Han Fei stayed at the theme park for a long time until he received a call from Huang Yin. The latter used an encrypted number. Huang Yin would only use it when there was an emergency. Han Fei left the theme park and ensured there was no one around before he answered, “Brother Huang?”
“There’s something wrong with the surface world of Perfect Life. Some of the players started to have mental problems after they logged off.” Huang Yin spoke rapidly. “This is serious. I’ll talk to you in person. Come to the intelligent city.”
“Yesterday night, the Unmentionable started to affect real life. Its medium is Perfect Life. I know that.” Han Fei kept the black key. He didn’t know where the door was, but he believed he’d one day find that door.
“I think it’s better for you to come to take a look. This is not an exception. All the players with mental issues have died in the theme park tunnel. I suspect two Unmentionables have joined hands. One opened the passage, and the other used the passage to do something scarier.” Huang Yin was worried, “The passage at the theme park is fine, right?” “The Pure Hatreds guarding the tunnel are entering the skyscraper.” Han Fei frowned. “I’ll go to you. Give me an address.” Two hours later, Han Fei and Huang Yin met in a high-class neighborhood. They took the elevator to Room 3014. “This is a tenant who stays in the same neighborhood as I do. In the game, he’s a core member of the Merchant’s guild. He died in the theme park passage that night,” Huang Yin waved at the camera to get the owner to open the door. “After getting offline, he had a headache, but then he started to act abnormally.” A few minutes later, the door opened. However, it was impossible to tell who had opened the door. The stingy smell of air freshener came from the room. The living room was messy, with wooden boards and nails on the floor.
“Director Zhang?” Huang Yin moved carefully with his phone before him. He kicked away the wooden boards. “I’ve helped you find an exorcist. Are you here?” Han Fei glanced behind him. He then realized Huang Yin was talking about him. Han Fei saw used adult diapers and a lot of empty air fresheners in the corner. There was a creaking sound, and the closet door opened. A pale arm reached out, then a shoulder, and finally a bloodless face. “Director Zhang!” Huang Yin ran into the bedroom. He dragged Director Zhang out of the dresser. The man’s stomach was bulging. He had a lot of pills in his pockets.
“Why did you lock yourself up inside the dresser in the middle of the day?” Huang Yin grabbed Director Zhang’s shaking shoulders. “Everything’s fine now. The exorcist is here. All your problems will be solved.” Director Zhang slowly returned to normal. While still lying on the ground, he grabbed Han Fei by his arms. “You need to help me. The thing wants to kill me.”
“Calm down. Explain yourself.” Han Fei knelt beside Director Zhang. He glanced at Director Zhang’s abnormally large stomach.
“I saw it. It would only appear at night at first, but now it’s showing up in the day too!” Director Zhang held his head. His eyes were filled with fear. “There’s another person in my bathroom! Once I close the lights, it’ll be standing there! It will kneel behind me and crawl over my head!” Director Zhang pointed at the bathroom door that had been boarded up.
“When did you start to see it?”
“After I was killed in the tunnel in Perfect Life!” Director Zhang took out something from his pocket. It was a handful of pills. He didn’t count them and toss them into his mouth, but Huang Yin stopped him.
“The ghosts in the tunnel that day are all allies. Dream’s consciousness probably has done something.” Han Fei walked to the bathroom door. He removed the wooden planks and opened the door. The luxurious bathroom didn’t have any ghosts. Compared to the other rooms, this place was the cleanest. “There’s no ghost.”
“Impossible! Look! It’s right there! It’s hiding there!” Director Zhang screamed like a child. “The ghosts in the passage will not follow out into real life. You’re affected by Dream. It has evoked the darkest thing in your heart.” Han Fei picked up Director Zhang and led him to the bathroom door. “Have you done something regretful in the bathroom? I can only help you if you tell me the truth.” Han Fei picked up Director Zhang and shoved him into the bathroom since the latter refused to cooperate. “If you won’t say, I’ll lock you in here forever.” Huang Yin shook his head. He asked Han Fei over to help.
Threatened by Han Fei, Director Zhang finally told the truth, “Due to family pressure, my sister committed suicide in the bathroom. She said she hated everyone in the house. From then on, I didn’t dare to use the bathroom alone at night. I could always hear her voice. Whenever I enter the bathroom, it feels like she’s trying to strangle me.”
“Your fear has been realized as a hallucination.” Huang Yin understood it.
“It might not be a hallucination. After some time, his sister might appear.” Han Fei shocked Director Zhang and Huang Yin. “No one can say for sure what ghosts are. They die, but they exist in our minds and dreams.” Han Fei had been inside Fu Sheng’s altar. He knew that the first-generation ghost came into being from people’s negative emotions. If everyone in Xin Lu was like Director Zhang, scarier ghosts would come, and the tragedy would repeat itself.
“The garden owner connected the real world and cryptic world. Dream set up everything. That’s already two Unmentionables. I wonder if there’s more.” Just the thought of it made Han Fei nervous. Xin Lu became the center of the storm. And the storm was getting bigger. “The best way to deal with fear is to face it, but that’s too hard for many.” Han Fei released his hold on Director Zhang. The man in the suit rolled out of the bathroom.
“Even you don’t have the solution?” Huang Yin clicked on his phone, “This is the list compiled by Absolute Truth. Extreme cases like Director Zhang are rare but more people are getting unstable. Also, it’s strange that all these players are gathered at Xin Lu.”
“Immortal Pharma and Deep Space Tech are at Xin Lu. The closer one is to the photon computer, the easier one can be influence?”
“I’m not sure either.” Huang Yin frowned deeply. He had never encountered something so troublesome. He didn’t expect tragedy to come so swiftly.
“There are people working with the three criminal organizations from inside Deep Space Tech and Immortal Pharma. In fact, the Unmentionables might be hiding among them. We have too many enemies.” Han Fei had a giant conflict with the two giants. However, he had to protect Perfect Life. That was Fu Sheng’s whole life and the key to balance out the cryptic world.
“Then what should we do now?” Huang Yin controlled Director Zhang.
“You need to gather the people in the game and protect our family. Don’t let the ghosts find any openings.” Han Fei said after a silence. “Give up the dream. Be ready that the two worlds will overlap.”
“Are things that bad?”
“We need to be prepared for the worst.” Han Fei needed to return to the cryptic world to inform his friends to guard the passage. “The longer this is dragged out, the more people will be affected. Many things will be decided in the next few nights.”
“Will the ghosts from the cryptic world… really be here?” Huang Yin hadn’t experienced Fu Sheng’s altar so he couldn’t imagine that terror.
“I’ll tell you this. Human-created despair keeps accumulating that it is now large enough to bury humanity.” Han Fei was not a pessimist. He was a realist. “Stop wasting time. We need to give it our all.”
“Understood.” Huang Yin nodded. He called the emergency call to get the police to fetch Director Zhang.
“You can contact the police directly when it’s related to Xin Lu. I might need to stay longer in the dark.” Han Fei planned to leave, but he stopped when he was at the door. “Also, help me watch over Seaglass Cat and the other players I’ve saved. They are seeds for the future.”
“They have been seen during the livestream. They might be attacked. I will pay attention to them.” After they finished the chat, Han Fei and Huang Yin shopped for various resources to prepare for the coming week.
…
The sky darkened. Vegebun carried the cat food and cat litter back to her neighborhood. On the internet, she was free and passionate, but she was reserved in real life. She rarely greeted her neighbors. “Strange. Why is the neighborhood so quiet today?”
Dark clouds gathered in the sky. Rain fell. Vegebun widened her eyes. “Why is the rain black?” Vegebun lifted her head. The black rain was sticky like evilness in the human heart. The pedestrians hurried by, and no one paid attention to Vegebun. It seemed like only specific people could see the black rain.
“I just changed, but I have to shower again.”
Vegebun hurried into the corridor. Perhaps she imagined it, but it felt like her corridor was very cold that night. She took out the key in panic. She tried multiple times before she opened the door. She kept turning back. There was nothing in the corridor, but she felt like she had been followed. Vegebun entered her house and closed the door. But when she turned around, that strange feeling returned. “This is my home, so why does it feel so unfamiliar?”
Vegebun put down the cat litter and called for her cat. The room was quiet. The cats didn’t answer. Vegebun switched on the lights in the living room. She moved along the door when she heard something crawling in her bedroom. She called her cat’s name. Vegebun entered the bedroom and saw the bed shaking.
“Don’t hide in there! You’ll dirty the bed.” Vegebun knelt down and lifted up the cover. She reached her hand under the bed, “Come out now!”
She didn’t touch anything. Vegebun bent down to look under the bed when her eyes settled on the corner of her bedroom. Her cat was covered in bloody gashes as it hid behind the door.
Then, Vegebun’s fingers touched something. It was cold. It felt like a human face.
