Rules of the Strange: Starting with the Lunar New Year's Eve Dungeon

The loud noise startled the ghost parents who were about to pounce on him.

Yunxi put her hands on her hips, her eyebrows furrowed, and pointed at the noses of the two vengeful ghosts, starting to curse:

"Is this the mess you've made?"

"Huh? Say something!"

"Look at this house, it's pitch black, what kind of place is this? If I don't come back, are you planning not to put up Spring Festival couplets this year? Not to hang lanterns? Are you just trying to make a living?"

The ghost father was stunned by the scolding.

His degenerated brain was completely unable to process this information.

According to procedure, he should have rushed up and torn this living person holding the forbidden red object to pieces.

But why... why is the aura emanating from this human even more terrifying than that thousand-year-old zombie at the east end of the village?

It was a kind of majesty derived from the suppression of bloodline, and even more so, a judgment standing on the moral high ground.

Yunxi didn't give them any time to think. She directly pulled out two sheets of red paper from the pile and stuffed them into the hands of the crooked-necked ghost mother.

"What are you standing there for? Do you even know how to cut paper snowflakes? Don't tell me you've forgotten how! If you can't cut them, you can skip the dumplings tonight and go out into the yard to starve!"

The ghost mother held the scalding red paper in her hand, her body trembling like a leaf.

Red...this is a terrifying red...

But if I don't get my hair cut, my eldest son says he won't let me eat...

In this family-based scenario, the eldest son's voice sometimes even trumps the rules.

Especially when it comes to core folk customs such as "eating" and "offering sacrifices".

The ghost mother stiffly rolled her eyes, and finally actually pulled a rusty pair of scissors from her pocket, and began to cut with trembling hands.

Yunxi then turned to look at her ghost father, whose face was bluish-purple.

The ghost father instinctively took a step back, and the low growl in his throat turned into a whimper.

"Don't hide! I'm talking to you!"

Yunxi pointed to the door frame

"Go, bring me that ladder. I need to write couplets. Your handwriting is so ugly, there's no way you can write them, I'll have to do it myself. You're in charge of holding the ladder for me, if you fall and I fall, I'll tear your old bones apart and burn them for firewood!"

The ghost father was extremely aggrieved.

He's a top-tier elite monster in an S-rank dungeon; normally, which chosen one wouldn't be terrified of him? But today, he's become the one doing the hard labor of moving ladders.

But he dared not resist.

Because Yunxi's obsession with "this life must go on and on" was so strong that it formed an invisible "field" that suppressed the evil instincts within them.

In the live stream, the viewers who were just sending "Run!" were now completely speechless.

"This...this actually works?"

"I get it! I finally get it! This isn't a horror game, it's a simulation game!"

"Don't talk nonsense, upstairs! This is clearly 'I'm the Head of a Family in a Horror World'!"

"This is outrageous! A ghost mom cutting paper snowflakes, a ghost dad holding a ladder, a ghost grandma kneading dough... How can this scene look so heartwarming yet so eerie?"

"Am I the only one who noticed the red paper smoking in the ghost mother's hand? It was clearly burning her hand, yet she endured the pain and kept cutting it. How terrified she must be of her son!"

Yunxi nodded in satisfaction as she watched her busy ghost parents.

"That's right, the whole family should be together, then we'll have more energy to work."

He picked up a brush, dipped it in some long-dried ink—or rather, black blood clots—and dissolved it in the inkstone.

Next, is the main event.

Write Spring Festival couplets.

This is not as simple as just writing a few words.

On this New Year's Eve when demons roam freely, a good Spring Festival couplet is an absolute barrier that seals the gate and an unparalleled sword for slaying demons!

At the same time, in the live stream room of the parallel world's Cherry Blossom Country.

Unlike the "bustling" atmosphere in China, the live stream in Japan was filled with an atmosphere of oppression and despair.

The chosen one of the Sakura Kingdom is named Tanaka Taro, a famous horror game streamer. He is usually quite brave, but right now he's scared as a quail.

He was also assigned to a similar farmhouse.

At that moment, Tanaka Taro was hiding under the bed, trembling all over, clutching a crumpled piece of white paper tightly in his hand.

Just now, he also saw the rule that "red is absolutely prohibited".

To save his life, he took off the red underwear that the system had given him and threw it far away.

He was lying naked on the cold ground, his chattering voice carried throughout the entire country of cherry blossoms through the microphone.

"You must follow the rules... You must follow the rules..."

Tanaka Taro muttered to himself, his hand pressing tightly against a piece of white paper on the window. A gust of wind had just blown the paper open, revealing a pale eye staring intently at him through the crack.

"Don't come in...don't come in..."

Tanaka Taro was so frightened that tears and snot streamed down his face.

The audience in Japan was also on tenterhooks.

"Taro-kun, hang in there! If we can just get through tonight, we'll win!"

"That's terrifying! That eye keeps moving! Don't make a sound!"

"I heard that madman from the neighboring Dragon Kingdom is tearing up the window paper; he must be dead by now, right?"

"Absolutely! Breaking the rules means certain death; that's common sense!"

However, what they didn't know was that a "ritual" was taking place in the Dragon Kingdom's live broadcast room that was enough to overturn their worldview.

Dragon Kingdom, Lunar New Year's Eve instance.

Yunxi stood on the ladder, holding a large wolf-hair brush dipped in thick ink.

The ghost father stood below, gripping the ladder tightly with both hands, his body emanating black mist, but he dared not move an inch, for fear of causing the ancestor above to fall.

Yunxi looked at the door frame in front of her, which had long since faded to gray and white, and took a deep breath.

"Since it's Chinese New Year, it should look like Chinese New Year."

"This first couplet must be impressive."

With a flick of his wrist, his brush moved like a dragon and a snake.

Although the ink in the inkstone emitted a nauseating, fishy smell, the moment Yunxi put pen to paper, the black ink actually faintly shimmered with a layer of golden light!

That is righteous spirit!

That is the power of thought accumulated from five thousand years of Chinese folk customs!

Although the viewers in the live stream didn't understand what "righteous spirit" meant, they could still see the special effects!

"Holy crap! It's glowing! The words are glowing!"

"What kind of special effect is this? Isn't that ink supposed to be blood? How come it's written in gold?"

"I'm not very well-educated, can anyone tell me what he's writing?"

Yunxi wrote the first line of the couplet in one go with a flourish of his brush:

[As Heaven adds years, so does man's lifespan]

Seven large characters, vigorous and powerful, penetrating the paper!

The moment the last "longevity" character was written, a crack appeared in the originally gloomy sky, and a ray of extremely faint but real sunlight pierced through the thick haze and shone on the red paper.

The ghost father, who was standing at the bottom of the ladder, screamed as if he had been burned, and jumped back as if he had let go of his grip.

"What? Too hot to handle?"