"As long as I can complete this Manager task, I should be able to become the new Building Chief."
Han Fei constantly gave himself psychological suggestions, having learned a great deal of psychological knowledge previously, which he had intended to use to heal his neighbor, only to find that he ended up using it on himself first.
"The task didn’t give any specific hints, it seems I’ll have to figure it out myself."
He glanced at the brazier, photo frames, and obituary photos on the floor, it seemed like tonight was Soul-returning Night.
"I have a strange feeling about this."
Han Fei turned his own obituary photo face down on the floor, and gently grabbed the doorknob of Room 1091. As he tried to push the door open, the System’s voice resounded in his Brain Sea.
"Player No. 0000, please note! You must kill all the ghosts in this room! And save all the people!"
The door to Room 1091 opened in response, and before Han Fei had even stepped inside, a girl’s decapitated head dropped from the doorframe and bit directly onto his neck!
The intense pain hit him, Han Fei grabbed the head with both hands, but no matter how much he struggled, he couldn’t shake the other off.
Blood blurred his vision, unable to breathe, he couldn’t even shout.
His strength was waning, pain spread from all over, Han Fei fell to the ground, his consciousness became fuzzy, he could no longer get up.
His eyes suddenly snapped open, Han Fei found himself standing at the door of Room 1091, and his own face in the obituary photo on the ground was smiling happily.
"I’ve already died once?"
Everything happened so abruptly, the fundamental purpose of this task seemed to be to kill the player by any means, causing the player to lose their memory.
Han Fei wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, recalling the previous warning from the system.
During the Manager task, death comes with no death penalty, but you’ll lose memories; when you forget who you are, the former Manager will be reborn using your shell.
"This task is even more dangerous and difficult than I imagined!"
Han Fei carefully recollected, and he found that he didn’t seem to have forgotten anything important, which was exactly what unnerved him the most: "Could it be that I have completely forgotten something specific?"
Suppressing the unease in his heart, Han Fei looked at Room 1091 again: "A girl’s head falls out as soon as I open the door, and she’ll bite off my neck directly..."
He didn’t want to experience that pain a second time, he looked around, and picked up the brazier on the ground: "The system just gave me a hint, telling me to kill all the ghosts in this room, but with what shall I kill them? Burn them with the brazier? Or bite each other?"
After about five minutes of thought, Han Fei didn’t even touch the door this time, but the door to Room 1091 opened by itself, the girl’s head once again dropped out, biting Han Fei to death in a pool of blood.
His eyes opened, Han Fei subconsciously touched his neck: "Staying too long will also get me killed, it seems I’ll have to find a way to get inside the room!"
Gathering his spirit, aside from the pain the first two deaths brought him, they also made him remember the location of that head, this time he would avoid it and rush directly into the room.
Picking up the brazier full of Paper Money ashes, Han Fei covered a certain direction with the iron basin the moment he pushed the door open!
The girl’s head hit the brazier, and a scream rang out in the room.
Han Fei knew the other’s strength was great, he rushed into the room and used his body to press down on the brazier, trying to trap the head inside it.
As the severed head was smashing against the brazier, Han Fei took the time to assess the room: "A glass coffee table, a fruit bowl with rotting fruit, the bedroom is to the left, the kitchen door to the right..."
As he was nearly unable to hold back the severed head, Han Fei charged directly into the kitchen—he needed a weapon, even a kitchen knife would do.
Pushing open the kitchen door, he was met with an overpowering stench. A middle-aged woman stood in front of the cutting board, chopping up rotting chunks of meat!
Upon seeing Han Fei, she screamed and hacked the kitchen knife at him.
Blood sprayed wildly as the back of his neck was bitten by the severed head. Han Fei fell to the ground, enduring unimaginable pain, yet his mind was desperately at work, his eyes scanning the room, frantically trying to remember more details!
Opening his eyes, Han Fei didn’t know what he had forgotten, and he hated this feeling intensely.
"The difficulty of this mission is beyond imagination. Above all, each death is followed by forgetting something, and now I have even forgotten what it is that I have forgotten."
"If this continues, I might forget that I’m on a mission or even who I am. Would I then rightfully believe that I belong here?"
The mere thought terrified him. In his mind, Han Fei counted time: "Memory divides into two types, one is the memory of the brain, the other is muscle memory. Many people who suffer from amnesia still remember certain actions they frequently repeated. The Black Box lies deep within my Brain Sea—it’s more likely to only affect brain memory."
To carve a way back for himself and to prevent complete disorientation, Han Fei decided to do something insane.
He looked at the photo frame holding his own obituary, grabbed it, and smashed it, then clutched a piece of broken glass and sliced four gashes into his arm.
It marked the fourth death!
Blood oozed from his fingertips. Han Fei felt the pain and then carved his name—Han Fei—into his other arm.
"After every death, repeat this. I hope my body can remember this pain!"
Selecting the sharpest piece of glass, he slipped it into his pocket, opened the room’s door, used the brazier to block the severed head, and then rushed towards the other bedroom door in the house.
Chased by the severed head, he didn’t dare to pause: "There are two bedroom doors; the first one has an alphabet poster and other posters on it, probably for a child."
Gripping the doorknob, Han Fei pushed open the bedroom door closest to the living room.
Scattered toys were in view and among them sat a five or six-year-old child facing away from Han Fei.
The severed head was close behind. Han Fei burst into the room, recalling the system’s final prompt: kill all the ghosts, save all the people.
"Is this child human?"
He instinctively avoided the child, but the child seemingly sensed his presence and slowly turned its head around, revealing a face scarred all over to Han Fei.
Immediately, the child let out a piercing scream, and from the shadow behind the door, two slender arms reached out. They choked Han Fei and hung him to death inside the room.
With a deformed neck and a face turning cyanotic, his bulging eyes intensely focused on the bedroom.
"There’s blood-stained clothing in the gap of the wardrobe, half a face under the bed, someone hanging behind the curtain, and the shadow under the desk is moving—there are at least four ghosts in this bedroom..."
Opening his eyes, empty of thought, Han Fei first smashed the photo frame and began to train his muscle memory in his own way.
Each bloody wound represented a past that must never be forgotten.