[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-player-reboot":3,"chapter-player-reboot-player-reboot-chapter-74":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Player Reboot",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2272039,4438,"Chapter 74: The Curse of Resentment (8)","player-reboot-chapter-74",74,"\u003Cp>The sky was thick with dark clouds, and puddles dotted the narrow alleyway’s ground; the streetlights flickered erratically, as if poorly connected.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The two-story wooden house at 3-4, hidden in dim shadows of trees, showed not a single glimmer of light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Woo—”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A strange sound echoed through the alley, like the wailing of a wronged spirit or the shrieking of a vengeful ghost.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“.” Stack Qibing silently turned his head toward the source of the music, “Can you turn that crap off?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Sorry, I just wanted to set the mood,” Li Cheng said smoothly, slipping the portable speaker playing the eerie background music into his backpack slot, then continuing to stare grimly at the haunted house.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Stack Qibing sighed inwardly, regretting why he’d agreed to sneak into this haunted house with this ant.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Curse of Uzumaki wasn’t a ghost with individual will—it was more like a dense, mindless mass of resentment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It couldn’t communicate, had no clear target for revenge or emotion, and would blindly attack any living person tainted by its curse.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In such a case, a player hiding in a remote wilderness had the same chance of being attacked as one standing in a busy street shouting, “I’m a paratrooper.” So it didn’t matter whether you did anything flashy or not.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Drone scan results still show no thermal signatures.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From his Bluetooth earpiece came the voice of Jingzhe Xia Zhi; the unfinished safehouse was nearby, and she was monitoring the house via drone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beside her, Little Red Riding Hood gripped a standard-issue Japanese Bureau of Anomalous Affairs fruit knife, trembling as she guarded four ordinary civilians against a possible Curse of Uzumaki attack.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Expected. You and Little Red Riding Hood, stay alert, protect the three targets, and report any developments immediately. I’m entering the yard with the ant.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Stack Qibing took a deep breath, pushed open the low wooden gate of the front yard, and stepped into the property.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His foot touched solid ground, but the expected icy chill sweeping through his body never came.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Stack Qibing scanned left and right—the house, unoccupied for a month, clearly lacked any human presence: wild weeds choked the flowerbeds, spiderwebs hung from the eaves, and a thin layer of dust coated the windows.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Rustle-rustle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A noisy sound came from the side; Stack Qibing turned to see Li Cheng wearing a mask, gloved hands opening all the garbage bags piled in the yard’s corner, rummaging through their contents.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“. What are you doing?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Rummaging through trash.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Cheng said as if it were obvious, “The traces on garbage can reveal plenty. Kitchen waste shows dietary preferences, household waste reveals daily habits—even toilet paper stained with feces can help deduce illnesses—”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“If the stool is black, it may indicate upper GI or small intestine bleeding.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“If it’s black and glossy, it may mean a large amount of blood has pooled in the intestinal cavity.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mucopurulent bloody stool suggests bacterial dysentery; diarrhea with grease indicates small intestine disease; clay-colored stool may mean a tumor or gallstones in the bile duct.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Ugh.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This bizarre monologue left Stack Qibing speechless; after a pause, he asked, “How do you know all this? Did you learn it from forensic textbooks?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Nope,” Li Cheng said. “I picked it up during my internship at Tokyo University’s Anorectal Clinic with senior doctors. Our department’s motto was ‘Think Big About Hemorrhoids, Warm Hearted About the Buttocks.’”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>???\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This time, not only Stack Qibing but also Jingzhe Xia Zhi on the earpiece were filled with question marks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thanks to the rich online resources of the real world, Li Cheng, as a mystery enthusiast, had read countless eclectic books; his knowledge wasn’t necessarily cutting-edge, but it was vast and varied—useful somewhere, someday.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His act of pretending to be insane wasn’t just for mischief—he adopted the persona of a mentally unstable person to distinguish himself from his real-world self.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gathering his thoughts, Stack Qibing asked, “We have Suzuki’s son and daughter-in-law in custody. Why not just ask them if their parents were ill? Why go through all this trouble?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Cheng set down the garbage bag. “Even children don’t always know their parents’ current health status. And many elderly don’t even realize they’re sick.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Determining the true cause of death is critical. If the Suzukis died from a sudden illness and drowned in the bathtub, we’d misjudge the actual time the Curse of Uzumaki appeared.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Stack Qibing asked, “Did you find a clue?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hahaha, none at all,” Li Cheng said, pulling off his mask and grinning confidently, his eight white teeth gleaming in the dark. He pulled out an empty soda can from the trash and easily crushed it underfoot.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then why are you so confident?! Aren’t you just making up an excuse to satisfy your trash-rummaging urge?! And why is your can-crushing motion so practiced?! Are you a sanitation worker or a scavenger in real life?!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Stack Qibing took a deep breath, barely suppressing his urge to retort, and said calmly, “Anyway, I’m opening the door. Get ready.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He grasped the doorknob, pressed lightly, and pushed—the unlocked door creaked open.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Stale, musty air, long untouched by ventilation, rushed into his face. Under the flashlight’s beam, the interior was laid bare.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just as Suzuki Kazuya’s photos showed, the house wasn’t large. After entering the genkan, a hallway stretched ahead: to the right, a shoe cabinet and bathroom; to the left, a kitchen and dining area; at the end, the living room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the corner of the living room, stairs led to the second floor. The landing was especially dark, radiating a strong sense of unease—as if something would crawl down from there.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“We confirmed this neighborhood had electricity, yet the lights still won’t turn on…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Stack Qibing pressed the wall switch—no response. Suddenly, a powerful force slammed against the doorknob; even though he was prepared, the wooden door violently shoved him inside.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thud!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The wooden door slammed shut, sealing him in. Worse—the figure of Li Cheng, clad in the Maoshan Daoist robe, had vanished into thin air, nowhere to be seen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The entire house was now empty except for Stack Qibing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Ugh—ugh—ugh—”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A strange, gurgling moan, as if someone’s throat was choked with blood, came from the stairs at the end of the hallway.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Something was crawling down.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>————\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wait, where’d he go?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Cheng stood in the genkan, frowning slightly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From his perspective, as the door slammed shut, Stack Qibing had instantly vanished—leaving only him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Bluetooth earpiece, supposedly resistant to complex electromagnetic interference, crackled with static. The glass in the living room, once merely dusty, had become inexplicably foggy, obscuring any view of the outside.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This place was no longer the old Fujita residence—it was something else entirely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After a moment’s thought, Li Cheng confirmed that even his Tangbiguren  covered in talismans couldn’t break the door, then turned and stepped through the genkan to explore the house.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of Chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>",1148,"2026-06-19T22:31:22.154Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","b398a4f9cf1b4aae22761f7401ae7adfe13002980f4cfad2ae203b7252d1f88d","player-reboot-chapter-75","player-reboot-chapter-73",612,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fplayer-reboot-cover.jpg"]