Players assemble

Boss Shi really was a businessman. He recognized at a glance that Qin Manjiang was another unlucky soul headed for Xianyang Village.

"Hop in. Take my car. Otherwise, when those seven days are up, we won't even have a convenient way to escape."

Qin Manjiang thought about it. That made sense.

He looked the man over. At first glance, Boss Shi seemed a little scruffy, but on closer inspection, he actually had something of a scholar's air about him.

Boss Shi leaned over and opened the passenger door for Qin Manjiang.

"My name's Shi Lianshan. I deal in antiques. What about you?"

Qin Manjiang got into his car, hesitated, then said, "A... Abyss. My name's Qin Manjiang. I'm still a student."

"Haha, I knew it. You're even a little younger than my son. Don't take offense at me calling you a kid earlier."

Shi Lianshan spoke cheerfully.

"One look at that alias, and I knew the player couldn't be very old."

Now Qin Manjiang felt a little embarrassed.

He suddenly grew curious. Boss Shi's demeanor and mood were nothing like those of someone heading into a village full of vengeful ghosts and curses. He acted as though this were an ordinary trip. Wasn't he afraid?

Boss Shi seemed to notice his confusion. He handed over a chilled can of coffee and said, "It's early. Have something to perk you up. Once we enter that village, we'll have to stay for seven days. Might as well relax while we can."

"Thanks." Qin Manjiang took the coffee but didn't open it right away.

Boss Shi didn't mind. Instead, he said, "You probably don't know much about my line of work. Most antique deals happen in private. The stuff you can sell openly barely makes any money. That saying about going three years without a sale, then making enough from one sale to last three years? That's us."

He seemed quite eager to talk. "When I was young, I used to go around the countryside with other dealers, hunting for pieces. It wasn't swindling. We earned our money through judgment and nerve. After all, sometimes even we couldn't tell whether something was genuine. I've been conned by people who looked honest as could be. This one fellow treated a vase like some priceless treasure. I bought him dinner, and he even pretended to get drunk. Then he brought out the vase and started bawling, saying it dated back to the Southern Song, had been handed down for generations, and he couldn't bear to sell it. I bought that bullshit about drunks telling the truth and finally talked him into letting me have it."

"Later, I showed it to my mentor, and hey! The workmanship was pretty new. An artificial aging technique that had only come out the year before. Fucking brilliant!" It seemed to have happened many years ago, but Boss Shi still rattled on, recounting every detail. "So let me tell you, Qin: being poor, isolated, backward, uneducated, a country person, or a mountain dweller doesn't automatically make someone honest. In fact, the poorer and more remote the place, the more isolated the mountain village, the craftier the people and the stranger the customs."

Qin Manjiang nodded. He was from the countryside himself. Come to think of it... some of Lower River Village's customs could certainly be called strange.

"Where are the others?" Qin Manjiang glanced around but saw no one who looked like an outsider.

"Two aren't here yet, and two went into town to buy some supplies. We'll wait here." Boss Shi checked his phone. Just then, a car that looked expensive at a glance pulled up.

Beep, beep-

After two honks, the window rolled down. A woman wearing oversized sunglasses, with exquisite, elegant makeup, showed half her face as she looked at Boss Shi and Qin Manjiang.

"Are you...?"

She spoke first, her voice gentle and pleasant.

Boss Shi quickly raised a hand in greeting. "I'm Boss Shi. My real name is Shi Lianshan. Are you Pond Fish or So Annoying, miss?"

Something clicked for Qin Manjiang. So the two who had gone into town were Green Vine and Knife-and-Brush Clerk, while the two yet to arrive were Pond Fish and So Annoying.

What surprised him, though, was that Boss Shi apparently hadn't met Pond Fish or So Annoying either.

So Annoying was one of the top ten players, yet had never worked with him?

"I'm... Abyss. You can call me Qin Manjiang." Qin Manjiang greeted her too. Only now did he realize just how difficult it was to say his chosen alias out loud in real life.

"Ah... hello. I'm Pond Fish." The woman gave her alias in the Ghost Story Game as well.

"It's also my pen name... My real name is Liu Jingqing."

Despite the boss-lady image suggested by her luxury car and oversized sunglasses, Miss Pond Fish spoke softly throughout, and the fear and unease inside her were unmistakable.

Boss Shi's eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands. "When I saw the name Pond Fish, I wondered whether you were that Pond Fish. Wasn't one of your novels adapted into a TV series recently?"

Liu Jingqing nodded and forced a smile. "That was me."

Boss Shi was about to offer a few more compliments, but stopped when he saw her expression. "Well... that's wonderful. I didn't expect the game to choose you too..."

The mood immediately grew somber.

Indeed, wealth and power in the real world offered no protection against entities beyond material reality.

Back at the movie theater, Qin Manjiang had tried all the crosses, Guanyin pendants, jade Buddhas, and anything else supposedly capable of warding off evil or driving away ghosts that he had brought along. None of it had worked.

They had no choice but to obediently follow its rules.

"By the way, Miss Liu, your car won't make it into Xianyang Village. Take mine."

Boss Shi spoke up.

Liu Jingqing glanced at him and Qin Manjiang, then nodded. "Then... sorry for the trouble."

Boss Shi waved a hand. "No trouble at all. This car's made for rough roads, and it seats seven. There's room for extra supplies too."

At that, Boss Shi suddenly fell silent for a moment.

"I don't know what either of you has been through before. But in this ghost story, I hope we can work together sincerely and help one another. The only people in this world who can understand what we're facing right now are those of us trapped in the same game."

"Shi's right," a deep male voice called from nearby. The man wore a sports backpack and had a buzz cut and a fit physique. He was carrying quite a few things. Though clearly middle-aged, he looked full of energy. "Hello, everyone. I'm Knife-and-Brush Clerk, a history teacher who likes exercise. My real name's He Jian. Just call me He."

Without standing on ceremony, he opened the SUV's rear door and tossed everything inside. "Counting this one, this'll be my second time working with this guy."

He Jian gestured toward Shi Lianshan with his chin as he loaded the supplies. "We're already at a disadvantage. If we waste our energy scheming against each other instead of finding a way out, we're just asking to die. Survival supplies, information, fresh ideas-we can share all of those. Solving the ghost story, or rather, escaping it, is what matters most."

"Y... yes. We... should help each other." Another male voice spoke up. Only then did Qin Manjiang and Liu Jingqing notice a thin, small-framed young man following behind the tall He Jian.

He wore glasses and looked to be in his twenties. His posture was slightly hunched, and his voice trembled. He didn't seem very confident.

"I'm... Green Vine. Currently unemployed... My real name is... Chen Ping."

After a brief conversation, Qin Manjiang felt a little more reassured.

At least so far, he hadn't encountered any strange characters in his first multiplayer game. Everyone was worried about the long seven days ahead.

But So Annoying still hadn't appeared.

"What's going on? Still not here... Has anyone dealt with So Annoying before?" Shi Lianshan asked.

Everyone shook their heads. For Qin Manjiang, this was even his first time playing the Ghost Story Game with anyone else.

"This is bad... We can't keep waiting. The drive alone takes more than half a day. Did something happen to our tenth-ranked player on the way?" Shi Lianshan muttered.

"I think... w... we should go ahead. If we're late... we'll die on the spot..." Chen Ping said quietly.

But those words sparked a thought in Qin Manjiang.

He turned to Shi Lianshan in the driver's seat and said, "I think we can leave too. The tenth-ranked player probably has a plan."

Shi Lianshan checked the rearview mirror. Everyone gave him a look of confirmation, so he nodded.

"All right, let's go!"

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(End of chapter)