[Soul-Shaking Ancient Village] The shattered doll
As roosters crowed and dogs barked, the sky began to pale with the first light of dawn, and the ghost in the room quietly slipped into the shadows.
A piercing scream tore through the sky, coming from room 204.
Si Yehan woke from his sleep and heard the scream. A faint smile curved his lips. It seemed someone had died last night.
The mirror had moved back to its original position. Si Yehan got dressed and ran a finger over its surface. A ghost had probably entered every room last night.
Leaving his room, Si Yehan headed for room 204 at an unhurried pace. By the time he arrived, the other six had already gathered there.
As soon as he entered, he saw that the bedsheet was covered in blood and littered with scraps of flesh. The woman in the white dress held her leg as she vomited for a while off to one side. Fear showed on her face. Seeing such a bloody scene up close was far more terrifying than when she had first entered the game.
The man in the suit also felt sick and turned his head away.
The burly man had not let the male student enter, telling him to keep watch outside.
When Si Yehan arrived, the male student worked up the courage to greet him, but received no response.
The female doctor examined the signs of a struggle on the bedsheet, then lifted the white sheet. Her face was slightly pale, but she held herself together and analyzed the scene calmly. "She struggled violently before she died, but it didn't do her any good. It looks like she was eaten. There's skin that came off on the sheet, along with some human flesh and tissue."
The burly man's expression changed. "Eaten? This is the first time I've seen a ghost eat someone in an instance. The ghosts I ran into before just followed their killing rules and killed people."
He focused on sensing whether there was any trace of a ghost in the air and found that there was indeed, and it was very strong. It seemed to be a genuine ghost.
"It wasn't necessarily a real ghost. It could have been..." The ponytailed woman's trademark smile disappeared, and her expression turned cold. "A Ghost Slave!"
"A Ghost Slave? The ghost's presence here is clearly very strong. I've run into Ghost Slaves before, but those things carried only a faint trace of a ghost's presence. You can't just say that without proof. What are you basing it on?" The burly man's face darkened. He had not expected a beginner instance to be this difficult.
Sure enough, the game was always fair and cruel! The newcomers were generally of a higher caliber, so naturally the difficulty would not be low either. All of a sudden, the burly man found himself missing lower-caliber newcomers a little, though those who were too low-caliber would not do either, as they tended to trigger killing rules at random.
The ponytailed woman shot the burly man a cold glance. "Idiot. Pay closer attention. The ghost's presence here is so strong because there are many traces intertwined. And when I got up this morning, there was a ghost's presence in my room too."
The burly man's face grew grim. Rather than getting angry at the ponytailed woman's insult, he carefully recalled every detail. His voice rumbled like thunder. "I was in a bit of a hurry to leave this morning. There was a ghost's presence in my room too."
The woman in the white dress had recovered somewhat. Her ability to adapt to the Weird Game had not proven too inadequate. Her face was rather pale, and she looked increasingly haggard.
The burly man turned his gaze on the woman in the white dress and asked sternly, "What did you two do last night? Tell us everything you know. I'll see if I can work out the killing rule."
The woman in the white dress nodded. After pausing to sort out everything that had happened the night before, she began, "After we entered the room last night, we turned off the lights and chatted for a while about things in the outside world. I fell asleep while we were talking. She seemed to have finally found an outlet for her emotions and didn't stop talking. After that came the sound you heard and the scene you saw."
After speaking, the woman in the white dress fell silent for a while, then spoke again with some sympathy. "She really didn't have it easy. After graduating from college, she worked herself to the bone to repay her mother, only to end up in this godforsaken place. I wonder how her mother is doing. It's partly my fault for not urging her to go to sleep with me sooner."
The burly man filtered out the useless information and fell into thought. "I heard footsteps and a ghost crying last night too, but I didn't open my eyes or respond in any way. Instead, I forced myself to sleep...
"No, when I heard the ghost crying, I hypnotized myself into falling asleep. Wasn't that another kind of response? The ghosts' killing rule is to have your eyes open and see them while you're awake. That must be it, because I heard the sounds last night too and responded in a different way."
At that moment, the burly man fully displayed the qualities expected of a game veteran. His face was equally grim as he gritted his teeth. "And I can't use my ghost-trait ability in the instance! Otherwise, I'd tear those Ghost Slaves apart with my bare hands."
"Brother, your judgment should be right," the female doctor agreed.
The chill in the ponytailed woman's expression eased a little, and her trademark smile reappeared. She nodded in agreement with the burly man's view.
She then comforted the woman in the white dress. "She really was unlucky, but who here isn't? Don't blame yourself too much. It's already happened, and blaming yourself won't change anything. Besides, it wasn't your fault she stayed awake."
The woman in the white dress thanked her softly.
"Perhaps we should go take a look on the third floor." Si Yehan spoke up at an inopportune moment. He had originally planned to go alone, but on second thought, it was safer to bring some people along. If something unexpected happened, he could use them to take a hit for him, and if he could not escape, he could drag them down with him.
Besides, the conversation everyone was having struck him as ridiculous and a little nauseating. Although he knew the ponytailed woman was putting on an act, the woman in the white dress was being sincere.
Both the act and the sincerity made him uncomfortable. Si Yehan loosely cupped the hand in his outer pocket and rubbed his fingertips against his palm, giving it a gentle massage.
"All right." The ponytailed woman was the first to leave the room. For the time being, no one paid any attention to the blood on the floor.
The burly man called the male student over, and everyone headed for the storage room on the third floor.
When they opened the door, some dust fell, and a pungent smell of blood hit them. A corpse hung down from the ceiling, its long hair tied to a roof beam. Its body was a bloody mess from head to toe, with exposed bones covered in teeth marks. Hair obscured its face, but the corpse was unmistakably that of the woman with loose hair.
Everyone except Si Yehan instinctively took a step back. The instant the corpse appeared, the burly man moved in front of the male student to shield him.
He said in a low voice, "Kid, go on out and wait on the second floor."
The ponytailed woman watched the scene. After the male student nodded and withdrew, she frowned and said, "You're a game veteran. Are you really that concerned about a newcomer? You can't possibly take a student with you into every instance. At this rate, the kid won't grow, and he'll end up dying in an instance sooner or later."
The burly man said coldly, "What's it to you? I do as I please."
The woman in the white dress spoke with a slight tremor in her voice. "What should we do with the corpse?"
Her words broke the standoff between the two "veterans" and brought them back to the problem before them.
The man in the suit gathered his courage and said, "How about finding a place to bury the corpse?"
Si Yehan said calmly, "Leave the corpse alone for now. Let's look at the dolls mentioned yesterday first."
With that, he walked past the loose-haired woman's corpse and into the storage room.
The others exchanged glances and went in. The man in the suit and the woman in the white dress stepped somewhat cautiously, while the female doctor, the burly man, and the ponytailed woman were steadier.
Of the eight dolls on the table, one had shattered. It was the one that corresponded to the loose-haired woman.
The doll had shed a layer and was covered in all kinds of cracks. It had been soaked through with blood, seemingly corresponding to the way the loose-haired woman had died.