Chapter 32.1: Manman (5)

 Under the gaze of everyone, Gui Sheng and Blood Doll ran silently to Ning Su’s side.

One was dull, the other timid.

Ning Su didn’t hesitate, and pulled Gui Sheng and Blood Doll towards Little Gu Witch’s side.

Shi Tianzhu’s face showed no unusual expression, but several players on the sixth floor had an unpleasant look on their faces.

Someone muttered lowly, “Ignorant.”

It was not an exaggeration to say that more than 90% of the male players in the base, regardless of their outward appearance, either respected or admired or feared Shi Tianzhu, and would not directly refuse her personal invitation, let alone reject her so impolitely.

Zhu Shuangshuang sat on this side of the sixth floor. Seeing Ning Su go to the fifth floor and hearing the low muttering, she felt a little worried.

Ning Su seemed unaware of this and looked somewhat happy.

He walked to Little Gu Witch’s side and hugged Gui Sheng to the seat she had reserved for him. “Great Gu Witch, if you drop your bugs, Gui Sheng will pick it up immediately. He admires you very much, so let him sit next to you this time.”

Gui Sheng suddenly turned his head. “Huh?”

Ning Su had already pulled Blood Doll towards Shi Tianzhu’s side.

Gui Sheng: “......”

Sold out.

The players on the fifth floor were about to say something when they saw Gui Sheng with slightly different but equally ghostly eyes staring straight at them. The purplish mouth on the pale face pursed slightly.

The players on the fifth floor were suddenly speechless.

Under Ning Su’s care, Gui Sheng no longer looked like a dead child. His grayish-white and purple skin had turned pale, and there was a hint of rosy on his lips.

But his subtle yin and yang face, and his eyes that were very large and beautiful but gave people a sense of abyss, always gave people a feeling of underworld fear.

This was a child who followed Ning Su around, and players couldn’t help but talk about him. In fact, when he just came out of the “Ghost Animal” dungeon, some guilds noticed him.

Basically, players thought this child was some kind of puppet or skill weapon that Ning Su obtained from the dungeon.

The base had all kinds of weapons and skills, which was easy to accept, but this was still the first one that looked so human.

He looked small and weak, which made it easy for people to underestimate him. However, when he looked into someone’s eyes, fear would grip their heart.

The truth was, the child was full of sadness right now.

A child who looked even smaller than a three or four-year-old child thought about the “protection” he promised Ning Su when they entered the dungeon. He awkwardly picked up the chopsticks on the table.

His hands were very small, and his fingers were only a little thicker than a toothpick. He struggled to hold the chopsticks and reached for the plate of lemon chicken feet not far away.

After moving his fingers several times, he finally managed to separate the chopsticks and tremulously picks up a chicken foot, putting it into the bowl of the little Gu witch.

It looked a bit heart-wrenching.

His fingers twisted and strained on the chopsticks, and one of them fell onto the plate of chicken feet.

“...”

Today’s breakfast was no longer the steaks and lamb legs from before, but a refreshing Chinese breakfast. The sour and spicy lemon chicken feet were very appetizing, but no one at the table wanted to pick them up.

It wasn’t until a long time had passed that a female player hesitantly spoke up: “Excuse me, your finger fell on the plate.”

The little boy, who was eating with his head down, paused and looked up at the small finger that was barely visible among the chicken feet.

He expressionlessly used a small spoon to scoop his finger out of the plate and put it into a small plate in front of himself.

He stared at the finger on the small plate for a while and remembered what Ning Su had told him about being polite and talking more.

“I’m sorry,” the child apologized weakly, “I didn’t develop well in the womb. My body is weak, my memory is poor, and I’m easily forgetful.”

“......”

“It’s, it’s nothing.”

Anyway, the atmosphere at this table was very harmonious.

A peculiar kind of harmony.

At another table, Ning Su brought the Blood Doll over, which made many people silent, but it made Shi Tianzhu feel very good.

She watched the little boy sit down next to her and greet her. “Hello.”

Shi Tianzhu didn’t know why she felt so good.

The little boy was wearing a light yellow round-necked shirt with a light green vest on the outside. His peach blossom eyes were clear and bright, like a tender shoot growing in the warm sun of spring. A glance was enough to make her feel good.

“What’s your name?” Shi Tianzhu asked him.

Ning Su said, “My name is Ning Su. The Ning in the handsome scholar named Ning Caichen and the Su in free lodging.”

“...” Shi Tianzhu was silent for a moment and said, “It’s a good name.”

Unexpectedly, Ning Su looked at her with a pair of beautiful eyes and asked, “What’s good about it?”

Shi Tianzhu answered seriously, “Ning itself means peaceful and calm, and Su means sleep. Perhaps your parents gave you this name, hoping that you can sleep peacefully every night. In real life, it is a kind of blessing, and in the game, even more so.”

“In this horror game, being able to sleep soundly is even more rare.”

“Then my parents’ wish came true. I always fall asleep in one minute, even last night.”

Saying one minute was saving face, saying one or two seconds sounded a bit heartless.

Others: “......”

Shi Tianzhu smiled and said, “That’s great.”

Ning Su nodded, “Hmm.”

Shi Tianzhu asked him again, “How old are you?”

Ning Su said, “23.”

Both Shi Tianzhu and Zhu Shuangshuang looked at him in surprise.

Shi Tianzhu said, “Doesn’t look like it.”

Of course, she wasn’t saying that he didn’t look like he was 23 now when he was six years old. She was referring to what she saw on the screen in the game lobby before entering the instance.

Ning Su also knew this and said, “Ning Caichen married the beautiful ghost girl Miss Nie. Maybe my ancestors had some ghost genes, so I don’t look old.”

In fact, Ning Su turned into a zombie when he was eighteen years old. After turning into a zombie, his face didn’t change at all except for a slightly dull expression.

And he originally looked younger. When he graduated from the junior class, others thought he had just entered the junior class. From sixteen to now, he had always given people the feeling of being sixteen years old.

Zhu Shuangshuang chuckled, “Why do you keep holding onto Ning Caichen because he married Miss Nie?”

Ning Su made a sound of ‘Hmm’ before saying, “I think I am their descendant, because I could see strange things since I was young.”

Everyone thought he was joking and joked with him.

“It’s quite similar. You have the scholar’s dullness and the beauty of the ghost girl.”

“…Are you polite?”

The atmosphere at this table was also very harmonious.

In the castle’s gorgeously retro dining hall, five or six-year-old players ate while trying to feed their smaller, strange ghost friends.

If this scene were made into a painting, it would definitely be magnificent yet eerie, with a creepy feeling permeating every corner.

Almost all ghost friends did not eat. After all, they were not human, not even living beings, and they did not have a digestive system.

This didn’t stop players from treating ghost friends gently and trying to feed them.

Basically, all players inferred from the lucky players who obtained lucky points last night that they should treat their ghost friends well in order for the ghost friends to give them lucky points.

At the same time, they also discovered that these terrifying ghost friends were actually like a blank sheet of paper, just like newborn babies.

They would naturally rely on the first player they see, somewhat similar to how a hatched chick would take the first person it saw as its mother.

As long as they were kind to their ghost friends, the ghost friends would definitely give them all of their lucky points.

That’s what the players all thought.

After breakfast, the system didn’t require them to do anything. Some players took their ghost friends to play in the castle’s small garden, while others brought their ghost friends back to their rooms to get used to their surroundings.

Ning Su saw many people with dark circles under their eyes and suddenly felt that he had gone a little too far when he said at the dining table that he could fall asleep in one minute.

Gui Sheng, who was forced to accompany the Gu witch to eat, walked over to Ning Su and stared at him with his dark eyes.

Ning Su: “I heard you. Gui Sheng, you’re really cute and polite.”

The child stared for two seconds, but couldn’t help it and pounced on Ning Su, hugging him and rubbing lightly on his shoulder.

Zhu Shuangshuang: “...”

Gui Sheng, why are you so happy even though he sold you out?

You should keep staring at him for a while and not be fooled by his “cute” remark!

Zhu Shuangshuang suddenly felt that when she saw Gui Sheng’s small body at the slaughterhouse, pulling Ning Su out of the incinerator bit by bit, she should have already seen his fate.

You shouldn’t be the ghost master, you should be a little angel.

Zhu Shuangshuang and Ning Su went to the castle’s small garden with their ghost friends.

In the garden, some players were pushing the swing for their ghost friends, some were playing on the slide with them, and some were picking flowers with their ghost friends.

They all treated their ghost friends as innocent children with treasures.

Looking at this scene, Zhu Shuangshuang pursed her lips and said to Ning Su, “Are you still bringing your ghost friend to take a bath at my place tonight? Don’t mess up the blanket on the sofa this time. I have to clean it up.”

She was telling Ning Su that she saw the note he left for her.

She also knew why Ning Su didn’t say it out loud and used a note to secretly tell her.

He was hiding it from the ghost friend, not wanting the ghost friend to know.

Because the ghost friends were not as simple as they imagined.

Ning Su felt hair and scalp under the Blood Doll’s skin, which indicated that these ghost friends were not as she had speculated on the first night.

They couldn’t say that they weren’t Gu Man Tong, but they were more likely to be black Gu Man Tong.

In foreign countries, there was a distinction between Azan who wore black and white clothes. (T/N: “Azan” is a term used in Southeast Asian cultures, particularly in Thailand and Malaysia, to refer to a spiritual healer or medium who communicates with spirits and performs rituals to treat illnesses, offer protection, and bring good fortune.)

White-clothed Azan helped to make authentic Gu Man Tong with orthodox methods for infant spirits. These Gu Man Tong did not have resentment or malicious intentions towards people.

Black-clothed Azan used insidious methods, using the organs of baby corpses to make black Gu Man Tong. According to legend, these Gu Man Tong contained deep resentment and hostility. They were faster and stronger than authentic Gu Man Tong in promoting wealth, but they were easy to cause backlash when raising them.

At first, they were afraid of these knocking ghost friends, but now, many players treated their ghost friends as harmless newborns, like a blank sheet of paper.

But what kind of setting did the system use for these ghost friends?

Authentic or black? Or was there some other setting?

Were ghost friends really as innocent as newborn babies?

Zhu Shuangshuang was a little confused. When she saw the paper slip from Ning Su last night, cold sweat started to trickle down her forehead. She held the paper slip, too afraid to look at the paper doll sitting on her bed, staring at her.

She had mentally prepared herself for a long time before going to sleep with her ghost friend.

She hadn’t slept for several hours, and the increasingly pungent smell of decay was becoming more and more noticeable.

Zhu Shuangshuang buried her head in the pillow, not knowing when she fell asleep.

Ning Su was basking in the sun, watching Gui Sheng and the timid Blood Doll playing on the seesaw. He said, “Hmm, I understand. I won’t mess up your blanket anymore. Don’t worry, everything’s fine.”

He rarely spoke such a long sentence, and Zhu Shuangshuang wasn’t as worried and scared anymore.

Nothing happened during the day, and after dinner, the players went back to their rooms under the system’s guidance.

No ghost friends came knocking on the door tonight, and the players relaxed a little, but it was only for a short time.

When the night completely enveloped the fairy tale town, the eerie and chilling nursery rhymes from the amusement park outside the castle rang out again.

Drifting into the castle through the thick fog, intermittently.

[Mom’s stomach is so warm, I want to pull it to hell to accompany me.

When I died, it was trembling, but its attachment to me?]

Now the players could understand the lyrics.

“Damn it!” someone cursed under their breath. “They won’t come every night, will they?”

“Quick, lock the castle gates and the first floor door! Block the staircase too!”

Ning Su stood on the balcony of the room, with Gui Sheng on his left and Blood Doll on his right, each one sucking on a hand.

 

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