My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 765: Shouxi Mirror Factory

Chapter 765: Chapter 765: Shouxi Mirror Factory

"You were looking for me?" Caibao stood still, never expecting Ye Xian to walk through the crowd just to find her.

Being close to her idol, Caibao felt a bit dazed; Ye Xian seemed like an angel, while she, wearing Han Fei’s skin, felt quite ordinary in comparison.

"The song you just performed was so special, it was like being in Hell yet still remembering to look up at the stars. It seemed like I saw a group of people chasing the light, struggling through the mud, holding torches, trying to illuminate the darkness," Ye Xian exclaimed, continuously praising.

Caibao felt a bit embarrassed; it had all been Liuli Cat singing earlier, she hadn’t even opened her mouth. But Ye Xian, while saying those words, had kept staring at her, as if she alone deserved the credit for the performance.

"I think you have a lot of potential, and I look forward to meeting you in the final." Ye Xian gently extended her hand to Caibao without a hint of pretension, "You must be from Xinhu as well, right? Let’s have a good talk offline when we have the time."

"Okay, okay." Caibao was somewhat at a loss; she had only come to stand in for Han Fei as a formality, never anticipating attracting Ye Xian’s attention.

Actually, not just Ye Xian, many people in the hall were staring at her. Those gazes were eerily intense, carrying both the fervor of die-hard fans and a hint of fear and wariness.

It seemed Caibao also had her own fans now, although their personalities were quite strange.

"Then, I’ll see you at the final." Ye Xian took the initiative to take Caibao’s hand. "By the way, I’ve always been curious, why did you choose such a name for yourself?"

"My character is a sea... king who has lived for three billion years, very sunny, always happy," Caibao, overwhelmed by so many eyes on her, was very nervous and started to stammer.

"Haha, you are really interesting. We should stay in touch more in the future." Ye Xian let go of her hand and walked toward the other side of the corridor with her agent.

Once inside the corridor, Ye Xian’s expression underneath her mask shifted completely from before, with not a trace of a smile.

She opened the communicator from the game, expressing doubt, "It’s impossible for such coincidences to exist. I wear an angel’s mask and their group just happens to be called Devil and Cat, and we all happen to be in hall seven. That Sunshine Boy must be the same Sunshine Boy from Dolphin Bay last night, but why would he purposely approach me?"

"No one would be foolish enough to expose their identities in the gray area. It must be a coincidence. Those two Sunshine Boys are not the same person," a man’s voice came from the communicator, "What you need to do right now is rest well and stop overthinking."

"How can I not overthink? Xinhu’s watchdogs have already targeted me, people from the club want to kill me, and I even feel like the task they assigned to the Sunshine Boy is to finish me off," Ye Xian’s voice was completely distorted, sounding vastly different from her usual tone, as if she had become a completely different person.

"Don’t worry, the Sunshine Boy last night went on a killing spree in Dolphin Bay until dawn but the one who attended the song meeting was at the virtual singing room all night, which shows they’re not the same person," the man on the other end of the communicator consoled.

"I hope so..."

In hall seven, outside the corridor, Liuli Cat grabbed Caibao’s hand and ran into the dressing room.

"Mimi, it seems we have some fans too!" Caibao recalled the gazes of those "fanatics" from beneath the stage, "So this is what it’s like to have fans; I’m still not quite used to it."

"Although I’m not sure exactly what happened, I have a feeling things are a bit ominous." Liuli Cat gestured for Caibao to sit down properly, "The person you are replacing, Han Fei, is seen as a nail in the eye by many killers in Xinhu, who are eager to dispatch him swiftly. It would be better for us to be cautious."

With a hint of apology in her eyes, Liuli Cat grasped Caibao’s hand, "I’m sorry for dragging you into this. Just play the part of Han Fei well and make sure not to reveal your real identity to anyone."

"I understand, in our line of work as virtual idols, the last thing one wants is to be ’unboxed,’" Caibao’s good-natured personality was also a reason why she could become friends with Liuli Cat.

"Be cautious and watchful," Liuli Cat said as she poured Caibao a drink. "There are two more preliminary matches today; I hope everything goes smoothly."

After a sufficient rest, Liuli Cat left the Heaven Opera House with Caibao, making no effort to hide their tracks.

"Cat, I think we are being followed," Caibao whispered, sneaking a glance back. Those players, marked with the Flower of Death, blended into the crowd like a slowly tightening net.

"Don’t look back, just keep heading north."

"North? That’s the jungle! There are hardly any players there."

"It’s okay, just follow me." Liuli Cat took Caibao’s hand, and they continued forward as if they hadn’t noticed they were being tracked.

By the time they had passed through the woods, the people who had been following them had completely disappeared, as though the forest concealed a man-eating Monster.

The leaves rustled, and the surroundings fell deadly silent. Caibao felt an indescribable suffocation and stealthily looked back.

Behind a large tree stood a figure in Blood Clothes, a Doctor who seemed like a nightmare and reminiscent of a vengeful Fierce Ghost.

Cold sweat broke out instantly. By the time Caibao wanted to get a clearer look, the Blood Doctor had vanished.

"Don’t be afraid, that’s a friend of a friend," Liuli Cat reassured the startled Caibao, her gaze shifting toward the other side of the city.

...

At five in the afternoon, Han Fei, who was still "napping," was awakened by a call from Huang Ying.

"Han Fei, I’ve discovered a group of special players in ’Perfect Life,’ all of them bearing withered flowers. They were lured out during the performances of Sunshine Boy and Liuli Cat."

"So soon?" Han Fei exclaimed in surprise. "I thought I’d have to wait until I appeared on the final stage to lure them out, but it seems they couldn’t wait?"

"Who are they?"

"A group of fanatics and perverts thriving in the gray areas, worshiping death and killing, skilled in mental manipulation and torture," Han Fei didn’t keep any secrets from Huang Ying, his best partner. "I was curious if those guys would also play ’Perfect Life.’ Now that we’ve drawn them out, many things will be much easier to handle."

Possessing the Soul-summoning Talent, Han Fei could perform in the Deep World what he couldn’t in reality.

He just needed to collect those people’s identity information, and he could try to draw some members of those three criminal organizations into the Deep World. At that time, he would let them know that there were things in this world more terrifying than death.

"So that was your plan," Huang Ying hesitantly responded. "I accidentally killed them all today."

"No worries, those were just the underlings; the Big Fish is still out there."

"You’re starting to sound more and more like a big villain now."

"You killed everyone, yet you say I’m the villain?" Han Fei was somewhat speechless, but in the eyes of Perfect Life players, Huang Ying was indeed the hero of all players. He risked his high-level account being canceled to "save people" and earned the respect of the players.

After discussing some matters, Han Fei hung up the phone and looked at the gradually darkening sky outside the window.

"Is it going to rain?"

As night fell, Han Fei walked to the window and watched the raindrops on the glass.

"The Old City District on a rainy day and the Black Rain Area of the Deep World are very similar, giving me an inexplicable sense of familiarity."

The promotion ceremony for the Death Spread Group Chat was tonight. Those thugs demanded that Han Fei arrive at the Shouxi Mirror Factory before midnight. Since he had to come back to game that night, he planned to leave early.

After checking his equipment, Han Fei waited until 8 PM; when it was completely dark, he left the residential area.

The rain enveloping Xinhu grew heavier, and there were very few pedestrians on the road today; the weather also started to cool down.

Riding a rented motorcycle and wearing a black raincoat, Han Fei avoided the city’s surveillance and drove straight to the suburbs.

Once he was sure he was alone, he put on the Joker mask again.

"Shouxi Mirror Factory has been abandoned for thirty years. It’s said that the factory owner and his family all died horribly within the factory, their bodies fused with the mirrors,"

As Han Fei recalled the information on Shouxi Mirror Factory, that place was extremely unlucky. Many who used their mirrors had physical issues. Even in the distant outskirts, it was considered forbidden ground, and usually, even the homeless didn’t dare to approach.

Rainwater flowed down the mask, and like lightning, Han Fei sped on the highway, heading towards the most remote place while ordinary people rushed home.

"Strange? Why did the GPS on my vehicle fail? Why is there no signal in this area?"

When Han Fei was still a kilometer away from the Shouxi Mirror Factory, he encountered problems with his phone and motorcycle: "Tonight’s atmosphere is completely different from last night. Could a core member of Butterfly personally come to test me for my final assessment?"

Thinking this, Han Fei decided it was wiser to be cautious. He left the area, called Li Xue and Huang Ying, and after notifying them of some issues, dared to enter the abandoned buildings again.

Passing through a series of unfinished buildings and dilapidated houses, Han Fei’s uneasy feeling grew stronger.

"Someone is watching me in the dark."

Without slowing down, he continued forward, giving no sign of anything unusual, and directly drove to Shouxi Mirror Factory.

The factory was not small in size, and many of the machines were still present. However, the equipment that used to make mirrors had now been transformed into murder tools by those madmen.

The thunderous roar of thunder sounded, and Han Fei parked the motorcycle at the factory gate. He pushed open the rusted iron gate and entered the factory courtyard.

The ground was uneven, and there were several deep pits filled with muddy rainwater.

Lightning streaked across the night sky, the brief flash of light also allowing the people inside to see Han Fei.

Black raincoat, Joker mask, he stood alone in the dark oppressive rainy night.

"Bang!"

A heavy chain fell to the ground, a man wearing a Green Crab mask opened the door of the factory workshop, accompanied by a Dwarf wearing a tiger mask.

The two stared steadily at Han Fei as if they were looking at a corpse. They didn’t speak throughout the entire process, creating an overwhelming sense of oppression.

Even from a distance, Han Fei could smell the blood on them; the blood had soaked into their hair and pores, and even the shower gel available on the market would hardly clean it off.

The torrential rain unabashedly pelted the workshop, and the thunder masked the noise of the machines operating, each meat grinder seemingly prepared just for Han Fei.

"Trying to intimidate me?"

Han Fei strode into the workshop, and the Green Crab mask man also released the chain he held, and the heavy metal door closed again.

A faint firelight lit up inside the building, and several broken mirrors were placed around the workshop, allowing the "executed" person to see their dismal appearance from any angle.

"Sunshine Boy? I hate your name, it’s like a clown," a hoarse voice came from behind a meat grinder, a young man wearing a Vulture mask appeared in the workshop: "The odds of upgrading from a high-level member to a core member are only one in ten, so you shouldn’t feel too special. Many come in here, but only a few leave alive."

"Is the Crow, the person in charge of the Death Spread Group Chat, not coming tonight?" Han Fei wasn’t intimidated by the terrifying atmosphere of the workshop at all.

"If you successfully promote to a core member, he will naturally come," the Vulture’s cold eyes stared at Han Fei, patting a machine next to him: "But if you don’t succeed, this will be your final resting place."

"You talk too much. I wish I could skip the tutorial like in the games," Han Fei walked directly towards the Vulture: "Tell me, how is the ceremony conducted?"

"I’ll see how long you can stay arrogant," not just the Vulture, the Crab and the Tiger in the workshop also had frosty looks, resembling starving beasts.

Opening a safety valve, the Vulture led Han Fei to a shoddy elevator by the workshop, and they both descended to the basement level of the workshop.

The basement seemed like Corpse Water Bay, arranged as a stage, probably one of the usual meeting places for the Murder Club.

The two walked past various modified execution tools and reached a wall.

The Vulture uncovered a black curtain, and right opposite the stage, a huge mirror was hanging on the wall.

"This mirror is the key to whether you can be promoted. It can reflect how you would look at your own death, and it can show everyone you have killed. Those wronged dead will continuously appear behind you, one by one climbing onto your back, merging into your body," the Vulture said with morbid devotion, gently touching the mirror surface: "If you endure that pain, you can be promoted, otherwise..."

He didn’t finish his sentence when he suddenly felt something sticky at his fingertips. Turning, he noticed the mirror seemed to be bleeding.