Erotic Survival Game - Chapter 313
Chapter 313: Living Coffin (2)
In ancient times, a yizhuang served as a clan school and ancestral hall; later, only the ancestral hall function remained, along with storing coffins and laying out the dead.
The yizhuang in this village was clearly the latter.
From the outside, its architectural style was relatively rustic—a compound of buildings arranged like a siheyuan, built from gray bricks and tiles. It looked far more substantial than the village houses. But its age was obvious; in places, the fallen bricks had never been replaced.
Because it stood at some distance from the village houses, as Ji Ning and the other players gathered at the entrance, the solitary yizhuang gave off an abrupt, artificial feeling.
A-Guang pushed open the yizhuang gate and led the players inside, introducing as he walked: "The hall in the center is our village ancestral hall, where the ancestor tablets and family register are kept. The wings on either side are both funerary halls. The left one has been locked for ages since our village population is so small now. The right one is still open."
As he spoke, he headed toward the room on the right. Pushing the door open revealed a collection of pitch-black coffins and many strips of white cloth suspended from the ceiling rafters.
Ji Ning turned to look at the locust tree planted in the middle of the courtyard. Its trunk was thick, its canopy lush—clearly it had been there for many years.
She turned back. Everyone else had already followed A-Guang into the funerary hall, with only Yan Qiao and Sheng Churan waiting for her. Sheng Churan stood closer; Yan Qiao lingered at the door.
She placed her hand in Sheng Churan's palm and let him draw her to his side.
He dipped his head close to her. He didn't speak, only watched her with a look of quiet concern.
Sheng Churan knew Ji Ning's fear of ghosts better than anyone, so Ji Ning understood his meaning. She shook her head at him and they walked into the room together.
Yan Qiao glared coldly, shoved his hands into his pockets, and looked away.
A-Guang was still talking: "The village chief's idea is for everyone to experience the atmosphere of the funerary hall. There are plenty of coffins here. Each of you pick one and sleep inside it tonight."
Just as everyone's attention focused on the twelve coffins arranged in three rows and four columns, A-Guang had quietly drifted to the doorway.
"Our village is not peaceful at night. The villagers don't go out after dark, so you shouldn't leave your coffins either—you don't want to run into unclean things. Those unclean things fear thunder and fire, but you lot certainly can't manage that. Best to lie properly in your coffins." A-Guang's tone grew stranger and stranger. "Oh, and among the twelve coffins, not all can protect you. Only six have never held the dead; those are the useful ones. Take your time choosing." With that, he pushed the door open, walked out, and pulled it shut, leaving the twelve players inside the chilling funerary hall.
Once the NPC departed and no one was watching, the players dropped the act and immediately began searching the funerary hall for clues.
The most common approach was to lift each coffin lid in turn, sniff for odors, and examine details to determine whether a corpse had once lain inside.
Complaints soon rose one after another.
Because every coffin, once opened, smelled the same—a mixture of mildew, rot, and wood-tar pitch. Impossible to tell any of them apart.
"Didn't he say ghosts fear thunder and fire? Let's just build a fire and skip sleeping in the coffins," someone suggested.
His words were immediately countered: "They told you to get in the coffins. Not getting in means you're just waiting to die."
Faced with such vague warnings and an unsolvable puzzle, most people were utterly clueless.
Ji Ning stood in a corner, turning A-Guang's words over in her mind: "those unclean things fear thunder and fire." He had offered this hint, then immediately said they certainly couldn't manage it, so they'd better just lie properly in the coffins.
But if they truly couldn't manage it, why bother mentioning it at all? Wouldn't it have been enough to simply tell the players to get in the coffins?
With that question in mind, Ji Ning and her two companions huddled together to search for any traces or clues inside the funerary hall.
This coffin storage room held more than just the coffins. Against the wall directly opposite the entrance stood a table. On the table lay a crudely made peachwood sword, a bagua compass, and a bowl of glutinous rice with a bundle of burned-out incense sticks planted in it.
Ji Ning stared at the items on the table for a long time, then suddenly turned back to look at the cluster of coffins.
She asked the two of them in a low voice: "Don't you think the arrangement of the coffins is strange? They're all placed horizontally."
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