Many thoughts connected into a complete chain of logic in an instant. Then, Zhou Qi’an moved slowly toward the statue. Just as he was about to reach it, his footsteps paused slightly, and he fixed his gaze on the sea snakes slithering around the cracks.
Mother Zhuo still wore a gentle smile. “Don’t be afraid. It won’t bite you for now.”
For now.
Zhou Qi’an had no intention of facing a revived statue. He had to move it away as soon as possible. Xun the Wealthy was on the third floor—bringing it straight to him would be suicide. After some thought, Zhou Qi’an struggled to push the statue out of the room.
There were less than fifteen minutes left until midnight.
Ever since Xun the Wealthy started cursing, the college student had been peeking through the peephole. Now, seeing Zhou Qi’an pushing the statue out of his room, he was so startled that he gasped aloud.
His cry immediately irritated Han Tiansheng.
“You summoning spirits or what?”
If not for the fact that this burden had some use—like being thrown out as a shield if a ghost appeared—or at worst, being sacrificed in a ritual, Han Tiansheng would have kicked him away long ago.
“S-Statue…”
Seeing him struggle to speak, Han Tiansheng stepped forward to check for himself.
In the corridor, the young man was lowering his head, the muscles at his waist tensed. For some reason, his clothes were soaked through, clinging tightly to his waist and abdomen, making every contour visible.
Of course, Han Tiansheng didn’t notice any of that. His eyes were fixed solely on the scene of the statue being pushed forward.
Numerous slender snakes coiled around the statue’s abdomen, black mist swirling about. The crack in its body seemed like a bottomless abyss.
Suddenly, Zhou Qi’an stopped and tilted his head slightly.
His glasses had fallen into the bathroom. Because of the angle, Han Tiansheng could only catch a faint gleam beneath the curtain of his hair.
But even in that brief glimpse, Han Tiansheng, staring through the peephole, felt a chill—an eerie sensation creeping over him.
The college student muttered, “He’s stopping… Is he going to leave the statue here?”
Han Tiansheng scoffed, “If he really puts it at my door, I’ll push it right back.”
Zhou Qi’an had broken out in a cold sweat earlier in the basement. As if sensing the gaze watching him, he abruptly changed course, gritting his teeth and pushing the statue toward Xun Er’s door instead.
Han Tiansheng let out a breath of relief. But through the peephole, he saw the faint smirk curving the young man’s lips. How could he not realize that Zhou Qi’an had done it on purpose—to scare him?
“Sick freak,” Han Tiansheng cursed under his breath.
Zhou Qi’an, pleased with his little prank, rubbed his sore waist.
“Hope those two siblings know their place.”
This was a warning for tampering with the clocks. Facing two veteran players at once gave him little chance of winning. But if they dared to provoke him again, no matter how difficult it was, he would eliminate the threat.
After placing the statue, Zhou Qi’an went to retrieve his fallen glasses from the bathroom. As he returned, he heard footsteps descending the stairs and quickly hurried back into his room.
Meanwhile, Xun Er had just come down from the third floor.
After being harshly reprimanded by Xun the Wealthy, the submissiveness he had shown upstairs was now completely gone. He removed his glasses, his narrow phoenix eyes narrowing coldly. “Old bastard.”
Although Zhou Qi’an often compared Xun Er’s eyes to fish eyes when they changed color, in reality, Zhou Qi’an’s own eyes were rounder. Xun Er’s were sharp and slightly feminine in shape. Zhou Qi’an’s, on the other hand, carried an air of pure wickedness—but when he occasionally opened them wide, he looked almost like a dolphin gazing at the world beyond the horizon, naïve in a way.
Xun Er’s steps paused.
The statue was leaning against his door, one corner caught on the carpet, its body tilting slightly.
The snakes had almost completely blocked the crack. Without careful inspection, it was hard to notice. But if one listened closely, the faint hissing could still be heard.
Xun Er immediately noticed the abnormality in the statue’s abdomen.
—Wouldn’t it be easier to just cut it open and see?
The image of the young man’s indifferent expression surfaced in his mind. Paired with that centipede-like fissure on the statue’s stomach, it was an utterly silent provocation.
Xun Er walked up to Zhou Qi’an’s door.
The two stood on opposite sides of the peephole, yet neither moved closer to look through it.
His long eyelashes cast a shadow as Xun Er silently mouthed three words: See you tomorrow.
One word at a time, spoken with no sound. But as he reached the last two words, though voiceless, the slight upward curve of his lips radiated an almost boundless anticipation.
Zhou Qi’an was smiling too—silent laughter rippling in his chest.
Zhou Qi’an had left behind a problem. Xun Er had no choice but to head upstairs once more to return the statue.
As for playing the petty game of tossing the statue back at Zhou Qi’an’s door, he couldn’t be bothered. He was more interested in preparing a wonderful deathtrap for his opponent tomorrow.
Not long after, Xun the Wealthy seemed to have noticed that the statue had returned. His reaction was a mix of cursing and delighted exclamations.
But this time, his shouting didn’t last long. As midnight approached, his final shout was calling for Han Li:
“Hurry, come guard the candle—”
His voice was loud, but there was a faint tremor to it.
The upstairs fell into silence once more.
Zhou Qi’an turned around. Behind him was a wedding room overflowing with happiness and sweetness.
Mother Zhou’s voice was far more piercing than Xun the Wealthy’s feigned composure. Standing behind Zhou Qi’an, she spoke in an eerie tone, “My dear son, you’re not looking at your arranged partner. Are you dissatisfied with them?”
Zhou Qi’an rubbed his throat, still sore from the black tube’s torment. “We haven’t even gone through the betrothal process.”
The three letters and six rites were meant to signify sincerity and devotion in a marriage proposal. But in this situation, the words carried a strange sense of irony.
His eyelashes lowered slightly, his tone carrying an inexplicable depth. “I’ve already prepared the bride price. It’s… that thing.”
That thing—whatever it was—couldn’t be named.
Mother Zhou, naturally impatient, scoffed. “What, is it Voldemort?”
Zhou Qi’an was momentarily speechless.
He started over, slowly enunciating his words: “A family heirloom. Someone else’s.”
The female ghost had once said that Xun the Wealthy’s survival depended entirely on the family heirloom suppressing his home’s misfortune. Zhou Qi’an speculated that this heirloom was precisely the thing mentioned in the system’s prompt.
Mother Zhou automatically translated that as a free set of wedding gold.
The two of them talked for quite some time.
Beside them, the multi-eyed spider’s legs were trembling like a sieve.
It had discovered something very eerie—this woman kept calling the young man her precious son, yet the way she looked at him was the same as how spiders looked at food. The young man himself was strange as well. He seemed just as weak as any ordinary human, but for some reason, there was an aura about him that made the spider instinctively recoil.
At that moment, Mother Zhou suddenly glanced at the multi-eyed spider. It shuddered even more violently.
She didn’t make any sudden moves, only spoke a strange sentence: “It’s been trapped in that lightless evil god’s statue for so many years—what else could it do…”
Zhou Qi’an lowered his eyelids and said a few more words.
During their conversation, Mother Zhou’s gaze seemed to weigh something on an invisible scale, constantly tilting between slaughter and calculation.
“Either way, the bride price must be paid,” Zhou Qi’an said meaningfully. “That would be best for everyone.”
Mother Zhou’s expression darkened further, but at last, a hint of interest flickered in her eyes. Suspiciously, she asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be planning to kill your mother and wife after everything is done, would you?”
“Haven’t bought life insurance. Why kill recklessly?”
“…”
Zhou Qi’an changed the subject. “You know I’d never raise my blade against my own people.”
That was, indeed, his nature.
Mother Zhou paced back and forth in the room, and the snake heads followed her movements, swaying side to side.
Zhou Qi’an hadn’t expected to convince her with just a few words. He was about to continue speaking when Mother Zhou suddenly laughed.
“A mere half a day—I can wait.” Her expression was pleasant, almost amicable. “Speaking of a betrothal gift, you just reminded me of something.”
Something?
Zhou Qi’an wanted to ask, but Mother Zhou didn’t give him the chance.
She laughed so hard she nearly doubled over, long fingers covering her mouth, yet the laughter still spilled through the gaps between her fingers.
Zhou Qi’an didn’t have time to dig deeper. He had too many things to arrange and could only suppress the strange feeling in his heart.
His gaze landed on the multi-eyed spider, and a faint smile curled his lips. “With it, my plan has a chance of working.”
By all accounts, he was just a man who could be crushed under a single spider leg, yet the more the multi-eyed spider looked at him, the more he seemed unbearably sinister—even more so than the woman who had captured it.
It didn’t know what deal this mother and son had struck, but the next moment, the woman bent down and pried open its mouth.
Mother Zhou plucked a strand of her own hair and stuffed it into the spider’s mouth. The fine strand of hair transformed into a tiny snake and burrowed inside, alive and wriggling.
The multi-eyed spider trembled violently, but to no avail.
Zhou Qi’an recalled the experience of having a tube forcibly inserted into his throat. Unable to help himself, he turned his head away.
Mother Zhou left for the time being, a hint of manic laughter still lingering in her expression.
But this time, as she climbed out the window, Zhou Qi’an followed behind. It was around 1 a.m. when he finally returned. He shook out his clothes, and some small objects tumbled onto the floor.
The multi-eyed spider lay on the bed, writhing in agony as the snake inside it burrowed deeper.
Through its hazy vision, it saw Zhou Qi’an moving non-stop, busily at work. Its most direct impression was: Damn, his hands are fast.
In the vast night, it maliciously spoke to the young man, who was still occupied.
“Your mother wants to kill you.”
Zhou Qi’an, engrossed in his task, nodded absentmindedly. “I wouldn’t even be used to it if she didn’t try.”
“…”
“This is motherly love—she could easily kill me outright, yet she chooses to go about it in such a roundabout way.” Zhou Qi’an was practically moved to tears. His eyes reddened slightly for a brief moment before his voice suddenly turned cold. “Tomorrow, I need you to do this…”
At first, the multi-eyed spider was busy struggling against the snake in its stomach. Toward Zhou Qi’an, it had only felt scorn, along with an intense desire to tear him apart and feast on his flesh.
But after listening to his plan, it first widened one eye, then two, then three… until all of its eyes were bulging at once.
“You—you… you’re practically the reincarnation of an evil god.”
Wicked to the core.
—
In the dark of night—
Mr. Si’s long rabbit ears twitched. Tonight, there were many odd, fragmented noises. That was normal—every night, players could be heard running, fleeing, or screaming for help. It was just part of the game.
But while sound could be hidden, the scent of blood was much harder to mask.
The night wind carried a faint, metallic tang.
Oddly enough, the scent was lingering outside the house.
Moments later, Mr. Si moved at an incredible speed, appearing at the back of the villa.
There was nothing there—only a few strange birds flying across the sky.
“Am I being too paranoid?”
Fish in the lake occasionally killed each other. A little blood in the air wasn’t too surprising.
At the same time, Mother Zhou moved with the agility of a fish, slipping effortlessly to the entrance of the mountain lodge.
There were still traces of bloodstains on her shoulder, not yet fully dried.
The wounds that had barely healed from the female ghost’s bites had reopened during her brief clash with the statue.
“I really want… to kill them all,” she murmured—including her dear son.
Mother Zhou tilted her head back. Her eyes held no trace of emotion, only a cold, bottomless killing intent.
After a while, she managed to suppress the overwhelming urge to murder.
She walked a little farther ahead and spotted a bus quietly parked near the mountain lodge—Mr. Si’s bus, the one that had brought the players here.
“I don’t have any money. His dad was broke when he was alive too.”
Before the mortgage was paid off, the house wasn’t even considered their asset. No wonder her son was single—no car, no house.
Mother Zhou had been eyeing this vehicle for a long time.
She quickly scanned her surroundings, then smashed a window and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Under the night sky, the rabbit bus’s headlights flickered on. But since it was parked a fair distance from the lodge, Mr. Si remained unaware.
Mother Zhou floored the gas pedal, and the bus roared onto the road.
The night wind rushed in through the broken window, seeping into her open wounds with a chilling sting. She hummed softly to herself—
“Drive, drive toward the city’s edge,
Roll down all the windows,
Trade speed for a bit of relief—”
—
Author’s Note:
The lyrics “Drive, drive toward the city’s edge… relief” are from the song You Get Me Drunk.
