Carnivore (16): Startling Night

The four lines of poetry that appeared this time were written in a messy scrawl, with several characters even obscured by ink blots; the panic behind them rushed out from the paper.

"Two people cannot occupy a room?" Qi Si narrowed his eyes, pursing his lips as he savored the meaning behind the verse.

Two people cannot stay in the same room.

There were six guest rooms in total, and not counting the Tattooed Woman who was nearly dead, the remaining players had exactly one room each.

One could say there was no suspense left.

The situation was far too smooth, and when combined with the note passed by Zhou Yilin, it was extremely suspicious.

But for Qi Si, it was not worth worrying about.

He already had a hypothesis regarding the solution to this instance and was in urgent need of a death point to verify it; the arrival of certain events was exactly what he had hoped for.

Danger and opportunity coexist; Qi Si never feared adventure or gambling. If the gamble was won, the profit was huge; if lost, it was nothing more than death.

The sky had turned completely black; the moonless expanse was pitch-black, and not a single shadow of any living creature could be seen.

I do not know how much time had passed when, from afar, the sound of sobbing rose up, faint and mournful, lingering like silk threads, so desolate that one could not help but feel a sense of sorrow deep within their heart.

Qi Si listened for a while, then asked patiently, "What are you crying for?"

He received no answer.

In the darkness where one could not see their own fingers, sporadic dots of yellow, ghostly light began to appear. A cold wind blew, stealing the warmth from his body, and the lingering chill caused his sleepiness to vanish in an instant.

The sobbing had clearly been far away before, as if coming from the corner of the courtyard, but now it had closed the distance in an instant, clearly originating from beneath the bed.

Qi Si lowered his eyes to look under the bed.

A Ghost Hand, as thin and withered as a chicken claw, reached out from the shadows beneath the bed, gripped the edge of the frame, and used it to pull a skeleton-like body out inch by inch.

...Excuse me.

Qi Si did not hesitate; he drew the awl from his wristband and stabbed it directly into the tendons of the Ghost Hand's joint.

The sobbing spiked sharply; the Ghost Hand, struck by pain, fell straight to the floor.

[Side quest refreshed]

[Side quest (mandatory): Disperse the Starving Ghost]

Two lines of silver-white text refreshed on the system interface, standing out vividly against the dark backdrop of the night.

Qi Si lifted his eyes to look out the window.

Illuminated by the ghostly light, hunched and gaunt shadows were cast upon the dust-covered window lattice, their edges blurred and linked together into a single mass.

Something had been drawn in by the sobbing of the ghost under the bed; it was likely the "Starving Ghost" mentioned in the hint text.

Qi Si held his breath; in the silence, the whistling of the wind against the glass was piercingly sharp.

"Crunch, crunch" — the strange sounds came one after another, like a wild beast chewing on the bones of its prey, or like the webbed feet of a giant creature crushing hardwood underfoot.

The things outside seemed to have locked onto their target, and various sounds approached Qi Si's room from all directions.

"Thump, thump, thump."

The window was tapped lightly, followed by a "clatter" as the glass shattered at the point of impact, cracks rippling out like cicada wings.

Qi Si saw two hands squeezing and jostling as they reached into the room through the hole.

The two hands were of different sizes and must have belonged to different entities, yet their skin was identically withered like tree bark, completely beyond the realm of what a living person could possess.

A circle of flesh-colored mucus coated the hands, with fine blood vessels connecting to the skin and flesh, appearing as if they were extensions of the limbs.

Like tentacles, they possessed extreme plasticity, deforming under the pressure of the window hole to squeeze into the room. At this moment, they were inching toward Qi Si, only a meter away from the bedside in the cramped guest room.

[Prerequisite hint: The blood-soaked truth is buried in the fragmented words of the villagers; restore the truth within their speech and recount it at the appropriate moment, and the villagers will be unable to cause you harm.]

The prerequisite hint on the system interface flickered brilliantly. Qi Si reached out to grab the Tape Recorder he had hidden under his pillow beforehand and pressed the play button.

A-Xi's crisp, clear voice rang out meticulously in the night:

[Year of famine, year of drought, no rice or flour to survive the disaster.]

[Outside the Ancestral Hall, by the locust tree, set up a big pot to boil meat and taste.]

The chanting became muffled after being filtered through the recording medium, but mixed into the ceaseless night wind, the distortion of the audio quality actually felt quite natural.

...You want me to solve a riddle, so I'll just bounce the riddle back at you; how will you deal with that, Your Excellency?

Qi Si turned the volume knob. The chanting grew louder and louder, successfully drowning out the sobbing from under the bed within seconds and occupying the entire room.

The two Ghost Hands stuck in the window hole stopped, as if trying to discern the information conveyed by the sound, hesitating whether to move further forward.

Following the first, a second nursery rhyme began to play from the Tape Recorder in the same tone, standing out remarkably in the silence.

[Sister and brother go to Grandma's house, the child's meat is tender and the bones are crisp, Grandma drools with greed.]

[At night, sister hears a crunching sound, asks Grandma what she is eating, Grandma says they are dried broad beans.]

[The next day the brother is gone, sister searches and searches and searches, a pile of broken bones in the corner.]

The nursery rhyme, which sounded incredibly sinister during the day, rang out in the night and actually carried a hint of liveliness.

It was undeniably A-Xi's voice, and it began to loop over and over again.

[Year of famine, year of drought...]

With this, the Ghost Hand finally made its judgment. It slid out of the window frame like a loach, vanishing into the interconnected shadows outside within seconds, as if it had never appeared at all.

The dim, ghastly light swayed away like a lantern, and the row of hunched Ghost Shadows standing by the window scattered, submerging into the deeper darkness.

[Side quest completed]

Qi Si glanced at the system interface and touched the Pocket Watch of Fate in his pocket, feeling a restless urge.

He asked abruptly, "Hey, are you all just leaving like this?"

No sooner had the words left his lips than the Ghost Hand and the Ghost Shadows, which had already retreated, returned.

The sticky, pus-oozing Ghost Hand squeezed back into the window hole, and the Ghost Shadows pressed their faces against the window, their bloodshot eyeballs almost sticking to the glass as they rolled into the room.

Qi Si gripped the cold Pocket Watch of Fate and looked up, staring straight into those eyes. "If you have any grievances or any unfulfilled wishes, feel free to speak them. Perhaps we could strike a deal..."

His answer was a thunderous "clatter" as the entire glass window shattered into pieces in a single second.

The rustling sounds triggered a terrible warning, and the thick, fishy stench was nauseating. Qi Si's eyelids twitched, and he immediately raised the Tape Recorder high, turning the volume to the maximum.

Yet, perhaps because of his previous act of courting death, this recording failed to have any effect, not even delaying the things outside the room for a moment.

It was too late; countless Ghost Shadows surged into the room from the wide-open window, pouncing toward him...

In the final second, Qi Si turned the gear of the Pocket Watch of Fate.

["Time Reversal: One Minute" effect activated. This effect cannot be used again in this instance.]

A cold electronic voice rang out in the air. Qi Si held his breath and narrowed his eyes, watching the Ghost Shadows move in a comical, wobbly rhythm as they retreated backward out of the window.

The shattered glass on the floor followed its previous path back into the window frame, merging into a complete pane with only a small hole remaining.

The dripping mucus flew from the ground back to the Ghost Hand, sticking to its skin before exiting the room through the small hole along with the hand.

The usage of the [Pocket Watch of Fate] for this instance had been spent; Qi Si dared not push his luck again.

He sat motionless until time had fully reversed to one minute ago.

[Year of famine, year of drought, no rice or flour to survive the disaster...]

The nursery rhyme, already played twice, rang out crisply in his ears.

Qi Si listened to the system prompt [Side quest completed] with a listless expression, thinking in boredom, Is it really that much of a sore loser? Not being able to communicate with ghosts is such a dull design...

As if to appease his resentment, the next second, new text refreshed.

[Congratulations on obtaining the clue "Starved Ghost with Lingering Resentment"]

[Did they truly die of starvation? Was their fate deserved, or was it the beginning of another feast of sin?]

[The coming and going crowds, the piles of gold and silver—who devours their flesh and blood?]

[The old and new Ancestral Halls, the dense rows of spirit tablets—who suppresses their souls?]

Upon seeing the last line, Qi Si narrowed his eyes.

He suddenly knew how to force clues out of Granny Su.

In the middle of the night, amidst the rustling sounds, Zhu Ling opened her eyes.

Feeling Zhou Yilin trembling beside her, she asked softly, "Yilin, still awake?"

"Sister Zhu, I'm scared..." The girl's voice was mixed with the "clattering" of chattering teeth, her fear sounding exceptionally genuine. "Brother Yang... is he going to die?"

"Yilin, don't be afraid." Zhu Ling raised her hand to embrace the girl, patting her back comfortingly. "Only you and I know about this, and our original intention was to end the instance as soon as possible so that more people could survive, wasn't it?"

"To clear the final instance, sacrifice is inevitable. All we can do is follow the call of the Nine Provinces Guild: remember those who have died and walk firmly forward carrying their hopes."

Zhu Ling spoke with righteous indignation, a prop shaped like a fountain pen lying in her pocket, its texture distinct.

[Name: Unremarkable Fountain Pen]

[Type: Prop]

[Effect: Write strokes]

[Note: Some use it to record stories, others use it to weave lies]

Zhou Yilin's insistence on staying in the residence was at her instruction.

The text clues in the Travel Guide were ambiguous; changing a single stroke could make the conveyed information vastly different.

Chang Xu had already missed the stage to accumulate prestige, Zhao Feng's performance was not up to par, and Zhang Licai looked like he lacked any backbone...

As long as Yang Yundong died in the night, the scales of the power struggle would tilt entirely in her favor; with four lives held in her hands, why worry about failing to clear the instance?

Even if Yang Yundong survived, it wouldn't matter. Alone and without evidence, all he could do was swallow this bitter pill and continue waiting for death.

I'm sorry, I have no other choice. I just want to survive... Zhu Ling felt a silent apology in her heart.

She prided herself on not being a bad person, and she had saved many players in the past two instances using her knowledge, but this instance was ultimately different.

This was her third instance, and facing a mortality rate as high as eighty percent, she had to use some extraordinary means as a precaution.

In the darkness, Zhu Ling did not notice that the girl beside her had curled her lips into a sarcastic and mocking smile.

As the hands of the Pocket Watch pointed to six, Qi Si woke up naturally.

The morning sunlight slanted listlessly into the room, casting a milky veil over the surface of every furnishing.

Qi Si used the light to glance under the bed, but saw nothing. The Ghost Hand and the sobbing from last night seemed like nothing more than an illusion from the depths of a Nightmare.

He took the Travel Guide and walked out the door, his gaze sweeping over every corner of the courtyard.

The Tattooed Woman had already died after dinner yesterday; her corpse, which had been left in the corner, was now nothing more than a pool of viscous liquid.

Even if no one else suffered further losses, there were only six players left in the camp. In just two days, nearly half had been lost, and the remaining three days would only be more perilous.

Qi Si walked straight to Yang Yundong's room and knocked on the door twice, neither too hard nor too soft.

"Wait a moment!" A muffled response came from inside the room, followed by a silence as deep as a stone sinking into the sea.

Qi Si waited patiently, and five minutes later, the door was opened from the inside.

The stench of blood rushed out, filling his nostrils.

Yang Yundong was covered in blood; his left arm appeared to have been torn off right from the shoulder, taking an entire sleeve of his military coat with it.

Through the bloody, mangled stump, the ghastly white bone was faintly visible.

"I promised them meat the night before last, and they came last night." Yang Yundong's eye sockets were sunken, but his voice was flat. "It's fine. Injuries in the instance don't carry over to the outside. In another two or three days, it should be over."

Qi Si observed the man's wound and said coolly, "Persistent pain and blood loss could send you into shock. Even if your willpower is firm enough, your thinking and judgment could be affected by endorphins. With your current injuries, you won't survive until the end of the instance."

"I know." Yang Yundong exhaled, his expression appearing relieved. "This is my third instance..."

The third instance, with a mortality rate as high as 80%. Crises arrived without reason, and even the strong died inexplicably, as if the Eerie Game intentionally suppressed the average strength of players, barring some from crossing the threshold...

After a long silence, Qi Si gave a bitter smile: "Brother Yang, we were both in separate rooms last night, yet we both encountered danger. Do you think it's possible—that the clues we received are problematic?"

"Zhou Yilin seemed to want to remind me of something yesterday, but unfortunately, I didn't take her hints seriously..."

The young man lowered his head, revealing just the right amount of annoyance and regret, as if he were blaming himself for Yang Yundong's injury.

Yang Yundong shifted his gaze, knitting his brows in recollection: "My clue was: 'Two people do not occupy a house, do not be alone when entering the ancestral hall. Do not mourn the newly dead ghost, why weep when sins are erased.' Are you trying to say this clue is fake?"

Qi Si suddenly looked up and smiled coldly: "Changing a single stroke is not difficult for someone who possesses a prop."

The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Whether it is benign or malignant will only be known after the surgery is finished and the excised tissue is sent for further testing. As it stands, it shouldn't be fatal; everything is going quite smoothly, which is a blessing in disguise...