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Chapter 3: Night Stroll in Yin Village 01

A luminous white panel hovered in front of Qin Fei's eyes, displaying two lines of tiny text.

"Natural Talent: A Glib Tongue (Upgradeable)"

"System Evaluation: Your expertise lies in persuasion, turning the dead into the living, black into white. Your insight is unparalleled, easily winning others' favor."

"Skill Description: Upon activation of this talent, players can visualize the NPC's affinity towards them. Some NPCs will become available for interaction, with the specific approach left for the player to discover."

A single.

Broken Mouth.

Qin Fei's expression showed a hint of strain. Regardless of the context, this talent name was rather demotivating.

He had expected his talent to be related to psychology or spirituality, but never imagined it would be something like this... However, the actual skill content was intriguing.

Qin Fei glanced at the driver behind him. Indeed, a red line of text now appeared above the driver's head, akin to a character's name tag in online games.

"Tour Bus Driver: Affection - (Unattainable)"

Unattainable indeed.

Qin Fei turned away with a tinge of regret, directing his gaze outside the bus.

As time passed, the fog seemed to be thickening around the bus. The doors were wide open, and standing outside was a tour guide dressed in a worn-out red cap. He held a megaphone in one hand and a small flag in the other, waving it incessantly.

In Qin Fei's view, a line of text hovered above the man's head.

"Tour Guide: Affection 1% (The guide doesn't like you and might even give you a harsh scolding)"

Qin Fei: ...

He really couldn't figure out the usefulness of this ridiculous skill.

Behind the guide, a grayish-white village stood silently amidst the dense fog.

Most of the buildings in the village were low, gray-tiled houses made of brick, except for a tall archway near the bus entrance, adorned with countless strings of white paper money. When the wind blew, they produced a rustling sound.

Considering the eerie hands lurking in the mist along the way, everyone hesitated to disembark for a moment.

The guide, oblivious to the peculiar atmosphere in the bus, monotonously repeated the same phrase through a megaphone, "We have arrived at our destination. Please alight in an orderly manner—"

"We have arrived at our destination. Please alight in an orderly manner—"

Qin Fei was the first to stand up.

Xiao Xiao instinctively tugged at him, "Hey!"

What if those monsters with infant-like arms were still lurking in the black fog? Wouldn't stepping out of the bus be tantamount to suicide?

Although the guide was also outside the bus, they were an NPC, not to be treated as a regular person.

Qin Fei blinked and sincerely said, "We're here already."

There was even a hint of longing in his tone, as if it was a rare privilege to be at this place, and they would be missing out if they didn't get off the bus quickly.

Others: "..." Someone, please carry this freak out, okay?

With Qin Fei taking the lead, a few more people finally mustered the courage to stand up from their seats.

However, nobody dared to cross him.

It wasn't until Qin Fei stepped down from the bus under everyone's watchful eyes, unscathed and waving at the guide, that the others followed suit and disembarked.

After leaving the bus, the eerie atmosphere around them grew even more apparent. Thick fog obscured their vision, making it difficult to see just a few steps away. The wind blowing in their faces was chaotic and directionless. Qin Fei took a light sniff and caught a faint scent of blood.

On the distant horizon, unknown birds cried mournfully. The soil beneath their feet was black and loose, sinking slightly with each step as if freshly plowed by a harrow.

Qin Fei used the tip of his foot to scrape the ground, revealing the layer beneath the soft surface.

What greeted him was a shocking sight—layers upon layers of white, circular, hollow paper money, covering the entire ground beneath their feet.

Xiao Xiao was half-dead with fright.

"Quickly kick the dirt back!" Xiao Xiao's radar as a Taoist priest was going wild. "This place is extremely ominous!"

Papers resembling ancient copper coins covered the ground, stretching out innumerable distances. Whoever had done this must have intended to suppress something significantly powerful.

Something that required such immense effort to subdue couldn't possibly be insignificant.

This instance, it seemed, wouldn't be an easy one to clear.

Xiao Xiao was deeply concerned, but Qin Fei, upon hearing this, didn't react much. He looked up at Xiao Xiao with a smile, even a hint of naivety in it. "Sure."

He appeared obedient and gentle, completely unlike the young man who had fearlessly challenged a knife-wielding assailant on a bus.

The guide walked silently ahead, leaving the players no choice but to follow.

Qin Fei and Xiao Xiao walked at the back of the group with a few veteran players. They journeyed through the misty landscape.

The thick fog was so dense it was almost like water droplets, obscuring their vision. Not a single villager was encountered along the way, and the entire village was eerily quiet, resembling a lifeless wasteland.

As they walked, Qin Fei observed the houses on either side of the road. Unsurprisingly, he spotted strings of white paper money hanging at the entrance of each dwelling.

The village's ground was exceptionally clean, with barely any fallen leaves. Yet, every household was adorned with a blanket of snow-like paper money at their doors.

Not much further ahead, a figure suddenly emerged at the end of the densely shrouded path.

A murmur rippled through the team, and Qin Fei turned his gaze toward the silhouette.

Through the dim and hazy vision, the figure was swaying their body back and forth, with their feet as the axis, amidst the mist. The magnitude of the sway was so pronounced that it almost compelled one to furrow their brows in concern, fearing they might topple over and plunge headfirst into the ground at any second.

Yet, he didn't fall. Each time, he would reappear at his original position with an astonishing angle, and continue his swaying motion.

Swing... Rock... Swing... Rock...

Like a broken pendulum of an old clock, its rhythm was oddly regular, evoking a sense of inexplicable eeriness.

The players' steps faltered, but the guide at the forefront showed no intention of halting. They all steeled their nerves and pressed on.

They drew closer and closer to the bizarre figure.

The person stood by the roadside, their movements so vigorous that they appeared blurred. The wide brim of their red hat and the trailing, flowing robe made them seem less like a contemporary individual and more like a...

"AHHH!! A ZOMBIE!!"

A heart-wrenching scream echoed from the front of the line!

It came from a young man named Tan Yong, whose messy blond hair gave him an air of recklessness and carelessness. Qin Fei remembered him; on the bus earlier, Tan Yong had immediately clicked with Scarface and was one of the few who followed him in wanting to leave the vehicle.

At the same time, the other players also got a clear look at the person by the side of the road.

His face was deathly pale, with dark circles under his eyes that resembled those of a corpse. Beneath the cuffs of his blue-black Qing Dynasty official's uniform, two bony, claw-like arms slowly rose upward.

The extreme visual stimulus caused the tightly-knit group to disintegrate in an instant!

Some ran away screaming, while others fell to the ground, weeping and dragging their bodies backward.

Qin Fei darted out in the blink of an eye, so fast that Xiao Xiao beside him only saw a blur flash past. When he turned back, Qin Fei was already a hundred meters away.

Xiao Xiao: "?"

No wonder he was the big shot – even his getaway speed was faster than the average person's!

Among the scattered group, only one person remained where they were: the tour guide from the hotel.

The tour guide, who had kept his head down the whole time, finally lifted his face. Ignoring the zombie mere inches away, he moved as slowly as always and reached into the tattered cloth bag slung diagonally across his body to retrieve a dark red bell.

The bell appeared to be made of neither copper nor iron, yet resembled both. It was small and dainty, barely the size of half a palm.

The guide raised the bell and gently swayed it, its shrill and piercing sound instantly slicing through the fog like razor-sharp blades, piercing everyone's ears.

"Jingling—"

The moment the sound of the bell reached Qin Fei's ears, he suddenly found himself unable to control his legs.

He stopped, turned around, and began walking forward, propelled by an invisible force pushing him from behind. His limbs felt bound by unseen threads; Qin Fei tried to flex his fingers, realizing that this power was far beyond his current capabilities to resist.

Amidst the eerie tolling of the copper bell, the eighteen players were forced to turn back from all directions, each wearing expressions of sheer terror and unease.

Some, who had been sprawled on the ground, were also compelled to stand up under the bell's influence, struggling in vain to escape. Their bodies contorted grotesquely.

Their state of disarray resembled the rehabilitation of a severely paralyzed patient. Their legs seemed to have forgotten how to coordinate, and anyone witnessing their awkward gait would assume they were engaged in an internal battle between their left and right brains.

Qin Fei gazed at the scene before him, fell silent for a moment, and then very obediently gave up struggling, allowing himself to be guided step by step back to his original position.

Under the command of the whistle, the group once again became tightly organized.

The guide still stood in place. Qin Fei looked up at the guide's head, where the favorability bar that only he could see remained stubbornly at 1%, an absurdly low number that hadn't budged a bit.

What could he do to win the guide's favor?

The figure dressed in Qing dynasty official attire continued its earlier motion, swaying back and forth incessantly.

Qin Fei narrowed his eyes slightly, observing it carefully for a moment before speaking, "That's not a zombie."

He had been fooled.

What was actually swaying turned out to be a crude straw puppet. Now that he looked closely, its grass-woven skin had an abnormally charred yellow hue, and its clothes were roughly sewn. The eerie nails were merely a few withered twigs.

It was likely the kind of cheapest prop doll you'd find in a haunted house at an amusement park, something that wouldn't frighten anyone with even a modicum of courage.

But Qin Fei was certain that the zombie hadn't looked like this just moments ago.

For some inexplicable reason, in the players' eyes, this zombie was so lifelike that it could send chills down one's spine at first sight.

Qin Fei's gaze drooped slightly, his expression somewhat grave.

More and more clues were revealing to him that he was now in a world vastly different from what he was used to.

In this place, every sense, thought, and even his body could potentially deceive him.

The sudden scare turned out to be a mere farce, and this absurd incident further soured the players' moods. No one dared to speak, and the advancing group fell into an eerie silence.

Five minutes later, they halted in front of a black house.

"A mortuary," a player read aloud the two large characters on the plaque hanging before the door.

The guide raised the old megaphone once more, and the amplified, raspy voice echoed again, "Dear tourists, this is our destination for this journey – Shadowguard Village."

Just like the entrance to the village, the mortuary gate was littered with joss paper. Qin Fei picked up a piece from the ground and toyed with it, listening intently to the guide's speech.

"Shadowguard Village is located in western Hunan. Its remote topography has allowed it to preserve its most authentic local charm. At present, the village is holding its annual sacrificial ceremony. For the next seven days, you all will participate fully in this ritual, experiencing the genuine customs and folklore of western Hunan."

"During the village ceremony, shrines will be placed throughout the village, with deities depicted solely as paintings or statues. If you encounter any other form, pretend not to have seen it."

"Out of respect for the villagers' beliefs, please remember not to directly gaze at the left eye of any divine effigy."

"In case you accidentally see the left eye, at midnight, proceed to the hill in the northeast corner of the village and strike yourself three times with a freshly picked willow branch."

At this point, the guide paused abruptly, as if his voice had been violently severed. Fear flickered in his eyes before he regained his composure and pushed open the door to the funeral parlor.

"This will be your resting place for the next seven days."

The heavy black wooden door creaked against the ground, releasing a musty odor into the air.

Upon the door swinging wide open, all those outside simultaneously tensed up. Upon seeing the scene within the courtyard, a few timid newbies gasped in shock, on the verge of fainting.

Amidst overgrown weeds, eighteen dark purple coffins were neatly arranged!

Behind the courtyard was a main hall, flanked by two annexes, all securely locked. The massive bronze locks bore signs of rust, indicating they hadn't been opened in ages.

"Now, please return to your rooms for some rest," the guide said, standing by the entrance of the funeral parlor.

This was no "request"; it was plain surveillance.

Beneath the lowered brim of his hat, the guide's malevolent gaze swept across the players' pale faces inch by inch.

The NPC's lips curled into a stiff smile, issuing a mechanical, emotionless command: "Go ahead."

None dared to move.

With the house locked, where could they go?

Into the coffin...?

The players remained still, and so did the guide, standing by the door and repeatedly uttering those same words.

"Go ahead."

"Go—Aaaahh, aaaaahh!"

Qin Fei couldn't help but feel that the guide was like a programmed wind-up doll; once the players didn't follow his preconceived plan, he seemed to freeze up.

Qin Fei: "My ears hurt."

"GO!!!"

The guide's voice grew increasingly shrill and menacing, causing the players' expressions to contort. It was as if their eardrums had been struck by a massive hammer, producing a dull ache that reverberated within them.

Qin Fei frowned, scanning the people around him. Some had beads of sweat rolling down their foreheads, while others wore dazed expressions.

If earlier was mental pollution, now it was a genuine physical assault.

The novice players all lowered their heads, pretending to be meek, while a few veteran players had already made their choices in a split second.

In the realm of rules, adherence to those rules has always been the paramount principle for survival.

The bus's PA system had mentioned the importance of "listening to the tour guide's instructions."

Furthermore, based on the information available, this live broadcast is expected to last at least seven days. It's highly unlikely that the game would present an inevitable death trap right at the beginning of the first day. These coffins are most probably, much like the scarecrow zombies earlier, mere deceptive tricks designed to intimidate the participants.

The seasoned players subtly exchanged glances, and in the blink of an eye, Qin Fei's expression remained unchanged as he suddenly quickened his pace, dashing into the courtyard ahead of the other three!

The guide's shrill scream abruptly ceased at the sight of someone moving.

The scrutiny from all directions was like a barrage of searchlights, leaving Qin Fei standing at the center of an invisible stage, with every move of his under scrutiny.

Fortunately, he had never been afraid of the gazes of others.

The young man leisurely strolled half around the yard. After a moment, he stood nonchalantly before a coffin, raising his hand to pat its lid.

The solid wood lid emitted a dull thud, causing the other players watching from the entrance to stiffen in alarm.

Qin Fei, however, looked up at the guide with a smile and said something that left everyone's jaws hanging: "The tour group's accommodations are really quite nice."

Guide: "...?"

The guide wore a dazed expression.

In the next second, the young man stepped into the coffin, smoothly crossing his hands over his chest and lying down in place. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and smiled, adopting an appearance of peaceful departure.

Thirty seconds later, the death process was completed.

Qin Fei sat up, his tone appreciative as if he were a diligent bedding salesman: "Thank you, Guide, and thank you to the tour group for taking care of everyone. This bed is truly very comfortable."

As soon as he finished speaking, the progress bar above the guide's head rose slowly from "1%" to "2%".

Satisfied, Qin Fei blinked his eyes.

It seemed that his plan had worked out correctly. With the system providing such clear hints, to win over NPCs, all he needed to do was —

Flatter them relentlessly.

Even in a perilous Rule World where one had to appease a non-human creature, the approach wasn't much different from currying favor in the human world.

Unfortunately, a mere 2% affection wasn't enough to make a difference. The guide still didn't like Qin Fei; it would likely take a certain threshold of affection for a change to occur.

With the reassurance that the coffins weren't deadly, the players breathed a sigh of relief and began entering the courtyard one after another.

Eighteen cypress coffins lay quietly in the yard. Some players avoided them as if they were contagious, while others observed cautiously. Most, however, were exploring the courtyard in search of clues.

Qin Fei didn't step forward.

The courtyard wasn't large, so any unusual findings would inevitably be noticed by others.

Rather than joining the commotion, Qin Fei had more pressing matters to attend to.

While everyone was gathered in the center of the yard, he silently detached himself from the group of players and strolled leisurely to the wall.

In a corner of the yard, the guide was quietly standing guard.

Qin Fei stopped in front of the guide, a soft smile tugging at his lips as he politely extended his hand, "Hello, Guide. My name is Qin Fei. What's yours?"

...

Inside the live broadcast hall, Qin Fei's screen was already surrounded by spectators, the semi-transparent spirits filled with excitement, nearly overcrowding that small section.

"One of the newcomers wants to do what? Get friendly with the guide?"

"Hahaha, how silly. The guides in the Xiangxi edition hate interacting with tourists. He definitely won't survive the night with this approach."

"Cut the nonsense, what's going on with this person's Sanity Points? They haven't dropped at all – is it a glitch?"

Unaware of the discussion he had sparked, the person at the center of the controversy continued on.

In the live-streamed scene, the fair and slender young man smiled bashfully, tilting his head slightly towards the guide. His clear eyes were filled with friendliness and an attempt to please; "I hope we can spend a pleasant seven days together."

The guide slowly shifted their gaze, casting a glance at Qin Fei before retracting it moments later.

They simply ignored him like that.

Qin Fei was not discouraged, withdrawing his hand with a grin on his face.

Amidst the dense fog with visibility less than five meters, he spoke cheerfully, "What a lovely day it is, perfect for sightseeing."

"?? What utter nonsense, hahaha!"

"Guide, deal with him already! I can't bear to watch anymore."

"This newcomer must be an idiot, thinking himself clever!"

"Aah, I thought it was a promising prospect, but turns out to be this?"

This time, the Guide didn't even spare Qin Fei a glance.

A myriad of curious gazes poured in from all directions, but Qin Fei remained unperturbed, his eyes burning intently on the guide.

Xiao Xiao simply couldn't bear to watch any longer.

He could comprehend Qin Fei's desire to glean clues from the NPC, but the one before them was blatantly disinterested in engaging with anyone.

The mighty Qin Fei kept talking nonstop. What if he annoyed the person on the other end?

Xiao Xiao tried hard to signal Qin Fei with his eyes.

Unfortunately, Qin Fei didn't take the hint. Instead, his smile widened, seemingly unaffected by the tour guide's indifferent attitude. He remained enthusiastic and asked, "How many years have you been working as a tour guide?"

Tour Guide: "..."

Tour Guide: "..............."

This guide was so taciturn, it was as if he were mute.

But Qin Fei's efforts weren't entirely in vain. The progress bar above the guide's head climbed a tiny bit more, the digits flickering, on the verge of changing from "2" to "3".

"It's getting late now, and I'm starving."

Qin Fei was eager to find out what changes would occur in his innate skill once the progress bar reached a certain level.

The young man blinked, his amber eyes clear and pure, devoid of any shadows. His tone was warm and friendly: "Have you eaten, Guide? What did you have? When will we be having our meal today?"

"Have you eaten yet?" A traditional Chinese ice-breaker when greeting one another.

Though the NPC's nationality was unclear, they seemed to be a local—this approach might just work, right?

Xiao Xiao was astonished by Qin Fei's familiarity, it was his first time seeing someone ask an NPC if they had eaten in a dungeon.

Was this the charisma that came with working in a neighborhood committee?

Either the storyline had naturally progressed to this point or Qin Fei's persistence had annoyed the guide, but after Qin Fei's inquiry about his meal, the NPC actually lifted his head.

"Tonight's dinner... is planned at... the auditorium of Shadow Village. Everyone, please follow me."

The disjointed sentence sparked a furor among the live-stream audience.

"F*ck, isn't there something wrong here? I've never seen a guide in the Western Hunan instance interact with players like this. What about you guys?"

"It's my first time too."

"Me as well."

"What about the system? Isn't this a glitch? This must be a glitch!"

"His attribute panel doesn't make sense either. How can his sanity value exceed a hundred? Is he even human?"

Some viewers promptly submitted bug reports to the system.

The response from the system came swiftly.

A cold, synthesized voice emerged from the speakers above the screen, "Upon inspection, the NPC guide in the Western Hunan instance exhibits no abnormal behavior. It's a normal reaction influenced by the player's innate skill. Player 1000001's attribute panel is functioning correctly, all systems are normal. The live stream will continue."

Although the audience could view the players' attribute panels, talent skills fell under advanced information. They could only tell if a player had activated their talent skill, but not its specific details.

As such, nobody had previously connected the guide's unusual behavior with Qin Fei's skill.

The onlooking spirits fell into a brief silence.

Moments later, a tidal wave of discussion erupted.

All their words boiled down to one question: "What on earth is going on?"

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