99 Exit?

 

The Game Map in the menu would only show the places Han Fei had visited, the unexplored places were shrouded in darkness. On the other hand, the hand-painted map on the wall generously marked out the locales near to the apartment, some of them were even specifically circled out with red pen. ‘I remember the building manager saying that his memory has been shredded into pieces, could these places be the locations where his memory fragments can be found?’ Other than these places of interest, at the most corner of the map, there was an area that had a red question mark. A label in untidy handwriting was written beside it—Exit?

This location was extremely far from the Happiness Neighbourhood.

‘What is the meaning of this exit? Is it the exit that leads back to the real world? Or the passage to the surface world? Regardless, this is a valuable find.’ If it was the latter, Han Fei would be able to leave this place with all of his neighbours, to have them witness their justice being served. ‘This hand-painted map might be even more valuable than the system’s rewards. This is probably the last present the previous building manager left for me.’

Han Fei stood before the wall for about 10 minutes.

“What are you standing there for? Aren’t we going to explore the other places?” Xu Qin caressed the knife. She was rather bored.

“I’m trying to memorize this map into my mind before I destroy this wall. Like everything else, the rarer the information, the more precious it’ll be.” Han Fei was thinking ahead. Before this, the previous building manager's presence stopped anyone from coming up to the top floor but now that he was gone, there was no telling who might come up here and use this information against Han Fei. Han Fei quickly branded the map in his mind with his photographic memory. Then he marred the map with Xu Qin’s aid.

“In the future, you can use this place to prepare your food ingredients. But help me store the non-locals’ blood and body parts. I wish to use their blood to paint a new map over this wall.” Han Fei until now had no idea why those non-locals had infiltrated into this building but he knew he had to be careful of them.

“I understand what you mean. If someone intends to take advantage of the map, it’ll only provide them a false trail to a deeper abyss.” Xu Qin chuckled with mirth. She realized she could encounter many new adventures around Han Fei.

“To make the new map feel more authentic, we need to set up more traps on the 9th floor. The harder it is to get to the map, the less suspicion they’ll have of it. That is a basic psychological trick.” Han Fei had been studying human psyche and psychology. He realized they come in handy most of the time. After a brief discussion, the duo continued to explore the rest of the house. There was no discovery of anything grotesque. There were no dead bodies or ghosts. This was probably a sanctuary for the previous building manager. After a thorough search, only 2 objects were identified by the system.

“Notification for Player 0000! You’ve discovered Grade G Blood Red Object—Yi Ming Private Academy’s Educator Id.

“Yi Ming Private Academy’s Educator Id: Only while wearing this id, can the user enter Yi Ming Private Academy.

“Notification for Player 0000! You’ve discovered Grade G Blood Red Object—Cursed Homework.

“Cursed Homework: A revision exercise book that cannot be finished. Until now, no one knows what kind of curse lingers on it. It can absorb children’s resentment, prolonged interaction with the book might cause loss of self.”

Han Fei was quite surprised with these discoveries. “The building manager was a teacher?”

“I’m not sure. But if that’s true, I pity his students. He was such a tedious person.” Xu Qin licked the blood off her lips, the way she looked at Han Fei was quite scary.

“According to the map on the wall, Yi Ming Private Academy is slightly to the west of this neighbourhood. The place was circled out in red so it should be somewhere important.” Han Fei said. After he was more capable, he decided to pay the place a visit. ‘I have the talent of Piep Pier, and Hide-and-Seek. With my acting skill, I should have no problem handling a group of kids.’ Han Fei’s intention was to venture out there to see if he could make more friends. After ensuring they did not leave anything unchecked, Han Fei and Xu Qin left the 10th floor. Finally this apartment began to feel more like a real home. After bidding farewell to Xu Qin, Han Fei returned to Room 1044 alone.

The clock said that it was not yet 4 am. He died 45 times inside the building manager’s memory, the pain and torment lasted for multiple lifetimes but outside of the mission, time did not pass by that much. ‘The passage of time inside the game and outside the game is the same but while I was doing the Manager Mission, I was inside a unique state. In that state, the time flow slowed down and I was unable to exit the game. Basically, it was like I was pulled into another person’s memory.’

There were still many things about Perfect Life that eluded Han Fei. He was still a relatively new player in this game.

Entering the innermost bedroom, Han Fei saw his 7 roommates sitting by the bed, facing away from him.

“I’m home.” Han Fei greeted the victims casually. Like usual, he sat beside Wei Youfu, “I’ve located the parts you’ve lost. For now I can only help restore your wounded soul, but in the future, I will make it so that you can see the murderers punished with your own eyes.”

Opening the inventory, when Han Fei took out the first human jigsaw piece, the temperature in the room dropped. The landlord’s ring gave off a stern warning. With no fear and apprehension, Han Fei very carefully inserted the ‘jigsaw puzzles’ back into their allotted places. ‘I am basically building back my own roommates, it’s quite hair-raising when you think about it.’

The first roommate Han Fei worked on was Wei Youfu but Han Fei soon noticed the problem. The puzzle piece matched but it refused to fuse back with Wei Youfu’s body. Black and red blood leaked out from Wei Youfu’s body. Han Fei believed he heard a girl’s screams among the blood. ‘Why won’t it fit?’

The ring was freezing. While Han Fei was deep in thought, Wei Youfu next to him suddenly raised his arms to push Han Fei towards the door. Black capillaries snaked out from the victims’ bodies. The threads bound them forcibly together, twisting their frames out of shape. Bones were crushed and flesh torn. Blood squirted everywhere. The monster made of despair slowly emerged. Han Fei once again met the girl residing at the monster’s heart. The last time this happened, Han Fei was doing the shower mission. Wei Youfu even left him a mirror message, requesting Han Fei’s aid to save the girl.

‘I think I get it now.’ Han Fei suddenly leaped towards the monster. He tore open the flesh that was closing around the monster’s chest and reached in to grab the girl! ‘The 8th victim is the key in this whole tragedy!’