WTNL Chapter 49

Antai Community
Chapter 49: On July 15th, the gate of hell will open.

The corridor was narrow and very long. Under the dim light, the ghastly pale, smiling faces of the paper dolls appeared exceptionally terrifying as they followed like shadows, chasing relentlessly.

The familiar system voice rang in Wen Jianyan’s ears:

[Main Quest 1: Find the next filming location within two hours]
[Completion: 100%]

[Main Quest 2: Go to the filming location to film; the duration must not be less than ten minutes.]
[Completion: 100%]

Hell yeah, done!

He happily put his phone away, completely lacking the self-awareness of someone being chased madly.

The mood of the other few people, however, was nowhere near as relaxed as Wen Jianyan’s.

Wang Hanyu ran while panting heavily, gritting his teeth:

“W-We can’t just keep getting chased like this, it’s not a solution!”

Human stamina is limited. If they kept being relentlessly chased without a moment’s rest, they would be caught sooner or later.

He looked at Chen Mo: “Why don’t you—”

Before Wang Hanyu could finish his words, he was interrupted by Chen Mo:

“No!”

Chen Mo cast a stern glance at Wang Hanyu: “I told you before.”

“…” Wang Hanyu’s expression darkened for a moment, and he didn’t talk back.

While continuing to film backwards, Wen Jianyan thoughtfully looked at these two streamers beside him.

He had noticed these two earlier. These two streamers clearly knew each other and had probably entered as a team, just like him and Su Cheng.

They coordinated familiarly and knew each other’s talents, so they must have teamed up more than once.

However…

There didn’t seem to be complete mutual understanding between them.

When their opinions occasionally clashed, the final decision was basically made by Chen Mo, but Wang Hanyu didn’t appear completely submissive and obedient.

Wen Jianyan guessed that there was an inconspicuous hierarchical relationship between them—Chen Mo took the lead, while Wang Hanyu obeyed.

…Members of the same guild?

Without any warning, Wang Hanyu abruptly stopped in his tracks.

“What are you doing?” Chen Mo was startled.

Wang Hanyu didn’t answer. He turned around, gritting his teeth, his eyes glaring viciously at the approaching paper dolls not far away, and fiercely threw something backwards from his hand—

Sizzle!

A sound like boiling water rang out. The bodies of those paper dolls suddenly curled and deformed, melting, shrinking, and disappearing as if they had met with concentrated sulfuric acid.

Even right before they disappeared, those ghastly pale faces still wore bright smiles.

“I told you, there’s no need to use items this early!” Chen Mo was both shocked and angry.

Wang Hanyu: “Then are we supposed to just keep getting chased like this?”

Chen Mo: “But what if…”

“If we die, there is no ‘what if’,” Wang Hanyu interrupted him somewhat impatiently. “Besides, as monsters, these paper dolls are quite fragile. One C-rank item can wipe them all out. Why must we be chased by them and flee in such a sorry state?”

Chen Mo frowned: “You’re too reckless.”

“Hey.”

Wen Jianyan, who had been silent since earlier, suddenly spoke up, interrupting the thickening smell of gunpowder between the two.

His voice carried an inexplicably solemn undertone. His tone was cold and deep, possessing a sense of power that made it impossible to ignore.

The two were taken aback and subconsciously turned to look at the person who spoke.

The young man shoved his phone back into his pocket and raised his head, staring fixedly at them with those amber eyes. Although his expression showed nothing unusual, the corners of his mouth were tightly drawn.

Using a restrained voice, he said:

“It’s twelve o’clock.”

The moment his words fell, the streamers couldn’t help but feel a chill run down their spines.

They all looked down at the time on their phone screens. Upon seeing the numbers 00:00, a wave of cold slowly crept into their hearts. Everyone couldn’t help but recall what the guard had just said.

In the middle of the seventh month, the ghost gates open.

In the live broadcast hall of the Antai Community, the comment sections of all the streamers were bustling with heated discussions.

[!! Twelve o’clock has arrived!]

[Hee hee hee, I’ve been waiting for this moment!]

[Ahhhhhhhhhhh I’m so looking forward to it, the main course is finally here!]

[Come, come, come, place your bets, no taking it back. How many streamers will die in the first ten minutes?]

Crack.

An ear-piercing sound like shattering glass rang out. The Bagua mirror hanging by a nearby door suddenly burst open with a crack, then the whole thing fell upside down from the wall and crashed straight onto the floor.

The lit incense on the ground suddenly flared up with a burst of fire, as if being devoured by something, rapidly shortening at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The tips of the white rice began to blacken until they completely turned an ink-like pitch black.

Clack, clack.

Clack, clack.

An eerie sound, like bones grinding together, emerged from the bottom of the Bagua mirror. The sound was truly too terrifying, almost making one’s blood run cold. The temperature in the air suddenly dropped, like an icy blade scraping fiercely against the skin. An instinctive sense of fear slowly rose from the depths of their souls.

The Bagua mirror was slowly lifted.

Two ghastly pale arms reached out from beneath the mirror’s surface. Pale, bluish fingers dug tightly into the floor, as if something was crawling out from inside the mirror.

Wen Jianyan’s scalp went numb.

Even without Spirit Vision, he could sense that this guy was far fiercer than all those paper dolls just now combined!

The aura was completely on a different level!

Almost without needing words, the group turned around simultaneously and ran madly once again under the whipping of their desire to survive!

Clack, clack.

Clack, clack.

The sound of grinding bones rang from behind, following them like a shadow.

The sound was too fast. It closed the distance in almost an instant, sounding as if it were pressed right against the back of their ears!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

Wen Jianyan kept his head down and sprinted wildly, not even finding a chance to turn his head. Cold air constantly seeped out from the back of his neck.

“Fuck.”

Beside him, Chen Mo cursed viciously. He pulled a small knife from his pocket and violently slashed a huge gash across his palm. Scalding hot, bright red blood spurted out, turning into scarlet chains the moment it touched the air. The chains forcefully unfurled behind the group, emitting terrifying, overwhelmed sounds as they were battered by that unknown ghost.

“Go, it can’t hold on for more than a few minutes!”

He roared hoarsely as he ran forward, a hint of scarlet blood surging in the depths of his eyes.

His talent was actually a rare attack type.

Although this kind of talent could deal real damage to ghosts and monsters, it placed an extreme burden on the streamer’s body. In just a few short breaths, Wen Jianyan saw blood starting to seep from the other man’s pores as well.

Crack—!

The sound of chains snapping rang from behind.

That eerie grinding sound closed in once again!

As a D-rank streamer, while the other C-rank streamers’ talents had already finished cooling down, Wen Jianyan actually didn’t have a single usable skill!

He rolled his eyes in anger.

No wonder no streamer ever skipped ranks to clear an instance; this was the reason!

While running, he took out his phone from his pocket, snatching a moment of leisure in the midst of chaos to buy a few life-saving items.

Just then, a door not far ahead suddenly opened slowly. A wisp of blue smoke seeped out from the crack of the door. Accompanied by the smell of incense ash, a hoarse and terrifying voice rang out in the darkness:

—”Here.”

The voice was aged and cloudy, echoing in the deadly silent corridor.

“!!!”

Everyone was startled and reflexively looked in the direction the voice came from.

The door was wide open, and it was pitch black inside, like a space full of unknowns, making one’s heart involuntarily wish to retreat.

But that ear-piercing grinding sound behind them was already right at the back of their heads. There was no time to hesitate!

After all, compared to being caught by that bizarre, ghostly thing behind them, that door was still much more appealing.

The four of them gritted their teeth and charged straight into that door at top speed, tumbling to the floor under their own momentum!

The door slammed shut fiercely behind them!

Bang bang bang!

Bang bang bang bang bang bang!

Violent and hurried pounding on the door rang out, constricting their hearts like a death-urging curse. Wen Jianyan looked towards the door—the thin wooden door was being struck forcefully, and layers of dust fell down.

An eerie pattern of scarlet lines was drawn on the door, densely plastered with layers of yellow talismans written in cinnabar. On the floor, coarse white salt was piled thickly into a long line, vibrating under the violent shaking of the door, looking fragile and thin, as if it would be broken through in the next second.

Bang bang bang bang bang bang!

Through the door, the eerie clack, clack friction sound could be heard again, and footsteps paced outside.

After an unknown amount of time, the pounding on the door stopped.

“…”

A long-lost silence descended. Wen Jianyan slowly breathed a sigh of relief as if a heavy burden had been lifted. He could still hear the loud drumming of his own strong heartbeat in his ears, and the soreness from overusing his muscles slowly set in.

“You are safe for now,” that hoarse, aged voice came from a corner of the room.

Wen Jianyan turned his head and looked towards the direction of the voice.

The heavy sound of a cane striking the floor rang out.

An aging woman walked out from the dark corner. Her figure was short and hunched. In her wrinkled, tree-bark-like old hands, she held a gnarled, pale cane. She wore simple clothes washed until they were pale. Her loose facial skin trembled slightly, and her eyes were covered by thick, cloudy white cataracts. “But only for now. Today is the middle of the seventh month.”

“Their power will grow stronger and stronger, until they turn this entire building into their territory.”

“When dawn comes…”

The old woman said tremblingly: “Even I will have no way to deal with them.”

Wang Hanyu climbed up and asked respectfully: “Um, may I ask who you are…?”

“Just call me Granny Wen.”

The old woman replied.

“Just now…” Su Cheng turned his head to look at the front door, still somewhat shaken: “What was that thing just now?”

“An Evil Spirit.”

Granny Wen leaned on her cane and slowly walked to the passage between the living room and the kitchen.

There stood a massive shrine, taller than a person. The shrine was surrounded by the blue smoke of burning incense. A brass Bodhisattva sat squarely inside, surrounded by various talismans—large and small, some made of willow branches, some of peach wood, and some of materials Wen Jianyan couldn’t recognize at all.

The Bodhisattva sat cross-legged in a lotus flower, holding a ritual implement in one hand and a severed head in the other. Its three faces looked in different directions, each bearing a different expression.

The front was merciful and serene, the left was glaring with angry brows, and the right was weeping in sorrow.

Granny Wen devoutly bowed three times to the Bodhisattva, then pointed to a crack on the Bodhisattva’s base and said slowly to the group:

“The Bodhisattva suppresses the evil spirits with its blessings so they cannot cause chaos. But three months ago, someone stole the Soul-Locking Urn and destroyed the array. Thus, it has become harder and harder for me to suppress them in the other world.”

She sighed tremblingly:

“Especially now that it is the seventh month, the Yin energy is getting heavier and heavier. I can feel that they are expanding their power… There isn’t much time left before they completely break the seal and assimilate this place.”

Chen Mo had already skillfully bandaged the wound on his palm by now. He looked up:

“Is there any way to stop them?”

“Retrieve the Soul-Locking Urn.”

Granny Wen raised those eyes covered in white cataracts, looking at the person who asked, and said in her aged voice: “As long as the Soul-Locking Urn is retrieved, the Bodhisattva will have a chance to regain its power and force the evil spirits back into the mirror.”

At that moment, Wen Jianyan felt the phone in his pocket vibrate.

He cleverly pivoted half a step back, hiding in the shadows, and took his phone out to turn on the screen.

[High-Difficulty Side Quest Refreshed: Retrieve the lost Soul-Locking Urn]
[Completion: 0%]

This quest was perfectly normal, but the one below it had a massive shift in style…

[Main Quest Refreshed: Take a photo of the Evil Spirit]

Wen Jianyan’s eyelids twitched: “???”

Huh?

Under a certain eerie premonition, he expressionlessly and slowly opened his identity card.

[Identity Card]

Name: Wu Qinghe

Age: 22

Occupation: Paranormal Investigator Streamer

Related Plot: [Your name is Wu Qinghe, a contracted paranormal investigator streamer on a platform. Recently, you heard that multiple paranormal events occurred in the Antai Community. Therefore, on July 14th, you brought your equipment here, preparing to shoot footage for your new video “Ghost Festival”.
You came to Room 1304, where a murder occurred a month ago. Here, you met the victim’s mother, who had gone insane. Therefore, in order to obtain more information and inside stories, you decided to disguise yourself as her already deceased son, Zhou Xiuqing.]

The identity card had been updated again, with a block of text surfacing below the related plot.

[At twelve o’clock midnight, the ghost gates wide open.

After barely escaping death, you met Granny Wen, who lives in the Antai Community. From her mouth, you learned the truth about the evil spirits and the way to stop them.
Therefore, to make your video a hotter topic and gain more attention and traffic, you decided to take a photo of the Evil Spirit as the thumbnail for your video this time.
You firmly believe that doing this will definitely make this video go viral.]

Wen Jianyan: “……………………”

Haha.

I really am courting death then.

__

Author’s Note:

Wen Jianyan: ………………Identity card, I really thank you, ah.