Chapter 80
Chapter 80
The lantern had indeed been lit. Cheng Miao wanted to relax, but something deep inside her continued to scream a warning. She could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Song Yu could not sleep. He tossed and turned like a pancake on a griddle. Failing to obtain a lantern that day had left him deeply unsettled.
He lay on the brick bed, turning the problem over and over in his mind. He did not dare make a sound to discuss it with anyone. Anxiety drenched him in sweat, leaving him sticky and uncomfortable.
Then a thought struck Song Yu. There was a lantern hanging right outside their door. What if he claimed it for himself?
The more he considered it, the more excited he became. He crept out of bed and felt his way forward through the dark.
Squinting, he could see a thin red line of light ahead.
He followed it, held his breath, and pressed himself against the door.
He placed one bloodshot eye against the crack and looked outside.
A round lantern hung beside their door. Its candle had just been replaced, and its light was bright and gentle.
Song Yu exhaled as though a massive weight had lifted from his chest. They could not open the door at night, but at daybreak, he would take the lantern for himself. Then he would have nothing to fear. He would survive this instance.
Feeling completely relieved, Song Yu turned back toward the brick bed. There was not a trace of light inside, so he followed his memory of the room’s layout.
Now that he had solved the lantern problem, Song Yu was no longer so tense. He was busy planning how to seize it when his foot struck something hard.
Crash.
The object toppled with a tremendous bang, then rolled twice with a clatter.
It was the chamber pot.
Song Yu felt all his blood rush into his head, his temples pounding violently. Like a puppet frozen in place, he stood rigid without moving a muscle.
Several seconds passed before the lack of air brought him back to himself. He had been so nervous that he had forgotten to breathe.
He cautiously reached out with one hand.
Nothing. There was nothing there.
Thank goodness. Song Yu shuffled in the other direction and finally found the brick bed.
He climbed onto it and lay stiff as a corpse for a moment. After confirming that he remained alive and unharmed, he finally relaxed.
Zhang Lele still lay beside him. The plump young woman had a slightly stronger body odor than most. Two days without bathing, combined with the sweat of constant fear, produced a distinct smell.
Song Yu frowned in the darkness and rolled over with his back to Zhang Lele.
That was right. Cheng Miao had said they could not speak. He had not said a word, so he could not possibly have triggered a death condition.
Just as Song Yu finished reassuring himself…
Knock, knock.
Someone knocked on the door.
Song Yu’s body went rigid before his mind even registered fear. Xiao Xu’s account of what had happened the previous night played over and over in his head, along with the horrific sight of Li Fei’s corpse that morning.
This room was damned. Someone had died here yesterday, and now it was happening again tonight.
While promising himself he would move tomorrow, Song Yu tried to take comfort in the fact that tonight was different. They had a lantern today, and lanterns warded off evil.
The lantern. The lantern…
The lantern!
Song Yu’s eyes flew open in the darkness. The lantern!
When he had looked through the crack, the lantern outside their door had indeed been bright red. But from the corner of his eye, he had also seen the house opposite theirs. There had been no lantern outside it.
Sweat dripped from Song Yu’s hair into his eyes. He blinked hard several times.
Yes. There was no mistake.
Something had felt wrong at the time. Only now did he realize it was because their lantern was too bright while everything around it was too dark.
Not one of the lanterns that had hung outside every household was visible. The surrounding houses were as silent as tombs, without a glimmer of light.
How was that possible?
How could this be happening?
Chaotic thoughts tangled in Song Yu’s mind until he felt his head might explode.
Then, at that very moment…
Knock, knock.
The door sounded again.
Song Yu was on the verge of breaking down. What was happening?
Li Fei had opened the door when she heard knocking yesterday. No one was opening it tonight, so would the knocking simply continue forever?
As though confirming Song Yu’s guess, the sound came again.
Knock, knock.
Knock, knock.
Knock, knock…
The knocks followed one after another, growing faster and louder.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Song Yu yanked desperately at his hair, his eyes bulging uselessly in the dark.
He wanted to scream, but his survival instinct wedged the sound firmly in his throat.
Maybe… Maybe this was tonight’s rule.
It was trying to drive them insane. The moment someone made a sound, they would break the rule. He could not break it.
No one around him made a sound. He could barely hear anyone breathing.
Song Yu was no longer capable of wondering why everyone else remained so calm. He clamped both hands over his ears, only to find that it accomplished nothing.
The knocking seemed to originate inside his own skull. Even with his ears covered, every blow rang through his mind with perfect clarity.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Screech!
The knocking grew louder until it became pounding, accompanied by the shrill scrape of fingernails across wood.
With the noise practically exploding beside his ear, the other players had to hear it too, right?
They had to hear it.
Would someone come save him?
Song Yu’s mind had begun to blur. Lost in the deafening pounding, it took him a long moment to realize something was wrong.
That was right. How could the knocking be this loud?
This did not sound like someone knocking on the door.
It sounded as though someone were striking the underside of his brick bed, separated from him by nothing more than a layer of cotton batting.
Song Yu slowly pushed himself up in a daze. He dragged aside the bedding and quilt, then pressed his ear to the brick bed.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Heavy, frantic pounding came from directly beneath Song Yu’s bed.
Cheng Miao did not manage to sleep until after four in the morning. Before she had rested long, a young woman’s piercing scream jolted her awake.
Cheng Miao sprang out of bed. After confirming that dawn had broken, she pushed open the door and rushed outside.
At some point, the villagers had removed the lanterns. Cheng Miao had anticipated that the previous night. Lanterns protected players from ghostly attacks, so the villagers would never leave them hanging where the players could take them.
Then why had the Village Head specially sent people to hang and light lanterns for them last night?
Cheng Miao had no time to think. A group of people had already pushed open the door to Xiao Xu’s room.
Xiao Xu had fainted. Zhang Lele, white-faced, was vomiting into a chamber pot, while Yezi stood grimly in the doorway.
One glance at the survivors gave Cheng Miao a rough idea of who had met with disaster during the night.
The floral quilt remained spread over Song Yu’s place on the brick bed. It bulged as though someone lay beneath it with the covers pulled over their head.
Cheng Miao and Qin Musong exchanged a glance, stepped forward, and yanked up the quilt.
With his immense strength, Qin Musong flipped it completely over.
There had never been anyone beneath the quilt.
The body was on its other side.
Song Yu had been sewn into the quilt.