Talking Big by the River

Just as Yu Xing had guessed, the sky in the painting quickly darkened.

Like a wildfire spreading uncontrollably, a black tide swept across the distant sky, and the gray-white clouds seemed to accelerate as they rolled up, turning from white to black.

The riverbank became blurred in my field of vision, and the sounds of people taking a walk grew fewer and fewer; it was as if, in an instant, those people had disappeared.

A cold wind blew from the river, carrying a faint sound of ghostly wails and indistinct whispers in the air. In just a short while, the entire riverbank was transformed.

Zhao Yijiu's legs were exposed outside his red skirt, and he shivered from the cold as he shrank back. He remained seated, watching the situation change rapidly, his expression gradually becoming serious.

Clearly, as night falls in the world depicted in the painting, the terrifying atmosphere hidden during the day is revealed, and only one old man remains fishing, standing not far from him.

Suddenly, it seemed as if the whole world had shrunk down to just a few people. He sat there, and the stylishly dressed woman Yu Xing, stood naturally beside him, quietly watching the river.

On the other side, two girls in school uniforms also stood cautiously together. On the opposite bank of the river, a girl in a white dress sat on a small stool, resting her chin on her hand, looking somewhat lonely, her bright eyes watching them on the other side as if she were watching a silent play.

"Is this really okay?" Zhao Yijiu suddenly asked, her voice carrying a distance along the quiet riverbank before reaching the ears of the schoolgirl in her uniform.

What? What can?

The cook and his companions immediately focused, waiting for the river monster to attack, but their rival seemed to have other ideas?

Upon hearing Zhao Yijiu's question, Yu Xing leaned down and whispered, "Listen to me, no problem."

He lowered his voice so the cooks couldn't hear him, which only fueled their intense curiosity.

"Could there be a conspiracy?" the chef wondered, then sneered. He was the one who activated the ghost in the painting; everyone was on the same starting line. Even if the diviner had devised some scheme to harm someone, it was just a hasty measure. What did he have to be afraid of?

So the chef gestured to his companion to remain calm, preparing to wait and see what would happen, no matter what the strategists tried to entice them to do.

Zhao Yijiu completely ignored the chefs' inner thoughts and turned to Yu Xing, saying, "You really want to..."

"This is the best way." Yu Xing smiled, casually wrapping his arm around Zhao Yijiu's neck. "Those two might not have noticed all the information revealed by the passersby during the day. At most, they know the ghost in the river is a young girl, and that she's looking for a girl to replace her... Not everyone is as smart as me~"

They had just entered the painting and strolled around the riverbank before sitting still at Yu Xing's request.

Yu Xing said that while the two women were chatting, he overheard that the girl who jumped into the river at the beginning came from a very well-off family, and it seemed that her reason for jumping into the river was also related to her family.

In the version of the women's conversation, the girl's family objected to her dating a poor boyfriend, leading to a conflict. Her family sent her younger brother to try and drag her home so she wouldn't see her boyfriend again. In a fit of anger, she jumped into the river in front of her brother.

Yu Xing scoffed at this version of the story. He searched the woman's phone, which he was possessing, and found news about the river and some surveillance footage of the route. He was more inclined to believe that the girl's boyfriend had taken advantage of her feelings and tricked her into jumping into the river...

The family's opposition might be genuine, and the younger brother following behind the daughter was probably trying to save her and persuade her to come back. If, as most people on the walk say, the girl and her brother had a conflict, then the brother shouldn't have followed her all the way.

Based on these scattered clues and information, Yu Xing deduced what he believed to be his version of the plot.

Zhao Yijiu was clearly acting with Yu Xing, yet he had no idea they had taken the same route. Why didn't he notice the information that Yu Xing had noticed? This made him seem like he was deaf.

"What about that one over there?" Zhao Yijiu asked the composed girl in the white dress on the other side of the river.

"That guy over there is probably Yun Si. He saw someone following us and he's definitely looking for some excitement..." Yu Xing replied. "If it really is him, then we don't need to worry about him. At most, he'll just watch the show and won't interfere with us."

Zhao Yijiu fell silent, unable to refute, so she could only offer her neck for Yu Xing to perform.

Yu Xing gave up on suppressing her voice and exclaimed, "Oh my, look how terrifying the river is at night! It looks like so many people have died. Tsk tsk tsk, do you think I could touch something like a girl's legendary private parts if I went down and touched it?"

Zhao Yijiu did not answer.

So Yu Xing continued, "If clothes and skirts are too boring, why not just give me a pearl necklace or a gemstone ring? That way, my trip wouldn't be in vain... Remember that girl who jumped into the river? I read in the news, she was dressed very richly."

Since Yu Xing is now in a girl's body, his voice is also a woman's voice. At this moment, the female voice rises and falls in this oppressive atmosphere. Coupled with his fashionable, even somewhat vulgar, appearance, and the way he hooks his arm around Zhao Yijiu's neck and talks loudly, he looks just like a gold-digging woman who has no sympathy or reverence for the dead.

Not far from the riverbank, two "high school girls," shivering from the cold wind, huddled together, remaining still as they had decided, coldly watching Yu Xing's performance.

"Is he trying to attract the Female Ghost's attention this way, so Female Ghost 'll attack him and he can get the spot for the painting?" the chef's companion said softly to the chef. "Doing so will definitely give him an advantage."

"No rush. It's good to have someone test the ghost's strength for us. We can also observe its specific attack methods," the chef said. "It seems he thinks the river Female Ghost dislikes materialistic women, and he's probably found more evidence to support this guess. I admit he's excellent at details; he'll be a formidable enemy."

"What if we let him go first?" his companion hesitated. "Or maybe we should try to get there first too?"

Before his companion could finish speaking, the chef interrupted, "Are you stupid? In previous events, you were merciful to those enemies, hesitating for ages before killing a single person, and that was when we were all just experience testers. These two are deducers, people from another world. They'll never have any contact with us again except for this event. What are you afraid of?"

The chef chuckled coldly, his fearlessness in the face of death born of Yugi: "He's bound to meet his end. It'd be best if the ghost killed him. Even if he finds a way to safely survive the attack... we're still here, aren't we? I don't understand if everyone in the Deducer's Yugi is so kind that he feels comfortable testing the ghost in front of us. I'll teach him a lesson. Of course, whether he survives after that lesson is not something I can decide, ha."

His companion paused for a moment, then said, "Although we're from two different systems, they haven't really done anything. This event isn't the kind of Yugi where a certain number of people have to die. Aside from killing all the participants, aren't there three other ways to clear it? Isn't what we're doing too hastily?"

He didn't think killing the deducer was bad, but rather that killing the deducer hastily could easily cause subsequent actions to spiral out of control; he disliked actions without a plan.

"We came to the art museum through the mirror; this is our home turf." The chef understood what he meant but wasn't about to let go of the points he'd gained. "A mirror connects to a building; he actually came to our home turf. He should have realized how dangerous he was. See, I didn't plan to attack the one on the other side of the river, did I? Because in this Yugi, he's one of our own."

"... What you say makes sense, so let's leave it at that." His companion shook his head. "It's just that we're all enemies of the system. If I continue to be merciful, I might become a sinner against the experience testers."

"That's the idea." The high school girl, under the chef's control, laughed and quietly pulled her companion away from the riverbank, as the sound of the river water grew louder as they whispered among themselves.

In the darkness, the river water became murky and turbid, flowing gurglingly with occasional strange splashes, as if something was going against the flow, causing the water to collide.

"Hey, so late, someone's still fishing?" To the outsider who was entering the scene, Yu Xing's performance seemed a bit too contrived. After all, he had been standing there quietly before dark, but after dark he suddenly started acting like he was drunk and trying to attract attention.

But for the people and ghosts in the painting, they must have stood there the whole time, until the people taking a walk gradually dispersed, they still lingered on the riverbank, gazing at the river as if they had something on their minds.

Yu Xing's character is like a young woman who's had too much to drink and is chatting with her friends by the river, making no attempt to hide her despicable thoughts because no one is paying attention to her.

After making disrespectful remarks to the girl who jumped into the river, he even started making lewd comments about the old man fishing. "It's so dark, can this old guy even see? What is he fishing for? He's so serious about it."

Zhao Yijiu: "... I don't know."

"Ugh, it's ridiculous. This old lady is living a much happier life than me. I still have to figure out how to squeeze some money out of my rich boyfriends. How can they be so stingy with their girlfriends when they're so rich? Haha, hurry up and squeeze out the money, then I'll move on to the next one. What do you think about asking him to buy me the latest model phone?"

As Yu Xing spoke, she also spared a glance at the old man fishing. The old man was there during the day, sitting alone to one side, not participating in the conversation of his old friends, like a scene forgotten by everyone.

Neither his clamor nor the strange behavior of the other "girls" could make the old man look up at them. He stared intently at the river, his fishing rod never trembling, and he showed no intention of packing up to go home.

But the river flowed even more violently.

Yu Xing the old man didn't react, Yu Xing wobbled over, bent down casually, and asked, "Grandpa, what are you doing? What kind of fish are you trying to catch? You didn't catch all those girls' things these days, did you? Hahahaha..."

The old man still didn't want to pay attention to him, but just then, the fishing rod in his hand trembled, and the bobber floating on the river surface shook violently. The old man, who sat on the riverbank like a statue, suddenly turned his head. At this moment, Yu Xing saw the old man's face. The old man was not actually too old, just middle-aged or elderly. He had dark skin, a resolute face, and thick lips. He should have had a kind and honest appearance, but his eyes were wide open like copper bells, with blood vessels protruding from the whites of his eyes, as if he wanted to stare his eyeballs out of their sockets.

"It's your turn, it's your turn!" The old man glared at Yu Xing, his tone low and emotionless, yet he used a strange intonation, like some kind of ancient literary pronunciation, sounding like a recitation.

The chanting, however, gave off a vicious, cursed, and fatalistic feeling. For a moment, Yu Xing felt that these words should not have come from an old man, but from a priest in a complicated robe with his face painted with patterns, dancing and singing on the altar.

"What? It's my turn? It's my turn to catch the big fish?" Yu Xing, playing the role he wanted to play, didn't seem to take the old man's words seriously. Instead, he laughed out loud, making a pointed double entendre, "Is that so, sir? I appreciate your kind words?"

"Look back, someone's behind you..." The old man wasn't bothered by his trash talk. Instead, he drawled out the words in a singing voice, "Go back now... Don't come back... If you keep going, it'll be your turn!"

The river flowed on, waves crashing against the riverbank, swallowing the old man's fishing line. As the old man spoke, strange black ripples rose in the murky water, accumulating more and more, resembling some kind of dark algae.

"Grandpa, don't be so scary so late at night." Yu Xing looked a little embarrassed. "If someone sees you like this, they'll think you're mentally ill. Did I disturb your fishing? Haha, please continue, please continue."

Despite his words, he seemed startled by the old man and instinctively glanced back.

Zhao Yijiu should be sitting behind him.

But when he turned around, he only saw a quiet riverbank, with no one else around except him. The spot where Zhao Yijiu was sitting was empty, and even the spot where the two high school girls were sitting further away was deserted.

"Hey, where is she?" Yu Xing muttered, looking at the old man again. He noticed that the girl in the white dress on the opposite bank was also gone. The river was churning, and he looked at her with fear. "Grandpa, don't scare me. What happened? Where's my friend?"

"Your turn..." The old man gave him one last, wistful look, stood up, and staggered toward the river, as if he wanted to walk directly into it.

The black area in the river was getting bigger and bigger. Yu Xing stepped forward to try to grab the old man, but found that he couldn't move his body.

The old man walked slowly but firmly into the river. The water flowed over his body, and just before he was swept away, the black water surged and enveloped his body in wisps.

The fishing rod drifted away with the current. Yu Xing couldn't control her body and could only watch helplessly as the black hair turned into solid strands of hair, pulling the old man's body into the water and then creating a barely perceptible bubble.

He then discovered that the next person to want to walk into the river was himself.