Is the Memory Still There?

The motionless ghost outside the window and the person elegantly painting inside shared a strange, silent understanding. Xiao Xuechen gradually calmed down.

She had seen ghosts that did not harm people before. In deduction games, twisted order and rules often gave rise to products containing Karma, existing somewhere between reason and chaos.

Ghosts were the most representative example.

Whether they possessed resentment and malice, or hope and perseverance, depended only on the truth, not on their state of existence.

Zhou Yongsheng... was probably a ghost that had retained a high capacity for thought.

Perhaps the atmosphere was too peaceful, or perhaps she trusted her teammate's abilities too much. Xiao Xuechen played on her phone, not realizing when she had gotten tired and sat on Yu Xing's bed, nor how she had fallen asleep.

She lay sprawled across the sheets. The hard wooden boards made her back ache, while her legs still barely supported themselves on the ground. Yu Xing sat on the edge of the bed and silently glanced at her.

Still like this...

No matter who it was, no matter how perilous the place, as long as they were near him at night, they would grow drowsy?

Over the past few years, his condition had begun affecting other people...

The brush paused almost imperceptibly. Yu Xing concealed the chill in his eyes.

He had to resolve this faster. Otherwise, one day, he might no longer even have the chance to solve the problem.

The long night was beginning to brighten, and dawn was elusive.

Before the first ray of daylight seeped over the mountains, a piercing, resounding crow of a rooster began somewhere unknown and swiftly spread through every corner of Guan Family Village.

Yu Xing narrowed his eyes. His painting was nearly complete, and it was only five in the morning—slightly earlier than he had expected.

He put down his brush, shook out his sore arms, rubbed his waist twice, and took a moment to pity his butt, which had barely moved after sitting on the hard wooden bed for hours. At last, he stood up.

The bloody words Zhou Yongsheng had given him indicated that everything had to happen before the rooster crowed. In other words, regardless of what curses or rules existed at night, they no longer counted from this moment onward.

The other party had obediently stood outside the window as his "model" for the entire latter half of the night. With it there, neither the village chief nor the woman had come to cause trouble again.

Pushing open the window, Yu Xing braced himself with an elbow, resting his forearm beyond the sill as he looked closely at Zhou Yongsheng's terrifying face. "Since you came with goodwill, then why did you bring me here... What wish is it that you want fulfilled?"

Zhou Yongsheng opened its eyes wide. Its lips strained several times before finally parting, and it made a difficult but still fairly understandable sound. "Before... the rooster... crows, I... can't speak. I hope... you can... save me, end... all this."

Save you, end all this?

Yu Xing's expression shifted. Though it was a question, his tone was certain. "The key is the funeral."

"!" Zhou Yongsheng's excited expression proved Yu Xing right. However, it did not remain excited for long. It lowered its head, and its broken neck, no longer controlled, abruptly drooped to one side. Yu Xing could tell it was trying to express dejection, but the effect...

Only came across as horrifying.

"I... can't say much more. Soon... it'll be... light. You must... help... help me. I have to... go." It raised its head again and looked at him reluctantly. "You really... are my... favorite... painter. I... didn't lie to you."

As it spoke, its figure began to fade. Clearly, it was not the corpse lying in the ancestral hall's coffin, but a ghost that had returned during the First Seven.

Morning light was almost here.

"Wait." Yu Xing stopped it.

He turned and flipped the easel around. "Here. A night's work. Take a look."

Zhou Yongsheng looked over hesitantly.

The background of the painting was eerie and sinister, as though it could evoke the deepest fears in one's heart. Yet the crew-cut young man at its center... looked like a sunny, cheerful type completely out of place there, smiling at the corners of his mouth.

"This is what you looked like when you were alive. I guessed based on your corpse. What do you think? Looks like you, right?"

"Like... Thank... you." Zhou Yongsheng's long-stiffened rotten flesh moved, struggling to pull out an arc that was practically impossible to see unless one looked carefully. It believed its expression matched the figure in the painting, then bowed to Yu Xing.

After that, it vanished into the morning light that had finally broken over the mountains and slanted into the room.

Yu Xing watched it disappear with an indifferent gaze, then closed the window and turned around.

He...

Was sleepy.

Really sleepy.

It was only five, the danger had already passed, and all he wanted now was to catch up on sleep.

Ignoring Xiao Xuechen, who had occupied his bed, he headed for the other bed.

Mm, where am I?

It felt like she had had a dark dream...

With a faint pain coming from her back, Xiao Xuechen woke from her sleep and groggily opened her eyes.

However—

What she saw was not her luxuriously decorated bedroom, nor the sofa at her company where she rested, but a shabby, dim little room.

That jolted her completely awake.

She struggled to sit up. Her jacket slipped off her body, and she grabbed one corner of it, swiftly trying to piece together a reasonable explanation.

How had she fallen asleep? How had she dared to fall asleep under those circumstances!?

Come to think of it, San must have covered her with this jacket. She really should thank him... Pah, pah, pah. That was not the point! Was she crazy? She had fallen asleep when ghosts could come at any moment!

Her shoe tip touched the floor, and her eyes held a complicated mixture of shock and confusion.

It was already daylight outside. Though dawn was not obvious in Guan Family Village, the faint sounds of people outside told her clearly that many villagers had gotten up.

The time on her phone told her it was already eight in the morning.

The easel stood beside her, and the paint on the canvas had not yet dried. The style was rather bizarre. She froze upon seeing it, then found herself admiring San's painting skills.

Speaking of San... Xiao Xuechen instinctively looked toward the other bed and, sure enough, saw San sleeping soundly with his back to her.

He had kept watch all night... She felt a little embarrassed. They had agreed neither of them would be able to sleep, yet she had gone down so quickly. That was far too inappropriate.

She truly could not understand why she had fallen asleep. She had not even heard the rooster crow, which had probably already happened.

It must have been an accident.

Just as she was thinking that, there was suddenly a knock on the door.

"!?" Last night's experience made her body tense instinctively.

"Still sleeping? Young man, young lady, something terrible has happened! The other young lady who came with you is dead!" The village chief's voice came from outside. Strangely, his voice sounded especially normal this time, as if he did not remember what had happened last night.

"Got it. We'll come take a look right away." The one who answered the village chief was not Xiao Xuechen, but San, whom she had thought was asleep but was actually awake.

Yu Xing had only been awake for a few minutes. His voice was hoarse as he rolled out of bed and said to Xiao Xuechen, "We can leave the room now. Let's go wash our faces and take a look at the scene."

The scene he meant was where Ju Lan had died.

Guan Family Village was different during the day than it was at night. Before he had even left the room, he saw several villagers passing by outside, all looking hurried and eager for gossip.

None of them carried candles.

Farther away, the villagers were loudly and freely discussing the topic of "someone dying." As it reached Yu Xing's ears, he rubbed his forehead. Great, it had the exact vibe of middle-aged and elderly gossip committees downstairs in residential compounds.

Since news of the death had spread on such a large scale, Yu Xing needed to take a look.

What he wanted to see was not how Ju Lan had died, but the villagers' attitudes toward it and how they dealt with the corpse.

After adjusting his state of mind, the sleepiness faded from Yu Xing's face. He wandered to the door and opened it.

The village chief stood outside, looking slightly anxious. "Go take a look quickly. Sigh, she was your companion after all. Don't be too sad..."

He seemed perfectly normal now.

Yu Xing did not miss even the slightest change in the village chief's expression. He looked behind the man. "Where's Auntie?"

"She went to make breakfast for you." The village chief pointed toward the kitchen.

"Working so hard, huh." Yu Xing laughed. "Village Chief, I'll borrow the kitchen sink to wash my face."

As he spoke, he headed toward the kitchen.

Xiao Xuechen hurried after him. She also wanted to see the woman's reaction.

In the kitchen, the woman was making a bowl of millet porridge. There were no candles lit beside her this time either.

Then again, there was really no need to light candles in the daytime.

When she saw the two enter, the woman greeted them kindly. "It'll be ready soon. Please wait a moment."

...Did they become normal during the day and forget what happened at night?

Xiao Xuechen followed Yu Xing to the tap and washed her face, secretly looking toward the woman's eyes.

San had stabbed one of the woman's eyes apart with a dagger last night. She needed to see whether there was a wound.

Under her gaze, the woman finished the steaming millet porridge and finally turned her entire face toward them.

A scar that had not been there yesterday stretched vertically for a short distance over the woman's right eye, giving her otherwise ordinary appearance a hint of savagery.

Yu Xing saw it too. He widened his eyes and asked with concern, "Auntie, what happened to your eye?"

"I don't know what happened while I was sleeping last night. Maybe I bumped into something. It was like this when I woke up early this morning." The woman also looked somewhat confused. "Come, have some porridge first. I heard one of your friends met with an accident. You'll need to go take a look later, right?"

"Yes, we do." Holding his bowl, Yu Xing tipped his chin toward Xiao Xuechen, signaling for them to talk outside.

When they reached the courtyard, the village chief was nowhere to be seen. It looked like he had gone outside to join the gossip.

Yu Xing lowered his head and took a sip of millet porridge. Warmth spread through his stomach, making his whole body feel much better.

"But this is—" Xiao Xuechen became anxious and raised her voice a little. She immediately caught herself and lowered it. "But this was made by a ghost. You dare drink it?"

"It tastes pretty good." Yu Xing took another sip with satisfaction, making Xiao Xuechen unable to stop herself from sighing deeply.

Seriously, was whether it tasted good the point? The point was that it had been made by a ghost!

"The villagers act completely normal during the day. You can't tell at all that they're a group of people who drag cleavers and axes around the village at night, chasing people down to kill them." Yu Xing raised a new question. "So, miss, do you think these things remember the nighttime?"

"Probably not. Look, this woman doesn't even remember you stabbing her eye, and she still made you such de~licious millet porridge." Xiao Xuechen did not touch the porridge at all. She could not get past that mental hurdle.

Yu Xing said, "Mm, that makes sense. If they don't remember..."

Just then, the woman came out of the kitchen.

She looked at the two, who were "chatting away enthusiastically," and walked over with a smile. "Young lady, were you cold when you slept last night?"

"I was going to bring you a thick quilt, but you didn't want one."