

Xu Xi calmly picked up the drawing book from beneath the pillow and walked out of the bedroom.

This time, he first looked at the clock on the living room wall. It showed 8:01, so he quietly waited as the second hand moved.

He had only checked the time on his first and second attempts, and hadn't paid attention to it since. Now he could only test it.

When the hands reached exactly 8:05, the ceiling fan made an odd creaking noise, just as he had expected.

He had heard it the first time. The second time, he had spent too long searching the guest bedroom; the third time, he had been screaming and smashing things in a frenzy and hadn't heard it; the fourth time, he had gone straight to the master bedroom after waking up. The fifth and sixth times went without saying: he had been gathering his thoughts after waking and hadn't come out right away, so he had naturally missed the clue that the ceiling fan made a strange noise at a specific time.

Although the clue seemed useless at first glance, Xu Xi didn't think the instance would set a condition without meaning. There had to be a deeper hint hidden in what seemed useless.

For example, if the strange noise only appeared at a specific time, did that mean he could only find the deeper clue at that specific time, too?

But where was the clue, and how was he supposed to find it?

Xu Xi thought hard, trying to work out what he might have overlooked.

As the seconds ticked by, he grew anxious, afraid the hidden clue would become inaccessible again once the time had passed.

He couldn't very well kill himself again just for this!

But when his gaze fell on the drawing book in his hand, a new angle he had never considered suddenly occurred to him.

So far, the instance was most likely centered on Mom Tong hanging herself after Dad Tong abused her on Tong Binbin's ninth birthday.

But looking further, Tong Binbin might actually be the instance's central figure. If spending a complete birthday was the correct way to clear it, then working backward from that, Tong Binbin might be the one driving the entire instance.

One piece of evidence supporting this guess was that he woke up in Tong Binbin's bedroom every time.

The instance might be trying to put him in Tong Binbin's shoes.

Xu Xi didn't know whether his guess was right, but he could make a bold hypothesis and carefully test it.

That brought him to another question: how was he supposed to put himself in Tong Binbin's shoes?

Thinking of Tong Binbin's age and height, Xu Xi had an idea.

He didn't approach the ceiling fan. Instead, he bent over and looked up through the gap between his legs.

That way, he wouldn't be turning around or looking back.

And then—

"Fuck!!!"

What he saw dealt Xu Xi ten thousand points of critical damage.

A man's corpse hung from the ceiling fan by a rope. His eyes bulged from their sockets, a gaping wound split his head, and his face was covered in congealed blood. It was an utterly gruesome sight.

It was the first time Xu Xi had seen a corpse so plainly, and the shock made his hands and feet go cold. Fortunately, he had died quite a few times himself. Though he still felt a little sick, he could at least keep his emotions under control.

Once he recovered, a realization struck him. Could all his earlier guesses have been wrong?!

Was the hanging stick figure in the drawing not Mom Tong, but Dad Tong instead??

[Holy fucking shit! I just got here and he's already showing me a corpse???]

[People who just got here, don't talk! Someone tell me first, how did this newbie know there was a drawing book under the pillow? He didn't even glance at it before he reached in and pulled it out!!]

[No, no, no, first tell me how he knew the ceiling fan would do something strange, like he could see the future. It was like he was waiting for it to make a sound.]

[Didn't you just say he could see the future?]

[Is that the point?? The point is, how did he know he had to stand like that to see the corpse?]

[Maybe there's a certain angle you can only see from in that position?]

[But why is he so practiced at it?]

If Xu Xi could see the bullet comments, he would probably explain that there was nothing special about the angle. He simply couldn't look back or turn around, and this was the most convenient way to look.

As for why he was so practiced, did they even need to ask? Naturally, it was because he had died so many times.

What Xu Xi was curious about now was this: since the one who had hanged himself was actually Dad Tong, what did the accompanying text mean, and what roles had Mom Tong and Tong Binbin played in it?

Until now, he had always reasoned through the instance's background with Mom Tong as the victim. But although he had now found the reason for the ceiling fan's strange behavior, the corpse hanging from it wasn't the victim he had expected.

Xu Xi straightened up and caught a glimpse of the ceiling fan behind him. The corpse was already gone.

Sure enough, his earlier deduction had been right: using certain special methods at this specific time allowed him to see deeper clues.

But the threads he had just untangled were tangled again.

With questions weighing on him, Xu Xi turned on the television again.

Beneath the sound of the cartoon, the knock on the front door came right on cue.

Xu Xi had wanted to listen to Auntie Wang and Mom Tong's conversation again to see whether there were any details he had missed, but just as he was about to answer the door, he abruptly stopped.

The knock would sound, but the conversation would only occur after he opened the door.

Then, with the master bedroom he couldn't open... could it be that he also needed to knock and wait for a "person" to open it before he could go in?

His own guess made his scalp tingle, but the more Xu Xi thought about it, the more sense it made, so he decided to try.

It was only a test anyway. If the door opened, he'd strike it rich; if it didn't, he wouldn't die, so he had nothing to lose.

[Why isn't this guy answering the door?]

[How many idiots do you eat per meal? Opening doors at random in an instance—are you that afraid the King of Hell won't take you?]

[Why doesn't he watch the cartoon? In lots of instances, the TVs hide clues.]

[What's he doing? Why's he knocking? Can't he just go in?]

As the viewers watched, Xu Xi walked up to the master bedroom, took two deep breaths, and gently knocked on the door.

He waited nervously for quite a while, but no "person" came to open it.

Xu Xi frowned deeply, wondering if he had guessed wrong. He instinctively grasped the handle and turned it.

"Creak—"

Unlike before, the handle turned easily this time.

After his initial surprise, Xu Xi couldn't help feeling delighted.

It seemed his guess was right. He really did need to knock before entering.

So the reason he had inexplicably died after going back into the guest bedroom to get the drawing book was that he hadn't knocked!

Having figured out the reason for his fourth death, Xu Xi raised his hand and pushed the door open.

"Bleurgh—!!"

The moment the door opened a crack, a powerful stench hit him, even more pungent than the smell from the kitchen refrigerator. It made Xu Xi's throat dry and his breathing feel thick, nearly suffocating him.