Chapter 3#
Chapter 3#
Origami
Yikes, Uncle Yuan thought.We’ve got a pervert on our hands.He eyed the paper with some trepidation. “Sir, does the note mean that theymysteriously…”(idiom; without gods or ghosts knowing)
“Rode me?” Yu Qing finished what Uncle Yuan left unsaid.(innuendo; possessed/topped me)
Flabbergasted, Uncle Yuan waved the words off. “Impossible. How can that be?”
No matter deified mortal or spirit, the living or the dead, any sane being on the island knew better than to cross Yu Qing—god of carnage—for no good reason.
After a terse silence, Uncle Yuan suggested, “Maybe… Er…”
Yu Qing frowned. “Has the cat got your tongue?”
“Well, um.” Uncle Yuan hemmed and hawed. “Could you have written it unconsciously, sir?”
A tendril of incredulity crept onto Yu Qing’s glacial countenance. “You’re saying I sleepwalked?”
“I dare not, I dare not.”
“You just did,” Yu Qing deadpanned.
Uncle Yuan tucked his hands into his sleeves and hung his head, then eventually said, “In that case, it must have been a lapse on my part.”
Yu Qing shot him a look. “Go on.”
Uncle Yuan thought back. “I reckon that last night, while you were out, someone managed to bypass me and enter your bedroom to test you or check on your condition. But I’m no easy target.” After a pause, he concluded, “Whoever pulled this off couldn’t have been ordinary. I’m guessing, it’s one of your… colleagues.”
On the island, nobody would mention deities by title unless invoking them. Uncle Yuan could only generalise them as ‘colleagues’ to avoid drawing their attention. That said, the relationships between the deities were far from peaceful, for they were capable of devouring one another. Devouring a ‘colleague’ would grant one their powers, and shapeshifting and slaughter were traits that were as fearsome as they were coveted.
Uncle Yuan’s reasoning seemed sound on the surface, yet Yu Qing scoffed. “If they were after that, they wouldn’t have come here to test or challenge me in advance. They can just wait for my demise.” He fell briefly silent. “It won’t be long, anyway.”
Taken aback, Uncle Yuan wanted to object, but he could come up with nothing.
In recent years, the island had been beset by disasters and monsters. A choking miasma shrouded the land. Mortals sought safety in numbers, yet lacking reasons to gather, they began erecting monuments and shrines.
That was how deities came into being.
They were born from belief. Their divinity grew with their following, and if none worshipped them, they would decay. Yu Qing was one such deity on the brink of death. Both he and Uncle Yuan were crystal clear on that.
Tedium crashed over him all of a sudden. He couldn’t be bothered to get to the bottom of who had left that note. He still had one last matter to attend to.
Yu Qing snapped his fingers, and the skeletal kitten Xiaomi flicked its tiny tailbone, then hopped from the edge of the desk onto his shoulder.
“Are you going back to the flat, sir?” Uncle Yuan asked.
“To return the skin.”
“Shall I come along, sir?”
“Suit yourself.”
Uncle Yuan walked a few paces before noticing that Yu Qing hadn’t moved. He turned back. The master of the house had taken a step, only to stop dead, staring at the note with a deep furrow in his brow.
“Is there an issue?” Uncle Yuan prompted.
“On such a large piece of lined paper,” Yu Qing said frostily, “would it kill that guy to write straight? Must it be at an angle?”
Uncle Yuan: “…”
Might makes right; he immediately agreed, “Exactly, what insolence! I’ll rip it up at once!” He knew what this was about. Yu Qing had a quirk: whenever possible, he avoided touching objects of unknown origins. He’d never handle anything that he could get others to handle for him.
However, Uncle Yuan ridiculed, when it came to killing, not even the splatter of brain matter could stop Yu Qing.
As usual, he was about to rip the paper for His Royal Highness, but Yu Qing waited not even a second more before seeing to it himself. He even held the scraps up to the skeleton and asked, “Fancy a bite?”
Xiaomi: “?”
Infernal cat abuser.
Uncle Yuan quickly took the scraps and binned them.
(infernal 天杀的 – smote by the heavens; cat abuser 虐猫鬼 – cat-torturing spirit)
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The tenement in the Lower District was leaky. The run-down corridor was damp, the faulty lights flickered, and the mouldy police tape drooped all the way down. Yu Qing pushed the door. It swung open with a creak.
A murder had taken place inside of 1716 some days ago; the stale air stank. Covering his nose, Yu Qing instructed tersely, “Basin. Clothes. Take this.”
Uncle Yuan rummaged through the place, fetching a metal basin and a clean set of clothes, then took the linen-wrapped skin from Yu Qing and placed it with the clothes in the basin.
The scene was unsettling, but Yu Qing was an old hand at this.
Taking out a ring-sized gilded igniter, he flicked out a flame and tossed it into the basin. With aboom, crimson flames flared high, and an apparition shimmered from the billowing smoke.
Had the timid Walnut from the noodle shop been passing by, he would have recognised the apparition at once. Scrawny, clad in a greyish T-shirt with an overstretched collar, sporting heavy dark circles under his eyes—it was, without doubt, his murdered neighbour.
His record on Yu Qing’s devotee register was under the name Chen Shuang, a refined name. Having been trampled underfoot, dying a miserable death, now even with his skin and clothes set aflame, reforged by fire, he was still cleaner than before.
Chen Shuang glanced down at his smokey form, bewildered. “How did I end up like this?”
Uncle Yuan consoled him. “You’re a ghost now. Unless the rite of absolution is performed, it’s how you’ll remain forever.”
Frightened, Chen Shuang hastily looked at Yu Qing. “Er, could you absolve me?”
Yu Qing: “…”
Yu Qing: “Don’t know how.”
“Huh?”
Uncle Yuan acted as his spokesperson. “You must have heard when making offerings. The Painted Skin concerns himself with carnage and nothing else.”
“I got the memo,” Chen Shuang muttered. But how was he supposed to know that nothing meantabsolutely nothing at all? The freshly forged ghost looked on the verge of tears. “Then what do I do?”
“Look for a priestess when you can,” Uncle Yuan advised.
“I don’t know where to look,” Chen Shuang protested.
Yu Qing said, “Take your time looking.”
Chen Shuang: “…”
The high-and-mighty Spirit Deity was right about to leave. Standing on the bloodstained floor, Chen Shuang hurriedly asked, “M-may I follow you guys? I don’t want to stay here.”
Can you eat scrap paper? Or slurp down corpses? Or stick up your tailbone?the ruthless Mr. Painted Skin thought.If no, then why should I keep you around?
He wasn’t a patient man by any measure, but just as he was about to flatly refuse, he looked over. Chen Shuang’s face was streaked with tears. Uncle Yuan, probably because of his old age, was there shedding tears with him.
Even Xiaomi on his shoulder was shaking. Who knows what had gotten into it.
Speechless, he frowned at the kitten’s skeletal face. “You’ve changed. Which nasty thing did you pick that up from?”
Xiaomi cocked its skull to the side, letting out a confused “Meep.”
Yu Qing turned to Chen Shuang, adding, “My own days are numbered. What will following me do? You’re better off looking for a priestess.” With that, he strode away.
Chen Shuang dazedly watched the deity’s tall, handsome figure vanish through the doorway—just as the rumours said, wearing a mask of beauty, slaughtering en masse, and holding no heart in his ribcage.
Uncle Yuan, however, shook his head and said to the young ghost, “Well then, take care.”
Chen Shuang was lost. “Why did he say his days are numbered? What does that mean?”
Uncle Yuan sighed. “You were the last mortal on the island to worship him.”
Each deity kept a register, and the devotees listed often prayed to them. For every request fulfilled, their divinity grew and their ranks swelled, expanding their reach.
But Yu Qing was different.
His register had always been short, with the numbers ever dwindling. Chen Shuang was the last one, not to mention that he had been dying when he made his request; he didn’t count as a living person. As such, when Yu Qing killed the two murderers on his behest, no new name was added to the register, and the final name vanished.
Without any devotees, even a deity would meet their demise. Their temple would collapse, and their statue would crumble.
The entire process only took two days.
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Affected by it, Yu Qing was overcome by lethargy. He instructed Uncle Yuan, “Do what you want, but don’t enter the bedroom,” then went to bed.
Even in sleep, he couldn’t escape his exhaustion. Everything felt insipid.
They said that deities didn’t dream, yet he could still perceive things. He could sense the decay, the temple weathered by the relentless rain over the island, buckling, near-collapse, the giant cracks snaking along the statue, and the clatter as crumbling rock hit the floor.
An indeterminate amount of time later, out of the blue, a voice cut through the decay. “Are you not planning to get up?”
Plus, that voice was quite… well, not awful.
Like a breeze soughing through the dusty cracks in his statue, the voice seemed to come from him, yet it wasn’t his.
…?
As soon as he registered that, he was startled awake. He tended to be moody upon waking up, his unhappiness written all over his face, yet now his eyes showed no hint of drowsiness.
Because he saw a large pile of paper beside his pillow—origami, to be precise.
It was as though someone had, out of sheer boredom, taken sheet after sheet of gold-flecked paper and folded them into a variety of shapes from rabbits, cats, dogs, birds, and fish to pine trees and roses.
The paper was thin enough for him to make out some scribbles within the folds. A terrible premonition washed over him as he thought of the note he’d ripped up the previous day. With a poker face, he sat up and unfolded the jumbled mess. There was indeed writing inside.
Every sheet bore that familiar, flamboyant script—carefree and, completely disregarding the gridlines,written at an angle!
What got him even more worked up was the contents.
^^ : I saw my note in the trash, torn to shreds.
^^ : You looked annoyed. If it’s because of me, then I’m very sorry.
^^ : You might not be believe me, but since it’s only polite, I’d like to remind you that I accidentally hijacked your body for a bit.
^^ : Complete accident, really.
^^ : Only for short spells each time, and I can’t leave the room. Even when I go to the corners, the next time I take over, I’m back in bed. Are you cursed to stay in bed, o pretty friend?
^^ : Your skeletal kitty is adorable. It willingly played with me for a while, though it kept hissing. Shame that it can’t talk, or I’d have gotten it to pass my regards.
^^ : I rarely write this much for anyone. Hope it makes things a little less annoying.
The more Yu Qing read, the more annoyed he got. He was about to sweep the clutter off his bed when he spotted more ink out of the corner of his eye—there were scribbles on his left palm too!!!
In disbelief, he opened his hand. The bastard had finally reined in that flamboyant cursive. It was passably legible now, though the content remained just as annoying.
^^ : I was worried those notes would meet the same fate as before and that you’d refuse to believe I exist. I could only take the liberty of borrowing your hand. How did I do? Notice me?
Good heavens, there was even a tiny postscript at the end.
P.S. Friendly tip to look into the mirror.
Yu Qing: “…”
He was certain he was dealing with a psycho.
A psycho who treated his body as paper to write on.
He swept into the walk-in wardrobe and stood in front of the mirror. Then, he exhaled, relieved that at least that bastard hadn’t written on his face. But he still glowered at his reflection, trying to peer through the glass, to see the unfamiliar visitor behind it.
“Who are you?” he asked in a low voice.
In response, his reflection rippled. For a split-second, he thought he glimpsed a silhouette standing behind some fog. Though the face was indistinct, the figure was tall and sharp.
However, it soon shifted back to his own reflection.
Just as Yu Qing was about to take a closer look—ding! A translucent hologram popped up, displaying a profile in glowing blue text.
Player Alias: ^^
Player Name: Mi *******
Character Level: 0
Starting Credits: -470,000
Beneath those few lines was a blockish exclamation mark that flashed non-stop. Yu Qing stared at it in silence; it was hard to ignore something that kept flashing like that. He poked it.
The blue text scrambled and then formed new lines.
< Congratulations on unlocking the Beginner Dungeon. >
< Failure to enter within 3 minutes will be flagged as inactive gameplay, and your account will be suspended for 24 hours. >