Staggering out of the study, Zhou Kai pressed his back against the corridor’s icy wall, his heart pounding wildly.
He stared fixedly at the small square window behind the bookshelf. There was nothing there, as if nothing had happened at all.
But the corner of his eye was still twitching uncontrollably, and every hair on the back of his neck stood on end, as though that pale, bloated face were still pressed against the glass, gazing at him with lifeless eyes.
That had definitely not been an illusion.
The numbness in his body had yet to fully fade. Recalling the daze he had fallen into just now, Zhou Kai felt a chill shoot from his tailbone straight to the crown of his skull.
If not for [Mixed Martial Arts] rising to Level 2, causing his strength to surge and raising his control over his body to a whole new level, allowing him to break free of that eerie restraint—
Just now, he might really have become like a marionette, walking step by step to the window and personally opening the door to his “home” for that monster...
“It... shouldn’t be able to get in, right?”
Zhou Kai’s heart sank. That so-called residence permit notification surfaced before his eyes once again.
[A notarized residence permit will force other residents not to lightly invade your territory.]
Looking at it now, that short sentence was practically full of traps everywhere.
Zhou Kai sneered inwardly.
[Lightly]?
In other words, as long as they put in a bit of effort, it was possible.
[Residents]?
Did that thing outside the window count as a “resident”?
This so-called home, the shelter it could provide in the nightmare, seemed to amount to no more than this.
He picked up the door panel he had smashed through, endured the sharp wooden splinters jutting from it, and barely managed to block the study doorway with it. Then he walked over to the oil lamp and turned the flame down to its lowest.
In an instant, the shadows inside the room became even thicker and deeper, as though they could devour all light.
Danger lurked everywhere here...
This house was far from as safe as he had imagined.
If he did not search it inch by inch, he would never know which corner might still be hiding a window that had not been sealed shut.
And outside that window, whether there was a pale, blank face like fermented dough, peering at him from the darkness all along.
“I hope it didn’t get in.”
Zhou Kai’s footsteps made almost no sound as he moved swiftly along the wall through the first floor.
Every time he checked a corner, he would suddenly whip his head back, afraid that the moment he turned around, he would come face-to-face with that face.
The result of his exploration was nothing.
There was no information at all regarding fuel.
Zhou Kai had already stayed in the dream for more than half an hour. The cold air drilled into his body through every pore like steel needles.
His joints were frozen stiff. Every step he took seemed to be accompanied by the harsh grinding sound of bones rubbing together.
He had no choice but to abandon the idea of exploring the dark corridor ahead.
The other side of the corridor should be the entrance leading to the basement.
He retreated back to the fireplace. This was the place on the entire first floor most likely to be hiding clues.
[Brave ones who actively enter the nightmare may leave at any time...]
[Cowards who passively enter the nightmare must erect a tombstone... or possess a flame sufficient to keep vigil...]
On the cold stones of the fireplace, characters slowly surfaced, as though urging him to leave.
“Erecting a tombstone means I have to die once before I can leave...”
“A flame to keep vigil?”
Zhou Kai had no clue, but the good news was that he had entered on his own initiative.
But very soon, his gaze sharpened. “No... I still can’t leave!”
In the nightmare, despair could ferment.
The longer it dragged on, the more unimaginable the terror he would ultimately have to face.
Before he passively entered the dream a few days from now, he had to solve this urgent problem of heating.
“But... what exactly is the fuel?”
Restlessness rose in his heart like a flame.
And at that moment, his gaze passed over the cold hearth and drifted toward the corner, where under the faint light of the oil lamp lay that corpse with a terrifying outline... the monster’s corpse.
He remembered the eerie white bones in the ashes, apart from the broken pieces of wood.
He remembered that inexplicable word on the letter paper: “repentance.”
A thought, mad yet incomparably reasonable, exploded in his mind.
Zhou Kai hesitated no longer. He shot to his feet, and the axe brought with it a dull rush of wind as it viciously chopped into the corpse’s shoulder blade.
After the muffled sound of the blade sinking into flesh, he dragged the thing toward the fireplace as though hauling a heavy sack of garbage, leaving behind a wide, sticky, dark-red trail on the floor.
A home should look like a home.
...
[A warm fireplace accompanies you through the long night.]
Amid the flickering firelight, a chat box appeared.
The fireplace had finally been lit.
Zhou Kai’s eyes shone brightly in the reflection of the flames.
Inside the hearth, crackling together with the wood, were one leg and one arm of that monster.
“Repentance? Was it because he and Lanze burned the outsiders together?”
Thinking of the contents of the letter, Zhou Kai finally understood.
The fireplace here actually used the flesh and blood of [monsters], or even [people], as its base fuel.
Without true [fuel], this fire could not even be lit!
Zhou Kai let out a long breath of white mist and sat down wearily beside the fireplace.
Long-lost warmth slowly spread from his side, dispelling the chill that had seeped deep into his bones, and bit by bit dissolving the exhaustion that had nearly crushed him.
A few minutes later.
Lines of text drifted across Zhou Kai’s vision.
[Fatigued state has disappeared.]
[Weakened state has disappeared.]
[The erosion you have suffered is being dispelled.]
The newly acquired fatigued state and the weakened state that had followed him for several days were swept away, while the four-ninths erosion state also flickered uncertainly in the firelight.
Perhaps if he warmed himself for another hour or two, the number in the numerator would decrease by one.
In that case, wouldn’t he have one more chance to revive?
After weighing things up, keeping the corpse and burning it slowly was far more worthwhile than burning it all in one go.
And the benefits brought by the burning fireplace were far from limited to this.
After Zhou Kai recovered a bit of vitality, he threw all the remaining mutilated body parts into the fireplace, trying to maximize the burning time.
Suddenly, a new chat box appeared above the fireplace.
[Filthy flesh and profane soul have dissolved in the flames... You have received Lanze Solaka’s gift.]
[You have obtained Spearmanship Experience*3, Horsemanship Experience*1, Solaka Family Swordsmanship Experience*1.]
[You don’t know any of them, so in the end, you have obtained: General Experience Points*1.]
...
“This corpse wasn’t that big bearded bald man, but the younger brother, Lanze?”
The fact that burning a corpse could actually grant experience points was quite unexpected to Zhou Kai.
But the conversion rate of all those assorted specialized experience points into general experience points made him feel as though he had been brutally ripped off.
Five to one!
This was even harsher than a capitalist!
But there was nothing he could do about it. Who told him to know nothing and have nowhere to learn...
Being able to convert them into general experience points was already a blessing amid misfortune. It was better than drawing water with a bamboo basket and getting nothing at all.
In the end, Zhou Kai squeezed four general experience points out of one complete corpse, bit by bit.
As well as erosion progress -1, which equaled revival attempts +1.
As for the fireplace’s burning time, it showed that there was still one hour and forty minutes left.
This meant that if Zhou Kai left now, the next time he entered, he would possess a “fountain” that could last for over an hour.
“So, should I keep exploring, or return to reality and recover?”
Zhou Kai pondered for a moment, then decisively chose the latter. The longer he stayed in the nightmare, the more variables there would be.
He gathered up his gains from this trip and silently recited before the fireplace, “Leave.”
...
“Xiao Kai, did you have another nightmare?”
Returning to reality, the small nightlight beside the bed was on.
Zhou Qing was sitting at the bedside, looking gently at her younger brother.
Zhou Kai’s expression stiffened. His throat was dry, and he shook his head slightly.
Zhou Qing explained, “My unit is changing dormitories, so I have to stay at home for the next few days.”
“You sleep.” Her voice was soft, yet it seemed to come from a very distant place. “I’ll just make a bed on the floor.”
Zhou Kai felt the temperature in the room being drawn away bit by bit. His sister’s smile held not the slightest warmth, like a human face painted on the surface of ice.
Her shadow stretched across the wall, elongated and distorted, her standing posture like that of an infant who had only just learned to walk.
The two fell into silence.
About two minutes later, Zhou Kai abruptly shuddered. His body trembled violently, and he instinctively opened his eyes.
All he saw was pitch-black darkness.
“Just now... was that also a dream?”
He tried hard to clear his sister’s sinister face from his mind, but he felt a chill run through him.
With difficulty, he propped himself up from the bed and reached out to turn on the light.
He discovered that his entire body was soaked in cold sweat, leaving a human-shaped wet mark on the bedsheet.
His life was sliding irresistibly toward an uncanny abyss.
Zhou Kai held back a sigh, silently got up and washed his face with cold water, then sat down at his desk and took a laptop from the drawer.
The technological style of the Scarlet Star Republic pursued a kind of retro futurism.
For example, this laptop insisted on being made to look like an old-fashioned handicraft.
The screen was only as thick as a finger, yet the frame was sharp enough to sting one’s fingers.
The body was a full two fingers thick, and when the keyboard was typed on, it sounded like a typewriter from an old movie, giving off crisp clacking sounds.
Zhou Kai had bought this laptop in his junior year of university. Its performance had been considered top-tier at the time, and even now, it was not too outdated.
He opened a webpage and typed several keywords into the search bar.
[Solaka—Solaka Town—family—church]
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