My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 481: Those players were very excited when they first arrived (4000 votes for monthly ticket)

Chapter 481: Chapter 481: Those players were very excited when they first arrived (4000 votes for monthly ticket)

The department store was the first building owned by Han Fei, and with the help of the Shrine and Mirror God, he could sense all the souls that entered the store.

Clearing his mind, Han Fei tried to use the Shrine to sense the entire building.

Streams of Resentment Energy, either strong or weak, drifted through the department store, with most of them fixed above the shelves, except for one blood-red Resentment Energy that was frantically trying to escape.

"Ten-finger isn’t in the store, that Nine-finger was deliberately left behind by him."

There was some kind of connection between the ten fingers; they had left behind Nine-finger, who still retained all his combat power. If Nine-finger could kill Han Fei, then it would be a cause for celebration; but if Nine-finger were killed, they would have to look for another way out.

"Just as I had guessed, Ten-finger’s transformation into Hatred was not because he harbored particularly strong obsessions, but because he was exceedingly crafty and cruel, steadily climbing a mountain of corpses and a Blood Sea, transforming from an ordinary item into Hatred," the Mirror God recalled the past events and gently shook his head: "Any Hatred that grew step by step like this is extremely difficult to deal with, but don’t worry, sooner or later, I will personally finish him off and make him spit out everything he took from me."

"I just feel it’s a pity; I was actually planning to trade with Ten-finger to see just how heavy his soul really is." Han Fei stroked the Shrine with his fingers, and a smile that resembled the God Statue, almost like an Evil God, appeared on his face.

Taking out the cellphone that Yinghuo had left for him from the Item Bar, he sent a message to the Death Building Owner Rights Protection Mutual Assistance Group, informing everyone to immediately enter the department store.

After doing all this, Han Fei touched the Shrine again, wanting to find Cry and the Female Live-streamer in the department store.

The layout of the department store was the same as in the Memory World, except the Deep World’s department store was even more gloomy and terrifying.

The majority of the shelves were covered with all sorts of odd and bizarre items; there were over a hundred different types of Papermen in the Paperman section alone, which indeed shocked Han Fei as well.

There were also some of the most "valuable" items in the store; however, Ten-finger had taken those most "valuable" items with him when he left.

"Just these items alone are enough for my neighbors to feast on for a long time."

After searching for a long time, Han Fei finally felt the presence of Cry in the furniture section on the sixth floor; coincidentally, Nine-finger was also running upstairs at this moment.

"Why doesn’t this guy leave directly? What is he running upstairs for? Is there something hidden there?"

Without any hesitation, Han Fei, accompanied by Mirror God, dashed upstairs.

As he emerged from the underground storeroom, Han Fei regrouped with the neighbors who had rushed over, all of whom were very worried about him.

Letting Mirror God chase after Nine-finger first, Han Fei found Zhuang Wen and used his last wish on her.

From within the Underground Shrine surged a continuous flame of Greed, in which Zhuang Wen screamed and wailed painfully, making the neighbors somewhat frightened.

However, after only a short while, Zhuang Wen ceased her hysterical outburst, and her fragmented soul merged together, bringing a hint of sanity into her clouded eyes.

Most importantly, her chest, which contained a heart full of holes and rot, was reborn amidst the flames.

After the flames of Greed extinguished, a faint black flame of Hatred began to flicker within Zhuang Wen’s heart.

"Attention player number 0000! Zhuang Wen’s friendliness increased by ten! Friendliness has met the requirements, and you have officially become friends."

The soul of Zhuang Wen, which had been tortured and ravaged by the Butterfly, had been healed, and the energy emitted from the Shrine instantly weakened, appearing even less spectacular than the anomalies shown by Han Fei’s Level One Shrine.

With her sanity restored, Zhuang Wen would not go berserk randomly, and at the very least, she won’t accidentally kill Han Fei without realizing it.

Zhuang Wen and Mirror God acted at the same time, so by the time Han Fei and his group climbed to the sixth floor, Nine-finger had been reduced to just a head.

In the hands of ones filled with hatred, the Large-scaled Grudge was just like a toy cloth doll stamped with human face patterns.

"Don’t be in a hurry to kill him," Han Fei stopped Mirror God as he started to wander aimlessly around the furniture section, guided by his divine intuition. Eventually, he found an old Spiritual Altar on a shelf with discounted promotional items.

Opening the Spiritual Altar, cries echoed on the sixth floor as Han Fei looked at the boy inside and took a long sigh of relief.

He involuntarily embraced the Spiritual Altar and then hugged Cry, using the secret of touching souls deeply.

All of this wasn’t put on; he was genuinely worried about Cry.

The child, still crying, was taken into Han Fei’s arms from the Spiritual Altar; his surrounding despair twisted.

"Player number 0000, please take note, Medium-type Special Grudge Cry’s friendliness towards you has increased by twenty! He now sees you as his closest person, trusts you completely, and hopes you won’t let down this trust," a notification announced.

Cry’s father was the murderer who killed him; he had always been afraid of his father, living in endless fear and despair. This time was no different; after sending everyone out, Cry stayed in the Department Store, falling back into darkness.

Despair gnawed at his heart, the same plight but a completely different outcome; the moment Han Fei opened the Spiritual Altar, the child truly cried out, but the tears this time meant something completely different from the usual ones.

A man holding a child coming out from a Spiritual Altar at midnight might seem quite terrifying, but all the surrounding ghosts found it very touching.

Holding Cry’s hand, Han Fei approached Nine-finger.

He wanted to let Cry take his own revenge, but Cry told him that after finding Nine-finger weakened, the Female Live-streamer in the Red Skirt immediately followed behind them, leaving the Department Store with them.

It seemed like she discovered something very important in the store; to get her hands on it, she took the risk without hesitation.

"The Red Skirt should have waited for us," mentioning it now was pointless. Han Fei took out the Rebirth Saber and approached Nine-finger’s head, hoping to get useful information from him, but Nine-finger only knew that Ten-finger seemed to have fled towards the Plastic Surgery Hospital.

Unable to extract any more information from Nine-finger, Han Fei thought that the opponent might have chosen death over surrender, so he prepared to grant him his wish.

The group took Nine-finger’s mangled body before the Underground Shrine, where Han Fei used the Shrine’s special ability for the first time—Soul Trading.

The black cloth fell, the Divine Door opened, and the scale in Mirror God’s right eye swung slowly back and forth. Greedy flames soon engulfed Nine-finger.

"Level three Shrine special ability Soul Trading successfully activated; please choose one of the following three options," the system prompted.

"A finger (Grade F item): This finger is imbued with the intent to kill and resentment, and it can greatly enhance the strength of Medium-type Resentment; however, it might cause them to be affected by murderous intent, with a probability of losing rationality."

"Experience: A portion of experience values."

"Hidden Virtue: Add five points of Hidden Virtue."

Han Fei checked his Attribute Panel and immediately ruled out Hidden Virtue; attributes that could be increased in the Mortal World shouldn’t waste the resources of the Underworld.

"The finger could enhance the strength of Medium-type Resentment. I do have many Medium-type Resentments around me, like Cry and Yinglong, but this arm has side effects, and it might even be sensed by the surviving Ten-finger," he thought.

After pondering for a moment, Han Fei chose the experience; he wanted to see how much Experience Value a Large-scaled Grudge could bring him.

The greedy flames and Nine-finger disappeared together, and under the system’s prompt, Han Fei found that his experience value had increased by a fraction, roughly equivalent to half the experience provided by an F-level quest.

"I think to level up from nineteen to twenty, I would need about nine F-level quests, which means if I don’t do quests, just relying on the Shrine alone, it would take the sacrifice of eighteen large-scaled grudges to gain one level?" Han Fei wanted to kick over the Shrine in front of him, but considering that his own God Statue was inside, he reluctantly gave up.

"Is it because I chose to open both sides of the Black Box at the same time, that leveling up has become so difficult? Could it be that I need twice the experience Fu Sheng needed back then to level up?"

Han Fei always felt that Fu Sheng’s leveling situation was different from his own, but he had no evidence.

"Next time I find a Fragment of Fu Sheng’s memory, I must ask him clearly and not let him disappear quietly again."

Not in a hurry to log off because Han Fei had roughly timed it, though several days had passed in the Memory World, not much time had gone by in the Deep World.

The Memory World is a place where thoughts are stilled; the flow of time there is different from that in the Deep World, resembling a continuously cycling time prison.

Leading the neighbors to check around the department store, Han Fei would immediately hand over any items that could enhance the neighbors’ strengths as soon as he found them.

The department store, which was previously only used to supply Ten-finger, was now shared by Han Fei with all the neighbors.

Resentment Spirits, Dark Energy, over a hundred different styles of Paperman, and Paper Money—these things that Han Fei didn’t need anyway were better off being used by the neighbors to enhance their strength.

"You must stay calm, can’t get used to shopping like this in the Underworld; it would be troublesome if you can’t change back in the Mortal World."

Han Fei was planning to pick more items, but Ha Ha, who was left in charge of the Death Building, suddenly sent a message in the mutual aid group.

"There are a few people who have entered the Death Building, like Wandering Souls, yet also like something else; it seems they came out from the Butterfly Death Room."

Before the department store was secured, the Death Building area was Han Fei’s stronghold. Ha Ha was worried about issues arising, so he immediately notified the owners here.

"Wandering Souls?" Han Fei suspected that more players might have sleepwalked in.

"Not just Wandering Souls, there are other things too, and the monsters at the Plastic Surgery Hospital are starting to act up again—they seem to be preparing to explore the Fog."

"Understood, we’re heading back now." The department store had already stabilized, and all they needed to do was to leave the Mirror God here to continue guarding.

"Cry has been saved already, our next step is the Plastic Surgery Hospital." Han Fei’s overarching plan had not changed; he was integrating this region step by step.

Leading the neighbors who were carrying various items, Han Fei was about to leave the store when the Mirror God suddenly appeared beside him.

"Han Fei, could you do me a favor?"

"What favor?"

"Do you remember the child who drowned in the Shrine World? The first customer you encountered after you became a clerk," the Mirror God spoke softly: "The drowning child’s father killed Wang Ping’an’s father, and while the murderer was burying the body, he was spotted by me and Wang Ping’an. We fought, and I ended up accidentally killing the man."

Han Fei remembered this incident—it was the first storyline he had triggered upon entering the Memory World.

"In reality, it was Wang Ping’an who took the blame for me. He became extremely crazy after his father’s death, and the police pinned him as the murderer. I could have revealed the truth, but on my way to the police station, I was taken away by thugs from West City District, and since then I completely fell into darkness, consumed with thoughts of revenge."

"Are you saying Wang Ping’an might still be alive?"

"It’s very likely," nodded Mirror God. "If you get a chance to see him, please help clear his name."

"Okay, I will help him." With his neighbors in tow, Han Fei left the department store and, following the route marked on Fu Sheng’s map, smoothly returned to the Death Building.

Finding Haha, Han Fei asked in detail about what had happened in the Death Building before.

"We can be sure that Wandering Souls entered the Death Building, but besides them, there are some very strange things." Haha pointed at the room with the Butterfly Wardrobe. "We just cleared this area of the Death Building, and there were hardly any ghosts or monsters around. Those Wandering Souls and strange things burst out of the wardrobe and went straight into the fog."

"But I didn’t sense their presence in the fog. Could it be that they’ve gone to another area?"

"The closest place to us is the Plastic Surgery Hospital. I guess they might have run over there." Haha spread his hands. "I don’t know why, but all the Wandering Souls seem to get very excited when they arrive here. It’s incredible. What is there to be excited about in a city shrouded in darkness?"

"Maybe they have a preference for it."

Han Fei instructed his neighbors to check the Plastic Surgery Hospital and the area around the Death Building, and to definitely save the Wandering Souls if possible.

Han Fei had done what he could. He was now truly exhausted. The extremely dangerous Shrine Inheritance Task had completely drained him.

After instructing his neighbors, Han Fei found a safe room and chose to exit the game.

As the red slowly solidified around the world, Han Fei could see a Blood Sea rising up on the horizon and surging toward the Death Building.

"I..."

Behind him, a voice came through. The blood-covered man sticking to his back only uttered a single word.

His consciousness receding, Han Fei opened his eyes.

He wanted to take off the game helmet but found he had no strength left in his body—not physical exhaustion, but a sense of being spiritually drained.

Lying in the game box, Han Fei passed out.

He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious; all over his body, there was excruciating pain. He struggled to move, lifting off the game helmet.

"My body is much stronger than the average person’s, but even so, it’s a bit too much to bear."

His bones felt like they were about to fall apart. Han Fei didn’t know why he felt so drained, as if he had been oppressed by a ghost for a month.

With a parched mouth and dry tongue, Han Fei crawled out of the game box, gulping down a glass of water. Then, aimlessly, he crawled to the fridge and started eating the cold canned meat.

After consuming a lot of meat, Han Fei felt some of his strength returning and his headache subsiding.

"This Shrine Inheritance Task does pack a punch."

Sunlight penetrated through the curtains, and it was already noon.

Han Fei looked at the empty canned meat containers scattered on the floor, licked his lips lightly, and thought, "Why do I have such a craving for meat now? Could it be because of Xu Qin? But eating this meat without the Curse, it just doesn’t taste quite right."