"Do we already have a way to clear the game?" Feng Ling sat somewhat stiffly on the sofa, partly out of caution in unfamiliar surroundings, and partly because she still had blood on her from the female ghost earlier. She kept worrying she would smear it onto the clean, soft cushions.
Fang Xiujie began his analysis with the New Residents' Guidebook that the administrator had recited at the start of the game, then moved on to the strange numbers displayed on the digital clock in the first-floor lobby after they recovered their memories, and the relationship between those two numbers and the two sides' scores.
His reasoning followed much the same course as Su Bai's earlier analysis.
"In other words, in the worst-case scenario, each of us might have to face over a hundred ghosts alone. That would be an absolutely hopeless death trap." Fang Xiujie absently drew circles in his notebook with his pencil. "The players are badly outnumbered in the Happiness Residential Complex. There's no way we can clear this game through brute force."
"I've thought it over, and if those ghosts are suffering from confused memories just like us, it should be even harder for them to recover their memories. After all, even without any memory confusion, ghosts often forget that they're ghosts." Fang Xiujie considered it for a moment. "So as long as we don't deliberately provoke them and let them keep playing house in the complex, we'll be safe."
"In plain English." Ning Yan had already finished enjoying a cup of coffee.
"In other words, we have to..."
"Play our roles properly." Feng Ling blurted it out before Fang Xiujie could finish.
Fang Xiujie paused, looking at Feng Ling in surprise. "Yes, exactly. We have to play our roles properly. Since those ghosts are playing house, we'll join them and play along. The longer we keep this role-playing game going, the safer we'll be. Honestly, none of us are professional actors, so it's only a matter of time before we slip up. We need to avoid giving ourselves away or provoking those ghosts for as long as possible. The longer we can drag this out, the better. Make it through forty-eight hours, and we win!"
"I didn't expect you to be pretty sharp, too." Ning Yan looked Feng Ling over, visibly surprised. "When did you figure that out?"
"No, I didn't figure it out myself." Now that Feng Ling was sitting on the sofa in Room 204, she wasn't as rushed as she had been standing outside the door. She gave a very detailed account of everything that had happened, from escaping her "home" in Room 602 to seeing the coughing man carrying a woman on his back, trying to help that woman only to discover she was a ghost, and finally being rescued by the sword-wielding young man in black.
"Before that young man left, he told me I had to play my role properly." Feng Ling had only met rookie players in her previous game. This was her first time encountering experienced players in a game.
So Ning Yan and Fang Xiujie, sitting in front of her, should be just as capable as that young man in black, right?
But after hearing Feng Ling's description of him, Ning Yan's mouth fell open in shock. She nearly dropped the freshly refilled coffee cup in her hand.
"A young man who was incredibly strong, knew how to use a sword, and took out a ghost cleanly-and he was really handsome, too?" Ning Yan's voice grew louder with every phrase, inexplicably emphasizing how "handsome" he was. "You met someone like that, and you just let him leave?!!"
Ning Yan's face was full of exasperation at Feng Ling's failure to seize the opportunity.
"Oh my god, he must be a player who's explored his Trait in depth. He might even be one of those veteran players who are so rare in the Nightmare World! If that handsome young man agreed to join our team, we might not even have to worry if something went wrong while we were playing house with those ghosts!" Ning Yan clutched her head in despair. "Oh my god, if I'd been the one who met him, he'd definitely be sitting here drinking coffee right now."
"..." Su Bai slowly set down his untouched cup of coffee.
"She's exaggerating a little, but Ning Yan is right," Fang Xiujie said calmly. "After hearing your story, I know why the clock in the lobby no longer displays 100 and 100, but 98 and 100."
"Since each player is worth ten points, our total can't end in anything other than zero. So 98 must be the current total score for those supernatural entities." Fang Xiujie sounded impressed, too. "That means someone has already quietly killed two ghosts without causing any unusual commotion. Maybe it was the young man you met earlier, Feng Ling?"
"And since that young man told you to play your role properly, he probably reached the same conclusion as me. He wouldn't have killed those two ghosts for no reason. In other words..." Fang Xiujie thought for a moment. "The ones he killed might have been ghosts that had recovered their memories, just like us-the ticking time bombs hidden in the complex."
"He's so strong, so strong! That's seriously amazing!" The more Ning Yan heard, the brighter her eyes shone. "I never thought we'd run into someone that impressive in this game!"
"Anyway, although Room 204 is our temporary safe house, our plan is to keep this game of house going, so we can't stay here forever." Fang Xiujie sighed helplessly. "I told that thing upstairs calling itself my 'grandma' that I was going out to buy soy sauce. I'll have to borrow a bottle from Ning Yan before I go back."
"You can take some freshly baked bread back, too. Grandma will love it." Ning Yan got up and headed toward the kitchen. "I made it myself, after all. I was a little short on ingredients, but it'll still taste a hundred times better than anything you buy from a bakery."
A little while later, Ning Yan placed a package of bread in front of Feng Ling and Su Bai as well.
Su Bai adjusted the decorative black-framed glasses on his face. He hadn't expected Ning Yan to prepare portions for him and Feng Ling, too. After all, from the moment they met, Miss Ning Yan of Room 204 had made her dislike of rookies very clear. Even the way she looked at Su Bai and Feng Ling was strange, as though their deaths would have nothing to do with her even if they happened the very next second.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Noticing Feng Ling's and Su Bai's expressions, Ning Yan gave a careless laugh. "Relax. I'm not pretending to be some friendly senior. I just want you useless rookies to stay alive and not cause me too much trouble. Sure, I'd love to meet that handsome, capable guy, but I don't want it to come down to just the two of us facing over a hundred ghosts."
"That goes for you, too, Fang Xiujie." Ning Yan singled him out by name.
Despite her unfriendly tone, Fang Xiujie merely smiled as though he was used to it. He even reassured Su Bai and Feng Ling. "That's just how she is. Once you get used to her tone, you might find she has her good points, too."
"I have plenty of good points. I don't need you to tell them." Ning Yan snorted.
"Oh, right." Fang Xiujie didn't take offense. He turned to Su Bai and Feng Ling and added, "If anything unusual happens, Ning Yan will play Ode to Joy on her violin at the window. She's terrible at the violin, so it'll be easy to recognize. If you hear a dreadful rendition of Ode to Joy coming from outside, please return to Room 204 immediately so we can regroup."
"You..." Ning Yan seemed about to argue, but in the end, she said nothing and stood off to the side, sulking.
After leaving Room 204, Fang Xiujie took the emergency stairs up to the third floor alone. The "home" the complex had assigned him was Room 304, directly above Ning Yan's apartment.
Su Bai chose to take the elevator, just as before.
When he first met Feng Ling, Su Bai had already set his sights on an evil ghost hiding in the elevator. Much like the White Qipao Paper Figure, it had formed when the shadows left on the elevator walls by its passengers gathered together and mutated. It had no humanity to begin with, so whether it retained its memories made no difference to its killing.
After discovering that this evil ghost was an unstable element in the complex, Su Bai had spent some time waiting by the elevator and eventually captured it in his beaded bracelet. Once he returned to the Mist Shop, he would turn it into the shop's second piece of merchandise.
In short, Su Bai knew perfectly well that the supernatural threat in the elevator had been dealt with, so taking it might actually be safer than using the stairs.
Feng Ling, who had left Room 204 with Su Bai, clearly had no intention of taking the elevator. But before saying goodbye, she finally couldn't help asking, "S-Su Bai, have we met somewhere before?"
Su Bai glanced at his dark-skinned reflection in the elevator doors and confirmed that nothing was wrong with his disguise.
"If we survive this time, perhaps we'll meet again ten years from now." Su Bai smiled at Feng Ling, who stood before him with her hair in two braids, his words carrying a hidden meaning.
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