The Horror Game's Green-Tea Boss Wants to Win Me Over - Chapter 3

Outside the window, darkness gradually fell.

Knock, knock.

Someone rapped on my door. I opened it.

A young man in a black outdoor jacket stood in the corridor. He had strong brows and handsome features. The sickly overhead light cast the fringe over his forehead into shadow, making his long, narrow eyes seem even colder and more distant.

It was Wen Huai, my boyfriend of three years.

“Finished reading the rules?”

His voice was utterly flat.

I nodded, folded the visitor’s guide into my pocket, and shut the door. Taking his hand, I asked, “Are we going to worship the Peach Blossom Immortal now?”

Night had fallen, but the required worship was still unfinished. We needed to complete it and return to the guesthouse before midnight.

Wen Huai frowned, grunted an assent, and quietly pulled his hand free before walking ahead of me.

I was used to it.

Downstairs, I bought two flashlights at reception and gave one to him.

Outside, the night was already pitch-black.

The players traveled in groups toward the Peach Blossom Temple on the mountain.

The path wound upward. The village chief was waiting outside the temple and led us in. We washed our hands and faces, lit incense, made our wishes, placed the incense in the burner, and knelt before the Peach Blossom Immortal.

Just as we finished, thunder rolled. A violent wind drove rain into our faces, and the downpour grew heavier by the second.

“You’ve got to be kidding. Where did all this rain come from? How are we supposed to get back?” one of the players complained. “I should’ve bought an umbrella. That muddy road will be impossible.”

“Move, damn it!”

A bad-tempered middle-aged man shoved through the people crowding the temple entrance, cursing as he went. “Fuck, there are only two hours until midnight. Why are you all standing around wasting time?”

He was large and muscular, with tattooed arms.

With everyone’s items disabled, the other players exchanged looks and moved out of his way. They switched on their flashlights and followed him.

The mountain road had turned to mud, and it forked often. The fit players soon pulled far ahead of the weaker ones.

The rain blurred everything.

Wen Huai and I took the wrong fork.

We were about to turn back when the shrill cry of a suona horn pierced the rain, followed by a woman’s eerie, grief-stricken sobbing.

Crimson light glowed on the mountain road ahead. Paper coins and colored funeral paper whirled through the storm, turning into scarlet blood when they landed at my feet.

A wedding procession emerged from the wind and rain.

Paper money streamed through the air. Red candles flickered inside lanterns.

The matchmaker, sedan bearers, and maidservants all had chalk-white faces, circles of heavy rouge on their cheeks, and chilling smiles stretched across their features.

I stepped aside, lowered my head, and closed my eyes so I would not meet the child attendants’ gazes.

The piercing wail of the suona faded into the distance.

I wiped the rain from my face. Just as Wen Huai and I were about to leave, several deafening, guttural gasps sounded behind us, beneath them the faintest trace of weeping.

I turned and aimed my flashlight down the muddy path.

A bride in red wedding robes was fleeing through the rain. Six or seven sedan bearers raced after him, their empty eyes pitch-black, their running postures horribly twisted.

“Jiejie, save me.”

The bride was breathtaking, with black hair, red lips, and a pale, ethereal face. He ran to my side, clutched my sleeve, and wept as though his heart would break, calling me Jiejie in a hoarse voice.

Before I could understand what was happening, the sedan bearers lunged after him, mouths gaping.

There was no chance of escaping now.

I pulled the dagger from my coat pocket, prepared to fight to the death.

Wen Huai was faster. He summoned a pistol from the item slot on his wristband and shot the bearers dead.

Right. I had forgotten.

Wen Huai was powerful.

The pistol had lost all its attribute bonuses, but it was still an SSS-ranked weapon. It held exactly seven bullets—more than enough to put one through each entity’s head.

“Jiejie, you and your boyfriend are amazing!”

The bride stared at us in wonder, admiration shining in his eyes.

Coming back to myself, I pulled my sleeve from his grasp.

Wen Huai turned to study the stranger as well.