Chapter 44

The Hanged Ghost’s mocking laughter was loud, but with a tug of the rope by Third Brother, the noose tightened around its neck, forcing its body to drift along helplessly.
No matter how loudly it laughed, it couldn’t hide the fact that it was now captured by humans.
The paper phone faithfully recorded the scene of the Hanged Ghost being subdued.
The ghostly audience in the live stream was furious at the Hanged Ghost’s performance, if they were still alive, that is.
They flooded the chat with comments, condemning the Hanged Ghost as unworthy of being a ghost and mocking it as a weakling being paraded around like a pet by humans.
Wisely, the Hanged Ghost chose to ignore the barrage of comments and simply floated along in the air.
The village road remained as quiet as before.
The players walked along the path.
This time, they didn’t encounter any non-humans.
As Gu Yi'an and the novice male player had suspected, the non-humans had adhered to the game’s rules and returned to their coffins.
Along the way, the players entered a few villagers’ homes to check for any activity.
In each household, the coffins lay exactly as they had when the players first entered the village, quiet and undisturbed in the center of the rooms, as if untouched.
It was then that Gu Yi’an suddenly realized a suspicious detail she had overlooked all along.
There was no dust on the coffins, and none of the villagers’ houses showed obvious signs of dust, unlike places that had been uninhabited for a long time.
Gu Yi’an voiced this anomaly she had noticed.
The Hanged Ghost watched them smugly from the side, taunting, "Weren’t you going to leave the village? Go on, then. Stepping out will be the death of you. I’ll be waiting for you to die."
The novice male player glanced at Gu Yi’an.
She understood the question in his eyes and confirmed, "It’s just as you think. As long as it doesn’t interfere with the live stream, feel free to beat it up. With Third Brother keeping watch, there’s nothing to worry about."
Upon hearing this, the Hanged Ghost stared in terror at the novice male player and cried, "What are you planning? Help! They’re hitting people, no, hitting ghosts! Save me!"
Together, the novice male player and Sixth Sister gave the Hanged Ghost a thorough beating.
At one point, the Hanged Ghost tried to fight back, attempting to bite chunks of flesh from them.
But with a sharp tug of the rope by Third Brother, its neck was yanked, leaving it helpless and forced to endure the beating.
The ghostly audience in the live stream seemed to have given up on urging the Hanged Ghost to escape.
Instead, they filled the chat with celebratory messages, rejoicing at the sight of the Hanged Ghost being beaten beyond recognition.
It wasn’t easy being a ghost and ending up like the Hanged Ghost.
After confirming that the non-humans in the coffins had returned and were unlikely to reappear anytime soon, the players resumed their journey along the village road.
However, Gu Yi'an paused midway and entered the bungalow where the players had spent the most time, the very one where Player Two had been swallowed by the entity in the coffin.
This time, there were two coffins placed inside the bungalow.
It was worth noting that previously, there had only been one coffin.
After Gu Yi'an entered, the other players followed suit. Third Brother led the hanged ghost, who floated into the room as well.
Gu Yi'an turned her gaze to the hanged ghost.
The hanged ghost grumbled, "Don't look at me. I won't say anything."
Gu Yi'an shifted her gaze to Sixth Sister.
Sixth Sister smiled and said, "I have an item that can inflict damage on ghosts."
She understood the message Gu Yi'an was conveying and was willing to act according to Gu Yi'an's plan, as she held a grudge against the hanged ghost for severing her arm.
With her remaining hand, Sixth Sister wielded the item and made a slicing motion toward the hanged ghost's face.
A few seconds later, the hanged ghost cried out, "Spare my face. I'll talk."
Its quick surrender disappointed Sixth Sister.
Sixth Sister withdrew the item.
The hanged ghost lamented, "My handsome face."
Sixth Sister chuckled and took out the item again.
The hanged ghost hurriedly said to Gu Yi'an, "The ghost spectator didn't want to eat him but transformed him into one of their companions."
Companions?
Gu Yi'an pondered this.
Were they lacking companionship? Or were they just bored being alone?
She recalled the Ghost King also seeming bored and eager to find some amusement.
Could the objective of this game be to have the players stay behind, become ghosts, and serve as companions for them?
The players exchanged glances.
The novice male player muttered, "Second Brother is really lucky with the ladies."
They had thought he was just dead, but it turned out he had been taken in by the female ghost in the coffin.
The hanged ghost, however, stared at the house and thought for a moment, "I remember this ghost friend was an over-eighty-year-old woman in her lifetime. After the transformation, her age spots and wrinkles disappeared, and she became young and beautiful."
The novice male player fell silent.
Sixth Sister's smile took on a strange edge.
Third Brother twitched his lips and couldn't help but chuckle.
Even First Brother's stern expression softened.
Everyone felt a bit more balanced inside.
The five players, including Gu Yi'an, felt less burdened than before and relaxed slightly as they left the bungalow.
The players returned to the village road.
Perhaps the memory of the hanged ghost losing its head had already faded from its mind.
It had been obediently livestreaming earlier, without attempting to harm itself or guide the players to kill it.
But this time, seeing that the players were truly about to leave the village, it couldn't hold back and said, "Don't even think about it. You won't be able to get out."
Yet when the players asked for the reason, it fell silent again.
The Hanged Ghost merely looked at Gu Yi'an with pity and said, "You, as the Ghost King's sacrifice, still think you can escape the village? Hmph, the Ghost King won't let you go."
The other players had also heard the Hanged Ghost refer to Gu Yi'an as a sacrifice back in the ancestral hall.
They looked at Gu Yi'an with slight curiosity.
Under their probing gazes, Gu Yi'an remained calm and composed.
She said, "I'm not escaping. I'm going out to see the world on behalf of the Ghost King."
In reality, she fully intended to leave this place.
The Hanged Ghost sneered, "Putting it so nicely, but you still want to flee this place."
For once, the Hanged Ghost's intelligence seemed to kick in.
Gu Yi'an smiled faintly and confidently denied it, "I never said that. You're mistaken."
The Hanged Ghost retorted angrily, "Impossible. How could I be wrong? You just want to escape!"
It turned to the livestream to complain, "Ghost King, Ghost King, are you still watching my stream? I want to report this, this sacrifice is trying to run away!"
Gu Yi'an remained unruffled and said, "The Ghost King won't believe your one-sided story."
If her guess was correct, the Ghost King probably couldn't reach as far as the village entrance.
Gu Yi'an wasn't too worried. She said to the other players, "The Ghost King won't easily believe the Hanged Ghost. Let's keep going."
Her gaze fell on the newbie male player.
The newbie male player, looking at the livestream comments on his phone, shook his head at Gu Yi'an.
Even though the ghost viewers knew the players were trying to leave the village, their comments still revealed nothing.
The group of players walked along the road outside the village.
They felt the wind, rustling the leaves as it blew.
In the distance, the road led to darkness with no lights in sight, but the outline against the sky was unusually flat.
Perhaps it was a neatly planted forest in the distance.
The players were now using their paper phones for illumination.
If the light wasn't bright enough, they could always make the Hanged Ghost blow some ghostly breath, since they had it tied up.
The Hanged Ghost was worn out by the players' actions.
The ghost viewers in the livestream, seeing it in such a pitiful state, stopped cursing at it and instead urged it to escape from the players' grasp.
Annoyed by the viewers' comments, the Hanged Ghost felt stifled and decided not to look at them anymore.
Watching the players still heading into the distance, it curled its lips and said, "Just give up. It's better to be eaten by us than to die out there."
It glanced at Gu Yi'an again, "Even with the Ghost King's aura on you, it's useless. The Ghost King Himself can't leave. If it weren't for His aura on you, you'd have died just a few dozen meters outside the village."
Hearing this, Gu Yi'an said, "So the Ghost King really can't leave? Answer me, right here in front of the livestream viewers and the Ghost King."
The Hanged Ghost, who had been so bold just moments ago, suddenly fell silent.
The Ghost King might be watching the stream. It had only been blustering to make the sacrifice give up on leaving the village, it never actually meant to say the Ghost King couldn't leave.
Even if the Ghost King truly couldn't leave, lesser ghosts like it weren't supposed to say so.
The Hanged Ghost stayed quiet.
Gu Yi'an hadn't expected an answer from it anyway.
She had already guessed that the Ghost King couldn't leave. After being out for a while, the Ghost King had to return to the jade coffin to rest.
The players walked another hundred meters or so before coming to an abrupt halt.
They could now see clearly what lay ahead.
They had assumed it would be a forest, but they were wrong.
It wasn’t a grove of towering trees, instead, it was a massive wall woven from countless tangled vines. The wall loomed high, draped in thick, creeping ivy.
It was incredibly tall, perhaps a hundred meters high.
Even from a distance, the players had to crane their necks to see the top.
Their eyes fixed on the vines coiling around the wall.
The vines were agile, almost animal-like in their vitality. The moment Gu Yi'an and the others approached, they sensed their presence. Slithering silently across the ground like snakes, they swiftly closed in on the players. Then, the tips of the vines rose high, swaying like serpent heads, staring intently at the five players.
It took the players a moment to react. They lowered their gazes, staring back at the vines confronting them.
The novice male player spoke up, "Isn’t this the same thing from the ancestral hall?"
Gu Yi'an observed the thorns on the vines, vaguely recalling the scene in the ancestral hall where the vines had entangled the hanged ghost. She replied, "It is."
The vines remained wary of Gu Yi'an and the others, refusing to yield. It was as if any further step forward would provoke an attack.
Even with the vines so close, most of the players’ attention remained fixed on the towering wall.
Because if they could somehow scale that wall, they might just end this game.
The hanged ghost, thinking the players were frozen in fear, sneered from the side, "Scared, huh? Hmph. Let me tell you, there’s no way out for you. First of all, you’ll never get past this wall. With skills like yours, thinking about climbing over? Not a chance!"
"You’re all doomed to die here!"
Gu Yi'an remained completely unfazed by the hanged ghost’s words. Curious, she asked, "Can’t you leave either?"
The hanged ghost retorted, "I don’t want to leave."
Gu Yi'an understood, this meant the hanged ghost couldn’t leave even if it wanted to.
She pressed further, "So you’re trapped here?"
The hanged ghost turned its face away. "I said I’m not!"
Its reaction suggested otherwise, it was clearly lying.
Gu Yi'an asked, "Was this wall built by the villagers who left the village back then?"
The hanged ghost replied irritably, "How should I know?"
Gu Yi'an ventured a guess, "You’re a supernatural being who came from outside, aren’t you? But once you entered, you couldn’t leave. That’s why you don’t know what happened in the village before."
The hanged ghost looked around, east and west, but deliberately avoided Gu Yi'an.
Gu Yi'an turned her gaze toward the vines confronting their group and said, "Is this wall meant to restrict the ghosts from leaving?"
The novice male player replied, "Probably. It's likely to keep the ghosts in the coffin and that ghost king from getting out."
He added, "Strange, I still feel something's off. What do you think, Seventh Sister?"
Gu Yi'an said, "Not sure. Without seeing what's beyond the wall, I can't come to a conclusion."
The novice male player suggested, "Then should we climb over? If we do, it's like smashing the game board and declaring we're done playing."
After a moment's thought, he added, "I like that approach."
Gu Yi'an stared up at the high wall, a sense of foreboding growing within her about what lay beyond.
She kept her thoughts to herself and only said, "If even the hanged ghost can't get out, we might find it difficult too."
Hearing Gu Yi'an mention him, the hanged ghost swayed his long neck, making his presence known.
"If only you had come this way from the start, I could have eaten you along the road. If these plants get you, not even your bones will remain. When we're in a good mood, we might at least leave you a skeleton."
The novice male player didn't want to listen to the hanged ghost's sarcastic remarks. He retorted, "There are plenty of broken stones by the roadside. Should I stuff one into your mouth?"
Naturally, the hanged ghost had no desire for that and fell silent.
The eldest brother looked at the high wall, took out his tool, and signaled the other players to step back. "Move farther away. I'll try to get out."
The eldest brother wanted to make the first attempt, while the other players watched cautiously. The hanged ghost, floating mid-air, grew alarmed and quickly said, "Don't be reckless. It can reach as far as the ancestral hall."
The eldest brother hesitated.
If the vines at the ancestral hall were the same as these, and they had walked for dozens of minutes to get here, then the length of these vines was utterly unbelievable.
Seeing this, the third brother said, "Let me do it."
He handed the end of the rope tied to the hanged ghost to Gu Yi'an.
As soon as Gu Yi'an took hold of it, the third brother tossed down a tool and immediately shot upward into the sky.
This move made the novice male player's eyes sparkle, clearly eager to try something similar himself.
Everyone looked up at the sky.
Fortunately, the moonlight allowed the other players to clearly see the third brother's flight path.
Just as he reached the height of the top of the wall, he abruptly shifted sideways, flying directly toward it.
During this process, the third brother was definitely using a tool.
But the moment he was about to make contact with the wall, countless vines shot out, lashing toward him.
The third brother twisted mid-air and began to descend.
Yet the vines pursued relentlessly, not only targeting him but also striking at the other players.
Sixth Sister, sensing danger, quickly retreated.
The hanged ghost floated upward and immediately flew back.
Gu Yi'an, gripping the rope tightly, was dragged along faster than usual by the fleeing ghost.
The novice male player yelled, "Run!" but was a step too slow. The eldest brother, reacting quickly, grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away.
Everyone ran swiftly.
After about a few dozen meters, the vines stopped chasing.
The third brother shouted, "They've stopped. You can come back now."
With no obstacles other than the trees lining the path, his voice carried far into the distance.