Chapter 3: The Bride of the Phantom King (3)

At the moment the Witch’s words fell, countless spectral hands shoved Zhou Zhi toward the River of Oblivion. Their strength was overwhelming; Zhou Zhi could not break free.

“What are you doing? Why are you pushing me? I could get the materials to exchange for ghost coins... If I bring Qiao Fang’s corpse to the market vendor, I’ll be able to trade for ghost coins... You can’t capture me, you can’t—”

With a splash, his words were drowned out.

As the river’s corrosive waters touched his spectral form, it was as if human flesh met sulfuric acid. The pain, at the very least, began at a ten on the scale.

“Aah!”

Zhou Zhi screamed in agony.

His skin was swiftly eaten away by the river water, from flesh to bone, consuming his entire body until only his head remained.

“Help me, help me…”

But even the flesh on his skull was stripped away, relentless as the river water continued to erode him.

Everyone was stunned.

As newcomers who had only survived D-level beginner scenarios, they had never witnessed such vivid, terrifying murder right before their eyes—without even a hint of censorship.

This was horror in its purest form.

Huddled together in a trembling cluster, they shivered.

Only Joseph watched with a look of relish.

“It seems the Woodsman must protect his teammates from harm. Otherwise, he dies too,” Joseph remarked, still unwilling to give up. He winked at Tang Mu. “So, Miss Tang, are you truly refusing me? The game has barely begun, and already two have died—so painfully, too. If you were to fall into the river and be cruelly corroded like that, I’d be heartbroken.”

Ordinary girls faced with Joseph’s advances would likely have already thrown themselves into his arms, letting him do as he pleased.

But Tang Mu was not ordinary.

Her gentle smile kept him at a thousand miles’ distance.

“If you fell into the river, Mr. Joseph, I’d be heartbroken too. After all, your face is as precious as mine,” Tang Mu winked back at him.

Her demeanor was a clear declaration: he was a king of the sea, she its queen. Neither could restrain the other.

Joseph, though accustomed to beauty, was momentarily dazed by Tang Mu’s exquisite features.

He lingered in a stupor before quickly returning to his playful, devil-may-care attitude.

“Ah, being rejected by a beauty is truly heartbreaking. Still, I hope for a miracle, one that might change your mind, Miss Tang.”

A skilled hunter never lets bait slip away.

For his own desires, Joseph would stop at nothing.

Tang Mu kept her smile and ignored him further.

It was Xue Fen who glared angrily at Joseph. Compared to the tall and handsome Joseph, Xue Fen’s anger made him look like a petty clown, irritating to the core.

“Sister Tang Mu is teamed up with me now,” Xue Fen puffed up like a pretty little pufferfish.

His beautiful eyes, fair skin, and delicate collarbone all proclaimed another form of masculine allure to Joseph.

If there was one rival a broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped “dog-waisted” man despised most, it was someone like Xue Fen—always acting coy, always quick to tears, more feminine than most women.

Xue Fen’s provocative stance thoroughly displeased Joseph.

“Kid, don’t you know that as long as you remember someone’s game ID, you can add them as a friend in real life?”

He looked at Xue Fen with disgust, as if gazing at trash in a heap.

“Maybe Miss Tang can’t match with me in this game. But so long as I persist, I doubt she’ll be so heartless as to refuse me until the day I die.”

In the game, anything could happen.

Death was commonplace.

Even seasoned veterans couldn’t guarantee survival in every scenario. Yet for money, power, health, and things harder to name, some always risked it all.

Joseph played the victim, gambling on Tang Mu’s pity.

But her heart was harder than most imagined.

Once again, Joseph was rebuffed without surprise.

Awkwardness spread.

“So… the Woodsman can’t kill the Bride. Can the Bride kill the Woodsman?” The other players were not as carefree as Joseph, Tang Mu, and Xue Fen.

Their side remained tense.

“Should we try?”

This time, the roles reversed. The Bride took the ghostly vendor’s knife and killed the Woodsman.

The Witch’s sinister voice echoed again.

“The Woodsman has died; the Bride, overwhelmed by grief, follows him in death.”

Now it was the Bride being pushed into the River of Oblivion by countless spectral hands.

“Aaah!”

The same gruesome death, the same shrill, pig-like screams played out once more.

Everyone fell silent.

A deathly hush, panic, and fear seeped through the crowd.

“The Woodsman can’t kill the Bride; the Bride can’t kill the Woodsman. How are we supposed to collect the twenty ghost coins needed for the Boat of Forgetting? Surely we’re not meant to kill ourselves?”

“Is it that we must kill someone who isn’t our teammate?”

No one knew who voiced this thought.

The atmosphere became rigid and tense. Everyone glanced cautiously at those around them, afraid that a friend or stranger might mercilessly slaughter them at any moment.

Compared to the others’ anxiety and unease, Tang Mu seemed relaxed, strolling lazily to one of the Hanging Ghost vendors.

Unbeknownst to her, her beauty made every gesture a focal point for all eyes.

The vendor’s face was tinged with blue, blood drooling from his crimson tongue and splattering onto a butcher’s block strewn with bloody remains.

In his right hand, he still wielded a knife, chopping and hacking ceaselessly, sending fragments of flesh and bone everywhere.

When blood spattered onto a few girls, their shrieks and curses erupted wildly.

The Hanging Ghost’s bulging, blood-red eyes locked onto Tang Mu. A voice, deep and ambiguous in gender, rumbled from its throat.

“So, are you offering your severed hand or foot in exchange for ghost coins?”

It gave Tang Mu a sinister smile, its abnormally long, crimson tongue flickering.

Every moment was enough to terrify someone to death.

The vendor assumed Tang Mu would scream in fright—after all, she was so pretty, and pretty players were always timid…

Xue Fen rushed forward, trying to pull Tang Mu behind him.

“Sister Tang Mu, I’ll protect you!”

Though Xue Fen was brave and beautiful, Tang Mu had no need for his useless, trivial help.

She coolly pushed him aside.

Then, she picked up the ghostly knife.

The vendor immediately said, “Renting the ghost knife: eighteen ghost coins per day, starting from the first second you touch it.”

Tang Mu glanced at him.

He quickly added, “Beauty attacks are useless.”

His reflexive response was almost too quick, as if he was protesting a secret weakness.