The Days I Clear Escape Games Pretending to be an NPCCh12 - Funeral (12)

Ren Yifei walked past the group of monks chanting, past the group of people burning paper and up to the coffin.

The middle-aged man in front of the coffin raised his head, his face was honest with sincere grief shown on the surface and spoke with his voice which was hoarse from crying, "It's A Fei, have you come to offer incense to your grandmother?"

Ren Yifei looked down at him, "Yes."

Saying this, both his hands were on the lid of the coffin and began to push with all his strength, the lid of the coffin directly slid down with a 'bang', hitting the candles and altar lamps on the side, causing the flames to scatter. Many flies flew out from the flames as the stench of the corpse spread.

The whole room was silent.

It was like midnight had come early.

Ren Yifei grabbed the collar of the middle-aged man on the ground with one hand, gritted his teeth as he dragged the man to the coffin. The middle-aged man saw the body in the coffin crawling with maggots and cried out as he kicked his legs desperately.

"Seven-day vigil, hiring monks to chant scriptures, gold and silver houses, large sedan chairs and large horses; what a beautiful scenery ah."

The crowd was shocked and jumped up to hold A Fei's legs: "A Fei, what are you doing? That's disrespectful!"

As if A Fei was nailed there, like a pine tree rooted at the edge of a cliff, he couldn't be moved despite the several people who had rushed forward to pull him away.

"But is this for the dead? This is obviously for the living!" Ren Yifei pushed him down forcefully, his arm muscles bulging, "Uncle, you take a good look, look carefully, this was the mother who you were told to strangle with your own hands. A murderer pays with their life, then, what about a person who murdered their own mother?"

The mourning hall was on the verge of an uproar, but after Ren Yifei said this, there was silence again.

The people holding onto Ren Yifei let go, their eyes turned to the middle-aged man in disbelief.

The middle-aged man was so full of shame that he didn't dare to look at anyone. The middle-aged woman covered her face with her hands and collapsed to the ground.

What this matter was, there's no need for any discussion.

An older man trembled as he picked up his cane and struck down hard, "You beasts!"

"Oh oh oh—"

A beam of light suddenly came down from the sky, dispelling the darkness that was pressing down on everyone's heads.

The light was eerily uniform, falling onto the coffin with its lid off and onto everyone who was frozen at that moment.

The players in the crowd stared in awe at the sudden change in the world.

Accompanying the rooster's loud crowing was dawn.

Countless images overlapped in front of her eyes, and Granny Chun Zhi's eyes widened as similar memories came flooding back.

"This was not the first time," it was not the first time she experienced this instance.

Similar night-watchmen, similar players, similar development. Her life is like a play written by someone else, repeatedly staged, each time involving genuine emotions, each time ending in loneliness.

Except for this time.

A Fei's influence after he threw himself on top of the coffin stood tall and upright like a pine tree.

"It turns out that he is no longer a teenager, but a man who could support the heaven and earth," Granny Chun Zhi was no longer bothered about whether it was true or not, she just felt that this was the youngster she watched grow up.

Doesn't he know that the game was over? Doesn't he realise that he had already cleared the game when he revealed her name?

Granny Chun Zhi suddenly remembered how much she had adored this youngster with bright eyes back in those days.

When you see light, you see hope.

"Ha ha ha ha—"

Granny Chun Zhi's laughter exploded in the quiet mourning hall, a dry and hoarse sound, like rusty pieces of iron rubbing together.

She laughed as she cried, her resentment turning into red tears.

For so many years, so many years!

For so long that she had suspected that she was hypocritical, that she had deserved it, that she was guilty and deserved to be punished.

But she will not resign!

She had worked so hard all her life, she was the one person responsible for supporting this family. Yet in the end, did she deserve to die because a man tore off a piece of her clothes and stole her undergarment?

She wants justice! Justice in life and justice in death!

Granny Chun Zhi ran to the door of the mourning hall.

The sun broke out through the layers of black clouds, shattering into thousands of rays and bathing the world in daylight.

She took a step in the dark, not knowing where she was, not knowing if she was alive or dead. But the road had finally come to an end.

The thing that was holding her down in the darkness vanished into thin air, Granny Chun Zhi raised her head to look up at the clear blue sky with a relaxed appearance. \

"It's dawn."

"You're not an NPC?!" Xiao Mei's mouth opened so wide she could fit an apple in it, "My God…"

She remembered the way the other person was feasting on a bowl of porridge while she was starving.

She also remembered the way the other person was sleeping when an NPC came and covered them with a coat while she had bloodshot eyes.

Xiao Mei seemed to be born to eat lemon, lemon juice flowed down from the corners of her eyes.

The sweeper was dazed for a moment, still not understanding how it all happened.

Why did this person lift the lid of the coffin? Why was the boss so excited? Why is the game over?

Why Why Why?

What is this all about?

The veteran player, 'lamp trimmer', was calm; he had already figured out what was going on.

Discovering that the 'monk' was the ghost and then backtracking was as easy as doing elementary school math. If not for the confusion caused by the ninth person, they would have been able to find the ghost immediately.

He was limited by his own thoughts, he hadn't expected the boss of a novice game would be so difficult to deal with, it had actually learned this trick to fool the players.

Compared to the fact that the monk was the boss, the 'lamp trimmer' was more shocked that the ninth person was actually not the ghost.

How could he disguise himself so perfectly? Hiding in the group of NPCs and even fooling the 'ghost' who was extremely familiar with this instance.

This… really wasn't cheating?

As soon as the sun shined, the NPCs were all turned into white wax statues, they were all standing there in a multitude of poses.

Ren Yifei let go, flinging the hand away.

"What is your name?" Granny Chun Zhi asked him.

"A Fei."

"Your real name."

"My real name is A Fei," Ren Yifei or A Fei, there was no difference.

"Child, what's wrong with you?"

Granny Chun Zhi showed the kind face of an elder, her eyes were full of adoration as if she was looking at her grandson, "I have never seen a player like you before. Compared to you, all the other players' deaths are not worth pitying."

The other players whose death were not worth pitying:....

"The lack of justice made me feel a bit distress and anxious, I acted somewhat rude and let you see something embarrassing," Ren Yifei straightened, he combed his fingers through his hair, his smile was completely unlike A Fei; it was indifferent and radiated a gentle light.

"Put out your hand," Granny Chun Zhi said.

Ren Yifei was unsure but still extended his hand.

Granny Chun Zhi looked around her for a long time, her gaze jumped across the familiar and unfamiliar faces, love or hate, they all looked waxy when illuminated in light.

She smiled with relief, "So be it."

After saying that, her figure turned into a ball of light and quickly condensed into a weightless card before landing in Ren Yifei's hand.

The newcomers had no idea what that was, they only felt that it was magical and pretty cool. The only veteran player in the room had his eyes bulging out of their sockets: Th- the Ghost card?

"Clang!" The 'lamp trimmer' dropped the oil pot in his hand and ran towards Ren Yifei.

Ren Yifei directly put the card away, although there was a smile on his face, his eyes held vigilance, "What do you want to do?"

The 'lamp trimmer' didn't know what he wanted to do, he was just so shocked that he had subconsciously rushed over.

He stared at Ren Yifei, there was a pair of eyes and a mouth, nothing special ah. How did he induce the boss to self-destruct to give the player a card?

"Don't get me wrong," the lamp trimmer stopped half a metre away from Ren Yifei, "I have no ill-intentions, I just want to become friends."

"I don't make friends."

"Who is the person in charge above you?"

Ren Yifei smiled, "What person in charge, I don't understand, I am a newcomer."

Xiao Mei was still chewing sour lemons: look at me, I'm the newcomer, who is he trying to humiliate by calling himself a newcomer?

The lamp trimmer said, "Then let's become friends and play together in the future."

"I don't dare," Ren Yifei motioned with his eyes, "Friends are only good for killing."

They followed his gaze to where the 'eldest grandson's wife' used to sit. Associating it with the fact that the eldest grandson player had come back alone, everyone understood the meaning of his words.

"He and I are not the same, we're different. Never mind, forget it," the lamp trimmer thought for a while, "Can I have a look at that card? Can you hold it out for me to look at? We can exchange information."

Ren Yifei's gaze became even stranger and he sighed, "I don't think I'm as good as you, I'm an educated man- you know, there are cultural constraints."

"What cultural constraints?" It somehow sounded weird.

"It's all about face."

The 'lamp trimmer':...what do you mean?

Ren Yifei was speaking nonsense, he was just stalling for time.

He had never hesitated to speculate the worst in people, the so-called community of players was probably worse than the circle he had lived in before.

No matter how messy the entertainment industry was, it still abides by the law- or at least it did on the surface, otherwise, how could there be such things like unspoken rules?

The unspoken rules, unspoken rules, aren't they just shady rules?

The players didn't have to wait long.

Granny Chun Zhi had said that there was a quarter of an hour left, and it had indeed been a quarter of an hour. When the time came, he felt like he was thrown out of a high-speed train and the sky was spinning. It also felt as if he had been thrown into a washing machine and his brain fluid would be shaken out.

Was it time to go back?

Ren Yifei closed his eyes.

***

In the sky of the Cape of Desolation, another space fish turned into a multicoloured haze, indicating that a boss of an instance had been defeated and turned into a 'Ghost card'.

Those who happened to see it were envious and felt self-pity: in my lifetime, can I possibly get a Ghost card?

***

Blue, orange and metallic light flowed through the clean white clouds.

The wind carried the scent of wet soil and grass.

Shin-high weeds and small unidentifiable flowers surrounded his body.

A small red beetle landed on the tip of his nose and startled by his breath, it flapped its wings and flew away through the undergrowth.

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Ren Yifei was lying on the ground with his hands placed on his abdomen, the red string on his wrist glowed.

"..."

I was, dumped in the wilderness?

Dressed in white and lying in the wilderness, what kind of plot is unfolding?

He was in no hurry to get up, with hands behind his head, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. On the tip of the nose were dewdrops from the tip of grass blades, the smell dissipated by the sunlight. His body felt lazy when bathed in the sun as if lying on a quilt drying in the sun, it had a fluffy and soft feeling.

There were many sounds but they were not noisy, they were very subtle sounds: the sound of the wind blowing, the sound of flowers and leaves whispering to each other. The sounds travelled from a large distance to this place.

The wind brought the scent of nature that is far from human habitation.

He laid on the wild grass, his black hair spread on the ground, like threads of moonlight through a quiet valley.

A hedgehog appeared beside him at some point, grabbing an earthworm in its hand, chewing on it and producing a lot of foam. It then used the foam to clean the quills on its body as its small eyes looked at Ren Yifei strangely.

Ren Yifei slowly turned his head to look at it, his eyes were as clear as streams made from melted snow.

"Welcome to the beautiful Cape of Desolation, the community for players. Dear player 95XX27, I am your exclusive guide elf, at your service."

He sat up, his slightly long hair fell down, it curved around the hollows of his collarbone before cascading down his glistening white skin again.

Along with a soft voice coming from an unknown location, a white light screen appeared in front of him with a few simple lines of information.

Player's Number: 95XX27

Player's lives: 3

Player's code: None (required to fill in)

Player's Points: 10

Player's Reputation: Rising Star Potential List 157