The harsh glare from his phone stung against Lu Feixing’s palm. The new objective blared, stark and unforgiving, demanding her ritual murder. His reflexive urge to complain about the sheer effort involved in such butchery warred with a colder logic. This wasn't a penalty; it was a system rewrite. The App, usually so predictable in its brutal adherence to code, had thrown a curveball because Qinglin herself had shattered her own programming. This wasn’t about him breaking a rule; it was about her breaking *herself* for him.
He felt the shift in her presence beside him, no longer just a spectral guardian but a being whose very existence now defied the cold algorithms of the *Midnight Absolution*. Her blood-soaked veil seemed to ripple with a new, subtle energy. He’d kissed her, and in doing so, had tangled their fates more intricately than he’d intended. A lazy sigh escaped him. “Well, that’s just rude,” he mumbled, mostly to himself, pocketing the phone. “After all the trouble of charming her, they want me to throw her under the phantom bus.”
Before he could fully process the absurdity, a hand clamped down on his shoulder, yanking him backward with unexpected force. Lu Feixing stumbled, barely catching himself, and twisted to see Ding Shaobai, staring through squinted lids, tension locking his cheek muscles. The veteran player’s uniform, though tattered, still looked meticulously maintained, a sharp contrast to Feixing’s casually askew groom’s robe. Shaobai’s face was grimy, streaked with what Feixing suspected was dried spirit ichor, but his grip was iron.
“You absolute imbecile! Do you have a death wish?” Shaobai hissed, his voice a low, furious rasp. “I watched you. You walked right through the Mourning Ward, untouched. You touched her veil! The App should have torn you limb from limb! What in the name of the Ancestors are you doing?”
Feixing rubbed his shoulder, feigning injury. “Ah, Senior Brother Shaobai. Always so… animated. And here I thought you were just admiring my impeccable fashion choices.” He straightened his collar with an exaggerated flourish. “As for what I’m doing, it’s simple, really. Why fight the inevitable when you can just… charm the inevitable?”
Shaobai stared, momentarily speechless, before dragging Feixing further into the abandoned pharmacy, past shelves of dust-caked tinctures and rusted surgical instruments. “Charm the inevitable? Are you mad? This is a death trap! These entities, this entire instance, it’s designed to break us, to kill us! What twisted logic makes you think *flirting* with the primary antagonist is a viable survival strategy?”
“Less effort, for starters,” Feixing said, shrugging. “Think about it. Endless minions, endless rules, endless running. Exhausting. Versus… a well-placed compliment, a little audacity, maybe a stolen kiss if the mood strikes. The boss is always the choke point. Win over the boss, and the rest is just paperwork. She’s the Calamity Bride, the core of this whole nightmare banquet. You fight her, you fight the entire facility. You woo her, you get a free pass, maybe even an escort service.” He gestured to Qinglin, who remained a silent, looming presence behind him, her gaze – or what he imagined her gaze to be – fixed on Shaobai with an unnerving intensity.
Shaobai scoffed, a disbelieving sound. “A free pass? You think this… *thing*… is just going to let you waltz out because you flattered it? You’re delusional! And what was that alert on your phone? The one that turned the whole ward red?”
“Ah, that,” Feixing said, a theatrical sigh. “A minor misunderstanding. The App isn’t too fond of my… unconventional methods. It wants me to execute her now.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Bureaucracy, you know? Always trying to complicate things.”
Shaobai’s face, already pale, seemed to drain further. “Execute… her? You’ve only got a few hours left on the main objective, you know. The App will dismember you for even *thinking* about defying a direct command, let alone a system rewrite.” He hauled Feixing through a decaying archway into what appeared to be an abandoned chapel. The air hung thick with old incense, bitter dust, and rotten lilies. Scarlet commemorative fabrics hung from the rafters, torn and faded, brushing against tarnished brass candelabras. Rows of wooden pews, splintered and worm-eaten, faced a bloodstained altar draped in a single veiled ceremonial gown.
Shaobai pushed Feixing into a pew. “This place is relatively stable for now. They usually only animate the ‘guests’ in common areas. You need to explain, in detail, how you’re keeping that… *spirit*… from tearing you apart. And why it hasn’t killed *me* for being near you.”
Feixing leaned back, making himself comfortable. “Well, I already told you. It’s the charm. She likes me. And probably tolerates you because you’re my… distressed associate.” He grinned, but his eyes held a flicker of something more serious. “And besides, fighting isn’t my style. The path of least resistance, my friend. It’s always the best.”
Shaobai ignored him, his gaze sweeping over the chapel with the meticulous precision of a seasoned survivor. His fingers traced the carvings on the pews, ran over the hymnals left open on stands, before pausing at a loose panel beneath the altar. He knelt, grunting with effort, and pried it open. Inside, nestled among desiccated prayer beads and a rusty crucifix, was a bundle of yellowed documents tied with a brittle vermilion ribbon. He pulled them out, blowing off a cloud of fine dust.
“What’s this?” he muttered, flipping through the brittle pages. “Patient file… Ci’an General Hospital, 1920… Rong Qinglin.” His voice caught. “Her name.”
Feixing sat up, a genuine flicker of interest in his eyes. “Oh? Digging up her past now, are we? My, my, Senior Brother, you really are thorough.”
Shaobai ignored the barb, his eyes scanning the faded ink. “Born… 1902. Admitted… 1926. Diagnosis… ‘Acute Delusional Paranoia and Hysteria.’ Attending Physician… Dr. Xu Jian. Notes…” His voice dropped to a whisper as he read aloud, “Subject claims to be Commander Rong, leader of the Crimson Serpent Militia. Insists she was betrayed by her betrothed, General Wei Chun, during the wedding ceremony. Claims poison in the ceremonial wine and a dagger to the heart. Raved about a ‘scarlet ward’ and ‘bridal cords’ binding her spirit. Believed the ceremony was a trap, meant to offer her and her lineage to some dark power.”
Shaobai looked up, his face stark. “She wasn’t just a bride. She was a commander. A warrior. Betrayed on her own wedding day, right here, on this very altar.” He looked at the bloodstains, the single gown. “This isn’t just an unholy ceremony. It’s a reenactment of a murder.”
As if on cue, a sudden, deafening dirge erupted, a wailing, mournful melody played on ancient erhus and flutes, seeming to emanate from the very walls of the hospital. The screeching melody rattled the floorboards under their boots. The chapel lights flickered violently, plunging the room into near darkness before flaring back to a sickly yellow.
Feixing’s phone, still in his pocket, vibrated with a frantic intensity. He hauled it out. The bloody glow had cleared, replaced by the familiar clinical white. But the countdown timer, once a slow, steady crawl, was now flashing red, the numbers accelerating wildly. It skipped minutes, then tens of minutes, then hours, finally settling on a stark, terrifying display.
[OBJECTIVE: BRIDAL SACRIFICE. TARGET: RONG QINGLIN. EXECUTION WINDOW: 00:59:58.]
Less than an hour. The funeral dirge swelled, a crescendo of despair. Feixing looked from his phone to Shaobai, then back to the silent, unmoving figure of Rong Qinglin, her blood-soaked veil now seeming to throb with the very rhythm of the mournful music. The App wasn’t asking for her death anymore; it was demanding it, right now, on the very altar where she’d been betrayed, with less than sixty minutes to comply.