The Conch Proves Its Worth

"Oh no!"

Wu Pifu immediately moved to pull the other three away, but the next second, beneath the bright sky and broad daylight, the red glow vanished. Everything around them returned to normal: passersby, pedestrians, all kinds of noisy sounds. Not a trace remained of the previous gloom and terror.

Yet all four were drenched in cold sweat, unable for the moment to distinguish reality from illusion.

A few seconds later, Xu Rongyu cried out, "What was that? What the hell was all that just now?!"

Wu Pifu said nothing, while Yamadai and Xu Shilan both looked awful. Then Jiujiu suddenly flew up from Wu Pifu's shoulder. After circling once in the air, it flew toward the city gate.

Wu Pifu said, "This isn't the place to talk. Come on, let's leave the city!"

The three were utterly at a loss, so they naturally followed Wu Pifu's suggestion and hurried after him toward the outskirts.

It was not until all four had left the prefectural city that the omnipresent feeling of being watched, along with that terrifying chill, finally disappeared. Only then did Jiujiu descend from the sky and return to Wu Pifu's shoulder.

Jiujiu had eaten plenty of peanuts during their meal earlier, as well as strips of meat Wu Pifu had torn off for it. Now it had revealed its mysterious nature, guiding the four of them out of the prefectural city.

The three had finally steadied their nerves somewhat. They all looked at Jiujiu, and even Xu Rongyu clicked his tongue in amazement. He said at once, "This bird is incredible. It actually knew that leaving the prefectural city would get rid of that weirdness. There must be some great demon or monster in Xuanhua Prefecture."

Wu Pifu gently stroked Jiujiu's feathers and said, "This bird comes from the world of Baseline Reality 0.7, so of course it's extraordinary. But you're wrong. It's not Xuanhua Prefecture that has a problem—it's all the people!"

Xu Rongyu did not understand, but Yamadai and Xu Shilan did. Xu Shilan immediately asked, "A nightmare!? Any living being could become its vessel?"

Wu Pifu shook his head. "We still don't know. But once we reached a place without many people, that sinister feeling vanished. Clearly, it has something to do with crowds. Whether that's the case or not, from now on, we need to avoid people!"

Just then, a group of riders passed beside them on the official road, heading toward the prefectural city. As the riders drew near, all four of them indeed felt that sinister sensation of being watched emerge again. Once the riders moved away, the feeling vanished once more.

At that point, none of them doubted it any longer. They quickly headed farther away from the prefectural city.

After walking for at least two hours, they finally stopped outside a patch of woods by the roadside. Looking at an inn station not far away, Xu Rongyu asked, "Master, are there really strange horrors in this world?"

Wu Pifu was immediately speechless. That tone, combined with those words, sounded exactly like some wealthy man from a Hong Kong film asking a con artist from the martial world for advice.

Wu Pifu replied seriously, "The truth is, those things really do exist. They usually lie dormant, that's all. Of course, it may also be because of us. We're ultimately different from you."

Yamadai and Xu Shilan both fell into thought. Yamadai said, "How durable are these things? Can they withstand missiles? What about plasma weapons? Ultramagnetic weapons?"

Wu Pifu was speechless for several seconds before he said, "No, where are you supposed to find weapons like that?"

Yamadai answered earnestly, "I know some basic weapon assembly techniques, but I would need steel, parts, and an energy source. If that truly isn't possible, I can make do with simpler methods. I'm also skilled in mechanisms, traps, and modifying ranged cold weapons. I also have experience with positional warfare, defensive warfare, and weapon platform modification."

Wu Pifu continued to be speechless, though he did begin seriously considering it.

At that moment, Xu Shilan asked, "Didn't you say the first five days were a safe period? Why did we encounter a nightmare so quickly?"

Wu Pifu answered, "It isn't a safe period. It's just that during the first five days, nightmares have difficulty detecting our exact locations. The Main Brain has probably provided some degree of protection and interference for our positions—unless we meet face-to-face... and we just happened to meet a nightmare face-to-face."

Xu Rongyu aside, the other two were baffled. They asked, "When did we meet a nightmare face-to-face?"

Wu Pifu's face darkened. "Didn't those red-clothed women from the Red Lantern Society dance around with talismans earlier? At the time, I saw a faint humanoid shadow flickering in and out of view, but it was quickly dispersed. I didn't think much of it then, but now that I consider it, that shadow was very likely a nightmare—at least one of them. We were discovered."

Only then did Yamadai and Xu Shilan recall a detail.

Earlier, they had not been able to see the paper figures. It was only after Wu Pifu pulled them and they came into contact with him that they could see them. In other words...

"Second-tier intuition?"

Yamadai and Xu Shilan seemed to reach the same realization and asked almost in unison.

Wu Pifu nodded. His expression remained dark and ugly as he said, "And the seniors repeatedly warned me about one thing... when we see them, they see us as well. Now that the nightmare clearly knows about us, attacks in the next few days are inevitable. The only question is what rank this nightmare is—rank one or rank two."

Xu Rongyu had been listening to the conversation among the three. He did not understand many of the terms, but Chinese had the advantage that one could often infer meaning from the words, so he had grasped the general idea. He immediately shuddered and said, "No, Master, I'm just a hostage you kidnapped. Ten thousand taels of silver may be a lot, but I'm my father's only son. He'll pay that money whether he wants to or not. But I can't possibly fight demons and monsters with this little body of mine. Master, just treat me like a fart and let me go!"

Wu Pifu chuckled. "Then go."

At those words, Xu Rongyu did not dare take a single step. It was not that he feared Wu Pifu would kill him with one palm strike. He was simply terrified beyond measure by the bizarre horror from earlier.

People of this era might generally be superstitious, but even in the twenty-first century where Wu Pifu had been born and raised, anyone who truly encountered demons and ghosts would be scared half to death. This was not a matter of bravery. As long as humans remained living beings, they would fear things that were not alive.

Xu Rongyu had been curious about such things, but he had always treated them as entertaining stories. He had killed plenty of people himself and had even slept among piles of corpses, so naturally he had never believed in vengeful ghosts. But now that he had seen and felt it firsthand, it was completely different. With a thump, he dropped to his knees and kowtowed three times to Wu Pifu. Then, in a humble tone, he said, "Master, please give me an honest answer. If I leave now, those things will let me go, right? They came for you people. An insignificant nobody like me is beneath their notice, right?"

Wu Pifu looked at him with a face full of pity. "I won't hide it from you. To be honest, sorry, but you're one of that thing's targets now too. How should I put it... you don't actually think those things use eyes to see, do you?"

Xu Rongyu froze.

Even though he did not understand science and was steeped in this era's usual feudal superstitions and ignorance, he would not think that such magical and strange beings relied on eyes to see things. They surely used immortal arts or the terrifying powers of demons and ghosts to seek out the living.

Wu Pifu continued, "When we saw them, it was indeed 'seeing,' though it could also be called sensing. In the same way, they 'saw' us. But who knows what we look like in their vision. Maybe food, maybe some kind of image, perhaps a distinctly marked color. And since you were standing with us, are you willing to gamble on whether it can distinguish you from us?"

"And another thing: don't believe the nonsense from those plays about demons repaying kindness, or how a man with a clear conscience need not fear ghosts knocking at midnight. That stuff is meant to teach you to be a good person. But if you really encounter a ghost, are you still going to believe a ghost's lies? If so, I truly admire you."

That was why Xu Rongyu had knelt and tried to flee. He had genuinely remembered those sayings from the plays. But upon hearing this, he recalled the phrase "a mouth full of ghost stories," and immediately stood there dumbfounded, his expression shifting constantly.

At that moment, Xu Shilan asked, "Then what should we do next? Stay away from inhabited places and endure for five days, right?"

Wu Pifu spoke as he thought. "We need to stay away from people. First, we need to gather food. See that inn station over there? Take as much food as possible from it. Buy it or steal it, it doesn't matter now. Get as much food as we can, then find a place with few people and little traffic, but it can't be completely exposed wilderness without shelter or buildings. We need to conserve our strength, and we need some defensive facilities as well..."

Wu Pifu had a headache just saying it.

Such places were simply too rare. Wherever there were buildings, there were usually people. Even abandoned temples in the wilderness often had travelers stopping there, whether merchants or beggars. There was no way they could be entirely without human presence.

Suddenly, Wu Pifu thought of something. He took a conch from an ordinary cloth pouch at his waist.

The other three looked at him in confusion. Suppressing his embarrassment, Wu Pifu said, "Magic Conch, where should we go to find a place with intact buildings, shelter from wind and rain, and the potential to serve as a defensive stronghold, but where few people pass by or visit? Or is there some way to avoid contact with large crowds?"

The conch trembled, and a woman's voice mixed with the sound of ocean waves came from within it. "Stay away from the living. Draw near the dead."

Wu Pifu nearly crushed the conch in his hand. So angry that he laughed, he said, "Good, good, very good! Listening to you is as useful as listening to nothing! I already know I need to stay away from the living, and now you're telling me to get close to the dead. Get close to the dead... get close to the dead!?"

A flash of insight crossed Wu Pifu's mind. He immediately looked at Xu Rongyu. "Where was the place you mentioned before, where the hostage money would be delivered?"

Xu Rongyu did not understand at first. He answered instinctively, "The morgue."

Wu Pifu laughed heartily and looked toward the inn station. "Come on. Let's buy food—or steal food—and then..."

"We'll spend these five days in the morgue!"