Chapter 113

Suspicion

In the morning, Chao Musheng opened his phone to find his messages completely overwhelmed — congratulations on the relationship, questions about who the person was, more incoming than he could possibly answer.

Last night's post had broken all previous records for likes and comments.

He brushed his teeth and replied to his roommates' frantic notifications in the dormitory group chat.

[Zhaozhao Mumuou: I'll treat everyone when I'm back!]

[First: Bring your partner.]

[Zhaozhao Mumuou: Deal. Second and Third still asleep?]

[First: After you announced the relationship last night, so many people came asking us for details that Second and Third were talking to people in the next room until nearly midnight before they got back.]

First sent his reply and went to the canteen for breakfast.

There were plenty of people at school who'd had feelings for Fourth. Announcing a relationship now — how many hearts were quietly breaking?

"Senior!" Someone stopped him at the canteen entrance — a student he didn't know. "Excuse me — is Senior Chao really... with someone now?"

He nodded.

The student went pale. It took a moment to recover. "I'm a first-year. The reason I worked to get into Jinghua was to be closer to Senior Chao..."

Red-rimmed eyes. The whole body on the verge of collapse.

A passing student was moved by this display of feeling.

"Even if he doesn't know you, the fact that he motivated you to get into Jinghua — that's not nothing."

You worked to get into Jinghua to be near Chao Musheng, and now he has a partner — does that mean you have to withdraw and retake the exam?

"You're right." The student forced himself to stay composed. "As long as Senior Chao is happy."

"You're a first-year." First looked at him with mild curiosity. "You've never actually spent time with him."

A confused shake of the head.

"You saw him online, or in the school's admissions materials?" He smiled with just a hint of dryness. "That kind of impression — starting from appearance — probably doesn't run very deep. I'm sure you'll move on from it quickly."

The student froze. The onlookers gradually dispersed.

It was just looks. No need to perform a tragedy about it.

The student watched him leave, the feeling slowly draining from his face.

"Lin Sheng — any news?" Two classmates ran over.

He shook his head, voice flat. "Someone as exceptional as Senior Chao — only someone powerful and important would be worthy of him. Someone like me, from a poor family in a small town, has no right to reach that high."

"Well, true." Classmate A agreed. "Good that you can see it clearly. Senior Chao is a figure out of reach for people like us."

The student's expression stiffened briefly.

"Er." Classmate B coughed pointedly at A. You don't have to be that blunt. Show some consideration for your roommate's feelings.

"Don't overthink it — feelings are about timing, that's all." He offered what comfort he could. "If it wasn't meant to be with Senior Chao, let it go. Maybe it's even for the best — at least you're spared the trouble of mismatched backgrounds."

Classmate A looked at him sideways. Was that supposed to be better?

"Thank you." The student managed a smile.

He'd tried so hard. Why did no one think Chao Musheng was simply choosing wealth over love?

Did these people have no imagination at all?

*

"Xiao Chao — congratulations!" The class secretary settled into the car and leaned in with a quiet grin. "Wishing you and Xu Chenzhu a long and happy life."

"Thank you." He put his phone away and smiled at her.

"Messaging him right now?" She teased. "There's something different about a man in love — even sending a text and you're smiling like that."

"That obvious?" He touched his face. The smile didn't reduce.

"Very obvious." She pointed at the morning sun outside the window. "Brighter than that."

The other students joined in the good-natured teasing. Everyone selected for this aid project was among the best in their year — but knowing that Chao Musheng's partner was the Kunlun CEO, they couldn't help but feel something between admiration and envy.

Talent, appearance, family background — and a partner who commanded respect across the entire business world. A life this complete, who wouldn't admire it?

Up at the front, Professor Zhang listened to his students with a warm smile and watched.

Youth. Full of energy even first thing in the morning.

The car turned a corner. He noticed the street scattered with ash and asked the driver: "The streets have been clean up until now — why so much ash today?"

"Today is the 14th of the seventh lunar month — Ghost Festival begins at midnight tonight." The driver explained. "Last night a lot of people were burning paper offerings for their ancestors. The section we just passed through is the township's designated burning area."

"Of course." The professor nodded. "I'd almost forgotten."

"In big cities the rules are strict — no burning in town, so you'd be forgiven for not thinking of it." The driver smiled with a trace of wistfulness. "Honestly, even the young people here in a place like this don't always keep these customs anymore. Everyone's too busy making ends meet. That's how it is."

The wheels rolled over the ash from burned offerings as the car sped on toward the work site.

*

"Ugh — ash." Ah Peng fanned away the flakes drifting toward his face, coughed a few times, and turned back to browsing the shop's snacks.

"Did you hear? They caught the sweet potato robbers."

Ah Peng and Hua Ba both went rigid.

"I heard — they caught them last night. Police sirens all the way through town. Quite the commotion."

"Apparently the criminals were really vicious — even tried to kidnap a child. Some big figure from the capital found out and got the girl back."

"Don't tell me you didn't know the kidnapped child was Director Chen's daughter?"

The old folks chatting at the shop entrance moved on from the sweet potato theft to the factory's monthly wages. Ah Peng and Hua Ba quietly exhaled. Nobody had recognized them.

They paid for their snacks and walked back, plastic bags in hand, the peaceful atmosphere around them slowing their steps without them meaning to.

They'd been cycling through instance after instance, surviving in one desperate world after another. It had been a long time since they'd walked down a street this calm.

"YOU USELESS MAN — I ask you to go burn offerings for the ancestors and you run off to play mahjong. You think I won't break your legs?"

A woman pushed her husband out the front door. "You can forget your ancestors and your father both — don't think for one second you're living a decent life!"

Well. Perhaps not entirely calm.

They skirted around the man receiving his domestic verdict and walked on, and were soon drawn in by the noise of the morning market.

Every variety of fresh vegetables and fruit, arranged neatly in rows — more than anyone could possibly eat.

"Compared to what we had in other survival instances." Ah Peng bought several jin of pork. Hua Ba chose some fruit. By the time they returned to the apartment, the other three players were already back — only Curly Hair was absent.

"Where's Xiao Juan?" Ah Peng set down his meat.

"Out earning money." Da Chang looked at their haul. "This many snacks — did you spend the pocket money she gave you all at once?"

"Couldn't resist." Ah Peng sank into the sofa and let the air conditioning wash over him. This was how human beings were supposed to live.

"We went out and had a look around earlier." Da Chang put their shopping away in the fridge. "This really does feel like a real world. The people here are completely unlike NPCs in other instances — they have so much autonomy."

"So we just wait for the instance to run out?"

All five of them, letting Xiao Juan support them alone. The financial pressure on her must be enormous.

"I looked into that too — there's a construction site nearby taking day workers, 150 a day, paid at the end of the shift." He produced a scrap of paper. "This is the foreman's number. If no one objects, we can start tomorrow."

"Fine by me." Ah Peng nodded. "Whatever you say, Da Chang."

"I'm planning to go out and do another survey tonight." He looked at Ah Peng. "Come with me."

"Sure."

He'd lived too long with constant danger at every turn. Until he'd confirmed that night here was as safe as the day, he couldn't entirely lower his guard.

*

"It got dark earlier than usual tonight." The class secretary stifled a yawn and pressed the bridge of her nose. "The way the equipment here is configured — if we keep the original maintenance plan, the technical requirements are extremely high. We need to think about this differently."

"Another late night then." A classmate glanced at where Professor Zhang was working and lowered his voice to Chao Musheng. "I heard the Ghost Festival brings... encounters with things. Let's try to finish early and get back."

"That's folklore, senior. Don't scare yourself." She rolled her chair back to her computer. "I'm so tired."

Should have skipped the gossip session with friends last night.

"Speaking of the Ghost Festival—" Chao Musheng lifted his head and rolled his neck. "Let me wake you all up. I know a Ghost Festival story."

He'd spent time in both the R&D and game technology departments, where colleagues had an inexhaustible repertoire of ghost stories. He knew plenty.

"Go on." The students nearest him pricked up their ears.

"The legend goes that before the Ghost Festival, the gates of the underworld open to let the departed return and visit their families." He lowered his voice. "When the moon rises, the living who lie beneath a grape arbor at night can hear the voices of the dead speaking..."

*

"The moon is so bright." Ah Peng looked up at the sky. It was nearly full, with a beautiful halo around its edge.

"There were barbecue stalls on the street last night — why is it empty tonight?" He looked around at the deserted road. "People here go to sleep this early?"

"I noticed a lot of elderly residents in the streets today." Da Chang looked at the lit windows in the buildings nearby and gradually eased. "Old people tend to keep early hours. Fewer people out at night makes sense."

They walked on along the street. The occasional passing pedestrian moved quickly. Before long they'd reached the end of it.

"Tiny town." Ah Peng stood at the township boundary. A construction site was still lit up in the distance, several large trucks rumbling as they hauled earth and stone.

"Is that where we're working tomorrow?" He pointed.

Da Chang nodded. "Want to go look?"

"Yeah." Ah Peng was enthusiastic. He'd been in any number of survival instances — but this would be his first construction site in one.

To save time, they took a shortcut. On either side of the narrow path: orchards belonging to local farmers.

"Those grapes look good." He felt the pull, but the thought that the people who'd grown them were living people rather than NPCs held him back.

They walked a little further. Something felt wrong.

"Ah Peng — how long have we been on this path?" Da Chang stopped and looked back. Dense wild grass on either side, heavy grape vines completely obscuring the way they'd come.

He looked down at the ground beneath his feet. Had the grass been this thick when they'd walked through it?

"Ah Peng!" He grabbed his arm. "Run."

Wild grass brushed their legs with a rustling that scraped across the nerves. Moonlight fell across a grape orchard with no visible end — like a layer of cold frost.

"We can't get out." Ah Peng was breathing hard. On every side, nothing but endless grape vines.

"Shhh." Da Chang tilted his head. "I think someone's talking."

In the distance — the sound of voices, a number of people talking and laughing. But no matter how carefully they listened, they couldn't locate where the sound was coming from.

"Da Chang — are we stuck in that thing they call Ghost Wall?"

*

Curly Hair returned to the apartment to find two people missing. "Where are Ah Peng and Da Chang?"

"They went out." Ah Rou brought her a plate of sliced fruit. "Da Chang found us a day-labour job. You don't need to worry about money."

"I'm not just earning money for you." She smiled and didn't elaborate.

If not for the instance going wrong and delivering her here, she'd be in some other world by now.

She didn't know if she'd have another chance to come to this world — so she needed to prepare what she could while she had the opportunity.

The Main God was the kind of cowardly, bullying creature that kicked down and fawned up. If it kept gaining nothing from this world, it would resort to tricks and schemes — but it would never dare set another anchor point here or expend the energy to build another exploration instance the way it once had.

"We're going to leave this world eventually — what's the point of saving up this world's currency?" Ah Rou was puzzled. "You really like it here?"

"Yes." She nodded. "Very much."

She sometimes thought: if the Main God disappeared, how wonderful it would be to live in this world permanently.

Ah Rou hadn't expected that answer. Compassion moved through her eyes.

Players had no real choices. Players were wanderers — unable to return to their own origins, unable to stay anywhere for long.

"Enough of that." She lay down on the sofa and scrolled through today's news, and a notification appeared.

#Ghost Festival — Things You Must Never Do#

#It's dark — have you gone home today?#

She tapped into the topic and worked through the various taboos and customs. Then she sat up slowly. "Ah Rou — how long ago did Da Chang and Ah Peng go out?"

"About an hour."

"I'm going to find them." She stood. "The rest of you — no going out tonight."

"Is tonight special?"

"Tomorrow is this world's Ghost Festival." She hadn't caught her breath yet. "Also known as Ghost Night. Tonight is apparently when spirits return to the living world."

Whether this world actually had ghosts, she couldn't say. She could only...

Wish Da Chang and Ah Peng good luck.

*

"Who's talking — show yourself!" Ah Peng was fraying at the edges. The voices were all around him and he couldn't find their source. "Middle of the night, stop hiding in the vineyard trying to frighten people."

The voices quieted for a moment, then resumed their chatting and laughter.

"I—"

Da Chang pressed a hand over his mouth, cold sweat running. "Don't. Let's try going back."

These sounds were not normal.

He was afraid that if Ah Peng kept shouting, it would provoke whoever — whatever — they couldn't see.

*

"Finally done." The class secretary stretched with extravagant relief. "Almost midnight."

"It's that late?" Several students looked uneasy.

The same freedom with which they'd enjoyed the ghost stories earlier had become the source of their current suffering.

They fell in behind Professor Zhang and filed wordlessly out of the work site.

"Oh—" She was walking and powering up her phone when she looked up and saw someone standing in the courtyard. She turned and elbowed Chao Musheng with a grin. "Xiao Chao — your person came to get you."

Young love really was sweet.

Xu Chenzhu was here?

Chao Musheng shouldered past the students in front. "Excuse me, sorry, thank you—"

Everyone watched his happy figure disappear into the moonlight ahead, and felt, despite everything, that ghost stories weren't really so frightening.

The great Xu Chenzhu could stand in the courtyard on a night like this, waiting for the one he loved — surely a group of them walking together had nothing to fear.

"How are you here?" He jogged up and looped his arm through Xu Chenzhu's naturally. "I didn't get to spend any of today with you."

"It doesn't matter — we have a great deal of time ahead." He opened the paper bag he'd been holding. "Eat something first?"

"That smells wonderful." He leaned against his shoulder as they got into the car. "Still warm — who's still open at this hour?"

Hanyue takes the Ghost Festival seriously. Someone had the nerve to open tonight?

"I had the hotel kitchen prepare it." He held out a piece of chicken. "Try it."

"Good." Chew, chew, chew. "I barely ate tonight — I've been hungry for a while."

He held out another piece. "Too much fried food this late isn't good."

"An occasional indulgence is fine." Another piece disappeared. "Two more bites."

The driver raised the privacy partition and drove unhurriedly. As the car moved out through the work site gate, the solar-powered streetlight above the entrance flickered.

"The moon looks especially bright tonight." He opened the window a little, bent forward to take a bite from what Xu Chenzhu was holding out, and slouched contentedly against his shoulder. "Are you going back to the capital the day after tomorrow?"

"No." He opened a box of milk and inserted the straw, holding it toward him. "The factory anniversary is in a few days. I'll go back after that."

Chao Musheng laughed against his shoulder at this. "Xu Chenzhu — making up excuses with a completely straight face is genuinely charming."

He put an arm around him and smiled gently, letting Chao Musheng's hair brush back and forth against his cheek.

Only because Zhaozhao likes him would he think him charming.

*

"Da Chang — I can't keep running." Ah Peng gasped. The grass around them was getting thicker. When they'd first entered the path, it reached their shins. Now it was at their waists.

He was a physical-combat player. Whatever this arcane, supernatural nonsense was, he couldn't fight it.

"What do we do?"

"Do you remember what Xiao Juan said?"

"Which part?" Ah Peng used his feet to push the grass aside, clearing a path for Da Chang behind him.

"That the man beside Xiao Chao is an extremely powerful existence." He looked up at the sky. The vines were closing in; he could only see the moon through the gaps. "But he's romantically sentimental."

"What does that have to do with getting out of here?"

"If we praise him and Xiao Chao right here in this vineyard — do you think he'd help us leave?"

Ah Peng: ...

Probably not?

Who had ever heard of anything so absurd?

"Worth trying." Da Chang drew a deep breath. What wouldn't a player do to escape a desperate situation?

"Xiao Chao and his partner are a perfect match."

"Xiao Chao and his partner — long and happy forever."

Fine.

Hearing Da Chang's incantation, Ah Peng wiped the grape-vine scratches on his face and drew a long breath before bellowing at full volume: "XIAO CHAO LOVES HIS BOYFRIEND MOST OF ALL!"

It was an impressively loud shout, and it traveled a very long way.

Far enough, in fact, to reach Chao Musheng's ears through his open window.

"Did someone just say 'Xiao Chao'?" He gestured for the driver to stop, leaning toward the sound.

Xu Chenzhu turned his head to look at the vineyard at the roadside. His expression was unreadable.

"XIAO CHAO AND HIS BOYFRIEND WILL NEVER BE APART!"

Chao Musheng: ...

He opened the door, stepped out, walked to the edge of the path and looked.

Two vaguely familiar figures stood in the narrow lane, hollering at the moon.

"XIAO CHAO AND HIS BOYFRIEND ARE PEERLESS IN THE WORLD BENEATH HEAVEN, A UNION BLESSED—"

"You can stop." He had seen plenty of shameless flattery under Xu Chenzhu's recent social posts, but no one had ever attempted flattery quite like this.

Howling at this volume in the middle of the night — people would think it was haunted.

They were the ones flattering him. Why was he the one feeling awkward?

Ah Peng and Da Chang looked up in unison.

Moonlight. A dark car parked quietly at the roadside. A young man in a pale shirt standing at the front of it, looking at them with an expression of profound embarrassment.

The lush grape vines — gone.

The impossibly overgrown grass — gone.

Everything had returned to normal.

"Xiao Chao!" They ran out of the path and didn't fully relax until their feet were on the paved road outside.

They'd made it out.

Thank you, Xiao Chao.

Thank you to his romantically sentimental boyfriend.

"You're Xiao Juan's friends — if you need something, you can say so directly. No need for..." He paused. "No need to be quite so literal about it."

"Sorry." Ah Peng apologized without hesitation. "We'll watch ourselves next time."

He noticed Xu Chenzhu had also stepped out of the car and quickly added: "That said — you and your boyfriend really are a perfect match."

Xu Chenzhu's cool, distant gaze rested on him for a brief moment. "Thank you for the compliment."

"How did you know we'd be passing by here?" Chao Musheng noticed the grass and mud on their clothes.

Ah Peng and Da Chang were silent.

They didn't know.

Seeing no answer forthcoming, Chao Musheng looked ahead. Curly Hair was running toward them from down the road.

He didn't press further. He waved to her in the distance, took Xu Chenzhu's hand, and got back into the car.

Curly Hair arrived out of breath. "Xiao Chao, Xu Chenzhu — good evening."

"Good evening." He smiled. "Past midnight is Ghost Festival. Get home early."

"Yes, Xiao Chao." With Xu Chenzhu in the car, she didn't dare ask more questions. Once the car drove off, she turned to the two players. "Come on, let's go. No more time outside."

"What's Ghost Festival?"

"This world's Ghost Night." She was still catching her breath. "You didn't run into anything strange, did you?"

"We did."

"What?!"

"It worked out." Ah Peng's expression was complicated beyond words. "Praise be to love."

Curly Hair: ...

Frightened into talking nonsense?

"Xiao Juan." Da Chang's face was unusually grave. "I have a feeling Xiao Chao may have started to suspect us."