Scenario One: Painted Skin — 4

He was supposed to determine who in the Lin Family Villa was a ghost?

Bu Jianhan stared blankly. How was he supposed to figure that out? Dig Lin Five's body out of the crematorium and examine it? Or tug on the hair of the "Lin Seven" in front of him to see if it was a wig concealing a great big hole in his skull?

Was the ghost Lin Five? Lin Seven? Or both of them?

The Current Objective had not updated, which meant none of those guesses were correct.

Could the entire Lin family be ghosts?

The objective still did not update. Wrong again.

All at once, there came a crackle—pop. The entire villa plunged into darkness, and the television's account of the case cut off mid-sentence.

A dreadful, deathly silence enveloped the house.

Thump. Thump, thump—

A series of heavy knocks came from upstairs.

"Wh-what just happened?" Bu Jianhan was starting to panic. He was sitting in pitch darkness with something that might or might not be human, and every hair on his body was standing on end. "Why did the power suddenly go out? What's that noise upstairs?"

"Uh, maybe a breaker tripped." Lin Seven sounded just as frightened, though he was clearly forcing himself to stay calm. "I'll go upstairs and take a look. Could you check the breaker in the basement for me?"

As he spoke, he thrust a phone into Bu Jianhan's hand.

[Item acquired: Phone with Flashlight ×1.]

[Side Quest 1: Go to the basement and inspect the breaker.]

At last, it had appeared!

The very soul of a horror game!

Sometimes it was a flashlight. Sometimes a lighter or a torch. Sometimes the night-vision mode on a video camera. And sometimes it was a phone utterly useless for anything except producing light!

Collectively, they were known as: light sources!

The moment this phone—with its handy "flashlight" function—landed in his hand, Bu Jianhan felt as though someone had breathed a soul into him.

Horror games? Harassing phone calls? Ghosts pretending to be his filthy-rich best friend? He wasn't afraid of any of them!

After shoving the phone at him, Lin Seven hurried upstairs.

Bu Jianhan switched on the phone, selected its "flashlight" function, and a pale beam immediately illuminated a circular patch before him.

He searched the living room and found the stairs to the basement beneath the staircase leading upstairs. At the bottom was a door adorned with a charming little sign that read BASEMENT.

He gripped the handle and turned it.

[Friendly Reminder: You need the Rat Key.]

Bu Jianhan slowly produced a question mark over his head.

Fine. He had known it wouldn't be that easy.

Any horror game that didn't prepare ten pounds of keys for its protagonist and scatter them across every corner of the map was no horror game at all.

He backed out of the basement stairwell and began ransacking every cabinet and drawer in the living room without the slightest restraint.

Inside the TV stand, he found an unmentionable little card. In the storage compartment beneath the coffee table, he picked up a spare phone battery. And in the shoe cabinet by the entryway, he found the Rabbit Key.

Finally, beneath the rug, he found the Rat Key.

Every usable item he collected vanished into thin air as soon as the system displayed its acquisition notice. He could look them up in his inventory, but for the life of him, he could not figure out where he—a pair of bodyless, dignity-free pickled chicken feet—was supposedly keeping them.

Was it like viewers in some horror-game streams joked—a black hole up his ass?

Hell, he didn't even have an ass.

With no choice but to accept that his inventory ran on the Force, Bu Jianhan finished looting every accessible corner of the villa's first floor and hurried back to the basement door.

He used the Rat Key. The basement lock gave a soft click, and the door slowly swung open onto utter darkness.

Wary of an opening kill, Bu Jianhan carefully adjusted his angle and swept the basement with the flashlight. Only after confirming that no high-intensity scare awaited him did he cautiously, slowly squeeze inside.

The instant he entered, the door slammed shut behind him with a deafening bang.

Bu Jianhan: "..."

As everyone knew, doors in horror games were all automatic.

He whirled around and charged back, seizing the handle and wrenching it again and again. The door refused to open. It was as though someone had locked it from the outside.

There were only two possible explanations. One: Lin Seven had secretly shut the door behind him as he entered the basement. Two: as previously mentioned, the ghost in the villa was up to something.

Either way, this was probably a scripted death. Neither his main objective nor his side quest had updated, which meant he still had to inspect the breaker and play out this sequence.

Bu Jianhan had no choice but to abandon the door and raise the phone to search for the basement's breaker panel.

He found it to the right of a storage shelf. Holding the phone aloft, he lifted the panel cover and shone the light inside. The fuse had blown.

[Side Quest 1: Go to the basement and inspect the breaker. (Complete)]

[Side Quest 1: Replace the blown fuse and restore power.]

Of course.

The law of horror games: nine buildings out of ten will lose power, and every power outage requires a replacement fuse.

Bu Jianhan rummaged through the nearby storage shelves. Fuses generally never spawned anywhere close to the breaker, but he still clung to a sliver of hope and decided to try his luck.

He found no fuse, but he did make a few unexpected discoveries.

[Item acquired: Ox Key ×1.]

[Item acquired: Gas Can ×1.]

[Item acquired: Claw Hammer ×1.]

[Item Description: Dark-brown stains have seeped into the grain of this hammer's wooden handle, which still gives off a faint, fishy odor. Perhaps someone once used it to smash something open, leaving grime on the head that could never be removed. That may be why it was abandoned here.]

The moment Bu Jianhan picked up the hammer, the phone in his hand began to vibrate. Its shrill ringing filled the silent, dark basement, making him jump.

Someone was actually calling.

He had thought this phone was incapable of anything except producing light.

This was probably another scripted event. With the fatalism of a dead pig unafraid of boiling water, Bu Jianhan answered the call like a man going to his doom.

"Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?" An urgent male voice came through the phone amid bursts of harsh static. The man was so loud he was practically roaring, startling Bu Jianhan all over again. "I'm Lin Six. I don't care who you are—as soon as you get this call, leave the Lin Family Villa! Now!"

"Wait," Bu Jianhan fumbled. "You said you were...?"

"Don't lose your phone... Leave now! Don't stay there!" Lin Six bellowed. "Some of them have gone mad... killing everyone... Run! Or you'll die too!"

Beeeeep—

The call abruptly disconnected.

Bu Jianhan froze.

I've already died so many times, and only now you're telling me I might die too? Aren't you planting that death flag a little late?

At the same moment, the basement door behind him creaked softly and opened on its own.

Bu Jianhan did not rush out. He had been in the game for a while now and had gathered quite a few clues. He needed a moment to think them through and put them in order.

So far, Lin Five, Lin Six, Lin Seven, and Lin Eight had all appeared. Based on the descriptions that "Lin Five" on the phone and the "Lin Seven" who had eaten dinner with him had given of each other, combined with the points at which the system objectives updated, he could now confirm that Lin Seven was dead—and had most likely been the sumptuous dinner served tonight.

According to "Lin Seven," Lin Five had probably also been murdered. Lin Six, who had likewise tried to warn Bu Jianhan over the phone, likely hadn't survived either.

The hammer Bu Jianhan had just found on the storage shelf bore bloodstains on its handle. Its item description also matched "Lin Five's" claim that Lin Seven's skull had been smashed open. Since the murder weapon had turned up in a basement storage cabinet, the culprit behind this series of atrocities was most likely a member of the Lin family.

Every clue pointed to the family's eeriest—and youngest—son, Lin Eight.

Which raised the question: if Lin Eight had killed Lin Five, Lin Six, and Lin Seven, what was his motive? And what about Lin One, Lin Two, Lin Three, and Lin Four? Were they all dead, or had someone survived?

And if Lin Seven was dead, then what exactly was the Lin Seven who had just appeared before him?

He would need more clues to answer any of those questions.

Bu Jianhan drew a deep breath, braced himself, pushed open the basement door, climbed the stairs, and returned to the living room.

The living room was pitch-black and utterly silent.

Bu Jianhan had already explored the first floor and looted every room he could enter. The fuse was either on the second floor or inside one of the locked rooms downstairs that corresponded to the Ox Key. Just as he prepared to test the key on each locked door, a faint tap-tap suddenly sounded behind him.

Like shoe soles striking a wooden floor.

Lin Seven's house slippers certainly hadn't made that sound.

"Who's there?" Bu Jianhan spun around, instantly on guard.

Before he could complete the turn, someone grabbed him!

"Shh... shh. Keep your voice down. Don't move, and don't alert those things." The person behind him spoke in a low voice. "I should be asking you that. Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?"

Had a new story NPC spawned? Giving nothing away, Bu Jianhan lowered his voice as well. "I'm Lin Seven's friend. I came to visit him, but then the power happened to go out... Who are you? And what did you mean just now?"

"Lin Seven? Good God, that's impossible. My poor seventh brother was murdered long ago!" the man said bitterly. "Those things must have disguised themselves as him and tricked you into coming here... Listen to me. I'm Lin Three, and this is my home. But I moved out of this house a long time ago... because something unclean haunts this villa!"

"You mean it's haunted?" Bu Jianhan asked.

"No, no! Don't say that word... Because of those damned things, my brothers kept dying one after another. I had no choice but to move out." Lin Three muttered, "A neighbor called me today and said they'd seen a young man enter my house this afternoon. I was terrified something might happen to you here, so I hurried back... Thank God I arrived in time. You're still alive and well."

Bu Jianhan: "Uh... thank you?"

"No need," Lin Three said. "Now let's leave together. Hurry—we have to get out of this cursed place."

The moment he finished speaking, the lights above them suddenly flickered.

Bu Jianhan: "...?"

But I haven't replaced the fuse yet.

"Oh no!" Lin Three shouted. "Those things are here!"