The room was about twenty square meters, roughly the size of a slightly larger bedroom.
A coffin sat in the middle, surrounded by wreaths. A pair of mourning couplets hung above it—
"With heavy hearts, we mourn the passing of Mr. Liu. Respectfully written by your junior, Zhang Han."
Above the coffin, in the center of the wall, hung a huge black-and-white photograph. The man in it was staring at them with a smile.
"That's kind of creepy." Yan Hua Yi Leng shuddered.
Gu Mian took out his test paper and looked it over, then glanced up at the Mourning Hall. The two seemed to have nothing to do with each other.
He thought, Could we be supposed to lift the coffin lid and take a look?
The only place that might hold a clue was inside the coffin. It looked to be made of solid wood, though, and the lid was very heavy. It wouldn't budge easily.
"Whatever. Who wants to help me push this coffin lid open?" Gu Mian said, rolling up his sleeves.
"Push it open?" Yan Hua Yi Leng immediately took three big steps backward, as if he doubted his ears.
"Yeah, push it open. If you want to pass, anyway," Gu Mian repeated.
They needed eighty points to pass the written exam, and getting that score would not be easy.
The Fatty shuddered a few times, rubbed his hands together, and came over to the coffin.
Chu Changge moved over, too.
Yan Hua Yi Leng had already retreated outside the door. "I'm a little scared. You guys go ahead. I'll watch from here."
Hao Laoshi and Liu Xing Gong Zhu, the girl with freckles on her face, had also edged over to the doorway. They seemed scared, too.
Oh well. He hadn't expected to count on them in the first place.
Just as the three of them rolled up their sleeves, preparing to do something disrespectful to the dead, Xiao Qiao suddenly walked over.
"I'll help, too." She gave the lid a firm push. "I'm strong."
How much strength could someone with such a petite build possibly have?
Still, Gu Mian didn't send her away. There was something to be said for having more hands, right?
And even if that wasn't true, wasn't there also the saying that men and women made a good team?
"On three, we all push together." Gu Mian placed his hands on the coffin lid.
The others all nodded.
Xiao Qiao really was incredibly strong. The three men barely had to exert themselves before she shoved the lid crooked all by herself.
The Fatty's jaw dropped at the sight. "Girl, did you put all your Attribute points into strength?"
Xiao Qiao laughed heartily. "I was born strong."
Gu Mian had already leaned over to inspect the inside of the coffin.
It was completely empty.
There was no corpse, and there was nothing else inside. In short, they'd gone to the trouble of moving the lid for nothing.
The Fatty looked a little disheartened. "Should we check the other rooms instead?"
That would work.
Thinking as he went, Gu Mian walked out of the room.
Only then did he notice that the light in the middle of the hall had gone out at some point. A faint glow illuminated the table in the center, and the clock showed that it was already six twenty.
The next door was only a few steps away.
A framed obituary photo hung at head height on the door. It looked pretty creepy.
Gu Mian reached out and pushed the door open.
The scene inside was much the same as in the previous room.
There was another enormous portrait, a huge coffin, and a cluster of wreaths with mourning couplets hanging from them.
The couplets were different, though. After all, the deceased had a different name.
The rooms on this entire floor were probably identical. He wondered if the second and third floors were the same.
Looking at the face in the obituary photo, Gu Mian pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm guessing the answers we need are in the coffins, but first we have to find the right coffin."
Going through and opening every coffin one by one was clearly impractical. Their exam time was from ten to twelve, which meant they couldn't answer any more questions after twelve.
They simply wouldn't have enough time if they opened them all one by one.
Gu Mian glanced at his driver's license exam paper. "It says there are three evil ghosts in the building, one on each floor. The first one we need to find is the one on the first floor."
But how to find it was a big problem.
To be honest, before this game descended upon the world, Gu Mian had imagined countless ways the apocalypse might come.
He'd imagined an alien invasion, a zombie outbreak, ghosts returning to the world, and a global nuclear disaster creating countless monsters. But no matter what he imagined, it always came down to someone chasing and someone running.
The monsters would chase, and he would run.
Or maybe he would chase, and the monsters would run.
But this was different. The evil ghost on the first floor was hiding so thoroughly that it wasn't going to chase them. They'd be lucky just to see it.
Now he had to go to all the trouble of finding the ghost. Reality really was nothing like his expectations.
Tired out, Gu Mian grabbed a wreath, laid it on the floor, and sat down on it. It gave a fragile crackle beneath him. "Let's come up with a plan."
A plan to find the ghosts.
"First, we have to split up. Don't ask me whose head we're splitting—figure it out yourselves."
"Second, if we want to pass the exam, we have to find these ghosts. In fact, every one of us has clues about them on our test papers."
"On my test paper, the clues I can make out so far are... There are three evil ghosts in this building, one on each floor."
"Only one of them is male. The three ghosts' surnames are Ma, Yang, and Zhao. One of them is a Long-tongued Ghost, and one is a Pregnant Ghost."
"That's all I can make out from my test paper for now. What about yours?"
Gu Mian looked up at the others.
Chu Changge was the first to speak.
"The clues on my test paper are about the same as yours, but there's one extra question. My written-response question says..."
"Given that there are three evil ghosts in the building who knew one another in life, determine which vehicle corresponds to each ghost."
At last, there was a question directly related to the driver's license exam.
There were three vehicles parked by the road outside: a prisoner transport van, an ambulance, and a hearse. The meaning of the question was obvious—
Each of the three ghosts corresponded to one of the vehicles.
After asking the others, they found that the clues on everyone's test papers were more or less the same. There was nothing else of note.
"All right." Gu Mian patted the wreath beneath him and stood up. "Back to the first topic: splitting up."
"Using the clues on our test papers, we can rule out most of the Mourning Halls on this floor."
"There are only three evil ghosts in the building, surnamed Ma, Yang, and Zhao. Those are the Mourning Halls we need to find. You've all seen the mourning couplets, right?"
As he spoke, he pulled down the couplet hanging above him.
The others all looked stiff. They'd never seen anyone treat the dead so casually.
"With heavy hearts, we mourn the passing of Mr. Jiang. Respectfully written by your junior, Liu Qiangfeng," Gu Mian read from the couplet in his hands.
"The couplets tell us the surnames of the dead in each Mourning Hall. I don't need to spell out what to do next, do I?"
Yan Hua Yi Leng, a thin, sharp-featured man, stammered, "What if we run into a ghost?"
"Then run. If you can't outrun it, you're out. Didn't you see ghosts in your last instance? It's not like they can kill you, anyway."
I'm the one who can actually die, and I haven't said a word. So stop being such a coward.
Before you continue