Fingers connect to the heart.
Seeing such a bloody scene all at once.
Xiao Gui'an couldn't help but shiver. When he blinked and looked again, his hand was perfectly fine, without any damage.
As someone who has dabbled slightly in horror novels.
Xiao Gui'an had reason to suspect that his so-called Writer identity might have actually had all its fingers cut off.
When he used to read those eerie stories, he found them terrifying and ferocious.
Now that it was happening to him, he instantly felt utterly miserable.
Who was so cruel as to cut off his fingers?
This question had no answer for now.
The character for 'light' in 'Sunshine' seemed to have been gnawed away by something, leaving behind residual marks like dried, mottled bloodstains.
Xiao Gui'an calmly withdrew his gaze.
Even though his heart had just raced for a moment, his face showed no trace of it.
After all, managing facial expressions is a basic skill for an actor.
He took two deep breaths in his heart.
I am a ghost now, not a human, no need to be afraid.
As long as I get along well with these NPC colleagues, all problems will be solved smoothly.
Previously, it was all rigid system control, a two-point-one-line routine: one residential area, one supermarket.
But now, when he logged in, it was precisely the time when the puppet body was returning from outside. Xiao Gui'an naturally picked up the pile of meat and vegetables placed beside him.
Then he steadily passed through the black mist at the entrance and entered the Sunshine Residential Area.
Although it was called Sunshine Residential Area, clearly in a horror game world, how could there possibly be a place filled with sunlight?
The entire residential area was shrouded in a foggy environment, with clouds and mist that seemed to press against one's face churning and rolling.
The residential area was extremely dilapidated. Three old buildings stood at the three corners of a triangle, with huge cracks spreading out from them, making the buildings look like dangerous structures.
What looked like red paint, or possibly real blood, was smeared on the walls in strange, ugly, and eerie graffiti resembling human organs, seemingly slowly writhing.
It was completely silent, like a den of the dead.
Only occasionally did the wind passing through the building corridors let out mournful and plaintive wails.
It seems the environment is really quite terrible.
Xiao Gui'an slowly bypassed the security booth and saw from a distance that on the empty ground behind the residential buildings, there seemed to be several children playing football.
Perhaps he could go ask them for some information or something.
He glanced at the bag of unknown items he was carrying, wondering if there was anything inside that could lure children.
As he got closer, he realized the children weren't kicking a football, but a severed human head.
The wide-open eyes were still rotating, and the face wore a distorted, eerie smile.
The children had pale complexions, black lips, and deeply sunken eye sockets, like ghost children who had just crawled out of graves, wearing white burial shrouds, their throats emitting sharp, piercing laughter.
This is really shortening my lifespan—
Xiao Gui'an screamed loudly in his heart.
He stopped and watched from not far away.
His other hand, held behind his back, was slightly closed.
His entire posture appeared casual.
Just then, one of the little boys kicked the ball toward Xiao Gui'an.
The head, clearly belonging to a child, rolled clatteringly right to Xiao Gui'an's feet.
Xiao Gui'an calmly looked down. The originally lifeless head suddenly rotated, violently turning the face toward him, accompanied by a child's sharp scream.
The index finger of his left hand behind his back trembled slightly.
[Writer]'s deep, dark eyes were extremely calm, not a single ripple of disturbance, as if he wasn't scared at all.
"Not scared? Mr. Writer?" The boy's head giggled, its eyes almost entirely white and bulging, staring straight at Xiao Gui'an.
"Nothing to be scared about." Xiao Gui'an said.
The other children also ran over one by one, their dull eyes fixed on Xiao Gui'an.
Being stared at by so many eerie eyes at once made Xiao Gui'an feel his scalp tingling.
But he decided to channel his caring big brother persona to build a good relationship with these children.
After all, if they were playing Hide and Seek, these children would probably be the main force.
"It's getting late, why are you still playing? You should go home for dinner."
The gloomy sky made it impossible to tell what time it was, but when persuading children to go home, you could always use this line.
One of the girls with two pigtails stepped forward and answered, "Mr. Writer, have you been outside again?"
"Yes, I went to get some necessary things." Xiao Gui'an lifted the bag in his hand.
The contents of the black bag swayed a couple of times, as if they were living creatures, and a faint smell of rotting flesh drifted out.
Hearing this, the ghost children's faces immediately showed expressions resembling longing. "That's so nice, I wish I could go out too."
Are there restrictions preventing them from leaving?
Or is it because they're not powerful enough?
...
A few fleeting thoughts passed through Xiao Gui'an's mind.
When they smelled that scent, being children after all, they couldn't hide their desires. Their eyeballs were completely glued to Xiao Gui'an's black plastic bag.
The black plastic bag was unfolded before the children. The Writer, who had recently moved in, said gently to them, "If you want anything, take it yourselves. Consider it my treat."
The children looked at each other, pushing and shoving.
They had all been warned by their parents not to interact too much with this Writer.
But with someone from outside the residential area finally here, children trapped here all day couldn't help but be curious.
The scent emanating from the black bag constantly teased their nerves. One chubby boy finally couldn't resist the temptation and stepped forward first.
He directly reached inside and pulled out a section of wriggling bloody large intestine.
The chubby boy looked at Xiao Gui'an.
Xiao Gui'an smiled and said, "It's fine, take it. Just don't dirty my clothes."
He decided to establish an image for himself: besides being refined, gentle, and knowledgeable, another aspect would be being clean and somewhat obsessive about cleanliness. Although he himself was quite clean to begin with—if you want to maintain health, how can you not pay attention to hygiene?
This way, in the future, even if he didn't like those bloody, messy things, he wouldn't seem too out of place among these ghosts.
After all, there are clean ghosts too, right?
If there aren't, he would start the trend.
The chubby boy didn't stand on ceremony either, pulling out the intestine and stuffing it into his mouth.
Yellow grease mixed with sticky blood threads spurted out like sauce. The parts he couldn't swallow in time dripped messily onto the ground, splattering several drops of blood.
The little boy's head on the ground mocked him, "Hah, how impressive."
Combined with the chubby boy's abnormally pale face and blood-filled mouth, the scene was incredibly eerie and disgusting.
Eww—
That's way over the grease limit, right?
Even ghosts shouldn't eat things raw like that!
Even being a ghost requires attention to hygiene.
Xiao Gui'an, the health enthusiast, strongly rejected this unhealthy eating style.
By now, most of his fear had dissipated, replaced by condemnation of the ghosts' crude eating habits.
A sense of responsibility to spread healthy eating habits and regular lifestyles spontaneously emerged.
The silently watching System: 『Isn't your focus a bit off???』
After the chubby boy, another boy with a pointy face and monkey-like cheeks stepped forward, directly reaching into the bag.
What he pulled out was a large piece of bloody, mangled scalp, still wrapped around shattered brain matter, a bloody mess.
Just as he was eagerly about to stuff it into his mouth, Xiao Gui'an stopped him sternly.
"How can you just swallow it raw like that? This is extremely unhealthy!
At the very least, you should cook it properly. Do you know how many parasites are in undercooked food?
They will invade your body, then suck the nutrients from your flesh, wriggling vigorously inside you, mating, laying eggs, constantly reproducing, bit by bit eating away your internal organs, making you feel countless worms crawling inside you every moment.
When they've hollowed out your insides, they will directly burst out through your skin, from your eyes, nostrils, mouth, even your rear XX—everywhere becomes their exit point.
They erode every corner of your body, even devouring your brain completely until nothing is left. Then you're just a thin layer of skin, and after that, you're gone, leaving no trace in this world.
Only one after another sticky, extremely fat parasite wriggling vigorously on a pile of broken bones."
The little ghosts listened dumbfounded one by one. As Xiao Gui'an described it, they too seemed to feel something crawling inside them, gradually eroding their internal organs.
Even though they had already become terrifying ghosts, why did they still find it so disgusting?
Xiao Gui'an continued, "I'm not exaggerating or trying to scare you. I'm a Writer, I know about these things.
Remember, no matter the circumstances, we must learn to live healthily. You, take that back and have your parents handle it. Next."
He was just exaggerating a bit, hoping these children would remember. Nothing more.
System: 『Host... I... ugh... your description is so disgusting...』
The group of children, who hadn't seen much of the world, seemed frightened by Xiao Gui'an's words.
Looking at the Writer before them who seemed to embody elegance and composure to the end.
Their faces turned even paler than before.
The chubby boy who had been eating happily earlier went through several changes in expression before finally unable to hold back, raising his chubby hand to wipe his mouth.
Then he started crying and ran toward one of the residential buildings.
"Waaah, Mom, I don't want to turn into a parasite—"
The pointy-faced, monkey-cheeked boy left with a complicated expression, holding the broken scalp.
The remaining children continuously took out broken human organs from the bag, but none of them directly gnawed on them in front of Xiao Gui'an.
Instead, they took the items back to their respective homes one by one.
Last in line was the pigtailed little girl. She pulled out a peeled-off face from the bag.
She seemed to feel it was somewhat impolite to take things from others without giving something back. She took out a necklace from the pocket of her white burial shroud and directly handed it to Xiao Gui'an.
"For you, Mr. Writer."
By the looks of it, if he didn't accept it, the little girl probably wouldn't give up.
"Thank you." Xiao Gui'an softly expressed his gratitude, reaching out to take the white necklace.
『Ding—Congratulations to the player for obtaining common item: Nameless Woman's Shattered Skull Necklace』
Seeing Xiao Gui'an accept the gift, the little girl's face showed an extremely stiff expression of happiness.
Xiao Gui'an felt this girl had more potential, so he casually asked, "Do you only play football usually? Don't you play other games?"
Hearing this, the little girl's face developed several cadaveric spots, her eyes bulged outward and turned red. Her smile grew wider and wider, almost stretching to her ears.
"Most, most recently, hehe, we can play Hide and Seek, there's, there's food..."
Her saliva dripped down, clearly showing extreme fondness for the food she mentioned.
Xiao Gui'an remained expressionless. "Oh, I see. Then you should hurry back! I should be going too."
At these words, the little girl slowly returned to her previous shy demeanor, nodding blankly. "Goodbye, Mr. Writer."
Then she turned and entered the first residential building.
What was supposed to be a scene of little ghosts devouring human fragments for Xiao Gui'an ended up completely reversed.
Xiao Gui'an wasn't scared; instead, the little ghosts were the ones questioning their existence.
The little boy's head at his feet was still calling out, "What about me? What about me? Mr. Writer?"
Xiao Gui'an slowly squatted down to look at him. "I've always preferred well-behaved children. They're the ones who get rewards."
"I'm very well-behaved too, Mr. Writer. My body is over there, it's coming."
"No, you're somewhat mischievous." Xiao Gui'an stood up coldly, glancing toward where the little boy's body was, thinking to himself, [For a child who isn't well-behaved, I usually give them a—dashing slide tackle]
Of course, he wasn't actually going to slide tackle.
[If only I had some other power...]
Xiao Gui'an reached out, concentrating his thoughts, and felt an extremely faint, Yin-cold power gathering at his fingertips.
Thinking of it like Tai Chi energy circulation, the Ghost Power moved somewhat sluggishly and stagnantly, but eventually surged forth.
The dark-haired young man raised his hand and gently waved, as if brushing away a speck of dust. The head directly flew into a corner.
Headless boy: ???
Withdrawing his hand, the gentle, jade-like young man adjusted his glasses, returning to the elegant and composed Mr. Writer.
[It's like Qi energy...] Xiao Gui'an's eyes slightly brightened. After practicing Tai Chi for so many years, this was the first time he truly felt the existence of Qi.
It was just too little. Just manipulating the ghost boy's head made him feel like the power in this body had been drained...
Just as Xiao Gui'an was wondering which building he lived in, a hoarse, horrifying strange sound suddenly came from behind.
"Mr. Writer, what are you doing here?"
Instantly, Xiao Gui'an felt endless cold air rush from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, as if something terrifying was crouching beside his shoulder, making one shudder.
Security Guard Uncle Zhao of Sunshine Residential Area watched as the refined man before him slowly turned around, smiling as he said, "Chatting with children makes one feel better."
He looked extremely gentle, possessing a certain elegance, his smile like a spring breeze, his entire being completely out of place in this gloomy environment.
But Uncle Zhao knew better.
He rotated his turbid, blood-red eyes and said hoarsely, "It's getting late, you should return early to rest."
The Writer seemed very agreeable. He smiled and agreed, even showing concern. "Yes, I should head back. Don't work too hard yourself."
Security Guard Uncle Zhao shook the baseball bat in his hand. The top of the bat was still smeared with bloody, mangled stuff, with blood vein patterns, some sticky substances resembling human blood lipids continuously dripping down.
It seemed like something had just been smashed by that bat.
"Nothing about working hard or not, it's my responsibility."
Looking at the all-business security guard, the Writer's smile remained unchanged. "Alright, then I'll head back first. Please remember to rest."
Saying this, the Writer nodded to him, then steadily walked into the second residential building, carrying his bag of items from outside.
Security Guard Uncle Zhao kept his eyes on the other's departing figure until it was completely swallowed by darkness before withdrawing his gaze.
His hand, which had been tightly gripping the baseball bat, relaxed slightly.
So terrifying.
Clearly the most disgusting and twisted thing among them, yet pretending to be more human than any other ghost.
When the Writer first arrived, he only heard from [It] that something ominous had come to the residential area, but without much malice.
After that, he only saw him from afar a few times. The faintly visible black mist shrouding the other and the faint mournful murmurs made even ghosts feel resistant, not wanting to approach.
As if getting close would be tainted by more misfortune, becoming even more unfortunate.
Today, perhaps because the Writer's condition was better, the black mist had completely disappeared.
But his face was still somewhat blurry, making it hard to remember his features.
However, he looked quite well-dressed, treating others gently and politely. No one would know what kind of monster was hidden beneath that skin.
He was smiling, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. Wearing the most appropriate smile, it was like a false mask.
It felt like he was conversing from another world, with an undeniable sense of fragmentation and detachment.
Like the most chaotic combination of deepest despair, hatred, and curses.
An existence even ghosts loathe and reject.
What created such an existence?
Appearing in such a place, yet wearing a living person's smile, trying to live like a human.
So twisted, Writer...
【Current Writer Acting Degree: 1%】
【Unlocked hidden buff: Lonely Creation of Ghosts and Gods (1/???)】