Origin
Chapter 664: Heart and tattoo
Ever since the end of the Lucky Cruise instance, that heart pendant had been dangling and swaying below Wen Jianyan’s collarbone. It never made a sound, had almost no weight, and emitted a faint warmth, silently and comfortably ironing the small patch of skin below his neck, almost merging entirely with his body temperature.
Except for the occasional times it grew hot, it didn’t have much of a presence.
But, when it disappeared, it seemed everything had changed.
“…”
Wen Jianyan pressed the spot below his neck, his mind a bit chaotic.
It was ice-cold and empty, as if a silent wind was blowing into that missing corner’s void, so light it made his heart flutter with panic.
This was an extremely important item… something that could save his life in moments of danger… the key to breaking free from the Nightmare’s control…
It was…
Wen Jianyan’s face darkened, and he abruptly stood up.
—To hell with what it was used for, this thing was that guy’s heart!
Only one thought remained in his mind:
No matter what, he absolutely, definitely, had to get it back!
Wen Jianyan pinched the bridge of his nose hard, taking deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down.
Logically speaking, Wu Zhu’s heart shouldn’t be that easy to pluck off him. But the problem was, times were different now, and the place he was in couldn’t be explained by common sense. With the necklace now off his body, there was a high probability it was taken by someone while he was unconscious.
This also explained his current situation.
If they had only found the spirit money, that group of people could have just extorted a confession out of him when he woke up. But that necklace was completely different. It made them unsure of his identity and his trump cards, which was why they adopted this current soft approach to test the waters.
Wen Jianyan turned his head and looked out the window.
Even though it had only been a few minutes since the child left, the sky outside the window had noticeably darkened—it was an abnormal, gloomy black. A bizarre ink-like color veiled the air, and an invisible curtain fell. Dark shadows crawled over the bluestone road bit by bit like wet fingers, bringing an inexplicable sense of unease.
The already uncrowded streets were now completely deserted.
Wen Jianyan turned and walked to the alcove, picking up the two candles A-Yuan had reminded him to light before dark.
This time, there were no items, no live stream, and no teammates. Leaving the room now was equivalent to stepping into the darkness without any protection.
“…”
Wen Jianyan let out a shallow breath and stepped over the threshold.
Darkness swallowed his back.
In just the blink of an eye, the sky turned completely black.
Shadows diffused into the streets, drilling into the gaps between rooms, like some viscous jelly, filling the world without missing a single sliver.
The small town that looked completely normal during the day appeared exceptionally eerie in the darkness. Low houses stood askew by the slate road, their pitch-black windows like soulless, staring eyeballs—compared to when there was light, it now looked much closer to the version Wen Jianyan had seen in the instance.
In the boundless night, only a faint point of candlelight flickered.
A figure was enveloped in the candlelight, walking briskly through the streets.
Wen Jianyan’s steps were hurried. The candlelight in his hand swayed dangerously, as if it would be overwhelmed and swallowed by the surrounding darkness in the next second.
The faint light illuminated his pale side profile.
Unlike an oil lamp, the protection a candle could offer was very limited. Wen Jianyan could clearly feel an ominous aura wandering outside the light. They were everywhere, constantly trying to invade the space beneath the candlelight. Cold breaths blew from all directions, eroding his vitality and nibbling away at his body temperature.
However, Wen Jianyan wasn’t without his advantages.
He had stayed in the [Xingwang Hotel] instance long enough to be intimately familiar with every brick and tile here. Every alleyway, every corner… even with his eyes closed, he could directly sketch them out in his mind.
Strictly speaking, there weren’t many truly significant places in this town.
The shopping street, along with the framing shop deep inside it, was one place. The other was the dilapidated house with the well in the corner of the town. Other than these, the danger levels of the rest of the town weren’t high. Although they weren’t in the same time period, the Nightmare’s logic in building instances wouldn’t be wrong: the higher the danger level, the more critical the location. Since the instance was like this, working backwards, the same principle applied to the original blueprint.
More importantly, Wen Jianyan had specifically paid attention to the direction the old woman left in during the day.
The critical location in that direction was, and only was, that dilapidated house.
Wen Jianyan quickened his pace. Even with the lack of lighting, he still walked as fast as if he were flying, traversing the ground as if it were perfectly flat.
Soon, the blurry outline of the dilapidated house emerged from the darkness ahead. It stood silently at the end of the road, like the remains of a dying giant.
Through the crooked window, a faint glow of light was vaguely visible.
Arrived.
Wen Jianyan’s heart started to pound wildly.
At a time like this, the more urgent it was, the less he could afford to rush.
He cupped the candlelight with one hand, suppressing the light to its absolute minimum. His footsteps were light, swift, and silent like a cat’s.
Wen Jianyan quietly arrived beneath the window. He cautiously pressed close to the edge and looked inside.
Right now, the dilapidated house obviously hadn’t truly become dilapidated yet.
Without the decaying beams, the caved-in ceiling, and the empty rooms, anyone could clearly see that this house was actually much larger than the other houses in the town, and the furnishings inside were neater and more decent.
Bright, whitish light emanated from the alcove directly facing the main door, enveloping the entire room. Even though Wen Jianyan was outside the window, he could feel the chill dissipate slightly.
That old woman sat on a wooden chair. Her back was hunched, and she looked senile. The ravines on her face appeared even deeper under the light.
She wasn’t the only one in the room.
A few others were standing or sitting, talking in low voices to each other.
Wen Jianyan listened carefully for a long while before realizing they were actually talking about him.
“That kid woke up today?”
“Mhm,” the old woman responded, her eyes deeply closed.
“I heard A-Yuan took him for a walk around town. Any conclusions? Did he say anything?”
“Not yet,” the old woman’s bark-like hands rested atop her cane as she spoke slowly. “Don’t be anxious.”
“Don’t be anxious?”
The questioner’s voice abruptly rose.
“How can I not be anxious!”
“You know the situation in the town right now. If we don’t think of a way soon…”
The person paced the room as he spoke. He was a middle-aged man with a straight posture and a gloomy face. The light flickered across his face intermittently. For some reason… Wen Jianyan felt he looked increasingly familiar.
“Hey, stop arguing,” the old woman interrupted him. The light illuminated her bark-like old face, flowing deeply into every ravine. “I am old, I can’t bear to listen to this noise.”
Wen Jianyan’s gaze naturally fell onto the old woman’s face, and in that instant, he shuddered violently.
He remembered!
Whether it was that old woman or that middle-aged man, he had seen their portraits in the corridor deep inside the framing shop!
The floodgates of memory burst open, and images surged out like a torrent.
Among the portraits hung deep in the framing shop, the scenes varied. There were desolate graves, dilapidated houses, and also… a rusty old-fashioned train.
Recalling the appearance of that train, Wen Jianyan’s heart immediately pounded like a drum.
It was exactly the one he had taken to get here!
His previously vague guesses were now confirmed without a shadow of a doubt.
Whether it was the desolate graves, the train, the gallery, or the oil paintings… they were all products of this small town. Since that was the case, the platforms standing in the wasteland should be the same.
Thinking of this, Wen Jianyan’s heart sank heavily.
If he remembered correctly, the platform where he got off hadn’t been fully built yet; it only had a shallow foundation.
Then… the problem arose.
How was he supposed to get back?
He hadn’t thought about this problem before. Wen Jianyan now only felt a layer of cold sweat break out on his body, his back wet and cold.
Without a platform, he couldn’t board the train. Didn’t that mean he’d be trapped here forever?
“…When is the next calculated opportunity?”
“In three days.”
“We don’t have much time left. If you ask me, we shouldn’t care about what methods we use. We must figure out exactly why that kid appeared at that place at that time—” The middle-aged man’s voice was gloomy and slightly ruthless.
“No!” A middle-aged woman spoke up methodically. “Didn’t you hear A-Ma? The things he carries on him are extraordinary. We can’t act rashly.”
She was precisely the Auntie who ran the bun shop during the day.
“Furthermore, didn’t you check? That child is indeed human. We have never targeted the living—”
“Wait.”
The old woman suddenly turned her head. Her shriveled eyelids, covered in wrinkles, lifted, and her cloudy eyes, covered in cataracts, rolled, looking toward the window.
Her sunken lips moved.
The middle-aged man was startled and quickly walked to the window.
With a loud creak, the two window panes were pushed open violently.
Outside the window was boundless, gloomy, and cold darkness.
“What’s wrong?” someone asked.
The middle-aged man leaned out and looked around, but found nothing.
He turned his head back and shrugged:
“There’s nothing.”
However, the old woman stopped speaking now. She withdrew her gaze, her sunken eyelids closed again, and her dead-wood-like body curled up in the chair, as if she had fallen asleep.
The middle-aged man shook his head, seemingly long accustomed to the old woman’s neuroticism, a helpless expression on his face.
Just as he was about to close the window, the middle-aged woman stepped forward and stopped him.
“What time is it now?”
The woman looked deeply out the window, her expression worried.
“It’s already this dark?”
“Just a quarter past You hour (around 5:15 PM),” the middle-aged man replied, standing to the side with his arms crossed.
He stared at the darkness outside the window, endless worry accumulating on his brow, turning into deep wrinkles.
“…This place won’t hold out much longer.”
The room fell into an oppressive, suffocating silence.
After an unknown amount of time, someone finally spoke again, as if repeatedly confirming to reassure themselves:
“There are still three days, right?”
“Yes, three days.”
Outside the window, around the side wall.
Wen Jianyan stood leaning against the wall, his gaze deep. His palm was firmly covering the lit candle flame; even though the flesh of his palm was being scorched, he didn’t move an inch.
Accompanied by a few rooster crows, the deep darkness that could almost swallow everything finally retreated slowly as if satisfied. The faint morning light crept over the horizon, casting the long-absent brightness onto the ground, awakening this dying town.
A series of knocks rang out on the door.
“Wake up, wake up!”
A-Yuan patted the door, looking completely elated, showing none of his initial vigilance from yesterday.
“…What’s all the noise about,” Wen Jianyan’s voice was lazy and still heavy with sleep, “What time is it even…”
With a creak, the door was opened from the inside.
The young man looked bleary-eyed with sleep. Because he hadn’t slept properly, the hem of his shirt had come undone.
“Ahhhh—” A-Yuan screamed and covered his eyes, “You, you, you, put your clothes on properly!”
“Oh.” Wen Jianyan looked down, seemingly just realizing he was disheveled. He responded slowly and methodically buttoned up his shirt.
After confirming Wen Jianyan had dressed properly, A-Yuan lowered his hands. His expression was still a bit bashful, but his voice was very serious, acting like a little adult: “You need to pay more attention in the future, you can’t be so indecent.”
“Alright, alright…” Wen Jianyan agreed absentmindedly.
He leaned sideways against the doorframe, “So, what’s our activity for today?”
A-Yuan thought for a moment, “Where do you want to go?”
“I think the street you took me to yesterday was pretty good, the food was delicious.” Wen Jianyan blinked and smiled, “How about we go there again?”
“Okay, okay!” A-Yuan cheered up.
“I love walking around the streets the most!”
The two walked the same path as yesterday, heading towards the shopping street one after the other.
As they walked, Wen Jianyan beat around the bush, discreetly inquiring about everything in the town.
He never asked about anything that might be related to ghosts; his only concern was the townspeople here.
The town wasn’t big, and there weren’t many people with notable names. A-Yuan’s vigilance wasn’t high either, so in just a few minutes, Wen Jianyan had already gotten the information he wanted.
Everything here was no different from yesterday. There were many shops open along the long street. Although some had already closed down, the remaining few that were open were bustling with the atmosphere of daily life. Wen Jianyan was taken by A-Yuan to the same bun shop from yesterday for breakfast, and then they started strolling around slowly again—just like yesterday, enthusiastic shopkeepers stuffed things into their hands. The further they walked, the more things they held.
Under Wen Jianyan’s quiet guidance, very soon, before A-Yuan noticed, the two approached that tailor shop once again.
Wen Jianyan seemed to think of something and abruptly stopped walking.
He looked down and patted his pockets: “Oh dear, I left something at the breakfast shop…”
A-Yuan turned his head, looking surprised: “What?”
“You know, I’m still wounded right now. After walking for so long, I’m already exhausted to death,” Wen Jianyan blinked, putting on a pitiful act. “Good A-Yuan, could you help me go get it?”
“Then, then don’t run off on your own,” A-Yuan hesitated.
“Don’t worry,” Wen Jianyan readily promised. “Besides, I’m an outsider who doesn’t know the way. Without you leading me, I can’t go anywhere anyway, right?”
“Okay then, I’ll be right back!”
A-Yuan figured that made sense, so he turned around and skipped back the way they came.
Watching A-Yuan’s figure disappear, the innocent expression on Wen Jianyan’s face vanished. He expressionlessly withdrew his gaze, deliberately placed the items in his hands in the middle of the road, and then strode towards the tailor shop not far away. His movements were swift and agile, showing absolutely no sign of being “exhausted to death”.
“Creak—”
Accompanied by the hoarse sound of turning door hinges, the shop’s front door was pushed open from the outside.
The tailor shop was pitch-black inside.
Even though the sunlight was bright outside, the lighting in here was severely lacking. Dusty, old clothes hung on the shelves, and eighty percent of the shop was submerged in darkness. Shadows flickered in the corners, making one feel inexplicably flustered looking at it.
But Wen Jianyan didn’t change his expression. He wasn’t surprised by the scene here at all; instead, he walked in with practiced ease.
He navigated unhurriedly between the shelves, his gaze sweeping over the old clothes hanging on the walls.
Right at this moment, a gloomy and cold voice came from behind:
“Need any help, customer?”
Wen Jianyan turned his head, only to see a figure standing behind the previously empty shelves, appearing at some unknown time.
It was a middle-aged man with a gloomy face and a straight posture.
A hint of a smile flitted across Wen Jianyan’s lips.
He didn’t answer immediately, but reached out, took a piece of clothing off the shelf, and then slowly walked over to the counter.
The clothes were tossed onto the counter.
“I want this one.”
“I’m sorry,” the middle-aged man stared fixedly at Wen Jianyan, his eyes sinking into the shadows beneath his brow bone, smiling without the smile reaching his eyes, “You can’t afford its price.”
“Is that so?” Wen Jianyan appeared perfectly composed.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “If you guys hadn’t confiscated my money, I might have been able to afford it.”
In that instant, a fierce glint flashed across the middle-aged man’s eyes. He abruptly raised his head, staring dead at Wen Jianyan: “You really do know…”
The air in the entire tailor shop seemed to turn cold in an instant.
The middle-aged man’s mouth twitched irregularly as he let out a cold sneer:
“Even though A-Ma said we can’t do anything to you, since you delivered yourself to my door, don’t blame me for being impolite.”
With a loud clatter, the front door a short distance away slammed tightly shut.
The next second, all the ready-made clothes in the room seemed to come alive. Human faces struggled beneath the fabrics, trapping Wen Jianyan’s hands and feet. As the fabrics entangled him, they presented an eerie, supple texture just like human skin.
The middle-aged man slowly walked out from behind the counter.
“How did you find this place, and where did the money on you come from? Speak!”
Wen Jianyan relaxed his body, letting the bindings pull tight. He looked up with a half-smile: “Wanna know?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Of course, if you guys are willing to give me back what’s mine, it’s not like I can’t reveal a little…”
The moment the other party stood still, Wen Jianyan suddenly leaned forward. Caught off guard, the middle-aged man involuntarily leaned back.
“Or rather, you don’t have the item?”
The young man’s disdainful gaze swept over his body, a malicious smile lightly pulling at his lips.
“Then there’s nothing we can do. Have the person who’s actually in charge come talk to me… alright?”
“You—”
The middle-aged man’s pupils shrank, and his stern face seemed to crack. Because they were so close, Wen Jianyan could almost hear the grinding of his teeth, “Refusing a toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit!” (Choosing the hard way!).
“Urgh!”
The fabric wrapped around the young man’s neck, squeezing out red marks, and violently dragged him to the ground.
The intense suffocation caused Wen Jianyan to struggle instinctively. He knocked over the nearby shelves, instantly making a mess of the floor.
As he kicked and thrashed, the hem of his shirt rode up, revealing a patch of fair skin. On his rapidly heaving lower abdomen, dark golden patterns emerged, sinking deeply downward.
The middle-aged man’s movements noticeably stalled.
His expression changed drastically, and he took a step forward:
“This is—”
But before he could do anything, the front door was forcefully pushed open with a loud bang.
A-Yuan was panting heavily, and following behind him was the middle-aged woman with a gloomy face.
It was none other than the proprietress of the bun shop.
Wen Jianyan hadn’t left anything behind at the bun shop.
A-Yuan was still young and didn’t know anything, but as one of the town’s managers, the bun shop proprietress couldn’t possibly be unaware of the hidden danger.
Her gaze swept over the messy floor and Wen Jianyan, who was struggling on the verge of death. Her eyes grew even colder:
“Uncle De, you’ve crossed the line.”
“…” The middle-aged man didn’t speak.
However, the clothing around Wen Jianyan’s neck loosened.
“Cough, cough cough cough cough!” Wen Jianyan curled up, coughing violently.
“Auntie Kun, listen to me…” Uncle De took an unwilling step forward, seemingly trying to defend himself, but before he could finish, Auntie Kun interrupted him with an angry shout: “Shut up!”
“A-Yuan,” she turned her head, softening her tone as she spoke to A-Yuan, “Take the guest back to his room first.”
A-Yuan answered “Okay,” scurried over to Wen Jianyan, and helped him up.
His goal already achieved, Wen Jianyan didn’t linger.
Relying on A-Yuan’s support, he stood up shakily and left the tailor shop with him.
Soon, A-Yuan escorted him back to the small courtyard where they had started.
The child looked at Wen Jianyan’s neck, which already showed hideous bruises. His expression was complicated as he hesitated to speak: “You…”
“Forget it, get some rest.”
Tossing out that sentence as if sulking, A-Yuan turned and ran off without looking back.
Wen Jianyan returned to the room.
As soon as the door closed, the strength he had been forcing himself to maintain seemed to vanish. He slid down against the door, sat on the floor, and let out a trembling, long breath.
He gained quite a lot this time.
First of all, he confirmed that his item wasn’t in the hands of Uncle De, or any other townsperson of a similar level. Since that was the case, there was only one possible place it could be—in that old woman’s dilapidated house.
Secondly…
Wen Jianyan touched his side abdomen.
The mark Wu Zhu had left rested quietly on that patch of skin, neither burning nor showing any abnormalities.
Wu Zhu had said that was his name.
Recalling Uncle De’s overly intense reaction upon seeing it, Wen Jianyan subconsciously held his breath.
Although he didn’t understand the specific reason for the time being, it was clear that the other party recognized this mark.
Even…
Understood its meaning.
This meant he had to start taking action immediately.
Otherwise, once that guy told the rest of the town about this, it would be very difficult for him to have the same freedom of movement he had now.
Finally—
Wen Jianyan pushed against the door panel to stand up. He slowly exhaled, reached into his pocket, and pulled out three crumpled, grayish-white spirit money.
The more chaotic the situation, the more perfect the opportunity to steal.
After all, he didn’t have any items now. Stepping into that realm of death in his current state meant his life would be taken the moment he touched the soil.
This also meant that if Wen Jianyan wanted to return to that no man’s land, he had to acquire a human-skin garment and mask from the shop for protection, just like in the Xingwang Hotel instance. And he had to obtain them through purchase—after all, if he didn’t pay, they would turn into deadly, murderous entities.
Only then could Wen Jianyan return to that land of death alive once more.
