🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 22
Pi Yixia Hen Kaixin (“Just a Little Mischief”) finally noticed the huge spirit house behind Yan Lang.
The white lanterns hanging on it suddenly lit up, casting their glow across Yan Lang’s face.
That light made his face look unnaturally pale — even the reddish tint on his cheekbones, which should have symbolized healthy blood, appeared strange and eerie under the lantern’s gleam.
Standing beside Yan Lang, Miao Dongli let out a long sigh of relief.
“We actually made it here without running into anything! I was scared to death. Hey, Pi, what’s with your face? Don’t tell me you’re even more of a scaredy-cat than I am! Hahaha!”
Pi Yixia Hen Kaixin forced a smile, trying to pull his attention back to Miao Dongli instead of what loomed behind Yan Lang.
Sertraline looked up and said, “The white lanterns have changed. There are new words on them.”
Two white lanterns hung on the doorway.
One now bore the words Peaceful Rest (安宁), and the other had a single character — Li (黎).
“Li Anning?” Miao Dongli guessed. “Is that the name of the person who lived here?”
“I did some research yesterday,” Sertraline explained. “A spirit house usually has two lanterns. One says Peaceful Rest, and the other bears the deceased person’s surname.”
“So… there’s an NPC with the surname Li who’s died.” Miao Dongli rubbed his chin, trying to think through it, but came up blank.
“Who’s going to open the door?”
“I’ll do it,” Yan Lang volunteered.
Pi Yixia Hen Kaixin couldn’t help tilting his head slightly again. Yesterday, when Sertraline opened a door in the dungeon, it triggered an instant death trap. Everyone knew that opening the door meant taking on a huge risk — maybe ending their run right there.
So why was Yan Lang volunteering?
“Alright,” said Sertraline, “the rest of us, fall back.”
Pi Yixia Hen Kaixin quickly widened the distance between himself and Yan Lang, watching as Yan Lang pushed open the light, fluttery door.
This time, no paper money drifted out.
Yan Lang walked inside.
After a moment, his calm voice came from within.
“You can come in.”
Pi Yixia Hen Kaixin swallowed hard and followed behind Miao Dongli, step by step, until they reached the entrance.
Inside, unlike the brightly colored exterior, the main hall was draped entirely in black and white.
In the center of the room stood a black table with eight white strips of cloth neatly laid across it.
Yan Lang stood before the table, gazing at the white fabric thoughtfully. As Pi Yixia Hen Kaixin watched, Yan Lang reached a hand toward one of them.
“Wait!”
Startled, Pi Yixia Hen Kaixin blurted out, “Yan Lang, what are you doing?!”
Yan Lang turned his head. His eyes were pitch black as he calmly replied, “Just studying this item.”
“In this dungeon, you shouldn’t touch unknown things recklessly!” Pi Yixia Hen Kaixin snapped. “I thought what happened to me and Sertraline yesterday already taught everyone that lesson. If you randomly touch stuff and get us all killed, what then?”
He tried to sound righteous, but under Yan Lang’s gaze, his heart was pounding with unease.
“It’s good to stay alert in a dungeon,” Yan Lang said mildly, “but this is still just a game. If we’re too afraid to move, we’ll never enjoy it. I was the first to come in — I’ve already touched plenty of random things in here. I’ve taken on most of the risk.”
Then he pointed to the table.
“There are eight strips of white cloth. I’m curious — why eight?”
“As far as I know, there’s no special meaning to the number eight in traditional funerary customs,” Sertraline said.
“But there are exactly eight of us players,” Yan Lang replied.
Miao Dongli nodded. “Oh yeah, eight exactly.”
Pi Yixia Hen Kaixin took a deep breath, resisting the urge to glare at his “pig teammate,” and looked to Sertraline for help.
Sertraline stepped forward decisively, picking up one of the white strips — just as boldly as he’d stabbed a knife into his ear the day before.
Holding the strip of cloth, Sertraline said, “I have a theory.”
Everyone turned toward him.
“I’ve been thinking about why Pi and I died after coming into contact with paper money in the last dungeon. Every dungeon has its internal logic. I found that people generally believe taking paper money from the dead brings bad luck — it invites trouble from the underworld.
“I didn’t have any leads before. But when I saw the lanterns on this spirit house today, I suddenly had an idea.”
“When a person dies, the family burns farewell money at the head of the bed. While burning it, the children cry loudly — that’s why we heard crying yesterday.”
“The farewell money is for the dead. Pi and I took what we shouldn’t have, so we died. That makes sense.”
“Now, in today’s dungeon, we didn’t encounter any paper money. Why not?” Sertraline asked rhetorically. “Because farewell money is burned on the first day after death. Today is the second day.”
“Funeral customs vary — some last three days, others seven. But there’s always a step for publicly announcing the death.”
“The appearance of the deceased’s surname on the lantern means this is likely that ‘announcement day.’”
Miao Dongli listened with wide eyes, nodding repeatedly in awe.
“Yesterday, Pi and I didn’t die immediately when we touched the money — we died after opening the door. It’s like the spirit house didn’t want us to enter.”
“But today is different. Maybe because today is the day of the death announcement — outsiders are allowed in. So perhaps the game only allows entry under certain conditions. But what kind of outsiders? For example, when someone dies, the family welcomes mourners — not thieves.”
“In some regions,” Sertraline continued, rubbing the cloth in his hands, “mourners are given white cloth strips called mourning ribbons. So I wonder — are these white cloths how the game distinguishes who’s allowed in?”
Even Pi Yixia Hen Kaixin had no rebuttal this time. Miao Dongli looked at Sertraline like he was a genius.
“Bro, no wonder your Intelligence stat is 9! Can you share some with me?”
Sertraline carefully tied the white cloth around his wrist, then lifted his gaze toward Yan Lang.
“But one thing I still don’t understand — why did Yan Lang see a paper effigy that looked just like him at the start?”
“I don’t know,” Yan Lang said quietly.
Miao Dongli looked between them. “So, big brothers, what should we do next?”
Yan Lang stayed silent. Sertraline answered calmly, “This dungeon has shown us lots of paper objects — paper effigies, paper money, paper houses.
“They’re all funerary items. So maybe what we’re supposed to find here… is also something made of paper — or someone who’s dead.”
“The dead person these paper offerings were made for.”
“So the key is to identify who that dead person is. A spirit house usually contains things the deceased liked in life. We already know the surname ‘Li’ — if we can find out their personal interests, we can narrow it down.”
“But this place is big. If we all search together, we risk a total wipeout and waste our one daily run. It’s better to split up — maybe in pairs.”
As soon as Sertraline finished speaking, Pi Yixia Hen Kaixin said immediately, “Sertraline, I’ll go with you!”
Miao Dongli, not daring to go alone, quickly said to Yan Lang with a grin, “Brother Yan, I’ll stick with you then?”
And so, the two teams were formed.
The four players moved among the black-and-white drapes. Before they split off completely, Yan Lang and Sertraline both turned to glance back at each other.
The curtains swayed, hiding their expressions.
Tang Yu walked down from the sixth floor to the fifth.
As he continued downward, pausing between the fifth and fourth floors, a sudden burst of noise erupted above his head.
“Sertraline, you guys died too?! Find anything?”
Tang Yu vaguely remembered that name — Sertraline — and guessed that must be the players talking upstairs near the fifth-floor landing.
He quickly ducked his head and hurried down the stairs as quietly as possible, afraid that if he delayed, they’d notice him.
The players didn’t notice Tang Yu.
And Tang Yu, in his haste to escape, didn’t hear the rest of their conversation—
“We found a lot of portraits in the spirit house’s study. The figure in them all seems to be the same person — probably the house’s owner.”
“The face wasn’t drawn, but judging by the figure, they must have been… very beautiful.”
Tang Yu opened his notebook and carefully wrote in his Survival Notes:
“Players are currently running a dungeon. The weird staircase on the fifth floor seems to be their dungeon entrance. I need to be careful passing by — always listen first to check if players are around. (Even though I’m curious about what’s inside, people who get too curious in horror stories are always the first to die.)”
Then he tilted his head, thinking.
“But brainstorming by myself should be fine, right?”
He wrote again:
“Looping stairs, strange noises, Senior Li Sheng…”
“…Forget it, can’t figure it out.”
The class bell rang. Tang Yu closed his notebook and obediently sat in the classroom.
The teacher began roll call. Soon, Tang Yu realized that out of the eight players, seven were absent.
Only one girl was in class — sitting quietly with a pile of textbooks on her desk.
“Even in a game, someone’s attending class seriously?” Tang Yu thought.
Players were truly incomprehensible.
He scratched his head and started focusing on the lecture.
He’d always been diligent about studying — especially in high school, when he’d nearly worked himself to death just to get into this university.
But all the effort had been worth it.
Especially the moment he could tell his parents — at their graves — that he’d finally gotten into the school they’d dreamed of for him.
Tang Yu lowered his eyes and took careful notes.
Before he knew it, class was over — and he realized, gloomily, that he must have dozed off for ten minutes; nothing had stuck in his head.
He sighed, took out his phone, turned off airplane mode — and a flood of messages from Shen Junxing popped up.
The first was a photo of a small black kitten eating cat food by the grass, captioned:
“Good morning. The little cat wishes you a good morning too.”
Tang Yu replied:
“Good morning.”
Shen Junxing:
“Bad morning.”
Shen Junxing:
“I haven’t seen you for one whole night and morning, Xiao Yu.”
Then came a video call request.
Tang Yu immediately hung up.
Shen Junxing:
“I really want to show you the kitten. It’s probably the first time it’s had such good food — it looked like it was crying, making the cutest little sounds.”
An audio message followed.
Tang Yu sighed, then silently put on his earphones.
He heard the kitten’s crunching and soft “mew-mew” sounds.
Then Shen Junxing’s gentle voice:
“Xiao Yu, you’ve been out the last couple days. I’ve never realized how big our place feels when you’re not here. I cooked today — but sitting at the table alone, I didn’t have much appetite.”
Tang Yu frowned, instinctively wanting to hang up.
But the next words stopped him.
“So I thought… maybe I’ll hold a birthday dinner. Liven things up a bit.”
“Birthday dinner?” Tang Yu repeated automatically.
“Yeah. My birthday’s in five days,” Shen Junxing said softly. “I’ve never really celebrated it properly before, but this year I want to.”
Five days later — August 30th — was also the anniversary of Tang Yu’s parents’ death.
Shen Junxing’s birthday fell on the same day.
Since they’d met, he’d never once celebrated it.
He always said he didn’t care for ceremonies — that birthdays were too much hassle.
This was the first time he’d said he wanted one.
And not just a small one — a birthday banquet.
“You know,” Shen Junxing said gently, “I suddenly realized I don’t have a single memory of a real birthday party. I used to wonder what the point was. But today, eating alone, I finally understood.
“It’s not about the food, or the gifts — it’s about the people who come.
“Because their presence means that, at least to someone in this world, your existence is something worth being happy about.”
His voice was warm but carried a faint trace of loneliness.
“But now that I actually want to hold one, I realize… I don’t really have any friends or relatives to invite. I don’t even know who I’d send the invitations to.”
Tang Yu’s lips parted slightly, but no words came out.
