"I don't know." In the darkness came the rustle of fabric. Bai Zhi hugged her head in her mother's arms, her slight body trembling. "How would I know…"
Pain gripped Feng Yushu's heart. She gently stroked her daughter's shaking shoulders, at a loss for words.
"Ning Zhe, give her some time, okay?" Feng Yushu whispered. "She… is so scared."
Ning Zhe sighed. "I could put on a sympathetic act here, play the caring guy who understands your feelings—but ghosts don't work that way.
"A ghost isn't a lustful man or public opinion. A ghost is the absolute rule of life or death—and death is the greatest equalizer.
"It won't stop killing because you're 'weak women.' Crying together won't make it pause and reflect. All it does is draw death nearer."
Ning Zhe rose and closed the tattered curtain over the broken window. "Listen, Feng Yushu. I am not your husband, nor your daughter's nanny. Strangers owe you no help. I am here only because I believe Bai Zhi can give me useful information in our current crisis.
"If her answers are 'no,' 'I'm not sure,' or 'I don't know,' then before I leave, I wish you the best of luck."
That was it.
"Ning Zhe…" Feng Yushu's heart tightened. She instinctively clutched her daughter, helpless as she had been in He Village.
She had never so clearly realized she had nothing to move Ning Zhe—no money, status, body, or any gift. He was unmoved by all—a desireless, inhuman rationalist, a pure utilitarian. He seemed more a ghost than a man.
"No wonder you survived He Village," Bai Zhi's weak voice whispered. "Only someone like you could live through this world."
"I'll take that as a compliment." Ning Zhe dismissed her remark. "Now that you've steadied yourself, stop crying and tell me what you know: why did you dream of He Village? How did you learn the manor ghost's rules?"
Only with those answers would the heavy fog over the town begin to lift.
"Have you ever played Urban Legend?" Bai Zhi asked softly.
"I've heard of it, never actually tried to solve it." Ning Zhe replied calmly. "What does that have to do with our situation?"
"Last night I dreamed of an Urban Legend set in this manor," Bai Zhi said. "Just like I used to dream of He Village."
"Since middle school, I've often had strange nightmares."
"Sometimes I dreamed I was hiding from insane patients in an isolated hospital; other times I dreamed of a hotel run entirely by corpses… These scenes bristled with terror and menace, as though one wrong step meant death."
"And those nightmares matched real places: the asylum was the Yong Prefecture General Hospital I visited as a child; the corpse-run hotel was my father's Xiangzilán Hotel…"
"Whenever I entered such a scene, fear and danger flooded my subconscious—death threats everywhere."
"In the hospital, a freezer terrified me; I'd think, don't open it or I'll die. In the hotel, I'd dread the janitor's bloody mop bucket, convinced something horrible would happen if I neared it."
"The nightmare worlds were cramped, suffocating, lethal… death traps at every turn, vengeful ghosts everywhere. Yet I somehow survived in a corner until the nightmare ended and the sun rose."
"Because before each nightmare, I'd subconsciously preview a survival handbook—vague warnings enough to keep me alive in each horrifying realm."
Bai Zhi's voice remained soft and light in the pitch-black room as she curled in her mother's arms: "It was like reading the author's survival guide before stepping into those Urban Legend worlds. The ambiguous tips were enough to see me through."
A dream-based puzzle—fascinating.
"So you think of yourself as an Urban Legend player?" Ning Zhe asked.
"I do." Bai Zhi answered earnestly.
She explained that after her nightmares began, she searched online for horror games and media, hoping to find their source—but never succeeded. Her nightmare settings were not fictional but real places and people.
So it wasn't nightmares caused by horror games—but nightmares that drove her to horror games…
"I searched news on the General Hospital's psychiatry ward and found a story: a patient sleepwalked and slashed one doctor and three nurses."
Bai Zhi continued: "That very night, my nightmare was set in that hospital—hiding from a roaming mental patient."
And in the dream one doctor and three nurses truly died.
But real news said they'd only been injured.
"Then you dreamed of He Village… and last night you dreamed of ghosts in Jade Water Bay Manor—right?" Ning Zhe tried to follow her logic. "What survival tips did you get this time?"
Bai Zhi took a breath and said:
Brightness means danger
Darkness means safety
Ghosts fear light
Ghosts favor darkness
"That's about it." Bai Zhi's gentle voice felt barely audible in the darkness. "Ning Zhe, any ideas?"
Seeing how quickly she'd calmed herself, Ning Zhe found a wry thought amusing:
"Do you think you're still dreaming?"
Bai Zhi fell silent, offering no answer.
"Ah, so you thought my mother and I were just NPCs in your dream." Ning Zhe shook his head, mind racing through what he'd seen so far.
"Ghosts need light to find and kill people—but fear that same light. Like moths drawn to flame: too close and they burn, too far and they suffer in darkness."
How poetic.
Chapters in advance there: patreon.com/Thaniel_a_goodchild