Chapter 256: [Rotten Bones and Resurrected Flesh] Title Effect
Behind the door lay a relatively large space crammed full of display shelves.
All manner of objects rested upon the shelves.
Dolls, stuffed animals, small ornaments, a piece of cloth, a book, an article of clothing…
All in all, the items were far from few.
Many appeared filthy as well.
“When it comes to antique and item restoration, the absolute paramount rule is that you cannot ruin these objects. The very first step of restoration is getting them clean, but some items have been around far too long, making thorough cleaning exceedingly difficult.”
Without wasting further breath on useless banter, the old man motioned for them to step inside directly.
“However, you don’t need to learn how to clean these objects just yet. Clean off the loose dust coating the display shelves and these items first.”
[Ding—Congratulations! You have received a quest commission: Clean off the loose dust on the display shelves and items. Completing the quest will unlock Master Gao’s favorability.]
This single game prompt sounded almost as if they were playing a casual video game.
Master Gao went so far as to hand each of them a cloth and a feather duster.
The novice quest was about to commence.
The odors lingering inside the room were a chaotic, strange blend.
The six individuals exchanged glances with one another. Maintaining a superficial veneer of friendliness for the time being, they partitioned the space into six distinctly defined areas.
One person occupied each of the east, south, west, and north sections, while the central area was split cleanly down the middle between two individuals.
Bai Cha was situated in the western corner.
She observed the items on the shelves with meticulous care—there truly was a bit of everything.
Sending off a long-held personal item for someone else to restore and extend its preservation lifespan wasn’t a particularly novel concept in this era.
In a horror game, however, items that had been used for a very, very long time—some so ancient they could be classified as vintage antiques—were prone to attracting foul entities.
For instance, hanging directly above Bai Cha’s head was a pale-yellow, European court-style dress.
The dress was rather opulent, its material and craftsmanship appearing quite exquisite.
If it truly counted as a vintage antique, it likely dated back to the Republican era.
Spurred by a breeze from an unknown origin in the surroundings, the dress’s hem swayed in a perpetual, subtle flutter.
It resembled a lively, sprightly young girl softly swaying her body while clad in the dress.
Looking up at it, one couldn’t help harboring a lingering sensation that the dress might drop from above at any given moment and drape right over them.
Bai Cha let out a few low, muted coughs, pulling some distance away from the dress.
The feather duster brushed lightly over the items on the display shelf, kicking up a thin layer of dust into the air.
Come to think of it… shouldn’t these items belong to customers who sent them over to be restored?
Yet here they rested on display shelves, gathering dust.
Were they left unclaimed, or… were the customers actually present right here as well?
While Bai Cha was pondering this, her eyes locked unexpectedly with the eyes of a toy doll.
It was a ragdoll with nearly all its hair fallen off, wearing a rather worn-out jumper dress, its arms and legs bearing visible stitching marks.
Black buttons served as its stitched-on eyes. By rights, it was merely a cloth doll stuffed with cotton, yet looking at it yielded the distinct sensation of locking eyes with a living entity.
As if a person resided inside.
With complete composure, Bai Cha gave it two light taps with the feather duster, obscuring the doll’s line of sight.
Next, her gaze fell upon a diary—thoroughly dilapidated, even bearing minor charring marks from a fire.
Yet an inexplicable impulse surged within her—a driving urge to flip it open and take a look.
Dust floated through the air, and Bai Cha broke into another fit of coughing.
Coughing continuously, she pressed on with her cleaning, using one hand to cover her nose and mouth, her entire form appearing frail to the extreme.
She had lowered her height by ten centimeters as well, standing at a mere 158 cm now, rendering her incapable of reaching higher spots.
She refrained from forcing herself to scrub every inch spotless; she possessed neither a obsession with cleanliness nor obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Cleanliness aside, she herself was sometimes messy enough to die.
Swiping a couple of times for appearance’s sake would suffice.
As for the old man’s favorability, or becoming his apprentice? They would play it by ear depending on how the situation unfolded.
First, let’s observe the state of this game.
Was the primary NPC that old man?
If the old man died and became incapable of taking apprentices, would every single player be wiped out, or would they achieve clearance instead?
Being eliminated couldn’t possibly mean game erasure.
It would merely mean being slaughtered by the NPCs within this place.
The culprit would highly likely be these objects resting upon the display shelves.
Every single one of them appeared far from clean.
Then there was the issue of “clumsy, butterfingered” behavior mentioned by the game.
The players were exercising extreme caution, yet if these objects could move on their own and dropped onto the floor with a loud clatter right before the old man’s eyes…
Wow, wouldn’t that mean taking the blame?
Just as the thought crossed her mind, a small ceramic ornament abruptly wobbled twice, falling straight toward the floor.
This ornament rested at a height slightly below Bai Cha’s waist; dropping down might not necessarily shatter it, but it would inevitably produce a loud noise.
With swift hands and sharp eyes, Bai Cha raised her arm, catching the ceramic ornament in a clean swoop.
It was styled somewhat like a teru teru坊主 sunshine doll—a very simple ceramic ornament, featuring a smiling face drawn onto its white head.
At this exact moment, that drawn face seemed capable of movement, twisting into a malicious, sinister grin.
It acted like a chain reaction.
The yellow dress hanging overhead fluttered twice, abruptly drifting into motion.
Its hem swept across the upper tier of the display shelf, directly sending a massive pile of items tumbling downward in a wide swath.
This phenomenon wasn’t isolated to Bai Cha’s corner alone.
Similar incidents began surfacing across the areas occupied by the other players one after another.
A small toy car abruptly zipped into motion, crashing forward and sending an entire row of items on a display shelf tumbling down.
A wind-up frog leaped high into the air out of nowhere, heading straight toward a ceramic vase.
The players’ complexions turned extraordinarily grim in an instant; scrambling frantically, they made desperate efforts to catch the falling objects.
Someone deployed a prop directly—something akin to a spiderweb—to snag the falling items midair.
Bai Cha deployed a prop as well: a fishing net.
Prior to entering the game, she had purchased a batch of props.
Since she was concealing her true identity, her personal skills paired with those two frequently used blades couldn’t be revealed until absolute necessity demanded it.
The fishing net was earth-yellow in color, supposedly crafted from a special, exceedingly resilient material capable of snaring any object.
Whether it was resilient or not was unimportant; what mattered was its striking resemblance to the Dodder Vines.
Bai Cha could comfortably weave the Dodder Vine tendrils into a matching shape as well.
And right now, it proved useful.
The falling objects were scooped up in a single, clean sweep of the net.
The dress hem overhead was swaying still.
Bai Cha stole a couple of glances at it, abruptly equipping a title she had never worn before.
Ghouls’ Bane.
The swaying arc of the dress hem froze instantly.
Even those small objects resting inside the fishing net that had been unwilling to yield, attempting to scramble outward, seemed to lose all life in a single second.
Bai Cha felt a wave of satisfaction.
She returned these objects one by one to their original positions.
Uncapable of reaching spots that were too high, she dragged a box over from the floor to stand atop it.
Uncertain if items rested inside the box as well, she laid her rag over it first to serve as padding, preventing her shoes from dirtying the box.
With every object returned to its proper place, Bai Cha casually gave them a full sweep with the feather duster.
Every single item in the entire western corner plunged back into its initial state of absolute stillness.
Bai Cha leaped down, intending to push the box back.
Unexpectedly, that box popped open on its own all of a sudden.
