True Ending

The rain was pouring down, and Yu Xing as if she were enveloped in a curtain of water, and even breathing was difficult because the air was full of moisture.

In that situation, it was truly a sudden Spiritual Sense that made him struggle to look up and pay attention to that telephone pole.

He had witnessed the cable being struck by lightning, snapping abruptly, and falling from the sky amidst sparks, all from his bathroom. Combined with Ye Ming's corpse in the bathtub, the tub full of blood, and the violent emotions rising within him, that scene was frozen into a very thrilling image.

So he was deeply impressed.

The house was plunged into darkness because the power cable had been cut. They even used candles for light. When he went to check on the cable the next day, he found it intact. The power had been restored as well, as if the few hours of power outage had been a hallucination.

But now, with Ye Ming and Ye Ting chasing after him with knives behind him, Yu Wan in front of him, Yu Xing finally understood the meaning of the power outage amidst the torrential rain.

The cable breaking must have happened on the day the three siblings and Yu Wan were killed in reality. Coincidentally, the moment he saw the cable struck by lightning was also the moment he chopped away Ye Ming's body with his small axe.

Actually, there were already warnings at that time... Ye Ming was slashed, and the cable fell.

The power went out on the day everyone died.

What about now?

Yu Xing could hear the footsteps behind him getting closer and closer. Yu Wan couldn't help but grab his arm, trying to forcefully pull him away to escape. He could hear his own heavy breathing coming from this body that was not strong enough to be considered a beginner.

The system has given all the necessary hints, cleverly placing them on a rather inconspicuous telephone pole, testing the user's ability to observe closely, and... the courage to give up on survival.

"Yu Wan." He grabbed Yu Wan's arm, forcing them both to stop.

Yu Wan roared, "Are you stupid! Whatever it is, we'll talk about it after we get out of here!"

They ran fairly fast; they left the two ghosts more than ten meters ahead of them in half the distance. Ye Ting chased after them slowly, while Ye Ming had to drag himself along, so he was even slower.

From this perspective, it seems as if they deliberately let Yu Wan and "Ye Qin" go, as if everything was being compromised to achieve a good ending.

But Yu Xing remained unmoved, her expression even turning cold. "Run away? Is that really what you want?"

"You know, escaping here is pointless. The real you will still be trapped in the house, only with a self-deceiving memory. You can live a happy, ordinary life with me, but looking back, you'll find that you've actually been there all along, without ever moving an inch. Is that really what you want?"

Yu Wan's blank stare, Yu Xing raised her voice and asked again.

"What are you saying... Ye Qin, I don't understand..." Yu Wan murmured, her expression a mixture of confusion and pain. "Why can't I understand..."

She didn't remember everything, so of course she couldn't understand.

But what Yu Xing wanted was not for her to remember everything completely; he only wanted a tendency and a sign of "awakening," a stepping stone to the truth.

"Are you willing to indulge in false happiness? Don't you want to find what you've been searching for? Don't you want to be free?" He softened his tone, and strangely enough, Ye Ming and Ye Ting, who were chasing after them, slowly stopped when they heard his words.

Two ghosts, holding their knives, eerily lingered behind them, as if also awaiting Yu Wan's answer.

Yu Wan the torrential rain.

She seemed to be still hesitating.

Yu Xing raised his hand to wipe away the rainwater that was almost soaking his entire face, then reached out and tucked a few stray strands of hair from Yu Wan's cheek behind her ear. He leaned closer and whispered in Yu Wan's ear, "Yu Wan, if it were you, which would be more important, a happy ending or a true ending?"

He could pass the level and take the exam in either of the two endings, but he was well aware of the differences between them.

Although the difference between the two choices may not be apparent on the exam paper, it will definitely be reflected in the grading process. With so many pitfalls in the system, it's not uncommon for another major one to appear.

"But I..." Yu Wan finally broke down under his question, and she cried, "But I've woken up, and you'll never appear again!"

"Ye Qin, you idiot!"

"Yeah, I'm an idiot." Yu Xing coaxed, genuinely believing Ye Qin was an idiot in her heart.

After all these years, if he likes her, why not say it? He and Yu Wan aren't people who developed feelings for each other shortly after meeting; they grew up together, know each other inside and out, so why worry about anything else?

Does confessing your feelings mean you can't continue studying hard and get into a good university?

It's not that minors need to do anything they shouldn't, but at least they should express their feelings to each other. It's better than regretting it after they've died.

Yu Xing simply felt that people never know whether the beauty of today will disappear tomorrow or the next second, and a normal person's life is only a few decades long, so why not make every day without regrets?

Unlike him, who had too many regrets that could never be made up for.

His last words to Yu Wan were. "Only when you wake up can I find peace. I don't want to continue wandering aimlessly. Let me go... go."

He took the Death Notice out of his pocket and shielded it from the rain with his body, but the paper still inevitably got wet from his hands.

Yu Xing stuffed the paper into Yu Wan's bag, then smiled and said, "Go and face our reality."

In his ghost form, Ye Ming suddenly said, "I don't want to go on like this anymore. Let me be free, my sister and I..."

He glanced at Ye Ting, then stretched out his arm, covered in axe wounds, and pulled Ye Ting, who wasn't much better off than him, into his embrace. "We've wanted to leave for a long time too."

Ye Ting's lips were split open; the axe had probably struck her cheek more than once, making her look extremely gruesome. She coldly echoed, "I don't want to stay with you."

The implication is that although Yu Wan was the first to think of saving themselves, they also did not want to wander here or continue their cycle in the church.

Even though they have become complete vengeful ghosts here, their obsession can still grant them a brief moment of clarity whenever they mention leaving.

Let's go.

Leave.

Let's end it here.

Yu Wan the faces of these old acquaintances, Yu Wan was in a daze, not understanding why things had turned out this way.

They should have been sitting at the table eating, chatting and laughing, and looking forward to the future together. She remembered that Ye Qin had told her more than once that if she got into a university in another province, she wouldn't have to watch her mother being locked in her room crying every day because of her mental illness, nor would she have to watch her father become more and more irritable and deteriorate because of her mother's situation.

Why is that?

Why are they now simultaneously fleeing and chasing each other in the rain?

Oh, it seems that on the day of the power outage, Ye Qin's father went out for a business dinner and hadn't returned home yet. Her mother, traumatized by the darkness, escaped from the room and then used an axe that had been stored in the attic for many years to kill them all.

At that time, Ye Ming was taking a shower in the bathroom, Ye Ting was doing her homework in the living room, Ye Qin was tutoring Ye Ting, and Ye Ting, having finished her homework, was sitting next to Ye Qin playing Yugi.

When the terrifying woman, covered in blood, came down with an axe, they were all stunned into silence. In her eyes, that crazed and cruel face was deeply imprinted, becoming her eternal nightmare.

Oh, I see...

They are all dead.

The confusion in Yu Wan's eyes gradually faded, but sorrow surged forth like a raging sea.

"Go back," she said. "I understand, go back."

She led the way back to the house, and Yu Xing followed her, almost side by side with the two ghosts.

The four figures were soaked to the bone. On the ground, rainwater mixed with the gushing blood, spreading out and being quickly washed away by new raindrops.

Yu Xing re-entered the room, facing the familiar furnishings of the hall, but the colors in her eyes seemed to have faded, leaving only a hazy, dark gray.

"You're back." Yu Wan glanced at him. "But what am I going to do now that you're back?"

She seemed to only know that she would come here, and had no idea what would happen after that.

"It's okay, don't worry. Leave the rest to me."

Yu Xing still vaguely remembered a concept, a concept he had earnestly warned himself never to forget.

Attic.

All the secrets, after Yu Wan's "awakening," have become the truth that can be glimpsed.

He had entered the church after going up to the attic, but he had already obtained the key to the church door and left the church legitimately. This time, going up to the attic again... he should be able to see what the attic truly looks like.

After entering the house, Yu Xing took the lead, guiding the others and the ghosts up the creaking stairs to the second floor. Ignoring the bloodstains on the floor, he used the long-handled umbrella from Ye Ming's room to hook the iron ring on the attic stairs and pulled them down.

The three siblings and Yu Wan couldn't help but look up, feeling a sense of belonging.

They all realized that their end, right here, was the true end, not just another tragic cycle.

Before Yu Xing speak, Ye Ming went up first.

Ye Ting glanced at Yu Xing, opened her mouth but didn't say anything, and followed her older brother up the stairs to the attic.

After they went up, the two ghosts vanished as if they had disappeared into thin air, without making a sound, like pebbles thrown into the sea, leaving no ripples.

"Let me look at you one more time." Yu Wan head, her beautiful eyes gazing wistfully at Yu Xing. "There won't be another chance."

"Yes, but maybe you'll have a chance in the next life." Yu Xing smiled, not hesitating to offer Ye Qin and Yu Wan a kind blessing, "I hope you can be together in your next life."

For him to utter the word "you" was tantamount to self-destruction, yet Yu Wan seemed to have known all along, offering no questions, no rebuttals, only nodding.

"Thank you so much," she said. "It's good that I can see his face and remember it. Maybe you're right, we really will meet again in the next life. I hope I won't forget what he looks like then."

Sure enough, Yu Wan had already noticed that Ye Qin was acting strangely. She was in a strange state of being half aware and half unaware, living in this world in a daze and confusion.

But Yu Xing didn't know Yu Wan's world was real or just a test the system had given them.

Otherwise, what exactly would Yu Wan try to remember Yu Wan she wanted to? Could she see the face that originally belonged to Ye Qin through Yu Xing's current 17-year-old appearance?

Yu Xing didn't want to delve into the matter. He glanced at the darkness above and said, "I need to get something. Wait for me, come up with me."

Yu Wan blinked. "Okay."

Yu Xing Xingzhe returned to the room on the page, took out two items, and then returned to Yu Wan.

He stepped onto the stairs, with Yu Wan following closely behind.

Above was complete darkness, but as he climbed the stairs step by step, his level rose, and he gradually saw the entire attic.

At first glance, it was still pitch black because there were no lights.

The sound of rain seemed to be isolated beyond a distant border, and everything around him became quiet. He saw Ye Ming and Ye Ting, who had come up first, standing in a corner of the attic, with what looked like several things lying horizontally at their feet.

He stepped forward, and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he got closer, he could clearly see what those things were.

It's a very familiar item.

Black cloth.

The black cloth in the attic erased the strange rumors and returned to its most basic function: wrapping corpses.

Pieces of black cloth occasionally folded, concealing the corpses they wrapped. Yu Xing thought, no wonder there are such strange things as black cloth in the supernatural legends of "this world", and the black cloth cannot be lifted, because... the black cloth is used to cover the corpses of the three siblings and Yu Wan.

The attic was empty except for four corpses wrapped in black cloth, and a decomposing female corpse lying in a corner with no covering.

That's Mom.

Yu Xing recognized the goddess at first glance. This corpse was almost identical to the Female Ghost in the church who was chasing and hacking people with an axe. She was wearing a white dress, but the dress was covered in bloodstains. However, the bloodstains were not from cutting other people, but from when she was trapped in the attic, without food or water, so she scratched at the door and scratched her hands until they were covered in blood.

"Sigh..." Yu Wan sighed.

This was the culprit who killed them, their endless nightmare, yet he also met the cruelest end.

The three siblings' father is really...

That was too cruel.

"Uncover the black cloth," Yu Xing said. "Uncover the black cloth, and we can all leave."

He passed the test, and the others were freed—fair and just.

Ye Ming was the first to step forward, his hands trembling slightly as he unwrapped a black cloth.

Ye Ting's face was revealed through the black cloth. Her small face had been treated and made up by the funeral home staff, so it was impossible to tell how terrible it was.