Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 53: Two Solutions
Bai Shuangying fixed his gaze on Cheng Songyun. “If you fully accept the karmic bond, I’ll be able to clearly reveal the threads of karma.”
Cheng Songyun unconsciously clasped her fingers together. “What does it mean to accept karma?”
Fang Xiu had shared some of his theories with them, including the idea that “the E is connected to karmic threads”. Unfortunately, none of them really understood metaphysics, and even Fang Xiu couldn’t explain much in detail.
Professional Bai Shuangying: “You still have emotional knots. You haven’t accepted this karmic bond, so the thread is unstable. Once you comprehend it, once you figure it out, you’ll naturally know how to stabilize it.”
Fang Xiu: “Uh… can you put it in plainer terms?”
Every time metaphysics came up, Bai Shuangying started talking like he was speaking in tongues.
“It’s a kind of instinct. Hard to describe.” Bai Shuangying glanced at him again.
Fang Xiu: “…”
He couldn’t help but think of a class genius he once knew.
Fang Xiu was smart, always in the top three in his grade. But his good grades came from consistent studying, not innate talent.
He’d seen real prodigies. There was a guy in his class who was a total math whiz but average in all the humanities. Fang Xiu would sometimes ask him for help with math problems, and the way that guy talked was exactly like Bai Shuangying.
…It’s so troublesome to explain in words. Isn’t it something you just see and get?
Natural instinct geniuses are just too hard to deal with, Fang Xiu sighed.
Guan He: “Sounds like she needs to resolve her emotional knots first? Let’s help Auntie Cheng with that before anything else.”
Fang Xiu shook his head lightly. “Guan He, think about yourself. Do you think emotional knots are that easy to untie?”
Guan He instantly went silent.
Humans are emotional creatures, after all. How could they easily let go of the shadow of death and the tangle of love and hate with just a few words?
Cheng Songyun lowered her eyes, nervously twisting her fingers. “Sorry, I’ll try to think of something…”
“There’s nothing to apologize for. There’s definitely more than one solution. Don’t stress about it, Cheng Jie. Emotional clarity takes time. Rushing it only traps you deeper in the maze.” Fang Xiu’s tone was relaxed. “Let’s go upstairs first.”
Cheng Songyun, Guan He: “???”
Wait, wasn’t this place supposed to be super dangerous? And now they’re just going up like that?
Fang Xiu only smiled and said nothing.
He walked up to one set of stairs first. As soon as he lifted his foot past the step, he stepped into thin air.
“Looks like this path is no good.”
The second stairwell, however, allowed them to go up.
The group started testing each path one step at a time, slowly working through by brute-force exploration.
Guan He swallowed hard.
The darkness was thick, and the ghost flame only lit up a small area. The space around them was a twisted labyrinth of flipped spiraling staircase. It was like walking through an endless nightmare where they couldn’t even identify the start and end.
Worse still, these stairs mixed reality with illusion. Even basic spatial orientation—up, down, left, right—was distorted by hallucinations.
Some spots looked like floors and stairs, but stepping on them meant falling through thin air.
Others looked upside down but were safe to walk across. One railing looked perfectly normal, until the moment someone tried to grab it and nearly went tumbling headfirst.
At the front, Song Zheng was cautious to the extreme.
After four hours, they had only managed to climb two floors.
When they reached the twenty-ninth branching point, they hit another dead end and had to carefully turn back again. There were still many more forks waiting to be tested.
Guan He was dizzy and disoriented. “At this rate, how long are we gonna be stuck here…”
…If they come back tomorrow, will the layout reset?
…If they have to do this all over again, will they even be able to find this spot again?
…And when they leave tonight with nothing to show for it, Fang Xiu’s going to slice off another thirteen pounds of flesh!
This pace was suffocating. For a brief moment, Guan He even considered just joining Song Zheng’s “guess the size” game. At least they could rest and sort their thoughts.
Reaching a narrow and steep high stair, Guan He stopped and leaned over his knees, panting.
Even though it was a descent, Song Zheng still led the way up front. Seeing Guan He gasping, he chuckled.
“Tired, huh?”
Song Zheng stood steadily on the next platform and held out both hands. “Come on, I’ll help you up. Watch your step.”
The “Murderous Intent Seismograph” in his hands was completely quiet.
Guan He leaned forward, about to reach out, when Fang Xiu grabbed his arm from behind.
“Thank you for your company,” Fang Xiu said to “Song Zheng” on the platform. “As an illusion, you really are thoughtful.”
Guan He: “?!”
Cheng Songyun staggered, nearly losing her balance. Bai Shuangying tilted his head at “Song Zheng”, narrowing his eyes. A few seconds later, a flash of surprise crossed his gaze.
…It really was an illusion.
This illusion was so natural. Bai Shuangying had been scanning the surroundings and hadn’t tested Song Zheng at all.
Now, he turned to his human, eyes full of interest. Fang Xiu had no knowledge of metaphysics, so how had he figured it out?
“Song Zheng” kept a straight face. “Don’t joke around. We’ve been together this whole time… Fang Xiu, are you okay? You sure you’re not under a spell?”
Guan He instinctively glanced back and forth between Song Zheng and Fang Xiu. Cheng Songyun firmly grabbed him and stood on Fang Xiu’s side.
Fang Xiu smiled. “The Huanxi E is really intelligent, but it still can’t replace a human. You slipped up at the very beginning. I just wanted to see how you’d make your move.”
“Thanks to you, I understand this place much better now.”
Guan He: “Slipped up at the beginning?!”
He hadn’t noticed anything strange about Song Zheng.
Fang Xiu glanced at the two and explained, “When we first arrived, he said, ‘lucky ones lost half, unlucky ones were wiped out.’”
“If it were really that dangerous, would Song Zheng have waited until we got in here to tell us?”
Guan He: “Ah…”
Song Zheng crossed his arms. “People slip up. What’s the big deal?”
“So then I targeted you with killing intent, but your ‘Murder-Intent Seismoscope’ didn’t react.” Fang Xiu said, “An illusion is an illusion. Fake things don’t cut it.”
Cheng Songyun and Guan He: “…”
Killing intent is something you can just casually whip up like that…?
“Your killing intent wasn’t pure.” Song Zheng frowned. “Alright, enough messing around. Let’s head back first.”
Fang Xiu didn’t budge. “And lastly, the place you’re standing? There’s nothing there.”
“If Xiao Guan had stepped down, he’d have fallen straight down the stairs. Then you’d cover it up as an accident, and we’d rush to help, making it easier for you to trick us into falling too.”
The expression disappeared from Song Zheng’s face.
A second later, “Song Zheng” bared his teeth and gave the same smile that the casino host would welcome guest with.
He—or rather, it—spoke in a creepy, robotic tone. “How did you know there was no floor there?”
Fang Xiu shifted the ghost flame to his middle finger, then flipped it up. “Don’t underestimate humans, lines of code.”
“Song Zheng” stared at him for a few seconds, then burst like a soap bubble and vanished.
Fang Xiu caught his breath and stepped to the front of the group. “From here on out, I’ll lead. Don’t step wrong.”
Having just grazed past death, Guan He broke out in a cold sweat. His legs had gone weak and he sat down for a while before he could even move.
“What about the real Song Zheng?” Cheng Songyun asked worriedly.
Seeing they weren’t in the mood to go on, Fang Xiu decided to take a break too. “He was probably lured away by another illusion. Let’s hope his instincts and skills are enough.”
Guan He was still panting. “What even is this place? Could we be illusions? Could everyone be illusions?”
Fang Xiu laughed: “The Huanxi E is just a gambling app. It’s not that smart. Think about it… It doesn’t have the ability to ‘create’ things.”
All those apartment rooms were connected by karmic threads. They all exist in reality.
The stunning casino games and unrealistically beautiful staff were just enhancements on the idea of “sexy dealers dealing live”.
Even the fancy food, villas, and lovers on the menu all needed people to choose them first. After that, the Huanxi E probably scours its “karmic database” for the info and modifies it.
That dazzling “Huanxi World” was, in the end, built from human imagination and karma.
“…Right now it can only fake the setting, throw in a phony version of Song Zheng, and hope we slip up.”
Saying that, Fang Xiu couldn’t help but sighed.
“Because up to now, we’ve never ‘used’ the app. It has no karmic ties to our lives.”
Under the ghostly red light, both Guan He and Cheng Songyun froze.
It was true. They’d never gambled, never redeemed any chips. That free token had been hoarded, used only to block the death taboo.
Guan He felt a cold shiver crawl up the back of his neck. “Don’t tell me…”
“Yup. This is the ‘easiest mode’ of the ‘Emergency Exit’.” Fang Xiu said, “If people who’ve traded away loved ones with blood debts came here… The Huanxi E knows their karma inside out. Those illusions would be something else.”
Guan He looked around at the pitch-black surroundings, the staircase chaos like a drunk Hogwarts. He felt that “easiest” was… arguable.
Cheng Songyun seemed lost in thought. She dug her nails into her palm expressionlessly.
“So that’s it for tonight.” Her tone was a bit unhinged. “We know what it looks like in there but still don’t know how to walk it. If I can resolve my emotional knots and stabilize the karmic thread…”
“Cheng Jie, aren’t you curious?” Fang Xiu cut her off. “Why did I know that platform was actually empty? Even the Huanxi E was curious.”
Cheng Songyun stared blankly at him.
Fang Xiu spoke softly, “No matter how the Huanxi E decorates it, its still just illusions overlaid on reality. Which means, we’re inside a real, physical building.”
At present, from what he could tell, the “Emergency Exit” was special. There was no karmic interference from others here.
If the casino was like a movie set slapped on reality to confuse everyone equally, then for the three of them, the Emergency Exit was like a lightly airbrushed version; it was still masking things, but closest to reality.
Fang Xiu wasn’t sure yet what the place meant, or where it led.
But the Huanxi E was clearly terrified of the Emergency Exit. That had to mean it was their best breakthrough point.
After entering, Fang Xiu had memorized every step, every climb, building a mental model of the structure.
After all, real buildings follow logic. If he could figure out the real stair layout, he could pinpoint the voids and fake turns. Once he fully understood it, the illusions would no longer work on him.
Hopefully, this building isn’t too complex, he thought.
“Here, I can deduce the real layout from the path we walked.” Fang Xiu smiled at Cheng Songyun. “It’s slower than tracing the karmic line, but we should have enough time. Just go at your own pace.”
Cheng Songyun responded quietly, nails still digging into her palm.
At 11:30 p.m., a flash of light returned them to the lobby. Fang Xiu quickly scanned the area and spotted Song Zheng curled up on the ground in a defensive crouch.
He looked more like a mushroom in that position.
Fang Xiu: “Mr. Song.”
Song Zheng: “…Ah!”
Song Zheng staggered to his feet, looking like his legs were numb, and cursed under his breath. Seeing the three of them were okay, he finally relaxed.
“Shit. That place is fucked up,” Song Zheng shuddered. “As soon as I walked in, I was back at the office, you know? All my coworkers were there, asking me to go to lunch…”
His intuition had screamed. He’d immediately squatted down and didn’t move an inch.
No matter what his “coworkers” said, or even when his “boss” came to yell at him, Song Zheng didn’t react at all. He held that defensive position and stayed there for five straight hours.
Fang Xiu: “You didn’t see any stairs?”
“Stairs? What stairs?” Song Zheng was bewildered.
Seeing the casino doors were open, Fang Xiu winked at his two teammates, then said to Song Zheng, “We’ll talk in detail tomorrow.”
……
Inside the mountain-view room, Fang Xiu was skillfully butchering Shang Debao.
The good news: Shang Debao’s corpse hadn’t rotted. It was well-preserved. This time it was half an arm and a full right leg, about 40 pounds of human flesh was carved off.
No one knew whether it would become “free rice porridge”, or someone’s “custom gourmet meal” on their dinner table.
After dismembering the body, Fang Xiu rolled up his left pant leg above the knee. Though he was thin, his bone structure was excellent, and his skin was clean and smooth.
“Bai Shuangying, I’ll trouble you again today.” His tone was light.
“Why the left leg?” Bai Shuangying asked, puzzled.
Fang Xiu had already lost his left arm. For balance, removing the right leg would make more sense.
Fang Xiu touched the smooth, intact calf. “Not the right one. It has a scar.”
Bai Shuangying: “The others won’t even taste the difference.”
Fang Xiu burst out laughing, nearly tearing up from it.
“That scar’s important. I want it to stay with me a bit longer,” he explained vaguely.
Bai Shuangying said nothing and silently accepted the bone-cleaving knife. Under the moonlight, the blade flashed cold.
…Another perfectly weighed thirteen pounds of flesh.
Unfortunately, Fang Xiu was too skinny. He couldn’t keep the kneecap. Only his left thigh was left.
Yesterday’s pain hadn’t faded, and now a new, larger wound had joined in.
Fang Xiu hissed sharply, his eyes reddening with pain. Even so, he forced himself to stay upright, wobbling but not falling.
“Cut off Shang Debao’s left leg for me. I need a prosthetic,” Fang Xiu said hoarsely, pointing at the body.
Bai Shuangying: “I can carry you.”
“Thanks, but not yet,” Fang Xiu managed a weak smile. “I’m not that pathetic just yet.”
Shang Debao’s corpse had stiffened. He’d been fairly sturdy, and his leg was a bit thicker than Fang Xiu’s. Bai Shuangying cut it to the correct length, but the girth was off.
Fang Xiu didn’t complain. He silently tore apart the left side of his pants and strapped the oversized corpse-leg to himself.
Without a knee, movement was difficult. He couldn’t bend it at all. The leg could only be dragged along the ground, providing minimal support.
The image was pitiful, which made Fang Xiu quite pleased.
If he had time tomorrow, he’d try to find a stick or something. Maybe he could use it as a cane for climbing stairs… Damn, the new wound hurt even worse than the old one.
The intense pain blurred his vision and gave him tinnitus.
Fang Xiu sat down on the edge of the bed, pressing his forehead against his ghost’s chest and abdomen, soaking in that cool comfort.
As he suspected, Bai Shuangying didn’t offer any sympathy or consolation.
An icy hand lightly touched the top of Fang Xiu’s head, hovering just close enough to feel, but never quite settling.
Then Bai Shuangying said, “I looked closely. Inside the ‘Emergency Exit’, the illusions are precise but lack any design for change. When you go back in tonight, it’ll still be the same as yesterday.”
Fang Xiu: “…Good. That saves us a lot of trouble.”
Bai Shuangying nodded.
The room fell into silence, broken only by Fang Xiu’s labored, pain-filled breathing.
Bai Shuangying reached out and untied the bandages around Fang Xiu’s left leg. The ugly corpse-leg landed on the floor with a dull sound.
Before Fang Xiu could react, Bai Shuangying scooped him up and tucked him under one arm.
Fang Xiu: “???”
Now that he’d lost twenty-six pounds of flesh, he weighed less than a hundred and thirty-two pounds. Carrying him was no different from carrying some luggage.
His ghost dumped him in the bathtub with a splash, then jumped in after him. The familiar icy water hit the wound, making Fang Xiu shudder.
Before he could speak, Bai Shuangying’s true form emerged from the water and gently covered Fang Xiu’s eyes.
Bai Shuangying: “Rest.”
With his eyes covered tightly, Fang Xiu flailed for a moment. “But we still need to help Cheng Jie catch the ghost…”
“Rest,” Bai Shuangying repeated. “This is a command from a friend.”
Friends don’t give each other commands…
Fang Xiu thought that, but still kept quiet, obediently sinking into Bai Shuangying’s body. Anyway, Cheng Jie was just next door. If he was late, she and Guan He would probably come find him.
…A short nap counts as resting, right?
Fang Xiu closed his eyes.
His two wounds were numb and cold, the pain fading into a dull ache. Surrounded by Bai Shuangying, he felt safe and relaxed.
After two days of torment, he fell asleep almost instantly.
The next moment, Bai Shuangying opened his eyes. His pale gaze turned in a certain direction, glowing faintly in the dark.
Next door.
Cheng Songyun was just about to step out when a white phantom suddenly appeared before her. She opened her mouth to scream, but caught herself. Her dead husband didn’t have such long black hair, nor was he this young or handsome.
It was Fang Xiu’s seductive ghost. What was he doing here alone?
The phantom of Bai Shuangying loomed over Cheng Songyun got straight to the point. “I’m here to teach you how to stabilize karma.”
Cheng Songyun immediately focused. “Did Fang Xiu ask you to?”
“Do you want to learn or not?” Bai Shuangying couldn’t be bothered to explain, outright ignoring her question.
“…Yes.”
A seductive ghost probably knew a thing or two about romantic bonds. Cheng Songyun figured he might actually be the right kind of expert for this.
Then Bai Shuangying said, “Tonight, you’re sleeping here. Don’t turn on the Resentful Ghost Shield.”
As he spoke, he hooked his hand, and the red karmic thread gently coiled around his elegant fingers in an intimate gesture.
Bai Shuangying continued expressionlessly. “Your husband didn’t become a ghost and still has lots of lingering karma. That means he died with strong attachments. I’ll help you identify his obsession.”
“From here on, it’s up to you.”
The author has something to say:
While writing this, I suddenly thought of that doodle of the little stick figure hugging a cat and escaping through the “Emergency Exit”…
It’s so funny. It fits so well.
Also, both of them could totally be the cat (???
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