Rules of Horror: Survival Begins in the Haunted Harem - Chapter 5

The pounding grew faster. Harder.

The entire door shook. The crossbar creaked and groaned as though it might snap at any moment.

“Open up! It’s almost the Hour of the Boar. Let me in!”

Xie Nuange did not move.

She lay on her bed, one hand clenched into a fist as she fought to slow her heartbeat.

[Rule Two: If someone calls to you at night, do not answer and do not open the door.]

“You’re in there, aren’t you? Please, open the door… I’m not dead. I can still live. Please, let me in.”

The voice outside began to change.

The image of Fang Yule during the day flashed through Xie Nuange’s mind—the head rolling across the ground, blood spraying from the severed neck.

What skill or ability could bring her back from that?

Had she taken “split up” far too literally?

“Open the door… Open the door… Let me in…”

The pounding became scratching.

Fingernails scraped across the wood, shrill and piercing. Each stroke carried through the door and raked over every nerve in the room.

“Let me in… Let me in…”

The scratching stopped without warning.

Silence.

The silence of death.

Xie Nuange held her breath.

She could hear her own heart pounding. It was so loud she thought whatever waited outside must hear it too.

So loud she could hear nothing else—not even her roommates breathing.

“I know you’re awake.”

The voice came again.

This time, it came from inside the room.

Xie Nuange kept her eyes closed through sheer force of will.

“I heard you.”

“Your heartbeats.”

“Thump, thump, thump. Thump, thump, thump.”

“Why didn’t you open the door for me?”

An icy presence drew near. Xie Nuange felt something climb onto her bed.

The pressure of a stare settled over her face. Someone seemed to be bending close, studying her.

The stench of blood filled her nose.

Something warm and sticky dripped onto her face. It struck her cheek, splashed across her eyelid, and slid toward the corner of her mouth.

Xie Nuange lay beneath the blanket as if deeply asleep, utterly unaware of anything strange touching her face.

A faint rustling sounded. The pressure of that stare disappeared.

As she had thought. As long as she kept her eyes closed and remained in bed, she would not violate the rule.

[Rule Three: The room is relatively safe.]

Provided no one broke the rules.

The thing moved through the room with a soft, creeping rustle. After a while came another sequence of the same sound.

Xie Nuange could almost picture Fang Yule climbing onto another bed, pausing to watch its occupant, then rustling back down.

She was checking each bed to see who was pretending to sleep.

“Get off me!”

Cheng Luo.

Xie Nuange lifted one brow but did not open her eyes.

“Hee-hee-hee. You’re awake… I knew you were awake. Why didn’t you open the door? Why didn’t you open the door?”

“Because you’re annoying!”

Something landed lightly in the darkness.

Cheng Luo had flipped out of bed. She faced a figure cradling its own head in its arms.

“Big Sister Meng, Big Sister Ye, Big Sister Xie—help me!”

Fang Yule attacked before the words had fully left her mouth.

“You really are all awake… Why didn’t you save me? Why didn’t you open the door? I’ll kill you… I’ll kill every one of you pretending to sleep…”

Flashes from colliding skills cut through the darkness. Tables and chairs toppled, scraping harshly across the floor.

Xie Nuange sighed inwardly. She locked her mental power onto Fang Yule and activated her skill.

Datafication.

Lines of information appeared across her retina.

[Ghost Item: Fang Yule (Transformed from a participant who died inside the scenario)]

[Trait: If anyone answers her call, that person becomes her designated target. If someone inside a room responds, every conscious person in that room becomes a target.]

[Attack Methods: Blood, hair]

[Weakness: Head. Attacking the head will inflict effective damage.]

With the battle crashing around her, Xie Nuange knew she would not be falling asleep again anytime soon.

That made her one of Fang Yule’s targets.

She sat up with a helpless sigh and reached to wipe the blood from her face—only to find her skin perfectly clean.

Everything she had felt had been an illusion.

“Fang Yule’s trait lets her kill everyone who is awake once anyone answers her,” Xie Nuange said into the darkness. “Including everyone else in the same room.”

She paused.

“Her weakness is her head.”

Cheng Luo sprang onto the table, her tiny frame ramrod straight.

“You heard her! Big Sister Meng, Big Sister Ye, are you waiting for me to lose so you can take turns dying?”

Blankets rustled.

Meng Shi and Ye Wan finally moved.

There was no sense sacrificing their lives just to keep pretending they were asleep.

“You weren’t asleep! You all broke the rule! I’ll kill you!”

Fang Yule let out a piercing shriek. Her black hair surged like a living thing, whipping foul-smelling blood in every direction.

Where the blood struck the floor, it hissed and ate out charred pits.

“You interrupted my beauty sleep.”

Ye Wan charged first.

The sultry woman from the daytime seemed to become someone else entirely. She kicked off the floor and shot forward like a cannonball.

No elaborate skill. No blinding light. Only the simplest, most direct form of violence.

She drove a fist into Fang Yule’s flying head. The punch screamed through the air and sent the head hurtling into the wall with a dull boom.

Ye Wan fought like a human meat grinder.

Xie Nuange stared in disbelief. She had expected Ye Wan to be an agile assassin type. Instead, the woman was a tank built for close combat.

“Strategist, are you going to stand there all night? Get over here.”

While Ye Wan held off the head, Cheng Luo beckoned to Xie Nuange.

Xie Nuange rolled out of bed and hurried deeper into the room.

As she passed Fang Yule’s headless body, it whipped around and lunged straight at her.

Meng Shi raised a hand. Frost-white vapor gathered at her fingertips.

The temperature plunged. A thin sheet of ice spread across the floor and swept toward the corpse.

The headless body’s movements slowed visibly. Even the falling blood froze in midair, becoming dark red beads of ice.

“Move.”

Meng Shi closed her fingers into a fist. Ice climbed Fang Yule’s body and froze both legs to the floor.

Xie Nuange seized the opening and dashed past. Even she had to admire herself for managing to slide across the ice in flowerpot-soled shoes.

The fight that followed fell into a smooth rhythm.

Ye Wan held the front, a moving wall that kept Fang Yule’s head from breaking through.

Meng Shi controlled the battlefield from a distance. But the head was too nimble. Her ice spikes grazed it several times without landing a clean hit, nearly striking Ye Wan instead.

Xie Nuange grew anxious as she watched, but she was an analyst. She could not match Ye Wan in close combat or Meng Shi in control and damage.

She searched the room, wondering whether she could trap the head beneath a washbasin.

Then Cheng Luo acted.

She stood beside Xie Nuange, watching the body on the verge of breaking free from the ice and the head none of them could hit. Drawing breath from the very bottom of her lungs, she screamed one word.

“Mom!”

Xie Nuange’s pupils contracted.