You made all the streamers on the internet kneel before you when you were asked to make a game.

The village chief's voice was right next to me.

Lu Zhixing panicked. He pulled out the broken brush from the initial items and used the sharpest end of the brush handle to pry it hard into the gap in the wooden board.

"Snap!"

The wooden plank finally loosened slightly.

Just then, a cold wind swept over him from behind.

Village chief, we've arrived!

Lu Zhixing felt a chill in his heart, as if a cold hand was about to grab the back of his neck.

But just then, a clear, crisp sound of a copper bell suddenly rang out from outside the ancestral hall.

The sound of the copper bell caused the hand gripping Lu Zhixing to tremble violently, and the force tightened slightly.

Lu Zhixing seized this fleeting opportunity, and with a sudden burst of strength, broke free from his restraints.

He exerted his strength again and pried the wooden board open completely.

Then, disregarding everything, he squeezed out through the narrow window.

Lu Zhixing fell onto the cold ground, ignoring the pain, and scrambled away into the darkness.

Inside the ancestral hall, the village chief stood by the window, looking in the direction Lu Zhixing had fled, his face filled with surprise and uncertainty.

"Is it her?"

Why would she help an outsider?

……

Lu Zhixing ran wildly, not daring to stop for even a moment.

He didn't know who rang the bell, nor why they were helping him.

He only knew about the ancestral hall, and he absolutely could not go back.

But it's curfew now, and there are night watchmen outside.

Where should he hide?

Just as he was panicking and not knowing where to go, he saw a shop with its lights still on at the end of a secluded alley.

The light was dim and warm.

Like the only hope in this dark and hopeless night.

The shop had no signboard, but two white paper lanterns hung on the door.

Lu Zhixing remembered clearly that when he passed by here during the day, there was no such shop at all.

But now, he has no other choice.

He pushed open the door and went inside.

A strong smell of paper and glutinous rice paste wafted over.

This is a paper craft shop.

The shop was filled with all sorts of paper crafts.

Paper figures, paper horses, paper houses, paper ingots...

It has everything, and it's incredibly lifelike.

An old man wearing a red jacket with exaggerated red blush on his cheeks was sitting behind the counter.

He squinted as he strung together the skeleton of a paper figure with bamboo strips, making it look exactly like a paper effigy that had come to life.

When Lu Zhixing came in, the old man raised his eyelids slightly.

"Sir, what would you like to buy?"

Lu Zhixing was panting heavily, leaning against the door frame.

"Shopkeeper, I...I'm not here to buy anything."

"I'm here to exchange something."

Lu Zhixing recalled the rumors he had heard at the Ghost Market.

In the village of the unjustly deceased, there are some special NPCs who do not accept ghost money.

What they received was something else.

"Oh?" The paper craft shop owner became interested. "What would you like to exchange it for?"

"I want to change the information, specifically regarding the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall," Lu Zhixing said bluntly.

"Intelligence?" The boss chuckled, revealing a mouthful of teeth cut out of paper. "That's a valuable item."

"What will you offer in exchange?"

Lu Zhixing looked at the boss's narrowed eyes and said in a deep voice.

"Lifespan".

He heard that the owner of this store charges players their game time.

The boss's smile deepened.

"it is good."

"Three days."

He extended three fingers that looked like bamboo sticks.

"I'll only tell you one secret about the ancestral hall."

Lu Zhixing didn't hesitate. "Deal."

[System notification: You have completed a transaction with the "Paper Shop Owner".]

[Your remaining game time has been reduced by 72 hours.]

The boss nodded in satisfaction.

He put down what he was doing, leaned close to Lu Zhixing's ear, and spoke softly in a voice as thin as paper.

"The more than three hundred memorial tablets in the ancestral hall are not for our ancestors."

"Beneath the memorial tablet lies a well."

"Inside the well, there is a fully-fledged zombie king."

"The village chief isn't worshipping his ancestors; he's feeding that zombie."

"He is using the life force of living people to awaken it little by little."

"When that thing wakes up..." the boss chuckled.

"The entire village of the unjustly killed will become its food."

Lu Zhixing's back was instantly soaked with cold sweat.

Zombie King!

No wonder the village chief had to feed them with live people!

He suppressed his shock and bowed to the boss.

"Thank you for clearing up my confusion."

After saying that, he turned around and prepared to leave.

Just as Lu Zhixing reached the door, the paper shop owner's voice came faintly from behind him again.

"Sir/Madam."

"I've already taken your measurements."

Lu Zhixing suddenly turned around.

In the corner of the shop, a paper skeleton, freshly made and not yet covered with paper, stood quietly.

The paper figure's facial features, height, and build... were exactly the same as his.

The boss squinted and smiled at Lu Zhixing.

"It will be ready to use next time you come."

That night, the number of players decreased by a third.

The remaining people either found a special way of "symbiosis," like the Berserk Dragon.

Or, like "I'm not bad at directions," they resort to self-harm to obtain tools to save their lives.

But many more people were trapped in the village like headless flies, unable to find any way out.

They began trying various methods to leave.

They scaled walls, dug tunnels, and even tried to remove the stone tablet at the village entrance.

But all failed.

This village is like a closed cage.

Gradually, some players discovered an even more terrifying phenomenon.

They got lost.

This is not getting lost in the ordinary sense.

Rather, it is a kind of getting lost that violates spatial logic.

"Holy crap! How did I end up here again?"

A small team of players stopped, panting, beside a dry well.

This is their tenth time returning to this place.

"That's impossible! We've been heading east all along!" The captain cried out in despair, clutching his hair.

"This...this is the legendary...ghost wall?" a team member said, trembling.

The term "ghost wall" is no longer unfamiliar to Federation players, who have witnessed its power in "The Embroidered Shoes".

But without the guidance of the cult leader and Professor Chen, how are they supposed to break this ghost wall?

No matter how they walk, whether in a straight line, a curve, or even with their eyes closed.

In the end, they will all return to this dry well.

Even more bizarrely, when they tried to climb onto the roof to overlook the village and plan their route, the layout of the village kept changing.

The alley that was here a second ago has vanished the next.

What was originally a dead end in the wall suddenly had a door.

The entire village of the unjustly killed has become a giant, constantly writhing maze.

Players' sense of direction and spatial awareness were completely destroyed.

They even began to experience severe dizziness, nausea, and claustrophobia.

I can't take it anymore! This is worse than being chased by a ghost!

[I want to log out! I want to log off!]

Why is the exit button grayed out? What does the message "Stay" mean?

[Good man! You're not human! Let me out!]