Han Fei opened his eyes to pitch black darkness. The smell of disinfectant lingered in the air. Small pills scattered the ground around him. ‘Am I inside the infirmary’s cupboard?’ Han Fei remembered this very scene from Jin Sheng’s Exercise Book. His hands searched in the dark and slowly eased the cupboard doors open. The dim light showered on Han Fei’s face. It was like a grey fog had infiltrated the world outside the cupboard, lowering his visibility. Crawling out from the cupboard, Han Fei did not dare to move too recklessly. He checked his status before he did anything else. The exit button was greyed out and the character id showed that he was in a unique state.
‘The very same thing happened when I did the manager mission last time. This means that I am probably inside Jin Sheng’s memory.’ There was no death penalty when one died in the middle of manager mission but each death would cause the player to lose their memory until eventually they forgot about themselves. Han Fei did not plan to challenge the manager mission so soon but he had no other choice. Ma Manjiang was right on his tail, if he hesitated a second longer, he’d be dead by now.
‘I need to be more careful this time.’ Uttering a small sigh, Han Fei shattered the cup on the table. He used the shard to carve out his name on his arm. He gritted his teeth from the pain and his eyes darkened. ‘Remember the pain, remember why I’m doing this. Hopefully I can clear this mission without any death.’
Han Fei looked around the infirmary, the clock was stuck at 1.05 am. This time was exceptionally meaningful to Jin Sheng, it was a time that he would never forget. Closing the cupboard doors, Han Fei scoured the infirmary. Based on his previous experience, Han Fei knew that he could not stay at a place for too long. After a quick search, Han Fei came to the infirmary door. When he put his hand on the door, the robotic voice said, “Notification for Player 0000! You need to find Jin Sheng at this school!”
Each manager mission was different. The Happiness Neighbourhood’s manager mission required Han Fei to kill all the ghosts and save all the humans, but at Yi Ming Private Academy, the mission only required Han Fei to locate Jin Sheng. ‘This mission sounds deceptively simple…’
Pulling the door handle, Han Fei jumped back into the room once the door opened. The previous manager mission had left a lasting impact on Han Fei. Any kind of ghost could be hiding behind every door, any of his steps could be his very last.
The light grey fog rolled into the room. Children singing drifted down the corridor as well. Han Fei poked his head out and looked down the corridor. Yi Ming Private Academy in Jin Sheng’s memory was similar to the school in real life, the only noticeable difference was the ever-present grey fog. The boy’s world was submerged in a layer of fog, the fog was odourless but Han Fei found them to be strangely suffocating.
‘Jin Sheng lives in such constant suffocating pressure?’ The moment Han Fei stepped out from the infirmary, he heard the footsteps. Han Fei turned towards the sound and a man about 3 metres was walking down from one side of the corridor. Instead of eyes, the man had 2 smaller mouths inside the ocular sockets. His bare stomach was split open in a big gap and it had many faces inside it. They were the faces of the same person but they wore different expressions. Some of them had genial smiles; others were dominated by madness and hatred. However, the thing that alarmed Han Fei the most was the butterfly that settled around the monster’s heart. The bright blue of the butterfly was a stark contrast to the overall greyness of the world.
‘Ma Manjiang!’ When the manager mission was triggered, Han Fei saw clearly the blue butterfly fly out from Ma Manjiang’s body. The butterfly appeared to have entered Jin Sheng’s memory world by following Han Fei. Cold sweat covered Han Fei’s face and the pressure pressed down on him further. Now he not only had to deal with the ghosts inside the mission, he needed to be cautious of that blue butterfly.
‘A monster with many faces, this should be how Jin Sheng envision Ma Manjiang.’ Han Fei had no idea why Ma Manjiang took on this specific monstrous appearance in Jin Sheng’s memory. However, he was certain the butterfly had followed him into Jin Sheng’s memory and had attached itself to this world’s version of Ma Manjiang.
There were two outsiders in Jin Sheng’s memory world? This introduced plenty of extenuating factors in this manager mission.
‘The monster is moving too fast for a normal shambling ghost. He’s clearly coming towards the infirmary. I bet the butterfly is controlling it, it probably wants to kill me while we’re inside Jin Sheng’s memory!’ There was no death penalty in a manager mission but multiple deaths would make the player forget everything and they’d be trapped inside the memory world forever. When Han Fei discovered Ma Manjiang, the monster spotted Han Fei as well. He reached into its stomach to pull out a grimacing face. He pasted the face around his chest and then charged at Han Fei like a mad bull!
‘The same rules should apply to all the outsiders here. If I can somehow kill Ma Manjiang here, the blue butterfly’s memory will be impacted as well.’ Ma Manjiang was the scariest presence in Jin Sheng’s memory, the blue butterfly had all the advantages it could have but Han Fei would not give up so easily. ‘I won’t win the butterfly in hand to hand combat. The thing is like a tank.’ Han Fei’s gaze chilled, this night would be the most dangerous night he had even spent in the game. Without the protection of the previous building manager and the help of his neighbours, Han Fei had to face this butterfly alone!
Ma Manjiang went down on all fours like a beast. He crawled down the corridor with impossible speed, closing the distance between himself and Han Fei.
‘I’ll surely die if I face it head on. To have even a chance, I’ll need to rely on the other ghosts in Jin Sheng’s memory!’ Manipulating his enemies to turn against each other was something Han Fei was familiar with. Without wasting time, he turned down the other side of the corridor, the side where the children singing came from. Han Fei raced down the corridor and only stopped when he reached the source of the singing. He kicked the classroom door open. Inside the small classroom, a few students without ears were singing some kind of strange tune.
Han Fei had no time to figure out why the other students look this way in Jin Sheng’s mind. He yelled into the classroom, “A monster’s coming!”
The students turned towards Han Fei. Their eye sockets were bleeding and their eyes were missing. The monster was approaching but the students did not heed Han Fei’s warning at all, if anything, they continued to sing their strange song merrily. Han Fei had no choice but to abandon them and continued his escape. When the monster passed the classroom with the singing students, he paused for a moment. He tore down the maddened face from his chest and then pulled out a kind face to replace it. When the students saw Ma Manjiang, they did not show fear, instead they moved to follow behind Ma Manjiang to chase after Han Fei!
‘Have these students lost their mind?!’
Han Fei ran for his life. It dawned on him why the other students looked the way they did. They had no ears because they would not hear Jin Sheng’s warnings. They had no eyes because they could not see the plain truths exposed before them. They were tricked by Ma Manjiang and became the monster’s accomplices.
‘The whole school is smothered in a grey fog and everyone is turned into monsters. Is this the despair Jin Sheng once felt? Regardless, I need to find a way forward to cut through this haze of despair!’
