Chapter 273: Can’t Escape It Now
Bai Cha asked Liu Yuchen to help deliver a message to Chen Mi, proposing to meet at the Realm Guild.
This move left Liu Yuchen thoroughly astonished.
Upon second thought, however, the intent Shen Qingchen had conveyed on her end was also to recruit Bai Cha into her own guild, so it didn’t seem like much of a surprise after all—except that he needed to head back and give them a heads-up as well.
Bai Cha indicated that there was no rush; sending her news before eight o’clock tomorrow evening would be fine.
She needed to head back and sleep now, as it was already past nine o’clock.
After returning to reality, Bai Cha sent a message to Shen Qingchen.
Bai Peach Oolong Tea: Sister Shen, I’ll be heading to the Realm Guild tomorrow evening. I ran into someone in the instance—Chen Mi from the Voodoo Guild. We plan to meet at the entrance of the Realm Guild. Are you coming tomorrow? If so, let’s discuss the challenge then.
Certain matters were best dealt with sooner rather than later, particularly for Shen Qingchen.
Yang Qingyun indeed appeared somewhat anxious. If it was truly because of Shen Qingchen, then as the person closest to her, even if he didn’t know about the game’s existence, it didn’t mean he couldn’t guess that something was going to happen to her.
After all, he had already deduced that Shen Qingchen harbored a secret.
Shen Qingchen replied to her very quickly.
Shen Qingchen: Alright, see you tomorrow night.
Putting down her phone, Bai Cha checked in on her stomach once more.
There was still a subtle, dull ache.
The doctor’s advice today was that it would be best to get IV fluids for another two days tomorrow and the day after. If nothing flared up, then she wouldn’t need to worry about it for now; if something went wrong, she might still have to undergo surgery.
However, that would mean taking medical leave.
Her work handover was still in progress.
She had already submitted her resignation, and Shen Qingchen had approved it; once the work was handed over, there wouldn’t be much else to worry about.
Having joined the company not long ago to begin with, there wasn’t actually much to hand over.
Going in for one more day tomorrow should just about wrap things up.
Therefore, after a moment of hesitation, she still decided to go to work tomorrow first.
Once the tasks were settled, it wouldn’t matter even if she had to undergo surgery.
Taking her medication once more, Bai Cha went to bed.
For a person like her who suffered from long-term insomnia and frequent dreams, dreams were an inevitability.
To say nothing of after entering the game.
Tonight’s dream, however, featured her father.
He had not yet descended into madness. He was gentle and endearing, holding a young Bai Cha in his arms as they walked under the night market lights.
Lining both sides of the street were night market stalls—barbecue stands and the like—alongside numerous vendors selling other small snacks.
Her father bought her a stick of candied haws. In the heat of summer, the sugar melted quickly, and before long, her hand turned thoroughly sticky.
“Daddy, I want to wash my hands!”
Bai Cha heard herself speak in a childish, tender voice.
“Hold on a moment. Daddy will go buy a bottle of water for you from the supermarket.”
They stepped into a supermarket.
Just as he was about to purchase water, however, her father seemed to spot someone.
“Cha-cha, wait for Daddy here for a moment. Daddy will be right back.”
Bai Cha was set down on her feet.
Meanwhile, her father ran back outside.
Bai Cha simply crouched beside a display shelf to wait.
However, her palm felt truly sticky, so she had no choice but to hurry up and finish eating the candied haws—otherwise, it would become even more uncomfortable in a moment.
As she ate, she suddenly felt the surroundings grow eerily quiet.
She hadn’t paid it any mind at first, but her legs had grown numb from crouching.
She shifted slightly and stood up.
Her head bumped into something cool and icy.
It was hard to describe what it was, so she raised her head to look upward.
A woman in red hung suspended right above her head.
The thing that had touched her was a red thread wrapped around the woman’s wrist.
The red thread looked as though it were soaked through with blood.
Draped right over her head just like that.
Bai Cha froze in a daze for a fleeting second, stepping slightly to the side.
The female ghost’s head moved accordingly.
She had been hanged to death.
Her tongue protruded outward, her eyeballs bulged, and her complexion was a bruised purple-black. Looking down at Bai Cha, her bloodshot eyeballs looked as if they might drop at any given moment.
Bai Cha fell silent for a second, then abruptly raised the skewer of candied haws in her hand and stabbed it straight into the sole of the red-clad woman’s bare foot.
The woman let out a piercing shriek, while Bai Cha was already running outside without looking back.
She realized that this place no longer seemed to be a supermarket.
Stepping outside, the street remained bustling with activity, yet no living people walked the area.
It was a very bizarre concept, yet it surfaced directly in the mind of her younger self just like that.
The instant she ran out onto the street, everyone turned their eyes onto her.
Every single face was devoid of expression. Though they appeared no different from normal people on the surface, they were thoroughly permeated by a dead, lifeless aura.
They fixated their gazes on her, rendering her incapable of moving a single inch.
The red-clad woman crawled out from behind as well, clambering out from the ground like a massive humanoid spider.
Bai Cha wanted to run, yet she didn’t know where she ought to run to—what if Daddy returned and couldn’t find her?
She knew full well that little kids who ran around at random would get lost.
Right at this moment, her mother appeared.
Scooping Bai Cha up from behind, a faint, cool fragrance enveloped Bai Cha.
Bai Cha didn’t look back, nor did she catch sight of her face, yet she knew instantly that this was her mother.
She suddenly wanted to see what her mother looked like, but her eyes were covered by her mother from behind.
“Don’t look.”
Her mother’s voice was exceedingly gentle.
Carrying Bai Cha in her arms, there was no telling where she walked.
By the time she set Bai Cha down, Bai Cha discovered that she had returned to the supermarket once more.
A middle-aged woman nearby was picking out items.
Looking around her surroundings, she found no trace of her mother.
Her father returned at this moment as well.
His emotional state appeared terribly grim as he picked her up and left immediately, without even buying water.
Bai Cha said, “Daddy, I saw Mommy just now.”
The arm holding her went rigid in an instant.
“Where did you see her?”
Bai Cha recounted the incident from moments ago.
Then, she witnessed a look of agony surface across her father’s face, alongside a thread of breakdown, and even more complex emotions.
Held tightly in his embrace, her father said, “That was merely your hallucination. We’re going home.”
And then Bai Cha woke up.
Daylight had not yet broken outside; it was merely the conclusion of a dream.
She stared blankly into space for quite some time with her eyes open.
If this dream was a memory fragment, then what was the deal with the hauntings?
Had it happened in reality?
Come to think of it, when she was twelve years old, she had returned home from school a bit late one day.
She had felt someone following behind her.
It was a woman dressed in red as well.
Upon returning home later, she felt that the day was extraordinarily cold. It was clearly the height of summer, and temperatures were unusually high that year—the peak temperature that day reached 41 degrees Celsius, and even at night it remained 35 degrees.
Yet she had felt freezing cold.
She hadn’t paid it any mind back then, assuming it was just some mentally unstable person.
Until she opened the door to her aunt’s house and happened to look back, spotting the person leaning against the hallway window—she hadn’t seen a face either, as it was completely covered by hair.
Because final exams were approaching at the time, she simply went back inside to continue studying, went to sleep on time, and nothing further occurred.
The incident was quickly tossed into the back of her mind.
Not until summer break arrived—when she took Xu Shengsheng out to play, passed by a movie theater, and saw a late-night horror movie listed on the slate—did she see a scene featuring a red-clad woman leaning right there.
Only then had Bai Cha realized in hindsight that something had indeed been off about that day. Although her aunt’s floor wasn’t high, who would lean right there for no reason?
Yet it went no further than that.
She hadn’t paid it any mind either.
Looking at it now, however… if these ghosts could reveal themselves in reality as well…
Hiss…
Bai Cha abruptly clutched her stomach.
A surge of pain from her abdomen cut off her train of thought.
Closing her eyes, she put on her clothes, got out of bed, and headed to the hospital.
There was no escaping this surgery now.
