Chapter 7: It Has Arrived

Near dusk, Yang Xiao checked into a guesthouse in the town. Actually, Yang Xiao had originally intended to walk to a few more places to compare, but the landlady pulling customers outside the door was too enthusiastic, practically dragging Yang Xiao into her guesthouse. "Handsome, don't go any further. Our guesthouse is the most unique in town. How about this, I'll give you the best room. Original price 500, I'll give you 50% off!"

"100, otherwise I'm going to find another place."

Yang Xiao pulled out a red banknote with a cold attitude. The landlady was clearly treating him like a fat sheep; there were hardly any tourists in town, and guesthouse prices were very low during this off-season.

However, seeing the landlady snatch the banknote, her mouth stretching almost to the back of her ears, Yang Xiao knew he had still given too much.

The landlady, having made a sale, was in a great mood. Yang Xiao wasn't in a hurry to go to his room; he sat downstairs chatting with the landlady, fishing for information.

The landlady poured a cup of tea for herself and one for Yang Xiao, and the floodgates of her conversation opened. "Sigh~, this Fengmen Town is actually a treasure land, with mountains and water, but I don't know why, it just can't develop."

"The people in charge locally didn't spare any effort to attract investment. A few years ago, farm-stay tourism became popular, and the town set up quite a few. But just when it was booming, the biggest one suddenly caught fire in the middle of the night, burning many people to death. Afterward, safety inspections from the province and city came one after another. By the time the inspections were finished, the trend of farm-stays had pretty much passed, and city folk had moved on to new ways to play."

"Then, some quick-witted people started secretly selling stone. The town borders the mountains; if there's nothing else, there's plenty of stone. Logically, everyone was doing it on the sly, and it shouldn't have been a big deal, but as luck would have it, something went wrong again."

"A stone mountain at the quarry collapsed, and many large boulders rolled down. Not only were the mechanical vehicles smashed, but people were crushed to death. The matter couldn't be covered up and was reported to the province by the families. Now, the stone couldn't be sold anymore, and quite a few people were disciplined."

"Since the farm-stays and the quarry didn't work out, forget it. The town thought they'd play it safe and attract investment. There was plenty of vacant land in town, so they thought about building a factory. After much effort, they begged a big boss to come. After some back and forth, things were almost settled—the factory site, the scale of investment, and so on were all agreed upon. But guess what happened? Heh, on the way back after the boss left town, the car flipped, rushed off the cliff, and rolled down. Including the big boss, all 5 people died."

The landlady sighed, "They said the scene was miserable. The bodies were all tangled together; you couldn't tell who was who without looking at the clothes. Once this boss died, the matter of building the factory naturally went nowhere."

Seemingly hitting her stride, the landlady winked at Yang Xiao and lowered her voice, feigning mystery: "Young man, do you know where the factory site that boss had previously chosen was?"

Yang Xiao had probably already guessed, but he still followed the landlady's lead: "I don't know."

"Oh my, it's the ruins of the Flour Factory on the west side of town!" After saying this, the landlady clutched her chest in lingering fear and tilted her head to glance vigilantly outside the door. "There are some things you outsiders don't know the severity of, but let me tell you, you can wander around town as you please, but don't you ever go to that abandoned factory on the west side. That place is sinister; the locals all avoid walking there."

"Don't ask me why. It's dark now, and I'm scared to talk about those things. If you're interested, you can search online yourself. I can only tell you that there aren't that many coincidences in this world, and a lot of what's said online is true."

Yang Xiao feigned a look of fear mixed with curiosity, "So... those things you mentioned just now, the farm-stay, the quarry, and that boss who fell off the cliff..."

Nodding, the landlady subconsciously pulled her fur coat tighter around herself, her voice dropping even lower. "Some say it's all caused by that abandoned factory. The factory has too much resentment and ruined the town's Feng Shui. Rumor has it that they've looked for several Feng Shui masters to come and see it, but none had any good solutions. They only temporarily sealed the two wells inside and buried a few town-suppressing objects."

Recalling the well he had seen, with the wellhead pressed down by a "Bodhisattva Head," Yang Xiao knew the landlady wasn't lying.

It was clear that the landlady was getting scared at this point, so she quickly ended the chat on her own initiative, urging Yang Xiao to go upstairs to rest early. She also reminded him that the shower upstairs was broken and he couldn't bathe for the time being; she would boil two kettles of hot water and send them up in a while.

Mentioning that he couldn't bathe, the landlady felt quite embarrassed; after all, she hadn't mentioned it when she first pulled Yang Xiao in. However, what puzzled her was that Yang Xiao's expression was surprisingly good. "The shower is broken? That's fine, that's fine."

Stepping up the creaky wooden stairs, Yang Xiao was quite surprised when he reached his room. This guest room was decorated in an antique style, a faux-ancient aesthetic. Behind the old-fashioned double-leaf wooden door was a square wooden table, with two old benches placed beside it.

Further in, against the wall, was a wooden bed. The quilt was the kind seen in historical costume dramas, made of faux-brocade material, embroidered with red and green mandarin ducks.

Putting down his backpack and sitting on the edge of the bed, Yang Xiao charged his phone while thinking about the information he had collected so far. The things mentioned in that eerie Ghost Script were appearing around him bit by bit: Fengmen Town, singing, and that woman...

No, it should be a female ghost. After all, it is the Fengmen Ghost Opera.

Sleeping tonight was impossible. Besides worrying about that elusive woman finding him again, he had new concerns.

That fake security guard.

What exactly was his background?

Not long ago, after realizing there was something wrong with that fake security guard, a guess immediately surfaced in Yang Xiao's mind: if he counted as a player in the Fengmen Ghost Opera Script, then would the fake security guard be the same? Had he also received a Ghost Script?

After thinking it over, Yang Xiao believed this possibility was high. And once this premise was established, it meant that besides the two of them, there were 5 other people in this horror game.

What kind of people were they?

And where were they now?

Could it be that all 7 people were in this town, and he just hadn't discovered the others yet?

Yang Xiao did not like this feeling of an unpredictable path ahead. According to his understanding of Script Kill games, the player characters within were not necessarily on the same side. In some extreme moments, one might even have to kill all characters from other factions to achieve final victory.

Yang Xiao wasn't sure about the other players, but that fake security guard was clearly well-prepared. Either he was a veteran player, or someone was guiding him. Neither was good news for him right now.

With insufficient clues, Yang Xiao could only deduce this much for now. The deeper he thought, the more uneasy he became. He hadn't been careful about hiding his identity during his investigation during the day, which had likely led to him being exposed and targeted. He couldn't judge what would happen next.

The only plan for now was to take it one step at a time.

The next second, Yang Xiao suddenly lifted his head. The room door suddenly sounded; someone was knocking on the door outside, one tap at a time.