Blade Draws a White Line, Aurora Shadow

When people were serious, two things could happen.

The first was that no matter how noisy it got, nothing could break their concentration. The second was that even the slightest sound could affect them.

Zhou An belonged to the second kind.

The room's door was tightly shut, and so were the windows. There was no wind outside, nor was it raining.

Yet a chill breeze blew up out of nowhere. Zhou An immediately set down his kitchen knife and turned to look behind him.

It was entirely an instinctive reaction.

If someone was blowing on you, you would instinctively turn your head.

Or lower it.

Inside the room, the oil lamp's flame flickered faintly, lighting the small house.

Amid the mottled shadows, there was even a touch of atmosphere.

If not for the white cloth hanging from the beam, and the person dangling from it, perhaps some scholar-poet might have composed a verse.

But with them there, things were different.

A strip of deathly white cloth hung from the beam, tied in a dead knot. Dangling from it was a fat woman, five feet tall and five feet wide.

Her face was iron-blue, her eyes wide as bronze bells, her mouth hanging open, with her tongue sticking out. The white cloth had cinched her neck so tightly that it had been stretched long.

Those bronze-bell eyes had no focus, yet Zhou An felt as though they were staring right at him.

"Auntie."

The memories in his mind told him that this woman was his aunt—the comedian who had pretended to hang herself, only to play herself to death.

But he clearly remembered personally having people bury her, giving her a grand funeral.

How had she appeared in the room now?

A haunting?

It seemed so.

No, it definitely was!

A dead person nailed inside a coffin had suddenly appeared on the beam, wearing such a horrifying deathly expression. Two words flashed through Zhou An's mind.

—The uncanny!

The uncanny took strange forms.

This was Zhou An's first encounter with something uncanny, and it had even been a former relative. He felt somewhat nervous.

When people were nervous, they had to do something. So, instinctively, he picked up the kitchen knife on the table and pointed it at his aunt hanging from the beam.

"Let me tell you, when you died, I gave you a grand funeral. Don't start anything here, or One Cut Kills You."

Could the uncanny communicate?

Zhou An did not know.

But he felt he needed to say something to ease the tense atmosphere.

If he had a phone right now and played "Good Fortune Arrives," Zhou An figured he would not be nervous anymore.

He had done that plenty of times when watching horror movies in the past.

Crack!

Just as Zhou An finished speaking, his aunt, who had remained motionless all this time, suddenly moved.

Her pale eyeballs shifted slightly. Her unfocused pupils stared at the knife in Zhou An's hand.

Her bluish-purple arms rose in Zhou An's sight, seized the white cloth above her neck, and yanked upward.

Her ball-like body dropped from the cloth and hit the floor with a splat.

"Hm?"

At this absurd sight, Zhou An suddenly felt much less afraid.

"Auntie was a comedian all her life. Even her death was absurdly comedic, and she still hasn't forgotten her identity as a comedian." Zhou An sighed.

His aunt, who had fallen face-down, seemed to find the position humiliating. Her body began to tremble.

Her face, pressed against the floor, lifted at a ninety-degree angle.

Her arms scrabbled about as she crawled swiftly toward Zhou An in a spider-like manner.

As she crawled, she let out a shrill howl in an urgent tone.

"Give me money! Give me money!! Give me money!!!"

Zhou An: "?"

The memories in his mind told him that his aunt had asked him for money more times than she had eaten meals.

Zhou An instantly became alert!

How could that be allowed!

His money still had to buy groceries, and he still needed it to practice his Knife Skills. How could he give it to his aunt?

"No!" Zhou An said sternly.

He could give anything, but not money!

"Give me money—" His aunt's cries grew ever more shrill. She had already reached Zhou An, and her ball-like body leaped high into the air.

At such close range, Zhou An could even see the rotten flesh inside her mouth.

"I already said, no money!"

Zhou An could not take it anymore.

She had just appeared and was already asking him for money. He did not even dare imagine what would happen next.

As inspiration struck, in the instant before his aunt pounced, the Knife Skills Zhou An had practiced all night surged forth in an instant.

The kitchen knife swept through the air, leaving a sudden afterimage!

In the dark room, it carved a vast white line.

The line was exceedingly thin, the blade-light fierce!

His aunt's body flew backward, struck the wall like a ball, then bounced back onto the floor.

A massive wound split open across her chest, stretching from her left shoulder to her right abdomen.

Yet after taking that slash, his aunt seemed to feel no pain at all.

Her round, ball-like belly bounced, launching her to the ceiling. Her hands clawed at it as she hung upside down.

"Give me money, give me money, give me money..."

She continued muttering, utterly emotionless, like a ruthless machine.

Zhou An was furious, trembling from head to toe. "I said no means no!"

The current within his body flowed from his lower abdomen into his right arm.

Zhou An raised the kitchen knife. Driven by the current, blade-light flashed into existence.

The oil lamp wavered, shadows mottling the room.

The blade-light surged, and white radiance bloomed from the edge of the knife.

Much of the current was consumed, seemingly flowing along his arm to cover the kitchen knife.

It looked as though nothing had changed, but Zhou An could feel it clearly: the current truly coated the knife's blade.

"Give me money!"

Like a fat spider, his aunt pounced at Zhou An again.

Sshk—

Zhou An's slash was swift as lightning.

Speed +1 looked like only a tiny increase, but compared to the old Zhou An, it was the difference between heaven and earth.

Before his aunt even landed, Zhou An had slashed her ten times in succession.

Zhou An recalled a question he had once seen.

If you made ten cuts in a cake, how many pieces could it be divided into?

Now, it seemed, there was no need to calculate.

Fifty-six aunties lay quietly on the floor.

This time, the room was silent enough to hear a pin drop.

Zhou An was thinking that he might as well take this opportunity to finely mince his aunt into stuffing when the fifty-six aunties on the floor turned into a heap of ashes.

The danger was completely gone.

Zhou An let out a breath of relief.

"Auntie really was a comedian all her life!"

He sighed, set down the kitchen knife, then picked up the broom and dustpan from the corner. After sweeping up the ashes, he put them into the trash bin.

If someone had asked Zhou An before what it felt like to cut something uncanny into fifty-six pieces, he would definitely have said it was disgusting.

But after experiencing the meat paste, Zhou An discovered that his adaptability was no ordinary thing. Apart from a slight sense of disgust, he felt nothing else.

"Time to keep grinding."

After what had happened, Zhou An also felt a sense of urgency.

He finally understood that the special effects gained after leveling up this so-called life-skill proficiency were no ordinary thing.

The deep night was like water.

The sound of the kitchen knife chopping against the cutting board echoed through the room once more.