Chapter 32.1
(Dead people are not allowed in the coffin shop.)
The seven days of downtime pa.s.sed very quickly.
After the men in black read out the lot drawing sequence, the nine players from the two different scenarios went to the entrance of Xiaoyao Sect to draw their character roles for their next script.
Gu Liang was quietly suggested by the men in black to draw his card first.
Owing to the special reward card he had drawn, the other players would only draw for their scripts once he had decided whether he wanted to bring along a teammate or not.
This allowed Gu Liang to confirm a matter— in the event where the next-door scenario premise was destroyed in a fire and resulted in the cessation of the script enactment, everything related to the script would be directly terminated, because the five players from other script had to redraw for another.
Thus, when they arrived at the entrance of Xiaoyao Sect, the sight that still greeted Gu Liang was the impenetrable and endless thick fog. Although it looked like it was part.i.tioning this celestial world from everything else, it was actually a most poisonous miasma; one would be swallowed the moment they stepped into it.
In front of the fog was a pitch-black sedan and two men in black.
As per usual, one of the men in black was holding onto a roulette, waiting for Gu Liang to draw a script.
Rather than spinning the roulette immediately when he came to a stop in front of the men in black, Gu Liang stood still and tossed a look behind his shoulder.
Xiaoyao Sect was hidden in the depths of connected mountains, where the fog was heavy and the clear skies were vast. The landscape was accompanied by the lonely cries of wild cranes and the babbling of rivulet waters, as though it was a haven of peace.
If it was under different circ.u.mstances, this impressive scenery would be pleasing to both the eye and mind.
How unfortunate. This game made the magnificent scenery of mountains and waters become a place a.s.sociated with dread.
A straight mountain path pierced straight into the heart of Xiaoyao Sect, and the mountain path was currently occupied by numerous people. They were the surviving players from the two scripts and everyone was lining up and waiting to draw their cards.
Yang Ye stood at the forefront of the group. Clad in grey Buddhist robes, he quirked up his mouth corners to give Gu Liang a smile. The expression lining his facial features could be considered as natural and unrestrained, or perhaps describing it as unruly and debauched might be more apt.
If this person really became a monk, he would be a monk who did not follow the Buddhist commandments.
That was Gu Liang’s evaluation.
But inexplicably, Gu Liang felt the cloudiness in his heart disperse quite a bit when Yang Ye gave him a gentle and steadying gaze which was complemented with that smile.
Soon after, Gu Liang turned his head back and spun the roulette without missing a beat.
The man in black said: “The script you drew is 《 Undying Town 》. Difficulty level, medium; difficulty index, one star. Please draw your character card next.”
Gu Liang did not waste any time as he randomly drew a card from the other man in black.
“Welcome to《 Undying Town 》. You are called Boss Meng, the boss of a coffin shop. You live in An Ning Town. Starting from a certain day, every time someone dies in this small town, the deceased will immediately resurrect to 24 hours prior. For example, if someone dies on the 8th of August at 8 in the morning, he will resurrect on the 7th of August at 8 in the morning. After the deceased revives, they will not have memories pertaining those 24 hours. The murderer and the other players will not receive any side effects from it.
“The script’s deceased is unknown, the detective is unknown, there might be more than one murderer.
“There are a total of seven players, and one of these characters requires a high degree of cooperation from the player. For the sake of everyone’s in-game experience, a NPC will act as the player. Hence, there is a NPC hidden amongst the seven players. Please make the proper distinctions.
“The script’s timeline will not be made known for the time being, please refer to the card for notices on all your actions.
“Friendly reminders: one, a parallel universe does not exist in this scenario, diverging your thoughts towards the physics tangent is not necessary, please ground your deductions in the given script settings; two, clocks do not exist anywhere on the scenario premises, if the players need to check the time, please use the time on the card as an indicator. Hope that everyone will enjoy the game!”
These were the contents on the t.i.tle page of the card.
After skimming through the contents roughly, Gu Liang heard the man in black ask: “Please ascertain if you would like to use your special rewards card right now, which grants you the ability to bring along one teammate.”
Despite hearing those words, Gu Liang did not answer immediately. He tried to pull down the interface but he realised that the other pages were not unsealed yet. Like what was written on the t.i.tle page, the current script’s timeline and character plot were all unknown.
In the two scripts that Gu Liang had experienced thus far, the character’s corresponding plot, timeline and modus operandi were directly and clearly stated on the card, but he had nothing this time around.
It seemed like this scenario would be propelled forward at any given time, and it could direct the characters to take the next action at any time.
With how the circ.u.mstances were, the entire script’s plot enactment might become more natural and truer to life, bringing itself even closer to reality.
After all, in the real world, people did not possess prophetic abilities, they would not know when they would be encountering something in advance.
An undisclosed plot, an unknown character, an unnamed murder casek2026;
This script was bound to be subversive and extremely stimulating, and this also meant that there was a certain degree of difficulty and danger.
In such instances, having a reliable teammate by his side was exceedingly important.
Without needing to consider for too long, Gu Liang gave his answer: “I need to use my reward card.”
The man in black: “Please produce your card.”
The men in black had already taken back the card belonging to the《 Painted Skins ∙ Long Lived 》script. Therefore, Gu Liang only had one reward card on his person.
Gu Liang took out the card and handed it to the man in black, who tapped on the card a few times before returning it back to him. Immediately, Gu Liang noticed that player portraits had appeared on the card surface, and they were all people he had met in the previous scenarios.
Yang Ye was among them, of course.
Gu Liang did not hesitate in the slightest as he pressed on Yang Ye’s head portrait.
Subsequently, the man in black replaced the reward card in Gu Liang’s hands with the costume for his next script and invited him to get on the sedan. “Please change into your costume prop once you step into the sedan.”
Before the curtain to his sedan lowered, Gu Liang heard the man in black’s voice: “Following, may Yang Ye step forward to draw a character card.”
He only had to draw a character card because it was not necessary for him to draw a script; it seemed like the reward took effect immediately.
However, he did not know what character Yang Ye drew.
After a short pause, Gu Liang released the hold he had on the curtain.
He sat down on the sedan calmly and started to study his costume— a s.h.i.+rt that had lost its colour from extensive was.h.i.+ng and tattered jeans, which matched the image of a young boss who was running a less-than-profitable coffin shop to get by his days in a downtrodden small town.
* * *
Gu Liang woke up on a worn-out bed.
The innerspring mattress was extremely poor quality, and it issued a loud creaking noise as he flipped his body slightly.
The room was gloomy and damp. Gu Liang sat up, hand scrunching up the blankets in an arbitrary manner and a moist sensation filled his palm, as though he could wring out water— the town’s climate resembled the areas south of the lower reaches of the Chang Jiang river a little when they experienced seasonal intermittent drizzles.
Gu Liang got off the bed and realised that the white T-s.h.i.+rt and jeans were neatly folded and placed on the stool.
The jeans were placed at the very bottom, and its folding method was as such: the jeans legs were folded upwards first before the two sides were joined together and folded again.
The white T-s.h.i.+rt was placed on top, folded into halves and the collar was pulled up…
The obsessive compulsion present in the folding method was recognisable to Gu Liang because it was his own handwriting, without a doubt.
Gu Liang remembered that the s.h.i.+rt and jeans were part of his costume prop, he had seen it as he was riding the sedan.
But how he arrived in this room, how he took off his clothes, when he folded these clothes, how he ended up sleeping on this bed, were matters he did not have the slightest impression of.
His mind suddenly slipped past the script settings written on the card’s t.i.tle page. Gu Liang had some guesses in his heart but he was not certain.
He could only walk around and search his surroundings first before theorising.
Gu Liang walked to the bedroom entrance and understood why this bedroom was dim and damp.
This room was fas.h.i.+oned out an attic; since it was constructed in a simple manner with wood, there were some growing molds that could not be rid of.
It seemed like the Boss Meng he was acting as this time around was really poor.
Right outside the door was the stairs. Gu Liang followed the staircase down and reached the main hall on the first-floor landing.
Before he reached the end of the stairs, he could already see the room filled with coffins.
This complemented his current ident.i.ty— the boss of a coffin shop.
The large doors into the coffin shop were sealed tightly, and the large hall was extremely dim except the small spot of light coming from the wall lamp.
Underneath the faint yellow wall lamp, the two rows of words were extremely conspicuous: “The Two Taboos of the Coffin Shop: One, the doors have to be closed before sundown, Two, corpses are not allowed in the coffin shop.”
Truthfully speaking, Gu Liang was not scared.
According to the script’s setting, there were more science fiction elements compared to the abstruse and illusionary, which made the existence of ghosts unlikely.
Gu Liang glanced outside his window. The night colours were deep and dark, it seemed quite late in the night.
— In that case, why was he awake at this time of the night again?
Gu Liang could not remember anything, and concurrently, his head was incredibly woozy so he decided to go to the bathroom to take a quick shower before he decided on his next course of action.
Upon getting out of the shower, he felt more awake, and he took out his plot and character card.
The card displayed that the time now was 7 August, 9:10 at night.
Gu Liang made some rough calculations. He probably used ten minutes from getting up to taking a shower, give or take a few.
This signified that when he woke up, it should be around 9 o’ clock on August 7th.
Gu Liang held the card between his fingers and tried to scroll down.
The other pages on the card were still in the state where they could not be opened; it seemed like he was not allowed to know what the script required him to do just yet.
He could only wait.
Feeling a little hungry, Gu Liang explored his way to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.
Although Boss Meng was not as well-off as Boss Bai, considering how he did not have any big fishes or pieces of meat, it was still plentiful in the sense that he had a lot of vegetables which ensured that he would not starve to death.
Gu Liang inspected each layer, going downwards, before his line of sight finally landed on a bowl of white porridge.
The porridge was placed in a porcelain white bowl with cling wrap wrapping around the rim of the bowl seamlessly to preserve its freshness, and in order to ensure that the cling wrap did not fall and influence the texture of the food, there was also a single chopstick placed on top of the cling wrap.
This was completely in line with Gu Liang’s habits.
He only knew how to cook porridge, and the manner in which the chopstick was pressing down on the cling wrap was something unique to him.
This can only mean— this bowl of porridge was made by Gu Liang himself before it was placed inside the refrigerator.
However, Gu Liang did not remember himself folding his T-s.h.i.+rt and jeans, or the fact that he had cooked this bowl of porridge.
All of this… what was going on exactly?
Gu Liang retrieved his card and read for the important mises en scène again— starting from a certain day, every time someone died in this town, that person’s time would reverse back to 24 hours prior.
If he were to say that he had his uncertainties when he woke up, Gu Liang could essentially confirm that he had already died once in this scenario, resulting in a backflow of his time by 24 hours, and the subsequent loss of his memory regarding the aforementioned duration.
With how queerly bizarre everything was, Gu Liang could not begin to conceive how the system managed to accomplish it.
But since all these had already occurred, he could only conform to the script and continue walking forward.
Now aware of the circ.u.mstances, Gu Liang kept his card, warmed up the porridge quickly and cooked two boiled eggs.
Once the eggs were done, Gu Liang cut them into small sections and ate it with light soy sauce, treating it as a small dish to go with his porridge.
At this moment, Gu Liang thought of good points that Yang Ye had— he was good at making breakfast, good at making desserts, and in different patterns too.
As for Gu Liang, eggs with light soy sauce were already the peak of his cooking skills.
When he was done eating, the time was close to 9:30 at night, and Gu Liang’s card vibrated without any prior warning.
— Finally, a paragraph on the character plot and a portion of the timeline had been pa.s.sed over.
The original words of the plot were: “The Seventh Secondary School’s [Princ.i.p.al Zha] has been troubling you recently. His mother just pa.s.sed away a few days ago and he bought a coffin from your shop. When Mother Zha was supposed to be buried, the people lifting the coffin made a mistake and dropped the coffin, thus breaking it. Princ.i.p.al Zha begrudged the fact he had to buy another coffin, and he wanted to make you send a new one to him. After you rejected him, he became resentful in his heart. Thus, he started the rumour that your shop’s coffin had built-in cracks and was inferior in quality, and that his mother could not close her eyes contentedly as she descended into the Nine Springs as a result of it. Your business has suffered a drastic decline since.
“There was a woman matchmaker who helped you discuss a prospective marriage, and the bride is a lady from Lin City. Everything was originally going smooth and you were only waiting to marry her over. However, you received a call from her this morning, and she wished to break off the engagement because she was afraid that you would become poverty-stricken and down on your luck. Upon waking up tonight, you recalled her voice in the telephone and your heart became terribly upset so you decided to wander around the streets.
“The downtown streets at night were chilly and there were not a lot of people around. A greasy smell wafted over from the opposite barbeque stall which made you even unhappier. You really want to find the barbecue’s [BBQ Li] to settle accounts and tell him not to produce such a strong greasy smell. At 9:30, you shot the barbeque stall an irritated look and saw [Beggar Ding]. Beggar Ding was pleading BBQ Li to give him something to eat. Hence, BBQ Li gave the remaining barbeque left by the customers to him. BBQ Li’s expression was quite peculiar; his gaze also had a glint of ruthlessness. You felt that something was wrong with the situation, but you were afraid that BBQ Li would notice you so you hurry back inside.
“You stayed in the coffin shop for about an hour, and the feeling of strangeness only heightened the longer you thought about it. You cannot shake off the feeling that BBQ Li had bad intentions towards Beggar Ding. You know that this child, Beggar Ding, did not have parents ever since he was young, had to beg on the streets, and grew up on the meals of hundreds of families. But he was a kind person; whenever you were replenis.h.i.+ng your stocks, he would even help you lift the coffins. With that in mind, you decided to help Beggar Ding and went out to check if he was safe and sound. Thus, at 10:30, you went to the alley by Seventh Secondary School.”
The plot and timeline were very simple. Gu Liang finished reading the plot quickly and he noted that the designated time was about to arrive. Thus, he immediately followed the plot’s prompts and walked towards the streets.
The coffin shop’s front doors had been closed since sundown, and according to the rules pa.s.sed down from his ancestors, he could not open the front doors after sundown. Although Gu Liang did not care much for it, he did not want to incite unnecessary trouble so he used the coffin shop’s back door.
There was a small backyard outside the back door. The small courtyard was linked to a small path which directly led to the road outside.
When Gu Liang walked to the road and stood at the entrance of the coffin shop, he observed this particular street.
The houses and buildings on both sides of the road were not tall, and they were rather outdated with its architectural style that was reminiscent of the Republic of China period.
The pale blue moon was like frost, casting a sheen of silver on the white walls and flagstone pavements, which made the entire road seem tranquil and peaceful.
But with the thick fog present at both ends of the long street, another point of eccentricity was added to this place.
Gu Liang was not a stranger to this thick fog.
The surroundings of Boss Bai’s villa and the entrance of Xiaoyao Sect was also shrouded by this miasma. Stepping into the fog at any given moment was equivalent to death.
Gu Liang glanced between the thick fog at the two ends of the street briefly before he retracted his gaze, choosing to focus on the buildings stated in the map.
Boss Meng’s coffin shop was located at the southernmost corner of the long street, and opposite of it was a barbeque stall that had a sign that stated “Li’s Barbeque” at the front. It should be the barbeque stall the script mentioned.
Currently, there was someone fiddling with the ingredients, and he should be the [BBQ Li] character in his script.
After observing him discreetly from the shadows, Gu Liang realised that the actor of BBQ Li was someone he was actually familiar with— he was the actor of Brother Bai in the Death of Boss Bai, Liu Ran.
There was still some time before 9:30 and Beggar Ding had yet to make his appearance, so Gu Liang continued to look further ahead.
Thirty metres north of the barbeque store was a school, and the plaque at the main entrance wrote: “Seventh Secondary School”.
Even further north of the school was a small alley, with a resident building right beside it. Judging from spa.r.s.e lights, there were only a few inhabitants.
The coffin shop, barbeque stall, Seventh Secondary School, small alley, and resident building… from his position, he could roughly see the entire scenario’s map in full. Compared to Xiayao Sect, this site was not big.
And next door of the coffin shop was a shroud shop.
The signboard had the words “w.a.n.g’s Shroud Shop” on it.
There was a total of seven characters in this current script.
After reading the script, Gu Liang was already aware of four characters: He was acting as Boss Meng, the one who impacted his business was Princ.i.p.al Zha, the person manning the stall was BBQ Li, and there was the cadging Beggar Ding.
Now that he was looking at the signboard, Gu Liang raised his eyebrows slightly— Hm? The fifth character is the next-door Old w.a.n.g?