148 Starting a New Map

 

The system also did mention that Little Eight was a key but other than that, it provided no other details. Knowing Little Eight was the key but not the lock she corresponded to was positively unhelpful. “Did the previous manager give any other information?” Han Fei studied his roommates, the living room was silent. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“Even though the previous manager looked kind and was a nice person, I can feel that he did not really trust us or rather he refused to believe anything about this world is real.” Wei Youfu began slowly. “You are different from him in essence.” Han Fei was reminded of the Manager Mission. He remembered the last manager chose the path to destroy this cryptic world but he failed and his memory was shattered into pieces. ‘Someone with a goal to destroy this world would not have trusted its inhabitants fully.’

The previous manager did not share much information with his tenants. To get to know the truth about this world, Han Fei had no choice but to search for more of the manager’s memory fragments. ‘Thankfully, I’ve copied down the manager’s map. The Yi Ming Private Academy was specifically marked out, there’s a high chance that one of his memory fragments can be found there.’ Han Fei took out the teacher’s id. ‘There has to be a reason why he purposely left this for me.’

Han Fei had no idea what to do with the singer. This meant that the Happiness Neighbourhood was in deep danger. To solve this problem, he had to place his hope on the previous manager’s memory fragments.

“We have no idea if, or when, the song will return. We need to be prepared for it just in case.” Han Fei had a new understanding of how despairing the world was. He thought after clearing all out the threats, Happiness Neighbourhood would be his safehouse but today’s visit from the singer changed everything... Unless of course he had a presence stronger than Pure Hatred on his side, which according to Drake was those who could not be mentioned, or the Unmentionables.

“This is going to be hard.” Han Fei led Wei Youfu out of Room 1044. “Let’s go check up on our neighbours for now. Hopefully everyone is fine.”

“When the song was faraway, I already notified all of our neighbours, if they trust me, they should be at Apartment 2 now.” Wei Youfu was a kind and reliable ‘person’. He hadn’t changed after death. Han Fei thus made a detour to Apartment 2. When he failed to notice Xu Qin among the crowd, Han Fei panicked. He rushed back to Apartment 1’s 5th floor. Xu Qin appeared to be out still. Her room was destroyed. The containers for her ‘food’ were shattered and a heavy curse lingered inside the room. However, the real disaster was in Room 1051. Xu Qin’s pet appeared to be dead. Only rotten bones were seen inside the dark room. The shadow had disappeared. “Where did the shadow in this room disappear to?”

Han Fei and Wei Youfu entered Room 1051. The darkness faded away and horrifying curses covered every surface. The song was a horrible entity. When Han Fei had lost all hope, a whine came from the corner of the inner room. Entering the room, Han Fei poked his head out the window where the whine came from earlier. He noticed there was a shred of shadow about the size of a strand of hair squeezed in the corner of the window ledge.

“Jesus Christ, the poor thing.” The shadow was originally as large as the entire room. But now only a strand was left of it. And it barely managed to escape death by hiding outside its own room. Using Soul-Depth Touch, Han Fei extended his hand towards the shadow. The shadow cautiously unspooled itself out from the crack onto Han Fei’s finger. Han Fei could feel fear, helplessness and memories of Xu Qin from the shadow. When Xu Qin was around, the shadow was the one who consumed others, it had never been so humiliated in its life.

“Notification for Player 0000! You have discovered a unique unknown object.

“Unique Unknown Object (???): A unique presence containing both curse and resentment. No one knew how it came into being. It is an entity between an object, a life and a lingering spirit.”

Staring at the strand that curled around his finger, Han Fei was shocked. Even the system could not identify this pet of Xu Qin. ‘Just what kind of food Xu Qin has been feeding this thing? How did she manage to turn a room into such a monster?’ Han Fei tried to place the shadow inside his inventory but the system forbad him from doing so because the shadow was not an object. Han Fei thus allowed the shadow to continue curling around his finger. ‘Did this thing see me as his male owner or it feels the safest around me because I’m the weakest at this building?’

Han Fei exited Room 1051 and entered Room 1054. The human cocoons that Xu Qin kept here were lucky. The song opened the door at random, it did not check Room 1054. To Han Fei’s surprise, there was competition between the cocoons. One of the cocoons was dying while the others turned bright red. The thing inside the latter appeared like it was about to birth anytime soon. ‘These human cocoons are from the non-locals and the non-locals have the butterfly tattoos. This means the cocoons might be related to the butterfly.’ Han Fei temporarily had no idea what the cocoons were for, so he placed them in his inventory for now.

He continued his inspection. There was not much damage done to the building. To Han Fei’s surprise, the mirror on the 7th floor survived the onslaught too. ‘No wonder this mirror is one of the earliest tenants at this place, it is quite powerful.’

After the song left, all the tenants gathered together. The Happiness Neighbourhood was no longer safe, everyone started to take Han Fei more seriously. With the threat of the song, the tenants finally reached a consensus. What Han Fei incidentally made up before had come true. None of the tenants knew when the song would return next. That understandably worried them. This time Apartment 2 was spared but who knew what would happen next time. Furthermore, they also noticed that the song appeared more often around the neighbourhood recently.

‘An outside threat is unfortunately the best way to achieve unity.’ After a discussion with the tenants, he had some of them move to the convenience store while those who could not leave stay behind to guard the neighbourhood. He planned to explore the school’s vicinity with his neighbour’s help tonight.

At late midnight, Han Fei and a few of his neighbours arrived at the back alley behind the convenience store. By then he had completed a Grade G Normal Mission so he could quit at any time. Han Fei was most confident in times like this. He could even curse at the singer when he encountered it from faraway.

“Is everyone ready? Be on your guard. Recently, there have been some inexplicable changes at Yi Ming Private Academy, the place has become very dangerous. The non-locals might have infiltrated the school as well. This time we are only scooping out the place from the outside. But if we run into any students needing aid, we’ll try to save them.” Han Fei needed to get information about the school. Taking a deep breath, Han Fei hugged Weep’s urn while Lee Zai carried Big Head’s schoolbag. They emitted an air of misfortune. When everyone was in place, Han Fei and Lee Zai ran out from the back alley, they crossed the street. But when they stepped on the sideway that was before the school’s front gate, something unexpected happened. Han Fei felt pulled out of the air and suddenly the world around him changed!

“Player 0000 has acquired Yi Ming Private Academy’s Educator Id! Congratulations for finding the hidden map—Yi Ming Private Academy! Your mission interface has been updated! Please take a look at it!”

A bad omen rose within Han Fei when he heard the notification. He had heard the term hidden map from Huang Yin before but he did not expect himself to run into one while he was already inside a hidden version of the game.

Studying the cracked urn he held, Han Fei called Weep’s name but Weep did not appear to be inside the urn. ‘How is this a hidden map when it is quite openly situated by the street?!’