Giving Interstellar Players a Horror Ghost Game Shock - Chapter 89

In the competition livestream chat, viewers were just as baffled.

【Did I just miss a ton of plot…? When did they split into teams?】

【Yeah! They only said that the two NPCs, Ah Yuan and Liu Tian, would each lead a team. But they never said which player was on which team!】

【Is it possible… that in the NPCs’ eyes, the teams were already decided even before the players showed up?】

 【Damn! Wouldn’t that basically be a bug then? How were the players supposed to know which team they were on? Someone ask the NPCs already!】

Seeing the barrage of comments, Ye Yuxi was speechless.
“…Don’t call everything a bug just because you don’t get it right away!”

In-game, Ji Yu looked like he couldn’t hold it in anymore—he was just about to ask.

But just as he opened his mouth, An Zhi quickly leaned in and stopped him with a lowered voice—

“Go with Ah Yuan and take the south entrance. We’re going with the two guys to the north entrance.”

Sheng Qingye raised her voice to address the four NPCs, 

“Sorry, can you give us a couple of minutes? We need to go over something with Xiao Ji.”

The NPCs didn’t mind at all—they still had plenty of time.

Zhang Wen even gave them a playful wink. “Alright, alright, we get it. You two always treat Xiao Ji like a little brother—you’re worried. Don’t worry, we’ll make sure he gets back safe and sound.”

An Zhi & Sheng Qingye: “…”

Who said we want him as a little brother?! Stop slandering us!

With a face full of this is not what it looks like, An Zhi quickly gave a rundown to their utterly useless “little brother.”

“We’re in Liu Tian’s livestream room, so we’re following him. Your livestream is linked to the camera, and you’ve been holding the camera since the beginning—that means your role is the cameraman. Ah Yuan doesn’t have that selfie-stick thing, so she needs you to film her. That’s why you go with her.”

This was all basic intel you could pick up from observation. She and Qingye noticed it from the start. What they didn’t expect… was that Ji Yu really hadn’t caught on at all.

She took the time to explain not out of kindness—but out of sheer desperation that he might at least survive a bit longer. She didn’t have high hopes. She just didn’t want him to die the moment they split up and turn this into a death art performance.

Ji Yu finally had an “Aha!” moment.

He glanced over at Ah Yuan, who was waiting for him, and his face immediately froze.

“Shi—”

He was just about to curse, but remembered he was being livestreamed as a military academy student. He swallowed it down painfully, face full of despair.

“You’re telling me… I’m splitting off from you guys and going with an NPC alone?!”

Even though the NPCs in Campus Nightmare 1 had seemed pretty reliable, he still felt certain that if he got separated from real people, he wouldn’t last three minutes!

Seeing Ji Yu’s face grow even paler, Sheng Qingye knew he must be scared out of his mind, and sighed before trying to calm him down.

“Relax. You’re going down the north entrance, which leads to the Yang Road. We don’t know exactly what ‘yin’ and ‘yang’ mean here, but in general, we always associate ‘yin’ with the underworld and spooky stuff. So maybe the Yang Road is actually safer. You could be the safest one of all.”

“Just make sure you stick close to Ah Yuan and don’t get separated from her.”

Ji Yu’s eyes lit up. 

“Wait—is there something special about Ah Yuan?”

“There is. She’s got nerves of steel.”

“…???”

Sheng Qingye glanced at the time and spoke faster. 

“Haven’t you noticed? So far, it’s the scaredy-cats that get targeted first. The braver someone is, the safer they seem. Ah Yuan’s not only bold, she can also boost morale. Stick close to her, follow her lead, and stop overthinking. You might actually live a little longer.”

Ji Yu hadn’t considered that at all. Thinking back, it did seem like he was the only one who’d gotten into serious trouble—

What the hell? This ghost actually bullies the weak?

…Of course, he’d never say that out loud.

Just in case some “person” nearby heard him and decided to double down on torturing him next.

And just like that, after finishing their brief discussion, the players split up and followed their respective groups down separate paths.

“Alright, my dear followers, start sending those gifts! I, your Tian Ge, swear I’ll be the first to reach the finish line with all of you cheering me on—!”

Sheng Qingye glanced up. The young man with the ponytail was holding a selfie stick, looking completely carefree now, as if nothing had ever frightened him. She pressed her lips together, unease creeping up from the soles of her feet like a slow, icy tide.

The truth was, she hadn’t said everything she wanted to earlier.

This game gave her a deeply ominous feeling. Every NPC carried something off about them—like they were wrapped in a fog that wasn’t just mysterious, but unnatural.

She had a hunch. If you just followed the NPCs’ lead, you might survive for a while—but there was no way you’d survive the whole game. Worse, you might end up paving the way for something even more dangerous later.

What she told Ji Yu was just a way to help him stay alive a little longer. As for her and An Zhi—if they wanted the game to keep moving forward, they’d have to be the ones to break the illusion of safety first… 

And then face whatever came next, head-on.

Ye Yuxi didn’t know what was running through the players’ minds. But hearing their conversation, she still gave a small, approving nod.

“Good call stopping that Xiao Ji in time. Yeah, the NPCs will answer if you ask about splitting up, but doing that plants a seed of doubt in their heads. And once that happens, it’ll affect the story later on… Let’s see. Aside from An’s group, more than half the teams already stepped into that trap.”

Honestly, it wasn’t even hard. Just think for a second and you’d figure it out.

But no—they had to be lazy and ask the NPC. Ye Yuxi, the great designer herself, wasn’t about to coddle that kind of attitude. Let them suffer the consequences later.

As for the little loophole Sheng Qingye found…

Yes. That part was deliberately left open.

A subtle smirk tugged at the corners of Ye Yuxi’s mouth.

She had intentionally set up the early stages of the game to give players a false sense of security—like maybe, just maybe, if you didn’t look too hard or think too much, you could avoid the scary parts.

But seasoned horror fans knew better.

You never survive by sitting back and hoping the danger passes.

You might scrape by for a little while, hiding in the shadows, ducking every jump scare.
But if you wanted to make it through to the end, you had to turn around and face the fear.
You had to fight it.

For Ye Yuxi, horror games weren’t just about shock value. There was always something she wanted to express—some truth behind the fear.

That even vengeful ghosts had once lived, and loved, and hurt like everyone else.
That sometimes, human beings were more terrifying than anything supernatural.

And that one lesson horror films had taught her again and again, from the very beginning:

Never be the lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

That was the kind of experience she wanted players to feel—especially those born into a world that had long forgotten how to fear.

She wanted these emotionless interstellar humans to taste the kind of terror she once knew by heart.

And right then, something flickered in her mind—

She remembered the cocky military school cadet who had declared he could clear her game in an hour.

How was he doing now?

No need to wait. She switched over to Liu Mang’s livestream right away.

To her surprise, both he and his teammate were still alive—and about to set off again.

After that accidental blow to Wang Ke, Liu Mang had been in a daze.

Only now did it finally hit him—he’d been way too naive about this game.

It was terrifying. Utterly, incomprehensibly terrifying.

The people around him had suddenly turned into monsters—
But in the end, was it all just a hallucination?
He didn’t know anymore.

What kind of game was this?

And the designer behind it—what kind of creature even came up with something like this?

What kind of mind could conjure something so deeply disturbing?

His head was a mess, a tangle of thoughts and confusion. He wasn’t really thinking—but he couldn’t stop thinking either. Without even realizing it, he followed the others toward the northern fork of the Yin-Yang Road.

He kept his head down the whole time, wrapped in his own thoughts. He didn’t even look up at the person leading the group.

Which meant… he didn’t notice it.

If he had just looked up, he would’ve seen it:

That the old locust trees lining either side of the path were covered in strange, bulky shapes.

A cold wind blew through.

The things hanging from the branches began to sway.

They bumped against the thick trunks with dull, heavy bang.