Offerings

Xu Le slowly lowered the musket. Despite his casual words, his trembling fingers, which he could find nowhere to put, betrayed something of how he felt.

Looking at the mess of red and white before him, Xu Le took a deep breath.

"Was that it?"

After a while, he muttered to himself again.

"That was it."

Sitting on the now-creaking bed boards, Xu Le felt his trousers sticking to his backside. It was deeply uncomfortable.

Thoughts gradually began to take shape in his blank mind. Now that he had killed the first anomaly of his life, should he write some sort of postbattle report?

After a moment's thought, he used charcoal to write on the bed boards:

"I suppose I have won. Whichever way I look at it, Old Zhou is dead. I wanted to light myself a cigarette, only to discover that I had none, nor did I know how to smoke. This sorrow came without cause. Gazing forlornly at Old Zhou beneath my feet, I suppose I was the one who killed him. I have roughly two thoughts: one is that I do not want to die here, and the other is also that I do not want to die here."

At this point, the corner of Xu Le's mouth twitched. Did that count as a postbattle report?

When would he finally kick this terrible habit of writing Lu Xun-style prose?

He glanced at Old Zhou's corpse again and silently wiped away the imitation prose.

Deep down, he probably felt a little guilty toward Old Zhou.

Xu Le narrowed his eyes.

"One more left!"

After giving his clothes a quick cleaning, Xu Le began inspecting the musket.

The fact that it had blown a walking corpse's head apart with a single shot was proof enough of its power.

He loaded a round bullet and worked the bolt again.

With everything done, Xu Le felt a little more confident now that he had experience killing an enemy.

He forced himself to settle down and began searching for that hot, restless sensation from before.

The imagery of having eaten too many mushrooms appeared before his eyes again.

This time, however, there were no strange text prompts.

There was no further mention of the anomaly that would appear at midnight, either.

Xu Le was puzzled. He remembered those words perfectly well.

The warnings about the dilapidated house and an anomaly appearing at midnight had been perfectly clear.

Judging by what had happened before, there should have been a new prompt by now.

Why was there still no response?

Xu Le had no clock. To predict when the anomaly would appear, he could only count silently to keep time, trying to match the approaching midnight as closely as possible.

He gripped the musket, ready to face the second anomaly he might encounter.

298, 299, 300...

Xu Le: ?

He had already counted to 300, and he had not been counting quickly. Surely it should have been past midnight by now, so why hadn't the anomaly appeared?

Hmm, I suppose it must be afraid...

No, no, no. Could I please not lose my mind right now?

Xu Le did not let his guard down. He held his gun up and counted another 600.

Only when his arms ached and his sweat had soaked all the charcoal dust on his hands into a sticky paste did he helplessly lower the gun.

Exhaustion left him mentally drained, but he dared not relax.

"Is there really nothing else?"

Xu Le still did not release the gun. A weapon was his only real guarantee of safety.

He would not act like those idiots in television dramas, casually tossing their weapons on the ground for a little food and water.

Xu Le looked at the biscuits and water he had set aside and licked his lips, which had become dry and cracked from dehydration.

"That's all well and good... but I'm really thirsty."

He shifted, picked up the water bottle, and struggled to unscrew the cap with one hand.

Then, keeping one eye on what lay ahead, he gulped down several large mouthfuls.

Whew!

His back broke out in another heavy sweat. Xu Le knew this was his body's natural stress response to replenishing fluids in a short time. It was normal.

He steadied his breathing and cradled the musket in his arms.

Xu Le began eating the biscuits beside him, along with the flattened bread.

The biscuits tasted pretty good. They were not particularly refined, but their scallion flavor made the starving Xu Le's mouth water.

He ate more than a dozen in succession, nearly finishing the entire packet of compressed biscuits before slowly breathing a sigh of relief.

Creak!

A faint sound at the doorway sent Xu Le straight to his feet with the gun in his arms, but what appeared there was only an ordinary rat.

The sound had merely come from it stepping on a small wooden board.

Even a living creature like a rat had appeared, and the strange text had offered no further prompts.

Xu Le's taut nerves finally began to ease.

His eyelids were heavy, but he could not sleep now. That would be far too dangerous.

Forcing his body to keep going, Xu Le began adding some damp firewood.

The smell of mildew spread through the room, but Xu Le found himself enjoying it. Perhaps this was what being alive felt like.

Xu Le watched the flickering flames, his expression peaceful.

Until... creak!

Another rat appeared in the doorway, seemingly in the same spot.

Still tense, Xu Le raised his head and glanced over with the gun in his arms. Only after confirming that nothing was wrong did he return his attention to the food in his hands.

"Whew. I'm too jumpy."

A long time passed, and Xu Le's anxiety gradually subsided.

He estimated that nearly ten minutes had gone by.

Apart from the air becoming more stifling than before, nothing else had changed.

Xu Le figured the stuffiness probably came from sitting too close to the fire.

He stood and shook his clothes, letting the biscuit crumbs fall to the floor.

Then he sat back down on the floor, cradled his gun, and hummed a tune like an old soldier who had never made it home:

"The evening stars are like your eyes, killing and setting fires. You needn't say a word; the wild wind unsettles me..."

Creak!

The tune he had only just begun humming was interrupted by the uninvited guest appearing again.

The same doorway, the same spot, the same rat.

Xu Le lowered his head, his hair hiding his eyes. After a while, he looked up again.

Along with confusion, there was now suspicion in his eyes.

A rat?

The same rat! The same size, the same spot, the same sound.

When Xu Le looked back at that spot, the rat was already gone.

The wind blew in again, stirring the fire before Xu Le and drying the sweat on his body.

Xu Le, who had felt unbearably hot all this time, suddenly felt a chill.

He stared outside the house. It was pitch-black; he could see nothing.

Yet he kept feeling as though something had appeared within that darkness.

Xu Le tightened his grip on the musket, but his heartbeat and breathing had already begun to quicken unnaturally.

Faster and faster, more and more frantic!

Hah! Hah!

As time passed, breathing became increasingly difficult. Xu Le gasped for air, but even that did nothing to ease the suffocating sensation.

He raised the gun and looked around, but there was nothing there.

He realized something was wrong, yet had no idea how to save himself.

Until the rat that kept reappearing showed up in the doorway once more.

Bang!

Xu Le fired without hesitation, as though this was his last chance.

He did not know whether he had hit the rat. The suffocation had already begun to blur his vision.

After the shot, the air went still for a moment, and the flames before him finally began to dance again.

[The current house is dilapidated and unsealed. A level 1 anomaly will appear in 3 seconds, at midnight.]

Along with the text came that accented whisper.

[You're going to die! Want me to help? But you have no offering.]

Xu Le suddenly sucked in a breath. His blurred vision gradually cleared, and the suffocating sensation faded with it.

Xu Le raised the gun toward the doorway, then reloaded and worked the bolt in a slight panic.

Nothing happened.

There was no rat, no suffocation, and no more chill.

Xu Le breathed a sigh of relief and tried to wipe his sweat with his sleeve, only to discover that his arm felt somewhat heavy.

Then he remembered that indistinct whisper from earlier.

You're going to die?

Thinking of those words, Xu Le seemed to sense something and abruptly looked to his right.

Old Zhou!

An Old Zhou stood there, grinning at him.

Bang!

Xu Le raised his hand and fired again, but when the bullet passed through Old Zhou's body, it produced only spreading ripples, as though it had passed through an invisible surface of water.

Old Zhou walked toward Xu Le with a smile. At this distance, there was no time to reload.

Besides, even if he reloaded, it would do nothing.

In his panic, everything around Xu Le began to twist.

[Fear is a delicacy all anomalies savor. Your fear will attract them.]

[Red Moon Calamity countdown: 1 day, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 56 seconds]

[You really are going to die! What a pity.]

The prompts, the text, and the whispers threw all of Xu Le's senses into chaos.

As Old Zhou approached, the suffocating sensation grew stronger.

Xu Le's face had already turned a deep purple. He opened his mouth wide but could draw in no air.

He watched Old Zhou's figure pass through the fire without the slightest resistance.

Xu Le now understood. This second anomaly had no physical body at all!

How was he supposed to kill something without a body?

An anomaly like this was completely beyond his ability to handle.

He was going to die!

Death was closing in, and the burning heat grew ever more intense. His fear and anger seemed to vanish all at once.

His mind briefly found a moment of clarity. Then he shouted:

"I have an offering! Help me!"