Chapter 36
(A mistaken liking, a cycle of murders.)
The wind howled. Dark clouds hung low and obscured the moonlight.
It looked like it was going to rain again.
The only thing that was still emitting light were the floor lamps lining the courtyard.
The white lights landed on the ground vertically, and upon closer scrutiny, the dust floating in the air could be seen.
Yang Ye stared at the white lights for a long time, until he heard movement coming from the nearby yard.
— Gu Liang was going out.
Yang Ye watched him walk towards the main street silently, and then stood up and followed after him without making a sound.
* * *
It was 8:20 in the evening.
Gu Liang exited the coffin shop from the backdoor, routed around the shop to get to the main street and headed for Neighbour Liu’s house.
Neighbour Liu stayed in the residential building that was right beside Seventh Secondary School, and he stayed in the same building as School Senior Feng and Princ.i.p.al Zha.
In order to get to that residential building, he had to go past the barbeque stall and Seventh Secondary School.
When Gu Liang pa.s.sed by the barbecue stall, Neighbour Liu’s corpse was lying on the small eatery table. Opposite of him, School Senior Feng, who was played by Li Xiao Yu, raised her eyes to look at Gu Liang and she could not help but heave a sigh.
Gu Liang acknowledged her with a nod before he walked straight to the apartment building.
Gu Liang was cognizant of the fact that Boss Meng chancing upon School Senior Feng as he was heading to the residential building was a prescribed situation in the script.
Simply put, School Senior Feng had to see Boss Meng take his leave before she could seize the window of opportunity where he was away to conceal the corpse inside the coffin shop.
10 minutes later, 8:30.
Gu Liang arrived at Neighbour Liu’s door.
The circ.u.mstances surrounding the current script was quite enigmatic; even if they were to disregard how people could lose their memories, it did not change the fact that Gu Liang had seen the dead body of a long-standing acquaintance, and he was only seeing the real person now.
When he reached the door of Neighbour Liu’s house, Gu Liang paused slightly before knocking on the door.
Gu Liang knocked on the door thrice at even time intervals and weight as if he possessed a slight obsessive compulsion.
Very quickly, someone came to open the door.
When the door opened, Gu Liang saw Xun Feng at a glance.
However, the present Xun Feng was unlike his norm.
The clothes he was wearing were soiled, his eyes were bloodshot, and it seemed like he hadn’t slept in days.
Additionally, the acridness of alcohol clung to his person as if he had been drinking.
His sloppy appearance was genuinely a far cry from his typical image of an earnest and rigorous psychologist.
“Thank goodness you’re okay… that’s not right, I have to kill you a short while… hold on… you’re…”
The moment Xun Feng opened his mouth, disjointed and inarticulate words spewed out and much of it sounded like incoherent rambles.
Gu Liang had no choice but to pat his shoulder. “Xun Feng, calm down. Let’s go in and talk.”
After walking through the front door, the dining room was on the immediate left and Gu Liang noticed that there was alcohol and peanuts. The props were part of the script requirements— Neighbour Liu was borrowing the excuse of business talk to meet up with Gu Liang and kill him when he least expected it.
On the right was the living room.
The living room was quite messy, the coffee table especially, because there was a lot of white paper spread across the surface and illegible writings and drawings were scrawled all over.
Arbitrarily, Gu Liang picked up one of the papers, and he knitted his eyebrows together unconsciously when he saw the written text.
He recognised Xun Feng’s handwriting— during the past lengthy treatment process, Xun Feng would use a neat and beautiful regular script to record Gu Liang’s condition every week.
Xun Feng’s handwriting has always been neat and rigorous, but it was different this time around. He wrote “I killed Gu Liang”, “I killed Gu Liang” repeatedly…
When it reached the very end, the handwriting had become so sloppy that it was illegible.
Xun Feng walked to Gu Liang’s side and glanced at those scribbles. Then, he said: “I woke up around half an hour ago. When I just woke up, I didn’t remember anything apart from the settings stated in the card. I figured that I already died once relatively quickly.
“And then I went to the living room and saw… saw the words that I wrote, and I genuinely thought you died, and you were killed by me—”
Xun Feng plopped down on the sofa and issued a long sigh. “Thankfully, you’re alright. I couldn’t resist drinking a lot of alcohol just now. I almost lost control of myself, apologies.”
Gu Liang did not reply. Xun Feng thought of something and asked him: “The script requires me to kill Boss Meng. Since you’re here, even though I wrote down those words on the paper before I lost my memory, it means that you’re Boss Meng, while I… I killed you yesterday? And I have to kill you again today?”
Gu Liang merely said: “You didn’t kill me. It was Neighbour Liu who killed Boss Meng.”
Xun Feng remained silent. Seeing that he was not going to move, Gu Liang walked into the dining room and sat down while conveniently pouring himself a gla.s.s of red wine. He took a small sip of the alcohol before he said: “It’s about time, isn’t it? You should act.”
Getting up from the sofa, Xun Feng followed Gu Liang into the dining room and sat opposite of him. With bloodshot eyes, he stared at him and croaked out: “I can’t act against you.”
“I know that you’re my doctor in reality. Doctors should be treating illnesses and saving lives, not harming. But we’re in a game right now—”
“It’s not acceptable anywhere!”
This was the second time Gu Liang had found Xun Feng strange in a considerably short period of time, ever since the incident with the water.
Psychologists like him were usually calm and self-restrained.
He could not express how rare it was to see Xun Feng acting like this.
But his thoughts took an immediate turn. Everyone was a normal person.
Upon arriving at this unfathomable game world, they could completely discard the social ident.i.ties that once constrained them. Everyone could stop acting, and why should Xun Feng be deprived of the right to reveal his true emotions?
Rather than red wine, Xun Feng poured some white wine for himself and swallowed a big mouthful directly.
Half a beat later, he placed down the gla.s.s wine, sat up straight and looked into Gu Liang’s eyes fixedly. “Put yourself in my position, if you were asked to take your own tie to strangle me to death, would you be able to do it? Do you remember how your PTSD came about?”
Gu Liang: “…Apologies.”
“You don’t need to apologise to me.” Xun Feng gave him a faint frown before he continued to speak: “You’re my patient, I am responsible for you.”
Gu Liang frowned, expression containing a trace of helplessness.
This reminded Xun Feng of the instance where Gu Liang went into the water, how he had personally reacted due to his own worries and what he had said to Yang Ye back then— each and every one of those words were expressing that Gu Liang was a lunatic.
Although those words were not deliberate, it did not alter the fact that it had really struck Gu Liang’s heart.
Xun Feng said: “I apologise, that’s not what I meant. I only felt that… if we were to depart from our ident.i.ties as doctor and patient, I don’t know how I should get along with you.”
Gu Liang was slightly perplexed. “I thought we were friends.”
“You thought of me as a friend?”
Xun Feng’s expression was filled with gratification and some remorse.
Underneath the lamp’s illumination, hints of tangled up craze could be discerned in his gaze upon closer scrutiny.
Feeling uncertain, Gu Liang simply said: “I’m slightly perplexed by the meaning of your question. Was I wrong to presume that once my treatment was completed, getting along with you wouldn’t be considered a blight to our professional ethics? Or do you have stricter standards for whom you regard as friends? You don’t consider me a friend?”
Unexpectedly, Xun Feng nodded his head: “Yes. What if I were to say that I don’t consider you as a friend?”
Gu Liang found it incomprehensible. “If you don’t consider me as a friend? What do you take me for then? A research subject?”
Xun Feng laughed helplessly. He raised his head to drink half of the white wine in his gla.s.s before he gazed at Gu Liang again.
Meanwhile, Gu Liang sat there quietly, as though he would always maintain such an expression even if the skies were falling.
The appearance he had now, was exactly the same as the one he had when he sought treatment from Xun Feng every Thursday afternoon for a bigger part of a year.
This exact image was what Xun Feng missed the most.
Because even though he was only being diagnosed and treated, Xun Feng could feel that Gu Liang completely trusted and depended on him.
Back then, that Gu Liang had been extremely fragile, and he was his patient alone.
It was as if— the mountains could collapse, the rivers could flow backwards, the galaxies could coalesce… everyone would be running away but only Gu Liang would stand there quietly, like the magnificence or destruction of the world had nothing to do with him.
He did not deliberately ask for death, but he did not have a particularly strong desire to live.
Only he could appear before him and save him.
The sense of satisfaction of being needed was truly wonderful and hard to describe.
But when the treatment concluded, everything ended with it.
And in the wake of that resolution, Xun Feng could not find the same sense of satisfaction no matter how many patients he treated for a long time. It was like he had become sick himself.
Hence, Xun Feng understood that the feelings he had for Gu Liang were not normal and it had long exceeded the boundaries of doctors and patients.
“There are some things I’m not allowed to think about when I was treating you because they are against our professional ethics. And after your treatment concluded, I also needed some time to recognise the feelings I had for you, so I didn’t speak about a word about it.
“But if I don’t say it now, I might never have a chance to do so in the future. When I thought I killed you today, I…
“Just a.s.sume that I’m cowardly. When all is said and done, you’re bound to forget everything later.”
Hearing that, Gu Liang’s eyelids drooped. He stretched his hand out to hold the wine gla.s.s in front of him and he seemed to be in a relaxed posture at first glance.
But the line of shoulders to his forearms were tightly strung, making it evident that he was putting his guard up.
Although Xun Feng took note of all these changes, he laughed bitterly as he continued to say his piece: “Do you understand what I’m trying to convey with my words?”
Gu Liang did not utter a word.
In a straightforward manner, Xun Feng finally said: “Gu Liang, I like you. And I mean on a romantic level.”
After a long while, Gu Liang replied with a calm tone: “I understand what you’re trying to convey. But I don’t understand why.”
Xun Feng said: “Because you’re genuinely good. You don’t know how great you are.”
Probably because the soundproofing quality of these temporary houses – which were typically built with planks or other makes.h.i.+ft materials – in the scenario premise were not the best, Yang Ye, who had been tailing Gu Liang and later concealed himself in the dark corridor just outside the door, happened to hear everything.
Yang Ye held his breath and listened with rapt attention. For a moment, he felt that he might be more nervous than Xun Feng for some inexplicable reason.
* * *
Xun Feng remembered the first time he saw Gu Liang.
He was sitting in the consulting room waiting for Gu Liang.
Gu Liang had arrived punctually and he knocked on the door three times consistently.
He was wearing a faint brown wind-jacket, was endowed with rarely seen tea-coloured irises, had a tall nose and deep eye sockets.
When someone of his appearance looked at other people intently, he constantly gave the impression that he possessed profound feelings.
Unfortunately, his visage was too pale and coupled with his indifferent and estranged temperament, this impression was diluted.
“Can you tell me what you would like to talk about? What problems have you encountered?”
“I’m guilty. I caused the deaths of two people.”
“Who did you harm?” The pen Xun Feng was holding in his right hand pierced through the paper in an instant, and the nib almost broke.
Gu Liang said slowly, “Two people. One was my mother. The other, was a little girl’s mother.”
……
Xun Feng poured himself another gla.s.s of wine as he recounted this matter to Gu Liang. “I don’t know why but I felt extremely distressed when I talked to you for the first time. It was quite unprofessional for a psychologist. Every patient deserves sympathy, but—”
Gu Liang interrupted him: “Sympathising with a person, and wanting to take care of said person, does not necessarily mean you like them.”
Xun Feng smiled helplessly. “You’re right. I was also confused at the start; confused about the feelings I had for you, confused about my own s.e.xual orientation… but I’ve already made peace with myself today. All I want to do right now is tell you my feelings. I’m not expecting anything out of it.”
Gu Liang raised his eyes to meet Xun Feng’s gaze. “Xun Feng, you’re my doctor, you shouldn’t have such feelings for me precisely because you know all the terrible things I’ve done. A person like me isn’t worth your fancy.”
The source of Gu Liang’s entanglement was neither the issue of s.e.xual orientation nor the fact that it was not the right time to discuss such matters right now.
In essence, he merely thought that people of his ilk were not worthy of being liked.
Xun Feng raised a hand to pinch the s.p.a.ce between his eyebrows. “Gu Liang, I’ve said this before, the only reason why you have such a low opinion of yourself is because you…”
“Yes, it’s because of my low self-esteem. You’ve helped me a.n.a.lyse this before; I may look high and lofty but it’s only because I have inferiority buried deep in my bones.”
Gu Liang’s smile was self-deprecating, “You also said that, this is heavily influenced by my original familial circ.u.mstances.”
Xun Feng took a breath and sighed, “It doesn’t matter if you have a low self-esteem, or that you look high and lofty… we can even disregard how you’re adamant about the fact that you shouldn’t be pardoned. But has it ever occurred to you that, the affection I feel for you becomes more earnest because I still like you despite understanding everything about you?”
Gu Liang shook his head: “No. I’ll only a.s.sume that you have psychological problems.”
Xun Feng: “…..”
When Gu Liang was speaking, Xun Feng was staring at him the entire time.
He knew that Gu Liang had said those words without having the intention of offending him.
When Gu Liang said those words, he was not attacking Xun Feng either; in fact, his expression was extremely serious.
Because he genuinely felt that Xun Feng had issues, and he was helping Xun Feng a.n.a.lyse the problem.
Gu Liang said: “Under normal circ.u.mstances, when someone has feelings for a terrible person, it’s typically because their sympathies are left unchecked or perhaps they’re trying to distract themselves from some psychological troubles. Even if we were to disregard the things I’ve done in the past, you can’t deny that I’m not good-looking and I have a bad personality. Therefore, something is definitely wrong with you.”
Xun Feng: “…..”
Yang Ye, who was outside the door: “……”
Xun Feng smiled bitterly. With the alcohol taking effect, his face was a little red.
Raising his hands, he rubbed his own cheeks with his palms. “In short, Gu Liang, you don’t possess the slightest feelings for me, right? I don’t have a chance at all?”
In a resolute and decisive manner, Gu Liang answered: “None. I’ve never thought in that direction before.”
Well done. His rejection was truly straightforward.
A person like Gu Liang would not even bring himself to say “Even though you’re a good person, but we’re not compatible”. His rejection was cutting and resolute, through and through.
Xun Feng was not even issued a good person card. However, before he could muster any disappointment, the card had already started to vibrate.
Gu Liang looked at Xun Feng calmly. “It’s reminding you that it’s time to act against me.”
Hearing that, Xun Feng loosened the tie on his person, since it was the murder weapon arranged by the script.
A few moments later, Xun Feng walked behind Gu Liang with the tie in hand and lowered his head to say something to Gu Liang.
Gu Liang looked like he was listening to him very intently, as if he hadn’t noticed when an extra tie had appeared in front of his neck.
According to the script, due to dishonest rumours that Princ.i.p.al Zha had spread, the business at Boss Meng’s coffin shop had plummeted drastically.
And Neighbour Liu had invited Boss Meng over in the name of business talk.
However, Gu Liang did not follow the script’s requirement to talk business with Xun Feng. Instead, he only asked: “Right, what was Neighbour Liu’s motivation to kill Boss Meng?”
Xun Feng said: “There was a time where Neighbour Liu had a casual chat with Boss Meng, and he said that he liked School Senior Feng. Boss Meng ridiculed him, saying that he could not even compare to Beggar Ding. Neighbour Liu held a grudge because of it and wanted to kill him to vent.”
“Understood. You can act.”
“You actually believe that I’m going to act against you?”
Gu Liang was seated on the chair while Xun Feng was standing behind the chair. He leaned his body forward and wrapped his hands around Gu Liang’s neck. When they were talking at the last moment, his lips were almost touching his ear.
From afar, the pair looked like intimate lovers snuggling up to each other.
Although that was the case, Xun Feng could take Gu Liang’s life at any given moment.
At this juncture, Yang Ye, who had witnessed everything from outside the apartment, finally kicked open the door and rushed in straight away.
“Xun Feng, let go of Gu Liang. We don’t know who the deceased is right now. You might actually be killing him!”
Xun Feng turned his head, and momentary surprise flitted past his eyes before calm was restored. Following, he asked Yang Ye: “What do you want to do then?”
Yang Ye’s answer was incredibly direct. “Set the premise on fire.”
At this moment, Yang Ye and Xun Feng’s cards sounded with a reminder concurrently: “Repeating the plot once— Neighbour Liu only invited Boss Meng to dinner under the pretext of business talk. Hence, Shroud w.a.n.g being at the scene does not conform with the script requirements. Shroud w.a.n.g, please leave immediately, and Neighbour Liu is also asked to act accordingly. Otherwise, both players will be punished for their violations.”
Gu Liang looked at Yang Ye warily, not knowing when he had arrived and how much he had heard.
But Gu Liang reacted very quickly. He should have heard everything.
Since Yang Ye’s presence here was against the rules, it only left the possibility where he had followed him because he was not here to perform a plot task.
Therefore, he was outside the door from the very beginning and he had heard everything as a natural consequence.
But that was the least of Gu Liang’s concerns at the present moment. He stood up hastily and told Yang Ye: “Go out now.”
Yang Ye spared Gu Liang a deep look, not uttering a word. Then, he headed for the kitchen directly.
Crouching down, Yang Ye opened the cabinet under the gas stove and said to Gu Liang: “Both of you should leave first, and tell the rest of the players to stay away from this apartment building. I’ll be responsible for detonating—”
“How are you going to detonate it?”
“I’ve been trained for this. Rest a.s.sured.”
“Yang Ye, this is very dangerous.”
“If you know it’s dangerous, you should hurry up and leave!”
At this moment, the long-lost broadcast sounded.
“The following is a town-wide broadcast concerning an unexpected situation: Due to a player’s sabotage, the electricity for the entire city will be cut for an hour.
“This is out of the consideration for everyone’s safety as well. There have been precedents of players carrying out illegal actions which resulted in the crew being annihilated in a sea of flames. Therefore, the safety facilities of the scenario venues, clothes, services and other aspects have been upgraded.
“Preventing fires and explosions, ensuring the safety of all players, is the onus of the system. Apologies for the inconveniences caused.”
Yang Ye: “……”
Gu Liang: “……”
Xun Feng: “……”
Two minutes later, the broadcast continued: “Shroud w.a.n.g has violated the rules, Neighbour Liu has violated the rules, and they will be punished.”
Once the broadcast ended, four men in black appeared and took away Yang Ye and Xun Feng separately.
Gu Liang sat back in his chair again and held onto his forehead while sighing silently.
The fifth men in black appeared without any prior warning. He picked up the tie and wrapped it around Gu Liang’s neck…
* * *
The room was dim and the air was humid.
Gu Liang woke up in an old bed.
He sat up and took a look at his own card. The time displayed was August 7, 9 o’ clock at night.
After getting out of the bed, Gu Liang looked at the s.h.i.+rt and jeans that was placed neatly in front of the bed first.
Heart still palpitating, he went to the kitchen, and saw the egg sh.e.l.ls that were already in the kitchen dustbin and the porridge that had been preserved with a cling wrap in the refrigerator.
He immediately understood that he had lost his memory, and he might have died once.
Is this the first time I’ve lost my memory?
Did I leave a record somewhere?
Thinking that, Gu Liang drank some porridge in a hurry before he returned back to his attic bedroom.
He rummaged around briefly before he found an account book at the head of the bed.
The book that was originally meant for bookkeeping, had been repurposed into a journal by him.
“7 August (it should be 8 August in reality), 9:00, I woke up. This should be the first time I woke up and realised that I have died once…”
“10:30, I encountered Beggar Ding and School Senior Feng’s corpse with Yang Ye…”
“6:00 of the next day, my time shows 8 August, 6:00, but according to regular time flow, it should be 6:00 on 9 August. I killed Princ.i.p.al Zha, this is my second time killing him.”
“10:00, School Senior Feng came to find me, I heard her talking to the men in black about tops and bottoms…”
Gu Liang saw himself making a few cross marks here before he wrote the important points again: “In the coffin shop, we found Neighbour Liu’s corpse, it was School Senior Feng who killed him.”
“Afternoon, Yang Ye invited us to a meal. Truth to be told, last night’s dinner and today’s breakfast was also made by him. The breaded pork cutlet was very delicious. En… this still has nothing to do with the case.”
“I received a new plot late in the afternoon… Gu Liang, you can burn this journal once you have read this.”
“Because I have basically ascertained the fact that I am the real murderer in this case.”
“The following is an amendment to the contents in the journal. The first article, ‘when I woke up and thought that I had died once’, it should be revised to ‘I had already died twice by then’.”
“I will be going to Neighbour Liu’s house tonight, and he should be the murderer who kills me at 9:00. When that time comes around, I will die in this script for the third time.”
“But this is not important. I will not truly die. Because I am the real murderer in this case.”
“This is a journal you wrote yourself. Burning it should not be considered as the destruction of evidence. There is something hidden under the coffin in the middle of the main hall on the first floor. Once you open the coffin, you will understand everything.”