Vroom!
The car growled, racing along like the wind.
Its headlights lit the road ahead, revealing vehicles parked haphazardly along it.
The entire street seemed asleep in the darkness. Only Su Wu drove through the city's dreams, battling the supernatural.
One second before the red lanterns rose into the sky, he steered around another bend.
The beams illuminated the RT-Mart sign at the intersection, sweeping over a figure holding something in their arms.
A figure?
Su Wu slowed the car and whipped his head around.
Just then, the red lanterns rose into the sky, their crimson light blanketing the entire street.
In the red glow, he saw a girl in pajamas at the intersection. Holding something he couldn't identify, she crossed with her head bowed and her shoulders trembling.
Long black hair hid her face, and her slippers slapped against the pavement.
The crimson light shone on her, casting a long shadow behind her. Yet she remained unharmed and soon crossed the intersection.
The red light streamed through the car window and fell on Su Wu's shoulder.
The Red Candle on the dashboard began burning fiercely. In the space of a single breath, the fifteen-centimeter candle vanished in a wisp of smoke!
Then Su Wu's head floated up like a balloon, swaying back and forth inside the sealed car.
"A candle lit with fire from the temple can ward off the Lantern Fiend's encroachment. But only for a single breath..."
"If the red lanterns haven't fallen after that breath, I could still be killed..."
"This time, the Lantern Fiend killed me, but not that girl?"
"Or-"
Su Wu's vision went black.
"You died." "This simulation has ended." "Rating: D+. Comments: Though you learned to use a vehicle and even employed a little trick to delay your death, you ultimately failed to escape its shadow. Rewards: D+ base rating reward: 5 origin jade; Safe house discovered: +10 origin jade. Wallet balance: 667 + 15 = 682 origin jade."
Having his head plucked off by the Lantern Fiend caused no pain at all.
Su Wu quickly recovered from his disorientation. Thinking about the girl who had crossed the intersection, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about her.
With wrecked cars and headless corpses everywhere, anyone would find the sudden appearance of a girl like that suspicious.
And was she blind? Couldn't she see the headless corpses scattered everywhere?
Instead of finding somewhere to hide, she actually dared to wander the streets?
Also, what was she holding?
From his hurried glimpse, it had seemed like some kind of brightly colored pet-a cat or dog wearing colorful clothes?
The Lantern Fiend had killed him, yet hadn't killed the girl along with him.
Had the Lantern Fiend simply happened to choose him, or did she have a way to avoid being chosen?
Questions filled Su Wu's mind.
He immediately started another simulation.
He checked the notebook and read through the messages on his phone.
He used a candle to carry the flame from the Little Temple.
When the neon lights flickered again, he left the Little Temple and climbed into the driver's seat of the sedan outside the restaurant.
Su Wu set a row of candles on the dashboard.
Only the first candle was burning. The others hadn't been lit yet.
One candle could ward off the Lantern Fiend for a single breath. Ten candles could extend that to ten breaths.
Sometimes, ten breaths were enough to turn things around!
He started the car, sped onto the road, and rounded the bend along his original route.
Keeping his speed under control, he reached the intersection with the RT-Mart supermarket diagonally opposite at roughly the same time as before.
The headlights swept across the intersection, and Su Wu saw the girl in pajamas.
The neon lights abruptly went dark. There was no telling when the red lanterns would rise into the sky.
Su Wu grabbed all the candles from the dashboard, pushed open the door, and hurried toward the girl. "Hey! It's dangerous here. Why are you wandering around in the street?"
The girl lifted her bowed head, revealing a small, unadorned face beneath her long hair.
Her features were gentle, and her eyes were red. Facing Su Wu from across the road, she faltered, "I..."
The darkness vanished in an instant as the red lanterns rose.
Crimson light spilled over the street.
It revealed the "thing" in the girl's arms-neither the pet cat or dog Su Wu had imagined, nor some valuable possession.
It was a brightly colored, lively rooster.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo-"
The rooster crowed.
The instant the red lanterns rose, the candle in Su Wu's hand began burning fiercely!
His heart pounded. With no time to ponder the bizarre pairing of girl and rooster, he pulled out candle after candle, passing the flame from each nearly spent candle to the next.
In those few breaths, he managed to ask, "Don't you know those red lanterns in the sky make people's heads fall off?!"
The girl nodded.
She was about to speak, but all the candles in Su Wu's hands had burned away.
Under her terrified gaze, Su Wu's head detached from his neck and rose straight into the sky. "Why am I the one dying again?
"Talk faster next time!"
Before his vision went completely black, Su Wu saw that the girl's head was still sitting securely on her neck.
Even though he had become part of the Lantern Fiend right before her eyes, her head hadn't been plucked off along with his!
That went against the Lantern Fiend's rules for killing!
Whenever a living person saw someone else's head float up and turn into a red lantern, their own head would detach from their neck as well!
There really was something wrong with her!
"One more time!"
Beneath the glow of the red lanterns.
Su Wu held a fiercely burning candle, continually passing its flame to the next as he questioned the girl. "It's dangerous here!
"Don't you know those red lanterns in the sky make people's heads fall off?"
The girl raised her head and looked at him timidly. She gave a slight nod, then shook her head.
"What does that mean?" The candles in Su Wu's hands were almost gone.
Utterly exasperated, he stood in the middle of the road and stared at her. "You need to talk to people more! What does nodding and then shaking your head mean? We're really short on time here!"
Pressed for time, he spoke as fast as a machine gun fired, yet every word remained clear.
"I know... I saw the heads of people around me float up."
Tears welled in the girl's eyes. Under Su Wu's rapid-fire barrage of words, she grew nervous too and spoke a little faster. "But I didn't know it was because of the red lanterns."
The candles burned out.
Su Wu's head floated up. "You should've said so sooner! Why do I have to die every time I see you?!"
The girl blinked, frightened and bewildered.
Clearly, she couldn't understand how someone could die "every time."
The candles in his backpack were all gone.
Su Wu hesitated, then prepared to run a simulation with only the Imperial Bell.
Across several simulations, every time he faced the girl, his head had floated up while she remained unharmed. The Lantern Fiend's random selection of victims could no longer explain this.
The girl had also witnessed the heads of people around her float up and turn into red lanterns.
That meant she had experienced this before he arrived.
Yet she still hadn't died.
What was the reason?
Su Wu had a vague idea of the answer.
Before you continue