GRMFBS CH255

Ghost King Wan Yan was huffing and puffing in anger.

At night, Zhan Yan took some spare time to continue restoring Di Ting’s single horn puzzle, finishing it and heading to bed early. Tomorrow they were going to check out the Eighteen Sights of the Underworld, and eighteen stages sounded like heavy physical labor.

Waking up the next morning, Zhan Yan and Gu Jiancheng went down for breakfast.

Gu Jiancheng was in a great mood. Up until now, Wan Yan hadn’t shown up at all, heh~

Although he could beat the cat up, not having to deal with that psychotic feline was naturally the best outcome.

Hand in hand, the two arrived at the town entrance. The Eighteen Sights of the Underworld was split into two parts: one was purely scenic sets meant for strolling, and the other was designed like an escape room game. Zhan Yan and Gu Jiancheng planned to play the game first before sightseeing.

After their tickets were checked, the staff led them into the prep room.

Playing this required a team of ten, and before starting, each person had to draw an identity card. There were three boxes for drawing identity cards: a black box, a white box, and a red box.

“Is there any difference between these three boxes?” Zhan Yan asked curiously.

“The white box contains solo roles, the black box contains interconnected multiplayer roles, and the red box…” The staff member winked, smiling, “contains couple roles, though they aren’t necessarily sweet relationships. Well, in that box, you might even draw roles where you’re sworn enemies.”

Zhan Yan tugged Gu Jiancheng’s hand: “Let’s go draw from the red box.”

He heard a hushed whisper from behind: “Ah, I knew all the handsome guys come in pairs!”

Zhan Yan glanced back at Gu Jiancheng, whose lips were curling upward.

“Do you want to draw or should I?” Zhan Yan asked.

Gu Jiancheng: “Mmh… you draw, my luck has always been pretty bad.”

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll lend you my luck.” Zhan Yan hooked his finger, whispering, “You’ll have wonderful luck from now on.”

Gu Jiancheng didn’t say anything, only feeling the tickle in his palm travel straight down into his heart. He subconsciously squeezed all of Zhan Yan’s fingers, yet the itching in his chest didn’t subside at all. Letting out a low hum, he reached into the box and pulled out a sphere formed by two halves twisted together, half red and half blue.

The staff member said: “You’ll need to choose a color once more. Different colors represent different roles.”

Gu Jiancheng turned toward Zhan Yan: “You go first this time?”

“Then I’ll pick the red one,” Zhan Yan said.

Twisting the sphere open, a metallic tag about half the size of a smartphone was revealed inside, looped with a rubber band so it could be worn on the wrist to prevent losing it. The front of the tag was engraved with the event’s decorative emblem and three small flame-shaped lights, while the back had a QR code.

The staff member introduced: “Scan the QR code on the identity tag, and a role introduction will appear.”

Zhan Yan scanned the QR code, and a brief description popped up on his phone:

“You are the CEO of a renowned corporation—young, handsome, and extremely wealthy. The greatest setback in your life is that your lover wishes to leave you. He/she has continuously attempted to escape from your side. You tried your utmost, yet he/she still rejects you, driving you to resort to forceful measures. During a pursuit, your car accidentally rolled off a cliff. Your heart is filled with regret and remorse. If given another chance…”

Zhan Yan couldn’t help bursting into laughter.

Gu Jiancheng’s ears turned thoroughly crimson.

The staff member was still dutifully explaining: “The first paragraph is a preliminary introduction, and you can fill in the specific details yourselves. The second paragraph provides a few examples for reference. Try not to break character, as it will be tied to the upcoming stages.”

“All right, all right,” Zhan Yan rehearsed his lines with a deadpan face, “‘No! I won’t allow you to leave me!’ How’s that? Do you think that broke character?”

Gu Jiancheng began glaring at him, his face flushing crimson from his neck all the way to his forehead, holding zero intimidation and looking thoroughly aggrieved instead.

Once everyone had drawn their identity tags, they introduced their basic profiles to one another.

Among the ten people, aside from Zhan Yan and Gu Jiancheng, there was a young heterosexual couple, three close female friends, a middle-aged married couple, and a lone young man.

The personas lacked any distinct pattern, encompassing men, women, the old, and the young, but everyone’s persona contained a similar line:

“Your heart is filled with regret and remorse. If given another chance…”

Holding a small megaphone, the staff member began introducing the scenario to everyone.

Everyone was a newly departed soul, about to be led down into the Underworld by the Black and White Impermanence. During the game, there would be props restricting personal freedom, such as chains or coffins. These props all had emergency release buttons—smaller props generally had them on the bottom left corner, while coffins and larger items had them on the interior upper-left corner. In case of an emergency, participants could let themselves out.

Groups of ten entered the game, but the organizers wouldn’t wait for one group to finish before letting the next in; they generally sent a group inside every 15 minutes, so clearing stages too quickly or too slowly meant they might run into other tourists.

The three flame-shaped lights on the identity tag represented the three souls; losing all three souls meant the game was failed. Missing two souls meant one could no longer return to the Yang world.

After explaining all the basic details, the staff playing the Black and White Impermanence emerged, leading everyone toward the Ghost Gate.

In front of the Ghost Gate stood a screen wall, inscribed with two lines of verse:

“Crossing the Ghost Gate, nine out of ten do not return.”

Zhan Yan poked Gu Jiancheng secretly: “Hey, do you think ten people in a group means only one of us can actually clear the game?”

Gu Jiancheng turned his head away, ignoring him. It was because Zhan Yan had repeated the silly overbearing CEO catchphrases Gu Jiancheng had blurted out in the past while doing the introductions just now.

Less than two seconds after turning his head away, Gu Jiancheng whispered: “I reckon so.”

Once everyone had stepped past the Ghost Gate, the Black Impermanence counted heads, his expression suddenly twisting in horror: “Disaster! Shouldn’t there be twelve souls? How are we missing two?”

The White Impermanence: “They must have slipped away on the road. Let’s hurry and pursue them!”

The Black Impermanence: “What about these souls then?”

The White Impermanence: “Leave them be! Now that they have stepped across the Ghost Gate, they can’t run away. Let’s catch those two runaway souls first, otherwise all hell will break loose if they return to the Yang world…”

The Black Impermanence cast a glance at the players: “However, it’s not entirely impossible for them to return to the living world either…”

The White Impermanence: “If they wish to return, they’ll have to fight through eighteen whole stages. No one has cleared them in thousands of years, so what is there to fear? Returning to life will be far easier for those two runaways than for these souls.”

The Black Impermanence let out a sigh: “I suppose that’s all we can do. Come, let’s catch those two runaway souls.”

The Black and White Impermanence exited, leaving behind the ten tourists.

Oh, so their primary quest was to brave through eighteen stages to return to life while the Black and White Impermanence were gone, thus making up for the regrets on their identity cards.

It was basically a massive, open-concept escape room.

The very first stage, the Ghost Gate, presented a minor bottleneck: the exit was opposite the screen wall, and while there were doors on either side, opening one required extinguishing a soul flame.

“Ah, doesn’t that mean every single person needs to snuff out a soul flame just to clear this stage?”

“Is the first stage really this brutal?”

“Probably not; I’m guessing there’s a ladder or something on the other side, so only one soul flame will be needed.”

The deduction was solid; extinguishing a single soul flame wouldn’t hinder clearing the game, but who was going to sacrifice it?

“There might be stages requiring soul flames later on as well. Why don’t we draw lots and take turns?”

Gu Jiancheng and Zhan Yan huddled together, whispering.

“I eyeball this screen wall to be around 2.3 meters high,” Zhan Yan remarked, “Scaling it by force isn’t out of the question either.”

Right, there were five men among the ten of them. The middle-aged man had a lumbar disc herniation and couldn’t participate, leaving four young men; three lifting one could hoist someone over easily.

“I’m a bit afraid of heights and probably won’t dare hop down once I’m on top, so I’ll be the base. Who among you is going up?” the lone young man said.

Gu Jiancheng took a glance around, and judging by their physical condition, it would take at least two people to support one. Either he or Yan Yan would have to get involved.

He didn’t want any physical contact with them.

Without replying, he stepped back a few paces, sprinted, leaped, planted a hand on the wall, and flipped over.

Like an agile big cat, Gu Jiancheng vanished over the crest of the wall.

“Holy crap!”

“Damn, that’s insane!”

“Does your boyfriend do parkour?”

A ladder was hoisted over from the other side of the screen wall. Just as Gu Jiancheng popped his head over while stepping onto the ladder, he saw Zhan Yan clapping like a little baby seal: “Yep. That’s exactly how my little canary scaled the wall to escape, which is the only reason I got into a car crash chasing after him. Sigh.”

Gu Jiancheng: …

Zhan Yan scrambled over, whispering into Gu Jiancheng’s ear while the others climbed the ladder: “What’s wrong? Aren’t we supposed to stay in character?”

Gu Jiancheng: “I am staying in character. According to my profile, I should be avoiding you like the plague right now.”

Yet he was grumbling while clinging tightly to Zhan Yan’s arm, refusing to let go.

Zhan Yan smiled brightly, adopting his overbearing CEO persona: “It’s fine. No matter where you flee, I will track you down.”

The subsequent stages were all more complex than the Ghost Gate, requiring not just physical strength, but also puzzle-solving, with some stages testing background lore.

With a powerhouse on the team, all the physical challenges were spearheaded and easily tackled by Gu Jiancheng.

Having grown familiar with one another, several people started cracking jokes.

“You’re both way too hardcore; did you two accidentally swap your identity cards?”

Zhan Yan nodded solemnly: “Yeah, he fits the domineering CEO persona way better.”

Gu Jiancheng: “…Mmh, if I were the one holding your identity card, you wouldn’t have had any chance to escape, and we wouldn’t have ended up in this ghostly place in the first place.”

Zhan Yan blinked.

My, oh my, Xiao Gu has been teased so much he’s actually built up immunity.

Next up, they needed to cross the River of Forgetfulness Path. The set was gorgeous, flanked on both sides by crimson spider lilies.

However, this stage held a special penalty for couple pairings: if they failed to retrieve the “Tears of Yearning” prop, the couple would be forced onto divergent routes for the rest of the stages.

Zhan Yan had already deduced the location of the “Tears of Yearning,” but the placement was rather tricky—one had to climb the Fate-Binding Tree.

The Fate-Binding Tree was a faux tree blanketed in red wish tags, with the tag containing the Tears of Yearning hidden among them. Climbing the tree was merely the initial hurdle; the hard part was identifying the specific tag inscribed with “Tears of Yearning” from the sea of placards.

Surrounding the base of the tree was a wide perimeter of trampolines, meaning falling wouldn’t hurt, though it would cost one soul flame. There were no ladders either, so if you couldn’t climb, you simply couldn’t get up.

Gu Jiancheng moved to climb it, but was halted by the staff member playing the Tree Spirit: “You even lost your life while fleeing from him; why would you retrieve the Tears of Yearning for his sake now?”

Gu Jiancheng: …

Ugh, I truly detest this persona!

Zhan Yan pinched his chin, giving a domineering smirk: “Unhappy? Being unhappy won’t help; I won’t give you any chance to leave my side. I’ve been dragging my sister over walls and up trees since I was little—there’s nothing in this world an overbearing CEO isn’t good at!”

The domineering CEO gave a kiss to his canary who had no real intention of escaping, rolling up his sleeves to climb the tree.

Ah… Yan Yan used to drag Rong Sui over walls and up trees as a kid? That wild? So adorable…

Just as Zhan Yan stepped under the tree getting ready to scale it, a wooden tag abruptly smacked him right on the head. Picking it up, the three large characters for “Tears of Yearning” were engraved right upon it.

They obtained it just like that?

Zhan Yan looked up blankly.

Ghost King Wan Yan was sprawled across the tree trunk, huffing and puffing in anger.

Meow it all, you two came out to play without bringing me!