PSP Chapter 19: Beast

The way the account was recorded showed the emotional ups and downs of its writer at that time.

When QI Mei was in love, there were many little red hearts and cartoon couple stickers pasted in her book, and it was as if the lined paper itself had been tinted pink.

Later, when the truth of the matter was revealed, there were many consecutive pages covered with meaningless scratches. After that, Qi Mei calmed and recorded everything again in words, but there were only words--she no longer bothered to find all kinds of stickers to put in.

Another change began after Qi Mei found out that she was pregnant, and this change happened subtly and very gradually.

The first difference was that there were more words, and her way of describing things became warm and vibrant. The second was the slow reappearance of various stickers, mostly stickers suitable for children.

Even when she was entangled with Liu Wangyu and other men, she never missed a day of accounts and stickers. It was obvious that Qi Mei really didn't take these men seriously. She only cared about Qi Anle.

It was this type of person whose records all stopped after she found herself being coerced again.

"What a bunch of beasts!" Zhou An’an cursed. As a woman, she couldn’t help but have sympathy for Qi Mei, even though she knew that it was all by her own choice.

She walked up to Liu Wangyu, looked how he was drinking tea as if he had had nothing to do with it, and raised her hand.

Liu Wangyu quickly put down the teacup and shouted in warning, "What are you doing!"

Zhou An'an's chest rose and fell violently. Remembering that she couldn't easily offend an NPC, she lowered her hand angrily. She said, "Let me ask you, what happened to Qi Mei after she found out that you deceived her?"

Seeing her back down, Liu Wangyu breathed a sigh of relief, and said with an unnatural expression, "She did it willingly, how could there have been any deception?"

Zhou Anan gritted out angrily, "Answer me!"

The other players had begun to pay attention to their altercation. Chen Ge heard Zhou An'an's uncontrollable anger and sighed silently.

Zhou An'an was really pissed off. These people were really abominable, they were a disgrace to all other men, and they should be stripped of the right to call themselves men!

Only then did Liu Wangyu change his tune, under the pressure of the crowd. He said, "What else could have happened? If she didn’t want to, was there any way we would force her? Of course not, forget it."

Meng Tianhai quickly grasped the change in his expression and applied some pressure, "Your eyes shifted away when you said 'force her’, so did you really do it?"

Liu Wangyu: "Am I crazy? She wasn’t the only woman in the world, why would I do that?!"

Meng Tianhai frowned. Liu Wangyu didn't seem to be lying when he retorted. The last record in the account was in the first ten days of February, almost half a month before Qi Mei's death. What happened in this period of time?

Liu Wangyu must have been concealing something that had happened beforehand, but he refused to tell them, and there was nothing they could do.

Shen Qingcheng even went as far as to threaten not to let Liu Wangyu stay in the apartment overnight if he didn’t say it. Unexpectedly, Liu Wangyu said cheekily that he was the one who had arranged the apartments for them, and he had the keys stashed somewhere.

It was only after leaving that hall that Shen Qingcheng came to his senses. It wasn’t right for him to be so proactive, wasn’t he on vacation? Then he decided to forget it--anyway, he couldn’t get out of the kindergarten, so he might as well pass the time that way.

He completed his self-persuasion in just a few seconds, and happily took his xiaodi and Lu Qi to collect clues.

The further they were into the game, the fewer new clues could be found. Shen Qingcheng and the others didn’t find anything new, and soon it was time to rest for the night.

Liu Wangyu really planned to stay in the apartment, but because all the players who had died so far had lived on the 4th floor, even if he wanted Lu Qi and the others to protect him, he couldn't overcome his fear.

Shen Meiren was not easy to talk to, and if something really happened, he wouldn't necessarily let Lu Qi come out and help, so he chose a room on the floor above.

The fourth floor hadn’t been full since the start.

The temperature was extremely hot, and it didn't cool down until the middle of the night. The weather had been gloomy for a few days already but rain hadn’t fallen yet, so the air was stuffy and humid.

Shen Qingcheng slept in his room. Even though he had already been harassed twice by Qi Mei disguised as Lu Qi, he still slept soundly.

The air conditioner above his head suddenly lit up with the red dot that indicated that it was turning on. The man on the bed was covered with a quilt, so he didn’t see the figure that suddenly appeared on the air conditioner casing.

Qi Mei was stuck on the wall, her limbs spread like a gecko. Her head was facing down, her long black hair covering her pale face, and her eyes were fixed unerringly on the person in her sight. Her head twisted stiffly from side to side, as if she was trying to identify who was on the bed.

She moved, crawling silently along the wall. Some strands of her long hair fell onto Shen Qingcheng's face. They were very cold, and wriggled towards Shen Qingcheng's neck as if they was alive.

"Mm." Shen Qingcheng turned over, pulled the quilt up, and covered his head.

Qi Mei: "..."

She was about to continue creeping down when she suddenly felt something strange, and she began sniffing the air.

"Found it." A big smile appeared on her face, and her figure quickly crawled away and disappeared.

At this time, in a certain room on the floor above:

Without the Jade Buddha, Liu Wangyu didn’t dare to sleep. After night fell, he was so sleepy that he began watching videos to divert his attention. This method was effective at first, but gradually, Liu Wangyu's eyelids became heavier and heavier.

Drip¹.

Drip.

Drip.

The faucet in the washroom seemed to be a bit loose. The water beads gathered into drops and slowly dripped into the washbasin under the attraction of gravity.

Crunch².

Crunch.

Crunch.

Who was rubbing plastic bags together? Or was someone eating potato chips? It was so late, why hadn’t Gangzi gone to sleep yet?

No, he wasn’t at Gangzi's house! Liu Wangyu woke up suddenly.

The video ended and froze on its final frame, and the faint light illuminated the room.

"Hiss!" A cold breath stuck in his throat, Liu Wangyu held his breath, looking at a woman in a white dress with disheveled hair squatting not far away with her back to him. A rustling sound came, and his pupils dilated. He didn’t want to even think about what the woman could be doing.

Liu Wangyu swallowed nervously. Despite his care in performing even such a simple action, he still caught the woman's attention.

Rather, perhaps it was that the woman would notice him regardless of what he did or didn’t do.

The woman turned around.

Her entire face was messy with blood. Her lips kept wriggling and chewing, and she opened her mouth and smiled at Liu Wangyu. The open mouth revealed that she was actually eating raw meat, dripping with blood!

The woman seemed extremely satisfied with the taste of the flesh and blood, and swallowed it contentedly. She then lifted her hand, and tore away another bite of meat.

"Crunch."

"Crunch."

"Ah!" Liu Wangyu cried out in pain and covered his face. Just then, his face had suddenly hurt, as if something had ripped the flesh off his face.

He suddenly thought of something, and looked into the woman in horror.

As if she knew what Liu Wangyu was thinking, the woman grinned and showed him the contents of her hand. She was holding a round ball, the size of a basketball. The ball was half black and half flesh-colored. The black part was hair and the fleshy part was a human face. In her hand was actually a human head!

The right cheek of the man's head had been bitten into a bloody mess, and what made Liu Wangyu shudder even more was that the face belonged to him.

His stiff gaze met the unrepentant eyes on the face, identical to his own.

"Bang³!"

The woman threw the head away, and it rolled to Liu Wangyu's feet. The bulging eyes were staring at Liu Wangyu, as if announcing his death.

"Do you like it?" the woman asked in a hoarse voice. She was on all fours, laughing weirdly while twisting her head stiffly and crawling towards Liu Wangyu.

Liu Wangyu couldn't control his rapid breathing. He held the useless jade Buddha, prayed for a miracle, and then lifted his wheelchair and threw it at the woman, rushing out the door despite his pain.

"Help! Help!"

"Help me!"

Shen Qingcheng was woken up again in the middle of the night, just when he had gotten back sleeping soundly.

The body curled up in the quilt moved, and it was wrapped tighter. Unfortunately, the quilt couldn't block out the sound, and the tragic cries for help still resounded in his ears.

"Ah!" Shen Qingcheng irritably lifted the quilt and sat up. Why was it that every time something happened, it was in the middle of the night?!

He rolled over, got out of bed, and slipped on his slippers angrily to open the door, intending to teach a lesson to the guys who were disturbing people's dreams. As soon as the door was opened, it revealed Lu Qi, who had been about to knock.

Lu Qi glanced at his not-so-good-looking face and said, "Something happened below." Then he turned around and went downstairs.

Liu Wangyu's current state was definitely not good. He was lying on the ground and crawling forward, gritting his teeth. His legs and arms were covered with bite-like wounds, bleeding from the wounds, and leaving a long drag mark on the corridor. Even more frightening was his right cheek, which had been bitten almost beyond recognition.

Meng Tianhai, who had heard the commotion first, was fighting with Qi Mei using a stick-shaped attack prop. His moves were sharp and it was obvious that he had some foundation.

However, Qi Mei's location was strange. Every time she was about to be hit, she faded and disappeared, and when she reappeared, she would be in tricky positions. Most of them are behind and above Meng Tianhai’s blind spots. Even with Chen Ge helping Meng Tianhai, he was being overwhelmed.

"Lu-ge, help!" Chen Gehui shouted when he saw Lu Qi appearing at the stairs.

Lu Qi was wearing black clothes and black pants that were easy to move around, and behind him was Shen Qingcheng, who was yawning in his pajamas.

Shen Qingcheng looked at the situation with heavy eyelids. That young lady was really energetic.

"Mind your own business!" Qi Mei's voice was gloomy. Against the laws of physics, she was lying on the ceiling and looking at them resentfully.

Lu Qi didn't speak, but a long knife had already appeared in his hands. Shen Qingcheng explained, "Don't worry, jiejie, as soon as we finish the task, we won’t care anymore."

Qi Mei's eyes became more intensely resentful, and Shen Qingcheng blinked blankly.

Lu Qi: "Words related to the task will be blocked."

As soon as he finished speaking, Qi Mei, who had just been lying on the ceiling, disappeared. At the same time, Lu Qi turned and sharply stabbed at Shen Qingcheng.

"Ah!" There was a shrill scream, and a few drops of black blood dripped onto the ground.

Shen Qingcheng lowered his head and looked at the knife that had just passed by his waist. There was a cold light on it, and not a speck of blood marred its surface. He swayed and fell softly into Lu Qi's arms, saying weakly, "Lu-dage, I can't go on. I have a last wish, you have to agree to it."

Lu Qi: "..."

TLN:

¹ Technically the text has a dripping onomatopoeia, di (滴), but I figured putting it in pinyin like that wouldn’t fit the atmosphere very well.

² Similar to above. Gazhi (嘎吱) can be used for a variety of scenarios, but mostly indicated crunching or cracking noises.

³ Peng (嘭).

I’m back! To those asking: no, PSP has not been dropped, and updates should get a bit faster soon. Can’t make any promises about going back to once-a-week though, since in the end this is just a hobby, and I have other priorities.