38. The Game That Had Fallen Out of Fashion

He could no longer relate to that feeling.

He didn't have much money, but he never had to worry about everyday expenses like food and clothes.

Zhang Yuchou's family had divided up the money, and even after buying a house, they still had several million yuan left over.

But he was working away from home by himself, and that money was meant for his future wedding. He couldn't exactly use it for everyday expenses.

His life was tight, the exact opposite of Tang Luo's.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Tang Luo answered without a hint of sincerity, then got down to business. "You still haven't told me what happened to you."

"You really believe me?" Zhang Yuchou asked.

"Do you want me to reimburse your train ticket and hotel costs?" Tang Luo teased. "If I didn't believe you, would I have come all this way? Do you think I'm made of money?"

"I encountered a Plate Spirit." Zhang Yuchou didn't answer with his usual "yes." Instead, he said it with a serious expression.

"A Plate Spirit?"

A Plate Spirit.

As the name suggested, it was a spirit on a plate.

It was a metaphorical term: the mysterious and unfathomable were called spirits.

The practice originated from the ancient art of fuji, or spirit writing, and was a form of divination.

Over time, it gradually evolved into a paranormal game.

It was one of the favorite ways for the reckless protagonists in horror movies to get themselves killed.

Other methods included, but weren't limited to, vacationing in a remote cabin, watching a supposedly cursed video, opening a sealed attic, and exploring an abandoned building.

According to modern science,

games like Plate Spirit and Pen Spirit

were really just psychological games, full of suggestion, amplification, and unconscious influence.

Chinese horror movies had even offered scientific explanations: it was all done by people.

Believe in science!

But Tang Luo's life had long since passed the stage of shouting, "That's impossible!"

He gestured for Zhang Yuchou to continue.

Tang Luo was curious why this guy had gone and played such an outdated game.

Yes, Plate Spirit, Pen Spirit, and games like them had fallen out of fashion among young people.

If you wanted to play, there were paranormal apps and phone spirits, weren't there?

You had to keep up with the times.

Only Chinese horror movies, with their fearless devotion to scientific thinking, kept summoning Plate Spirits and Pen Spirits over and over again.

"I have a coworker who wanted to play Plate Spirit so he could hint at his feelings and confess to the girl he liked," Zhang Yuchou said.

"..."

After a second of silence, Tang Luo gave him a thumbs-up. "That guy's a goddamn genius!"

Using a paranormal game to drop hints and then confess.

The young man must have been single for over twenty years and collected a dozen "you're a great guy" cards.

"The girl he liked was into the paranormal," Zhang Yuchou said, slapping him with the truth.

Tang Luo lowered his raised thumb. The world was full of surprises.

"So then you all went along with the Plate Spirit game?" Tang Luo asked.

"We weren't exactly keen on it."

Zhang Yuchou gave him a helpless look. "But the guy was only two years older than me, and he was our department's deputy manager. He told us to stay until midnight. Before then, we could do whatever we wanted. We could even go home, as long as we came back before twelve and helped him out once. He'd count it as two hours of overtime pay!"

"Five hundred yuan! Tell me, who could resist?"

As he spoke, Zhang Yuchou grew visibly excited.

Now that was what you called a fortune!

For young people like Zhang Yuchou, who'd already been beaten around by society, they might say they didn't want the money, but their bodies told the truth.

When they got older, it might be a different story. Even if they wanted it, their bodies might not be up to it.

So Zhang Yuchou and three other coworkers stayed behind, along with the young deputy manager and the girl he liked.

Six people in all.

Four men and two women. It wasn't the standard "two men and two women" setup, but they could still make it work.

Who knew that once they started playing, things would go wrong?

That night, everything went fairly smoothly. The confession, made through subtle hints, was a success too.

But the manager was so happy that he broke a taboo.

A taboo, in this case, meant one of the game's rules.

For example, they were supposed to ask one question at a time.

After asking each question, they had to shut their eyes and say to the Plate Spirit three times, "Plate Spirit, Plate Spirit, please return."

Then the Plate Spirit would go back to its original position.

They could only ask the Plate Spirit to leave after everyone had asked their questions.

The summoning and dismissal both had to be completed.

Their mistake was that they hadn't let everyone ask their questions, and they hadn't asked the Plate Spirit to leave. They'd simply stopped the game halfway through.

But no one there, not even the girl, took the paranormal seriously. It was just a hobby of hers.

Nobody gave the matter a second thought.

After the confession succeeded, they tidied up and went home.

They looked forward to getting their overtime pay the next day.

But the overtime pay never came.

Instead, they got news of the deputy manager's death.

"Come on, you played this game in the office in the middle of the night, and someone ended up dead," Tang Luo said. "If the dead guy hadn't been the one who suggested it, your boss might've wanted to kill you all."

"The boss was devastated," Zhang Yuchou said. "The deputy manager was his son. Otherwise, how do you think someone so young got the job?"

"..."

"Our company forbids office romances," Zhang Yuchou added.

"I see." Tang Luo nodded.

How had a perfectly good paranormal incident turned out to be so down-to-earth?

"I heard the deputy manager died horribly, like he'd been cut to pieces. There was blood everywhere. It covered the floor."

"How did he die?" Tang Luo asked.

"He was cut to death by shards from the broken plate," Zhang Yuchou said.

"Hm?" Tang Luo raised an eyebrow.

"It was the plate we used that night," Zhang Yuchou explained. "It was about the size of a soy sauce dish, only a little bigger."

He spread his fingers, then drew them in slightly, making a circle with his thumbs and forefingers to show the size.

"After the confession that night, we all went home. Nobody remembered what happened to the plate afterward," Zhang Yuchou said.

"Your fingerprints should've been on it, right?" Tang Luo asked.

They'd played the game, so they must have left fingerprints behind.

"Yeah."

"When I helped with the investigation," Zhang Yuchou said, "they told me they could just barely make out our fingerprints. But they were only ours."

"Even so, that doesn't make it a paranormal incident, does it?" Tang Luo said.

You could break ceramic tableware into shards, put on gloves, and use the sharp edges to kill someone.

It was something a person could do.

"The deputy manager lived alone. When he died, the door was locked from the inside, and there were no signs of a break-in. The window was only half-open, and there were iron bars on the outside," Zhang Yuchou said. "And when they pieced together the shards found in his house, they amounted to about one-sixth of the original plate."

How had they found out the deputy manager was dead?

Though they'd all been "working overtime" until midnight, they still had to go to work the next day.

The deputy manager didn't show up that morning.

Zhang Yuchou and the others didn't think much of it.

After all, he was the boss's son. Skipping half a day of work was nothing.

But when he still hadn't appeared by the afternoon, the boss began to wonder.

The deputy manager wasn't some spoiled rich kid. He hadn't gotten his position solely through nepotism, either.

He took his work fairly seriously.

He rarely slacked off.

His boss and father called him, but nobody answered.

He went to his son's place and knocked, but nobody opened the door.

When he got inside, he found his son lying in the living room, covered in blood.

The boss nearly broke down on the spot.

"The pieces they found formed a shape like a triangular slice of pizza," Zhang Yuchou said. "They made up about one-sixth of the plate, which was just right for the Plate Spirit game the six of us played that night."

As he said this, his voice trembled, and his tone was hollow.

"Two days later, the girl—the one who'd been confessed to—died too. They found bloody shards at the scene as well."

"Then came the third person."

"Three out of the six people died! Shards were found at every scene."

"That's a pretty vicious murder spree," Tang Luo said. "Didn't the police assign someone to protect you?"

"They did." Zhang Yuchou came out of his earlier emotional state.

"So three people died in total?" Tang Luo asked.

"That was how many there were originally."

Zhang Yuchou gave a bitter laugh. "But three days ago, another person suddenly died!"

Less than seven days passed between the deputy manager's death and the third victim's.

After the third victim appeared, Zhang Yuchou quit immediately.

Everyone was terrified, and nobody could focus on work.

But as someone from a family that had made money from demolition, he had a bit of a safety net.

The other two coworkers hadn't quit.

Three days ago, one of the only two survivors had told Zhang Yuchou there'd been another incident.

The victim had died the same way, and shards had again been found at the scene.

Zhang Yuchou had gone to help with the investigation the day before.

He couldn't leave Xihang City either, since they might need his help at any time.

It was already a major violent crime, and a special task force had been formed.

"Do you think it was the Plate Spirit?" Zhang Yuchou stared at Tang Luo.

"Yeah, it's possible," Tang Luo said.

He hadn't sensed any resentment clinging to Zhang Yuchou.

Well... Tang Luo didn't know how to do that.

"Let me perform a Consecration for you first," Tang Luo said to Zhang Yuchou.

"A Consecration?"

"Didn't I tell you I went traveling? I met a great monk and learned a divine Consecration technique from him. It can ward off misfortune and keep you safe," Tang Luo said, straight-faced.

"Sure, sure."

Zhang Yuchou said it readily.

His emotions were like a roller coaster. One moment, he seemed perfectly fine and could even joke around with Tang Luo.

The next, he'd be overcome with fear and agitation.

He also had a talisman he'd gotten from a temple.

If Tang Luo wanted to consecrate it, then why not?

Zhang Yuchou himself couldn't tell whether, deep down, he believed the terrifying Plate Spirit was real or thought it was all the work of a person.

The worldview he'd built over many years was tottering.

He might as well be superstitious.

Everyone was a pragmatist, after all.

Most people wouldn't believe you if you said a Plate Spirit had killed someone.

But tell them the stray cat in their neighborhood was actually a cat demon, and that because they'd fed her, she'd transform into a catgirl to repay them...

Most people would probably grin and say, "I believe you, I believe you! Where is she?"

The Consecration ritual was simple. Tang Luo pressed his palms together around the Merit Jade Lotus, lowered his head slightly, and murmured scriptures Zhang Yuchou couldn't understand.

After two or three lines, he was done.

"What's wrong?"

Zhang Yuchou had clearly noticed that after Tang Luo finished reciting the scriptures, he'd looked up at him in a conspicuous way.

It was a little abrupt.

"Nothing. Trust me, my divine Consecration technique will definitely keep you safe," Tang Luo said with a smile.

"Come on, I'll buy you dinner."

Zhang Yuchou stood up with a smile.

Having a friend come to visit was bound to lift his spirits.