The No. 1 Hunfen King in the Entire Server [Interstellar] Chapter 14

Lin Jing fiddled with the leaf, then tossed it aside. He had no idea how to play it, and it’d probably sound atrocious. There was no way he was embarrassing himself in front of a stranger.

Lighting the branch Xu Wanzhi had given him, Lin Jing moved it closer to examine the small text beneath the dian character.

To his surprise, it was a sequence of numbers: 123456789. Was the person in this coffin so eccentric? But “123456789” didn’t seem like a serial number.

As the firelight illuminated the cliffside, the red glow revealed crevices filled with moss and tiny insects that rustled and clicked as the heat stirred them into motion.

Shrouded in swirling fog and dim moonlight, the atmosphere turned increasingly eerie. Lin Jing’s fingers searched the coffin’s surface for additional clues.

Then he noticed something strange—the coffin he was sitting on had begun to move. At first, it was subtle, but the trembling became more pronounced, accompanied by the sound of scratching.

Lin Jing froze, locking eyes with Xu Wanzhi. “I think… it’s alive.”

Xu Wanzhi returned his gaze, unfazed. “Mmm.”

Lin Jing: “…” What the h*ll?! I didn’t even blow that stupid leaf, and now the thing inside is waking up!

At first, only their coffin stirred, but soon, the others joined in. The once-silent mountain erupted with sound—nails scraping against wood, thudding, pounding. The noise grew deafening as immense force pushed against the coffin lids from within.

Lin Jing pushed Xu Wanzhi. “Go up now! Quickly!”

Xu Wanzhi didn’t hesitate. “Alright.”

He scaled the rope with ease, leaping back to the cliff’s edge in moments.

Lin Jing grabbed the rope but didn’t climb immediately. Instead, he hung there, suspended, waiting.

As Lin Jing got up from the coffin, there was a loud bang! as the coffin lid was pushed open. A hand, covered in corpse spots, stretched out from inside.

Moments later, Lin Jing saw a pale, bluish-green face—a woman with disheveled hair crawling out of the coffin. She reeked of rotting flesh, her eyes were two empty black sockets, and blood vessels spread across her face like a spider web.

The woman let out a shrill scream and lunged at him, trying to grab him, but her arms weren’t long enough and swiped through empty air.

Lin Jing quickly pulled the rope taut and climbed a little higher.

The ghost woman grew agitated, the firelight casting shadows that made the blood vessels on her face seem like writhing worms. Awkwardly, she stumbled to her feet. She wore red shoes, and her ankles were bound by red strings, which made her movements clumsy and stiff. Even climbing out of the coffin seemed an immense effort.

Lin Jing, still observing curiously, suddenly felt a force pulling at the rope. He looked down, and his breath hitched in shock.

The ghost woman couldn’t reach him, but the long rope hung past several other coffins—some of which were occupied by the undead. In just a short pause, two red-glowing zombies had already latched onto his rope. Their expressions were twisted and feral. Though their feet were bound together, they dragged themselves upward with their hands.

Above him, Xu Wanzhi’s voice came as a warning. “If you don’t come up now, we might not make it back before sunrise.”

“Alright.” Lin Jing decided not to linger any longer. He’d gathered enough information and saw no reason to stay.

Although his physical fitness was decent, he had just recently been discharged from the hospital. Moreover, these zombies, while restrained by the red shoes sealing their malevolent spirits, still had far superior strength to ordinary humans due to their mutations.

One nearly grabbed his leg before he narrowly avoided it.

With Xu Wanzhi pulling him up, Lin Jing finally made it to the top of the cliff. Standing on the edge, he glanced down. Below, a bloody scene unfolded: the undead along the mountainside, seemingly provoked, were all sitting up in their coffins. His rope alone now had four or five of them clinging to it, climbing with frenzied movements like rabid dogs.

“Hand me the torch!” 

Xu Wanzhi hesitated briefly but handed over the torch.

Without a second thought, Lin Jing used the torch to burn the rope, then gathered a pile of dry branches from the ground and lit them. A massive blaze roared to life.

Lin Jing, without missing a beat, hurled the burning end directly at the face of the nearest ghost.

“You…?” Xu Wanzhi stared at him in stunned disbelief.

Lin Jing explained nonchalantly, “I didn’t want them jumping up here.”

Xu Wanzhi gave him a long, meaningful look, then laughed. “…You’re pretty interesting.”

Lin Jing had only intended for the fire to deter the undead, but it seemed like he’d thrown a match into gasoline.

A deafening boom! erupted from below.

Flames roared, illuminating the sky in a fiery red glow, casting the same bewildered expression across Lin Jing’s face.

What the h*ll was that?

From the bottom of the cliff came a cacophony of shrill, broken screams—a chorus of wailing ghosts.

Lin Jing moved closer to the edge in shock.

The foggy city seemed to turn into fuel, rolling smoke billowing everywhere. Amidst the haze, Lin Jing saw the flaming figure on the rope—truly a fire person. It was as if it had spontaneously combusted, its entire body engulfed in flames. Countless ghosts, startled and panicked, scrambled back into their coffins. Even the cold cliffside was ablaze, fire spreading without end. What had once been a quiet and eerie mountainside had instantly transformed into a sea of flames. Thick smoke surged, explosions and screams erupted, and outside the forest, the black bull seemed to be startled. Its legs kicked into gear as it bolted out of the woods with all its might.

“…Sh*t.” Lin Jing stood frozen for a long time before cursing under his breath. He grabbed Xu Wanzhi. “Bro, let’s get out of here—far away from the crime scene. We were never here.”

Xu Wanzhi, seemingly deep in thought, directly asked, “Breaking the rules is pretty fun, isn’t it? I’ve noticed that you always aim straight for the limits.”

Lin Jing’s composure cracked a little. “That’s not true.”

It really wasn’t! The first time he chopped wood, it was just to save Blondie. Now, setting the fire was just to keep that ghost from climbing up—it was only a few centimeters away from reaching the edge!

But Xu Wanzhi didn’t seem to care about his response. Instead, he smiled and said, “Hmm, I think it’s fun too.”

Then they walked out of the forest—only to find that the cow was missing.

Lin Jing: “……”

Okay, sure, it was fun.

But Scar Bro wasn’t looking too happy.

The fire was a good fire, and the station was a good station. But this time, they weren’t just facing Scar Bro’s wrath. They also had to deal with an enraged village chief, plus Feng Haozhong fanning the flames on the side, gleefully watching the chaos, and their utterly confused, innocent teammates.

The police station was buzzing with activity. When they returned to the village, Scar Bro was already waiting for them at the entrance.

Lin Jing was the type to adjust his emotions quickly—his momentary panic had already passed. Now, he sat across from Scar Bro with an earnest and confused expression, fully playing the role of an “innocent bystander.”

Scar Bro’s grip on his knife was already slipping—his face was twitching with rage. “The last time, I made you copy the village rules a thousand times. Did you feed them to the dogs?! No setting fires in the mountains, no reckless logging, no unauthorized hunting! You chopped down a tree yesterday, and today you started a fire! What’s next—hunting?! Here, take the knife! Why don’t you just kill me instead?!”

Lin Jing instinctively replied, “Oh, no need to be so polite.”

Scar Bro instantly exploded. “POLITE?! You’re still talking about politeness?!”

Last time, Lin Jing had already endured a full verbal assault from Scar Bro. This time, he had even switched seats on purpose, yet Scar Bro was still fixated on scolding him, completely ignoring Xu Wanzhi. He couldn’t take it anymore and yanked on Xu Wanzhi’s sleeve. “Hurry up, you explain.”

Xu Wanzhi, in a good mood, drawled, “Explain what?”

Lin Jing: “Explain that we didn’t start the fire.” He was starting to think he and Scar Bro had some personal feud.

Xu Wanzhi was quite cooperative. “We didn’t start the fire.”

Scar Bro’s voice shot up an octave. “You didn’t start the fire?! Did it ignite on its own?!”

Feng Haozhong snarked from the side, “Who knows? Sometimes heaven’s thunder and earth’s fire are just unstoppable.”

Blondie, baffled, blurted out, “Are you serious? We’re all on the same team. Why are you kicking them when they’re down?”

Feng Haozhong, having completely abandoned his earlier pretentious demeanor, ignored Blondie and now looked like a petty man reveling in his moment of triumph. He laughed in a strange, sarcastic tone. “Station chief, why don’t you ask what those two were doing in the woods in the dead of night?”

Blondie: “…” ???

Feng Haozhong had lost it.

Scar Bro snapped angrily, his frustration boiling over: “Oh, right! You didn’t start the fire! So what were you two doing out there in the middle of the night? Stargazing?! Moon-watching?!”

For what it was worth, Lin Jing genuinely wasn’t there to start fires. But digging around in someone’s ancestral coffin at midnight? That didn’t sound great either.

He chose to remain silent.

Scar Bro’s fury only burned brighter. “Speak up! Didn’t you want to explain? Here’s your chance! If you weren’t starting fires, what were you doing?!”

His outburst didn’t faze Xu Wanzhi at all, who merely tilted his head with a faint smile, clearly enjoying the spectacle and waiting for Lin Jing to dig himself out of the mess.

Lin Jing: “…”

Scar Bro practically roared, spittle flying everywhere. “Well?! What were you doing on the mountaintop?!”

Finally, Lin Jing, unable to endure it any longer, muttered something vague, almost nonsensical: “Seeking a bit of excitement.”

The terrifying kind of excitement.

Feng Haozhong’s reaction was immediate, bursting into a fit of uproarious laughter. “Ha! Didn’t I say so? How else would someone like him—weak-looking and useless—end up with so much intel? Turns out he’s got his arms wrapped tightly around a big thigh!”

Scar Bro choked on his own anger, unable to process Lin Jing’s response. “Excitement?! You two went to the mountaintop for excitement?!”

Xu Wanzhi couldn’t hold back any longer and let out a soft chuckle, lowering his head to avoid laughing outright.

Lin Jing: “…” Why did that explanation sound so off?

Where had it gone wrong? Scratching his head, he became annoyed. “Is it so strange for young people to look for thrills? It’s not uncommon to go on spooky adventures. Loads of people visit haunted houses for fun!”

Everyone else: “…”

Blondie: “…”

This was heading south quickly, and Lin Jing knew exactly who to blame: Feng Haozhong, that idiot who just couldn’t stop stirring the pot.

Meanwhile, the village chief, who had been suffering from Parkinson’s-level tremors since the day before, was on the verge of a breakdown.

With his voice trembling, he interjected weakly: “Forget about the fire for now! Where’s my cow? All I care about is my cow! What happened to it?!”

Scar Bro, remembering the village chief was his brother, forcibly suppressed his own rage and took a deep breath. Trying to stay calm, he asked, “Fine. The cow. Where is it?”

Lin Jing hesitated, clearly uneasy. “We tied it up outside the forest.”

The village chief: “You tied it up outside the forest? Then why didn’t you bring it back?!”

Lin Jing: “Uh, we tied it up when we went in. But when we came out, it was gone.”

The village chief rose shakily to his feet, ready to throttle Lin Jing. Blondie, for once showing some backbone, threw himself between them, clinging to the village chief’s waist to hold him back. “Don’t! Don’t do it! village chief, calm down—violence solves nothing!”

Scar Bro’s face was contorted with rage. “I don’t care about anything else! Just tell me—where is the cow?!”

Lin Jing couldn’t exactly say it had been spooked by the flames and the ghostly screams, could he? Of course not!

He covered his face with one hand, his tone laced with resignation. “…The cow… got stolen.”

It was like a bomb went off in the room. The air stilled for a moment before Scar Bro erupted in a thunderous roar that shook the very walls of the station.

“So what you’re saying is—you rode the cow to have a midnight rendezvous, and when you came back, the cow was stolen?!”

Lin Jing: “???”

Everyone else: “…”

Even Xu Wanzhi, usually calm and composed, finally cracked, turning away as he stifled a laugh behind one hand. His voice was low and magnetic, with a slightly husky undertone.

Lin Jing: “Station chief, are you…?” Misunderstanding something here?

Scar Bro stood up, his towering figure radiating anger. Just as Lin Jing was about to defend himself, Scar Bro yanked a dusty book titled Ancient Love Stories off the shelf and hurled it at the table.

“Forget copying village rules! You’re going to copy this instead! Copy it all! D*mn it, in all my years, I’ve never seen such a brazen little romantic like you!”

Wait—was this punishment supposed to fix his sexual orientation?!

Meanwhile, Xu Wanzhi, who had been dragged into the mess, was still laughing, his shoulder shaking visibly.

This man was still laughing, even after the drama had looped back around to involve him directly?

Everyone in the room was staring at him with strange expressions.

Surprised.

Complicated.

Confused.

Smug.

Lin Jing… Lin Jing was so overwhelmed that he covered his face with his hands.

Alright. No big deal. It’s just a game. Once they leave, no one will remember each other anyway.

Scar Bro stormed off in a rage. The village chief, looking like he had aged ten years in an instant, staggered out to look for the missing cow. The group of spectators who had come for the drama also left, each with their own mixed feelings.

That left only Xu Wanzhi and Lin Jing—once again stuck in their usual spot, serving their punishment.

Lin Jing’s handwriting was practically stabbing through the paper as he copied the rules. “What kind of messed-up ideas do the NPCs in this game even have?” He should’ve known—of course, someone with eight men would have this kind of chaotic energy! He was absolutely fuming.

His frustration inevitably turned toward Xu Wanzhi. Holding back his anger, he asked, “How do you feel about all this? You can still laugh?”

Xu Wanzhi looked at him calmly and answered, “I just find it fascinating.”

“Fascinating?”

Xu Wanzhi nodded, completely unbothered. “I originally joined this game just to watch the show, maybe take a nap and finish it. But…” He paused, his tone slow and teasing. “I ended up watching so much, I got myself a boyfriend.”

Lin Jing: “…”

Boyfriend, my *ss. Why don’t you go be Scar Bro’s ninth man instead?

“Oh,” Lin Jing replied dryly.

Xu Wanzhi thought back to the whole situation and let out another quiet chuckle. His lazy, indifferent gaze carried a hint of amusement. Setting down his pen, even the small beauty mark at the corner of his eye seemed softer in the moment. He turned his head toward Lin Jing and asked, his voice light and playful—

“Boyfriend, do you want to win?”

Lin Jing muttered gloomily, “Isn’t that obvious? If I didn’t want to win, why would I put in so much effort? Also, is the Research Institute targeting me? Why am I, with zero points, matched into a game like this?”

As soon as he finished, he realized Xu Wanzhi had just called him “boyfriend.” His mental state collapsed further. “Alright, alright, stop calling me that. My reputation is already ruined—it’s bad enough as it is.”

Xu Wanzhi nodded. The usual aloof detachment in his demeanor seemed to dissipate as he spoke more earnestly, albeit with a hint of teasing. His voice remained cool. “It’s not that I don’t want to take this seriously. It’s just that if I did, the difficulty of your game would likely increase.” And not just by a little.

Lin Jing thought about Feng Haozhong, his teammate who seemed intent on ruining his mental state, and admitted to himself that he had finally succeeded.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m already in endurance training mode.”

Xu Wanzhi glanced out the window. Red, half-withered climbing ivy clung to the glass, resembling tiny baby hands.

Retracting his gaze, he said casually, “If you’re so determined to win, maybe I should just go back to sleeping.”

Lin Jing: “…”

It was the first time he’d met someone who could justify slacking off as if it were a grand moral statement.

The first story in Ancient Love Stories was about Baosi.

As Lin Jing copied it out, he began complaining. “How is this supposed to ‘correct orientation’? A foolish king loses his kingdom over a woman. ‘Lust is a blade over one’s head’—any guy reading this would end up terrified of women, not enlightened! Ridiculous!”

Xu Wanzhi, uncharacteristically lowering himself to participate in the punishment, paused mid-copy. He seemed confused. “Why did she laugh?”

Lin Jing: “Who?”

Xu Wanzhi: “Baosi.”

Lin Jing, not in the mood, replied wearily, “Who knows? Maybe that’s just what love is.”