Feng Bujue sighed in relief. He was secretly glad that he didn’t take Mario’s Pipe Wrench out. In that case, Oink would take his main weapon which was graded Excellent, and he couldn’t do anything about it.
Indeed, losing the chef knife wasn’t a loss; it was a fair exchange of a normal quality item, which he could take in any scenario, for a special Survival Value supplement in this scenario.
Feng Bujue rushed to take a bowl and came to the stove. He checked each of the two pots and stirred them once to see the stuff inside both of the pots were the same. He found pork meat and bones in the soup and the pork fat and skin left on the kitchen table next to it.
After he had seen those things, Feng Bujue could ease his mind. However, he couldn’t help but to think that, if it were him, would he have enough courage to make his fellow’s corpse become his ingredients? What would he feel during the process?
Oink approached him. The monster seemed to read his mind as it coldly snorted and used a chatty tone to tell him, “The place I was born was filled with lies and enslavement. Those actions, whether they were permitted or not, the priest taught us to be content with our lot, just grin and bear it. I’ve dealt with so many pigs at the slaughterhouse. It repeated daily, so cooking them was not a big deal to me.”
Feng Bujue didn’t know how to answer him, so he just nodded his head and considered his response.
He quickly made a bowl of soup and brought it out of the kitchen. Before he left, he turned his head and spoke to Oink, “Thanks. Yeah, see you.”
Oink didn’t reply to him. When Feng Bujue got out of the kitchen, the lights there suddenly switched off and the sturdy body of the pig-headed uncle was immersed in the darkness again.
[Main Quest, updated.]
[Search Yousuke High School and Solve the seven supernatural phenomena, current progress: 6/7]
Like Rain also heard the notification from the system as she saw Feng Bujue walking out of the kitchen. Now, she could exhale in relief. It was just a couple of minutes, but it was more annoying than that of one hour ago. If Feng Bujue didn’t come back, she would blame herself nonstop. In her mind, it was mainly her responsibility as the scenario had been developed to this point.
However, when Like Rain saw what Feng Bujue was carrying, her happy and safe feelings immediately changed to fear and doubt as she thought, “What’s going on? Is he addicted to the soup? He’s already taken two, now he is going to drink another one?”
Feng Bujue put the bowl in front of her on the table then regarded Like Rain. Both of his hands were rising just like he was holding the bowl and pouring it into his mouth while waving his hands, gesturing Like Rain to drink the soup. Because his friend didn’t know that this soup could recover the Survival Value, Feng Bujue had to gesture more to explain that.
After Like Rain got his idea, she took the meat soup. Then, Like Rain could see her Survival Value recover fully from the almost dying status. She regarded Feng Bujue and waved her hands for a while to express that she had been recovered well.
Feng Bujue nodded and signaled her to give him the portable lamp. Then, he started to walk forward.
When the two of them got out of the canteen, the ghosts outside started to dash to them from all directions. Their hair looked like a long silk fabric sheet with split nose, and fur covered their body entirely. Some even wore masks. This situation reminded Feng Bujue of the city which Satsuma Diehl had controlled. Before they could finish that scenario, Feng Bujue and his teammates were also converged by a troop of monsters. However, it was still something different as half of the monster they met at that time were related to ‘monsters and ghosts in Western legends’; meanwhile, the bunch of ghosts chasing after Like Rain and him now were the ‘spirits and ghosts of the traditional Eastern cultures’.
They didn’t have time to think more or delay there. Feng Bujue ran forward, holding the portable lamp in his hand to lead the way. Although Like Rain didn’t have the Dance of the Knight, it wasn’t too much for her to keep up with Feng Bujue.
Now, their Survival Value had been fully recovered, and after over an hour of resting, their Stamina Value were abundant. This boosted Feng Bujue’s and Like Rain’s confidence that even though they were in an adverse situation of being chased after by so many ghosts, it couldn’t prevent them from completing the last task.
The ghosts didn’t give up chasing them. After they had crossed the main building, the two of them entered that large schoolyard again.
Under the bright moonlight, even from a distance, they could see a shadow standing at the school gate. No… it was a ghost, quietly standing there by itself.
That was a little girl wearing a red dress. When she came into their visions, the folksong arose again, and this time, the ghost sang it aloud.
Their surroundings started to change along with the song as a big dark cloud blocked the moon. Moreover, the buildings, plants, and the schoolyard behind them all suddenly turned into a massive graveyard.
When Feng Bujue and Like Rain came in front of the little girl, she was singing the last verse of the folksong. However, this time, they heard another different verse, “Ghosts are everywhere, and blood is flooding in. They are coming for your lives. Slow down… slow down… It’s hard to pass the people on the way to the Yellow Spring.” (1)
The ethereal and sad melody abruptly stopped there.
The little girl suddenly giggled, which could give goosebumps on people’s skin. She said, “Uncle, aunty, come with me, okay?” Upon saying those words, black blood started to creep out from her seven orifices while her body was floating up in mid-air.
[Current Quest, changed. Main Quest, updated.]
[Destroy Ghost Eiko.]
[Communication restriction is lifted. Ghosts pursuit will be continued until players complete the Quest or when all players die.]
When Feng Bujue could speak again, the first thing that came out from his mouth was, “Who is uncle here!?” Then, he put away the portable lamp and forcefully flexed his legs, which could be described as running like a rabbit with the tiger aura. He took out the wrench and struck at the face of the monster.
Puff. He successfully hit the target. Eiko’s face was smashed, leaving a hole where dark blood gushed out. As the BOSS of the scenario, of course, she wouldn’t die that easy. Since the ghost was still floating, this strike was surely not fatal.
One of his hands grabbed the little girl’s neck while the other hand was pounding the wrench continuously; he didn’t bother with the dark blood splashing all over his face. And, he didn’t forget to tell the ghost, “You should call me Gege!”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.” Eiko laughed insanely as she didn’t care whether her skull had been deformed. Moreover, the ghost wasn’t affected by the [Cerebral Concussion].
Quite the contrary, Feng Bujue’s Survival Value was declining. Was it because of the black blood or the ghost’s laugh, or it was just simply because he had touched it? At this moment, he couldn’t figure it out, so he had to continue hitting the monster in the hope that his attack would be useful.
Like Rain felt a little bit funny watching this scene. In fact, she did want to say something about ‘Aunty’, but Feng Bujue’s exciting response had calmed her as she got a feeling that she couldn’t join Jue-Ge doing bad things. “Your Spiritual Technique was unlocked?” Like Rain took her sword while asking. Since her actions weren’t slow, the ghosts coming from the graveyard behind her couldn’t pressure her much. Anyway, her eyes had locked to the target she had to kill.
Feng Bujue answered, “It’s true, what’s wrong?” After one second, he understood the matter. “Ah! Only players who have the Spiritual Technique Specialty unlocked could ‘touch’ the ghosts’ body?”
“True.” Like Rain had restored her style of using fewer words for more meanings. After her short reply, Like Rain appeared next to Eiko.
With a tranquil heart like water and eyes cold as ice, her sword slashed out rapidly and fiercely.
One second later, black blood started to stream out from the cut waist of the monster, just like the juice when one halved a succulent orange. Feng Bujue seized the opportunity and jumped away. If he stayed there, it would look he like was taking a shower.
As the saying goes, we are not afraid of failing to find the goods, but we are afraid that there are goods better than our goods. Although Feng Bujue’s attack looked furious, indeed it was like he couldn’t scratch the monster’s itchy spots. If it were him who was blocked in the space of the 13th step, even if he had three lives, that wouldn’t be enough for him to survive. Like Rain just used only one strike to solve the problem. This was sort of an innate talent, just like the other hotshots in novels who could find the enemies’ Achilles heels in just a glance and finish everything with only one strike.
[Current Quest, accomplished. Main Quest, completed.]
[You’ve completed the scenario. Automatic teleport in 17 seconds.]
Feng Bujue said, “No way, are you that cool?” Although he knew his friend was really strong, this was the first time he had ever seen her kill a BOSS-level monster directly. When they were in the Usher’s House, he had seen her flying and slashing the chandelier, and he didn’t think that it was just a joke when she killed the monster.
“No, you are strong,” Like Rain said, “it’s all thanks to you this time.”
While they were talking, Eiko fell on the ground and turned into a black blood puddle, and the ghosts had already disappeared together with the graveyard illusion. The school then appeared again.
The two of them were standing in front of the school gate as the moonlight reappeared, shining all over the place. The board ‘Yousuke High School’ came into their view again. Everything was like they were just an ethereal dream that could bring true feelings as the scary, horrible scenes were still clear in front of their eyes: carrying the ghost out of the dry well, the strange ghost hands playing piano, the corpse cradle, the blood figure which had the eyeballs head, the Heaven’s Butcher, and Eiko. Talking about the degree of horror, what Feng Bujue had experienced in this scenario were more than enough to scare Little Tan out of his wits and force him to log out. Anyway, he didn’t know if his Fear Value had surged or was calculated in the calculation for rewards or not.
“We should chat in my Conference Room later,” said Like Rain, indicating that they should get out of the scenario and talk later.
“Excellent. I will team up with you after teleportation,” replied Feng Bujue.
Both of them teleported away after saying goodbye.
Around one minute later, a giant figure that had a pig head pulling a cart with cleaning tools slowly came over; he stood beside the black blood puddle.
After dipping the mop inside the water bucket, he then deliberately started to clean the place.
However, the mop head on his hand wasn’t made from fabric, but it was a big shiny black lock of hair.
—————————————-
(1) Yellow Spring: the underworld of Chinese Mythology, the equivalent of Hades or Hell.
