Chapter 1
I took a million-dollar job.
Find a high-school girl.
The trouble was, she wasn’t anywhere in the real world.
She was in a game: an N18RPG full-immersion game that had long since been taken off the market but still circulated secretly among teenagers, thanks to its sex and violence.
From the tone, I figured it was a horror game.
My client insisted it was an otome game, though. All the male characters would pursue me tirelessly, mad with love.
Once I got inside, I really wanted to ask him something.
Did trying to murder me count as pursuit?
An otome game is a game aimed at women.
Usually a dating simulation with one woman and several men, or men courting a woman. Naturally, most players are female.
But everyone who entered this one, male or female, ended up like the girl I had been hired to find: still unconscious, lying in a hospital, kept alive on nutrient infusions.
For the money, I accepted this suicide mission. After passing a series of mental-threshold tests, I received the game information my client sent me:
A torn corner of a poster, no bigger than my palm.
The artwork imitated an ink painting, its colors so cold and gloomy that looking at it made me uncomfortable.
At the top stood a mansion wreathed in mist. A young woman lay in a coffin, surrounded by slender young men. The tallest, at the head of the group, wore gauze from head to toe and pointed one hand high into the sky, apparently giving an order.
Below, apart from the damaged game title, was a prominent QR code for downloading it, accompanied by a scarlet slogan:
“Download now and enjoy being pursued by handsome men!”
Standard otome fare. Pretty tacky.
Taking my client’s word for it, I lay down in the gaming pod, entered my name, and logged in.
As my consciousness uploaded, a soft, gentle voice slipped into my ears.
“My lady feels the cold. Go down and keep her company.”
The speaker evidently occupied a very high position.
The moment he spoke, a confusion of footsteps sounded outside the coffin, followed by harsh shouts, pleas for mercy, and screams of people struggling as they died.
Unmoved, he continued giving the cruelest orders in the gentlest voice.
“Leave their bodies intact. Bury them together.”
I had nothing to say.
What kind of teenage cult game was this?
I meant to wait and see, but at his command the coffin lid began sliding over me. The game hadn’t finished loading. I still couldn’t fully control this body!
Buried alive right out of the gate?!
I tried to scream, only to discover my throat was stuffed with something. I spat it out and looked. Uncooked rice.
Amazing. It was a game. Did it have to be this realistic?
Luckily, before the lid closed over my head, I managed to move my arm and jam it into the tiny remaining gap. Spitting rice, I groaned, “Wait…”
“Let me out…”
All the background noise stopped.
With a whoosh, the lid was lifted away. Someone helped me sit up, his voice shaking.
“My lady, have you some unfulfilled wish?”
He wore a veil over his head and gauze robes trailing to the floor. The close-fitting fabric faintly outlined his body, slender and gracefully curved.
Even without seeing his face, I could tell he was an extraordinary beauty.
I had to admit, the game’s realism was impressive. Even the gauze of his veil differed in detail from that of his clothes.
By now I had full control of the body. I braced myself on the coffin and tried to jump out, but he held me down with one hand, his voice still gentle.
“Entrust your wishes to Zidu. Why trouble yourself?”
Every time I tried to get up, he pressed me back down. Annoyed, I said, “Keep stopping me and I’ll take you with me.”
He shuddered.
With joy. His whole body shook. “My lady—if my lady does not disdain me, of course I am willing!”
Wow.
What kind of twisted romantic character was this?
I hastily caught his hand. “I’m kidding. I’m not dead yet.”
The instant I grabbed him, a translucent window appeared in front of me.
Character: Pei Yu. Courtesy name: Zidu.
Background: Legitimate son of the Pei family of Jiangcheng. Accomplished in the qin, board games, calligraphy, and painting, and skilled at managing a household. He is your principal husband, deeply devoted to you, though he often weeps alone because he cannot win your affection.
Skills: Locked.
Items: Locked.
Clearly, this was background information about an NPC. Beneath it was an affection-query box, with a line of small, blood-red text:
When affection exceeds 80, you will unlock the “Hearts in Harmony” achievement with the NPC.
When affection falls below 0, the NPC may hunt you down. Please be advised.
My heart tightened. Fortunately, once the box unlocked, the number it displayed looked fairly good.
Pei Yu’s current affection: 65/100.
He lived up to that affection score. Seeing that I didn’t seem dead, he finally caught on and carefully helped me out of the coffin.
The people kneeling on the floor were indeed the same as those in the promotional picture: a group of rather attractive… men. Plump, slim, tall, petite—every type was represented.
This cult horror game that had nearly killed a whole crowd at the outset really was aimed at women.
I surveyed the funeral hall. A fairly typical game setting: a green coffered ceiling, white funeral couplets, and an enormous crimson wooden coffin in the center, so red it looked ready to drip blood.
Outside, the sky hung low. Beyond the eaves, the sun was about to sink, thin and feeble as a flower glimpsed through mist, a halo made of paper.
Just as I tried to cross the threshold, bloody mist spread across my vision. Thick blood welled in from every direction, gradually forming the title:
[Fourteen Nights]