On the staircase, a shadowy figure could still be seen. The fog blurred its outline, but she could vaguely make out it was a man.
Then, the shadow slipped away into the stairwell, and the faint sound of a door opening and closing followed.
That must be the study, she reasoned. So, the house did have a study after all—it just only appeared at midnight.
That man wasn’t Lin Qingyue, that madman, nor the burly housekeeper. Perhaps, up there, she could find the clues she needed!
But the rules warned: Ignore any strange noises at midnight…
After wavering, Ye Shu still decided to go. There were only four days left. Anything could happen. She longed to escape this place, to put Lin Qingyue far behind and never see him again.
Yet, she couldn’t. She had to take it a step at a time.
Ye Shu stuck on an invisibility talisman she'd bought from the game store, glided up the stairs in utter silence, and found the study door unlocked—easy enough to slip inside.
She locked the door behind her.
The room was pristine, not a single speck of dust. Shelves lined the walls, each book arranged alphabetically. She tried to power up the computer, but it remained black, dead.
Three minutes passed. She found nothing of use.
Ye Shu started to panic.
She decided to have Da Piaoliang help her search.
Five minutes ticked by. The study offered only books—endless rows and stacks—until she found a VCD tucked away in a desk compartment. On the back was a photo of wife and husband together.
In it, she wore a phoenix crown and bridal robe, a phoenix fan in her hand, dimples deepening as she gazed tenderly at the man by her side. The man looked back at her with the same affection.
But the groom in the photo… was not Lin Qingyue!
The difference between the two could not have been starker: one gentle, water-like, and the other—sinister, cold, hateful at a glance.
In other words, her husband was someone else entirely. Lin Qingyue was a fraud.
Perhaps that was why she couldn’t let anyone know she’d regained her sight?!
No wonder the children’s eyes filled with fear and strained optimism every time they looked at Lin Qingyue.
Was Lin Qingyue actually it?
When had it supplanted the real husband and entered this home?
Ye Shu massaged her throbbing forehead, hid the VCD in her inventory, and carefully slipped out of the study.
At the top of the stairs, the curtain across the hallway window had been drawn aside, casting a bright silver moon into the corridor.
The moonlight shone cold and clear, and so did Ye Shu’s apprehension.
Lin Qingyue stood a few meters away, crimson glints burning in his eyes, fixed—relentless—on the door. No, on her, as she stood before it.
She shifted left. Lin Qingyue mirrored her.
She moved right; he did the same.
Their movements aligned perfectly. There was no way he couldn’t see her.
“You can see me!” she shouted.
Ye Shu had no choice but to reveal herself.
Thirteen minutes had gone by now, and under the moonlight, the staircase was slowly disintegrating.
So be it—she would die again if she had to.
Death had grown almost routine: the more she died, the better she understood how to reset events. She was numb to it now… all she wanted was to drag Lin Qingyue down with her.
Clinging to her shoulder, Da Piaoliang’s feline eyes brimmed with terror before the powerful.
Even when it was alive, the black tiger had never been Lin Qingyue’s equal; death had further sapped its strength, and in Lin Qingyue’s domain, it was little more than a weak kitten—paralyzed with fear.
Lin Qingyue repeated, “My wife regained her sight… I can see you now!”
Ye Shu let out a hollow laugh, drew the peachwood sword and drove it at his heart. "Die! Who’s your wife… you brazen old monster."
Three exchanges—her sword snapped, her life ended.
Ye Shu's falling body vanished along with the staircase, as if nothing had ever occurred…
…………
In the bedroom.
Ye Shu’s eyes snapped open, pupils contracting violently. Tension worked her facial muscles into tight spasms as she pressed a trembling hand to her chest. Her sunglasses were gone. The old heroism was swept away, replaced with fury, a chilling anger impossible to suppress.
Da Piaoliang at the foot of the bed shuddered under this wave of hostility. Upon seeing it was Ye Shu, the fear lessened. He gave his fluffy tail a shake, and went back to sleep, curled up tightly.
With the truth about Lin Qingyue's identity clear, there was no need to venture to the study tonight.
Once again her bedroom door had locked her in; Ye Shu lay back to sleep, with no intention of setting foot outside.
As she drifted off, the portrait hanging above the bed flashed in its painted eyes.
A face leaned out from inside, peering down at the lump in the blankets.
Ye Shu bundled herself tightly, eyes shut, lashes like tiny fans, the soft white of her cheek blotched by sweat, paling only to flush red, lips parted slightly. Bathed in the golden warmth of the lamp, the velvet fuzz on her cheek caught the light.
The black mist retreated back inside the portrait, as if nothing at all had happened.
The whole scene passed in the blink of an eye.
Da Piaoliang never caught sight of the human face before it vanished.
At the doorway, Lin Qingyue hovered for a long time, his obsidian eyes lost in thought.
He believed he finally understood Ye Xiaoshu’s power… In this game, he had killed her twice, but after her death, time would freeze, then rewind—resetting to moments before she died.
Much like the power he himself possessed—a resurrection from death…
Her first death, she hadn’t used that damned artifact again. The second, she never left the room.
Meaning, her comeback brought her memories with it.
It wasn’t until dawn that he finally left.
The moment Lin Qingyue departed, Ye Shu, who had been lying in bed, sprang awake, the vermilion prayer beads on her wrist cooling under her touch.
It seemed some rule bound the ghost—it could not kill her outright.
Her stamina dropped to 80 points, a dull fatigue pulling at her. A box of health food revived her a little.
To ensure she was at her best, Ye Shu took out two more skewers of spicy bamboo chicken.
At sunrise, the housekeeper was already sweeping the living room, muttering to himself, “Cleaning, *kaka*… Cleaning. Xiao Ye, I can’t finish cleaning all this. Could you help me? Damn, this place is impossible to clean. Disgusting…”
Ye Shu noticed the housekeeper’s pollution had worsened.
As he spoke, the housekeeper clawed at his scalp. Strands and strips of hair, tangled with skin, fell between the floorboards. He didn’t appear to feel any pain as he stripped off patches of his own scalp—black hair clotted with flesh, revolting to see.
Ye Shu remained calm, taking out a joss paper note. “Did you forget? I can’t see. Here’s today’s wages for you.”
The housekeeper wrenched his head around, snarling with a weirdly sincere smile. “*Kaka*… Yeah. Xiao Ye can’t see. *Kaka*… can’t do housework. Just messes things up.”
The interruption helped cool the fire in her belly.
Two children sat at the table. Today, they looked nothing like their innocent selves. When Lin Yue spotted Ye Shu, she instantly dropped her utensils and scampered to her. “Mama! Stay with Yueyue. I’ll give you all my food, okay?!”
Ye Shu gave the same answer as yesterday.
This time, though, Lin Yue didn’t stop. Her face split into grotesque petals, mouth lined with ring upon ring of needle-sharp teeth, and she wheedled in a child’s chirp, “I want Mama to stay with me! It’s safe here. We’ll never be in danger again as a family.”
Lin Yue was gnawing on a black beetle, crunching its red-black shell and letting a white larva crawl free—before swallowing it whole.
If she stayed in this world and let herself be assimilated, maybe there really would be no more danger, just as Yueyue claimed.
But to become part of the strangeness, to become one with this house? Ye Shu could never accept that.
“Yueyue is a big girl now. Mama will give you pocket money.”
Ye Shu conjured a handful of spirit money with a flourish. Lin Yue’s fierce face went slack with disbelief as she stared at the money—frozen for a heartbeat.
How could an unemployed mother just have so much cash on hand?
Yesterday’s joss paper for the housekeeper had already exceeded her understanding, but this? Far beyond anything she could imagine.