Tang Yu’s eyes snapped open.
He was staring up at the ceiling.
Gentle daylight filtered through the curtains, illuminating the slightly peeling paint overhead.
His deep-blue pupils contracted. Countless eerie images flashed before his eyes. As if electrocuted, Tang Yu clutched the blanket, yanking it up to cover his ashen face and trembling body.
The faint chirping of morning birds drifted in, but all he could hear was the violent pounding of his own heart.
…A dream within a dream?
He bit hard into his lip. The sting pulsed from his lower lip again and again, the dark red seeping out and staining his pale face with a sickly flush.
It seemed… it really seemed like he was awake now.
Tang Yu curled under the blanket for a long while before stiffly poking his head out. His eyes rolled carefully toward Li Sheng’s bed.
The black-and-white drapes sealed it off tightly. The candlelight inside seemed to have gone out; the curtains showed no shadow at all, much less a talking paper effigy.
Maybe it was just that he saw Senior’s paper effigy last night, got spooked, and then dreamed two strange nightmares?
Tang Yu climbed out of bed and checked his phone. A message from Shen Junxing had arrived: “Good morning, Little Yu. How did you sleep last night?”
Tang Yu didn’t reply. Holding the phone, he got down from bed. Just as he was about to step off the small ladder, his gaze dropped to the slippers by the side.
With a single glance, his eyes froze.
His pair of slippers were aligned neatly, tips pointing toward the bed, placed tightly together with no gap at all.
…but when he got into bed last night, hadn’t he just kicked them off, leaving them wherever they fell?
A chill crawled up his back. Slowly, Tang Yu turned his head toward the black-and-white bed behind him.
The long drapes hung from the bedframe all the way to the floor, hiding everything inside.
…Was it Senior, obsessive as he was, who saw them early in the morning and absentmindedly put them in order?
Tang Yu didn’t dare dwell on it. He hurriedly put on shoes, walked a few steps, and came to the bathroom door. His hand brushed the doorknob—instantly, the strange image of last night’s dream, someone combing their hair, flashed in his mind. Tang Yu jerked his hand back as though burned. After a moment of hesitation, he turned and left the dorm entirely.
For washing up, Tang Yu went to the laundry room. He scooped up some water to rinse his face, and while he was washing, a somewhat familiar, excited voice called out behind him:
“Tang Yu!”
He turned and saw a face he vaguely recognized, one he’d seen on a player panel. His eyes shifted down, landing on the boy’s somewhat familiar face.
“Good morning! We meet again in the laundry room!” the boy said, a little embarrassed. “Actually… I came here on purpose, hoping I could bump into you again.”
At that, Tang Yu finally remembered—this was the gossip-loving student he’d met yesterday in the laundry room.
“Where are you staying now? I could drop by your dorm sometime?” the boy said, scratching his head.
“623,” Tang Yu answered.
The boy’s eyes went wide. “What? You’re still…—”
He suddenly cut himself off, glancing around nervously before lowering his voice. “You didn’t search for the thing I told you about, did you? I know you might not believe in this stuff, but… but you look so haggard now…”
Tang Yu blinked at the babbling classmate. Droplets slid from his lashes down his pale skin, falling to the ground with a soft plip.
Seeing that, the classmate forgot what he was going to say. Instead, the truest thought in his heart spilled out: “Even looking haggard, you’re still so good-looking.”
“Ah—no, no, I mean… anyway, let’s exchange contacts!” he stammered.
Tang Yu: “…Alright.”
The boy scurried out of the laundry room like a thief, moving so fast it was as though if he lingered a moment longer, something would catch him.
Checking his phone, Tang Yu saw the new message from him still urging him to check the forum.
Tang Yu parted his lips but didn’t know what to say. Why was this classmate so insistent on making him read gossip about him and Li Sheng?
He wiped his face, decided to ignore it, then took a mask from his pocket, put it on, and headed down from the sixth-floor stairs.
***
At the stairwell stood four players: Yan Lang, Miao Dongli, She Qulin, and Piyixia Henkaixin, the teammate who had gone into a dungeon with She Qulin yesterday.
After exchanging experiences from their previous dungeon runs, the four set foot on the stairs together.
A dim, chilly corridor unfolded before them. Yan Lang and Miao Dongli walked side by side in front, while She Qulin and Piyixia Henkaixin followed behind. The benefit of moving as a group was keeping a better eye on their surroundings.
Though all were watching carefully, Piyixia Henkaixin noticed Miao Dongli turning his head far too often, his expression tense, even the hand gripping his flashlight trembling slightly. Clearly, his courage was small.
After teaming with She Qulin yesterday, Piyixia Henkaixin’s mischief-loving streak had toned down. But now, with such an obvious newbie floundering right in front of him…
He bit back the urge again and again, forcing himself not to tease Miao Dongli, and instead shifted his attention to Yan Lang walking beside him.
Even from behind, it was clear—Yan Lang was far more composed. His body barely shook as he moved…
Piyixia Henkaixin tilted his head, staring intently.
They were both walking, yet Yan Lang’s steps seemed unusually light. An indescribable feeling crept over Piyixia Henkaixin—it felt like he had never seen anyone quite so… literally light as a swallow.
Because of yesterday’s eerie sobbing sounds in the dungeon, today Piyixia Henkaixin had his ears pricked, alert for every noise.
That was when he realized—he couldn’t hear Yan Lang’s footsteps at all.
His gaze dropped to Yan Lang’s feet. Each time he lifted them, the weight seemed to tip forward, as though he were walking on tiptoe.
Piyixia Henkaixin’s eyes widened. He wanted to keep watching, but then—those feet suddenly stopped. Slowly, the toes turned toward him.
A wave of dread struck. Heart pounding wildly, Piyixia Henkaixin jerked his head up—only to meet Yan Lang’s unblinking stare. Those eyes were an unnatural, solid black.
“We’ve arrived.”
Piyixia Henkaixin had just noticed the large spirit house behind Yan Lang. The white lantern on the spirit house lit up, casting its glow on Yan Lang’s face, making it look especially pale. Even the natural flush that should have indicated good circulation on his cheekbones looked eerie under this light.
Standing next to Yan Lang, Miao Dongli let out a sigh of relief. “We actually didn’t run into anything the whole way here, I was so nervous! Hey, Piyixia, why do you look so pale? Don’t tell me your nerves are worse than mine! Hahaha!”
Piyixia Henkaixin forced a smile onto his face, trying hard to refocus his attention back on Miao Dongli.
She Qulin looked up. “The white lantern has changed—there are words on it now.”
The two white lanterns hanging at the entrance now had characters written on them. One read “Anning”, and the other had a single character: “Li”.
“Li Anning?” Miao Dongli guessed. “Could that be the name of the person who lived here?”
“I did some research yesterday,” She Qulin said. “There are usually two lanterns hanging on a spirit house. One will say ‘Anning*,’ and the other will bear the surname of the deceased.”
* means peace
“So that means an NPC with the surname Li died,” Miao Dongli rubbed his chin, trying to brainstorm, but came up with nothing.
“Who’s going to open the door?”
“I’ll do it,” Yan Lang volunteered.
Piyixia Henkaixin couldn’t help but tilt his head slightly. Yesterday, when She Qulin entered the dungeon, he triggered a ‘door trap’ and died instantly. Everyone knew that opening the door carried risks—it could end the dungeon run right then and there. Why was Yan Lang volunteering?
“Alright, the rest of us should fall back.”
Piyixia Henkaixin widened the distance between himself and Yan Lang. He watched as Yan Lang pushed open the light wooden door.
This time, no spirit money floated out.
Yan Lang stepped inside. After a moment, his voice called out from within: “You guys can come in now.”
Piyixia Henkaixin’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. He followed behind Miao Dongli, step by step to the doorway. Looking inside, he saw that in contrast to the brightly colored exterior of the house, the interior hall was draped entirely in black and white.
At the center of the black table in the main hall lay eight neatly arranged white cloth strips.
Yan Lang stood before the table, looking thoughtfully at the cloths. Under Piyixia Henkaixin’s gaze, Yan Lang reached toward one of them.
“Wait!”
Piyixia Henkaixin blurted out without thinking. “Yan Lang, what are you doing?!”
Yan Lang turned his dark eyes toward him. “I’m examining this item.”
“In this dungeon, don’t touch anything unknown. I thought what happened to me and She Qulin yesterday already taught everyone that. If you touch something now and get us all wiped out, what then?” Piyixia Henkaixin sounded righteously stern, but inside, he was panicking under Yan Lang’s gaze.
“Being cautious in a dungeon is good, but this is still a game. If you’re too constrained, it’s hard to enjoy it. I was the first to come in—I’ve already poked around all the random stuff in here. I’ve taken on most of the risk.”
Yan Lang then pointed to the white cloths on the table. “There are eight of them. What I’m curious about is, why eight?”
“As far as I know, the number eight doesn’t have any special significance in traditional funeral customs.”
“But there are eight of us players.”
Miao Dongli nodded in agreement. “Yeah, eight exactly.”
Piyixia Henkaixin took a deep breath and turned away from the pig teammate that was Miao Dongli. He looked to She Qulin for support.
She Qulin stepped forward and picked up one of the cloths decisively, just like yesterday when he stabbed a knife into his own ear without hesitation.
In Piyixia Henkaixin’s shocked eyes, She Qulin held the cloth and said, “I have a theory.”
Everyone looked at him.
“I’ve been thinking—why did Piyixia and I die after interacting with the spirit money in the dungeon? There has to be some logic behind the game’s design.”
“I did a lot of reading. Most people believe that taking spirit money is unlucky—it draws trouble from the underworld. At first I didn’t have a clue, but today, when I saw the change in the lanterns on the spirit house, I had a guess.”
“In some funeral traditions, when someone has just died, their family burns ‘first-offering money.’ When burning it, the children of the deceased cry loudly. That’s why Piyixia and I heard crying.”
“That money is for the dead. We took what we shouldn’t have, so we died. Makes sense.”
“When we entered the dungeon today, we didn’t encounter any spirit money. Why not?” She Qulin asked and answered himself. “Because ‘first-offering money’ is only burned on the first day. Today is the second day.”
“Funeral customs vary. Some last seven days, others three. The rituals can be complex, but one thing is usually present: the mourning announcement.”
“The white lantern showing the deceased’s surname—that’s likely the mourning announcement.”
Miao Dongli was dumbfounded, nodding repeatedly at She Qulin.
“Yesterday, when Piyixia and I took the spirit money, we didn’t die immediately. It happened after we opened the door—almost as if the spirit house didn’t want us to enter.”
“But today is different. I’m thinking—maybe because today is the mourning announcement day, outsiders are allowed in. So maybe, in this game, you can only enter the spirit house under certain conditions. And that condition might not just be ‘outsider’—that’s too broad. For example, if someone dies and it’s the mourning day, are they welcoming mourning guests… or burglars?”
“In some funeral traditions, the family gives white mourning cloths to guests. They’re called filial cloths.” She Qulin rubbed the cloth in his hand. “So I’m guessing—could these cloths be the way the game distinguishes between welcome guests and intruders?”
After She Qulin finished, even Piyixia Henkaixin couldn’t find anything to refute. Miao Dongli, meanwhile, looked at She Qulin with open admiration. “Bro, no wonder your intelligence stat is 9. Can you share some with me?!”
She Qulin carefully wrapped white cloth around his wrist. He looked up and glanced at Yan Lang across from him, then suddenly said, “But I still don’t understand—why did Yan Lang encounter a paper effigy that looked exactly like him at the beginning?”
“I’m not sure either,” Yan Lang replied calmly.
Standing between the two, Miao Dongli asked cheerfully, “Big brothers, what do you think we should do next?!”
Yan Lang didn’t respond, so She Qulin continued in his unhurried tone, “There are a lot of paper elements in this instance—paper effiges, paper money, paper houses.”
“These are all funeral items. I’m thinking, maybe what the task wants us to find here is also something made of paper… or perhaps, a dead person.”
“A dead person for whom all these funerary items have been prepared.”
“So my thought is, we should identify who that deceased person is. Spirit houses usually contain items the deceased liked in life. Now that we already know the person’s surname, if we can find out their preferences, we can gradually narrow it down.”
“But the spirit house is huge. Exploring it all together risks a total wipe, which would waste our one daily opportunity. It’s better if we split up or go in pairs.”
As soon as She Qulin finished speaking, Piyixia immediately chimed in, “She Qulin, I’ll go with you!”
Miao Dongli, not daring to go alone, quickly smiled ingratiatingly at Yan Lang. “Brother Yan, should we stick together then?”
And just like that, the two teams were decided.
The four players moved among the black and white curtains. Just before the teams separated, She Qulin and Yan Lang turned to look back at each other, as if in silent understanding.
The drifting curtains obscured their expressions.
***
Tang Yu walked from the sixth floor to the fifth, then took a few more steps downward. When he reached the stairwell between the fifth and fourth floors, a sudden commotion erupted above his head like a pot boiling over.
“She Qulin, did you guys die and respawn too?! Find anything?” Tang Yu recognized She Qulin’s name and quickly guessed that the players must be exchanging information near the fifth-floor stairs.
He immediately lowered his head and hurried downstairs as quietly as possible, worried that if he delayed even a moment, he’d be discovered by the players.
The players didn’t notice Tang Yu, and he didn’t hear what they said next…
“We found a bunch of portraits in the spirit house study. Judging by the figure, they all depict the same person—probably the owner of the house.”
“Even though the faces aren’t drawn, just by the form, you can tell… they must’ve been very good-looking.”
