Chapter 162 - 149: First Transmigration

[Countdown ended. Time in this world is frozen.]

Yin Zhen opened her eyes to find herself standing in a graveyard, heavily overcast with dark clouds pressing down from above.

This was the transitional space before her transmigration, but it no longer retained its original Gothic style. The withered yellow grass was dotted with bulging dirt mounds. Some of the graves had already collapsed, exposing the half-rotted coffins buried beneath.

Directly ahead stood a dead, old locust tree. A tattered red bridal gown hung from its branches, the hem swaying gently in the wind, resembling a hanged person. An old table under the tree was draped in cobwebs. A half-burned white candle sat in a holder, its wick flickering with an eerie green light. Her Identity Card, along with some randomly scattered Items, rested on the table. Several chests were scattered around it, their lids half-open, piled high with books—these were all the memories she had gained through resonance.

A fence stood at the front of the graveyard. In the very center was a wooden door leading to the Autumn Tomb World.

Besides all this, Yin Zhen noticed a massive fissure tearing the entire graveyard down the middle like a bottomless abyss. Wind howled upward from the depths of the rift, carrying a chilling aura that blew joss paper across the graveyard in a fluttering flurry. Yin Zhen knew exactly what this rift was. It was her Origin, the deepest scar etched into her soul, manifesting physically in this Special space.

Just like before, a card slowly materialized above the table. It was an Ancient Bronze Card, with a difficulty level corresponding to a Copper Card Player.

[Spirit Exploration]

[Please participate in at least one paranormal event during this round. Upon return, your survival value will be calculated based on your event participation, completion rate, and the number of ghosts and monsters eliminated.]

[The top five hundred players in survival value will receive word count and Item rewards. Any Player who fails to participate in a single paranormal event will be penalized for passive gameplay, and 3,000 words will be deducted upon return.]

[Friendly Reminder: This is a beginner tutorial event designed to help Players quickly understand the Autumn Tomb World. Every paranormal event can trigger numerous branch events, providing Players with abundant rewards. Please participate actively.]

"Who the hell would believe this is a beginner tutorial? It’s clearly a suicide mission for newbies!"

The system ignored Yin Zhen’s complaint. Instead, three Ancient Bronze Cards materialized in front of her.

She originally had over 200,000 words and was a Silver Card Player. However, before formally transmigrating, upon learning that Chi Hai’s Character Card could be used normally in Autumn Tomb, she immediately and permanently replicated the A-level Blood Silk onto her true body, consuming 100,000 words. Coupled with her previous expenses for Zoe’s home renovations, she now had only a little over 60,000 words left. Her Identity Card had been downgraded to a Copper Card, her Luck Value had dropped by 5, and her Silver Card Talent, Yin Yang Eye, had also vanished.

[Please draw your exclusive Event Card.]

Yin Zhen randomly selected one. The card flipped over, revealing two words written in blood.

[Copper Card Event]: Escape

[Event Requirements]: Please play your Character well and escape from the scene your Character is in. If the people around you notice any anomalies or see through your Identity, the event will fail.

[Completion Reward]: Words +3,000, Random Item x1

[Failure Penalty]: Words -3,000, Random Item -1

Yin Zhen frowned. This event did not seem simple at all. She wasn’t worried about the word deduction penalty anymore, but randomly losing an Item was unacceptable. The last time the comrade mission failed, the starting penalty was an A-level Extraordinary Ability. If she failed this time and had a Golden Item—or even a Special Item or a Luminous Prop—directly deducted, it would be a massive loss.

Before Yin Zhen could consider it carefully, the wooden door in the middle of the distant fence opened with a CREAK. A chilling gust of wind blew straight into her eyes, plunging her vision into darkness.

[Welcome to the Autumn Tomb World.]

...

Yin Zhen snapped her eyes open. A livid, ashen face of a corpse was merely inches away, almost pressing against the tip of her nose. The overwhelming stench of rotting flesh assaulted her face.

She flinched backward violently and sat up.

It was a young woman. Her eyes were wide open, her pupils dilated and cloudy. Her skin was covered in lividity, taking on a sickening, waxy sheen. Suddenly, a violent, dull ache throbbed in the back of Yin Zhen’s head, as if she had been brutally struck by a heavy object. The lingering dizziness and pain made her vision swim with dark spots. She reached up to touch the painful spot, her fingers brushing against sticky, half-dried blood.

HISS...

Yin Zhen drew in a sharp breath of cold air. She silently equipped the S717 Character Card and used Structural Repair to heal the wound on the back of her head. She quickly scanned her surroundings. It was pitch black with no windows, but fortunately, the night vision of the Blood Clan was quite good. The floor was filthy and sticky, littered with dark red stains, rotting food scraps, unidentified garbage, and a thick layer of dust. A suffocating, rancid odor hung in the air, making the place feel like a long-abandoned slaughterhouse.

Yin Zhen looked down at herself. She was wearing a summer bear-print pajama set with short sleeves and long pants, and her feet were bare. Bloodstains covered her body and the soles of her feet, but she had absolutely nothing on her that could prove her Identity. The body was very young. It looked as though she had been forcibly abducted from her own bedroom and dragged here. Aside from the wound on the back of her head and some scrapes from being dragged, she was otherwise unharmed.

Yin Zhen attempted to check her new Character Card.

[Character information has not yet been unlocked. Players, please explore on your own.]

Without hesitation, Yin Zhen bit into her own wrist, intending to use Blood Source Resonance to read the memories of this body’s original owner. The coppery sweetness of blood filled her mouth, but the Effect of Blood Source Resonance did not trigger.

"I can’t achieve resonance?" Yin Zhen’s heart sank. "Is the system preventing me from exploiting a bug, or is there something wrong with this body?" she wondered.

She immediately attempted her other life-saving measure: saving her progress!

[Unknown interference exists in the current scene. Unable to establish a save point.]

An unprecedented sense of crisis instantly washed over Yin Zhen. This meant that if she made a fatal mistake, there would be absolutely no room for recovery. Yin Zhen calmed herself down, reminding herself that fear would not solve the problem.

She stood up and noticed a toppled folding stool in the corner. Picking it up, Yin Zhen forcefully snapped off one of its legs. She tested Molecular Sharpening on it, and the wood instantly became razor-sharp. However, she noticed that her Assimilation Degree was rising much faster than before. Just by using Structural Repair and Molecular Sharpening once each, her Assimilation Degree had shot up by 12%.

She sought confirmation from the system and received an answer that perfectly matched her guess. The Basic Attributes of her current body were too low, while the power of the S717 Character Card was too high. Therefore, the Assimilation Degree would increase at an incredibly rapid pace.

If she did not equip the S717 Character Card, this current body would simply be overlaid with her Player body’s original Strength. As long as both her true body and this current body were human, the Assimilation Degree wouldn’t be an issue. But it wouldn’t be completely without consequence. If she used her true body’s 20 Strength to throw a punch with this current body, its arm muscles and bones would be damaged, because this body’s Constitution simply could not withstand such immense Strength.

"No wonder we’re allowed to use Character Cards in this world. There’s a balancing mechanism in place," she realized.

Yin Zhen temporarily unequipped her Character Card and carefully felt her way through the darkness. She arrived at a half-open iron door. The stench seeping through the crack made her want to vomit. Gently pushing the iron door open, Yin Zhen’s pupils contracted slightly. Flies buzzed loudly in the air. The floor was piled high with a haphazard jumble of scattered corpses. They were all young women. Their causes of death varied, but all bore obvious signs of violence and were in varying stages of decomposition. Finding no obvious exit, Yin Zhen backed out and continued her exploration.

CHOP! CHOP! CHOP!

A dull, rhythmic sound echoed from deeper within the darkness—the sound of a blade hacking into something hard. Yin Zhen immediately followed the noise, lightening her footsteps as she crept closer. A sharp pain lanced through the soles of her bare feet as she stepped on scattered debris, but her expression remained completely impassive.

Soon, she noticed a sliver of dim, yellow light spilling from under a doorway ahead. The chopping sound was coming from inside. Holding her breath, she silently pressed herself against the crack in the door and peered inside.

In the center of the room, a massive, burly figure stood with his back to the door. Wearing a filthy leather apron, he was brutally hacking away at a large hunk of dark red meat on a butcher’s block—chop after chop.

That meat... did not come from livestock.

The metallic stench of blood was so thick it felt suffocating. The butcher’s movements were mechanical yet immensely powerful, and blood gurgled down the sides of the chopping block. Yin Zhen could not immediately determine whether this butcher was a human or one of those unreasonable ghosts from the Autumn Tomb World that could instantly kill a person. She decided to temporarily retreat and look for an exit first.

As Yin Zhen turned around, she suddenly saw a dirty, battered stuffed rabbit abruptly appear in the middle of the corridor ahead of her. One of its button eyes hung by a thread, while the other was a dark, empty hole staring right at her. Its wide, plastic mouth emitted a completely emotionless, mechanical voice.

"I LOVE U."

Every hair on Yin Zhen’s body stood on end. A suffocating, gigantic shadow suddenly loomed over her from behind, raising a butcher’s knife high above her. In this life-or-death moment, Yin Zhen’s speed exploded. She dodged to the side, narrowly evading the descending blade. Her muscular instinct kicked in faster than her brain, violently thrusting the wooden stool leg into the side of the butcher’s waist.

SQUELCH!

The muffled sound of a sharp object piercing flesh rang out, and scalding hot blood splattered across Yin Zhen’s face.

It was a human!

Upon confirming this, Yin Zhen’s eyes instantly turned icy, ferocious, and devoid of any lingering fear.

"You’re human, and you dare play ghost with me?!" she thought furiously.

Agonized by the intense pain, the butcher’s massive frame violently twisted around, sweeping his knife horizontally at her. Yin Zhen ducked under the blade as nimbly as a loach. At the exact same time, she grabbed the stool leg still embedded in the butcher’s waist with both hands, violently twisting and yanking it free!

"Argh!!!"

The butcher let out a muffled grunt of agony. Before he could react, a sudden coldness slashed across his throat. The grunting abruptly ceased, leaving only a wet, gurgling sound as his windpipe filled with blood. Yin Zhen took two steps back, watching as the butcher, his throat now pierced by the stool leg, collapsed to the ground in painful convulsions.

Yin Zhen’s bear-print pajamas were drenched in blood. She cast a cold, indifferent glance at the twitching body on the floor and casually raised a hand to wipe her face. Under the dim yellow light, the smeared blood on her face and her ice-cold, emotionless gaze made her look exactly like a cold-blooded, psychopathic serial killer.

"I LOVE U."

"I LOVE U."

Behind her, that dirty, battered stuffed rabbit continued repeating the phrase tirelessly.

"Love my ass!"

Yin Zhen rushed forward and kicked the stuffed rabbit flying.

THUD!

The toy rabbit slammed into the far wall, its internal mechanical parts shattering on impact. Its soft, plush body dropped to the floor, emitting a string of stuttering, jammed sounds.

"I... I... I... I... I..."