My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 127: I’m Just a Temp

Chapter 127: Chapter 127: I’m Just a Temp

There are good people in the world, and there are bad people.

In the Deep World, the same is true. Some ghosts, filled with malice in life, become even more vicious after death, turning into Evil Ghosts that spread despair; yet some Resentment Souls, even though they died unjustly, still harbor kindness in their hearts.

"What is your name? When the opportunity arises, I will take you to see your brother."

"Yinghuo. My mother said that there is a type of bug that can glow in the dark night, called Yinghuo, but I have never seen one."

"There are many parents who wish their children to achieve great things, but you’re the first one I’ve met who wishes their child to become a bug." Han Fei told the boy to hold the ball and quickly leave. "Don’t come here to play again. Tell me your address, and I will come to find you."

"My mom and I live in the hotel next to the convenience store. My mom has been reluctant to leave; it seems she’s waiting for my brother to come back."

The boy spoke with some difficulty. After proactively telling Han Fei his address, he hugged the ball and ran off with a pitter-patter.

"This kid is quite interesting..." Looking back at the walls in the alley for a long while, what Han Fei was actually more concerned about were the dark shadows on the wall. It seemed that all who had worked here as "people" ended up murdered, with some Residual Souls trapped in the alley walls.

Day by day, the walls in the alley became densely packed with faint human outlines, each one representing a staff member.

"Yinghuo probably isn’t here for the first time, but the ghosts on the walls of the alley did not kill him or steal his Soul Body. They even actively played games with him."

"When I opened the door just now, the ghosts on the wall seemed to want to help Yinghuo hide, and no one made any sudden moves to expose Yinghuo’s location."

The Residual Souls on the wall were very much in tune with protecting Yinghuo. Just from this point, Han Fei felt that those Residual Souls could become his friends.

"It seems that most of my colleagues and predecessors are good people!"

Glancing over the walls in the alley, Han Fei gave a slight bow. "It’s my first day on the job, and I ask for the guidance of all my predecessors."

Seeing no anomalies on the wall, he then entered the house. However, as he was about to close the door, he faintly saw the human outlines on the wall slowly moving, as if they were discussing something.

"All the former employees have been sealed into the wall. I’m curious why the Shop Manager didn’t just kill them to cut off future troubles. Could it be the Shop Manager still needs their Residual Souls to harness their power?"

The power of souls harboring regret is not particularly strong, but when hundreds of such regrets come together, it becomes a very horrifying force.

"Dingling!"

The Soul Bell at the door rang again. Han Fei was about to enter the house when the landlord’s ring on his hand suddenly radiated an icy chill.

Gently touching the crack on the ring, Han Fei hid in the trash disposal room, taking a peek outside.

The One-eyed Shop Assistant stood inside the cash register, and in front of him stood a woman nearly two and a half meters tall, dressed in red.

That woman wore a blood-red veil and a big red bridal dress, and yet, there was a white flower hanging over her chest.

Almost at the same moment when the woman appeared, the temperature inside the convenience store dropped to freezing, and the One-eyed Shop Assistant became very polite, earnestly attending to her.

Most of the time it was the One-eyed Shop Assistant asking questions, while the woman would occasionally nod her head. Han Fei didn’t hear their conversation clearly, only vaguely hearing words like seventh day after death, soul-returning, Death Building, and number 144.

A few minutes later, the One-eyed Shop Assistant stepped out from behind the cash register and gestured for the woman to follow him into the storeroom.

As the woman, whose height exceeded two meters, turned around, she paused towards the garbage disposal room where Han Fei was hiding, her veil blowing in the draft and exposing a split mouth.

"Did she notice me?"

The woman didn’t make things difficult for Han Fei. Holding a bloodied package in her much larger than normal hands, she slowly stepped into the storeroom.

No strange noises leaked out, only the light inside the storeroom dimmed significantly.

A cough sounded, and the One-eyed Shop Assistant came out of the storeroom carrying a Paperman as tall as an ordinary person on his back. The Paperman’s face bore a smile, and its hands covered the Shop Assistant’s eyes.

The Wedding Dress Ghost also came out, but the bloodied package she was carrying earlier was nowhere to be seen.

The Soul Bell rang. The One-eyed Shop Assistant, with the Paperman on his back, left the convenience store together with the woman in the bridal dress.

"The Paperman that One-eyed carried away is completely different from a common Paperman. Its expression is just like a living person’s. Could that Paperman be the boss?"

The temperature inside the store returned to normal. Han Fei quietly approached the storeroom door. The white wax in the storeroom was extinguished, and the room was pitch black.

"Even if the Paperman that One-eyed carried away isn’t the boss, it probably contains part of the boss’s consciousness. After all, that Paperman’s expression is almost indistinguishable from a living person’s, and it even knew to cover the assistant’s eyes as if it were worried the One-eyed would see something."

Han Fei didn’t believe an ordinary Paperman could be so clever. Behind this, he suspected the boss was pulling the strings.

"That Wedding Dress Ghost is very powerful, she gives me a feeling even more terrifying than Xu Qin. It seems she came into the store to ask the boss for help, and what was in that package must have been the payment to the boss."

Following the bloodstains on the floor, Han Fei reached the last row of the storeroom shelves.

Being watched by one Paperman after another didn’t feel good, but after getting to this point, Han Fei also realized something.

When he first came here, the gaze of those Papermen wasn’t different from that of living people, filled with all kinds of emotions.

But this time, the Papermen’s gaze was very stiff, as if they had lost their souls.

"The blood trail stops here," said Han Fei as he stared at a Paperman in front of him, then took it down.

There was a gap between the back of the Paperman and the wall, and Han Fei peeked inside to discover a coffin hidden behind the last row of shelves.

"Well hidden," Han Fei memorized the location of all the Papermen and then took several down, squeezing his way behind the shelves.

As his hands touched the coffin lid, the Ghost Pattern emitted a heart-wrenching scream; the pain was unbearable, and the issue was, the pain wasn’t his own.

"Brother, hang in there a little longer."

The package sent by the Wedding Dress Ghost had been opened; the bloodied cloth had fallen to the side, and Han Fei pushed the coffin lid open with force.

Inside the coffin were body parts belonging to different individuals, and right in the middle of this composite corpse lay a palm-sized, blood-colored Paperman.

That Paperman had its eyes closed, as if it were asleep.

Upon closer inspection, one could see countless faces of Resentment Souls screaming on the Paperman; among them, many faces Han Fei had seen in the employee preparation room’s photos.

"Does this Paperman want to possess a real body?"

Han Fei was fully focused, and at the height of his tension, a voice suddenly came from somewhere in the room.

"Save me, save me..."

Han Fei was startled, almost falling into the coffin.

He widened his eyes and looked around, eventually discovering that the voice was coming from the White Wax.

Kneeling next to the candle, Han Fei stared intently at it, his face as if the words "murder to silence" were written all over it.

"You’re the new employee, right? The curse on you is still shallow, take me with you and leave this place, and I will repay you!" The face on the White Wax was very blurred, struggling to make a sound: "The Paperman is gone, it rarely leaves the shop, this is a rare opportunity."

"A single candle thinks it can persuade me? My loyalty to the Shop Manager is unwavering, not something you can shake with just a sentence or two," Han Fei said with a murderous look in his eyes.

"On your first day of work, you’ve already prised open the Shop Manager’s coffin lid, how is that undying loyalty?"

"I just wanted to understand him more deeply."

"You’re a smart man; let’s not waste time." The face on the candle kept crying out: "Do you know why the candles in the store can burn all night? Do you know why the light from these candles soothes passing Lonely Ghosts?"

"Why?"

"All the candles in the storage room are made of Corpse Wax, made from the bodies of Monsters and the residual grudges of employees; it loves to hear the cries as these grudges are ignited," the face on the candle began to distort: "If you don’t leave, you will become a candle eventually! I know how to remove the curse, take me with you, and I’ll help you get rid of it!"

"You seem to know a lot about the Shop Manager?"

"I used to be an employee here too. The Shop Manager’s true form is the blood-colored Paperman in the coffin; it’s a special Curse Item that slowly developed its own thoughts by constantly absorbing grudges. Everyone who enters the store becomes its target. Either they become merchandise, or they become employees, serving the Ghost, but there’s no good end for the Servant Ghost! We employees will die too! And we won’t die peacefully; the remaining humanity will be absorbed by the Paperman and become part of it," said the face in the candle with a sobbing voice.

"All the humanity of the employees has been absorbed by the blood-colored Paperman?"

"Yes," said the face in the candle, glancing back at the coffin behind the shelves: "It has been absorbing more and more humanity and grudges, gradually forming its own consciousness. Usually, it hides its consciousness within one of the Papermen while nurturing its true body in the coffin with flesh and blood. All the Papermen in the shop might be its avatars..."

"That means we’ve already been seen by it?"

"But tonight is different! The Wedding Dress Ghost has delivered the most crucial head and heart to the Paperman Store Manager as a reward; the Paperman Store Manager needs to help the Wedding Dress Ghost kill someone. That person lives in the Death Building, extremely dangerous, and the Store Manager can only succeed in killing them by gathering all the resentment and Power. Once it succeeds, it’ll gain more things, speeding up its growth, and then we’ll have no hope of escape."

"So tonight is the only chance?"

"Opportunity knocks but once, and when it’s gone, it’s gone!" the face on the White Wax pleaded frantically: "The Shop Manager’s curse will prevent you from approaching its true body and from leaving the convenience store. Once you trigger the curse, you’ll suffer immense pain. But if it’s badly hurt, the curse will weaken, and so will the pain you suffer. So don’t hesitate, take me with you! This is our only chance to escape, and I will tell you how to break the curse."

"Wait a second, if the Shop Manager is severely damaged, why do we still have to leave?"

"With its curse upon you, you have no power to resist it! I beg you to listen to me! Hurry up and take me with you."

"Don’t rush, I’ve got a better idea now," Han Fei said with a strange look on his face, staring at the coffin behind the shelves: "If I manage to shut down the shop on my first day of work, I wonder if I’ll ever get employed again afterward?"

Han Fei glanced at the mission panel, vaguely understanding why the task required him to survive a full night: because after this night, there might be no store left.