Chapter 9

Gu Yi’an carefully examined the black text.
[Game Clear Status: Perfect Clear. The God is very pleased.]
[Reward: The God grants you ten days of peaceful time. The God has bestowed an item upon you. Do not hesitate; praise the God sincerely.]
[The God says to you: Unexpectedly pleasant.]
Gu Yi’an’s eyebrow tWitched, and she ignored the last line.
This frivolous God!
Gu Yi’an looked around. Apart from the black text floating in mid-air and herself, there was nothing else in the pure white space.
Her gaze returned to the black text in the air.
This time, she noticed the sentence following the reward: "Do not hesitate; praise the God sincerely."
Fine.
Gu Yi’an understood.
She gathered her thoughts and spoke, "Praise the tolerant and merciful God."
As soon as Gu Yi’an finished speaking, the original lines of black text immediately vanished, and a slightly familiar black coffin appeared before her.
With the coffin’s appearance, new black text appeared in mid-air.
[Item: Coffin. It seems useful, and indeed it is. After all, it can store your corpse.]
The tone of this item description was rather irritating.
After reading about the item, Gu Yi’an pondered how to return to her own world.
As soon as she had this thought, the coffin and the black text before her disappeared, and the pure white of the space receded like a tide.
Gu Yi’an saw the familiar shelves of the library and the occasional passing students.
She was back, she had returned to her own world.
Since she had cleared the game, Brother Zhang and the others should be clearing it soon too, right?
Rewinding to the moment when the little boy plucked Granny Zhao’s heart, leaving a pool of blood on the ground.
The little boy carried Gu Yi’an to the middle room, and their figures disappeared from the courtyard.
Over ten minutes later, a door suddenly opened, revealing Brother Zhang and Xiao Jiang.
Xiao Jiang immediately spotted the blood on the ground. "Brother Zhang, they’re dead. Granny Zhao isn’t here either."
Brother Zhang scanned the courtyard before saying, "They’re dead. See, I didn’t lie to you. Granny Zhao’s vengeance was only directed at that little boy. With the memorial tablets protecting us, as long as we endure seven days, we can return to our own world. Now do you believe me that the task is to survive seven days?"
Xiao Jiang nodded emphatically. "I believe you. I’ve always believed you, Brother Zhang."
Brother Zhang said, "Hold onto the memorial tablet. I checked the kitchen, there’s enough food to last us seven days. The remaining days won’t be hard to endure."
Xiao Jiang nodded emphatically again.
Without any ghosts or monsters to trouble them, the remaining five days passed quickly.
On the eighth day, Xiao Jiang felt a vague unease and asked Brother Zhang, "Brother Zhang, can we go back now?"
Brother Zhang nodded, looking thoroughly satisfied. "Yes. I can go back."
"Brother Zhang, what do you mean by that?"
"Haven't you realized it yet?"
Brother Zhang no longer hid his smile. "I lied to you. The task wasn't to survive for seven days. The task was to please the god. The god will be satisfied with my deception."
Xiao Jiang couldn't believe it. "But then why were Granny Zhao and that little boy chasing us?"
"That?" Brother Zhang, in high spirits, replied, "Didn't Little Gu say it? The god is watching us play the game. You can think of Granny Zhao and the little boy as bosses in the game. The only condition for clearing the game is the god's satisfaction. Little Gu was a smart kid, but she was too kind-hearted. She took care of the biggest boss for us, making our lives afterward unnervingly peaceful. What a pity, it was precisely because of her kindness that she died."
Xiao Jiang was completely unable to accept this. He wanted to question Brother Zhang further but suddenly noticed Brother Zhang's figure fading before his eyes until it vanished entirely.
Brother Zhang returned to the pure white space he had expected.
A few lines of black text appeared before him.
[Game Clear Status: Acceptable. Your deception was not perfect enough. The god looks forward to your next game.]
[Reward: The god has graciously granted you ten days of life and one item. Do not hesitate, praise the god sincerely.]
[The god says to you: (The god has nothing to say to you.)]
Brother Zhang let out a sigh and said earnestly, "Praise the tolerant, merciful, and generous god."
The black text faded, and an object floated before Brother Zhang's eyes, accompanied by a few lines of small text beside it.
[Item: A mushroom growing on a coffin. It can be eaten. As for what it does when eaten, you don't need to know.]
Brother Zhang tWitched the corner of his mouth.
He stared at the mushroom, lost in thought. "So, Little Gu must have cleared the game long ago."
"I wonder if she's from the same world as me."
Xiao Jiang watched Brother Zhang's figure disappear before his eyes, and he was on the verge of madness.
Brother Zhang had deceived him!
Little Gu had been right all along!
Xiao Jiang threw the ancestral tablet in his hand to the ground and ran wildly around the courtyard.
He kicked open the door to the central room.
He saw the portraits of Gu Yi'an and the little boy.
He tried to open the coffin but was thrown back in an instant.
Xiao Jiang fell to the ground in a daze.
A woman's voice echoed beside his ear.
"Young man, my son doesn’t appreciate your disturbance."
Xiao Jiang stared in terror at the empty room, he could no longer speak.
An intense pain shot through his neck, and the world spun before his eyes.
He died.
Xiao Jiang woke again, bewildered to find himself back in the pure white space.
Had God mercifully allowed him to pass?
Hope surged in his eyes.
Before him, lines of black text hovered in the air.
[Game Clear Status: Failed. But your despair has pleased the God, who has decided to grant you a reward.]
[Reward: God mercifully bestows death upon you. Remember, death is God’s grace. Praise God.]
[God says to you: (Stop dreaming. God has nothing to say to you.)]
"No!"
Xiao Jiang was filled with despair and terror.
Panicked and helpless, he watched as the pure white expanse of the world suddenly cracked open.
Familiar air rushed over him and his neck felt cold.
In that moment, clarity struck, his head had already been severed.
The moment he realized this, his world spun once again.
"That Gu Yi'an is so eerie. Her phone charm is actually a tiny coffin!"
"Stay away from her. Don’t you know her roommate died?"
"She’s pretty unlucky. Not to mention, she’s really beautiful and has this aura, like a celebrity."
Gu Yi’an overheard the voices not far away in the classroom.
She glanced sideways at the two girls seated a few rows away.
The gossiping girls had been sneakily watching Gu Yi’an and were caught red-handed.
Whispering behind someone’s back, only to be overheard by the person in question, the two girls immediately fell silent.
Seeing they had stopped talking, Gu Yi’an turned her attention back to her textbook.
It was just another ordinary day of classes for her.
As usual, she had left the library just before class started and arrived at the classroom.
Everything should have been normal, yet Gu Yi’an felt as though she had forgotten some unpleasant memories while in the library.
Otherwise, why would she have no idea how a coffin-shaped charm had ended up on her phone case?
The charm was shaped like a small coffin, an unusually peculiar design.
Gu Yi’an believed that, given her personality, she would definitely remember the origin of such a charm.
But if she had lost memories, what exactly had she forgotten?
Gu Yi’an couldn’t find an answer.
Perhaps because she had already encountered two strange incidents around her, Gu Yi’an considered herself quite bold, she decided to keep the coffin charm.
The days that followed were calm and uneventful.
The only noteworthy event was the bizarre death of a senior surnamed Jiang from the same university.
According to his roommate, Senior Jiang had been playing games one moment, and the next, his head suddenly fell off, the cut eerily clean.
The identity of the killer remained unknown to this day.
Gu Yi’an had no connection to that senior. The university was large, and her college was on the opposite side of campus from his, making the chance of them meeting almost zero.
Ten days later.
Gu Yi’an was in class, the teacher at the podium was passionate and spoke with fervor, making it impossible to fall asleep.
Gu Yi’an looked up at the notes written on the blackboard ahead.
Suddenly, she felt as if the world before her had turned into a painting.
Streaks of pure white dye swept across, the people around her, the objects, even the space itself, all vanished.
Gu Yi'an stood in a pure white space, a line of black text floated in the air.
[Did you enjoy the ten days of peace?]
Seeing these words, memories surged in Gu Yi'an's mind.
She remembered.
She had been in this pure white space once before, participated in a game, and cleared it.
The reward for clearing it was a coffin and ten days of peace.
Only now did Gu Yi'an realize that the so-called "peace" meant making her lose her memories!
No wonder her phone had gained a coffin-shaped pendant.
This was truly the "peace" as defined by the "god"!
The black text abruptly dispersed and rearranged into several new lines.
[Welcome to the Game of Gods.]
[This is your second game. God is fair; He treats everyone equally. You have received no hints.]
Gu Yi'an had already guessed this from Brother Zhang's performance in the previous game.
She didn't panic and continued reading.
[But you may bring the item God rewarded you with.]
[Praise God, for He has bestowed upon you a coffin. You can now collect your own corpse.]
Collect her own corpse...
Gu Yi'an really wanted to hit someone.
As if sensing from Gu Yi'an's expression that she had finished reading, the black text drifted away and vanished.
At the same time, the pure white space tore apart once more.
The world transformed and Gu Yi'an found herself seated at a round table.
Judging by the surroundings, she was in an empty room. The walls, windows, and even the tabletop were all clean and bare.
Gu Yi'an swept her gaze around, counting the number of people seated around the round table.
Including herself, there were eight people, all unfamiliar faces.
The round table was similar in size to a standard twelve-person hotel table. Except for one person, the remaining seven were seated at roughly equal distances from one another, maintaining an appropriate gap while still easily able to observe each other's movements.
After getting a general sense of the number of people, Gu Yi'an focused her attention on the one person who had a significantly larger personal space.
Because he was too strange, completely out of place with the others.
He wore a peculiar black robe that concealed all his features, and his face was hidden behind a ferocious ghost mask, leaving only his eyes visible.
The seat beneath him was luxurious and noble, several tiers above the simple wooden chairs with backrests that Gu Yi'an and the others occupied.
These anomalies made Gu Yi'an suspect that this person might be a player like her.
The six others seated around the table shared similar thoughts, and they too turned their gazes toward this individual.
Once everyone's attention was focused on him, the man spoke.
His voice was a warm, magnetic baritone.
"As you can see, in this round of the game, it is not the god watching over you, it is I.
I don't mind if you call me a god.
But I prefer to call myself a demon."