Urban Legend Player

"I don't know." The rustling of fabric came from the darkness as Baizhi hugged her head, her slender body curled up in her mother's arms. "How could I possibly know..."

Feng Yushu felt a pang of heartache and gently stroked her trembling shoulders, finding herself at a loss for words.

"Ning Zhe, give her some time, please?" Feng Yushu said softly. "She... is very scared."

Ning Zhe sighed. "I could certainly act reasonable here, playing the part of an understanding, warm-hearted man in front of you two, catering to your emotions, but a ghost won't do that."

"A ghost isn't a man lusting after your bodies, nor is it public opinion in society. A ghost is an absolute rule of life or death, and death is the greatest fairness in this world."

"The rules won't stop killing just because you are so-called weak women, and huddling together to cry won't make a ghost stand at attention and reflect on its mistakes. It will only bring death closer to you."

Ning Zhe stood up, walked to the window, and pulled the curtains shut to cover the hole he had smashed open.

"Listen, Feng Yushu, I am not your husband, and I am certainly not your daughter's nanny. People who meet by chance have no obligation to help you. The only reason I am here is because I believe Baizhi can provide me with useful information regarding the current situation."

"If her answer is that she can't, isn't sure, or doesn't know, then before I leave here, I can only wish you both the best of luck."

Just like that.

"Ning Zhe..." Feng Yushu's heart tightened painfully. She instinctively hugged her daughter's shoulders tighter, feeling just as helpless as she had back in He Family Village.

She had never realized a fact so clearly: there was no bargaining chip on her that could move Ning Zhe—money, status, her body, or even everything she had to give. Ning Zhe was unmoved by it all. He was devoid of desire, devoid of humanity; he was a utilitarian to the extreme, rational to the point where he didn't seem like a flesh-and-blood human being at all.

He seemed more like a... ghost.

"No wonder you were able to survive He Family Village." Baizhi's voice drifted faintly from Feng Yushu's embrace. "The only people who can survive in this world are people like you."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Ning Zhe didn't care about her words. "Now that you've calmed down, stop crying and tell me what you know. Why do you dream of He Family Village? And why do you know the rules of the ghost in this manor?"

Only by knowing these things would the heavy fog shrouding the small town begin to dissipate.

"Have you ever played a Rule-Based Horror Story?" Baizhi asked faintly.

"I've encountered them, but I've never actually tried to solve one." Ning Zhe replied candidly. "What does that have to do with the current situation?"

"Yesterday, I dreamed of a Rule-Based Horror Story set in this manor." Baizhi said softly. "Just like how I used to dream of He Family Village."

"Ever since I was in middle school, I've frequently had bizarre nightmares."

"Sometimes I dream of hiding from a crazed psychiatric patient in a remote hospital, other times I dream that everyone in the hotel I'm staying at, from the manager to the waiters, are dead... These scenes are filled with eerie atmospheres and terrifying elements, as if one wrong step would lead to the end of my life."

"And the terrifying scenes in my dreams often correspond to real-life locations. The hospital where the patient wandered was the Yongzhou City General Hospital I often visited as a child, and the hotel run by the dead was the Xiangzilan Hotel my father opened..."

"Whenever I enter similar scenes in my dreams, fear and a sense of crisis flood my subconscious, as if death threats are everywhere."

"If I see a freezer in the hospital, I feel afraid, instinctively feeling that I must never open it, or I will die."

"If I encounter a cleaner mopping the floor in the hotel, I feel disgusted, subconsciously wanting to avoid the bloody water in her bucket, otherwise something terrifying will happen."

"The nightmare scenes are so crowded, claustrophobic, and suffocating... there are deadly traps everywhere, and soul-snatching evil ghosts with malicious intent are lurking, but I always manage to narrowly avoid death that is inches away, curling up in a corner to survive until the nightmare ends and the sun rises."

"Because every time before I enter a nightmare, I will, in a way similar to dreaming or psychological suggestion, know in my subconscious the different death taboos of these weird places in advance."

Baizhi's voice remained weak and breathless. She curled up in her mother's arms and whispered:

"It's like reading a survival manual written by the author of a horror story before entering a weird world constructed by a Rule-Based Horror Story. Those ambiguous notes, though vague, are enough to support me in surviving the nightmare."

I like solving mysteries in my dreams? That's interesting.

"Do you think you are an Urban Legend Player?" Ning Zhe asked.

"I think I am." Baizhi answered seriously.

She went on to explain that ever since she started having these nightmares, she had searched the internet for many horror-themed video games and literary works, trying to find the origin of those nightmares, but she had never succeeded. Because those nightmare scenes did not correspond to virtual game works, but to real locations and people.

So it wasn't that she had nightmares because she played horror games, but that she went to find horror games because she had nightmares...

"I tried searching for news related to the psychiatry department of Yongzhou City General Hospital and found that a psychiatric patient had sleepwalked in the middle of the night, wielding a knife and stabbing one doctor and three nurses."

Baizhi continued: "And on the night this happened, the content of the nightmare I had was hiding from a wandering psychiatric patient in that hospital."

In the dream, one doctor and three nurses had also died.

It was just that the real news reported it as stabbing.

"Then you dreamed of He Family Village... and last night you dreamed that Bishuiwan Manor was haunted, is that right?" Ning Zhe tried to understand her way of thinking. "Then what was the content of the 'survival manual' you got this time?"

Baizhi took a deep breath and said:

1. Light represents danger.

2. Darkness represents safety.

3. The ghost is afraid of light.

4. The ghost likes darkness.

"That's basically it." Baizhi's soft voice sounded very, very light in the pitch-black room. "Ning Zhe, do you have any ideas?"

Listening to her quickly calming down, Ning Zhe suddenly had a somewhat amusing thought:

"Do you... think you're dreaming right now?"

Baizhi fell silent and did not answer his question.

"Fine, I was wondering what was up with your strange attitude. Turns out you've been treating both me and your mother as NPCs in your dream."

Ning Zhe shook his head helplessly, his thoughts swirling. He began to organize what he had seen and heard along the way using the four pieces of information provided by Baizhi.

"The ghost needs a lit environment to find people and kill them. Once a person hides in the dark, it's no different from being blind."

"The ghost needs light to kill, but the ghost itself is afraid of light, just like a moth chasing fire, circling around a candle—too close and it's disrespectful, too far and it's resentful."

Why does that sound a bit like a cultivation novel?