Volume 8: The Days of the Ghost Marriage
Cooperation
So you’re actually a chuuni sadist?
Shen Maomao was like a hooligan who made a living by robbing, and Potato Chip was the pitiful passerby whose home was beaten and house was plundered1 by her.
“Doing this… aren’t you afraid of retribution?!” Potato Chip said, choking back sobs.
The robbers numbered three, a team lineup she could not challenge. She trembled in fear, thinking that a merciless fist would land on her at any second. She could only curl her body into a ball as much as possible, protecting her head with her hands.
However, after waiting for a long time, the anticipated pain never came. All she got was a remark from Shen Maomao: “What retribution? You haven’t even faced retribution, so how could it be our turn?”
Even though she was still in a sack and fully clothed, in that instant, Potato Chip felt a sense of shame as if she had been stripped naked and thrown on the ground.
She said, with a stern appearance but timid inside, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Whatever you want to do to me, just say it. There’s no need for all this flashy nonsense…”
Shen Maomao said: “We’re not going to do anything to you. It’s just that we sisters wanted to ask you about something…”
Lou Jingmo covered her face—this scene was simply unwatchable2. Shen Maomao was like a little delinquent girl3 who had forgotten how to love, and she even seemed quite practiced at it.
Potato Chip asked: “Is this how you ask about things?”
Shen Maomao replied: “Isn’t this because we’re afraid you’ll run? What are you fidgeting for? Don’t even think about any little tricks. Do you think your little tricks are faster, or the speed at which we could kill you is faster?”
Potato Chip fell silent. The hand squirming under the sack stopped. After a long moment, she said: “What do you want to ask?”
“Did you kill Milk Tea?” Shen Maomao immediately shot back.
The person in the sack didn’t react for a long time.
Shen Maomao said ominously: “Are you praying?”
Potato Chip: “I don’t know why you’re trying to frame me like this. I’m also very sad about Milk Tea’s death, but I can no longer remember how she died… Perhaps you have some misunderstanding about me…”
“So it was a misunderstanding?” Shen Maomao wasn’t buying it at all. “But I’m sorry, I’ve always followed the principle of ‘better to kill the wrong person than to let one go’4…”
“If you insist on thinking that way…” Before she could finish her sentence, Potato Chip, who had been lying obediently on the floor, suddenly erupted. The weapon in her hand easily slashed through the sack, and she then launched an attack on Shen Maomao.
Lou Jingmo’s pupils shrank. Just as she was about to intervene and save her, she saw Shen Maomao lift her right leg and kick Potato Chip, sending her sliding a fair distance before she slammed hard into the wall.
Shen Maomao elegantly retracted her leg, patted the hem of her skirt, and said nonchalantly: “In this game, I have yet to be afraid of anyone.”
For a fleeting moment, Lou Jingmo truly thought Shen Maomao was very cool5. But she quickly recalled those times Shen Maomao had the appearance of fart rolling and urine flowing from being scared6, and she hurriedly pushed that thought back into the depths of her mind.
Potato Chip clutched her stomach, coughing continuously. After a long moment, she spoke, her upper breath not connecting to her lower breath7: “Are you… trying to coerce a confession by beating8? I don’t remember anything at all. You suspect me, but I could just as well suspect you of killing Milk Tea. In that case, can’t I do this to you too?”
“If you have the ability to do so.”
Potato Chip fell silent again.
Lou Jingmo planted her feet on the floor and leaned her rear against the communal sleeping platform. Her deep eyes stared at her without blinking, as if she had already seen through everything.
Potato Chip couldn’t help but shrink back, but she already had no path of retreat.
This woman was clearly ordinary in every aspect, yet she made her feel inexplicably flustered…
Lou Jingmo, however, had no intention of making things difficult for her. She simply said: “You know that Milk Tea has already become a ghost, don’t you?”
Potato Chip lowered her gaze, looked at the empty space before her, and continued to remain silent.
Lou Jingmo paid no mind to her reaction and continued: “The Shao Manor has eight wells, and a female ghost lives in each one. You pushed Milk Tea into a well, but you never expected that she would become the ghost in the eighth well.”
Potato Chip’s expression was blank.
“So you and Su Han went to drink the water from the northernmost well, because you knew that way, Milk Tea couldn’t do anything to you. Then you got Su Han drunk and abandoned her, but she wasn’t dragged down by the ghost in the well as you had wished…”
“You said… what was your reason for doing this? If you had only harmed your teammate, one could say it was because you had a grudge in real life. But then you started to sabotage Su Han…” At this point, Lou Jingmo laughed mockingly. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen a Cleaner like you. You have the guts to harm people, yet you’re afraid they’ll become ghosts after death and take revenge on you, so you only dare to strike from the shadows, all sneaky and furtive.”
Potato Chip’s pupils trembled violently. With a hard beak like a dead duck’s9, she said: “I don’t understand anything you’re saying. I did have a grudge against that biaozi10… or rather, I hate women like you who do whatever you want just because you have a pretty face!”
Shen Maomao immediately looked at Lou Jingmo.
Lou Jingmo, with her customized face11, was completely unafraid: “Why are you looking at me? You’d believe any random excuse she comes up with?”
Shen Maomao turned her head to look at Su Han.
Su Han: “You should look at yourself first.”
Lou Jingmo walked step by step to Potato Chip, bent her knees, and squatted in front of her. She said: “I can’t guarantee for the others, but with me here, you can forget about killing all the players in this instance. If I were you, I would choose to be a wise person and protect myself, and make a deal with us.”
A flicker of light passed through Potato Chip’s eyes.
Lou Jingmo said: “You have one night to think it over. Tomorrow morning, you either confess everything yourself, or we’ll send you out of the game early.” After speaking, she turned and walked away. With the speed of three down, five divided by two12, she stripped off her outer clothes and lay down on the bed, instantly losing all of her expert-like aura.
Shen Maomao’s face was full of exasperation: “Can’t you pay a little more attention to your image?”
Lou Jingmo lifted her own blanket and patted the empty space underneath.
Shen Maomao glanced at Su Han.
Su Han was staring intently at the wall, not paying them any attention.
She felt an inexplicable happiness, a joy that felt like it was about to bubble over. Without a second word, she took off her clothes and slipped into her embrace.
The two of them held each other tightly, drawing warmth from one another. The room fell quiet, and Su Han’s breathing also became slightly heavy.
Outside the window, a sinister wind howled. The sound of crying gradually drowned out the wind, and a sound like the snoring of a wild beast could be faintly heard mixed within it. Sitting on the floor, Potato Chip shivered, as if she had thought of some terrible scene. She quickly scrambled up from the floor and reached for the oil lamp on the windowsill.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Lou Jingmo asked in a cold voice.
Potato Chip’s hand trembled, but she quickly composed herself and gripped the oil lamp tightly. “No need to think anymore. If you want to survive, none of you should sleep tonight…”
Shen Maomao sat up: “What do you mean?”
Potato Chip took a deep breath: “The lamp cannot go out tonight. I’m also very fuzzy on the specific details, but an incident will definitely occur in the second half of the night.”
That an incident would occur was not surprising at all—after all, the instance had progressed this far. If it didn’t show its power now, it would have no choice but to bid them a fond farewell.
What surprised her was Potato Chip’s attitude. How did she come around so quickly? They hadn’t even done much yet, and she had already surrendered?
Potato Chip carefully protected the oil lamp and sat in front of her own bedding. Her feet were on the floor, her shoes still on. She said ominously: “Actually, this is where I completed my class change.”
Perhaps it was because the atmosphere was just right, or perhaps these matters had been bottled up inside her for too long, but she couldn’t help but open up and pour out her heart to two strangers who had met like duckweed on water13—
“I don’t like her one bit. I didn’t want to take care of this useless person who only ever dragged me down. Even without the opportunity of the class change, I would have found a chance to kill her.” Potato Chip’s voice was actually very pleasant. She used the gentlest tone to speak the most venomous words, yet her eyes held a liberated smile.
She lowered her head, looking at the flickering lamplight by her hand. She reached out, moving closer to the flame to feel the burning pain. “Ever since we were little, I always gave way to her. Because I wasn’t as pretty as her, couldn’t act cute like her, and wasn’t as good at pleasing people as her. So I was only fit to carry her shoes, to be her servant.”
“I was clearly more outstanding than her, more popular than her, but it was as if they couldn’t see it… Why does someone like her receive so much affection? The better you are to her, the more she takes it for granted. The more you indulge her, ahe more she demeans you…”
“Many times, I would have hallucinations. She would be covered in blood, lying in a pool of it, her lifeless face frozen in terror and pain. Then my perspective would shift, and I would see myself in front of a mirror, holding a knife… And then I would feel an immense satisfaction…”
“But I never dared to do anything… I only dared to imagine this scene in my head, like the most useless, pitiful wretch, only able to hug my head and cry in my room. Speaking of which, I have to thank the game. If it weren’t for the game, I would never have had such an opportunity.”
“This was her third game, not my game at all. If it weren’t for her crocodile tears, I wouldn’t have had to enter instances with such continuous high intensity… But this time was different. As soon as I entered, I… bzt… bzt… bzzt…“
As she spoke to this point, although her mouth was clearly moving and forming words, the two of them could only hear a burst of static in their ears, like a glitching game cartridge or a microphone with poor noise cancellation.
Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo exchanged a look. It seemed that the method of changing one’s class to a Cleaner was meant to be kept secret from other players in the game.
Potato Chip, completely unaware, continued speaking: “For the first two games, she relied on me to survive. With the foundation of those first two games, she naturally would never have thought I would do anything to her. I originally had a better way to make her die so that gods wouldn’t know and ghosts wouldn’t perceive it14… but I just couldn’t wait any longer…”
A demon lived in her heart, and she wanted nothing more than to release this demon with her own hands, to let it fulfill her wishes. She was willing to offer her own soul for it…
“When she was in the well, screaming for help, crying and begging for my forgiveness, saying she was willing to kowtow15 and apologize to me… I had never experienced such joy… It was as if the screaming cracks inside my body were finally filled. I wouldn’t have even cared if I had died right there in the next moment…”
“I just wanted her to see who killed her, who brought her this terror. She would never realize her own mistakes, but she would also never have the chance to make the same mistakes again…”
Shen Maomao summarized: “So you’re actually a chuuni sadist?”
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