Chapter 92: Loop of Deaths

‘After I finish this manager mission, I will become the new building manager.’ Han Fei repeated the positive reinforcement in his mind. Initially, he studied these psychological tricks to help his neighbours out but as fate would have it, he ended up using them on himself first. ‘The mission does not give any detailed description, I’ll have to do the exploration on my own.’

He glanced at the brazier, picture frame and black and white photo. This looked like it was prepared for Tou Qi, the seventh day after a person’s death when said person’s soul would be expected to return. ‘This whole setup gives me the chills.’ Han Fei tipped over the picture frame so he would not need to keep looking at his death portrait. He held the handle to Room 1091. When he tried to push the door open, the robotic voice said, “Notification for Player 0000! You need to kill all the ghosts, and save all the humans inside this room!”

The door swung open. Before Han Fei even stepped through the threshold, a girl’s head fell from the top of the frame and latched itself onto the back of Han Fei’s neck!

Pain surged through his body. Han Fei gripped at the head but no matter how hard he pulled, he was unable to shake the thing loose. Blood blurred his sigh. His trachea shattered and air wheezed out intermittently from his mouth. The voice died in his throat as his energy drained away. Pain came from everywhere. Han Fei collapsed to the ground. His consciousness wavered and the last thought on his mind was, ‘So this is what death feels like?’

…

His eyes flew open and Han Fei found himself standing before the door to Room 1091. The young man himself smiled brightly at him from the picture frame which was righted again. ‘That was considered one death?!’ Everything happened so quickly. Han Fei then realized the aim of this mission was to strip the players of their memory. Han Fei wiped away the cold sweat and reminded himself of the system warning. There was no death penalty when he attempted this mission but every death would result in a memory loss. When the player forgot his own identity, the previous manager would be reborn in the player’s body. ‘This mission is far more dangerous and difficult than I thought!’

Han Fei raked through his brain and he believed he did not find any obvious hole in his memory but that was the thing that worried him the most. ‘Would I eventually forget the fact that my memory will be partially erased with each death?’ Suppressing the apprehension, Han Fei turned to Room 1091, ‘A girl’s head will fall from the top once I open the door, she will aim for my neck and snap it immediately…’

Han Fei had no interest in reliving that experience. He picked up the brazier and looked around. ‘The mission told me to kill all the ghosts in the room but with what? By burning paper money for them or turning them against each other?’

Han Fei stood there, thinking for 5 minutes. Suddenly, the door to Room 1051 opened on its own. The girl’s head swung forward at a degree. The last thing Han Fei saw was her glinting jaws. The girl chomped and tore off Han Fei’s throat. The young man tumbled over and died in his own pool of blood.

…

His eyes flew open and Han Fei’s hands reached subconsciously to his neck. ‘Looks like I can’t stay idle for too long either. I need to proceed with the progress.’

Shaking his head, Han Fei cleared his mind. His first two deaths brought him plenty of pain but also valuable experience. For example, he had memorized the location of the head. This time he swore to evade the attack and dashed into the room. Picking up the brazier, Han Fei raised it at a certain angle as he pushed open the door!

Bang! The girl’s head knocked into the bottom of the brazier. A groan echoed inside the room as the head careened backwards. Han Fei followed up on the aggression. He rushed into the room and cupped the girl’s head under the brazier.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

As the head knocked against the brazier, Han Fei used the valuable time to study the room around him, ‘There’s a glass coffee table with a fruit basket filled with rotten fruits. There are two bedrooms down the left corridor and a kitchen on the right…’

As the brazier clattered noisily against the ground, announcing the head’s freedom, Han Fei charged towards the kitchen. He needed a weapon, and knives were usually found inside kitchens. Opening the kitchen door, a heady smell of decomposition hit Han Fei. A middle-aged woman was mincing rotten meat before a chopping block!

After she saw Han Fei, she let loose a banshee-like wail as she threw her knife at Han Fei. The knife stuck into his shoulders. Then a gnashing pain came from the back of his neck. Han Fei collapsed to the ground. As pain overwhelmed him, Han Fei tried to memorize every small detail he could capture with his eyes!

…

His eyes flew open. ‘That was my fourth death.’ Han Fei couldn’t tell what exactly he had forgotten and he hated that feeling immensely. ‘This mission is impossibly difficult. The main problem comes from the memory loss. Will I eventually forget that I am doing a mission inside a game and assume that I am born in this place?’

The thought chilled Han Fei to the core. Han Fei counted the time quietly in his mind. ‘Based on my studies, there are 2 main kinds of memory, cognitive memory and motor memory. There are cases where people suffer from amnesia, remembering the routines that they’re used to before their memory loss. I can use this to my advantage because based on my observation, the black box inside my head will probably only affect my cognitive memory.’

To ensure that he would not lose himself completely, Han Fei decided to do something crazy. He glanced at himself in the picture frame. He picked it up and smashed it against the floor. Then he grabbed a glass shard and carved out 4 bloody gashes on his arm. This was his 4th death!

Blood dripped down his fingers. The pain was invigorating. Then Han Fei gouged out the name, Han Fei on his other arm. ‘I will repeat this every time I die, hopefully my body will remember this pain!’

He pocketed the glass shard and opened the door. Similar to last time, he blocked the girl’s head with the brazier but this time he ran towards the bedrooms instead. He did not stop lest the head caught up to him. ‘There are two bedrooms, the first door is pasted with the alphabet chart and study posters, it’s probably a nursery.’

Han Fei reached for the door handle of the room closer to the living room and pushed it open. The first thing that he saw was a room littered with toys. A toddler about 5 to 6 sat facing away from him in the middle of the toy pile.

With the girl’s head following close behind him, Han Fei dashed into the room. He remembered his goal: kill all the ghosts and save all the humans. ‘Is this child a ghost or a human?’

To be safe, he avoided the child and stayed hidden in the shadows behind the door. Regardless, the child sensed his presence and slowly turned around. A scarred face revealed itself to Han Fei. The child then let out a shrill whine. A pair of slender arms reached out from the shadows. They tightened around Han Fei’s neck and pulled him up to the ceiling. Han Fei’s face turned purple, his eyes bulged forward as he stared around the bedroom.

‘There are bloody clothes peeking through the closet gap, there’s half a face staring from under the bed, a person is hanged from behind the curtain, the shadow moved under the study table, there are at least 4 more ghosts inside this nursery…’

…

His eyes flew open. Before Han Fei did anything else, he shattered the picture frame. He used this special method to reinforce the motor memory into his body.

Each laceration represented a past that he must not forget.