688 Memories

 

Qiang Wei didn’t tell anyone about his plan. He didn’t even ponder about it often lest others read his thoughts. Regarding F, Qiang Wei felt more fear than trust. He had no idea how many players would survive in the future F saw. F never shared his vision with anyone. He only told them what to do. Everyone followed him blindly. However, F never saw them as partners but more as tools. Qiang Wei didn’t deny F’s capability, but he didn’t like how F did things.

As F’s predictions slowly came true, the players started to gather around F. Qiang Wei had fewer people he could trust. It made him feel anxious. Qiang Wei didn’t like this feeling. Instead of following another person’s laid-out future, he preferred to grab his own destiny.

The players arrived at the fourth floor, but something even more troublesome awaited them. The song rang in everyone’s ears. Their souls felt like they were departing from their bodies. “The song feels like it’s summoning our souls.” They couldn’t see the singer or pinpoint the source of the song. The other illusions in the nightmare only affected specific people, but the song enveloped the entire neighborhood. This represented the power of something beyond Pure Hatred. Even in the nightmare, it possessed the power of the Unmentionable.

“Don’t be affected! Concentrate!” F was influenced too. In fact, the singer seemed to target him more than the others. It wanted to sing a tragedy in his mind. F waved the black blade with annoyance. The closer he came to Han Fei’s floor, the greater the impact of the nightmare on him. His constitution was strong, but the players behind him had reached their limits. To make things worse, Han Fei’s nightmare affected the tenants in the neighborhood too. The ghosts behind the doors started to go rampage. The screams echoed. When their lives were threatened, the police trapped inside the neighborhood took out their guns and fired. The silence was shattered, but the fear didn’t dissipate. When all the players reached the third floor of building Four, Han Fei reached a consensus with Yan Yue’s parents inside Room 444. Only Han Fei could help Yan Yue now, so Yan Yue’s mother would help him unconditionally. Yan Yue’s condition wasn’t good, and her mother could feel that too. Dream only treated them as chess pieces. However, to revive her daughter, she chose to cooperate with Dream. Her daughter was her everything. Now that Dream’s goal had been achieved, it had the butterfly bred inside Yan Yue flew out of her body carrying the maze tattoo. It didn’t care about Yan Yue’s life.

“Everyone who has conducted the resurrection ritual has been infected by the cocoon. They carry a unique butterfly pattern.” Yan Yue’s mother said, “I have no idea how many disciples Dream has, but most of them are charmed by Dream. They are merely Dream’s sacrifices to revive itself.”

Yan Yue’s eyes glowed viciously when her mother said something bad about Dream. Yan Yue’s soul started to resist. She had been brainwashed by the butterfly. She had no opinion of her own. Yan Yue’s parents felt immense pain seeing this. The butterfly wanted to fly out of Yan Yue’s stomach. The blood vessels bulged on Yan Yue’s skin and formed a butterfly on her stomach. The stomach expanded like a balloon. She was just a teenager, but she had to suffer the pain that even an adult couldn’t bear. The souls wailed. They resisted as best as they could. This reborn girl was about to die in the most horrible way.

“The butterfly is one of Dream’s forms. It can hide inside a person’s brain and dream. It’s not easy to deal with it.” Han Fei knew Yan Yue’s mother loved her daughter dearly, but that was not a reason for her to murder others. The only reason Han Fei didn’t murder them was that they were very familiar with Dream. Before Dream was stopped, they couldn’t die.

“Since you’ve told me so many things, I’ll live up to my promise too. I’ll try my best to return Yan Yue to normal.” Han Fei tied Yan Yue, the paper doll, and himself with the reds threads. He then placed all the resurrection ritual items around him.

“What are you doing?” Yan Yue’s mother was nervous.

“Dream’s butterfly is trying to break through your daughter’s stomach. You can’t lure it out with a normal method, so I plan to use myself as bait to lure it into my brain.” Other people were so scared of Butterfly, but Han Fei was the complete opposite. He wanted to use his brain as a cage for Butterfly.

“The brain contains your memories and pasts. It’s the foundation of a person’s existence. Are you sure you want to do that?” Yan Yue’s mother had not met someone so crazy. Earlier, she thought Han Fei was only lying to them. But Han Fei decided to use his brain as a trap without hesitation. This stunned her.

“It’ll be fine.” Han Fei didn’t tell Yan Yue’s mother that his brain was empty. He’d be fine no matter what Butterfly did. He didn’t tell her that his real goal was to use this butterfly to break through his memory barrier and to take over the maze tattoo on the butterfly wings!

Han Fei decided to take a big risk this time. He pulled on the red threads. Han Fei and the paper doll opened their eyes at the same time. All the curses appeared on Han Fei’s body. Then, they traveled by the red thread into Yan Yue’s body. Han Fei slowly leaned forward until his forehead was close to Yan Yue’s stomach. He used curses to force the butterfly out. Thousands of curses were slowly injected into Yan Yue’s body. The souls inside Yan Yue’s body screamed. The butterfly flapped its wing nervously. A giant human-faced butterfly under the skin stared at Han Fei.

Yan Yue’s mother cooperated fully with Han Fei. She suppressed the other souls and guided all the curses to the stomach. The others in the room had not seen this before. The black curses gushed like a waterfall, sluicing through Yan Yue’s soul and body. Gradually, Yan Yue’s blood would be imbued with Xu Qin’s curse. With a thought by Han Fei, Yan Yue would die. This made her mother very nervous.

“You can’t run now.” Han Fei slowly tightened the red thread. A flicker of black flame burned in the doll’s eyes. All the curses flowed into the butterfly. Yan Yue’s skin was torn apart, and blood flowed. A giant colorful butterfly flew out of Yan Yue’s stomach. The butterfly dominated all the colors of the night. It was like a dream. Its wings carried the maze tattoo. The only thing was its body was tainted with curses. Irregular black spots appeared on its wings. The curse and red threads pulled on the wounds on Yan Yue’s stomach. Through the wound, Han Fei saw a giant black cocoon left inside Yan Yue’s body. The cocoon was covered in despairing faces. It was embedded inside Yan Yue’s organs. After the butterfly was forced out by the curse, the black cocoon disintegrated. The cat at the door seemed to sense this. Like before, it started to absorb the black substance that oozed out of the cocoon. The more it absorbed, the more prominent the nine black patterns on its coat. They radiated the presence of tragedy.

The butterfly had nowhere else to run but Han Fei’s brain. This butterfly was so much larger than the one earlier. After the giant butterfly entered Han Fei’s brain, the envy and hatred in Yan Yue’s eyes disappeared. In their places were pain and fear. Now, she looked more like a normal student.

The strange atmosphere inside Room 444 disappeared. The curses on the walls dimmed.

“Han Fei?” Lee Guo Er wanted to come over, but Han Fei waved his hands. He wanted her to look after Fu Tian. “I have a bit of a headache. I need to rest.”

“You are bleeding everywhere! Your face is cracking too!” Lee Guo Er said nervously.

“They are just surface wounds. It’ll be fine.” Han Fei hugged the paper doll and grabbed his backpack. He walked towards the bedroom. “Don’t let anyone else enter. I want to sleep.”

“Is there anything I can help you with?” Brain walked over. Han Fei used his own brain as a vessel for the butterfly to save his daughter. That was very valiant.

“Put this tape inside the player.” Han Fei was swaying. The maze tattoo appeared in his eyes. His empty brain was about to be torn apart by the giant butterfly. The pain was immense.

“Do you still want to watch the tape?” Brain didn’t get it, but he followed Han Fei’s instructions. He accepted the tape Han Fei took from Happiness Neighborhood Building 1. The television rang with static. It was shrill for others but Han Fei thought it sounded very familiar. The tape started to play. Inside the dark and cold room, seven incomplete souls looked at the fainted man in the living room. The man was Han Fei.

“This tape appeared to be taken from the ghost’s perspective. Is it the perspective of my family?” He placed the doll beside his pillow. He slept beside the doll and allowed her to inject the curse into his brain.

Seven different ghosts surrounded Han Fei in the middle. The youngest among them reached out his hand to poke at Han Fei’s cheek. The child was stunned feeling the warmth of human skin. His head turned 180 degree around to ask the other ghosts for their opinions. A living human suddenly appeared in the house haunted by the seven victims of the human jigsaw case. The man also looked rather dumb.

Before the seven ghosts could reach a consensus, Han Fei woke up. He climbed up and then gestured with his hands in the air. He kept saying some strange things too.

“That hurts so much. It feels like someone has drilled open a hole on the back of my head. Based on the game introduction, this is an Iyashikei life simulation. It is open-world and has no fixed play style. I can focus on leveling up or find a virtual girlfriend.” At that moment, there was a knock on the door. An old lady came to visit. He naively followed the lady down the stairs.

The seven ghosts came out of their hiding spots. They looked at each other. They hadn’t had a living presence in that room for a long time already. They didn’t seem like they could stray too far from their specific haunting spots. They soon scattered back to their places.

Not long after that, Han Fei rushed back into the room. He was panicked as he locked the door. After some mumbling, he decided to enter the bedroom to sleep.

Hearing the door open, the boy who was initially sleeping in bed, rolled to the ground. He poked half of his head up and looked at Han Fei with confusion. Han Fei was lying in bed with the cleaver. He hid his body under the sheet and only exposed his two eyes. He stared at the living room. The man under the sheet was looking for a ghost, and the ghost beside his bed was looking at him. Neither party moved.

The younger victims got bored. The ghost who was inside the bathroom assumed Han Fei had already fallen asleep, so he eased the bathroom door open. For them, this was the first day of their new roommate’s arrival. They didn’t want to disturb Han Fei’s sleep.

However, as the bathroom door opened, Han Fei appeared to be triggered. He hugged the red sheet and half-knelt on the bed. He stared at the black shadow beside the couch.

The victim beside the couch had no idea what he had done wrong. He shared a look with the boy beside Han Fei’s bed. They told each other to not scare their new roommate.

Han Fei was actually stalling for time. The two ghosts cooperated. But after a while, they got bored because Han Fei didn’t do anything else. Just as they planned to leave, Han Fei suddenly leaped up in bed and rushed towards the front door, brandishing the cleaver.

At 3 am, the new roommate ran towards the stairwell. The ghost at the door wanted to stop him because it was very dangerous outside, but she was too late. The seven victims walked out of the different corners of the room. They tried their best to retain their last bit of rationality. Just as they discussed whether they should go and fetch their new roommate, Han Fei’s howl came from downstairs. “How is this an Iyashikei game?”

The memories were broadcasted. The seven victims watched the rather innocent man with social anxiety slowly became the manager of Happiness Neighborhood Building One. They saw how Han Fei fought with the outsiders and how he tried to overcome his fear to join this family. They saw him slowly become closer with all the neighbors. They saw him leave the neighborhood for the first time and came back with the shop manager’s coffin…

There were many such images. But surprisingly enough, these common yet warm scenarios came from different ghosts’ memories.

The death tape was still playing. Han Fei’s lips curled, and he slowly closed his eyes. More cracks appeared on his memory curtain. He remembered more things.

“In a way, this is indeed an Iyashikei Game.”