Su Bai's "aunt"

"We'll meet again in ten years?" Feng Ling looked bewildered.

"It's nothing."

Su Bai knew that, at this moment, Feng Ling saw him as nothing more than a shy newcomer. Like her, he had only been through the beginner game, and in a place as complicated as the Nightmare World, he was like a newborn who understood nothing.

If Ning Yan and Fang Xiujie had still been there, Su Bai would have done nothing but put on a shy smile. After all, his goal was to make his presence as inconspicuous as possible, until no one cared about him at all.

But Feng Ling was a little different.

Looking at Feng Ling in her plain clothes, now that the bloodstains were gone, at her two braids so rarely seen on a university campus, and at her glasses with their rusting, peeling frames, Su Bai lowered his head in thought for a moment. In the end, he decided to say something.

"Feng... Ling." Su Bai's bangs and glasses obscured his expression. "Most of the supernatural beings are clearly still playing house, so why did we players recover our memories so quickly?"

Su Bai stressed the word "memories."

"Maybe it's because the players are too weak. After all, the administrator always says at the start of the game that the White Faction is at a disadvantage." Still bewildered, Feng Ling answered without thinking. "By the time most of the Ghost Creatures in the complex recover their memories, newcomers like us will probably be done for."

"True." Even Su Bai as he was now could not handle over a hundred Ghost Creatures collectively losing control.

Ding- The elevator opened in front of Su Bai, interrupting their conversation.

Su Bai glanced inside the elevator. Although he did not use Black Umbrella's power, he sensed that there were no more unclean things inside.

"I'll head upstairs first. It was really nice meeting you." After stepping into the elevator, Su Bai waved and said with a shy smile, "Don't worry. You'll definitely be fine."

"Thank you." Feng Ling was still a little bewildered. She had no idea why the dark-skinned young man before her had such faith in her, one of the only two newcomers.

"Maybe he was just trying to comfort me?" After the elevator doors closed, Feng Ling murmured to herself, then shook her head and headed toward the emergency stairs on the other side. Ever since recovering her memories, she had never taken the elevator again. Although she could have gone in with Su Bai just now, he was going to the fourth floor, while her "home" was on the sixth. She was terrified that something might follow her inside when the doors opened along the way.

Even if most of the Ghost Creatures in the complex were still playing house, Feng Ling had no desire to share an enclosed space with something like that hanging ghost in the red dress.

Better to take the elevator.

Su Bai's role was a visitor, so his schedule was a little freer than those of the other players. After all, it was perfectly normal for a visitor to arrive an hour or two late, or simply stand someone up. He did not have to obey a curfew set by his "family," nor did he have to return "home" at set times for three meals a day.

When dealing with the elevator ghost earlier, he had tried hard to avoid making any unnecessary noise. Even so, the final commotion had caught the attention of the "coughing ghost" outside the residential building, who had been preparing to bury the female ghost. It had even scared the "coughing ghost" away.

That was no big deal, but Su Bai had never imagined that Feng Ling would rush straight to the tree to save someone because the "coughing ghost" had left.

After saving Feng Ling along the way, Su Bai had gone to Room 204 as planned. He and Feng Ling had arrived practically one after the other, with Su Bai merely walking a little faster and taking the elevator.

Perhaps it was precisely because the newcomers had arrived one after another that Ning Yan, who already disliked newcomers intensely, had grown even more impatient.

In short, since entering the Happiness Residential Complex, Su Bai had yet to visit his "aunt" in Room 402. Aside from knowing that she had never married and had no children, all he knew was that she had taken in more than a dozen stray cats.

When the elevator reached the fourth floor, Su Bai saw a bright, clean corridor much like those on the other floors.

Unlike the other floors, however, he heard cats meowing as soon as he stepped out of the elevator.

One cry followed another, some near, some far, some low, some high.

Over a hundred ghosts lived in the Happiness Residential Complex, which had only four residential buildings. Even if some apartments were vacant, there was absolutely no way there would be only one household on each floor. So after the cats had been meowing for a while, Su Bai heard someone pounding hard on the wall in Room 401 next door.

The resident of Room 401 was clearly ill-tempered and immensely strong. To Su Bai, the pounding coming from behind the door was thunderous.

But the resident's protest had no effect. The meowing did not stop. Instead, each wave of cries rose over the last, making even Su Bai's skin crawl.

"Playing their roles properly?" As he passed, Su Bai glanced at the door of Room 401. Although this neighbor clearly had a serious objection to the meowing, they did not come out of their apartment. The residents other than the one in Room 401 made no sound at all, as though they did not exist.

The doors of Rooms 401 and 402, like all the other doors in the residential building, were coated in clean white paint. There was no grime, not even any visible scratches, much less any New Year couplets or good-fortune characters pasted on them.

They were too clean, too bright, too white. It left the corridor feeling devoid of everyday life or human warmth.

But the Happiness Residential Complex had never been a place meant for humans to live in. Su Bai had no reason to dwell on it. He walked straight to the door of Room 402 and knocked.

"Meow-"

After he knocked, waves of meowing began rising and falling behind the door.

"Who is it? Is that you, Xiao Bai?" A woman's voice came from inside, giving no clue to her age. It sounded strange, like shattered glass and bricks glued back together. In any case, it was far stranger than the hoarse voice Su Bai deliberately put on.

"Aunt?" Although Su Bai's assigned role was her nephew, no matter how hard he tried, he still could not remember what this "aunt" looked like. Perhaps the Happiness Residential Complex's power was not strong enough yet.

"Come in. The door isn't shut all the way."

Once that voice finished speaking, Su Bai noticed that the door to Room 402 had already opened a crack when he knocked. He pushed it a little harder, and the white-painted door creaked open. Several gleaming eyes appeared in the darkness beyond it.

"Meow-meow."

A dense cluster of cats' eyes stared at Su Bai, looking all the more eerie and terrifying in the dark.

"Xiao Bai, thank you for coming to see me."

Creak-

His "aunt's" voice came from the other side. Su Bai opened the door all the way, letting the corridor's light spill into the dark apartment. Only then could he vaguely make out his "aunt's" living room. Cats of different colors lay on the sofa, the coffee table, the rug, and even the refrigerator beside the door. Their differently colored eyes stared unblinkingly at Su Bai as he stood in the doorway.

Su Bai was not frightened. He... actually quite liked cats.

He simply followed the creaking sound in the room and spotted a figure lying in a rocking chair beside the living room window.

That was probably Su Bai's "aunt."

"At last, someone has come to see me." The figure in the rocking chair wore a strange dress pieced together from fabrics of different colors. Even in the dark apartment, she wore a hat made from the same sort of patchwork cloth, swaying back and forth with the chair.

Perhaps she was deeply moved. Although his "aunt's" voice sounded fractured, there was even a sob in her tone.

"These cats have such big appetites. If no one else came, they really would have nothing left to eat."