My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 436: Ten Fingers (6000)

Chapter 436: Chapter 436: Ten Fingers (6000)

On his first night on the job, he memorized the prices of all the items in the secondhand store, remembered where they were placed, helped a bullied delivery man, and accidentally killed a criminal suspect.

The Master of Shrine had recorded all this in his diary. He was already under tremendous pressure, and after the accidental killing, he was on the verge of breaking down.

His sick mother lay in the hospital, desperately needing money; he was working two jobs day and night, trying his best, but fate played a cruel joke on him.

"Murder?"

Every word in the diary oozed with suffocating despair and anxiety, and from the careless handwriting, one could tell the mental state of the Master of Shrine was very poor.

Just by looking at the words in the diary, Han Fei’s mood began to drop as if he had written the words himself, constantly affecting his emotions.

"The Master of Shrine needs to save his mother. He must use all his time to raise money, and if he gets involved in a murder case, he probably won’t even have the chance to see his mother for the last time."

Han Fei stared at the messy lines on the diary. He reached out, tore off that page, took a pen, and blotted out all the words.

To prevent the text from being seen from the back of the paper, Han Fei smeared both sides completely, then tore that page into fragments and soaked them in water.

After all was soaked to mush, he flushed it down the drain in batches.

"My emotions are being influenced by this diary, my mood fluctuating with the words within it. I can’t change the key memory nodes of this Memory World, and I’m constantly being assimilated by it, slowly becoming like the Master of Shrine."

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The sound of knocking abruptly rang out, and Han Fei quickly hid the diary, "I’m coming, I’m coming! Don’t rush!"

Opening the door, Han Fei saw a chubby woman standing at the entrance, wearing a tight red coat, exuding the scent of cheap perfume.

"I felt sorry for you, so I let you delay paying the rent by a month, but you’re not being honest, are you? If I don’t say anything, do you plan to just keep living here sneakily?" The woman’s voice was rough and somewhat grating, "I’m not running a charity. Pay up the rent you owe me right now, or you can pack your stuff and get out!"

"I still owe you a month’s rent?"

"Playing dumb?" The woman’s face grew even uglier, and she slapped her fat hand against the door panel, "At such a young age, you’ve learned to be a deadbeat?"

"Sister, listen to me. I’ll definitely make up for the rent. But I hope you can give me a little more time. I just found a job, and I don’t have a penny on me." Han Fei was pushing his emotions to the limit; he was at his wit’s end, as if the entire world had abandoned him.

After much persuasion, Han Fei, making full use of his master-level acting and the eloquence he honed in Deep World, finally managed to buy himself a few more days.

After the female landlord left, Han Fei’s mood score dropped by three points.

"In this Memory World, people are hardly easier to deal with than ghosts."

After closing the door, Han Fei looked at the little bit of rice left in the kitchen and sighed softly, "Is this what the Master of Shrine went through too? But I can go to Wang Ping’an’s house for a meal."

Taking off his muddy coat and shoes, Han Fei started rummaging through closets and drawers for clothes to wear, glancing in the pockets for any change.

After searching for a while, Han Fei gave up. The situation told Han Fei what "cleaner than the face" really meant.

"The owner only has one bank card, and the key is, I don’t know the PIN." Han Fei was in dire need of money, lacking even the most basic life security, "I can’t go on like this. I need to make sure to have a full stomach every day."

Eating isn’t just about filling the stomach; the process of eating is also a form of enjoyment and satisfaction, greatly affecting the mental state and mood.

After drinking a large glass of water, Han Fei lay on the bed and took out his phone to look for daytime job opportunities. But he hadn’t been lying down for long when there was another loud knock on the door.

"Who is it this time?"

Han Fei got up and opened the door, to see a man in a floral shirt standing outside. He appeared to be just over thirty, dressed in a flashy manner.

"How was work yesterday? You’re satisfied with the job I found for you, right?" The man seemed very familiar with the original homeowner and walked straight in, sitting on Han Fei’s bed, "It met all your requirements: only night shifts and high salary. I’m telling you, I pulled a lot of strings to get you that job."

Han Fei didn’t have any recollection of this man. He didn’t close the door but just stood at the doorway, watching the man with a puzzled look.

"Why do you keep staring at me?" The man lit a cigarette, "I’ve already found you a job. Aren’t you going to pay me the intermediary fee?"

In just a few sentences, Han Fei roughly figured out the man’s identity— a black-market intermediary. The original Master of Shrine, desperate due to illness, had through this intermediary’s help obtained a nighttime job at the secondhand supermarket.

"How much?" Han Fei was a law-abiding citizen, rarely resorting to shady means to solve problems, unless the situation was exceptional.

"A thousand five! That’s what we agreed on." The Floral Shirt man pulled out a contract from his pocket, and it had a red fingerprint on it, "What? Planning on reneging on the deal now that you’ve started working?"

Slowly closing the door, Han Fei felt he was facing an exceptional situation.

He didn’t know what choices the original Master of Shrine had made, so he decided to handle it in his own way.

"Can’t you give me a few more days? I just started working, how about I give it to you next month?"

"Brother knows you’re short on cash now, but we can’t break the contract, I’m just running errands." The man, with a cigarette in his mouth, pretended to contemplate, "How about this, I’ll take you to a place where you can solve your urgent need."

Whether the man sensed danger or was simply lucky, he stood up and reopened the door, "Let’s go, don’t just stand there."

Han Fei desperately needed rest; staying up late for extended periods was bad for his health. He checked the time and, in the end, decided to leave with the man.

"Where are we going?"

"You’ll know when we get there."

Floral Shirt led Han Fei out of the neighborhood slated for demolition. They walked a long way through the dilapidated alley, winding east and west, until they finally entered a chess and card room.

The thick smoke drifted through the air; the chess room was dingy, and there were hardly any patrons.

"Why did you bring me here? I never play cards." Han Fei acted like a clueless student who wanted to leave but was grabbed by Floral Shirt.

"Don’t be in such a hurry to go! We’re already here."

He lifted the bamboo curtain at the very back of the room, revealing a relatively clean office.

The windows were tightly closed with burglar bars added on the outside. Faint bloodstains could still be seen on the floor, the ashtray was stuffed with cigarette butts, and on the office desk sat a figure of Duke Guan, with a picture of dragons and tigers hanging on the adjacent wall.

The sound of leather shoes echoed heavily on the ground; Han Fei and Floral Shirt had not been inside for long when the bamboo curtain was lifted again.

A tall man with a scar across his cheek walked into the room. Without a word, he sat down on the only couch inside.

Soon after the tall man entered, the door to the room was slammed shut by a man weighing over two hundred pounds, who stood by the entrance.

The fat man had a fierce face, and the skin that showed was tattooed with an aggressive tiger descending from a mountain.

"Brother Li, this is the student I was supposed to help find a job," Floral Shirt became unusually submissive in front of the scar-faced man, speaking in a voice hardly above a whisper.

The man with the scar on his face still said nothing, just extended his hand.

Floral Shirt immediately understood and hastily handed over the paper with Han Fei’s thumbprint.

The scar-faced man briefly glanced at it, then pulled out six hundred yuan from a drawer and tossed it onto the table.

"Brother Li, isn’t that a bit little? Last time it was a fifty-fifty split..."

"Too little?" The scar-faced man looked up at Floral Shirt, who immediately chickened out, grabbed the money from the table, and ran out.

He had the sense to close the door behind him when he left.

"Your name is Han Fei, right?" The scar-faced man put the paper away and then placed something new onto the office desk, "I’ve paid off the money you owe him."

"Thanks." Han Fei’s expression had changed; his eyes filled with unease as he stepped backward, but he bumped into the fat man’s burly body.

"Don’t be frightened. I heard your mother is sick, and you urgently need money. I can lend you some," the scar-faced man drummed his fingers on the desk: "Just sign this contract, and you can leave with the money right now."

"Is it really that simple?" Han Fei approached the table. The scar-faced man had presented an usurious IOU. If he borrowed money here, he might have to pay double within a month.

"Was the previous owner of the Shrine also pressured by them?" Han Fei set down the IOU, his expression turning cloudy.

"I’ve already paid your debt in advance. If you don’t sign this new IOU, you won’t be able to leave today." The scar-faced man lit up a cigarette, clearly not taking Han Fei seriously, "Debt repayment is a natural duty; such a simple truth, you couldn’t possibly not understand, could you?"

The fat man also moved closer, standing right behind Han Fei.

For a student just entering society, the pressure from these two thugs was indeed considerable.

"I could sign, but could you possibly lend me a bit more money?" Han Fei timidly asked the scar-faced man.

"How much?" The scar-faced man suddenly became interested; he wasn’t afraid of Han Fei borrowing money, only that Han Fei firmly refused to do so.

"Fifty thousand. I’ll pay you back by the middle of next month."

"Fifty thousand?" The scar-faced man scrutinized Han Fei’s face, and after making sure for quite a while, a smile appeared on his face, "Alright, but for that amount, you won’t be signing this IOU."

He took out two contracts from the drawer, one of them was an agreement to voluntarily renounce one’s body.

He laid out the contracts on the desk and, as if to persuade Han Fei, the scar-faced man unlocked a drawer and took out twenty thousand yuan, placing it on the desk, "Sign it, and after you’re done, you can take the money and leave right now."

Picking up the contract, Han Fei looked it over repeatedly, then shook his head, "I absolutely cannot sign this agreement to relinquish my body; besides, the interest you’re demanding is too high. I can at most accept an annual interest rate of two percent."

"Are you trying to negotiate with us?" The fat man with a face full of horizontal flesh burst out laughing, "I’ve seen naive, but never this naive."

He flexed his wrists, and the bones creaked and cracked.

"If you don’t accept it, then forget it." Han Fei tore up that body relinquishing agreement, regardless of whether the agreement had any binding force, he was not going to touch these things.

Whether the original owner of the Shrine has signed it or not, he didn’t care; in any case, he was not going to leave his own name on the agreement.

"I’ll return the fifteen hundred yuan to you guys once I get my pay." Han Fei finished speaking and started walking toward the door, but just as he turned around, he heard the whooshing sound of the wind by his ear.

Skipping sideways, Han Fei dodged as the fat man’s fist hit nothing but the office desk.

"Pretty quick at dodging?" The fat man with a face full of horizontal flesh was somewhat surprised, his sudden attack was rarely dodged by ordinary people.

"You were the first to make a move," Han Fei was clear that they had no intention of letting him go.

"We made the first move, what can you do about it? We’re just showing you the price of not paying back!" The fat man grabbed a solid wooden stick from the edge of the desk and swung it at Han Fei.

Seeing the other party go all out, Han Fei did not hold back either, his moves were much faster than the fat man’s.

Dodging the fat man’s first strike, while the fat man was retracting his force, Han Fei kicked his knee and twisted his wrist, circling past him.

As the fat man fell forward, Han Fei twisted the man’s arm forcefully upward; the whole arm dislocated instantly with a horribly unsettling noise.

A scream filled the room; the fat man’s arm was disabled. Under normal circumstances, this would have been time to stop, but Han Fei, without uttering a word, grabbed the other arm of the fat man and snapped it outright.

With a slight movement of the ears, Han Fei sensed a noise coming from behind him. Without looking, he grabbed the flaccid arm of the fat man and used it to shield his back.

The solid wooden stick struck the fat man’s hand, eliciting another heart-wrenching scream from him, but nobody cared about his feelings.

Kicking the office desk over, while Scar-faced Man’s movements were hindered, Han Fei grabbed the ashtray full of cigarette butts and flung it at Scar-faced Man.

Almost the moment the ashtray was thrown, Han Fei charged forward.

Just as Scar-faced Man dodged the ashtray, he was knocked down by Han Fei. Before he could react, his temple met with a punch.

The world spun; as Scar-faced Man struggled to stand firm, he suddenly realized his wrist was being held, and an ominous premonition surfaced in his heart.

"Ah!"

The wrist bent inward at an unbelievable angle; before Scar-faced Man could even feel the pain, his head was slammed hard against the office desk.

Dizzy and ears ringing, pain radiated from every part of his body, and he tasted blood in his mouth.

It took a full thirty seconds for Scar-faced Man to regain consciousness; he found his arms numb and his head pinned down by a hand.

"I’ll pay back that fifteen hundred yuan after I get my salary next month. Do you have any objections?" Han Fei wasn’t trying to renege on the debt because the fifteen hundred was owed by the Master of Shrine.

"No objections, none at all!"

"Cool it, for fifteen hundred it’s not worth this, really not worth it," Scar-faced Man gasped, "you are still a student, you have a bright future ahead, don’t be rash."

"Future?" Han Fei looked at the twenty thousand yuan on the desk, "I’m borrowing this twenty thousand. I will pay you back the principal and interest next year, using the interest rate of a bank loan."

"That’s not very good, is it?" Scar-faced Man’s voice trembled weakly, "We are just running errands, and if we can’t collect the interest, we have to cover it with our own money."

Han Fei didn’t listen to what the other side said but just opened the drawer and found there was hardly any money left in it.

"If it were not for the various certificates and collateral needed to borrow money from the bank, would I need to find you guys? An interest rate just like the bank’s is already my limit." Han Fei could have just taken the money by force, but he always felt that doing so would trigger something bad, so he decided to make the same choice as the Shrine owner—borrowing money.

Master of Shrine was scammed by a shady middleman and must have been brought here too. With the Master’s ability at that time, it was highly likely that he was forced to sign a promissory note.

"Well... okay, then." Scar-faced Man glanced at the still screaming fat man; it wasn’t about agreeing or disagreeing, but rather that a refusal might mean his own arms wouldn’t stay safe: "Let’s write a promissory note, using the interest rate you mentioned."

"I have already promised you verbally. Rest assured, I will definitely pay it back within a year," Han Fei took the twenty thousand, "I’m different from you, I am a good person."

Han Fei released his grip on Scar-faced Man’s head and once again reassured the two men in the room, "You know where I work and where I live, the monk can run but the temple won’t run away, you can always supervise me. But remember, if you dare go to the hospital and mess with my sick mother..."

Picking up the solid wooden stick from the ground, Han Fei aimed at the office desk next to Scar-faced Man and smashed down.

With a loud crash, the wooden stick broke, splinters flying everywhere.

"Understood! Understood!" Scar-faced Man reacted quickly, he was genuinely a bit frightened by Han Fei.

"I’ll repay the money, see you later."

Only after Han Fei had walked away did Scar-faced Man finally breathe a sigh of relief.

"Are all contemporary college students this fierce?"

After taking care of business, Han Fei walked out of the shack, but the man in the floral shirt had already disappeared without a trace.

Han Fei didn’t bother to look for the man; he was in urgent need of rest because his mood value had started to inexplicably decline again.

"Why am I feeling down? I borrowed emergency funds at a low interest rate thanks to my abilities; I should be happy. Could it be because I violated some principles?"

Leaving the Chess and Card Room, Han Fei made his way home through the complex maze of alleys.

People bustled to and fro on the street, a lively scene, but Han Fei felt different from them, unable to blend into this repetitive and monotonous world.

Picking up the pace, Han Fei crossed a stone bridge, and upon entering the second alley, he saw the homeless man again.

The homeless man, huddled in a corner with a bruised and swollen face, seemed to have been beaten by someone. Clutching his tattered coat and holding the limping dog, he looked very pitiful.

"Will I still feel sympathy for others in such a world?"

Clenching the money in his pocket, Han Fei didn’t enter the alley but turned around to buy three servings of meat buns and two bottles of water from the street outside.

When he returned to the alley, he didn’t give the homeless man money directly, but instead placed the steaming meat buns and water in front of him.

"Eat them while they’re hot. I promised you last night that I would buy you food once I had money," Han Fei said.

The homeless man was surprised to see the buns and then clasped his hands together, continuously thanking Han Fei with a few repeated sayings—"Thank you, kind soul; a kind person will live in peace; a kind person gets good karma."

Han Fei felt there was another meaning in the homeless man’s words, but no matter how he inquired, the homeless man wouldn’t answer, only repeating those phrases.

"Do kind people really get good karma? The Master of Shrine’s mother taught him the same, and he even wrote about it in his diary."

Without disturbing the homeless man further, Han Fei headed towards his rented place.

Just as he reached the end of the alley, he saw a kid with a blue schoolbag, sitting alone in a corner as if crying.

"School should be over by now, right?" Han Fei hadn’t planned to meddle, but as he passed by the kid, he noticed several toys laid out in front of him, from the same series as the ones belonging to the boy who had been murdered in the secondhand store.

Stopping in his tracks, Han Fei squatted down in front of the kid: "Kid, why aren’t you at school?"

The boy lifted his head, tears still on his face: "Daddy won’t let me go to school and won’t let me play with other kids. He says bad things will happen if I go to that school, and that mom got sick because of me."

"This is the first time I’ve heard of a parent not letting their child go to school. Is your father a doctor?" Han Fei asked casually.

"I don’t know," the boy shook his head. "My dad never tells me what he does. He always leaves at dawn and comes back before dark. He smells really bad, and it takes a lot of soap to get clean."

"Smells really bad?" Han Fei hadn’t processed this when the kid suddenly gathered up the toys from the ground and looked at Han Fei behind him with great apprehension.

"Someone’s coming?" Han Fei turned around and saw a man in a suit standing silently a few meters behind him.

"Yiyue, haven’t I told you not to talk to strangers?" The man completely ignored Han Fei. His voice was beyond stern; it felt more like a threat to the kid.

The suit-clad man walked over quickly and yanked the boy up: "Come home with me! If you run outside again, your mother’s illness will get worse!"

"My toys, daddy, my toys are still on the ground..."

The man didn’t listen to the boy at all, picking him up and heading towards the residential building where Han Fei rented a place.

"What a strange man, the air about him is completely different from the other residents I’ve seen before..." Han Fei stared at the man’s back, his eyes suddenly widening!

As the suit-clad man moved, Han Fei spotted a face tattooed on the nape of his neck!

"Ten Fingers?"

In Deep World, the Ten Fingers would carve a face on their body for each person they killed, as a way to imprison the soul of the wronged dead.

"It can’t be a coincidence. I never thought they’d be so close to me!"