Infinite spooky game

In the room on the right side of the second floor, Qiu Xin stood in front of the window like a sculpture, staring at the corpse hanging from the window.

The corpse's bloodshot eyes were staring at her, as if it wanted to see her inside out, and then penetrate her body to spy on the entire room.

"Tick, tick..."

The sticky blood flowed from the broken neck and wrists of the corpse, dripping from the edge of the windowsill like a waterfall and accumulating and spreading on the ground.

A few drops seemed to be blown by an invisible being with evil taste, and fell on Qiu Xin's toes in violation of common sense of physics, transmitting a slight coolness through her cloth shoes, sucking her skin as if they had life.

There is a situation outside, and I might be in danger if I go out; but if I don’t go out, how can I complete the mission of killing?
After midnight, if she hasn't killed anyone, according to the scholar's words and the requirements of her identity effect, she will die...

Qiu Xin silently weighed the pros and cons and fell into a dilemma.

She held her breath, stepped back, and took out a scimitar from the prop bar and held it in her right hand.

"Hiss..."

Outside the window came the sound of fingers scratching the paper window, lightly and delicately, like scratching one's heart.

Even though he was a little far away and couldn't see clearly what was happening outside the window in the dim light, Qiu Xin could still imagine how the unknown ghost covered its body on the paper window and tentatively groped its way through, looking for a foothold to break in through the window.

The horrifying association triggered a physiological reaction, and Qiu Xin only felt that his heart seemed to be tightened by countless vines, dragging it in all directions, almost jumping out of his throat.

She suppressed the discomfort in her heart, maintained an expressionless calm, and gripped the knife in her hand tighter. The sweat on her palm flowed down the handle, making the iron surface wet and slippery.

The rustling sound of the paper window was still ringing. The lantern held in the left hand seemed to be attracted by the sound. It trembled slightly and the flame inside flickered, like a light bulb with poor contact.

But how could the lantern have poor contact?

Qiu Xin seemed to realize something and turned to look at Tang Yu's bedside table.

Tang Yu's lantern was also shaking, and because no one was holding it, it was shaking and tilting to one side, as if an invisible person was sitting there, deliberately exerting force on the side of the lantern...

Qiu Xin had an illusion of flames igniting the sheets before her eyes, and a warning of danger popped into her mind. She climbed over Tang Yu's bed in a few steps and luckily caught the lantern before it fell to the ground.

This time she pressed directly on Tang Yu, causing the entire bed to creak under the weight.

Even with the effect of the calming incense, with the death crisis imminent and the noise so loud, Tang Yu would have to wake up.

The young man in black slowly opened his sleepy eyes, his pupils dilated as he moved his gaze around, finally settling on Qiu Xin, and suddenly stared: "You...you are..."

Qiu Xin held Tang Yu's lantern in his mouth, his own lantern in his left hand, and a knife in his right hand.

At this moment, she regained her composure and motioned for Tang Yu to take the lantern from her mouth.

"Something's happened. I'm afraid the things outside are going to come in." Qiu Xin's voice was cold and emotionless. "Do you have the right tools to deal with the ghosts?"

"puff--"

As if to confirm the words of hatred, a hole was poked in the paper window in a second, and long and sharp bony claws stretched into the house through the hole, scratching around randomly like an animal begging for food.

Tang Yu came to his senses, and without further ado, he took out a long scroll covered with ink characters from the prop column and placed it horizontally in front of him.

[Name: Ink Soul Scroll]

[Type: props]

[Effect: Open a door that only spirits can enter for 60 seconds, suspected to lead to an unknown dimension (cooling time 24 hours)]

[Note: The unknown poet wrote poems with his soul. He did not know that the creation that exhausted his heart and soul was a ritual, and the work was pollution.]

"I hope those ghosts don't have intelligence. My tool can only deal with unconscious spirits who don't look at the road..."

Tang Yu muttered to himself as he rushed to the window and stared at the ghost hand that reached into the window as if he were facing a great enemy.

It was a pale, slender hand with distinct fingers, pale skin and many wrinkles, but sharp claws like white stones extended from the fingertips, just like those of a tiger!

"They should be ghosts. I think the probability of them being unconscious is a bit low."

Tang Yu rolled the scroll under his armpit and drew out the sword from his waist: "They shouldn't come in, right? It's not even midnight yet, and didn't the scholar say that it would be fine if we didn't open the window?"

"Maybe." Qiu Xin said gloomily.

She held a lantern, stood behind Tang Yu, and stared at the young man's back.

There is only half an hour left, and it may be too late to go out and kill people. Should I kill my roommate first as an emergency measure?

Qiu Xin knew that with the [Ink Soul Scroll] and a few props in her hands, it was not impossible for her to escape from the mansion through the window.

Even if he killed someone, he might be able to escape before the townspeople could react.

What's more, there are quite a few ghosts among the townspeople. Maybe we can break through their confusion and take advantage of the situation...

……

In the middle room on the second floor, Lin Chen finally fell asleep under Qi Si's urging and threats.

Qi Si held the lantern, sat upright on the bed, and continued to flip through the "Record of the Underworld" in his hand.

The book had only been in his hands for a short time, and the traditional Chinese vertical layout was particularly difficult to read, so he had not had time to finish reading it.

The records I have read so far are very mixed, including legends about ghosts, folk taboos about walking at night with lanterns, and many ghost stories whose true or false are unknown.

What concerned Qi Si was that the record of "When a person dies, he becomes a ghost; when a ghost dies, he becomes a demon" in the book was only eight short words, but there were a lot of notes and annotations written with a brush next to it.

Including the last two sentences of the pre-prompt [魙死为希,希死为夷], as well as a line quoted from somewhere [必不不见的是夷, 听不听的是希] [无色是夷,无声是希]

I don’t know if this text information has been updated on the system interface yet, either because the amount of text information is too large or because the weird game intends to make it more difficult for players to read.

In the "Shuangxi Town" copy, Qis had suffered a loss once because of his credulity in the so-called "black and white words", so he was skeptical of all text information that did not appear on the system interface.

But it seemed that not believing this information was not a solution. Mobile phones and other tools could not be brought into the copy, so he had no way of obtaining more information.

So...what does the division of "human", "ghost", "魙", "希" and "夷" have to do with this copy?
In the silence, the rustling sound of nails scratching the window sounded again, and as time went on, it became more and more difficult to ignore, as if it was some kind of domesticated animal that intentionally made a sound to attract the attention of the people in the house.

Qi Si pretended not to hear and continued flipping through the book.

The sound continued for a while, and as if it realized that it could not alarm the people in the house, it changed its strategy and began to knock on the wooden frame supporting the paper window.

"Boom, boom, boom..."

The knocking sounds were tireless, one after another, maintaining the same interval, as if telling time, or just beating the beat.

Qi Si finally opened his eyelids and looked up at the noisy window.

Through the holes in the paper window, you can see the faint green shadows that appear and disappear from time to time, flashing intermittently in the sparsely obstructed areas.

Maybe it's the eyes, or maybe it's the scales, it's hard to see clearly.

Perhaps only by opening the window can you get a full glimpse of the evil things causing trouble outside, but correspondingly, there may also be the risk of ghosts entering the house.

After all, the scholar said that if you open the window at night, ghosts will come in.

But is the thing outside really a ghost? Could it be something else?

The pre-prompt cannot be completely useless. Until now, there is no sign of "魙", "希" and "夷". Could it be that they have to wait until now to appear?

If a "輥鬼" dies and becomes a "魙", is it still the same "輥鬼"? Will its characteristics be different?

Qi Si touched his chin with interest, turned the Netherworld Record to the page that recorded the "Willow Fire", and ran his fingertips across a line of text -

[People hold lanterns, ghosts light candles. Walking in the mountains at night, you can see lanterns in the distance. They look green and blue, which are ghost lights.]

The will-o'-the-wisp couldn't be found for the time being, but Qis did have the turquoise flame.

He once again removed the paper lampshade outside the lantern, revealing the milky white candle inside, which looked like human bones in the gloomy atmosphere.

The originally warm orange flames shot up more than an inch when they came into contact with the air, and instantly turned into a strange green from the outer flame to the flame core, which was icy and creepy. As if a switch had been turned on, the temperature around him suddenly became several degrees colder, and a feeling of suffocation and oppression followed, as if he was in the underground that had not seen the sun for a long time, surrounded by countless invisible corpses.

Qi Si took off the [Pocket Watch of Destiny] and held it in his hand. He paid attention to the pointer on the surface and calculated the time. He stood up and walked to the window.

The paper window, which was originally transparent enough to vaguely see the shadows outside, was now filled with dark shadows, as if it was covered with a large mass of mud and dyed a dirty ink color.

Qi Si reached out to push the window, and as expected, he encountered great resistance, as if there was a vast ocean outside and he was a person trapped in a sinking ship, pushing the cabin door in vain.

Fortunately, with the blessing of [Cursed Pendulum], Qi Si's current strength level is much higher than the average level of a normal adult male.

He used his elbow to touch the window, leaned forward, concentrated all his strength on his joints, and finally pushed the window open a small gap.

The bitingly cold wind blew into the room like a knife, accompanied by invisible black shadows, pouring into the house through the cracks like sea water, flowing freely to every corner.

In just a few seconds, the entire room was filled with black shadows and fell into a darkness as thick as ink. Only a faint green candle was lit in Qis's hand, trembling and flickering.

Qi Si couldn't see the time on the [Destiny Pocket Watch], so he could only feel his pulse and count the seconds silently.

In the darkness, his five senses became extremely sensitive. He smelled the bloody smell suddenly exploding nearby, coming from Lin Chen's bed.

It seems that after entering the room, those minions rushed to make some profits and killed the innocent humans who were sleeping.

The black shadows surrounded Qis, who was holding a white candle, and approached the green flame of the candle almost greedily, as if they wanted to stick to it.

In a trance, Qis seemed to hear the sounds of breathing and swallowing saliva, which brought him a sense of desire and intoxication.

11 seconds, 12 seconds...

The window lost the push of the ghost and swung open lightly, making a creaking sound.

Qi Si threw the candle in his hand directly out of the window.

The green flame like a will-o'-the-wisp moved rapidly in the darkness and fell into the distance in a smooth arc.

The black shadow whistled and chased the flames, passing by the window like the receding tide, and retreated from the room with a dark shadow, leaving a bloody mess on the ground.

It was a mess, but in fact only one person died.

At first glance, all the objects and furnishings did not appear to have been moved in any obvious way; even the wrinkles on the sheets and quilts were exactly the same as before the window was opened.

Only Lin Chen was lying motionless on the bed, blood oozing from his mouth and nose, and he was already dead.

25 seconds, 26 seconds...

Qi Si remained calm, walked to Lin Chen's body, checked him from head to toe, and confirmed that his soul was gone and he was deader than dead.

Unexpectedly, the minions are far more cruel than tigers, and the dead don't even have the chance to be their colleagues - tigers bite people to death and even know to leave their souls behind as minions.

Zeiss laughed at his own inappropriate sense of humor.

With a strange smile on his face, he stepped back to the wall and took in the entire layout of the room.

43 seconds, 44 seconds...

"Clap."

The lantern on the bedside table trembled as if blown by the wind and looked like it would fall over at any moment.

I flashed before my eyes the image of a raging fire igniting the sheets and rushing up to the rafters, probably the result of the lantern actually tipping over.

Qi Si estimated the distance and felt it was a bit far.

He was too lazy to run over to hold the lantern, so he simply turned the gears of his fate pocket watch.

[The "Time Rewinds One Minute" effect has been activated. This effect cannot be activated again in this instance.]

The dark shadow outside the window suddenly returned into the room, then quickly retreated like the tide, closing the open window along with it.

The overflowing blood flowed back into the body without leaving any trace; the skin and flesh of the dead body regained their temperature, and warm breath returned from the mouth and nose.

The candle thrown out of the window flew back into my hand without even a wisp of wax falling off.

Time goes back to before the window was opened, and no one except Qis himself has any memory of that minute.

Lin Chen was lying soundly on the bed, breathing evenly and slowly, and he looked like he was sleeping soundly.

The paper lantern was also placed neatly on the bedside table, in a position where it would not easily fall to the ground no matter how it tipped over. It was slightly offset from where it was in my memory.

"It is basically certain that the candle in the lantern is the so-called 'guiding green lantern'. The ghosts outside the window are attracted by it, and perhaps we can use it in the future.

"Those ghosts have physical forms and make sounds when they move. They are probably not 'Xi' or 'Yi', but just ordinary 'minions'.

"They are all ghosts. Those hiding among the townspeople are no different from ordinary people and only appear at midnight. These ghosts can only live in the corpse pits and attack the houses at night.

"They were clearly coveting the lanterns, but there was an invisible force that wanted to knock them over, and even caused a fire... The reason behind this is really something that we have to pay attention to."

Qi Si raised his index finger and tapped his chin intermittently, narrowing his eyes.

……

Outside the mansion, Qiu Xin was wearing a black cloak and walking quickly on the sparsely populated road.

It was almost midnight, and the townspeople who were still wandering outside hurriedly scattered into the winding and narrow alleys, rushing towards their homes.

There was no moon overhead, no lanterns in the entire town, and not a single light in sight.

The townspeople, however, did not carry lanterns, as if they were accustomed to living and walking in the dark. Their movements were natural and smooth, without any hindrance from the night.

In comparison, the hatred holding the lantern seems out of place.

But she doesn't care.

Qiu Xin had a clear goal. He observed the people around him calmly and finally saw a hunched figure among the crowd.

It is hard to tell whether the other townspeople are humans or ghosts, but there is one townsperson who is truly a human being, and this is something the players have already reached a consensus on.

Qiu Xin walked towards the figure, approached silently, and patted the man's shoulder.

"Bang--"

The gong in the man's hand fell to the ground.

"thump--"

The man fell forward.

[You have used the identity effect once today and killed one person]

[Please kill the next person within twelve hours]

Two lines of system prompts refreshed, marking the completion of the task.

Qiu Xin lowered his head, raised his hand to push down the brim of his hat, turned around and walked away quickly.

Behind me, the night watchman sounded——

"Bang, bang, bang!"

The hatred suddenly turned around.

The body was still lying there intact, and the sound came spontaneously from the gong.

After the gong was struck three times, a hoarse human voice rang out:

"It's midnight, everything is fine!" (End of this chapter)