Ghost Shadows at the Funeral Manor

Wu Pifu had long known that having high spiritual sensitivity was no good thing.

Because this kind of perception went both ways. It was not only that his heightened sensitivity allowed him to perceive those bizarre entities; it also allowed those bizarre entities to perceive him.

When he woke up, there had still been many veterans around, including people from three or four shifts before his. They had also obtained plenty of information from maintenance personnel in other zones, and they had shared most of it with Wu Pifu without holding back.

According to the nightmare patterns explored and summarized by some of the veterans, nightmares were generally urban anomalies, demons, ghosts, and monsters that already existed in that world, or gods, Buddhas, and the like that many people worshipped. Those were the most likely sources of nightmares.

Second, there were many kinds of nightmares. They were called nightmares because they specifically targeted maintenance personnel who entered dream worlds. Other anomalies in dream worlds did not necessarily do so. Some anomalies would even communicate with maintenance personnel, trade with them, or impart power to them.

Third, nightmares perceived maintenance personnel through supernatural means, not through eyes or other organs. In the veterans' words, within some higher-level sensory system, the entire world was shrouded in darkness, and only living things possessed light. Nightmares sensed that light. When maintenance personnel first entered, their light was protected by the Main Brain and appeared no different from that of ordinary people, aside from slight differences. Thus, unless they came face-to-face, nightmares would have difficulty detecting maintenance personnel during the first five days. But once five days had passed, the light of the maintenance personnel would grow increasingly intense, until every nightmare in that world could sense it. And this perception went both ways. The higher one's spiritual sensitivity, the brighter one's light in the darkness. You could see the nightmares, and naturally, the nightmares could see you.

Finally, that light was only a general description. Nightmares would not carefully distinguish between maintenance personnel and dream-world natives around them. Moreover, most nightmares were some kind of mindless, unconscious "thing"; only a small fraction possessed what could be called a sense of self. In many cases described by the veterans, nightmares killing maintenance personnel together with the dream-world natives around them was exceedingly common.

So Wu Pifu had not deceived Xu Rongyu at all. Xu Rongyu could only have a chance at survival by following them now, though that chance was slim. After all, they only had to endure for five days, whereas Xu Rongyu could only remain in this world forever. That was truly an unsolvable problem.

Still, for at least five days, Xu Rongyu really could survive by relying on them.

There was quite a lot of food in the relay station. Though it was all rice, flour, vegetables, turnips, a few chunks of cured meat, dried fish, and the like, it was an official relay station that needed to receive government officials. Moreover, the Qing Court had not yet completely collapsed and still maintained effective rule, so relay stations outside prefectural cities truly kept ample food stores.

Wu Pifu had money. Several hundred taels of silver were enough to buy plenty of food. He also bought a flatbed cart for transporting goods and a donkey. Since it was a purchase rather than robbery, the minor official at the relay station received the silver, took a little public loss for private gain, and did not say anything unnecessary. The four of them drove the donkey toward Yijia Funeral Manor.

Along the way, Xu Rongyu looked utterly lost. None of his earlier cleverness remained. On the contrary, the two newcomers, Yamadai and Xu Shilan, had returned to normal complexions and even began chatting and laughing along the road.

Wu Pifu truly looked at these two newcomers in a new light. It had been the same during the battle on Gaia: Yamadai's combat power was off the charts, and his mentality was equally astonishing. Xu Shilan looked like a flirtatious woman, yet her nerves were remarkably steady too.

One should not think this kind of bizarre supernatural horror was easy to face. Telling or hearing stories was one thing, but when it truly happened in reality, some people might literally be frightened to death.

Xu Rongyu could still laugh, talk, beg for meat, and beg for wine after Wu Pifu had captured him and placed his life in someone else's hands. Yet after catching a glimpse of that bizarre horror, his mentality had begun to collapse. That was the true normal reaction.

Wu Pifu said to the two newcomers, "Looks like you had astonishing experiences before becoming maintenance personnel."

Yamadai and Xu Shilan were both slightly startled. Then Yamadai burst out laughing. "In the end, it's only death. Or, as you put it, unable to live and unable to die. But the bio-beasts of the Third War could do the same. You don't know this, but if not a hundred, then at least eighty comrades died by my hand. I didn't shoot them in the back. They fell into the hands of special bio-beasts and were modified, parasitized, mutated. The worst time, more than twenty comrades had their heads embedded into a bio-beast's shell. They were still screaming and hadn't died yet, but their mouths and eyes could fire machine guns. After seeing that kind of cruelty often enough, these bizarre horrors were nothing to fear."

Xu Shilan smiled as well. "There's no need to mention the Fourth War. After the war, everything in the Solar System except the sun became nebular debris. Even before the Fourth War broke out, the thirteen singularity technology companies, some suspicious black technologies, the dark side of the upper echelons of government, and strange tales that even I had only heard rumors of could create horrors no less terrifying than these."

Wu Pifu shook his head and could only marvel at how absurdly formidable they were.

They chatted as they traveled until they saw a dirt road beside the official highway ahead. Xu Rongyu was thoroughly familiar with the terrain here. If a bandit did not know these places, he could easily be surrounded and wiped out by government troops. And if he wanted to rob merchant caravans, he probably would not even get to eat shit while it was still warm.

Xu Rongyu led them onto the dirt road. Perhaps to dispel the fear and unease in his heart, he made conversation. "There are three funeral manors around this prefectural city. One was burned down two years ago, leaving two. The one we're going to is called Yijia Funeral Manor. It originally was..."

Yamadai asked, "So what is a funeral manor?"

"A place that piles up corpses."

Xu Rongyu answered casually, then paused. Perhaps thinking that he would have to face those terrifying horrors with these people, he explained, "We Chinese are different from you barbarians. We value returning to one's roots. Our bodies, hair, and skin are gifts from our parents, so even in death, we want to return to our homeland. Naturally, beasts like you foreigners would not understand, but..."

"The world is so vast. How many people can afford to return home after death? Most corpses are carried off by wild beasts in the wilderness. That is why funeral manors exist—to store their remains until their descendants come to escort them home, letting fallen leaves return to their roots. At the same time, funeral manors allow impoverished distant relatives beyond the fifth degree of kinship from wealthy families to have a place to stay, so they do not become refugees in troubled times."

Xu Shilan said thoughtfully, "So it's a place where corpses are kept? But there can be living people there too?"

"Most funeral manors elsewhere have living people, but Yijia Funeral Manor no longer does. They..."

Xu Rongyu shook his head.

Yamadai suddenly asked, "Pifu, is it all right? Could so many dead people trigger bizarre phenomena or nightmares?"

Wu Pifu was somewhat speechless. "Just call me Wu. As for whether a large number of corpses could trigger strange anomalies... it's very possible. But this is Baseline Reality 0.9, so its deviation from the real world is very small. At least in the Baseline Reality 0.9 dream worlds I've experienced, I've never encountered anomalies other than nightmares."

Yamadai nodded in understanding.

They continued along the path. After walking for a while, they faintly saw a cluster of wooden buildings ahead. Then, suddenly, Wu Pifu stopped in his tracks and stood motionless.

Yamadai reacted the fastest. He was a veteran of the Third War; without such vigilance, he would have died long ago. Less than a second after Wu Pifu stopped, he immediately moved behind Wu Pifu and stood back-to-back with him. Xu Shilan reacted slightly slower, but only by a little over a second. She quickly took up a position beside the two men, forming a triangle with them.

The bandit Xu Rongyu, meanwhile, continued driving the donkey another five or six meters before he realized something was wrong. Then, without caring about anything else, he nearly crawled and rolled back to the three of them, staring around in terror.

They waited five or six seconds, but there was not the slightest movement around them. The three of them grew puzzled. Yamadai asked, "Is there something there?"

Wu Pifu fell silent for a moment before reaching out and running his hand across their skin. He wanted to test whether he could share his spiritual sensitivity with them.

The instant they touched Wu Pifu, all three felt a chill run through their bodies. Then they saw faint human figures behind a row of trees near the funeral manor. Even in broad daylight, those figures were there.

This was not the sort of thing born from an overactive imagination. They were genuinely semi-transparent, inhuman humanoid shadows. Every one of them was missing arms or legs, while some appeared half-rotted. There was no mistaking them for humans.

Xu Rongyu's legs went limp, and he dropped to one knee, trembling violently. The other two stiffened briefly, but maintained their guard. Wu Pifu, on the other hand, was fine. His blood and qi circulated through his body, and he resembled a crouching tiger, filled with nothing but bloodlust, madness, and fighting spirit.

Perhaps this was what it meant for great skill to breed great courage. Wu Pifu did not think he had been born a warrior. In the past, he too had feared such supernatural things. But now that he had reached the Dark Force stage of Chinese martial arts and possessed masterful control over the Tiger Demon Art, he truly did not fear these wandering ghosts. Even the paper people from earlier had merely made him feel danger, not fear.

Of course, that probably also had something to do with the nature of Chinese martial arts. Practicing it itself could temper one's courage. Even a cowardly and useless person could develop steadfast courage and unyielding resolve through long-term, persistent training in Chinese martial arts.

As he circulated his blood and qi, distracting thoughts and demonic thoughts from the Tiger Demon Art surged forth. At the same time, a Sleepless Radiance suppressed everything. His blood and qi churned through his body, and his body temperature began to rise. Those standing around him could feel faint currents of heat flowing outward.

As these changes unfolded, the ghostly figures more than twenty meters away actually stirred slightly before gradually fading from sight.

After at least ten more seconds, Xu Rongyu finally began taking deep breaths. The other two also sighed in relief. Yamadai immediately asked, "With so many ghost things around, are we still going in?"

Wu Pifu looked at the distant funeral manor buildings. "We're going in. Why wouldn't we? They're all dead people, so they won't turn into nightmares. Staying with them is better than staying with a huge crowd of living people who could turn into paper people at any moment. Come on. We're entering the funeral manor!"

Though the three of them could not say exactly what was wrong, when they thought of the paper people filling the city earlier, these ghostly shadows seemed far less bizarre and terrifying by comparison. They had no other choice now.

So they followed Wu Pifu toward the funeral manor.