Ghost Town
Jiang Yu stood before an old wooden door, its vermilion paint peeling and studded with copper nails. The doorplate was crooked, bearing the words "Ancient Town of the Underworld" in a blood-like paint. A damp, musty smell, the smoldering scent of burning paper money, and faint, mournful music wafted from the cracks in the door. A heavy, eerie atmosphere, a mixture of incense and decay, permeated the air.
Inside the ancient town, the sky is always a hazy gray at dusk. Rows of old buildings line the streets, their paper lanterns casting a pale green glow. A team of three players is struggling forward.
The team leader, "Martial Arts Master" (a master of traditional Chinese martial arts), had a vacant look in his eyes, occasionally bowing respectfully to the empty alleyway entrance; the team member, "Embroiderer" (a support/curse-wielding character), found the silk threads in her hands no longer under her control, instead wrapping around herself as if they were alive, humming an off-key, eerie nursery rhyme; the last one, "Scholar" (a wise man), was in the worst condition, repeatedly banging his head against a weathered stone tablet by the roadside, muttering, "No... the etiquette is wrong... they're all wrong... but where are they wrong?"
They had been in the ancient town for "three days" (dungeon time). In order to survive, they had to imitate the behavior of the townspeople and abide by all sorts of bizarre taboos. However, their minds had been seriously corrupted in a subtle way, and they almost forgot their identity as players, gradually becoming a part of this strange ancient town.
Jiang Yu pushed open the door, revealing a narrow street paved with bluestone slabs, shrouded in mist. The moment he stepped inside, a shower of paper money suddenly rained down from the sky, and countless empty eyes could be vaguely seen peering at him from behind the windows lining the street. A chilling voice echoed through the mist: "Living people, stay away... This is the underworld... Living people, retreat immediately..."
A powerful rule of rejection attempted to push him out the door, while a force containing mental erosion rushed into his mind, trying to plant the seeds of "fear" and "rejection" in his heart.
Jiang Yu frowned slightly. This kind of pollution that directly affects the mind is more troublesome than the physical rules he encountered before. Instead of forcibly resisting the repulsive force, he slammed the machete in his hand onto the ground.
"Thump!"
A muffled thud, unlike metal striking stone, sounded more like a heavy hammer hitting rotten wood. An invisible wave spread out, the paper money scattered everywhere froze for a moment, then spontaneously combusted and turned to ashes. The prying eyes also retreated into the darkness as if startled.
“I’m not a stranger,” Jiang Yu said, looking up at the empty street. Her voice was calm but carried an undeniable force. “I’m the landlord, here to collect rent. Call your manager out here.”
The mist churned, and the chilling voice carried a hint of shock and rage: "Arrogance! This place is under the jurisdiction of the City God, how dare you run wild! Since you've entered this town, you must abide by our rules! Otherwise, your souls will be scattered!"
In an instant, the street scene distorted, and Jiang Yu found himself standing on an ancient stage. Below him were countless "audience members" dressed in funeral clothes, their faces expressionless, staring straight at him. On either side of the stage stood ghost guards dressed in black robes, their faces pale, wielding chains and stern rods.
"First rule: At night, operas must be performed to entertain the gods! Sing!" the ghost messengers shouted in unison, the power of the rule turning into shackles, binding Jiang Yu's throat, trying to force him to speak.
Jiang Yu looked at the invisible shackles that had bound her, then at the lifeless "audience" below the stage, and sighed: "You can't sing opera, but you're a pro at collecting rent."
He raised his cleaver, not to strike the ghost messengers or the audience, but to the center of the stage, where a blurry, sinister clay statue of a deity was enshrined—one of the incarnations of the fake City God—and made a light slash.
"laugh!"
A crack appeared on the statue, which emitted a painful shriek, and the entire illusion shook violently.
"It seems I'll have to dismantle your stage before I can see the real person." Jiang Yu's tone remained calm, but her eyes turned cold.
Jiang Yu shattered the illusion of the stage with a single strike, but the backlash from the ancient town's rules followed. The fog thickened, the mournful music turned into a piercing shriek, and countless twisted black shadows surged from both sides of the street. They were no longer simple ghosts, but bizarre beings that embodied the townspeople's fears.
Jiang Yu realized that the "rent" for this instance was likely related to the "core of resentment" formed in the ancient town and the "divinity" of the corrupted city god. Violent destruction might allow him to clear the instance, but it would likely drastically reduce the value of the "rent" (the core of resentment or the distorted divine essence), and could even trigger an uncontrollable collapse of the rules. He needed to find the weakness of the "contract" more precisely.
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, a faint, almost imperceptible golden luster flashed deep within them—this was a superficial application of the "Eye of Origin" bestowed by the Supreme God, which could, to a certain extent, see through illusions and directly point to the underlying rules.
In his eyes, the ancient town was no longer a physical entity, but a vast network woven from countless black, malevolent threads of rules. The core of this network lay hidden deep within the City God Temple at the heart of the town. And those few players were almost completely assimilated by these threads of rules, becoming part of the network itself.
Jiang Yu walked towards the player team. Wherever he went, the strange, dark figures that surged towards him were repelled by the aura emanating from his machete, but the threads of rule continued to entangle him, attempting to corrupt him. He needed to finish this quickly.
He found the almost completely lost player "Scholar," and pressed his cleaver against his forehead, a cool aura forcibly dispelling some of the corruption. The Scholar jolted, his eyes regaining clarity for a moment, and looked at Jiang Yu in terror.
“Tell me, what is the biggest ‘taboo’ in this town? Or, what is the most terrible thing that has ever happened here?” Jiang Yu asked directly.
The scholar, trembling, stammered out the bits and pieces of information he had gathered: "...the town chronicle...the ancestral hall...they...they nailed a traveling actor...to a pillar in the City God Temple to his death...saying he had broken the customs...and then...then the whole town...seven days...seven days later...all dead...the resentment lingered...and the City God...also changed..."
“Actor…City God Temple…Seven days…” Jiang Yu caught the key words. This was very likely the source of the resentment and the core of the rules. The power to corrupt the City God might have originated from that unjust sacrifice and the resentment of the entire town.
Just then, the mist over the entire ancient town turned blood red! A roar filled with endless resentment echoed from the direction of the City God Temple:
"Digging up my past...you deserve to die! Messenger...you've overstepped your bounds!"
Blood rain fell from the sky, the water carrying intense corrosive and mental aggression. The strength of the ancient town's rules instantly increased several times over.
Jiang Yu looked up towards the City God Temple, knowing that the final negotiations (or rather, the demolition) were about to begin.
Jiang Yu used his "landlord" privileges to forcibly interfere with the core rules of the instance, causing the corrupted City God's all-out attack to crumble. However, this was not a long-term solution; he needed to completely resolve the "rent" issue.
The corrupted City God suffered a backlash; his phantom dimmed, and he cried out in shock and rage, "You...who exactly are you?!"
"Rentalist." Jiang Yu drew his machete and walked step by step toward the statue. "Now, I'll give you two choices."
"First, I will forcibly strip you of your divinity and the core of resentment (rent) of this place, but the process will be very painful, and this place will be completely annihilated, including those innocent souls who have been imprisoned by you for hundreds of years."
"Second, you yourself hand over the core of the contract that 'binds' you to this place (that distorted bond of faith and resentment), and I will help the souls of the dead here, including that actor, to find peace. You... will also be freed from this endless pain and distortion."
This is similar to the "train of the dead," but more complex because it involves a distorted "divinity." Deep within the resentment of the corrupted city god, a sliver of clarity belonging to the original, corrupted righteous god seems to be touched by the word "liberation."
The resentment in the entire ancient town began to fluctuate violently, and the images of countless dead souls appeared in the air—some of the townspeople, and others of the blurry, sorrowful figure of the actor. They were weeping, and they were also yearning.
Finally, the corrupted City God let out a long sigh, filled with endless regret, pain, and a longing for liberation. A complex rune, formed from black resentment, shattered faith, and a trace of blood-red rules, slowly flew from the statue's forehead and drifted towards Jiang Yu. This was the "rent"—the core contract of the "Netherworld Ancient Town" domain.
Jiang Yu took the rune and could feel the heavy sin within it. He raised the cleaver again, and this time, the blade rang out with a clear sound, carrying the power of purification and severing.
"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, the cause and effect of this matter shall be settled today."
The blade falls, not striking the physical body, but severing the cause and effect.
The runes shattered, transforming into pure energy that was absorbed by the list. The entire Netherworld Ancient Town began to tremble violently. The blood rain ceased, the dark clouds dispersed, revealing the long-lost, normal glow of the setting sun. The eerie buildings lining the streets faded and vanished like a mirage. The spirits, including the corruption on the player team, gradually faded in the warm sunset, their faces revealing peaceful expressions, ultimately turning into specks of light and rising into the sky.
The corrupted statue of the City God completely collapsed, and a faint, pure spiritual light flew out from it, bowed slightly in Jiang Yu's direction, and then disappeared.
The three players collapsed to the ground, gazing at the now-normal, abandoned ancient town, feeling as if they had been transported to another world. The pollution on their bodies vanished, a notification sounded indicating the quest was complete, and the rewards were far more generous than they had ever imagined.
"He...he...he exorcised an evil god?" the embroiderer murmured.
“It’s not about performing a ritual to help the soul find peace… it’s about… collecting rent…” The scholar looked in the direction where Jiang Yu had originally stood, where there was no one, only the golden light of the setting sun. “What he took away was the ‘pain’ of this land.”
Jiang Yu returned to the corridor, and the status of "Netherworld Ancient Town" on the list had been updated. He felt that the list had become much clearer, and the information left by the main god was more targeted, seemingly related to the distortion and plunder of "divinity".
The legend of the "rent collector," after the "Exorcism Train" and the "Purification of the Ancient Town," began to morph into a taboo topic tinged with awe among certain high-level players and special beings. They realized that the waters of the Infinite Game were unfathomable, and that boy might be the key to stirring everything up.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
