A Survival Game Where You Have to Fall in Love with a Madman - Chapter 16

The moment the ghost bride’s reflection stabilized inside the bronze mirror, she let out an ear-splitting, agonizing shriek.

The glass surface began to fracture violently, weeping thick, pitch-black fluid from its cracks. Simultaneously, a horde of pale, skeletal arms erupted from the floorboards, wrapping around the trio’s ankles. Jiu Chenjing’s pocket watch snapped open, its gilded hands spinning rapidly counterclockwise.

As the grasping arms withered and turned to ash under the temporal distortion, You Yan seized the opening. He plunged the peach wood sword straight into the floor fissure, hearing a mechanical echo rise from the deep abyss:

[Hidden Achievement Unlocked: Seal the Well of a Hundred Ghouls]

You Yan let out a weary sigh. He walked over to the heavy black coffin, his fingertips lightly tracing the intricate carvings along the wood as he whispered in a low voice:

“Jiang Wan. Your vengeance was fulfilled long ago.”

The ghost bride’s erratic movements froze instantly. Two tracks of crimson blood tears slowly cascaded down her beautiful, pale face.

The instance scene began to collapse. The blood moon was swallowed by roiling black clouds, and the decayed estate disintegrated into fine grains of sand. The ghost bride’s form grew increasingly translucent. She slowly raised a hand, seemingly wanting to touch You Yan’s cheek one last time, but at the final second, she dissolved into flying ash and was pulled cleanly into the mirror.

With a sharp crack, the bronze mirror shattered into pieces, plunging the ruined Ancestral Hall into a dead silence.

Three red strings materialized in the empty air, drifting downward. He Yanqing stepped forward and snatched them into his palm, a half-smile playing on his lips. “Hey, my little theorist. Do you think the System has gone completely brain-dead? How exactly does this count as ‘scattered’ items?”

Right on cue, the cell phones of all three surviving players vibrated simultaneously:

[Instance Clearance Evaluation: 85+ Points]

• [Note from the Entities:] The instance entities filed an official grievance, claiming the players handled them far too ruthlessly, leaving absolutely zero room for a proper interactive experience. Will our mischievous players please show some kindness to our adorable entities next time?

[Main Quest Completed. Instance Purification Rate: 100%] [Side Quest Completed: Collect the scattered Concentric Knots (3/3)]

[Survival Reward:] 500 Points [Special Reward:] Evil-Expelling Bronze Mirror Fragment (Synthesizable)

[Teleportation Sequence Initiating in 60 seconds…]

Jiu Chenjing knelt to retrieve a shard of the shattered mirror from the debris, his expression exceptionally grim. “The runes engraved on this…”

“It’s a suppression curse,” You Yan intercepted, his fingers subconsiously tracing the faint, dark red lines that had inexplicably appeared on his own arm. “It completely deviates from my original blueprints.”

He Yanqing let out a sharp whistle. “Beautiful.”

Clutching his bandaged chest wound, Jiu Chenjing swept a cold eye across the actively vanishing estate. “Let’s go.”

You Yan stood rooted to the spot, staring down at an old copper coin that had materialized in his palm—the definitive parting gift left behind by Jiang Wan.

He Yanqing leaned in, asking with a bright smile, “What’s the matter? Reluctant to leave?”

You Yan tucked the coin away securely and turned on his heel. “I’m exhausted. I’m going back to sleep.”

He Yanqing burst into loud laughter, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll head back and sleep right beside you.”

You Yan pushed him away with a completely expressionless face. “Get lost.”

Watching the two banter, Jiu Chenjing let out a cold snort and took the initiative to step right into the glowing teleportation array.

Suddenly, He Yanqing yanked You Yan’s sleeve upward. “Whoa, what do we have here? A wedding gift?”

Only then did You Yan notice that the dark red runes on his forearm matching the exact patterns from the bronze mirror were actively glowing and throbbing with a dull, burning heat.

Before his consciousness slipped away entirely into the void, the cold, mechanical voice of the Main System chimed directly within his mind:

[Memory Fragment Collection Progress: 15%] [Warning: Personality Overwrite Risk has escalated to 39%]

The blood moon vanished entirely, and the final brick of the Cheng Estate dissolved into fine dust. The next second, a blinding white light enveloped the remaining three.

Back to Reality

When You Yan opened his eyes again, he was back inside the familiar parameters of his own apartment.

He Yanqing was sprawled out haphazardly across the living room floor, still tightly clutching the three concentric knots in his hand. Meanwhile, Jiu Chenjing stood vigilantly by the window, sharply scanning the perimeter.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Jiu Chenjing said detachedly, adjusting his cuffs. “I hope we never cross paths in an instance again.”

He Yanqing waved a hand lazily from the floor. “Don’t be so cold, Director Jiu. Our coordination was practically seamless.”

Ignoring the comment entirely, Jiu Chenjing walked straight toward the front door. Before stepping through, he cast a lingering look back at You Yan. “Those ‘designs’ of yours… you had better double-check them with extreme care.” With that, the door clicked shut behind him.

He Yanqing executed a clean kip-up to spring to his feet. “Man, Director Jiu is as unapproachable as ever.”

You Yan walked over to his desk and booted up his computer, opening the source files for the Ghost Marriage Ancient Estate. He meticulously audited every single detail, finally discovering a hidden block of code tucked away in an obscure, easily overlooked corner a strange string of variables that bore a striking resemblance to the runes engraved on his arm.

“He Yanqing, get over here and look at this.”

He Yanqing drifted over, resting his chin heavily on You Yan’s shoulder. “Wow. Is this a love letter?”

“Be serious,” You Yan said, pointing a finger at the monitor. “I didn’t write this block of code. Furthermore…” He pulled up several other design files from his directory. “Every single layout concept has a similar hidden string embedded inside it.”

He Yanqing’s expression turned uncharacteristically solemn. “It looks like some sort of matrix array.”

Suddenly, a wave of intense vertigo washed over You Yan. The code strings displayed on the monitor began to warp, liquefying into a flowing crimson fluid. He blinked hard, and the screen instantly snapped back to normal.

“Are you alright?” He Yanqing asked, lightly squeezing the nape of his neck.

“I’m fine,” You Yan said, closing the laptop lid. “I just need to rest.”

Surprisingly, He Yanqing didn’t press him or attempt to mess around. He simply nodded. “Go ahead and sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

The moment You Yan lay down on his bed, a heavy wave of exhaustion crashed over him. He fell into a bizarre dream standing inside a vast labyrinth constructed entirely out of mirrors. Every single mirror reflected a completely different version of himself; some were laughing, some were weeping, and some… didn’t possess a human shape at all.

The Morning After

When the morning light finally pierced through the thin window curtains, You Yan was abruptly choked awake by a pungent, acrid smell of burning.

He threw off his blanket and walked into the kitchen, only to see He Yanqing standing in front of a smoking skillet, aggressively reciting an incantation. The fried egg inside the pan had already carbonized into the grotesque shape of a flattened human face.

“A morning ritual?” You Yan leaned against the doorframe, raising an eyebrow.

He Yanqing flicked his wrist to launch a water talisman. With a loud sizzle, a thick plume of white steam billowed into the air. “I’m experimenting with a malevolent-spirit-repelling recipe.” He brandished the blackened spatula. “Ancient texts record that evil spirits are deeply terrified of caramelized scents—though this one seems to have gone a bit over budget.”

“Where did you get those?” You Yan’s gaze locked onto the various talismans clutched in He Yanqing’s hand.

He Yanqing produced two or three more slips from his pocket. “My dear Mr. NPC, I scavenged these right out of the instance.”

“Scavenged?” You Yan reached his hand out toward a water glass, but a sharp, stinging pain flared across his wrist.

The instant his sleeve slid down, both men froze simultaneously. The dark red runes that had only reached his elbow the previous night had now climbed all the way up to his shoulder blade, actively writhing beneath his skin like a living entity.

“Don’t move,” He Yanqing instructed, a ghostly blue flame igniting at his fingertip as he slowly traced the path of the rune network. “It’s actively mimicking the propagation model of self-replicating code.”

Wherever the blue flame passed, tiny beads of blood seeped from the runes, coalescing in the air to form a line of ancient oracle bone script: Wuyin · Guichou · Sacrifice.

Suddenly, the bathroom mirror became completely blanketed in thick condensation. When You Yan stepped inside and wiped away the moisture, he was startled to find that the pupils of his reflection were shifting into a brilliant, liquid gold.

From behind him came He Yanqing’s uncharacteristically grave voice: “We need to pay a visit to the city library today. Some of the microfilms for the ancient texts…”

“Just how many things are you hiding from me?” You Yan turned around to cut him off, his golden pupils directly reflecting He Yanqing’s suddenly pale countenance.

The apartment’s air conditioning unit abruptly cut out, and the ceiling lights began to strobe violently. The bronze bell fastened around He Yanqing’s wrist began to vibrate without any wind, emitting a low, hollow hum that sounded exactly like a flute carved from human bone.

He smiled, slapping a paper talisman straight onto You Yan’s forehead, though the depths of his eyes remained entirely frozen. “My darling, some secrets are exactly like nested code. If you disassemble the sequence in the wrong order, the entire system crashes.”

You Yan: “…”

Internal Monologue

He had always felt a profound, intrinsic connection between himself and the Main God System, but it seemed he had forgotten a vast majority of it.

…Like hell he did.

He actually remembered a fraction of it now. Two years ago, the “Disruptors” breached the system boundaries.

The Disruptors were exactly what the name implied the designated adversaries of the System. They utilized any underhanded means necessary to completely demolish game instances, their ultimate objective being to assassinate the Main God.

It appeared the System had forcefully ejected him into the human world back then. As for the exact rationale, he still couldn’t fully comprehend it. Looking at it from a different perspective, it was likely an automated measure to safeguard him; he was, in all probability, a critical, irreplaceable piece of core data within the System itself.

If the Main God falls, the System perishes.

Furthermore, his memories only spanned the last two years, which had conveniently conditioned him to believe he was merely a mundane, work-hating corporate slave.

To force a person who absolutely despised working to pull shifts at an escape room venue for two entire consecutive years… two whole years.

Spending every single day scaring customers like a complete lunatic. It was, without a doubt, a thoroughly vulgar existence.