"What are the rules?"
"There's a gate, but no threshold. Clearly, it offers no protection against ghosts. And..."
Li Mo scanned his surroundings and noticed several willow trees planted on either side of the gate. Although it wasn't the season for them to be lush and green, their ability to gather Yin energy wouldn't be much diminished.
In the data Mei had collected, Li Mo had read that the "mourning sticks" and "soul-guiding banners" used in folk funeral rites were all made of willow wood. If tainted with Bizarre contamination, they might even allow one to touch upon certain abstract entities—though it would be useless, as they couldn't even suppress them.
But this was a distinctly Western-style manor. That meant someone in the manor understood Shenzhou funeral rites and wanted to summon a soul.
"..."
"No, it's not just about summoning a soul. It's more likely about raising a ghost."
"If they just wanted to nurture a soul, they wouldn't need to plant several willow trees. Mulberry trees would work too."
"The word for 'willow' has a special homophone: 'to keep' or 'to stay'."
"Does that mean if I enter the manor, I'll never be able to leave?"
Li Mo looked up, staring at the rusty gate for a long time. He didn't rush in. He was never going to use the main entrance in a paranormal event again.
Right now, he knew nothing about this particular incident. Walking straight in was no different from suicide. Even with three restarts left, they were precious and couldn't be wasted. He had to gather useful information first.
The presence of the willow trees made the manor even more dangerous, just like the locust tree grove on Mount Taixuan. The essence was different, but their ability to gather Yin energy was much the same.
He hadn't figured out the ritual, and he only had a vague guess about the rules. That was far from enough. To get more information, he had to rely on the notebook's future prediction.
"My friend, it's time for you to dig me a pit."
"Oh, and remember to dig a nice one, the kind I can sleep comfortably in," Li Mo joked, speaking the words for the first page to hear.
He had no intention of following the first page's advice. The second page's "The Desire for Life" and the fourth page's "Speak All You Know" were the intel he truly needed. The second page would tell him what he needed to do to survive; the fourth page would hint at possible futures of reference value, seemingly recounting his memories from different points in time.
No matter which it was, Li Mo wouldn't trust it completely. Be it the second page or the fourth, to complete the ritual, he had to take certain risks and pay the corresponding price.
"Alright, tell me, what will happen if I enter the manor?"
Li Mo tried to skip past the first page and turn directly to the second, but he obviously failed. The first page firmly held the second one down.
[My name is Li Mo. The moment I enter the manor, I will disappear from this world.]
Just a single sentence. The first page offered no more clues.
"Then what if I linger outside the manor?"
[My name is Li Mo. The manor is too dangerous, so I decide to observe from outside the walls for one night.]
[At 8:00 PM, the manor will be enveloped in a mysterious black fog. For safety, I move away from the willow trees by the gate, take out a thermometer, and constantly watch for any approaching ghosts. I also hold the one-third completed Bizarre pistol in my hand. I believe I am perfectly safe under these conditions.]
[At 9:00 PM, a ghostly figure appears in the black fog. It moves incredibly fast. The thermometer shows a sudden drop in temperature. I immediately pull out the Bizarre pistol, preparing to suppress it.]
[At 9:03 PM, I hear a knock on a door.]
[At 9:04 PM, I am dismembered. But I am not yet dead. I can still restart, I still have a chance...]
[At 9:07 PM, the restart fails. I am dead.]
"The restart failed again? Why this time?"
Li Mo's expression grew a little more serious. The restart was his ultimate trump card. While there were certainly things that could counter it, they weren't exactly common, yet he kept running into them lately.
One way was through a complete override of the rules, like with the Deceitful Irene, which forcibly locked down space-time.
The other was through erasure on a soul or consciousness level, directly killing Li Mo's self and letting another existence take over the body that possessed the restart ability. Examples included the Cat-Faced Granny's assimilation and the portrait's replacement.
"I can rule out the first possibility. If it were a rule-based counter, it wouldn't have taken three minutes."
"Assimilation does take time, but I don't think any ghost would need three minutes to assimilate me after I've died once, especially when I have the Bizarre pistol and coin. I wouldn't just sit there and wait for it."
"The notebook says I was dismembered. That process must have been instantaneous, otherwise I would have reacted and either immediately suppressed the entity or killed myself to force a restart."
"After being dismembered, the restart failed three minutes later. Looking at it this way... it's very likely something happened during those three minutes that made me 'incomplete,' and thus the Bizarre power within me could no longer support a restart."
Li Mo quickly came to a conclusion. The ghost couldn't stop him from restarting, but if it was given three minutes to fully complete its Bizarre paranormal ritual, his restart ability would fail.
The solution was simple: hold the Bizarre coin in his hand. If he were dismembered, the coin would fall with his arm, attracting the ghost's attention.
"Wait, I think I missed a sentence. The knock on the door... what does that mean?"
He had been so focused on the restart failure that he had overlooked the most unassuming sentence: "At 9:03 PM, I hear a knock on a door."
It was only after that sentence that his future of being dismembered occurred. The two events might be linked. The first page's description of it was so understated, as if it deliberately wanted Li Mo to ignore it.
At 8:00 PM, the black fog appears. At 9:00 PM, a fast-moving ghost appears in the fog. Three minutes later, a knock is heard, he is dismembered. Three minutes after that, the restart fails, and death is confirmed.
Li Mo briefly summarized the information revealed by the first page, using common sense and experience to spot the clues.
"The first sentence seems to be literal. I was the one who overthought it."
"Staying outside the manor at 9:00 PM is a death sentence."
"8:00 PM is the last chance to leave. Escaping this black fog means I can get out alive."
"And if I don't want to leave at 8:00 PM but still want to live, my only option is to enter the manor, to go to another world."
Li Mo was reminded of the old world and new world from the Sprout incident. That also involved a dilapidated gate.
"But... will entering the manor really trigger the switch immediately?"
Li Mo had his doubts, but he didn't have much time to ponder the question. It was already 8:58 PM. In two minutes, the ghost in the fog would be after him.
"What do I need to pay attention to in order to survive?" Li Mo asked the notebook.
The first page finally relented. The second page flipped open with a sense of satisfaction, revealing the survival instructions. Though this kind of survival was deeply flawed—it only guaranteed Li Mo wouldn't be forced into a restart, not that his 'self' would survive.
When the time came to die, he still had to do it decisively.
[My name is Li Mo. I only have two choices to survive.]
[Leave the black fog immediately and return to the original world.]
[Or... enter the manor before 9:00 PM. Run... run! I must find my companions before the ghost catches me.]
[The haunted manor has five floors. Each time someone survives a day, the stairs to the next floor will appear.]
[On the left side of the main hall of each floor is a corridor with guest rooms. Hide inside and don't go out until 8:00 AM the next day. Use any means necessary to keep the candle burning.]
[Once the candle goes out, it means the ghost is right beside you.]
8:59 PM. Li Mo still hadn't entered the manor.
The second page gave no more hints. Or perhaps there wasn't enough time for it to lay out all the survival information. Li Mo didn't know, but the notebook quickly flipped to the fourth page—
[My name is Li Mo. I made the wrong choice. I shouldn't have opened the door.]
[A shadow is gnawing on my head. I can't fight back. The Bizarre coin and pistol have no effect on this ghost. I think I'm going to die...]
Li Mo frowned. The second page had warned him not to leave the room once inside, but he had gone out anyway. Did that mean that after entering the room, he encountered something that forced him to risk opening the door?
"No time to think about that now. Run!"
The time on his phone showed exactly 9:00 PM. Li Mo vaulted over the wall, avoiding the main gate. Instantly, a gaze from the depths of the black fog focused on his back.
Screee...
A horrifying scraping sound came from not far behind him, like teeth grinding against a rough surface.
Without hesitation, Li Mo summoned all his strength and ran along the stone path at his feet. The black fog obscured his vision; he couldn't see more than a few meters ahead. He could only follow the path. But halfway, he suddenly realized the path was leading him in a circle, not straight to the haunted manor predicted by the notebook.
If he stayed here any longer, the ghost in the fog would dismember him.
No wonder the second page of the notebook told him to run immediately.
"It's too late. I have to restart now, or I won't even get a chance to kill myself." Li Mo pulled out the Bizarre pistol, put it in his mouth, and aimed it at his brain through the top of his throat. At such close range, the impact from the upgraded Bizarre pistol could easily kill any ordinary person.
Just as Li Mo was about to pull the trigger, his head involuntarily twisted in one direction. His eyes, like a machine capturing a preset image, focused strangely, intently. In front of him was nothing but a vast black fog, with even the stone path at his feet barely visible. Yet Li Mo saw an image of the haunted manor from the inside out, its heavy doors shut tight.
Someone in the darkness switched on a light, illuminating the manor's main door. She was screaming desperately, pounding on the doors, but they didn't budge. Her strength was too little; an ordinary person couldn't possibly push open the heavy gates of the haunted manor.
"Found her." Li Mo abandoned the thought of suicide and, relying on instinct, sprinted towards the light.
Inside the manor, Kanagawa Yume was pushing against the doors with all her might, but they didn't move an inch. A "hissing" sound from behind her made her feel as if needles were pricking her back. The door was like an insurmountable chasm, blocking her path to survival.
Am I going to die...
Kanagawa Yume knelt on the ground, feebly pounding on the door. Gradually, she stopped hitting it and leaned her back against it, biting her lip and mustering the courage to look behind her.
The pitch-black hall was filled with a strange, eerie atmosphere. Shadows and darkness merged, constantly twisting. Looking down, she saw countless small spiders crawling towards her, so numerous they covered the entire floor of the main hall. There was no escape, nowhere to run.
The small spiders suddenly stopped, as if waiting for something. Her limited vision caught a glimpse of the twisting darkness. Kanagawa Yume had lost the ability to think. Since she couldn't escape anyway, she might as well go all out.
"F*ck it, I'm taking you down with me!"
With that, Kanagawa Yume charged forward, waving her flashlight wildly like she was breakdancing, stomping on the small spiders on the ground, though she felt no solid impact.
"Is that all you got?"
After stomping for two or three minutes, Kanagawa Yume found that she was completely unharmed. Other than a pile of spider corpses on the floor, there was nothing truly terrifying. The tension in her heart eased considerably. On a whim, Kanagawa Yume gave the finger to the gloomy shadows, letting loose a string of colorful Shenzhou provincial slang.
The next second, countless threads appeared from nowhere, wrapping around her limbs like steel wires.
When Kanagawa Yume came to her senses, she found herself hanging upside down from the ceiling, her entire body cocooned, with only her head exposed. Her flashlight had fallen to the ground, its beam conveniently shining up at her, illuminating her predicament.
"Wh-what's going on? Why am I..."
Kanagawa Yume was confused. One moment she was stomping on small spiders on the floor, the next she was hanging from the ceiling.
"Ugh... I can't move. Why is this spider silk so tough? C'mon, Yume, use all your strength!" Kanagawa Yume wriggled back and forth, pulling with all her might.
Finally, she awoke the humanoid spider lurking in the darkness...
It wore human-like white clothes but had the long, slender, multiple legs of an arthropod. There was no distinction between fingers and toes; the tips of its eight legs were grotesque, scythe-like flesh.
It was the same person who had pretended to be a ghost at the end of the corridor.
Kanagawa Yume swallowed hard. She wanted to curse to mask her fear, but when she saw the mask come off, revealing a face covered in crimson eyes and a mouth that had become spider-like fangs, a wave of revulsion washed over her from the inside out, seeping into every pore.
Was this even human?
What... what kind of monster was it?
It's not going to eat me alive, is it?
Kanagawa Yume was terrified now. There was no way she could escape her bonds.
Hiss...
The human-spider slowly approached her, its eight legs moving methodically across a web woven from shadows. Thick saliva dripped onto her cheek. No, not saliva—it was a person's organs, muscle tissue, and bits of brain matter.
It was then that Kanagawa Yume realized this grotesque spider had eaten the club member who had pretended to be a ghost during the day.