At night, Guanping Village seemed devoid of life, with not a single sound from insects, as if it were a desolate, dead village. A hazy moon hung overhead, suggesting that tomorrow’s weather might not be favorable.
The village had many small winding paths, and since Li Zhi was walking quickly, the magnificent ancestral hall soon appeared before her.
The intense candle flames burning inside faintly seeped through the cracks of the door and windows, glowing in the night like a beacon attracting moths, waiting for prey to walk into the trap.
The bloodstains left from Pei Xu’s body outside the ancestral hall had been cleaned up by someone, though it wasn’t clear who. Li Zhi ascended the steps and paused for two seconds when her hand touched the carved wooden door. Just when the audience thought she would give up and were silently relieved, she pushed the door open.
The scent of burning candles mixed with the night’s cool air rushed out. The open space in front of the hall was empty—no bloodstains, and even the lower half of Pei Xu’s melted body had disappeared. The ground was spotless, with only a shallow stain where candle wax had once seeped.
Li Zhi looked up. The wax monster was still stuck to the roof, but unlike earlier in the day, it was now solidified, as if dried onto the ceiling. The flames below reflected off the milky-white, hardened wax, giving it an oily gleam.
After observing for a moment and confirming that the monster appeared to be asleep, Li Zhi did not hesitate. She stepped into the hall and headed straight for the dusty old book resting on the shrine.
She brushed off the dust, revealing the words “Guan Family Genealogy” on the cover.
Using the candlelight, she quickly flipped through it.
From the funeral wreaths earlier, Li Zhi had learned the name of the village chief—Guan Maode. According to the genealogy, Guanping Village had once been a thriving place, and the earliest ancestors could be traced back to the Tang Dynasty. However, as time went on, especially after the founding of the nation, the village population had gradually declined.
Li Zhi finally found the village chief’s name. By the time of Guan Maode’s generation, the Guan family had only seventy or eighty people left.
The genealogy recorded that Guan Maode had only one son named Guan Yongxing, with a note stating that he had died young. With Guan Yongxing’s early death, Guan Maode’s branch of the family was extinguished.
Li Zhi flipped further. Over the following decades, the population of Guanping Village dwindled even more. From the dust covering the genealogy, it was clear that it had not been touched for a long time, indicating there had been no new births in the village for years. Once the current generation passed away, Guanping Village would become a dead village, disappearing from the world.
Having found the answers she sought, Li Zhi put the genealogy back. She was about to search for more clues when the two large doors suddenly slammed shut with a loud bang.
She had been keeping an eye on the monster above, and the moment the doors closed, its solidified body suddenly liquefied. The scorching wax poured down like a flood, spreading toward all the doors and windows. As soon as it sealed the cracks in the doors and windows, it quickly solidified again.
The monster remained asleep, but its body spread out like a massive sheet, sealing off every entrance and exit of the ancestral hall.
Li Zhi rushed to the door immediately, trying to push it open. But the wax, which would normally shatter with a touch, had hardened into something tougher than cement, sealing every crack tightly.
The candles on the altar began to flicker, rapidly consuming the remaining oxygen in the hall. Staying there any longer would mean certain death, whether from suffocation or from the monster awakening.
The live chat was in chaos:
【It’s over! Li Zhi is trapped!】
【I knew those feng shui masters were frauds! Li Zhi, why did you fall for it?!】
【Why did she go in alone? She should have brought her teammates at least to guard the door!】
【Maybe she didn’t want to drag her teammates down. She seemed really upset after Pei Xu died earlier.】
【Is my favorite player really going to end here?】
…
Li Zhi only tried once to open the door. When she realized it wouldn’t budge, she didn’t hesitate to turn back toward the altar. The audience was still lamenting, when they saw her begin moving the incense burners with the candles from the altar to the door.
Soon, most of the incense and candles had been relocated to the door. The blazing flames devoured the remaining oxygen, and the high temperatures from the fire spread across the wax-sealed entrance.
The audience quickly understood her plan:
【She’s going to use the heat to melt the wax and escape!】
【Even the hardest wax can’t defy the rule—it will melt under high temperatures!】
【Li Zhi’s mind works so fast! This game really is for high-IQ players.】
【Actually, an ordinary person could come up with this solution too, but under such a terrifying atmosphere, staying calm is the hardest part. Most people would panic and stop thinking.】
As the live chat buzzed with discussions, the wax finally began to melt from the heat. Li Zhi gave the door a hard kick, and the still-solid wax near the top crackled and shattered.
Just as the door opened, the monster above fully awoke. But Li Zhi had already leaped over the candles, exiting the ancestral hall.
As she descended the steps, a strange, hissing sound echoed behind her, like fire ripping through the air. Li Zhi glanced back, seeing the wax monster clinging between the two large doors, its head now shaped into a sharp point, seemingly roaring in her direction.
Under the cold moonlight, a slim shadow stretched across the ground, and with a calm expression, Li Zhi uttered, “Furious but powerless.”
Wax Monster: “?!”
It wasn’t just the monster—viewers were equally stunned:
【You’re seriously not afraid it’ll chase after you?!】
【Blunt, accurate, and straight to the point.】
【While other players are running for their lives from monsters, Li Zhi’s already at the point of mocking them?!】
After delivering her taunt, Li Zhi continued walking—she wasn’t joking; of course, she didn’t want to die.
From start to finish, it had taken her nearly an hour. The entire village was shrouded in darkness, with only the courtyard of the funeral hall faintly illuminated, resembling the dim glow of incense in a graveyard. As she approached the courtyard gate, a shadow suddenly darted past her feet.
The shadow moved incredibly fast, silent as it streaked by. By the time Li Zhi’s gaze caught up to it, the figure had already leapt onto the courtyard wall.
It was an entirely black cat.
The cat silently padded along the top of the wall, its eyes glowing faintly green in the dark.
“Meow—”
The black cat let out a low cry, pacing along the wall before leaping lightly into the courtyard.
Li Zhi suddenly remembered: last night, in a half-asleep state, she had also heard a cat’s meow.
“Xu Shu!” She hurriedly ran toward the gate. “Catch that cat!”
Inside the courtyard, Xu Shu, who had been anxiously guarding the ever-burning lamp, jumped to his feet the moment he heard Li Zhi’s voice. He strode quickly toward the entrance.
At the same time, Li Zhi’s figure burst through the gate. Seeing her return safely, Xu Shu’s face lit up with joy. But before he could say a word, a slow, creaking sound echoed behind him.
It sounded like the gradual grinding of old bones, rubbing together piece by piece. Cold sweat broke out on Xu Shu’s forehead.
Behind him… was the village chief’s coffin.
“Don’t turn around!” Li Zhi shouted sharply, halting his movement.
From the corner shadows, the black cat emerged, its fur bristling as it bared its teeth, creeping forward slowly.
Inside the dimly lit funeral hall, the village chief’s corpse was slowly sitting up in the coffin. His eyes were closed, and a slight smile curled at the corners of his mouth, eerily similar to the paper effigy standing at the front of the hall.
Li Zhi lunged forward, pulling off her jacket. In one swift motion, she pounced and wrapped the black cat tightly in her coat.
The black cat struggled inside the fabric, but Li Zhi bundled it up tightly, holding it securely as she backed away from the coffin. Xu Shu, his limbs cold with fear, followed her, his earlier guesses about what was happening behind him now confirmed, but the sight still filled him with dread.
The two stood at a distance. Li Zhi reached out and gently stroked the black cat’s head. It finally stopped struggling and began to purr softly in her arms.
The village chief sat upright in the coffin, the dim oil lamp casting eerie light on his pale face. At some point, the smile on his lips had faded, replaced by a bitter and resentful expression. After a long pause, the corpse slowly lay back down, one segment at a time.
Xu Shu inhaled sharply, and then he heard Li Zhi whisper, “We can’t let the cat get near the coffin. It’ll cause the corpse to reanimate.”
Xu Shu frowned and looked at the cat in her arms. “Then what do we do with this cat?”