Yan Si grabbed a handful of fish food and pushed open the creaking wooden door.
The April afternoon sunlight spilled thickly over the exposed backs of his hands, warm and cozy.
He walked down the bluestone steps. A few stubborn clumps of moss poked out of the cracks, making faint, wet sounds as his slippers crushed them.
The little pond in the middle of the courtyard was the eye of the Yan family's ancestral home.
In his previous life, he had fed the fish here for over a decade. He could count the scales on those old koi with his eyes closed. (Ha, he was bullshitting. He had no idea. He wasn't crazy-why would he count that crap for no reason?)
"Mealtime, everyone. I'm your lunch lady today."
He opened his palm, letting a little fish food sprinkle down.
Ripples erupted across the water as koi patterned in red, white, and gold swarmed over. Their tails flicked up tiny splashes that refracted fleeting rainbows in the sunlight.
[Points +0.2]
"Huh, points for feeding fish too? System, did you grow a conscience?"
[When the host is in a pleasant mood, pain sensitivity increases. Pain points reached the threshold, so points were awarded.]
"...Fine. You're still the same fucking bastard."
Yan Si looked down at his left hand. Half the gauze had been removed. The wound in his palm had turned slightly pale in the humid air, its edges red. Too lazy to unwrap the rest, he simply picked the scab open with a fingernail. Dark red beads of blood immediately welled up, crawling down the lines of his palm and gathering into a plump drop at the tip of his index finger.
The drop fell.
"Plip."
The faintest ripple spread across the water. Several koi with keen senses of smell immediately turned, chasing the pale red thread spreading through the pond. They pecked at it with something close to reverence, as though it were some rare kind of bait.
Watching them, Yan Si suddenly smiled.
"You lot know the good stuff when you see it."
"Wonder if koi taste any good..."
He turned and went back inside, humming off-key as he treated his wound. The instant the alcohol-soaked cotton ball pressed against it, his hundredfold pain sensitivity sent the muscles of his entire arm into spasms. His clenched teeth rattled, and veins bulged at his temples.
But three seconds later, he recovered enough to whistle at his own tearful reflection in the mirror.
"Beautiful."
After treating the wound, he changed clothes. A black outdoor jacket, zipped only to below his collarbones, left part of his pale neck exposed. Black cargo pants, with cotton slippers on his feet. He left his waist-length hair loose, draped lazily over his shoulders, its ends swaying as he walked.
He needed to get out for some air.
This body was fifteen and didn't have a driver's license yet, but the old house was only a fifteen-minute walk from the town's shopping street. Hands in his pockets, he strolled out. Passing the century-old camphor tree at the mouth of the alley, he plucked a new leaf and crushed it. Its fresh, bitter scent spread over his fingertips, and he casually tossed it into his mouth. (Dangerous behavior. Do not imitate.)
The street was lively.
It was April in this little waterside town. There weren't many tourists, but the locals were all enjoying the last dry days before the rainy season.
Yan Si threaded through the crowd, finding the side effects of his hundredfold heightened senses rather entertaining just then.
He could hear the scraping of gravel being stirred in the iron wok at the roasted chestnut shop thirty meters away.
He could smell what the owner of the third tailor's shop on his left had just eaten for lunch: pork braised with dried bamboo shoots (Want some), red-braised pork, vinegar-fried cabbage, and tomato and egg soup.
He could clearly see the trembling fingertips of the girl secretly photographing him with her phone from a second-floor window across the street.
He stopped, tilted his head, and flashed a peace sign at her camera.
"Click."
The shutter sounded exceptionally clear through his hundredfold hearing, even loud. The girl instantly flushed from her neck to her ears. She nearly dropped her phone out of the second-floor window before fumbling to hide it behind her back.
Yan Si's eyes curved with his smile, the bright red mark between his brows vivid in the sunlight.
He bought grilled skewers. Ten lamb, five rice cake, and two green pepper, with extra sugar and extra spice.
He also picked up a chilled bottle of Sprite at a convenience store. Condensation beaded on the bottle, pressing against the gauze on his palm. The cold made him hiss.
It hurt.
[Points +0.1]
"Points for this too?"
[Host, pain is the main source of points, but not the only one. Any intense physiological or psychological stimulus (negative) may generate a small amount of points.]
"So that's how it works~"
With a skewer between his teeth and Sprite in hand, Yan Si wandered back to the old house. He kicked off his slippers and sank into the Italian leather sofa in the living room, tipping his head back to look at the intricate wood carvings on the ceiling.
The rich, fatty flavor of the skewers burst across his mouth. Bubbles of ice-cold Sprite slid down his esophagus and sighed contentedly in his stomach.
Now this was living.
People lived to eat.
In his previous life, he had died in the spring of his eighteenth year, all because of a banana peel.
In this life, he was fifteen, with a future where Sukuna could casually beat him to death like a stray dog. Pretty nice~
He bit off the last piece of lamb, then suddenly stopped chewing.
There was a breeze.
It came through the window, carrying the musty smell peculiar to old houses, mixed with something sweeter, bloodier, and more rotten.
Disgusting.
Yan Si immediately looked up.
Something crouched on a ceiling beam.
It was a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit.
He actually shouldn't have known it was a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit. He couldn't tell the grades apart. But the thing seemed to be attacking him, causing the system to judge that the two had made "contact," so it slapped a label on it.
[Grade 2 Cursed Spirit]
It was considerably bigger than the cute little Grade 4 one from that morning.
Its body was a mass of tar-like matter kneaded by malice. Pustules constantly swelled and burst across its surface, each rupture spraying a few drops of transparent, highly corrosive slime.
It had no fixed head, but a mouth split open at the front of its body, stretching halfway down its length. Inside were layer upon layer of tooth-lined gums, every tooth vibrating at a different frequency and grinding out a teeth-aching clatter.
Its eyes were the most disgusting part.
Over a dozen eyeballs were embedded in the tarry mass. No eyelids, no lashes, just exposed, bloodshot spheres, all swiveling together, all locking onto Yan Si on the sofa.
Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting.
His trypophobia was acting up. He wanted to gouge out every last eyeball and stomp them to pieces.
[Cursed spirit's desire to attack you: 150%]
-his constitution had taken effect.
"..."
He was pretty much out of options. He couldn't beat this thing.
Yan Si swallowed the last mouthful of his skewers and took another swig of Sprite. "This house cost forty million. What a waste."
He put down the Sprite bottle and quickly grabbed the fruit knife he had left on the table after using it earlier, hoping he could at least fight back.
"You can't afford to pay for it."
"Broke-ass."
The cursed spirit moved.
It was far faster than a Grade 4.
The thing seemed to specialize in stealth and speed. Even with senses a hundred times sharper than an ordinary person's, Yan Si only noticed it once it was right in his face.
His motion vision caught only a blurred black shadow. The next instant, agonizing pain struck his chest.
Bang-!
His body flew backward, smashing through the sofa and the carved screen behind it before slamming into a load-bearing wall. The instant his back hit the wall, he distinctly heard his spine groan, along with the sharp cracks of at least three ribs breaking.
"Cough-!"
Blood surged up his throat. He spat a mouthful onto the floor. His right hand still clutched the fruit knife he had only just picked up.
Blood coated its blade. He didn't know whether it belonged to the cursed spirit or him.
Oh, cursed spirits didn't have blood. Definitely his, then.
[Points +52]
"...Fifty-two? That's pretty high...just feels like I might be a little dead..."
Yan Si leaned against the wreckage of the shattered screen and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his left hand. Part of his chest had caved in. Broken bones had punctured his lung, making every breath excruciatingly difficult.
His hundredfold pain sensitivity amplified everything to the extreme. He could feel the ends of his broken ribs scraping together, the bloody foam leaking from ruptured alveoli, and his heart racing madly from the pain before the system forcibly pressed it back down to a normal rate.
The pain darkened his vision, yet he let out a low laugh.
"It really hurts...haha..."
The cursed spirit gave him no chance to catch his breath. It lunged down from the ceiling beam, its dozen-odd eyes contracting at once. The huge mouth that split all the way to its waist opened impossibly wide, as though it intended to swallow Yan Si whole.
He spent ten points on speed.
[Speed: 2+5 → 7]
Yan Si abruptly rolled to his right.
Boom!
A huge crater was bitten out of the wall he had been leaning against, sending fragments of brick and stone flying. One shard sliced across his left cheek, tearing open a wound from his brow bone to his jaw. Blood immediately covered his left eye.
[Points +21]
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