The red paper doll swayed as it stood up from the ground. It radiated an aura of misfortune. The long-haired middle-aged man considered just bulldozing his way through Han Fei, that was until he saw the paper doll’s face. The face of the doll exuded a heart-wrenching beauty, how could a doll be so beautiful?
Chill jolted through his body, this face couldn’t have been more familiar to the middle-aged man. The unique beauty represented extreme cruelty and danger, he refused to even bring up that name in his mind.
“What is your relationship with her?” After the paper doll’s appearance, even the middle-aged man’s voice had changed, he was preparing for the worst.
“To put it simply, we’re just simply neighbours.”
“Neighbours?” A trace of confusion crossed the middle-aged man’s eyes. There were different kinds of bonds in the cryptic world, but they were mostly secured by curses. Even a biological relationship couldn’t be fully trusted in this world but now Han Fei was threatening his life for the sake of a neighbour? The middle-aged man refused to believe that. He was confident that Han Fei was merely using that as an excuse to attack him. He couldn’t fathom the idea that Han Fei truly cared about the woman. Furthermore, the long-haired man couldn’t believe that someone in this world would ever show concern towards that crazy, gluttonous woman.
The shirt made from hair emitted a strong smell of decomposition. The human face patterns started to grimace in pain. Every single hair the man was wearing came from a dead spirit, they were rife with resentment.
“Looks like you really do not wish to answer.” The black anaconda which had consumed a large amount of Yin energy had fully coiled inside the ghost tattoo. The surface of Han Fei’s skin chilled so much that it started to form ice crystals. This was extremely painful for a living human but Han Fei’s face showed not even a trace of discomfort, instead it was colored by concern and madness. “Never mind, I shall make you speak.”
Even if he was alone, Han Fei would do everything within his power to stop the man, much less when he had his friends’ support. Han Fei sometimes operated on a simple philosophy, if you had once helped me, then I would repay the favor when you were in trouble. When Han Fei first arrived at Happiness Neighbourhood, Xu Qin had helped him more than once. Han Fei did not forget about them. Later, Xu Qin even helped him master the control of the red paper doll. Han Fei remembered the scene as fresh as it had just happened yesterday. Xu Qin used the table knife to pierce through her palm and the paper doll so that her blood would soak the doll completely. It was all thanks to Xu Qin that Han Fei who was just level 10 could control the Grade F Cursed Object.
“Attack!” Without any warning, several chilling presences charged at the long-haired man. The attacks came from all directions and there were so many of them. When Han Fei followed the man out from the dumpling shop, he already decided to make this move. He released the ghosts out from the urn and had them hide around the alley. Han Fei was no longer the innocent new player. He knew the rules of this city. To know the truth, the best method was to ensure that the other party wouldn’t dare to lie to you. From the start, he never thought to settle this peacefully because this involved Xu Qin. He didn’t dare to be too careless. The negotiation earlier was just a ploy for his neighbours to get into place.
The sound of crying entered his ears, the man could not tell where it came from. The enemy could have appeared from anywhere. His senses were muddled by the constant crying. Slowly, all the man could hear was the weeping, the sound that was driving him mad.
“You…” The long-haired man did not expect Han Fei to launch a sudden ambush while in the middle of conversation. He had lost the first strike and was cornered into the defensive. The long-haired man was already weakened after a trip from the Cattle Alley. Now he was surrounded, the situation was very bad for him.
To capture the ringleader to capture all his followers, instead of engaging in the brawl, the long-haired man decided to mark out a singular target. The chilling gaze shot at Han Fei. The man’s clothes morphed into curtains of hair. The man rapidly aged as he injected his energy into the black hair. Seeing the middle-aged man charge at him, Han Fei did not panic. After all, he had fought the berserk Zhang Guanxing at close quarter before. With that experience, he became more confident in battle.
In the cryptic world, Han Fei was a unique existence. He was the weakest person but also the most fearless, someone who would confuse most citizens of the cryptic world. Without evading, Han Fei assumed the standard fighting posture. The ghost tattoo shrunk into his skin but the man showed no sign of pain. When the middle-aged man was 2 meters within him, Han Fei’s muscles exploded with energy.
A side whip kick landed on the middle-aged man’s waist. A large chunk of his body which was shielded by the hair sunk into the body. With bulging eyes, the man stared at his own body with disbelief. He could not understand how something which was so freshly alive managed to damage his body that was made from hatred and pain. He felt something uncovering the secrets within his heart. The young man’s attack appeared to possess the ability to slip through his best defence and unlock the deepest secret within his heart…
The black hair curled around Han Fei’s leg but to his further surprise, the young man appeared to have lost his mind. Ignoring his own safety, he grabbed the hair and attempted to use a grappling skill on a ghost!
To be fair, Han Fei could leave the game at any time. He could evade the fatal attack before it was delivered. Fear the man who had nothing to lose. If Han Fei encountered the long-haired man alone, he might not have chosen this tactic but with his neighbour’s help, what Han Fei needed to do was to buy time for his neighbours to surround the enemy. Crying continued to muddle the middle-aged man’s mind. Before the middle-aged man could find the chance to kill Han Fei, a paper face materialized before him. Lowering his head to look, the bloody paper doll had crawled onto his chest. The paper doll looked just like the scariest woman inside Cattle Alley. His personal nightmare was brought back to life. The arresting beauty represented tragedy and misfortune.
“Why is the doll suffused with the same curse?” The woman herself was a curse amalgamation, to the long-haired man's surprise, the curse on the paper doll was not weaker than that of the woman’s. “What is going on? Why are there suddenly so many ghosts and curses coming out to help that woman?!” This was unimaginable in the cryptic world. The long-haired man was confused. ‘Have all these ghosts lost their mind? Why would they cooperate to help a cruel and crazy curse amalgamation?’
At this place, selfishness was the natural way of things. He could not believe that different ghosts would gather together to help a singular individual. The clothes made from hair were pierced through. His consciousness continued to waver due to the crying. When he planned to use his own power, something slammed into his back. A rotund monster rammed into his back. The part which was touched by the monster started to corrode. The corroding soul morphed into wiggling black worms the size of a human thumb. These things were called Tragedy Worms, they were extremely sensitive to imminent tragedy. They were the opportunistic scavengers of the cryptic world.
If he did not launch a counter now, he wouldn’t have any chance in the future. The long-haired man opened the wooden case. The human heads rolled to the ground and he allowed them to scatter everywhere. Instead he picked out a rusted scissors from inside the blood-soaked case. The scissors looked rusted, too dull to even cut through paper but when the blades slashed Lee Zai and Lee Huo’s body, their souls were cut. ‘The scissors appear to be the hairdresser’s actual essence!’
There were more than one pair of scissors kept inside the wooden case. Normally they were soaked in blood and sealed inside the case. When the man’s hands closed around the scissors, his mind instantly went unhinged and his eyes turned red. He munched hungrily at his own hair and started to ramble people’s names.
“Notification for Player 0000! You’ve triggered a Unique Grade G Hidden Mission—the Hairdresser.
“The Hairdresser (Lingering Spirit): The hardworking man opened a barbershop at the corner of the street. He loved his job because he harboured a little-known secret, he has serious hair fetish.
“Touching, sniffing and licking hair would bring him immense joy. Eventually dealing with hair during his work couldn’t satisfy him anymore. He needed to gain access to more hair from different people. He wanted to use these hairs to weave out a cocoon and wrap himself inside it.
“Mission requirement: Kill the hairdresser and destroy his scissors. Help release the souls trapped inside the scissors; help the hairdresser to complete his lifelong dream. Help him collect hair to make a hair cocoon.”
Without hesitation, Han Fei chose the former. ‘When you’re dead, there’s no need to worry about the fetish anymore.’
Being surrounded by several Lingering Spirits, including Weep who just got his breakthrough, it was already impressive for the hairdresser to survive until now. His body was infiltrated by the paper doll. The smile on the doll’s face was constant and alluring. It tried to crawl into his wounds. The hairdresser defended for as long as he could before an opening was given to the doll. The shredded paper crawled into his flesh and squeezed into his soul. The consciousness which was tormented by crying, now suffered a new kind of pain. It felt like his eyes were stuffed with paper shreds. He wanted to gauge the paper out but even if he stuck his hands into his wounds, he could not reach the paper which had travelled into his soul.
It was the hairdresser’s misfortune to have run into this group of people. He lamented his fate. He had not done anything wrong, he merely entered a dumpling shop and opened his wooden case. ‘Are they really doing this for that woman? Because they are neighbours? What kind of crazy neighbourhood do they come from?!’
