CH 112

(What is it?)

“So middle school,” said Shen Dongqing, sizing him up. 

“I’ll show you the ghost king’s ferocity—” the person hanging from the ceiling took offense and dropped down while making threatening gestures.

Shen Dongqing took a step back.

The man claiming to be the Ghost King planned to jump on Shen Dongqing, but as Shen Dongqing took a step back, he didn’t have time to alter his trajectory and slammed face first into the ground.

Shen Dongqing: “Oh, I saw it. Then what?” 

He looked down and saw that this was only a brat, and that he probably didn’t stand up to his waist.

Is it wrong to bully kids?

Shen Dongqing’s thoughts raced with this thinking, but he mercilessly lifted the brat up.

The mask on the tiny boy’s face slipped off, revealing a fair pudgy face that resembled Shen Dongqing.

“You, let me go—” The brat continued to threaten while waving his hands, “If you don’t let me go, I’ll have your good fruit to eat!”

Shen Dongqing: “Fruit, which fruit?”

“No fruit!” screamed the brat.

“Didn’t you say there was?” Shen Dongqing asked. 

The brat: “…Are you a moron? I’m going to kill you! Ahhh!”

He paused, and a powerful black energy burst from his body, becoming a massive hideous face behind his back and charging towards Shen Dongqing.

The little kid’s face lit up with a smug smile: “Humph! Humph! Have you seen Ghost King’s awesomeness?”

The approaching ghost face had a tumultuous momentum. Its maw was wide open, and inside it was a dark vortex filled with all types of terrible twisted ghost faces. They let out mournful howls that pierced the ear like demonic sounds. 

The ghost face sprang up, hit the ceiling, and then rushed down, attempting to devour Shen Dongqing.

It’s just that before the ghost face landed, Shen Dongqing raised his fist and shattered it into pieces, transforming it back into a black mist that drifted weakly in the air.

The brat was dumbstruck: “You, you…”

Shen Dongqing: “You what?” He laid the brat on his lap and spanked him twice on the butt. Smack! Smack! The sounds were particularly crisp. 

The brat’s voice raised a decibel: “I’m Ghost King—”

Shen Dongqing stopped and thought for a moment: “Then I’ll slap it twice more?”

Then came two more spanks.

The small kid was already on his stomach, helplessly crying into Shen Dongqing’s lap: “Stop, stop hitting! I admit defeat!” His chunibyo appearance had simply vanished. He cried pitifully, just like a small cabbage. 

It’s simply that the moment Shen Dongqing let go of his hand, the child stopped wailing and hurried to the side, hands on his hips: “Haha, this is how adaptable I, Ghost King, am! Fooled you!”

The brat had only just finished when he was tapped on the shoulder. He turned his neck stiffly and noticed a man standing behind him.

Zhou Wenyan: “Ghost King?”

Zhou Wenyan was totally hidden in the darkness, and his tall stature made him appear even more terrifying than Shen Dongqing. 

The brat compared the odds of winning 2vs1 and immediately broke into a run.

But he was hanging in the air within two steps of rushing out. His two small legs kept kicking and dangled, but he couldn’t get away.

Shen Dongqing plucked the brat from Zhou Wenyan’s grasp and spanked him once again.

“I was wrong, I was wrong, Dad, don’t hit me,” the small child was crying for real this time. 

Shen Dongqing came to a halt and repeated, “Dad?”

He seemed to have thought of something, so he picked up the little boy and looked him in the eyes.

Upon closer inspection, this brat had a wrinkled bun face, dark and round eyes, and facial features similar to Shen Dongqing.

“Don’t talk nonsense!” Shen Dongqing declared his position quickly and threw the child to the ground. 

When the small boy’s identity was revealed, he stopped pretending. He hugged Shen Dongqing’s thigh and sobbed, “I didn’t recognize Dad because I thought he had left the game and would never return. But when you beat me, I knew right away you were my daddy because of the familiar strength and spot!”

This brat’s words had much too much information, and Shen Dongqing hurriedly interrupted: “Wait, did you say I left the game?”

The small boy blinked his eyes and began to act cute: “I’m not sure. I just know Dad left the game, so this son will inherit his father’s business and become the next ghost king!”

Shen Dongqing: “… So I’m really the ghost king?” 

Then didn’t I just scold myself in the tower?

The brat was extremely skilled. When he realized Shen Dongqing couldn’t remember the past, he began to play dumb: “Oh, I forgot, I don’t know!”

“Let me,” Zhou Wenyan said, taking a step forward.

The brat abruptly switched hands and hung from Zhou Wenyan’s. He was clearly terrified of Zhou Wenyan. “I don’t know anything,” he shrank his neck and said warily. 

Zhou Wenyan weighed the weight of the child in his hand.

The little boy had a bad feeling, then he heard this man nonchalantly comment, “He’s useless. Let’s destroy him humanely.”

The brat: ???

He could tell Zhou Wenyan wasn’t saying it to trick him, so he swiftly responded, “You, don’t you want to ask anything?!” 

Zhou Wenyan lazily stated: “You stated that you know nothing. I don’t want to waste my energy.”

Ktf ygja mtbxfv obg j ibcu alwf yfobgf rjslcu, “P mjc gfmjii la.”

Itbe Qfcsjc: “Ktfc sbe gfmjii.”

Ktf rwjii xlv ibbxfv jgbecv, tbqlcu ab yfu Vtfc Gbcudlcu obg tfiq, yea Vtfc Gbcudlcu gjlrfv tlr tfjv jcv tewwfv j rbcu ab lcvlmjaf atja tf tjvc’a tfjgv jcsatlcu. 

Lf mbeivc’a tfiq yea rjs: “P’w cba mfgajlc flatfg. P bcis xcbk atja Gjv njclrtfv obg j ktlif, atfc gfjqqfjgfv klat sbe, atfc njclrtfv jujlc, jcv fnfgsatlcu gfrajgafv.”

These words were a jumbled mess. Zhou Wenyan didn’t understand a thing and narrowed his eyes threateningly.

The brat promptly raised his hands: “I told you everything I know. You should get it after looking over the chest’s contents!”

Shen Dongqing walked over, circled the chest in the center of the high platform, pointed to his own nose and asked, “Is this what I left behind?” 

So it was his treasure? It had to be a chest full of snacks.

Brat: “Mm-hmm.”

Shen Dongqing took his time opening it. He held back for a long time before finally asking, “Are you really my son?”

It seemed implausible. He died young, and he no longer had this capability after becoming a ghost! 

The brat was still up for a con: “Of course I am!”

Shen Dongqing locked his gaze on him for a long while before asking, “You made these eighteen layers of hell?”

The brat looked excited: “Yeah, yeah, you also think it’s amazing, right?”

Shen Dongqing’s gaze held a faint pity: “I’m confident you’re not my son.” 

The kid: “Ack?”

“My taste can’t be so awful,” said Shen Dongqing, shaking his head.

The small child appeared to be on the verge of crying as a result of the blow: “I’m the little devil you picked up, but, but can’t I be the next ghost king?”

Nice! This brat addressed Shen Dongqing as father solely for the sake of inheriting the status of ghost king. 

Shen Dongqing cracked his knuckles and gave it to him: “I’m not dead yet!”

“Don’t you have to die to be a ghost king?” the small boy asked, cocking his head. “You’re already alive, so doesn’t it imply that the ghost is ‘dead’?”

“Oh right, I’m not a ghost anymore,” Shen Dongqing said, cocking his head as well. “Can I still be Ghost King even though I’m not a ghost?”

The pair sank into a dilemma at the same moment. 

When he witnessed the pair’s identical expressions and gestures, Zhou Wenyan couldn’t help but want to laugh.

Shen Dongqing snapped out of it and stopped fretting about whether he could be Ghost King. He turned around to open the chest and was silent for a few seconds before asking, “But… What about the password?”

There was an exquisite combination lock hanging on the chest that appeared to be fairly complicated.

Brat: “…I have no idea.” 

Shen Dongqing thought back for a while, but couldn’t figure out what password he had set, so he simply opened the chest with his bare hands.

Crack—

Shen Dongqing shattered the combination lock and it dropped to the ground.

He raised his hand and slowly opened the chest. 

He was still wondering if it was a chest of munchies before he opened it. If so, were these foods that had expired and couldn’t be eaten?

When he opened the chest, he found it contained only a thin piece of paper inside.

Shen Dongqing took it and examined it. The paper’s surface had gone yellow, and it was covered in traditional Chinese characters written in cinnabar. The information contained someone’s date of birth, complete name, and place of birth.

As soon as he saw the date of birth, he muttered: “Born in Ghost Month, a person of yin fate?” 

Ghost Moon Yin Fate and a bazi that was too light. It was the “lonely soul, feral ghost” fate most likely to be seized. Such people were tormented by yin energy and rarely lived over the age of eighteen.

Shen Dongqing had not yet reacted when he heard Zhou Wenyan declare, “This is my date of birth.”

“Huh?” Shen Dongqing looked down, and there, in traditional Chinese characters, were the words “Zhou Wenyan.”

He was holding the paper when he suddenly realized: “Ah! This is the most important thing to me.” 

Ghost Moon Yin Fate rarely lived past the age of eighteen, but Zhou Wenyan was able to live to this day only because he was married to a malicious ghost as a kid under the supervision of a great master.

Shen Dongqing, of course, was the malicious ghost.

So this piece of paper was more official than a marriage certificate and was not just a simple shēng chén bāzì. It was a yin marriage wedding contract witnessed by ghosts and gods.

Shen Dongqing tucked the wedding contract away and returned to the chest, where he discovered a piece of paper beneath the contract. He reached out and took it. 

Compared with the previous official marriage contract, this paper was more casual. It was an entire page written in kindergarten font, with crooked writing.

Shen Dongqing could tell right away that this was a font that only he could write in.

[If you see this letter, it means that the game is out of control and you may have lost your memory.]

[You have to be careful…] 

​This letter roughly explained some things.

Shen Dongqing was the Boss Ghost King of Ghost City, an S-level instance in the game. However, he was not under the authority of the game, but as part of a cooperative partnership, he was in charge of accommodating the lonely ghosts wandering around the world inside the game. The game was responsible for introducing some players who were in a coma or dying, as well as stimulating these individuals with various instances to keep their brains active.

Originally, this was a win-win situation, and the game was likewise positive and optimistic. Not only would players’ lives be safe, but they might even have the opportunity to be revived.

Nobody expected the system to lose control and shut down the entire game, breaking its own rules and capturing players at will. 

Zhou Wenyan believed he was brought into the game at that time.

Because he and Shen Dongqing were united by the yin marriage, he obtained the malicious ghost’s protection and faced no risk in the game. Later, a person and a ghost met, and Shen Dongqing found Zhou Wenyan and prepared to send him out.

Shen Dongqing and the game had a friendly working relationship, therefore he had the right to send players out. But then the game appeared at the last moment and pitted him. It’s unclear what transpired, but Shen Dongqing successfully exited the game, while it was Zhou Wenyan who remained.

It was too late for Shen Dongqing to discover he had been duped. Shen Dongqing left his malicious ghost’s power to Zhou Wenyan before leaving to protect him. 

According to game safety requirements, the player who exited the game would be purged of all memory, so he had no recollection of what occurred in the game. In order to remove all signs of Shen Dongqing’s existence, the game reset all instances except Ghost City, and the player data was also reset to start anew.

However, it was precisely because everything was reset, even the game didn’t recognize Shen Dongqing at first. It was too late by the time it realized his identity.

But maybe it was predestined. Shen Dongqing exited the instance and wandered for a bit before ignorantly occupying a just-dead body that happened to fit the game’s loading conditions and returning to the game.

Even if two people met again and had forgotten everything, the marriage contract binding them together could not deceive anyone. They approached each other instinctively. 

Due to a bizarre confluence of events, the couple encountered numerous game instances that triggered memories of the past, prompting them to return to Ghost City to reclaim the “treasure.”

The treasure was not so much the chest’s contents as it was the memories of the past, and, more significantly… each other.

Shen Dongqing flipped the paper over to the reverse side.

It said… Although the game was out of control, when cooperating, he left a hand and retained a controller in a certain game field, allowing him to gain temporary control of the game. 

Shen Dongqing finished reading and turned to stare at the little boy.

The little boy: “…”

Shen Dongqing: “Hand it over.”

The little boy reluctantly took out a plain token with scribbles drawn on it. The indecipherable script made one wonder what it meant. 

But Shen Dongqing understood this was the Ghost King’s token, and it could command all the ghosts. However, the symbolic meaning outweighed the practical meaning. Shen Dongqing could make all the ghosts obey him, and falling into the hands of others was pointless.

Shen Dongqing held the token, and directly shattered it into two parts in front of the distressed brat’s eyes, and a shiny silver ornament fell out of the cross section.

This was a token for an instance.

“Can you control this tower?” Shen Dongqing questioned, clutching the silver ornament in his hand. 

“Yes,” the small child nodded.

Shen Dongqing: “Then cancel all these eighteen layers of hell for me. They’re just too ugly!”

The brat, “…What’s ugly?”

Shen Dongqing was unable to say anything for a time since everything was too awful, and then remarked: “In any case, it’s hideous and unbefitting of the ghost king’s dignity. Let go of everyone you’re holding inside.” 

Hearing this, the brat promptly jumped up and ordered the zombies under him to clean up the Eighteen Hells and toss out anything that did not match the ghost king’s status!

The zombies “invited” the players trapped in Mirror Hell out, and they stood outside the tower, dumbfounded.

Fortunately, they didn’t stay stupid for long, and the onlookers soon noticed a group of people exiting the tower.

The crow, who had been dozing at the door, became excited, fluttered its wings, and shrieked at the group, “Ghost King, Ghost King—” 

Ghost King?

The players were shocked and stared at the group of people who emerged.

Reportedly, Ghost King was the final boss in Ghost City. In general, players could only be cannon fodder in front of him, and there was no way to resist.

But didn’t they say that the ghost king had been missing for a long time? 

Tap, tap, tap—

The footsteps approached slowly, followed by a short-legged child behind the two tall men. The kid waved at the crow: “No courtesy, no courtesy!”

The players noticed the brat. The child appeared to be pretty adorable, fair and fat, with stars in his eyes.

“Is this the ghost king?” the players whispered. 

“It doesn’t appear to be the case. He’s too young.”

“Didn’t they say he murders without blinking an eye? That’s not true.”

When he heard what the players remarked, the brat grinned mischievously and quipped, “I can also blink and kill people.”

The players instantly stopped their tongues when they heard this. 

The brat sneered, good at intimidating people.

Until Shen Dongqing flicked his forehead. He immediately covered his brow with tears in his eyes and cried out in grievance: “Dad—”

Wu Jia greeted them and inquired, “You had a child so quickly?”

Zhou Wenyan made no objections. Instead, he raised his brows and gazed at the child. 

The little boy was obviously flexible, and called out right away: “Big Dad!”

The other players noticed that this little boy resembled Shen Dongqing. They looked like a happy family of three with the kid standing in the middle of the two.

Shen Dongqing was too lazy to explain, and said to Wu Jia, “You can clear the instance.”

Wu Jia: “You found the ghost king’s treasure?” 

Shen Dongqing was unable to explain it clearly and had to gloss over it.

Wu Jia understood tacitly and did not delve too deeply: “What about you guys?”

“We have to go to another instance,” Shen Dongqing stated.

That game instance contained the controller he had left behind, so it was best to retrieve it early just in case. 

As soon as Shen Dongqing finished speaking, the brat hugged his thigh, raised his head and said pitifully, “I’m going too! I can help!”

He was making such a racket that Shen Dongqing was obliged to agree: “Fine, fine.”

The brat giggled as he gripped Shen Dongqing’s thigh.

Zhou Wenyan could no longer take it. He grabbed the brat from behind, pushed him aside, and then pulled Shen Dongqing into his arms, advising him to keep a little distance. 

Wu Jia was speechless: …

How can you even eat the vinegar from a child! Isn’t your character setting collapsing a little too soon, Boss?

After experiencing the Eighteen Hells, the other players concluded that they could not obtain the ghost king’s treasure with their current abilities, and they all left Ghost City one after the other, with no other ideas.

Shen Dongqing and co departed the instance after all the players had left, holding the instance token and heading to the next location. 

An enormous eye hung in the air in the eternal darkness, with a black circle on the periphery and an ice-cold golden vertical pupil in the middle.

It was constantly rotating, as if taking everything in.

[Warning, warning]

A mechanical female voice was constantly heard in the void. 

[Warning: Game malfunction]

The eyeball spun, and a light screen appeared in the darkness. Countless photographs flashed over it in the blink of an eye, dazzled the viewer.

However, the eyeball was not a human eye. It was a sophisticated system, thus importing this massive data set one by one was simple.

The light screen stopped and fixed on one of the photos. 

Zhou Wenyan’s hand was resting on Shen Dongqing’s shoulder in the photograph. Zhou Wenyan bowed his head, and the two appeared to have just said something. A small dimple emerged on Shen Dongqing’s cheek, while a child made menacing gestures and faces behind them.

[Warning: Please eliminate dangerous individuals]

[Warning, warning]

The calm eyeball fluctuated all of a sudden, and it seemed to be gnashing its teeth: “If they could be eliminated, I would have done so already. Do I still need you to tell me?” 

The computer program’s settings obviously didn’t understand why Eyeball was provoked, and kept repeating the warning tirelessly.

Eyeball became impatient and directly muted the computer program.

The void fell into a dead silence again.

The vertical pupil enlarged and constricted as Eyeball swiveled anxiously. 

Although the game had gotten out of hand, there was one criterion that it could not interfere with in any way: fairness, absolute fairness. No matter what, the game could not intervene once the players entered the instance, therefore there was no way to kill the two players using standard processes.

It had, however, utilized informal orders, and there was still no way.

Eyeball felt like it was experiencing a mild headache.

Various data streams flashed past Eyeball like the gleaming Milky Way. It didn’t know how many earlier files it had reviewed before finding a path. 

“Perhaps I can try this—”

[You have entered a new game]

Shen Dongqing opened his eyes to find himself in a snow-white space.

There were scarcely any colors there, everything was white. The walls, the bed, the ceiling… were all flawless white, so much so that looking at it for a long period made one feel a little hollow. 

When Shen Dongqing looked down, he discovered that he had changed into a blue and white hospital gown. He reached into his pockets, but nothing but these clothing remained of his belongings.

He took a deep breath and smelled the disinfectant odor.

Is this a hospital?

Shen Dongqing looked around and discovered that he was the only person in the room. Zhou Wenyan and the brat were nowhere to be seen. 

Tick tock, tick tock. At this point, a white wall clock placed on the wall produced a sound.

It was nine o’clock in the evening.

The game’s voice sounded once again. It was a soft female voice, quite rhythmic, speaking like a lullaby.

[You’ve got a secret] 

[Do not tell anyone else]

[If anyone else discovers it]

[You’ll be eaten by ants and strangled by vipers]

[Never ever tell anyone—] 

Toward the end, this female voice became harsh and so high that it almost broke, and the words pierced the heart, leaving listeners breathless.

[Otherwise, your bones will be spurned, your flesh and blood trodden, and you will perish—]

Shen Dongqing sat on the edge of the hospital bed, his chin resting on his hands, and blinked, perplexed: “But… I have no idea what the secret is. How can I tell others?”

“Isn’t this mutually contradictory?” 

The game was completely silent.

It wanted to ask, why can you easily ruin the atmosphere I work so hard to create every time?

Shen Dongqing, who hadn’t received a response, was still questioning closely: “Scurry away later; you still haven’t told me what the secret is!”