Giving Interstellar Players a Horror Ghost Game Shock - Chapter 77

The Paranormal Research Club had found a perfect spot for their spirit game—surrounded by trees, pitch dark, not even moonlight could fully reach the ground. Without a flashlight, everything was swallowed up by shadows.

An Zhi had been standing under a tree, focused on the comments on her screen, and hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings. It wasn’t until she saw the finger-snapping little girl that she realized something was off with the environment.

At some point, a faint bluish fog had spread across the entire “game area,” slowly blurring her field of vision.

The little girl who had pointed above her head seemed satisfied, happily waved her hand, and disappeared into the mist.

An Zhi had a strange feeling—she wasn’t waving at her. The girl’s eyes seemed to be looking at something above her.

Above… what could be up there?

A bead of sweat rolled down An Zhi’s cheek.

From her current angle, tilting her head up slightly, she could just make out a strand of long black hair hanging over her forehead. No matter how she looked at it… it seemed like someone’s hair.

Then, the strand moved gently, brushing across her skin with a cold, smooth touch.

Her SAN value finally dropped by two points—now at 48.

An Zhi didn’t know what the number actually meant, but she felt a creeping sense of danger.

She took a deep breath, figured she might as well go all in, and sharply looked straight up—

“An Zhi! We’ve been calling you forever. Why aren’t you coming over yet?”

A pair of soft, pale hands suddenly grabbed her arm. Instinctively, An Zhi yanked the person forward—and a pained yelp followed.

“Ow! What the heck?!”

The black strands of hair were gone.

An Zhi blinked in surprise, then looked up again—and this time, it was just a long, thin willow branch brushing the top of her head.

There was a lake nearby, and the wind was strong. The swaying willow branches really did look like long hair in the dark.

Still, An Zhi didn’t think she had imagined it. She was certain she’d seen jet-black hair—but the moment Ah Yuan showed up, it vanished!

Her heart started pounding a little faster. She couldn’t quite explain why, but maybe it was that strange feeling you get when you realize your perception doesn’t match other people’s—that creeping sense that something just isn’t right.

She kept wondering why the NPCs couldn’t see what she did, and whether she had triggered something without knowing it—and as those thoughts swirled in her mind, her SAN dropped another two points.

Now the number had turned a faint yellow.

An Zhi’s expression turned serious. She forced herself to stop overthinking. The more she thought about it, the scarier it felt. That must be what people mean by “the more you think, the more terrifying it becomes.”

Was Lu Xiaofeng scared off earlier by tricks like these? Not bad. There was definitely something going on.

But if they thought they could scare her that easily—they were way too early for that.

An Zhi quickly pulled herself together. She looked across the way—where the NPC team had been doing the spirit game—but now the fog was so thick, she couldn’t see a thing.

Ah Yuan walked beside her, muttering, “What the heck is going on? It suddenly got all foggy—ugh, this is going to ruin the whole livestream!”

“Oh right, An Zhi, you didn’t look so good just now. Did something happen?”

An Zhi thought about it for a couple of seconds and decided to tell the truth. It seemed like the NPCs were actually on her side in this game, and she definitely didn’t want to face something dangerous with a bunch of clueless allies. That would be way too risky—and a huge burden.

“While you guys were doing the rice-and-bl00d thing, I saw a little girl come over. She wrote something on the paper—I think it was a response to your question. Then she pointed above my head, and when I looked up, I saw…”

She suddenly stopped mid-sentence.

Something felt wrong.

“What did you see?” Ah Yuan asked curiously.

An Zhi didn’t answer.

Her SAN was high, her resistance strong—and it was exactly that which let her break through the illusion and realize something truly frightening.

The place where the NPCs had been playing wasn’t far from where they were now—so why, after walking for so long… weren’t they there yet?

The fog only blocked her sight—so why couldn’t she hear the other three at all?

Beside her, Ah Yuan didn’t seem to notice An Zhi’s growing wariness behind her silence.

Quietly, she placed a hand on An Zhi’s back and let out a soft giggle, her voice growing sweeter and sweeter. 

“Come on, tell me—what did you see?”

An Zhi could hear herself swallowing.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to run. She had already been preparing to bolt—but what she didn’t expect was that the moment “Ah Yuan” touched her, her whole body stiffened. She lost control.

Her body moved like a wind-up toy, mechanically following the steps of whatever this thing was. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t even choose where to go.

Then she felt her mouth open—and a hoarse voice that didn’t sound like hers came out:
“I saw… long black hair, falling like a waterfall…”

“Like this?” Ah Yuan’s icy hands grabbed her shoulders and forcefully turned her around.

Caught off guard, An Zhi came face to face with something terrifying. Her breath caught in her throat.

Ah Yuan’s once shoulder-length hair had now turned into a curtain of black, cascading all the way down like a waterfall, covering almost her entire face. But behind the strands, An Zhi could faintly smell the stench of rot.

The long hair seemed alive, slowly slithering up and wrapping itself around her neck—then began to tighten, bit by bit…

In the blink of an eye, everything went dark—and suddenly, she was viewing things in third-person.

She saw the body she had customized in-game—head separated from the torso—collapse heavily onto the ground.

Then, the fog cleared a little, revealing a graceful, swaying willow tree behind them.

So… she had never left that tree at all.

Wait… a willow tree?

“There are a lot of ghost stories about Wenhe University… like the one about the girl under the North Lake willow…”

A flash of realization shot through An Zhi’s mind like lightning. She finally remembered why this scene felt so familiar—it was something she’d heard before.

From where she was standing, she could see a lake nearby. So that’s it—she had triggered the horror legend of the North Lake willow!

Of course! How did she not realize sooner? They had been walking north this whole time, and the yin-yang road… was right next to North Lake!

But if she’d triggered the willow ghost event, why didn’t the quest system give her a prompt like it did with the rice-bl00d game?

An Zhi frowned as she tried to make sense of it—and even started wondering if she should report the bug to customer support. But then she noticed something strange: she hadn’t logged out yet. The game wasn’t over.

Seriously? Her head was gone, and she was still in the game?

She’d never played anything like this before and didn’t expect there’d be such a soul-crushing cutscene after death.

She watched as “Ah Yuan’s” hair completely wrapped around her decapitated body, forming a tight black cocoon.

A few seconds later, the cocoon vanished.

The ghost disguised as Ah Yuan began to change again—this time, transforming into the exact appearance of An Zhi’s in-game avatar.

She patted her new face gently, getting used to it, then gave a slightly stiff smile.

The bluish fog had completely lifted. The ghost’s illusion had been shattered.

Not far away, the four NPCs had already finished packing up the game area and were calling out for An Zhi in a panic. Then, as they turned around, they saw her walking toward them with a calm and graceful stride.

“Sorry for the wait,” she said with a smile. “Let’s head to… the Yin-Yang Road together.”

With that, this round of the game finally came to an end.

The scene in front of An Zhi faded into a blur—and she was returned to the game’s login screen, surrounded by the stillness of the virtual world.

The cold voice of the system rang out:

“Congratulations, Player has unlocked Bad Ending 3: Ghost Replacement. This ending has been archived. Would you like to start a new game?”

[Yes / No]