Rain

The viewers in the livestream were startled by the woman's sudden appearance, then immediately began posting comments:

[Holy shit, doesn't this female ghost usually only appear when it rains? Why is she here already?!]

[Who cares? Run, streamer!!!]

[The room's tiny. Where's she supposed to run?]

[At least knock on the door and ask for help. Better than standing there like an idiot.]

[The streamer's not moving. Scared stupid?]

[A newbie's a newbie. Looks like this pretty face is done for...]

Li Xian's hair stood on end, but he quickly noticed that the woman didn't seem to be staring at him. She was staring at the thing in his hand...

The shoe?

"Mine..." she mumbled indistinctly. As she spoke, her cold, damp breath washed over Li Xian's neck, sending involuntary goosebumps across his skin.

Li Xian followed her fixed gaze and discovered that she was staring intently at the embroidered shoe in his hand.

As soon as he noticed, Li Xian hurled the shoe across the room.

Sure enough, the woman withdrew from his shoulder and walked toward the embroidered shoe nearby.

The woman in red slowly approached the embroidered shoe, but what she did next left Li Xian even more alarmed and uncertain.

Rather than putting it on as he had expected, she picked up the shoe, clenching and tearing at it with all her strength.

Veins bulged along her pale, bluish arms, and the shoe was torn to pieces in an instant.

Worse still, once she had finished, she turned her head.

Her gaze landed squarely on Li Xian.

The desire to tear him to pieces in her eyes was exactly the same as before.

Li Xian took two steps back, and his legs quickly hit the edge of the bed.

The room was too small. There was nowhere to hide.

He faced off against the woman, not daring to make any sudden moves. It felt as though the slightest shift of his gaze would give her the chance to pounce.

Out of the corner of his eye, Li Xian suddenly noticed-

The man who had been sitting on the edge of the bed had vanished at some point!

The discovery distracted Li Xian for just a moment, and the woman immediately seized her chance and lunged at him!

With nowhere to escape on either side, Li Xian could only grab the bright red quilt from the bed and throw it over her head-

His actions enraged the woman completely, but she couldn't immediately free her head from the heavy quilt, so she clawed wildly at the fabric.

Riiip-

In mere seconds, a huge gash opened in the quilt.

Li Xian frantically considered his options. The woman moved far too fast. If he remained trapped in this room, he would surely die.

He needed to get out of this room.

And the only place he hadn't searched yet...

Was the bed where the embroidered shoe had been!

The thought flashed through Li Xian's mind, and he immediately lifted the mattress. Sure enough, he spotted the outline of a square opening in the bedboards.

Almost at the exact moment he lifted the hatch, the woman tore the quilt apart completely and lunged at him!

Li Xian had no time to look back. He scrambled into the passage as fast as he could.

A sharp gust of cold air swept past, almost grazing his scalp.

[Holy shit, the exit was here!]

[It's not that hard to think of looking there, but the moment you lift the quilt, you see the embroidered shoe on the bed and pick it up. Then the ghost appears. An ordinary person would probably panic and run all over the room, leaving the ghost to catch them like a rat in a trap... They'd die without ever realizing their only way out was right beside them.]

[So you'd have to stay incredibly calm to figure out where the exit is while fending off the ghost.]

[You probably need a bit of luck, too. If the streamer hadn't searched everywhere else before touching the bed, he couldn't have been sure the exit was there.]

[This instance is downright malicious...]

Once inside the passage, Li Xian reached toward the wall and gave it a gentle push, revealing an opening to the outside.

He hurried out, restored the wall, then took a few steps along it and waited. When there was no sign of the ghost following him, he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

A soft chime sounded inside Li Xian's head.

[Ding! Congratulations to player Li Xian on receiving his first livestream point tip!]

[Current livestream viewers: 137. Points tipped: 20.]

A tip?

So other people were watching what he did?

Li Xian frowned and crouched in a corner, carefully surveying his surroundings as he considered which way to go.

Although he had escaped the woman in the room for now, his situation was hardly promising.

Rows of tiled-roof houses surrounded him, which meant the villagers could discover his escape if he made even one careless move.

The villagers guarding the door were two of the bearers who had carried the sedan chair earlier. They were chatting idly when one looked up at the sky and suddenly remembered something.

"Isn't it almost time?"

"I nearly forgot until you mentioned it-we need to refill the wine, right?"

The bearer took out a key and unlocked the door, only to find the room empty.

"Fuck! That bitch ran off!!"

His furious shout alerted the surrounding villagers. Before Li Xian could find somewhere to hide, he met the eyes of a villager who had appeared at a window in the house opposite after hearing the commotion.

The villager immediately shouted out Li Xian's location. The bearers closed in from ahead, forcing him to flee in the opposite direction, but after turning down a narrow lane, he found yet more houses in front of him.

Only a straight road lay ahead, lined on both sides by single-story brick houses with tiled roofs. At the bearers' shouts, doors opened one after another, and villagers emerged from their homes, all wearing grim expressions as they joined the pursuit.

Not my lucky day...

Li Xian thought to himself.

If he had escaped just a little earlier or later, he wouldn't have been discovered so quickly. It was as though the two villagers guarding the door had timed it perfectly: no sooner had he escaped than they opened the door to check the room.

Right. Better cover my face, just to be safe.

Li Xian didn't think he looked particularly feminine. Although he hadn't seen a mirror since entering the instance, judging by his height and how everything else felt, he still had his original body. Even wearing a wig, he might still be recognized as a man.

With that thought, Li Xian pulled the bridal veil from inside his clothes and wrapped it around his face as he ran, narrowly dodging several villagers trying to block his path.

Another corner appeared a short distance ahead. Li Xian quickened his pace, hoping to reach it, but four or five villagers suddenly appeared before him, forming a line across the already narrow road.

The bearers were only a few steps behind. Li Xian's heart sank, but instead of slowing down, he charged straight at the villagers ahead and drove his elbow into the face of the most hesitant one.

The man staggered sideways, clutching his face with a cry of pain. Li Xian seized the opening, broke through, and ran desperately toward the corner, only to step on the hem of his skirt. By the time he regained his balance, a bearer was about to catch the back of his clothes.

Drip.

A drop of rain landed on the bearer's face.

The bearer's outstretched hand suddenly froze in midair. His eyes widened in terror, as though what had landed on his cheek was not rainwater, but sulfuric acid.

"It's... it's raining!!!"

The bearer shouted in a trembling voice. Scattered raindrops struck the ground, darkening the dry earth with spots of moisture and dampening the front of Li Xian's clothes.

Li Xian faltered, baffled as to why mere rain had terrified the man so badly. Yet at the bearer's shout, every villager froze, then shoved one another aside as they fled toward the houses, as though confronted by some monstrous beast.

"Run!!"

"The... the River God is angry!"

"Urgh... aaah!!!"

A sudden cry of agony came from behind him. Li Xian instinctively looked back and saw that the drop of rain on the bearer's face had spread into a spiderweb pattern, continually multiplying and spreading outward as it burrowed into his eyes and ears.

The once-clear rainwater gradually turned blood-red. The bearer's body began swelling from the head down, his skin stretching like a balloon filling with water, while his piercing screams dwindled into muffled whimpers.

The bearer toppled to the ground, his body flopping and convulsing a couple of times like a goldfish out of water, then fell silent.