Chapter 193 - 179: Midnight Terror

Yin Zhen’s first Rice Divination went very smoothly under Grandma Bai’s supervision. Without any strange occurrences, she helped Grandma Bai ask her three questions and sent the spirit away.

Grandma Bai breathed a sigh of relief. She told Yin Zhen to get a good night’s rest and leave early the next morning, joking that Yin Zhen had eaten all the vegetables she’d grown over the past few days and the new batch hadn’t had time to sprout yet.

Yin Zhen saw Bai Qiang’s reply, which mentioned that Kunpeng was focusing heavily on the possibility of the Autumn Tomb protagonist crossing over. She also sent a message to Lucy, asking her to try and track him down. Afterward, Yin Zhen practiced her martial arts in the backyard for a while before heading to bed when she grew tired.

In the early hours of the morning, after sleeping for an unknown amount of time, a bone-chilling cold descended upon her without any warning. Her consciousness instantly awakened, but her body felt like it was filled with lead. She couldn’t move a single finger. It was sleep paralysis!

In the darkness, she lay on her side with her eyes wide open and saw a figure crouching in the corner at the foot of her bed. Wearing a dark green qipao, her disheveled long hair covered most of her face. It was Liu Hua!

Their eyes met. Liu Hua crawled toward Yin Zhen in a twisted, unnatural posture. Her long hair dragged across the bedsheets as she moved, producing a faint RUSTLE that was scalp-tinglingly clear in the dead of night. Yin Zhen tried to force her body to move or call out for Ying, but the invisible Strength bound her tightly, preventing her from even making a sound.

She could only watch helplessly as Liu Hua’s face—half-hidden by her long hair and wearing a bizarre smile—drew closer and closer. Liu Hua climbed directly on top of her. Her long hair draped over Yin Zhen’s face, cold, damp, and reeking of a corpse’s stench.

Liu Hua leaned close to Yin Zhen’s ear and whispered, "Do you like my face? Then I’ll give it to you."

Liu Hua’s hands dug into the sides of her own cheeks and began to slowly tear at them. Amidst a series of hair-raising RIIIP sounds, Liu Hua peeled off her entire face skin. With her bloody, mangled visage facing Yin Zhen, she pressed her intact face skin down onto Yin Zhen’s face.

Right at this critical moment... CRASH!

A crisp sound of a heavy object hitting the ground suddenly echoed from the paper crafts shop outside. This abrupt noise shattered the confinement on Yin Zhen’s body, and she shot up in bed. Liu Hua had vanished. Everything that just happened felt like a lucid dream. Yin Zhen’s heart pounded wildly, her back drenched in cold sweat.

But when she reached out to feel beside her pillow, she actually touched a piece of face skin. The very face skin that had devoured Liu Hua’s face! It looked soft and completely intact, even carrying a trace of the dampness of being freshly peeled off. Under the faint moonlight streaming in through the window, it gleamed with a waxy luster.

Yin Zhen’s expression darkened. She quickly stuffed the face skin back into the system inventory where she kept her Items. This Ghost Device seemed even more sinister than the scalpel. After swallowing Liu Hua’s face, it had taken on the feel of a living creature, even managing to slip out on its own. From now on, she would have to be far more careful when handling anything obtained from the Autumn Tomb World.

At the same time, this provided an Explanation: the supernatural power in the Ancient Abyss World was gradually increasing, stimulating the Strength of these objects. Furthermore, Grandma Bai had mentioned that those who perform Rice Divination have heavy yin energy around them and are especially prone to attracting unclean things, warning her to be careful.

Yin Zhen picked up her phone by the pillow and glanced at it. It was 4:17 AM. She turned on the flashlight by her bed and went outside to use the restroom.

The restroom was diagonally across from the paper crafts shop—a public toilet built by the village. As Yin Zhen passed through the outer storefront, she paid close attention and noticed that the portrait enshrined in front of Mr. Bai’s memorial tablet had fallen to the floor. That loud noise earlier had definitely been the sound of the portrait falling.

Yin Zhen didn’t feel afraid. After all, Mr. Bai had helped her. She walked over and picked up the portrait. In the photo, Mr. Bai had a stern, unsmiling face and looked a bit fierce. She placed the photo back onto the offering table, pulled three new incense sticks from the nearby holder, lit them, and bowed respectfully.

"Mr. Bai, apologies for the disturbance."

After finishing this, she continued on her way to the restroom. The moment she reached the small door and reached out to pull the latch, a chill shot up her spine. Yin Zhen instinctively turned around, her flashlight beam subconsciously sweeping toward the memorial tablet.

She saw that on the portrait propped up there, Mr. Bai was actually looking at her sideways, the corners of his mouth turned up in a kindly smile. At the same time, the paper boys and girls in the shop—dressed in colorful paper clothes and still lacking painted eyes—all turned their heads in unison to look at her.

Yin Zhen’s scalp instantly went numb. She forcefully yanked open the small door and left the shop. Even though she knew Mr. Bai meant no harm, smiling at her like that in the dead of night while she was holding in her pee was truly uncalled for!

The next day, Yin Zhen transferred a hundred thousand yuan into Grandma Bai’s account, left a note with her shipping address, and departed from the town alone bright and early. There were only three trees in the graveyard; the extra money was to cover her room and board over the past few days.

After Yin Zhen had gone, Grandma Bai stepped out of her room. She looked at the note Yin Zhen had left and spoke to her younger brother in the portrait beside her. "What a good girl. It’s a pity our Bai Family doesn’t have the fortune to keep her here."

A gust of chilly wind swept through, and the candlelight on the offering table flickered. Grandma Bai fetched a coat and draped it over her shoulders. "How strange. The weather has been getting hotter lately, so why does it feel like the yin energy is getting heavier and heavier?"

She walked over to the table and sat down, put on her reading glasses, pulled out her senior citizen cell phone, and transferred all the money Yin Zhen had given her to an orphanage.

That afternoon, Yin Zhen returned to Guan City. She first called Bai Qiang to let her know she was back and that she could reach out anytime if she needed anything. Then, Yin Zhen found another Woodworking Workshop to continue honing her craft of making puppets.

Lucy was still helping her screen for individuals who might be crossovers from Autumn Tomb. Some people on the Player forum had also guessed this possibility, and since there were no public events this round, everyone was actively searching as well.

Kunpeng’s operations were also highly efficient. They no longer used the previous check-in system; since they were all humans, checking in was meaningless. During the previous Blood Clan invasion, the matter had already been made public. Therefore, Guan Lan chose to release the news again this time, stating that an alien species had invaded and would disguise themselves as people around them. She hoped all citizens would remain vigilant and call the reporting hotline if they noticed anything amiss. If verified, a reward of five hundred thousand in cash would be given.

While Yin Zhen was planing wood in the Woodworking Workshop, the TV news played this announcement on a loop. For a time, everyone looked at the people around them with weird expressions. The boss even ran over to Yin Zhen to test her with a secret pop-culture shibboleth.

Yin Zhen maintained her patience; she wasn’t in a hurry to find Ye Mingzhe. Compared to him, her top priority moving forward was to kill the incense master. It was her promise to Chunhua and the only way to eliminate her greatest threat in Autumn Tomb. Yin Zhen hoped to accomplish this during her next crossover. To do so, she needed to plan ahead and prepare the corresponding items.

Unfortunately, it was currently very difficult to catch ghosts in Ancient Abyss, so she was not yet able to create a Fierce Ghost Puppet. However, after the batch of Hanging Willow from Bai Family Town arrived, Yin Zhen worked non-stop to make a Faceless Puppet as a backup, and she also crafted a substitute death puppet modeled after Ye Mingzhe.

Ye Mingzhe was the protagonist. Possessing protagonist plot armor, he wasn’t easy to kill, making him the best target for damage transfer. As long as she could get his blood, this puppet would take effect.

Seven days passed quickly. With too little available data, Lucy still couldn’t narrow down a target matching Ye Mingzhe’s characteristics. Just as Yin Zhen thought this return period would end like this, Bai Qiang called her.

"Guan Lan has found a suspected target for Ye Mingzhe."