C51 Part2

Edited by Rinrin!

Shan Ziwei yanked the noh mask off, the sound of bones cracking and giving away echoing in his ears and his eyes bloodshot. His heart was pounding rapidly, intense emotions wreaking havoc in his skull. Fear, anger, and an indescribable grief. Shan Ziwei knew that these emotions weren’t his. That experience had managed to frighten him, and he was angry at “his” actions, but it wouldn’t be so intense… and he wouldn’t be feeling such grief.

He was likely influenced by the noh mask. So then it counted as a sort of payment for watching the flashback? Shan Ziwei wondered, checking his stats. As expected, all three SP bars had gotten a chunk taken out of them.

Shan Ziwei quickly dealt with these external emotional influences. When everything calmed again, the hypersexual suddenly realised something was wrong. He turned, taking a good look around him and realised something that made his chest tight with anger.

host不见了。

Host was gone.

Shan Ziwei’s throat constricted, almost choking on air. Weren’t we going to cooperate!? This was a betrayal of trust!!!

The poor, abandoned white-haired young man stood all alone in the corridor of the haunted house, holding the noh mask left behind by a ghost in his hand and surrounded by darkness. No matter how he looked at it, he was on the path to ending his journey early. After all, getting separated from the group in a horror movie was basically equivalent to announcing to all the monsters that you were free real estate. It was a surefire way to trigger some kinda death flag.

As he headed downstairs to find his other companions, the thought of a “death flag” had Shan Ziwei grinding to a halt. He stared at the scenario tab, conflict raging in his heart.

[Scenario 2: You are an active member of the Paranormal Research Club, firmly believing that “if you don’t seek out trouble, trouble will seek you out and end you” (1/8). (09:22:31)]

If you don’t seek out trouble… trouble will seek you out and end you.

Though there was still a good while to go until Scenario 2 activated, the “1/8″ meant that he had to seek out trouble a good eight times before it did. Hearing footsteps and running up to find the ghost was once, but it was far from enough. Shan Ziwei counted it up in his head. Even if they played every game mentioned on the promotional flyer, it only amounted to a total of five times. He had to find more opportunities to seek out trouble.

Undeniably, snooping around a haunted house all by one’s lonesome counted as “seeking out trouble”.

An uncertain idea began to surface in Shan Ziwei’s head. Could it be that host… had abandoned him because he’d thought of that?

At least tell him beforehand, Jesus Christ!

The white-haired young man was filled with rage. As for the possibility that host might’ve vanished due to unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances… it was host he was talking about here; host, the player with a Card Inscription. Even if all the other players died, he’d be perfectly fine.

Shan Ziwei might have a lot of complaints, but he still turned around to face the second floor corridor once more.

All he saw were dark shadows. Shan Ziwei felt around for the lightswitch at the entrance of the stairway. With a “click”, the lights turned on, but it barely managed to illuminate much of the corridor. Beams of light sprawled across the corridor in tattered streams, like a dying beast.

And that was how Shan Ziwei felt right now. Having companions was completely different from being alone. No matter how unreliable said companions may be, just having someone, anyone, next to him would make him feel a whole lot safer. It was just a kind of “aura”. Without this aura created by another’s human presence, the pressure on Shan Ziwei’s shoulders and mind increased tenfold. Just like now. Just by standing here, all alone, the stagnant, frozen atmosphere seemed to come at him from all sides, caging him in, forcing him to listen to his own lone heartbeat, watch his own lone shadow, bear his own lone fear.

The mask in his hand grew colder with each passing second, so cold Shan Ziwei wanted nothing more than to throw it away. However, it was clearly an important item, so Shan Ziwei could only shove the noh mask-

Shan Ziwei suddenly paused. He still had Little Gaia, didn’t he?

Perhaps due to realising that it didn’t need to do anything in this chessboard, Little Gaia had remained silently on Shan Ziwei’s shoulder ever since the game had started. Seeing Shan Ziwei offer the noh mask, it eagerly stretched its little head forward, pressing its face against the mask. Just from the mask on its head, it was easy to tell that Little Gaia seemed to have a thing for masks. Unfortunately, the noh mask was made to normal human sizes, so Little Gaia’s face didn’t even fill up half the space available. He saw the expression on Little Gaia’s mask go flat. The silver-haired black-robed little plush silently pulled back, puffing its cheeks up and swallowing the mask in one big gulp before lying down on Shan Ziwei’s shoulder again. Out of sight, out of mind.

The sight amused Shan Ziwei. Little Gaia turned its head to look at him, its inverted eyes as eerie and bewitching as always, yet they gave Shan Ziwei a strong sense of security.

“Thank god I still have you.”

Gaia seemed to sense the panic in Shan Ziwei’s heart, its red lips parting to spit out speech bubbles of comfort.

[I’m here.]

[I’m here.]

[I’m here.]

[I’m always with you.]

[I’m]…

“Okay okay, I get it, I get it.” Shan Ziwei ruffled Little Gaia’s hair, his face burning a little. Man, he was losing his touch. Now he had to rely on a plush doll to give him courage. Due to Shan Ziwei’s action, the last speech bubble floated off uncompleted. Little Gaia watched with its black-white inverted eyes, and swallowed the rest of the sentence.

[I’m]… omnipresent.

Shan Ziwei stepped into the hallway as he messed around with his toybox. The entire second floor seemed to be skewered from one end to the other by this single corridor, with rooms on either side. Shan Ziwei looked through the glass door to the left of the stairwell. It was a study. There would definitely be pens and paper in a study, and with those, they could play pen spirit.

Yet, without a key, it wouldn’t open.

Shan Ziwei looked down the hallway. There were vases placed between the doors on either side of the hall, and paintings hung on the wall above the vases. Though he called them paintings, they were just expanses of pure black without any content whatsoever. After looking over everything carefully with the understanding that everything had to be closely examined in horror games, Shan Ziwei started to miss keyboard and mouse games from the bottom of his heart.

People who have played escape rooms before understand that escape rooms in real life were nowhere near as straightforward as games were. Everything was clear in video games – what you could investigate, what you couldn’t, what was useless to investigate, what was useful for clearing the level and what you should bring with you. One of the characteristics of fully immersive games was that players could interact with anything in their environment, which created the illusion that everything was a clue. After all, how would you know if the painting on the wall was just some useless decor or some kind of hint that would help you achieve your goal?

The two-hundred and thirty-three year old man Shan gave up trying to think too much and numbing walked forwards, trying every door he passed. When he got to the end, Shan Ziwei realised that all the doors on the left side of the hallway were locked, and on the right side… though he could open them, the interior was pitch black. The corridor was shrouded in shadow, yes, but at least he could see vague shapes. Meanwhile, the rooms on the right side were truly, completely, devoid of light. Shan Ziwei couldn’t see his own hand when he reached inside. So, he just stood at the entrance and felt for a switch, but didn’t even try to actually go inside. He was seeking out trouble, not seeking out a game over.

At the end of the hallway, Shan Ziwei saw an ink wash painting. It was massive; even taller than Shan Ziwei, it practically took up the entire wall. On this massive expanse of paper, there was only a single person painted there, holding an oil paper umbrella.

Yet, that one person was enough.

Just the sight of them from behind, half hidden by the oil paper umbrella, was enough for Shan Ziwei to tell how beautiful they were. He subconsciously held in his breath. The person in the painting was tall and slender, dressed in a dark coloured Chinese-style gown made of luxurious silk. They held an umbrella, strolling leisurely through the rain. It was a hazy kind of beauty, deep like a yawning abyss that pulled you in.

Shan Ziwei was awed, not just by the beauty of the person painted, but also by the sheer talent of the artist. He could practically hear the sound of raindrops landing on the oil paper umbrella.

Drip… drop… drip drop… drip…

Shan Ziwei’s eyes twitched. He wasn’t hearing things, he could actually hear the sound of water dripping!

The white-haired young man stared intensely at the rain in the painting. Perhaps because it was an ink wash painting, but the black ink rain painted there didn’t truly look like rain, but something extremely evil, and extremely corrupted.

Drip… drip… drip…

More and more evil, tainted water gathered in the painting, practically on the verge of spilling out.

The oil paper umbrella suddenly trembled a little.

Drip.

Under Shan Ziwei’s panicked gaze, the person in the painting started to turn around, ever so slowly.

Rinrin: when I think of what’s coming…..damn it why did I read ahead ORZ