Chapter 44: 2.28

It was two in the morning. The inside of the demon house was a bloodbath. A scene from purgatory. It was hell on earth.

Zhao Xuefeng and Li Daguo ran through the halls now stained red and reeking of blood with the friends they had left. Corpses, viscera and limbs were strewn around the corridor like sprinkles on a really messed up birthday cake. The house was filled with screams of despair and agony but after over two hours they had already become a little desensitized, numb to their own horror.

"That room! I saw it before, it's completely empty!" Li Daguo shouts, pointing at the second furthest room in the hallway.

Energized with the thought of a temporary safe haven everyone began to run even faster. However as they were almost there-

"Ah!" It was Li Daguo's girlfriend Chu Mei. She had slipped in a fresh puddle of blood, her clothes that were already torn and dirty now was irredeemably soaked in blood and stained with meat. However even though Chu Mei was repulsed to tears, she didn't have time to complain.

Because something was currently chasing them.

"Hehe, big sister, big sister, I'm going to catch you!" A child's voice calls out eagerly from a distance that was too close for everyone's liking. "Don't be scared, I won't bite~" the child's voice giggles as if a funny joke was just said however it just gave them all chills at the deceptively sweet laughter, "I'll just kill you!"

Suddenly a bloodied and grotesque looking child appears in tattered clothing. It was hard to even tell it's gender it's appearance was covered in blood and welts and natural mutated disfigurements. It's little red eyes glittered delightedly as it caught sight of the fallen girl, crooked teeth pulled up in a fierce attempt at a smile. "Found you! Found you! Hahaha!" It shrieks.

"Help me!" She cries, her body felt weak all over at the sight of the terrifying child. Chu Mei tries to push herself up but her thin arms were shaking like Bambi learning to walk the first time and she ended up slipping back into the cooled and congealed puddle of liquid. "Daguo!"

Li Daguo hesitates, he was merely a few meters away from a safe room they could barricade themselves in but... "Fuck! Chu Mei I'm coming! Keep trying!" He yells before running toward her.

"Brother!" The delinquent Zeng Hai screams and tries to drag his friend back but Zeng Hai had his arm broken and blackened by fending off the Ink Man and didn't have the strength currently to react fast enough.

"Come on!" Zhao Xuefeng pulls him back, his own friends had already fled to the room, it was just him, Tian Shun and Wu Xiaoli that had stayed behind to see if Li Daguo and Chu Mei could make it.

The ex-athlete Luo Qiu and intellectual Zhu Xiaosheng had already died a cruel and painful death. Luo Qiu was one of the first victims, he had been cocooned and crushed to death by Jia Hyson's hair when the group had unfortunately chosen to hide in the room he was residing. There wasn't even a body left, just a huge puddle of blood that had oozed out of the nightmare black hair and his mangled limbs. They looked like they had been torn and twisted off.

Zhu Xiaosheng tried to do the classic 'I'm better than you fools I deserve to live' backstab by pushing Tian Shun of all people into the clutches of a ghost to save himself. Needless to say, his consequent death was too terrible to even describe.

"Shut up! That's my brother!" Zeng Hai snaps furiously as he tries to break free.

Tian Shun's cold voice then rang out, making Zeng Hai who respected Tian Shun pause, "If you go you'll just hold him back, do you think Li Daguo will be happy if you die for no reason?"

Zeng Hai bit his lips till they turned as bloody as everything else in the house, but his turbulent emotions had already been settled by Tian Shun's logical words and he stopped struggling. Zhao Xuefeng and Wu Xiaoli gave Tian Shun admiring looks though Zhao Xuefeng's own gaze had a hint of heat in it as well.

Zhao Xuefeng couldn't help but want to wrap his arms around the cool gorgeous transfer student. Even though Tian Shun has been acting as their pillar of support the moment this hell had started, acting as the voice of reason and doing his best to try keep them alive and safe, Zhao Xuefeng has been always watching him closer knew that it was taking it's toll. He can see the way Tian Shun's arms shake slightly, his strong hands clenched into pale fists and how his back was tense, ready to jump in and save Li Daguo if needed.

Zhao Xuefeng's heart aches at seeing this strong yet vulnerable Tian Shun. He vows that at the very least, Tian Shun needs to make it out of here alive. And... maybe... if they both survive Zhao Xuefeng could...

"Ahhhh! NOO!" Chu Mei screams as she becomes the rope in a tug of war between her boyfriend and the ghost child. "It hurts! It HURTS!! N-NO! St-AH-p!"

"Chu Mei!" Li Daguo frantically grits out, "Just, just bear with it!"

"S-something is ripping!" Chu Mei was sobbing wretchedly, "Daguo stop! Let, let go! It hurts!"

"If I let go you will die!" Li Daguo roars with reddened eyes. However the ghost child's grip was too strong, Li Daguo can feel his own arms ache from strain.

Tian Shun took this moment to move, running forward he grabbed Chu Mei's arms just as Li Daguo weakened. "T-Tian Shun!" Li Daguo and Chu Mei looked at him with hope in their eyes.

"We can, ungh, do this," Tian Shun grunts as he helps them. Zhao Xuefeng was also running to help them giving the pair even more hope. Li Daguo, with renewed vigor and determination grabbed onto Chu Mei tightly once again while the girl grit her teeth and bore the pain.

However unbeknownst to them, Tian Shun gazed at the child and give three blinks in succession.

The child grins.

Three blinks meant certain death.

With the signal the child did not back down but increased its strength making Chu Mei cry out in agony once more. Zhao Xuefeng wasn't the protagonist for nothing and instead of helping pull Chu Mei he instead used an iron poker he found beforehand to rush up and hit the child with.

The ghost child was very quick witted and immediately turned invisible and intangible. However it was still a young ghost that died an even younger age so it's control was not too good and it accidentally turned all of itself intangible, freeing Chu Mei.

Tian Shun and Li Daguo wastes no time in picking Chu Mei up, each putting an arm around their shoulder and dragging her quickly toward the room.

Zhao Xuefeng spent a few moments blindingly hitting around in hopes of scaring the kid off before running back to the room. Because he was not burdened he quickly moved ahead of them. As he reach the doorway to the room he turned back to encourage the trio to move faster however when he opened his mouth what he yelled was, "D-Drop her!"

Li Daguo and Tian Shun looked confused before instinctively turning to glance at each other in hopes the other understood. But what they saw instead was the madly grinning repulsive face of the child piggybacking on Chu Mei's shoulders. Before they could even respond, the child's small hands placed themselves on the side of Chu Mei's face and sharply twisted her head in a loud violent manner, killing her instantly.

"Ah, ah, aaaAAAHHhHhH!" Li Daguo stumbled and fell in shock, his now dead girlfriend falling on top of him as he let go. "Chu Mei! Ch-Chu Mei!"

A soft giggling brushes the back of his ears making Li Daguo tremble with fear, even though he's scared he couldn't help but turn toward the sound. The child's mutilated and mutated face appears so close to his own that their noses almost touched. "Boo!"

Li Daguo screams incoherently, kicking and punching and flailing blindly while Tian Shun does his best to drag him away. The ghost child had disappeared but the echoing of it's laughter lingered hauntingly.

When they close the door to the room Li Daguo begins to sob uncontrollably. "Why," he gasps, "why is this happening?!"

"Shhh!" Hao Fan snaps as he clutches the wound on his side courtesy of the sharp nails from some mad demonic women in a black bridal dress, "What if you attract something over here?"

"I want to go home! I want to go home!" Ming Bo wails suddenly. Ever since the first corpse that hit the ground messily in the middle of the dance floor, Ming Bo, who was 'coincidentally' right in the splatter zone, had not recovered well. The fact she was still alive was truly only due to Jia Hyson's insistence to draw out her suffering. Paranoid, high-maintenance, whiny… She complains and nitpicks people's plans but can't think of one when asked, she forces others to scout out ahead with excuses and emotional blackmail and somehow still has time in all this mess to talk shit about her companion… The more Jia Hyson saw her the more irritated he felt with her character.

And the more irritated he felt… well… hehe..

Ming Bo turns to the still distraught Li Daguo with a resentful look, "This is all your fault! If you hadn't thrown this party we wouldn't be in this mess! You killed everyone here! This is your fault you selfish piece of shit!"

"You bitch!" Zeng Hai curses weakly from where he's laying on the floor against a wall. The blackened arm was festering and the inkiness seemed to be bubbling and growing larger like a curse in physical form. It looked ungodly and painful. Even just swearing made the delinquent look on the verge of death.

"Ming Bo!" Nalan Chyou tiredly scolds but it was clear even she was reaching near the end of her patience with such poisonous dead weight. If they hadn't been best friends for so long and her personality wasn't that of a pure white lotus, Nalan Chyou would have definitely abandoned this girl. "This isn't anyone's fault! It's not Li Daguo's, it's not brother Xuefeng's and it's certainly not mine either!" From her words and frustration in her tone it was easy to see Ming Bo has accused many people during this time.

In the original story no one died. So even if Ming Bo was annoying and did these sort of disruptive and counterproductive things, since the teenagers did not see much consequences, other than a few heated arguments and one or two face slaps for drama, everyone pretty much swallowed their anger and bore with it. However now, people have died. Many people. And most of their bodies were not fit for an open casket funeral. So the stakes were ramped up much higher. And the tolerance for bullshit much lower.

"Don't yell at me!" Ming Bo cries, looking wronged at her friend's irritation, "You- you- don't push your anger on me! Even if we are good friends I will not stand for it!"

Nalan Chyou grits her teeth but ultimately chooses to ignore her in favour of wiping the grime off her body. She held a non-confrontational shy personality to begin with, and she still held soft feelings for her best friend even though the 'quirks' of Ming Bo's personality have long festered into something hard to stand.

However how can Ming Bo take even that? She felt rebuffed, dismissed, and most of all, looked down on. She had always harboured envy and jealousy at her friend who was better than her in every way. Pretty, smart, likeable and was also very close to Zhao Xuefeng. Even though Ming Bo had been hanging out with them for years now, she and Zhao Xuefeng have never gotten much closer. She had long felt that Nalan Chyou is the reason why, after all, Ming Bo has always been so supportive and had to hold back her true feelings because of their friendship.

"What's with that attitude?!" She shrieks, grabbing Nalan Chyou and making her wince, "You've always acted like you're above me, even now! What, can you not be bothered to even speak to the lowly me, is that it?! Fuck, even though I've always been nothing but nice and kind, treating you like my own sister, you take it like it's what you deserve!"

"Ming Bo, shut the fuck up!" Zhao Xuefeng snaps as Nalan Chyou gasps at her friend's ferocity. "For once in your goddamn life, close your mouth and think about what you say before saying it!"

"That's right!" Hao Fan bursts out, "You have been nothing but trouble and even before tonight I've always felt you're the main reason why so many people don't like us at school! You always talk about how you're such a good sister to Nalan Chyou but it's really Nalan Chyou who's been a good sister to y-"

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Ming Bo screams, "It's always Nalan Chyou! Nalan Chyou! All you guys care about is her! I'm here too! You're all terrible! So terrible!" She starts to break down into tears however nobody felt very moved toward her anymore.

Really, they couldn't be moved by much in the way of crying pretty girls either way. At this point, tears were the third most common liquid seen around this hell hole, right before blood and urine.

Tian Shun similarly showed no patience for the girl's nonsense. He was the type of cold blooded individual that would do his best to cut down all the unwanted and unnecessary branches of a tree in order to produce the desired shape. Even though his mission is to subtly hinder and abuse these people to near death, his need for efficiency itched to choke this incredible pig teammate to death. "Guys this isn't the time for this!" He raises his voice domineeringly making everyone instinctively look toward him. "Right now, there are people out there that is dead but we, WE, are alive!"

His silver grey eyes slowly move to each and every one of the teens in the room, "We cannot waste time fighting against each other, all that matters right now is that we keep staying alive until dawn when the ghosts will dissipate. The sun should rise in about three hours, Hao Fan, you know the most about spirits, do you have any suggestions?"

Hao Fan shakes his head, "Other than the iron I told you about there isn't much else given our situation- we don't have salt for salt circles that may ward them off and neither do we have herbs or plants like asphodel, argy wormwood... I mean there's a few symbols we can try as well but they have to be written in blood.."

"Then we'll do them," Tian Shun declares. "We have to try our best to get through this. Hao Fan, teach Nalan Chyou, Ming Bo, Zeng Hai and Wu Xiaoli the symbols to cover around this room. For now we shall treat this as the safest place. If the symbols work we can do our best to barricade ourselves here for now, if it doesn't we just run."

"W-we have to use our own blood?" Ming Bo pales, "I-I-I don't want to do that! What if it doesn't work and the ghosts chase after me then?! Why can't you do it?!"

Tian Shun glances at her, grits his teeth before forcibly answering in a calm tone, "Me, Zhao Xuefeng and Li Daguo should go out to look for more iron. It's best we have some more defence and since the Child Ghost dodged Zhao Xuefeng's attack with an iron weapon we can assume that this tactic does work against the bastards."

"Salt…" Li Daguo suddenly says in a hoarse voice. He had been silent since the beginning, his sobbing while full of grief and emotion was brief since he, like everyone else, was too tired and even a little dehydrated due to the strenuous exercise and fear. "There should be salt in the kitchens. When I arranged the part I got caterers and chefs to come here… they are definitely, definitely dead now but the salt and spice containers should still be there."

"Great," Tian Shun nods, "Then we'll try head to the kitchen area while looking for iron. Any problems?"

"Yes," Wu Xioli timidly raises her hand, "If, if the blood sigils don't work and a ghost finds us while you're not here should we have an agreed meeting place?"

Nalan Chyou nods in agreement, "I hadn't thought of that, but how can we guarantee a place is safe beforehand? From what I can tell, other than the Bathroom ghost and the Mirror ghost, all the others can move around pretty freely. The Doll and Toy Soldier can also travel."

Everyone falls silent. This was a very good point.

Tian Shun silently glances at Wu Xiaoli. This girl despite her love history, had strong EQ, good reflexes and was naturally quite logical. He had underestimated her and given her typical archetype hadn't expected her to last as long as she had. Now that she had easily found the biggest flaw in his purposely flawed plan, Tian Shun knew it should be time to kill her off soon.

He inwardly sighs, Wu Xiaoli could have probably made a very good female protagonist character. It's a pity this wasn't going to be that type of story. Not to mention, it was simple to deduce with this opposing argument no one will be willing to split up, making it harder to pick everyone off one by one. "Okay then, why don't we put Hao Fan's blood symbols up in the room first then we all go down to the kitchens? If we split up let's meet back here."

Right before everyone agrees, Zhao Xuefeng quickly adds, "And to make sure no ghost tries to impersonate us, let's have a code word to let the others in!" The main character turns to look at Tian Shun with a proud expression that was begging for praise.

Tian Shun: '…' Can they not give this villain a way to live? Why is it that it feels like everyone seems to have increased their IQ specially for this day?

"I don't want to go out!" Ming Bo protests fearfully, "Why don't we all just stay here and wait for help? Or, or, maybe Zhao Xuefeng stays with us with his iron weapon and you guys just go search."

Tian Shun: '…' Okay, maybe not everyone.

Suddenly Ming Bo seemed a little less displeasing to the eye. To everyone but Tian Shun, she was a pig teammate sent straight from the ghosts themselves, but to Tian Shun who was the traitor actually sent straight from the ghosts themselves Ming Bo could be considered as a godly teammate in the game. Unfortunately she was far too annoying to appreciate.

However, in the end they ended up doing the second plan. Zhao Xuefeng was adamant not to leave Tian Shun's side. Tian Shun was a little surprised. Even if they had become close in the past few months the dependency he felt coming off the protagonist was stronger than expected. He didn't mind it much though. It wasn't anything that would influence his calculations anyway.

...

Hao Fan was the first of the main character group to die. Jia Hyson honestly suspected as much. He was a pseudo-main character. A stand in for Tian Shun. The fact he stayed so long was only to do his part in giving enough information about ghosts and evil spirits and the rumors about this household as well as to confess his love to Nalan Chyou.

The group had separated into pairs inadvertently as they were getting chased by the Black Bride, the Phantom Shadow slash Ink Man, and the Toy Soldier. One would say they were incredibly unlucky but the truth is, Tian Shun had strengthened and focused his yin aura to attract nearby attention.

Hao Fan had blindly dragged Nalan Chyou to a nearby room to hide and after calming themselves, Hao Fan had done the 'death flag' monologue about his life and finally ends with, "I like you, will you let me protect you?" He totally dies seconds after but it's the heroic sort of death, pushing Nalan Chyou out of the way from certain death.

It's really a pity the room he had escaped into with Nalan Chyou held a passing by Jia Hyson who had to sit through that B-list supporting character's rather boring life story. Which took six minutes. He got Bebe to time it.

Jia Hyson: '…눈_눈 Boy these people are real chatty for people who might die any second huh?'

Giving the child some respect, Jia Hyson decides to give him a terribly brutal death. After all, even though Hao Fan certainly won't appreciate a doll's hair piercing through his abdomen from the back then spreading painfully out inside his body like a parasitic weed, or growing until he becomes so saturated in hair when he opens his mouth to scream the strands of black, silky hair falls out of his mouth like a waterfall or finally bursting apart violently to the point there was no limb still attached to his body… the guy will definitely earn at least three pages worth of screentime for this gory end. Which is like, you know, a pretty good second best to living right?

Bebe: 'The second best thing to living is a clean, painless death you psycho.'

Jia Hyson: '....Third best thing?'

Bebe: 'Host. You can list a million, no, two million better things before 'Death by Parasitic Hair Explosion'. There was a moment there where his skin looked like it was secretly housing all the worms in West China, and when Bebe says worms Bebe means earthworms, tapeworms, snake worms...' Bebe trailed off to make vomiting noises as it recalled the frankly horrific sight. Jia Hyson was unmoved. He even clicked his tongue in annoyance while he carefully and invisibly wiped away the blood splatter on his doll's body.

"Vomit again? You vomit so many times already, aren't you sick of it?" He scolds playfully as Nalan Chyou stumbles out of the room sobbing and very, very traumatised. "I've been fulfilling all of my twisted, depraved bloodlust fantasies for decades against anyone that looks over sixteen and yet you're still so sensitive aiyah,"

"Bebe is sooo sorry Bebe hasn't lost its morality after so long." Bebe dryly replies, "Bebe isn't an abnormal perverted person like Host."

Jia Hyson narrows his eyes, "Weren't you a system for villains for a while? You've must have been in war settings. That's got some messed up shit."

Bebe gives a sigh, "Host, Bebe is going to teach you something right now."

Jia Hyson: '???'

"Death and conflict in life is very normal. You, however, are not."

Jia Hyson: '…' (╬ಠ益ಠ)

What to do? So angry.

He turns to look at the hall outside his room and catches sight of two haggard looking teenagers dragging their bodies by. One of them was wearing silver and the other, blue. The colours were unfortunately very similar to Bebe's preferred colour scheme.

Jia Hyson: 'Hehe, I shall call you Bebe One and Bebe Two.' ψ(｀∇´)ψ 'Come, let us play a game~'

The two passerbys: QAQ Suddenly feel incredibly wronged

Bebe: '…' (ﾟ×ﾟlll) Must never let Host know that he can purchase a physical form for his system.