Chapter 3
“Knock, knock—”
The knock sounded in the quiet little room, just as expected.
Yin Xiu turned onto his side, wrapped himself in the covers, and ignored it, continuing to sleep.
The new player would soon be taken in by someone else anyway. He didn’t need a roommate.
“Knock, knock, knock—”
The knock came again, gentle and rhythmic, steady and deliberate. Whoever was outside clearly had no intention of leaving.
Yin Xiu rolled over and tried hard to fall asleep, but for some reason, the voices and rain outside seemed far less present than the figure at his door.
The person hadn’t even said a word. They had only knocked, yet Yin Xiu could feel their gaze piercing straight through the door and landing on him.
He could feel the person standing outside, watching him without anything in the way.
“Could you open the door?”
After a long silence, the person finally spoke. It was a man’s voice, low and gentle, with no hint of menace.
“Go to someone else’s place. I don’t need a roommate.” Yin Xiu raised his voice to answer. It wasn’t unusual for a newcomer who hadn’t yet been briefed by the town’s veteran players to stumble in here by mistake.
The man outside chuckled softly. “The others told me to come to your place.”
Yin Xiu looked up. This was the first time the other people in town had sent a newcomer his way. It was intriguing.
“What did you do to make them dislike you?”
“I went into the lake and caught a fish to eat.”
Yin Xiu immediately got out of bed and hurried to the door, pulling it open in one swift motion.
The night wind carried rain and damp air into the dark room.
A drenched man stood outside. His black suit was soaked through, and water dripped from his hair. His face was somewhat pale, but he wore a smile. Handsome and refined, he looked quite elegant.
Whether it was the perfectly measured curve of his smile or how out of place he seemed on this rainy night, there was something unmistakably sinister about him.
“Are there really fish in the lake?” The first thing Yin Xiu asked after opening the door was this.
“There are.”
The man nodded. As he spoke, Yin Xiu caught sight of his teeth. They looked a little sharper than a normal person’s, and traces of some unidentified red liquid remained between them.
“There really are fish in the lake? I’ve been fishing for six years and never caught one.” Yin Xiu rubbed his chin thoughtfully, studying the man from the corner of his eye.
It was raining outside, so getting wet was only natural. But this man was soaked through, as if he’d been standing in the rain for hours. The dampness clung heavily to him.
“The fish tasted good.” The man smiled. “It was just a little shrill when it cried out.”
“So the fish in the lake can cry out...” Yin Xiu began to suspect that what the man had eaten might not have been a fish at all, but something else.
He didn’t press the matter. Instead, he stepped back, revealing the low threshold between them, and lifted his chin coolly. “It’s cold out. Come in and talk.”
The man lowered his eyes, staring at the threshold without moving.
Town Rule 5: When it rains, new faces will appear in town. Anyone who can enter a house is a newcomer; be wary of anyone who can’t.
The man’s silence prompted Yin Xiu to test him further. “Aren’t you coming in?”
He looked up, the curve of his lips growing more pronounced. “May I come in?”
“You may.”
Yin Xiu nodded. The man slowly lifted his foot and stepped over the threshold into Yin Xiu’s home.
The moment he entered, the room seemed to grow several degrees colder, as if a chill had poured in. Even Yin Xiu couldn’t help shivering.
“It looks like you live alone.” The man surveyed the room, then looked back at Yin Xiu, who was lost in thought. His eyes narrowed slightly, though his smile never changed. “They said I could choose a roommate in town. May I stay here with you?”
Yin Xiu’s gaze lingered on the threshold for a few seconds before he looked away and promptly shut the door.
“I don’t want a roommate, but there aren’t any spare rooms in town. If no one else will take you in, you’ll have to stay here.” He rummaged through a drawer, found a rules sheet, and handed it to the man. “The town’s rules. Has anyone else shown them to you?”
The man shook his head.
“Then take a look. Memorize them, and you might stay alive a little longer.” Yin Xiu had no particular interest in looking after this sudden new roommate. After handing him the rules sheet, he turned to lift the curtains and look outside.
Although the only rule in town was that no conscious being could be harmed, players who had stayed here for a while knew that harm could be active or passive.
If he refused to let the newcomer in and that indirectly caused the man to die outside tonight because no one else would take him in, Yin Xiu would be the one breaking the rule.
The other players had clearly avoided refusing him outright. Instead, they’d sent him to Yin Xiu’s place. If the man died, they wouldn’t be the ones in trouble. Only Yin Xiu would be.
The man took the rules sheet, a hint of puzzlement crossing his face. He turned it over and examined both sides for a few seconds, then set it aside and looked at Yin Xiu. Interest showed through his unchanging smile.
“You haven’t asked my name.”
“I don’t want to know.” Yin Xiu answered lazily. After confirming that the Night Goddess was no longer outside, he let the curtain fall.
The Night Goddess had already come tonight. She shouldn’t come back, right?
He pondered this as he turned and went back to the bed.
“You don’t want to know?” The man stood where he was, doggedly asking again.
“I don’t.” Yin Xiu snapped off the light and returned to bed. Before falling asleep, he reminded the man, “There are other rooms in the house. Find somewhere to sleep, but don’t get in my bed.”
There were indeed other empty rooms, but since Yin Xiu lived alone, he had always slept in the living room.
In an ideal world, the man of unknown origins would have gone to one of the other rooms, given it a quick tidy, and settled in for the night. But after Yin Xiu turned off the light, he didn’t move.
He simply stood motionless in the dark, staring at Yin Xiu on the bed without blinking. Apart from the intensity of his gaze, he made almost no sound.
“You really don’t want to know my name?” After a few seconds of silence, his voice sounded again.
The only answer was the quiet of the room. Yin Xiu didn’t react at all.
“Why do you sleep with a knife? Are you afraid of me?”
The room remained silent.
“All right.” The man chuckled, his voice tinged with indifference. He walked over to a chair and sat down. He didn’t bother to dry himself off or go to bed; he simply sat quietly in the darkness and said to Yin Xiu, “Good night.”
The moment his light, airy voice sounded, Yin Xiu’s consciousness, which should have been on guard, suddenly grew hazy. His eyelids grew heavier, drooping against his will until his eyes finally closed.
The sound of rain in town grew muffled in Yin Xiu’s ears. Half asleep and half awake, he could even hear players hurrying back to their rooms outside, but he couldn’t free himself from the haze.
There were monstrosities in town besides the Night Goddess, but they couldn’t enter houses. At night, they could only knock on players’ doors and windows, luring them outside before hunting them down as they fled.
So what was the thing sitting in his room, staring at him?
A newcomer?
Clearly not.
A monstrosity from town?
Unlikely. Even the Night Goddess couldn’t appear when it rained, but this one had—and it had even entered his home.
Yin Xiu heard him rise from the chair and cross the darkness to the bed, then crouch beside it.
Even without seeing him, Yin Xiu could imagine the expression on his face: a smile, unnaturally perfect, as he gazed at Yin Xiu in the dark without moving.
The long silence and the impossible-to-ignore feeling of being watched even made Yin Xiu feel uneasy for once.
At some point, the rain stopped. The players had all returned to their rooms, and the monstrosities had once again taken control of the town at night.
At last, the man beside the bed seemed unable to hold back any longer. He slowly reached out to Yin Xiu.
Pitter-patter—
The familiar footsteps suddenly sounded in the alley in the dead of night, moving through puddles as they crept closer to Yin Xiu’s door.
The enormous body stopped in front of Yin Xiu’s home. In the darkness, the “knock, knock” of someone tapping on the window sounded again.
The Night Goddess had returned.