Muddle Through

The darkness around him was erased like a smudge from an eraser, colors rippling outward piece by piece.

The phantom image of golden vines danced before his eyes, only to dissolve into specks of light in an instant.

Qi Si opened his eyes to find himself still standing in the studio, the scent of blood permeating the air with vivid intensity.

A line of text hovered in the upper-left corner of his vision.

[Your next instance will begin in 71:59:59]

Between the characters was a string of constantly changing numbers; this must be the countdown Ye Zi had mentioned inside the instance.

Three days to rest and prepare—neither too long nor too short.

The Eerie Game's instances did not seem to consume time in reality; Qi Si pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced at it. It was exactly 9:00 PM on March 9, 2035.

The man sprawled before him stared with wide, unblinking eyes, already a cold corpse.

Qi Si tossed the blood-stained scalpel onto the floor, looked at the man for a long moment, and his expression turned troubled.

"What a nuisance."

The man's appearance didn't spark any interest in turning him into a specimen, yet dumping him in the wilderness carried the risk of being discovered by the Public Security Bureau.

As a self-proclaimed good citizen, Qi Si had no desire to cause unnecessary trouble for the Public Security Bureau.

The body had to be disposed of carefully.

The excitement brought by the Eerie Game was diluted, replaced by a succession of realistic problems.

Qi Si expertly untied the ropes, dragged the body onto the dissection table, and selected a bone-chopping knife from the tool rack nearby.

For a fleeting second, a blurred fragment of memory flickered in his mind like a spark of inspiration.

He caught it, grabbed the corpse's right hand to bring it before his eyes, and narrowed his gaze into thin slits.

On the pinky finger of the corpse's right hand, there was, indeed, a black ring.

The ring seemed ill-fitting, so it had been secured to the finger pad with a few wraps of white thread; its pitch-black surface was inlaid with a black butterfly carving twisted into the letter "S."

It looked very familiar.

Inside the instance, Chang Xu had just shown him this exact same thing.

"Sariel?" Qi Si murmured the name, suddenly realizing that things had become complicated.

The man he had just stabbed to death, Liu Ajiu, was a member of the Sariel Guild.

Judging by Chang Xu's tone, this so-called "Sariel Guild" was not to be trifled with; heaven knows if they would avenge their miserably dead member just for the sake of some ethereal sense of face.

Grudges, resentment, friction, discord... this was the troublesome part of humanity, always allowing irrational emotions to dictate their behavior.

Countless reasons could serve as the spark to ignite conflict, plunging them into a vortex of blood-for-blood vengeance.

Living among such a group, if one wanted to achieve anything, there was no choice but to accommodate and adapt.

Qi Si decided to see it through, dragging the body onto the workbench. After breaking the bones to fold it into a rectangular shape, he pulled a faded suitcase from a pile of clutter in the corner of the room and stuffed the body inside.

He zipped it shut, though tiny spots of blood seeped through the fabric. It wasn't very obvious, and shouldn't be noticeable unless one looked closely.

Even so, Qi Si used a handkerchief to wipe the entire zipper until the yellowed fabric was a uniform gray-black, making it impossible to distinguish between bloodstains and grime, before he was finally satisfied.

Killing wasn't difficult; the hard part was disposing of the body.

Dismemberment was only the basic procedure; body parts that could clearly identify the species as human, such as fingers and the skull, were the major items that required proper handling.

In the absence of chemical reagents, stomach acid was a decent choice.

Criminals without resources figured it out themselves; those with resources contacted pig farms, animal lovers fed them to dogs, and those who liked pranks sent them to the wet market.

Qi Si had long since passed the stage of having no resources, and he lacked the compassion for animals and the desire to trek to a wet market.

He took out his phone and checked the time: 9:40 PM.

At this hour, Bob's pig farm was already closed and wouldn't open until 8:00 AM tomorrow.

He sent a text message over, a sort of heads-up for his visit tomorrow.

Afterward, he dialed the number of a "friend" in his contacts: "Jin Yusheng, do me a favor..."

While speaking, Qi Si grabbed a rag from the tool rack, soaked it in water, and crouched down to wipe the stains off the floor.

He was very clean and had a habit of tidying up any place he stayed for a long time.

This was a good habit he had cultivated over the past six years to minimize trouble.

Under the strokes of the damp rag, the blood diluted into a pale pink, covering the floor in a thin layer before being absorbed by the sodden cloth, until no trace remained.

Qi Si threw the rag along with his blood-stained shirt into the trash can, cinched the black garbage bag, and tied it—it looked perfectly unremarkable from the outside.

He took a clean shirt from a nearby shelf and pulled it on; it was loose and casual, making him look like the most ordinary young man imaginable.

By the time everything was handled, it was already 10:30 PM.

Qi Si dragged the suitcase, pushed open the warehouse door as if nothing had happened, and saw the world outside drenched in rain.

For a moment, the scenes from reality and the instance seemed to form some secret connection, as if a colossal monster were surfacing from beneath the viscous water.

Fortunately, Qi Si was long accustomed to the fickle weather of Jiang City in March.

He retreated into the warehouse, fished a black umbrella out of a pile of junk, held it over his head, and merged into the unending curtain of rain.

The eastern suburbs of Jiang City, usually devoid of people, were now bustling with police cars; their flashing lights cast shimmering ripples across the oil-slicked puddles.

"He vanished the moment he hit this area. Dammit, who knows when the surveillance went down? Those bastards at the Public Security Bureau skim so much off the top every day, yet I've never seen them do a lick of real work..." The old man in the police uniform fished a pack of gum from his pocket, popped a piece into his mouth, and chewed. "Old Mu is really making a mountain out of a molehill. It's just one straggler left; if he escapes to another district, let their branch deal with the headache."

"A catch is still a merit, though." A young woman leaned against the patrol car, smiling faintly. "The main thing is that the man's behavior is the most bizarre. Director Mu suspects he's carrying 'Puppet Thread'. Don't those people in Department Five always lack research samples?"

The old man chewed his gum, unimpressed. "Not to be cynical, Xiao Ning, but it's been so long. Any samples would have been destroyed a dozen times over by now."

The woman kept her smile. "Regardless, we're in the final stages. We need to have something to show for it."

After leaving the warehouse, Qi Si had only walked a few steps when he saw the line of approaching police cars. He made an instant decision to turn back.

Ever since its founding in 1989, the Federation had known no peace. Cults and resistance organizations were rampant, terrorism was commonplace, and blowing up a building was an everyday occurrence; even a missile strike was nothing to be surprised about.

To maintain stability, whenever the Public Security Bureau ran low on funds, they would simply pick a lucky spot to conduct a surprise sweep, detaining anyone suspicious who wasn't carrying identification. The citizens received a lecture, and the officials received a boost to their resumes—a win-win for everyone.

In normal times, this wouldn't be an issue, but with a suitcase full of body parts in hand, Qi Si had no desire to be pulled over for questioning.

After all, disposing of a police officer's corpse was far more troublesome than disposing of a homeless person's, and such trouble was likely to be endless—a real headache.

Qi Si navigated the winding, narrow alleys. After walking about a hundred meters and seeing that no one was paying attention to this side, he calmly reached out to lift the yellow police tape.

"Hold it!" A sharp shout rang out from behind him.

Immediately after, a disheveled middle-aged officer with a cigarette dangling from his lips jumped down from a patrol car parked in the shadows and walked over.

Qi Si withdrew his hand from the tape, turned halfway, and spoke first: "Officer, has something happened here?"

He wore an expression of unease, appearing as ignorant and guileless as any simple, honest citizen.

The middle-aged officer stopped on the other side of the tape, flicked the ash from his uniform, and scrutinized him with eyes of average size. "What's your name?"

"Qi Si. 'Qi' as in 'Qi Chu', 'Si' as in 'Siwen' (refined)."

"That name sounds familiar. What do you do for a living?"

Of course it was familiar—he was a regular in the interrogation room. Qi Si gave an embarrassed smile. "I'm a specimen preparator. I just held a county-level exhibition the day before yesterday; it was in the papers."

He pointed toward the warehouse behind him. "That's my studio. I suffer from neurasthenia and can't stand the noise, so I moved my workspace to the suburbs."

The officer didn't doubt him. He pulled a photo up on his phone and showed it to Qi Si. "Have you seen this man?"

In the photo, a scruffy man stared blankly ahead. A pale, bluish scar stretched from the corner of his right eye to his lip, giving his square face a jarring sense of dissonance.

It was Liu Ajiu!

Qi Si didn't change his expression. In less than half a second, he sorted through the cards he held:

--The surveillance in this area had long been hacked by a friend; the nearest functional camera was at a bus stop half a mile away.

--Liu Ajiu had only arrived three hours ago, so he didn't meet the criteria for a missing person's report; there hadn't been much noise when he was killed.

The police likely didn't know he was dead. Coming to find him meant they probably still viewed him as a criminal...

Qi Si made his decision. He frowned, putting on a look of strenuous recollection. "I've been locked in my studio all day today, I haven't seen anyone... Someone did come by the day before yesterday, but I've been so turned around lately, my head is a bit fuzzy, I'm not sure..."

The officer waved his hand to signal he was done as soon as Qi Si said "the day before yesterday."

He patted Qi Si on the shoulder and kindly urged, "Get home early. Don't leave the city for the next few days; it's not safe outside the walls."

Qi Si looked left and right, his eyes filled with just the right amount of curiosity. "Officer, what exactly is going on? Can you tell me?"

"Can't." The man exhaled a puff of smoke, his Beijing accent curling around the words, and gave him a weary, mysterious look. "Some things are more dangerous the more you know."

Qi Si chuckled and stopped asking.

He lifted the police tape with one hand, dragged the suitcase with the other, tucked the umbrella under his chin, and bypassed the officer.

He had only walked five steps when the man asked out of the blue, "What's in the suitcase?"

Qi Si stopped and looked back over his shoulder. "Specimens. Half-finished, I'm taking them back to work on them."

"Can you open it and let me see?"

Qi Si lowered his eyes. "That might not be convenient. I just finished the molding; the wind will ruin it... Though, if you insist, I suppose I can."

"Forget it. Get home early. Sorry for wasting your time." The officer waved him off, no longer looking his way.

A grateful and submissive smile bloomed at the corners of Qi Si's mouth, the mockery in his eyes melting into the expression, making it impossible to discern.

"No worries, no worries. Thank you for your hard work on patrol tonight."

He nodded politely, maintained his steady pace, and walked away, stepping through the puddles one by one.

The rain continued to fall, making a "patter" sound against the umbrella, which only made the night feel more tranquil.

After turning a corner, Qi Si stopped. He felt the cold belatedly, yet a spot in his chest was radiating a faint, lingering warmth.

He reached toward his neck, where a blood-red pendant had appeared at some point, currently glowing with a faint heat.

[Name: Rose Heart]

[Type: Item]

[Effect: ...]

To think that he had actually brought an item out from the game?

Qi Si untied the trash bag fastened to the handle of his suitcase and reached into the crumpled shirt to grope around, but he felt nothing.

"The Pocket Watch of Fate didn't come out, only the Rose Heart did? ...Well, that makes sense. A minute of time reversal would be far too exaggerated in reality."

Under the ghost-fire glow of the streetlamp, the black-haired young man narrowed his eyes with keen interest: "Looking at it this way, the Eerie Game seems even more interesting than I imagined..."

[Note] The reality portion of this book utilizes the world-building of Crime Merchant and Zhou Lin, where the globe is under the rule of a Federation, and nations have been downgraded to "Districts."