SPLASH— GURGLE—
After a thunderous roar of rushing water, the woman was flushed down the toilet, leaving no trace behind. Her ghostly wails came to an abrupt halt. The faucet in the sink continued to gush, but what flowed out was no longer yellow pus, blood clots, or molten iron. It had returned to clear, clean water. The foul stench permeating the air also vanished as if it had never existed.
"What the hell? What a half-hearted prank. This kind of jump-scare cliché from holographic horror games is so outdated." Pei Ye shook her head and calmly cupped a handful of water to wash her face and hands.
Washing away the sleep crust and grease, she instantly felt refreshed. She didn't use the disposable towels provided by the hospital, casually pulling out two tissues to dry her face and hands.
At the same time, a few bizarre puddles of water appeared on the floor of the hospital's morgue. The faint, terrifying sound of a ghost weeping could be heard.
SOB SOB SOB.
A strange, chilling wind swept through the gloomy morgue. A barefoot teenage boy wearing a blue-striped hospital gown stopped in front of one of the puddles. His exposed ankles were a deathly, silent pale.
"Did you run into a Heavenly Master?"
A sinister wind blew past, and a woman with disheveled black hair emerged from the puddle. She sat pitifully on the floor, hugging her knees, her face covered in blood from crying.
"But you don't have the scent of a Heavenly Master on you," the boy said in a mild, sluggish tone.
The woman had no tongue and no eyes, but she still had ears and a nose. She could determine the boy's position based on hearing and smell. She whimpered and wailed blindly, dark red pus and blood gushing from her eye sockets.
The boy, however, could understand her tearful complaints. His handsome, light eyebrows furrowed. "You tried to scare someone, but ended up getting scared and flushed down a toilet?"
His voice was so flat that no emotion could be discerned, but the woman knew he was mocking her. She immediately cried even harder. She was a veteran Ghost residing in this hospital. Her only source of entertainment was scaring humans with weak Yang Qi. Who would have thought that after years of flawless success and leaving behind countless moving urban legends in the hospital, she would stumble for the first time at the hands of Pei Ye. This was an absolute disgrace to her ghosthood! She wondered how she was supposed to show her face among the other ghosts in the hospital ever again.
The boy pursed his lips and raised a hand to rub the top of her head. After this single gesture, the woman's illusionary, transparent figure became much more solid. The yin energy lingering around her grew noticeably heavier than before.
"Where is she staying?"
The woman whimpered twice and gave the floor and room number of Pei Ye's ward.
The boy's lips curled up. With a wicked, arrogant smile, he declared, "I'll go meet her."
He was the fiercest among the many Ghosts in the hospital, occupying the morgue where yin energy was at its peak. Furthermore, he was the boss of all the spirits here—the Ghost King, a title that sounded incredibly badass! Scaring his subordinate on his turf and nearly dispersing his lackey's soul—this was intolerable.
By the time the teenage ghost boss squeezed into the ventilation duct and crawled his way up to Ward 308 on the eighteenth floor where Pei Ye had been, the hospital bed was already empty.
"Where is she?" the boy asked the female ghost while peering out of the vent opening.
The female ghost whimpered something in response, prompting the boy to stick his foot out and kick her, sending her rolling twice across the floor. She had asked him why he didn't just take the elevator up instead of painstakingly crawling through the ventilation ducts.
"We are ghosts," the boy said matter-of-factly. "Humans have their paths, and ghosts have the Ghost Road! Ghosts must take unconventional routes to match our status. Taking the elevator has no style!"
But while they had been huffing and puffing their way up the ventilation ducts to the eighteenth floor, Pei Ye had already paid her outstanding bills and been discharged.
"Sir, how much is a trip to Wudaokou Nursing College?" Pei Ye asked the taxi driver for the fare.
Just as she was about to open the door and get in, she acutely sensed an unfriendly gaze. Following her intuition, she looked up and spotted a figure standing by a window on the eighteenth floor of the inpatient building. The entity was baring its fangs at her, revealing a bloody, gaping maw.
Pei Ye raised a brow and returned the gesture with her middle finger. Did they really think such a clumsy holographic prank could scare her? Flushing that thing down the toilet was merely a light warning. Next time she ran into this brat, she would smash their projector to pieces.
"Let's go, sir." Buckling her seatbelt, Pei Ye took out that smartphone to continue examining [Love and Raising Puppies].
When her finger touched the egg, an experience bar appeared beneath the title.
[1/1000 Merit]
She wondered when it had gained a point. If she remembered correctly, it had been at zero when she checked earlier. Pei Ye tapped on the [System Record] on the left side, which was how she found the source of that one point of Merit.
[09:03, Your father taught fierce ghost A at the hospital a lesson, Merit +1]
Question marks popped into Pei Ye's head. She wondered if that thing had actually been a fierce ghost.
"Young people these days are so careless when driving. What does it matter how expensive your sports car is? Once it crashes, it still turns into scrap metal, and you even lose your life in the process."
While waiting at a red light, the driver's muttered complaints caught Pei Ye's attention. She looked out the window and saw that a severe car accident had occurred at the intersection. The scene was a chaotic mess of activity. Everyone was rushing around, save for a single crimson figure standing motionless in place, looking exceptionally conspicuous and glaring.
The figure seemed to notice Pei Ye's gaze. Its head twisted around a bizarre 180 degrees, flashing her a wide grin.
Pei Ye fell silent, figuring that this wasn't a living person either. Retracting her gaze, she pretended nothing was wrong and lowered her head to continue studying the game. However, a small, acceptable quest popped up on the game interface.
[Side Quest: Player Your father passed by the Five Crossroads and discovered a mysterious red figure next to a car accident. You feel that this red figure looks somewhat familiar.]
[Task 1: Identify the red figure.]
[Task 2: Discover the relationship between the red figure and the car accident.]
[Quest Completion Reward: 50 Merit points, 5 Qi Fortune points.]
Pei Ye was speechless once more. She had thought this game only consisted of those six scam-like main quests. The six main quests offered virtually no clues, only stating that they could be easily completed by clinging to the female lead, Lei Yating. There were no other hints whatsoever. The side quests, on the other hand, were much friendlier, with clear clues and objectives.
Pei Ye separated a strand of her mental energy and wrapped it around the red figure. She would place a tracker on it first; that way, she could find the red figure no matter where it went.
After passing the intersection, it was only a short drive to the front gates of Wudaokou Nursing College.
Xiao Hong's dormitory was room 4021 on the fourth floor. The room contained four bunk beds, meaning eight students were crammed into the tight space. It was the height of summer, and the ceiling fan was whirring away. There were only four students currently in the dorm room; it was unknown where the other three had gone.
"Xiao Hong, the dorm supervisor did a surprise room inspection last night."
Pei Ye still wasn't quite used to this name, so she just sat silently on Xiao Hong's bed. The girl who spoke was Zhou Huirong, the oldest in dorm 4021 and also the dorm head.
"Why are you even telling her this? It's not the first time anyway. She doesn't care about penalties or point deductions. She has absolutely no sense of dormitory pride." Speaking of this, Bai Xiaoxiao was furious. She had a competitive and ambitious personality, but who knew she would end up stuck with a delinquent like Xiao Hong. Because Xiao Hong never followed the rules, they would lose a massive chunk of points during every dormitory evaluation, causing room 4021 to consistently rank dead last in the dormitory competitions.
The dorm head, Zhou Huirong, felt quite awkward and offered a few peacemaking words. Truthfully, she didn't like Xiao Hong either. Xiao Hong was a hooligan who often hung around with shady characters. Zhou Huirong had heard from upperclassmen that some of those shady street punks were involved in compensated dating. What kind of decent girl would Xiao Hong be, mixing with that crowd? She had probably sold herself countless times already.
Being in the same dorm as her meant that their classmates also had a poor opinion of the other seven girls in their room. People always said that birds of a feather flock together, and that hanging out with delinquent thugs for too long would eventually turn them into prostitutes who sold their bodies too.
It was incredibly frustrating and unfair!