Chapter 58: Setting Fifty-Eight
Setting Fifty-Eight: Supernatural Research Club (Part 11)
Just as Shan Ziwei was caught in the torment of ice and fire, someone finally noticed the white-haired youth’s plight and approached quickly from behind.
A shower of sparkling white powder scattered over him—salt.
The hand protruding from his chest was naturally dusted with some of it. The two white substances seemed to have an opposite chemical reaction—the gleaming salt instantly turned black, like ash clinging to the pale hand. Though it caused no damage, it displeased the hand’s owner. It released him and shook off the filth.
The moment the ghostly hand withdrew, he regained sensation and threw himself backward with all his strength—so hard he stumbled and fell on his rear.
Hiss…
His eyes stung with tears. He lowered his head, rubbing his reddened eyes. Pain was one factor, but his condition was worse—without the ghostly hand’s “freeze,” his body could no longer maintain its false composure and began trembling with sensitivity.
Useless condition! He thought, exhausted. Destroying my dignity, draining my spirit, corrupting my soul!
To the onlookers, he looked like a young man trembling in fear.
“Are you okay?”
He wiped the last traces of desire from his face and looked up—his rescuer was Milk Tea. Seeing her bend down as if to help him, he quickly scrambled up on his own, avoiding her touch: “F-fine…! Thank… you!”
Milk Tea nodded in acknowledgment. He took a deep breath to calm his body, accidentally licking a bit of salt off his lips. He brushed off the salt crystals and asked curiously: “Why did you think of using salt?”
She looked surprised: “You should know that salt appears in many spiritual games. It’s said to purify unclean things, so many games use it to ensure the players’ safety.”
He remembered Tapioca saying Milk Tea was very interested in spiritual games—she really did know more than him, whose knowledge came from a single online post.
“I was just trying.” She looked at the ghostly hand, her mood visibly dropping. “But it can’t hurt the ghosts here.”
As they spoke, the hand on the wall shook off the filth and did nothing more. It rested against the wall, its five fingers with their purple-and-gold nail guards like a pale jade spider in ambush.
His heart tightened, as if bound by silk threads—an illusion from earlier, but the memory lingered. Even at a safe distance, he stepped back again.
A regretful sigh seemed to echo from the void. The pale hand sank into the wall like snow under sunlight, disappearing without a sound.
The commotion drew the others. Crimson Rose and Hyacinth stared in surprise at his salt-covered form.
“What happened?”
He recounted the attack. When he described the hand gripping his heart, Hyacinth was visibly shaken—her hand jerked, and her glasses reflected the white-haired youth and the figure behind him.
“!!”
He spun around so fast his neck nearly snapped—and saw Host’s familiar handsome face. Anger flared: This guy’s sudden appearances were terrifying!
“You—”
“He touched you?” Host’s voice was lower than usual. His eyes locked onto him like a snare. “I will ‘possess’ you now.”
His scalp prickled. Host was keeping their agreement—giving a warning before role-playing—but it felt ominous. Emotionally, he wanted to refuse—but rationally, he couldn’t. His Diamond SP (Fear) was dangerously low; he desperately needed the “Possessiveness” to recover.
“What… do you want to do?”
His voice came through gritted teeth. He tried to step forward to put some distance between them—but Host’s left hand reached around from behind, hovering before his chest, blocking his retreat.
“He touched you here.”
The possessor declared: “I’ll erase his mark.”
His shameless words sent Shan Ziwei reeling. Before he could process it, the hand before him moved upward, slowly and firmly cradling his face.
“Do you like me?”
Host’s low, resonant voice flowed past his ear like an underground river—so deep, so profound, as if aged over time, like a love song from the ages.
“Will you like me?”
His eyes widened; his heart pounded violently. These words… these words were…
As if disappointed by the white-haired youth’s silence, Host slowly lowered his hand. He took Shan Ziwei’s hand instead, pressing it against his own heart.
“If I give you my heart, will you like me then?”
His heart leaped, slamming against the hand on his chest. Host held him from behind, his hand over his heart—without pressure, yet with immeasurable weight.
In that blood-red, shameful memory, the white-haired youth offered his heart like a sacrifice, yearning for Host’s affection.
—Please like me.
He clutched his chest, expression twisted. The phantom pain and palpitations were unbearable—this was too intense. He remembered the resentment, anger, shame, and release of Spirit Collapse—all of it tied to the man behind him.
The one who had killed him—and now possessed him.
Crimson Rose and Hyacinth watched in shock as he wrenched himself free. The atmosphere between them hit a very delicate point.
Reliving his dark history, his expression was a kaleidoscope of emotions. Host, meanwhile, was steady and content. Unaware of the impact, he leaned forward like a predator, closing the distance and pointing at Shan Ziwei’s heart.
“It’s been mine all along.”
He declared its ownership to its owner.
“…”
Shan Ziwei was speechless—the others were too, as if robbed of their voices.
—Your body doesn’t belong to you.
That overpowering will swept away their sense of reality, unreasonable yet unassailable. After Crimson Rose noticed, Hyacinth and Milk Tea caught on too.
This… this was relationship role-play?
Only the inexperienced Shan Ziwei was still oblivious. The two “possessions” he’d experienced had led him to believe this was how it was supposed to work. Though he hated the revived memories, the effective Diamond SP recovery silenced his protests.
After a long moment, Crimson Rose broke the stalemate.
“You two…” She wanted to warn them, but gave up, unable to find the right words. “Let’s get back to the matter at hand.”
Milk Tea continued the account. After hearing the whole story, Crimson Rose frowned at the wall.
“There’s definitely a room and stairs behind there—but no way to open it… and no clue about the cabinets…”
Their goal in finding the hidden room was to solve the cabinet puzzle—but they were at a dead end again.
Were they really reduced to guesswork?
While others hesitated, he struggled with a different question: should he apply the old horror game to solve this?
“Let’s open a cabinet.” Milk Tea was the first to speak. “I’d rather take a chance than keep wasting time.”
“…Alright—which one?”
Hyacinth and Milk Tea both chose the second—when given a choice of 1, 2, or 3, most people pick the middle.
Seeing them head for the second room, he made his choice. Rather than random guessing, he’d rely on his bold intuition!
—In that horror game, which guest room’s cabinet had the doll? He’d been scared by it… it was… the… the third room!
“I think… we should open the third room’s cabinet first.”
They turned back. Shan Ziwei walked toward the third room, emphasizing: “I want to open the third cabinet.”
“Why?” They were puzzled—they hadn’t insisted on the second—but his sudden certainty was strange, as if he’d found the truth.
He looked a little odd: “Three is my lucky number.”
Seeing him enter the third room, they followed. Opening one cabinet might yield the doll; opening two was a certain death sentence.
They hadn’t even entered when they saw him—under the four-eyed stare from the cabinet—pull open the rattling pearwood door.
The girls gasped—he’d acted too fast, giving them no time. Whatever happened next was beyond their control. They watched his back, waiting for life or death.
Thud.
Not the sound of a head falling, nor the end of it all. He stepped aside, revealing a wooden doll at the bottom.
In an instant, they went from hell to heaven. Overwhelmed, Crimson Rose didn’t even look at the precious doll—her eyes were locked on him: “How did you know?”
His gaze drifted to the upper-right. His sudden confidence came from a System Setting sitting quietly in his panel.
[Setting 7: You know the doll is in the third cabinet, but you cannot explain how you know.]
Had the designer anticipated that someone would recognize the homage, and built in this setting to preempt questions? Or was this setting meant to solve the puzzle—and why was it placed on him?
The former was a windfall—an “exploit” he could use. But if it was the latter… that was deeply unsettling.
Facing Crimson Rose’s question, he said only: “OOC.”
She didn’t press further. Walking to the now-still cabinet—its frantic shaking and twisted eyes gone like an illusion—she picked up the doll, then found a paper beneath it.
[XX/XX, Day X, Cloudy
The young master is growing more reclusive.
He was always sullen and quiet, but since getting obsessed with spirits and the occult, he never leaves his room.
Every time I see him, he’s studying those dark, ominous things—as if that’s the only way he can truly live.
Bringing him meals has become my greatest dread—one wrong step and I’ll step on some ritual object.
I should go to a temple one day and pray for protection.]
Another servant’s diary, tucked under the cabinet. He stared at the words, his lips pressing tighter, breathing turning difficult.
Why become obsessed with games and such nonsense? Because he was… so lonely…
This sense of overlap isolated him from the others. As they discussed the diary, he felt like he was on the inside looking out.
“Let’s check the other cabinets?” Crimson Rose proposed before discussing the contents. “Now that the puzzle’s solved, they shouldn’t be dangerous—and might have more clues.”
No objections. As she said, once the doll was retrieved, the other cabinets were silent.
They found more diary pages in the other two cabinets, each more disturbing than the last.
[XX/XX, Day X, Clear
Terrible luck today.
The master’s favorite dog, Duke, ran into the young master’s room. It barked at him and triggered his illness.
Now I know—it’s not that the young master can’t be near living people. He can’t touch living things.
He was born to walk that path.
Even his name means to command spirits.]
[XX/XX, Day X, Light Rain
Duke is dead.
Everyone says it was illness—but I know the truth.
Because I saw it.
The night Duke died, I saw the young master’s room filled with white candles, casting ghostly shadows on every wall.
He took off his mask and cried out joyfully: A-Gui, A-Gui—did you kill it…]
The boy’s hollow cry seemed to break through the paper, echoing in the dark, deafening.
Crimson Rose inhaled softly, as if afraid to disturb something: “I think this Chessboard’s ‘King’ is the ‘young master.’ He can command spirits—he’s the shadow’s ‘master,’ and the source of all this tragedy.”
His heart trembled; he couldn’t help arguing: “I don’t think so. The note in the dining room had the tone of an outsider judging the Wei family—there might be a fourth party.”
“No, that proves the ‘master’ is the child.” She recited: “The man of this house is tough, the woman of this house is slender, what do you taste like, thank you for the meal… The man is tough, the woman is slender—doesn’t it feel like something’s missing? A family of three died. What about the child?”
“Only if the child wrote it would there be no comment about him.” She said methodically. “From the diaries and memories, the child had terrible relations with his parents—so bad he killed his mother. Writing about them in this distant, irreverent tone makes perfect sense.”
He was speechless. Deep down, he agreed with her, but his emotional connection made him defend the boy instinctively—like protecting a cub, regardless of right and wrong.
A new line in the System Settings broke the debate.
[Setting 8: Your nerves are too strained, making you emotionally fragile and prone to outbursts. (00:01:00)]
After Club SP (Sorrow), Spade SP (Anger) was under attack too.
The players snapped back to reality like they’d been struck.
—Even if they’d found the boss, with “no possessions, no skills,” they couldn’t possibly defeat it. Their only option was to finish the spiritual games and clear as quickly as possible!
They rushed to the living room. Hyacinth turned on the TV to static. Crimson Rose set the doll on the coffee table and warned: “Everyone, remember—whoever’s next to answer the phone, even if the ghost blocks you, signal the next person.”
His heart skipped—he was next. He could only pray the phone wouldn’t ring until after the game.
Host produced the filleting knife. They gathered around the doll, holding the blade above it.
He played it smart, waiting until last to place his hand on the handle—so he wouldn’t be sandwiched between others. After all the abuse from enemies and teammates, his Heart SP (Joy) was below 10%.
Just start already. He endured the tactile sensations and looked down. The long-limbed doll lay sprawled on the coffee table, its pale head tilted, wearing a bloody grin. It looked helpless—yet he felt they were the ones about to be slaughtered.
Even Crimson Rose’s voice trembled.
“Let’s begin.”
Amid the TV’s white noise, the five of them drove the blade into the doll’s body.
“You’re the ghost—come find me.”