105 The Hapless Huang Yin

 

The whole room was swept up in Yin energy, all the light was engulfed by it. Han Fei stood alone inside the living room as he listened to the system notifications.

“You’ve successfully summoned a wandering soul!

“Notification for Player 0000! The success rate of your Spirit Farer skill is very low and there is a chance of you summoning something else. Since there is no actual summoning ritual, the location of the summoned soul cannot be identified. They will land at a random location within 100 metres radius of where you stand!

“Notification for Player 0000! Some wandering souls are extremely dangerous, please be cautious!”

The skill was a success but Han Fei had a feeling the soul he summoned did not belong to Ming Mei’s father. Ming Mei’s father’s name was very pale, it shattered when it broke through the surface of the blood pool. Instead, another ghost face took its place and answered Han Fei’s call. However, to be perfectly honest, Han Fei had no idea what kind of thing he had summoned this time. ‘According to the system, the skill can not only summon other players, but also some other unknown things, things are extremely deadly.’

Han Fei remembered distinctively the fear that overwhelmed him when he utilized the skill. There were many abominable existences hidden among the ghost faces. ‘Since the summoned creature will land within a 100 metres of where I am, that can only mean that it is still inside this apartment.’ Han Fei wanted to punish the wicked but not to harm the innocent. Therefore, he needed to locate this wandering soul as soon as possible. ‘I noticed the thing that came carried a name that was extremely red in color. It has to be someone or something with great spiritual affinity.’

The inside of the apartment was relatively safe now so Han Fei did not need to stay inside Room 1044 for 3 hours anymore. He grabbed the landlord’s keys and rushed out. He mobilized the neighbours that he was friends with to locate that wandering soul. Han Fei started from the first floor. He searched every single room, making use of the opportunity to check out the rooms that he had not visited yet. He ran through the floors one after another. Even after he reached the 8th floor, Han Fei still did not encounter any trace of the wandering soul. Just as he assumed that the soul had been consumed by one of his neighbours, a shriek came from outside the apartment!

Han Fei hurried to the window to look out. He managed to triangulate the origin of the scream, it came from Happiness Neighbourhood Apartment 2!

“Wait, how come that scream sounds so familiar…”

…

“Where am I? I was redoing the paint of the bathroom… and I was walking out from the bathroom door. So… Where am I now? Where is the rest of my home?” A light moldy smell lingered in the moist air. Huang Yin was stunned for a whole 10 seconds before it dawned on him. “Am I inside a hidden map? My own bathroom door connects to a hidden map? What the fuck?!” A hidden map was even rarer than a hidden mission. According to the official news, players could obtain very unique items while exploring hidden maps. Only those extremely lucky would have the chance to wander their way into the hidden maps. “But my Luck is only 1! Never mind, I shouldn’t question this too much! There’s no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Huang Yin was delighted. He was about to begin his exploration when a knock came from the front door. “Hmm? What could this be? Since I’m on a hidden map, can this be a hidden mission? Lady Luck is really smiling on me today!” He jogged excitedly to the door. The house came with extra security, there was the inner wooden door and the outer anti-theft grille. Without giving it much thought, Huang Yin peeled the wooden door open and looked out. In the corridor that reeked, a middle-aged woman covered in bruises and blood was leaning against the steel anti-theft door.

Bang! Huang Yin’s hands moved faster than his brain. He subconsciously slammed the door close. ‘What was that?’ His brain was still processing what he saw. Huang Yin’s brain frazzled from confusion. ‘Did I do something wrong?’ Taking a deep breath, Huang Yin leaned on the wooden door and looked through the peephole, there was no one outside. ‘Was that a bug?’

He pulled the door open for a gap. Huang Yin confirmed that there was definitely no one outside. The woman that he saw earlier disappeared like she was never there to begin with. In fact, even the stench in the corridor had dissipated. ‘Was I hallucinating because I’ve been playing the game for too long?’

The corridor was unkempt, clogged with trash. The railing was rusted and many small adverts as well as children’s doodles decorated the walls. This was a very normal apartment corridor.

‘Every single map in Perfect Life is meticulously designed, even more so the hidden ones. However, no one really has been to a hidden map before.’ Huang Yin tapped his feet loudly so the voice-activated lights in the corridor would come on. Then he walked over and went over to knock on the door opposite to his room. It was room 2041. “Is anyone home?”

There was no reply from inside the room but instead footsteps came from upstairs. Huang Yin leaned his head over to look up the stairs, there was a girl about 10 standing at the landing. Her skin was abnormally white and her frame was so slight that one would assume she was malnourished. Underneath her high collar, one could glimpse the trace of a deep purple strangulation mark.

‘The NPCs inside the hidden map have such unique models…’

The girl looked at Huang Yin with surprise as if she did not expect someone would stay and converse with her.

“Did you see a middle-aged woman covered in blood earlier?” Huang Yin flashed a confident smile. He wanted to leave a good impression on the girl. The girl shook her head silently. The frail and languid mannerism of the girl evoked Huang Yin’s sense of pity. He walked up the stairs to get closer to the girl. Up close, he realized that the girl looked quite pretty in spite of her pale skin and sunken cheeks.

“You shouldn’t stay here all alone. Hurry on home. There seems to be a madwoman running about. I’m afraid that she might hurt you.” Huang Yin was a naturally kind person, he cared for the girl even though she was just an NPC.

“I still cannot go home yet, not until I find the thing that I lost.” The girl uttered shyly.

“You need to locate something that you’ve lost?” Years of gaming experience immediately tipped Huang Yin to the fact that he had triggered a hidden mission. He smiled brighter. “It’s too dangerous for you to wander around looking for stuff so late at night. How about I help you with your search?”

The girl’s face colored with even more shock when she heard Huang Yin’s offer, as if she could not understand this man’s mind. Her brows furrowed. The girl thought for a long time before she nodded.

His heart overflowed with joy but Huang Yin did not receive any system notification even after a long wait. Perhaps he needed to do more so he stopped to ask, “What is it that you need to find?” Helping an NPC locating their lost item was a common mission in games. Sometimes Huang Yin couldn’t help but wonder how come these NPCs had such poor memories.

Huang Yin’s friendliness unsettled the girl. She hesitated for a long time before she answered. “The tenants here hate me. They all think I’m being crazy but I just want to be more complete.”

Then she raised the arms that she had been hiding behind her. Her slender arms truncated into bloody stumps. “Can you help me find my hands? I know someone has hidden them inside this building.”

“Your hands are missing?!”