Song Zang’s nerves tightened, and he became even more vigilant.
In an environment nearly dead silent, a living thing had suddenly breathed beside his ear and even brazenly made strange noises… That was far more frightening than a pair of floating eyeballs.
Was it provoking him, testing him, trying to murder him, or deliberately frightening him out of sheer malice?
There were too few clues. Song Zang had to probe first. He made his breathing extremely light, his face pale as though he had been terrified senseless. Tears gathered in his dark eyes as he cautiously shrank deeper beneath the blankets.
Like an ostrich desperately pretending danger did not exist, he hid most of his face under the quilt, acting as though he was too frightened to confront whatever was happening. Pathetically, he even raised one trembling hand to cover his lips and discreetly wiped away his tears.
That was right. He was simply this fragile and helpless, timid and cowardly, capable of nothing except pitifully waiting for danger to approach.
…
“What are you crying about?”
Only after a moment did Yin Chen’s puzzled voice come from beside the bed.
Song Zang: ?!?!
The instant he heard Yin Chen speak, Song Zang nearly stopped breathing.
He even wanted to sit up immediately, start a huge argument with this bastard, and demand to know whether Yin Chen was some kind of psychological pervert who enjoyed sneaking over in the middle of the night to scare people for no reason.
But that budding anger lasted less than half a second. Song Zang’s heart suddenly clenched, and a much deeper chill rapidly devoured it.
That wasn’t Yin Chen.
Because he could not smell Yin Chen’s familiar, distinctive scent. There was no faint bitterness of medicinal herbs, no trace of ink from an inkstone, and none of the subtle cosmetic fragrance lingering at the tips of his hair.
The voice sounded exactly the same, but its owner absolutely was not Yin Chen. Song Zang could hardly believe he had failed to distinguish the fake immediately.
As a player with extremely high Resistance, Song Zang rarely found himself doubting the speed of his own perception.
Had he encountered another ghost or monster skilled at shapeshifting and mimicking voices?
Another possibility was that he had unknowingly fallen into an exceptionally realistic hallucination, or accidentally entered some strange domain covering the entire village.
Song Zang could not rule out any hypothesis yet, while the breathing continued. Cool, warmish air brushed through the soft strands of hair exposed beyond his blankets, creating an unreal, faint itch.
“…I’m scared.” Song Zang did not raise his head and continued crying softly as he tested it.
“Don’t be scared. It’s all right. I’m guarding you here. No one would dare disturb your sleep. Go to sleep peacefully.”
“Yin Chen” bent slightly and leaned beside his ear, soothing him sentence by sentence in an extremely gentle voice. The warmth and delicacy were like a mild spring breeze, making Song Zang involuntarily begin to relax.
That soft sense of security could very easily bring him fatal danger in the blink of an eye.
Listening to “Yin Chen” continue coaxing him and urging him to sleep only made Song Zang force himself to become even more alert. He absolutely could not fall asleep so easily.
Song Zang sniffled and answered timidly, deliberately tempting the monster deeper with his trembling, soft voice. “I’m scared. Hug me… Will you sleep with me?”
“Of course.”
Once the words fell, one corner of the quilt was slowly lifted. The stranger moved closer and gently lay down, almost completely pressed against Song Zang’s side.
Song Zang stiffened and immediately felt uncomfortable all over.
He had never been particularly accustomed to outsiders approaching him closely.
When Yin Chen had originally bullied him with constant touching and hugging, the two of them had fought over it many times. Only after great difficulty had Song Zang slowly learned to accept intimate skin-to-skin contact with Yin Chen.
But that acceptance applied to Yin Chen alone.
Now that this stranger’s body pressed close, all those instinctive feelings of avoidance and disgust from the past surged back again.
Subconscious reactions were the most truthful. He had definitely judged correctly. The person lying beside him absolutely was not Yin Chen.
The heavy cotton-stuffed quilt covering them had been personally sewn for her son by Tian Yue Xiang. Its stitches were dense enough to completely block the faint moonlight.
Inside the pitch-black blankets, the stranger moved naturally, laid one hand across Song Zang’s waist, and gently stroked him. “Sleep.”
“Okay.”
Song Zang’s tone never changed. With tearful eyes and an obedient, dependent expression, he looked up at the person, slowly leaned closer as though seeking comfort, and raised an arm as if preparing to wrap it around his neck.
Pshk.
Only then did the dull sound of flesh splitting begin repeatedly echoing beside them.
Song Zang naturally had no intention of truly cuddling him. His left hand rapidly pressed down on “Yin Chen’s” carotid sinus with vicious force, while his right hand immediately seized the knife hidden beneath his pillow and precisely stabbed the body within reach.
The first stab entered the temple, ensuring instantaneous brain damage and loss of the ability to think.
The second opened the throat, ensuring enough blood loss and that the severed artery would be fatal.
The third plunged into the heart. Then he stirred the blade forcefully through a wide arc, prying apart ribs and tearing lung tissue, adding insurance in advance.
This was a reliable killing method Song Zang had once used with great proficiency.
Efficient, fast to kill, very quiet, and extremely discreet.
Ever since recovering his memories, Song Zang had also successfully regained many neat, low-profile ways of dealing with enemies. After personally putting one into practice again tonight, he could not help feeling deeply emotional.
No wonder Yin Chen always carried a huge pile of knives wherever he went. Song Zang had previously suspected that he was some kind of psychological pervert, but now… Song Zang finally understood him.
Because Song Zang himself had never been much better.
Back then, he had actually possessed the bad habit of collecting small knives and keeping one available at all times. Inside instances, knives had always been his favorite tools for chopping people up. It was one of his little-known personal hobbies.
Looking at it this way, he and Yin Chen really were destined for each other. Their interests practically aligned perfectly.
After killing the hallucinated Yin Chen, Song Zang did not act recklessly.
He continued lying cautiously on his side, sobbing softly while patiently waiting to see whether the corpse might reanimate, ready to stab it again if necessary.
Blood spraying from the person’s neck rapidly soaked the sheets, continuously splashing beside Song Zang’s face and mixing with his wet, burning tears.
He wiped away the “teardrops” with the sleeve of his undershirt and did not forget to complain theatrically in a soft voice. “Why aren’t you hugging me tighter yet? What are you standing there stunned for?”
A long time passed with no response.
Song Zang breathed a sigh of relief and carefully sat upright, peeling wet strands of hair away from his face.
His head and face were completely covered in blood now, while the blankets had been soaked through. He definitely looked especially miserable.
Tomorrow he absolutely had to wake up early, secretly clean everything, and wash the quilt. Otherwise Tian Yue Xiang would scold him to death…
The horrifying eyeballs vanished without a trace the instant he sat up. Song Zang sat at the head of the bed and searched every corner of the room with his gaze while listening closely to the chirping cicadas gradually becoming clearer outside.
The lively restlessness of a summer night tore a tiny opening through the vacuumlike silence of the false hallucination. Reality flowed through that crack alongside the pale moonlight beneath the eaves, slowly seeping back into Song Zang’s bedroom.
Only then could Song Zang finally confirm that he had returned to the real world.
The bedsheets were still wet. A large foreign mass still bulged beneath the blankets, and viscous liquid leaked through the bedboards, dripping onto the dirt floor with slow drip, drip sounds.
Outside the hallucination, he really had killed something alive.
In that case… who was it?
Song Zang lightly bit his lip, turned around, and slowly lifted the soaked quilt again.
The instant he looked properly, Song Zang could not stop himself from sucking in a sharp breath.
“…Grandfather?”
The bearded old man stared wide-eyed in death, his gaze refusing to close. The smell of blood mixed with tobacco and produced a faint, strangely rancid odor.
He had not mistaken him. The lifeless corpse lying on the bed belonged to Grandfather Song.
He had actually killed Grandfather Song.
Dense, twisted blood vessels bulged grotesquely across the old man’s eyes, the pupils blown wide and giving Song Zang an eerie sense of familiarity.
Those first floating eyeballs he had seen belonged to Grandfather Song.
Exactly identical. Absolutely genuine. They had displayed Grandfather’s bewildered, terrified despair in the instant before death.
Why?
How could this have happened?
Song Zang could not understand.
He hurriedly picked up the blood-smeared little knife and examined it carefully. Only his own fingerprints marked the handle, while the tip contained nothing except Grandfather Song’s blood and flesh.
There was no abnormal filth, no cold corrosive aura, and no sign that he had been controlled by gu insects.
He truly had killed Grandfather Song.
Song Zang took a deep breath and put the knife away.
Fortunately, he had not yet built a sufficiently deep emotional connection with the Song family and could still analyze the situation rationally.
Song Zang was very possibly not the only person who had fallen into a hallucination.
In the dead of night, Grandfather Song had no reason to inexplicably leave the rear house and enter his grandson’s bedroom just to gently coax him to sleep.
A reasonable hypothesis was that Grandfather Song himself had also been unable to sleep, fallen into hallucinations because of his insomnia, and seen the wife who had died during their flight from war.
The specific truth remained unknown for the moment, but the key problem now was that the timeline of tonight’s incident did not make sense.
Song Zang had first been startled by those 【dead person’s】 eyeballs.
Only around ten minutes later did he personally kill their owner.
When Song Zang delivered the first stab, Grandfather Song absolutely had not been dead.
Song Zang was perfectly capable of distinguishing the eyes of a living person from organs taken from a corpse.
Everything he had experienced tonight was deeply wrong. Even if some supernatural ghost or monster had manipulated events from behind the scenes, a corpse’s organs from the 【future】 should never have appeared ahead of time, much less floated quietly in midair merely to frighten him.
It made no sense unless the enemy possessed a tremendously powerful ability to control time.
Had Grandfather Song personally become entangled with some cursed filth, making this fatal destiny impossible to escape? Or had someone used bizarre precognition, or some kind of future rewind, deliberately arranging for Grandfather Song to die by Song Zang’s hand?
There were many possibilities, and Song Zang’s questioning about Grandfather Song’s wife before going to sleep… had probably also served as part of the trigger and burden of responsibility.
But Grandfather was already dead. Regretting it now accomplished nothing. Song Zang could only help him get revenge later.
Song Zang sighed, dragged the heavy corpse off his bed, kicked open the door, and pulled it outside by the legs.
He had to dispose of it quickly. If anyone discovered Grandfather’s death, Song Zang really would have no way to marry Yin Chen into the family anytime soon.
Halfway through dragging him, snores drifted from the neighboring room. Song Wei Yi’s snoring was especially loud. Clearly, his parents were sleeping soundly and had noticed nothing about the murder just beyond their door.
Song Zang did not relax his guard. He was even still silently crying in apparent terror, awkwardly and laboriously hugging Grandfather’s legs. His slender wrists trembled until they turned pale blue, as if he was about to lose his strength.
At that moment, a roof tile clicked softly overhead. Song Zang abruptly raised his head and met the gaze of a tall figure against the night sky.
Yin Chen.
Yin Chen was no longer wearing a skirt. He had changed into a comfortable pale-white cross-collared undershirt, faintly revealing the outlines of his collarbones and chest muscles. Ink-black hair hung casually to his waist, swaying gently in the wind as he effortlessly posed like some handsome hero.
He stared down at Song Zang… and at the glaring trail of twisted blood dragged from Song Zang’s bedroom.
“Put it down immediately. I’ll handle it,” Yin Chen said calmly.
Truthfully, Yin Chen’s eyes were not remotely gentle. They even carried a sinister, chilling darkness. Yet the small amount of unease lingering in Song Zang’s heart rapidly faded at that exact moment.
So fierce. So reassuring.
Yin Chen jumped down from the roof, frowned as he lifted Song Zang’s face, and wiped away the dried blood. His movements were not particularly gentle either.
“…How did you get yourself this filthy?” he clicked his tongue.
Song Zang immediately looked wronged and wrapped around him like an octopus, whining softly, “Hug me. I was almost scared to death.”
He smeared Yin Chen’s undershirt into a complete mess, leaving bloody handprints everywhere, while cautiously sniffing Yin Chen’s scent at the same time.
Yes, yes. This was the real Yin Chen!
Song Zang immediately hugged him even tighter and buried his face in the hollow of Yin Chen’s neck, inhaling wildly.
Yin Chen froze, standing rigidly in place and completely unable to understand why Song Zang had suddenly become this perverted.
But he did not push him away. He pressed his lips together and rubbed Song Zang’s head, his Adam’s apple quietly rolling.
Yin Chen was an extreme clean freak. Whenever anything dirty touched him, he absolutely had to wipe and wash it away carefully. He even carried disinfectant wipes inside instances.
Yet he apparently had never disliked any dirt on Song Zang. Every time, he selectively forgot his own germophobia. His favoritism had crossed the Pacific.
Just like now. Yin Chen gently gathered Song Zang into his arms and brought him onto the roof, placing Song Zang on the flattest tiles and making him sit there obediently.
“I’ll clean it up for you. Sit properly and eat some late-night food.”
Yin Chen pulled an oil-paper packet from inside his clothes. A rich fragrance drifted out. After handing it to Song Zang, he flipped back down and began cleaning the murder scene.
Song Zang blankly unwrapped the packet and discovered that it contained a freshly cooked beef flatbread.
As expected of the Eldest Princess. Being able to eat huge pieces of steaming-hot beef in the middle of the night… How extravagantly luxurious!
Song Zang sat beneath the eaves and ate large mouthfuls of meat while Yin Chen stored Grandfather Song’s corpse, with all three stab wounds, directly inside his system inventory.
Then Yin Chen leisurely picked up a broom, roughly swept the scraps of flesh from the dirt floor, removed the bloody bedding, remade the bed, and even replaced the bedboard with a brand-new slab of redwood.
Song Zang could hardly imagine how many miscellaneous everyday necessities Yin Chen actually kept inside his inventory slots.
As for the most troublesome bloodstains, Yin Chen thought for a moment and simply purchased a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner.
He dragged a heavy mop from deep inside the storage room, poured cleaner over it, and removed the stains in no time.
Yin Chen moved lightly and walked without sound. He cleaned everything inside and outside the room without waking a single member of the household. On the way, he even broke into Grandfather Song’s room to inspect it and gathered up all of the bamboo strips used for weaving.
After finishing the cleaning and satisfying his obsessive-compulsive tendencies, Yin Chen’s mood immediately improved considerably.
He curved his lips, picked Song Zang up, and stepped across the tiled roofs as they left the compound. “Come on. Go bathe at my place. Xiu Zhu just finished heating the water.”
Xiu Zhu was He Wen Bin’s young pageboy, but He Wen Bin rarely needed him during ordinary days and normally left him available for Yin Chen to order around.
Xiu Zhu had spent the entire night helping Yin Chen with miscellaneous tasks.
After panting through the work of filling a bathing tub with hot water, Xiu Zhu wiped his sweat and stretched. The instant he turned around, he saw the “Eldest Princess” returning while carrying a young man.
Both of them were covered in blood and dressed only in somewhat improper underclothes. White fragments of brain matter even clung to the side of Yin Chen’s neck, leaving them looking miserable and horrifyingly bloody.
The young pageboy’s eyes widened. He nearly fainted on the spot.
Yin Chen did not care. He casually instructed, “Keep your mouth shut. Go heat another tub of water.”
“Y-yes, Miss…”
Xiu Zhu’s voice trembled. He turned and scampered away. Watching him, Song Zang wanted to laugh. “What do we do? We’ve been caught having illicit relations without a matchmaker.”
Yin Chen’s lips lifted. “Then you have to take responsibility and marry me.”
“Of course. Great-Grandfather already agreed to the marriage. In a couple of days I’ll go to town and exchange the banknote for silver.”
“On the school rest day? I’ll come with you.”
“Sure~”
Yin Chen had never trusted Song Zang to go anywhere alone. Song Zang had long since become accustomed to the two of them moving around like conjoined twins and had no objections whatsoever.
Since they had not bathed yet and were already filthy, Yin Chen took Grandfather Song’s corpse out and laid it flat across a wooden chopping block in the rear courtyard.
He picked up a beautifully made sharp dagger, quickly cut open the flesh, and performed a simple autopsy.
Song Zang watched the small knife with interest. Its handle had the warm luster of gold inlaid with jade, while the snow-white blade bore the engraved characters 【Yongjia】. It was extremely extravagant and was probably a custom-made defensive weapon supplied specifically to the Eldest Princess.
Yin Chen did not notice Song Zang staring. He conducted the autopsy seriously and soon reached his final conclusion.
Not a monster. The muscles were atrophied and lax. There were mild lesions in the brain’s white matter. No suspicious traces of gu insects existed.
Without question, Grandfather Song was an ordinary human being with practically no fighting ability.
But the way Song Zang had killed him… had been unusually practiced.
Yin Chen raised his eyes toward Song Zang, his expression unreadable. “Did he behave strangely today?”
“Probably not. I only asked him about Grandmother. Grandfather said he had wronged her.”
Song Zang showed no guilt at all and seriously searched his memories.
Xiu Zhu tremblingly interrupted them, his face white. “Miss… the water is ready.”
“Good.” Yin Chen threw the dagger to Xiu Zhu and wrapped his arm around Song Zang. “We’ll bathe together.”
Xiu Zhu froze, and Song Zang froze even harder.
But neither of them possessed any authority over Yin Chen’s decisions.
Naturally, the princess’s bathing arrangements had plenty of ceremony. Even in a tiny mountain village, dried flower petals had been prepared for soaking in the bath.
Petals of various colors floated across the water and perfectly blocked the view beneath the hazy steam. Song Zang’s gaze behaved itself and stayed above Yin Chen’s collarbones. He did not really dare look below the water.
He hugged Yin Chen’s arm and continued pitifully recounting the fright he had suffered that night and all his theories.
“You recognized so quickly that it wasn’t me?” Yin Chen raised an eyebrow.
Song Zang nodded seriously. “Of course. Yin Chen, you definitely cursed me. Now I’m only willing to sleep with you. When anyone else touches me, I feel uncomfortable.”
“…Sweet talk.”
“It’s the truth!”
The ambiguous atmosphere did not last long. With danger ahead, neither of them had much energy for romantic thoughts.
Yin Chen had encountered no supernatural phenomena. Neither had He Wen Bin or the others. Yin Chen had gone to find Song Zang purely to deliver a late-night snack and, while he was there, sleep beside him.
If so, tonight’s danger had probably targeted only members of the Song family.
The two carefully discussed every possibility behind the “hallucination” while washing the blood from each other’s hair.
Washing hair in ancient times was genuinely difficult. They went through three full tubs of water before Yin Chen finally declared the battle complete.
Once Song Zang was completely clean, and under Xiu Zhu’s frightened, hesitant gaze, Yin Chen carried him back to the Song household and returned to the bedroom with him to sleep.
“I’ll stay with you until just before dawn and then leave. Your mother won’t discover me.”
Song Zang curled comfortably inside his arms and sighed softly, “Yin Chen, you’re too good to me. What am I supposed to do about that?”
“Marry me quickly,” Yin Chen demanded calmly and forcefully.
“Yes, Wife.”
Song Zang’s lips curved. He played with the damp ends of Yin Chen’s hair and chatted sleepily as drowsiness overtook him. “By the way, have you noticed none of the other players have appeared? This can’t possibly be a two-person instance. Where are they all hiding?”
Yin Chen sounded helpless. “Tianjia Village isn’t the only mountain village nearby. There are several scattered villages on the opposite side of the mountain.”
Song Zang froze, then suddenly understood. “Right!”
This instance involved imperial authority and a rebellion mission. The map was probably enormous. His own thinking had been too limited, trapped by his character background. He needed to reflect on that.
“School begins tomorrow morning. He Wen Bin plans to start by teaching the Four Books and Five Classics and recruiting a new group of students. Players from neighboring villages will definitely come once they hear about it. Stop thinking and sleep early.”
“Good night… The beef flatbread was especially delicious. You’re especially delicious too.” Song Zang grew sleepier and began murmuring nonsense.
Yin Chen: ??
＊
After peacefully surviving the night, Song Zang woke to a noisy courtyard.
The hardworking Song family had risen early. Amazingly, no one had discovered that Grandfather was already missing. Everyone simply busied themselves with their own work.
Because Song Zang was the center of attention today.
He quickly changed clothes and was dragged over by Tian Yue Xiang, who vigorously combed his hair and straightened every fold of his robe until he looked clean and respectable.
Tian Yue Xiang raised her head and carefully examined Song Zang while rubbing his shoulders. Unable to resist, she sighed with a smile. “What a pity. Such a handsome face, yet you weren’t born a girl.”
She looked genuinely regretful that all the pretty red cords and jewelry intended for daughters had never been useful. She could not dress Song Zang up even more fancifully.
Song Zang smiled brightly. “You’ll have a daughter very soon. My wife will be your daughter too.”
“Tsk, what nonsense are you saying, brat? Stop talking about women all day. A scholar should behave like a scholar.
“No matter how much you like Miss Yin, you must wait until after the wedding before openly treating her well. Otherwise you’ll harm her reputation. Do you hear me?”
Tian Yue Xiang frowned and lectured him all the way toward the school.
Song Zang obediently endured the lesson, answering repeatedly with helpless amusement.
He carried a bamboo book box personally woven by his elder brother, walking with light steps and deliberately adding a little youthful excitement to his movements. Tian Yue Xiang carried a basket containing eggs and two thick strips of fatty cured pork, the tuition gift she had prepared in advance for Scholar He.
The cured pork came from their own pig and naturally used generous cuts of meat. An inviting oily sheen faintly seeped through its surface, and it smelled delicious. Tian Yue Xiang discreetly hid the meat at the very bottom of the egg basket, perfectly avoiding the investigative gazes of the gossiping aunties.
His mother in this instance really was an exceptionally sensible and decent woman.
As expected, many new faces had arrived at the school. Most were young men from nearby villages, although several small children had also been carried over by their parents specifically so the teacher could “take a look at them” and judge whether they had potential.
Even local landlords had come specifically to request calligraphy, their carriages loaded with heavy gifts until the entrance was almost completely blocked.
A mere stipend-holding xiucai was enough to attract the attention of several mountain villages. That alone demonstrated exactly how scarce educational resources were in the mountains.
Ning Yan and Ning Ran stepped down from a carriage one after the other, using the coachman’s back as a footstool, and abruptly entered Song Zang’s field of view amid the chaos.
Both were obviously sons from a wealthy household. Their clothes were bright and expensive, their elegant hair crowns clearly costly, and their expressions arrogant.
Song Zang fell silent.
Fine. So everyone else had been assigned extremely impressive roles.
He alone was some country bumpkin whose family was so poor they had nothing left except five thousand taels. He was so pitiful.