CH 7

007 – Comparisons

※·※「someone said, there’s a ‘scene’ in the author’s notes. 」

He still had some questions, but having survived that danger with only a scare and no actual harm, Xuanyuan Aoyu didn’t really cling onto the unimportant things. After taking a sip of water to calm down and get comfortable, everyone then finally turned their attention to the photograph in Su Er’s pocket.

Other than Zhang He, no one knew the origins of the photograph. Su Er explained it simply and Li Li said with admiration, “Is this one of those ‘tools’ mentioned in the booklet?”

Su Er said, “It’s hard to say if it’s life-saving or life-taking.”

Li Li reacted. “It cannot be controlled?”

Su Er nodded.

The envy in her gaze at once lessened — who knew if a ghost that could create illusions would turn on the one holding it. Li Li glanced at Xuanyuan Aoyu. “In another fifteen minutes, it’d be time to tell a story again.”

The topic turned heavy at once.

Xuanyuan Aoyu asked, “Can we try and throw it out again?”

Su Er said, “We caught it off guard before but as he didn’t hear a story this morning, he’s still awake.”

To do this to the little monster while he was still awake was indeed rather risky.

This time it was Zhang He’s turn to tell a story. His heart clenched. “If it really isn’t possible, how about we poison it then throw it out!”

Li Li asked, “Where does the poison come from? And how do we feed him?”

He didn’t even count as a real person, and they hadn’t actually seen the kid drink, or need to make use of the washroom.

“I see that there’s some rat pesticides in the corner.” Zhang He gritted his teeth. “Don’t forget that he eats raw meat. Worst come to worse, I’ll cut off some of mine.”

Cutting off some flesh to save one’s life was worth it.

Li Li didn’t want to douse his enthusiasm, but after some hesitation still asked, “Would pesticide work?”

Zhang He’s gaze went frigid. “Ghosts usually aren’t corporeal, but he still has a body. We can try.”

They couldn’t just sit and wait.

“Interrupting you guys.” Su Er, who was for once not speaking that much, pointed at the bed. “I think he can hear our discussions.”

“…”

Everyone turned around stiffly. Based on the age, the child appeared really young and even had to listen to bedtime stories, causing them to subconsciously fail to consider the other’s intelligence. At the moment the child laid on the guardrail-less cot, its head leaning against the side of the bed, neck twisted in a strange angle as if it was hung there, its dark eyes staring straight at them.

Zhang He’s voice quivered. “He really seemed to be able to understand!”

“When you talk bad about someone you really must look over your shoulder to check if the person in question is there.” Su Er said seriously, “Or it’d turn out like this — how awkward.”

Zhang He sucked in a deep breath. “It might be bearing a grudge against me.”

Su Er asked in return, “You can live if it didn’t bear a grudge against you?”

“…” There’s some truth to that.

Su Er said, “Personally, I feel that if we need to be careful but we also cannot treat the ghosts as if they were emperors. If we kept being so cautious wouldn’t we die of aggrieved indignation?”

Zhang He went silent for a moment, accepting a portion of the other’s viewpoint.

It’s true that they’ve already figured out the rules for death. Now, they only had to find the story the child really wanted to hear. As for what attitude they displayed, it wouldn’t affect whether they died or not.

Su Er said, “How about you try and get braver? You have to tell a story anyways, why not tell ‘Papa, please throw me one more time’?”

At once Zhang He could feel the ‘light’ piercing into his back as if the child had already used its gaze to slice up himself and Su Er a few thousand times. At once he waved his hands, rejecting this suggestion of trying to die.

Su Er didn’t care at all. If someday he really ran was at the end of the line, even if the difference between their levels of capabilities were too different, he’d tear a strand of hair off his killer even if he had to die doing so.

“We’ve still got some time.” He said, “Take me to go see that urn.”

The attic had been sealed away for a long time. The window was locked tightly, and the smell of decaying wood was strong within it. The last time Su Er came here his attention was on the books and hadn’t noticed that there was an urn.

Xuanyuan Aoyu pointed at the cabinet by the window with some lingering fear. “Right there.” After saying that his eyes widened. “I remember that before I lost my memories, I had dropped the urn on the floor.”

But at the moment it was standing there steadily.

With the previous incident fresh in mind, Su Er avoided directly coming into contact, taking out the photograph to ask the woman in it, “Who’s hiding in the urn?”

The woman said, “Closer, I cannot see it clearly.”

Su Er took a step back instead, tightening his grip on a corner of the photo as a warning as he said, “Don’t try and play tricks.”

Seeing that she couldn’t trick him, the woman could only continue to wait patiently for the moment. At first she had originally planned to get the ghost in the urn to work with her to harm Su Er, but after seeing it clearly she said with surprise, “How could it be her?”

“Who?”

“My old classmate.”

Before Su Er could ask, the woman first started talking to herself. “Impossible, she’s the most devout of us all, she should have been chosen to serve the deity personally!”

“Cults really do harm people quite seriously,” Zhang He mumbled from behind.

“What do you know!” The woman was angered, and the moment their eyes met Zhang He felt his head getting heavier, as if what was in front of him was not a dark, dim attic, and was instead a house that could bring one the safe feeling of a home. The warm and comfortable bed was a mere breath away, and the moment he laid down he could end all the nightmares.

A mere step away from endless enjoyment, a sharp wail sounded by his ears.

Zhang He was so rattled his head hurt, the world in front of his eyes turning and tossing and changing. “I, this…”

Su Er said, “You’ve been bewitched.”

Zhang He said, “You saved my life.”

It seemed that not everyone was able to go up against a ghost.

“It’s not me.” Su Er shook his head, pointing across form him. “Him.”

Seeing the child’s dried out face so suddenly startled Zhang He.

Just now, with everyone gathered so close, Su Er couldn’t just use the taser so he could only find another way out.

“Tracking the time it’s about time the child cried.” He said, “So we worked together to carry you downstairs.”

The Li Li beside him was just as relieved. “I didn’t expect that his cries really could break through an illusion.”

Su Er said, “What a pity that we couldn’t bring in any communication devices, or else we could recycle some trash and record it, just in case.”

“…” Anyway, Li Li daren’t look at the child’s current expression.

Zhang He said hoarsely, “The urn…”

“We can talk about it in a while.” Su Er said, “The important point is, he’s crying.”

Zhang He stilled. To finally see the light at the end of the tunnel only to run into another danger, is there a more exciting life than this? The saliva in his mouth seemed to be drying up. Zhang He looked at the child that wouldn’t stop crying and slowly opened his mouth, but couldn’t say anything.

He’d never want to touch another bedtime story for the rest of his life!

“I’ll do it.” Seeing that the other was so hesitant, Su Er suddenly said.

Zhang He looked shocked.

Su Er walked up. As the lack of a guardrail caused one to lose a sense of safety, he stopped a metre away and, after thinking about it, slowly started to say:

“Very, very long ago, there was a couple. The woman was as beautiful as a flower. How beautiful was she… legend has it that her skin was smooth as silk and her looks resembled Xishi*, and when she looked at people she appeared shy, but it barely concealed her seductiveness. She kept the household running well while the husband worked hard outside, the two of them struggling through their lives. Until one day, the husband found his wife cheating on him and even caught them in the act, then was injured by the interloper. The woman was forced to take care of the heavily injured and bedridden husband… afterwards, on another day as dark as today, with the hopefulness for a better life, she said to her husband, ‘da-lang*, drink your medicine.’”

[*t/l’s notes:

[1] legend has xishi as one of the most beautiful ladies, ever, featured in the story of ‘dong shi and xi shi’

[2] to those familiar with japanese works it’s like ‘dairo’, a pretty common peasant name in the past]

“…”

A classic story could always bring different feelings to different people.

For a moment, the child wasn’t sure whether or not it should cry. Someone did die in the story, so it could be forcibly considered scary. After long hesitation and deliberation, it finally still closed its eyes, albeit very reluctantly.

Su Er turned his head around to say to his teammates, “If one is poisoned to death by a beauty, they’d still keep an entire corpse. It’d at least be pretty dignified.”

Zhang He looked at him complicatedly. No wonder he spent so many words describing how beautiful the girl was.

Xuanyuan Aoyu was more realistic. “Do you want to throw the child out now?”

Su Er implicitly lectured him, “Violence isn’t always the answer.”

“…”

Su Er coughed lightly. “Yesterday I got lucky, if we threw him out today it might not go as smoothly.”

Li Li worriedly said, “Then what do we do? We can’t exactly wait for nightfall when the female ghost would arrive to poison you to death.”

Su Er stared at the child pretending to sleep and said in a low voice, “I have some idea as to what the actual story he wants to hear is, but I need to confirm it.”

Zhang He said, “Whatever the case is, thank you.”

The other really could have just stayed a bystander.

“Seek for riches in hazards.” Su Er said, “After we clear this our scores would be calculated, helping a teammate might be a scoring point.”

Even if it wasn’t, he’d been on stage the most, so naturally he should be taken care of more.

“…” His gratitude had risen like the tide, and fallen like the tide.

Seeing this from the side, Xuanyuan Aoyu couldn’t help shaking his head. It’s hard to imagine how he’d been so touched by this teammateship that he could break the illusion.

Li Li came to mediate. “How about we think of how to leave first?”

If they don’t get out of here before midnight, they’d have to face another round of threat to their survival.

Seeing the extra urn on the table, Zhang He predicted that Su Er’s suspicion was related to this item.

“The soul in here belongs to the old classmate that had pulled the female host into the cult.” Su Er said with ridicule, “But it’s very weak at the moment, currently ready to dissipate at any moment.”

Zhang He was this close to clapping his hands and cheering. Recalling the results of angering the ghosts, he immediately put on a serious face and said, “Aren’t ghosts all very strong?”

“A small portion of it had been swallowed by that little monster and it only got away by hiding in the urn.”

Zhang He then completely gave up the idea of tossing the child out.

Su Er said, “That day, there was a mass suicide in this villa. The female owner and one of the cultists were trapped in this villa, unable to be dissipated. What about the others?”

Zhang He abruptly seemed to understand something and suddenly had a pretty nasty guess. He looked abruptly towards the child on the bed, swallowed some saliva and said, “… all in him?”

Su Er pondered, “The game lasts for seven days. By exceeding the limit one might die, though there are of course many ways to die.”

It couldn’t be that they’d just stand there on the spot, their heads explode like fireworks and that’s it — end of story.

“The most likely possibility is being killed by this child.” Su Er said, “I guess that there are a lot of ghosts swallowing each other within him, that’s why he’s this weak.”

Since ancient times plenty of people raised gu*. When only the most powerful ferocious ghost was left, it was the day for them to die.

[*t/l’s notes: 蠱, a legendary venemous insect-like organism; it’s said that the more powerful ones were to be raised by placing a lot of these ‘gu’s together and having them all fight each other to the death and cannibalise the weaker ones until only one, the strongest and most powerful, is left]

According to his observations, as time passed, the child took longer and longer to fall asleep, and the nails on its foot grew longer and turned blacker with time.

From his pocket came the woman’s cursing, insisting that he was making all of this up, convinced that her companions had already been chosen to be the deity’s servants.

Su Er walked over to the child’s bedside, tugged at the quilt under the child, causing everyone’s hearts to tremble with fright, afraid that the child would be startled awake. But then they thought again — if it was faking its sleep, then where would the ‘startled’ awake’ come from?

The spots of blood had splattered in all directions, left behind by the child eating itself. Su Er took out the photograph. Zhang He had been caught off guard by the female ghost before and backed up reflexively.

Humans instinctively turn their heads away from fresh blood, unsettled by it, but the woman in the photo saw at one glance the two twisted ‘help’ written in the blood.

Su Er said, “It’s not chance that you survived.” He pointed at that ‘help’ and continued, “Your husband’s soul is contained within this body too, and he’s trying to ask the outsiders to help.”

Although blurred and losing its realistic touch, it’s still possible to see the features in the photograph twisting.

“Impossible!” The woman’s voice was filled with thick fear, as it tugged fruitlessly on the last piece of cloth that might be able to hide the shameful truth. “These are all your lies!”

Su Er sighed. “Ghosts don’t need food, let alone their own body. He must have wanted to eat the this being that had now become the vessel for evil.”

The pity was that this scene didn’t appear again this morning. The child was struggling outside the door, and might have already swallowed the soul of the woman’s husband while doing that.

The woman’s mental state was clearly at a breaking point. Su Er turned around and asked for his teammates’ opinions. “If this continues, I’m worried that she’d evolve into an ferocious ghost first.”

Zhang He tried, “How about comforting her appropriately?”

Su Er then had to make himself more patient, trying to comfort her with a gentle voice, “How about I send you to flush in the toilet to clear your head?” After a pause, he said, “Perhaps, compared with the pain of being flushed, you might find that what you’re currently undergoing doesn’t count for much.”

When one compares, one would always find more joy.

“…”

the author has something to say:

Su Er: Suddenly I don’t want to reveal the truth, I kinda want to meet the little (older) sister who would

come find me at night.

Teammate: … calm down!

Su Er: I want to tell a story about a vixen too, she would seduce a poor, studious student and suck away his Yang Qi.

Teammate: …

Su Er: If I have sufficient time, let’s have a version of “Gentleman Rosa kneel and lick me”, “Tens of Millions of beauty ghosts say they love me’, and “the Hosts fight over being able to run off with my ‘ball’” (where ‘ball’ refer to ‘child’ — kinda like ‘bun in the oven’)