The System Teaches You How to Be Human

As soon as the door was pushed open, a gust of cold wind blew straight into Mo Wuchang’s face.

Shivering from the chill, he was just about to ask Si Yisi what exactly they were going to do when the wide-open door was pulled shut again, leaving only a small crack.

“Idiot.” Si Yisi cast a light, sidelong glance at Mo Wuchang, which was met with an unshakable expression of devotion that seemed to scream, ‘Whatever the boss says is right.’

It was a bit of an eyesore.

Si Yisi, of course, knew that Mo Wuchang wasn’t truly an idiot. The fact that he could keenly notice things other players missed was proof enough.

If anything… his luck seemed to be thin.

With a name like ‘Wuchang’, wasn’t it just a matter of time before he ended up in the underworld?

“What are we waiting for?” Mo Wuchang asked.

“We’re waiting for yesterday’s bus,” Si Yisi replied without hiding anything. After all, his plan this time involved using Mo Wuchang as bait.

If Si Yisi went alone, he was afraid that the air-conditioner ghost lady would turn tail and flee the moment she saw him.

“???”

Mo Wuchang looked utterly baffled.

“The landlord thinks we’re paying too little in rent. If we offered him more, what do you think would happen? I’m curious, so I want to try,” Si Yisi said, tilting his head back slightly to stop the tears that threatened to fall.

“What does that have to do with the bus?”

Mo Wuchang asked reflexively, but his brain quickly kicked into gear.

The landlord, like this cursed rental house, was clearly not a normal being. He definitely wouldn’t accept money from the living. So, what about money from the dead; or rather, from ghosts?

The four tenants in the rental house were currently unaccounted for, leaving no room to act there.

Uh… so the idea was to turn to the bus instead?

From a logical standpoint, the plan made sense, but Mo Wuchang couldn’t shake the eerie chill around him. It felt as though the ghost that had possessed him yesterday was lingering nearby again.

He shivered, a foreboding sense of doom settling over him.

“What… what do I have to do?”

“Be bait,” Si Yisi answered, his eyes watering again from the cold wind. “I’m worried they’ll run the moment they see me. Do you understand?”

His teary, glistening eyes locked onto Mo Wuchang’s, giving him the appearance of a fragile little deer. But deep down, he’s probably… probably a giant demon? Mo Wuchang scared himself with his own imagination, involuntarily trembling.

Si Yisi had a gut feeling that Mo Wuchang’s thoughts had wandered somewhere they shouldn’t.

“Uh… I get it.”

No sooner had Mo Wuchang spoken than the sound of brakes screeching to a halt came from outside the crack in the door.

***

The bus from yesterday stopped by the signpost next to the rental house. Its open door yawned like the gaping mouth of a ghost.

Mo Wuchang instinctively glanced at Si Yisi, silently offering a moment of pity for the ghosts.

Sorry, I really have no choice but to “act as a tiger’s accomplice.”

Mo Wuchang boarded the bus smoothly. The female driver glanced at him, her lips curling into a bloody smile.

“Yesterday’s… human… passenger, hello.”

Mo Wuchang thought of Si Yisi, who was hiding behind him, and gave the driver, whose neck twisted unnaturally toward him, a look of silent sympathy.

The female driver: “???”

Then she was met with the sight of Si Yisi, sobbing uncontrollably, his shoulders shaking with each breath.

The female driver: “!!!”

Her shock caused the bus to screech to an abrupt halt. Si Yisi leaned forward, peeking at her, and gave her a tearful smile.

The passengers seated on the bus slowly revealed themselves. They were corpses in various states of decay, all staring straight at Mo Wuchang.

From the air conditioner vent emerged a ghostly head, but the moment it caught a glimpse of Si Yisi’s profile, it recoiled with a sharp whoosh.

“Hang in there,” Si Yisi said to Mo Wuchang.

He grabbed the female driver as if she were a baby chick and, with lightning speed, shoved something into the neckline of her uniform.

It was Ah Tu.

Crackle, sizzle, hiss!

The air filled with the scent of roasted ghost flesh as electrical sparks scorched her body. Ah Tu, sobbing tears of its own, unleashed a torrent of electricity. If it could speak, it would likely curse Si Yisi, this unscrupulous system, a thousand times over.

After dealing with the female driver in a matter of moments, Si Yisi nudged Mo Wuchang aside and turned his gaze to the scattered corpses seated on the bus.

Mo Wuchang watched as Si Yisi’s tears dripped steadily onto the floor of the bus. With each tear that fell, another non-human entity was taken down.

Mo Wuchang: “⊙o⊙”

A certain suspicion in his heart grew more and more certain; His tears are undoubtedly a powerful weapon!

Feeling that he should contribute as well, Mo Wuchang prepared to act. But then he noticed a familiar face emerging from the air conditioner vent.

The air-conditioner ghost lady’s eyeball fell out, and a swarm of beetles descended from above, attacking!

The ghostly face that Si Yisi hadn’t yet dealt with.

Mo Wuchang: “???”

He watched as the air-conditioner ghost lady swiftly and decisively took out her fellow ghost. Then, she turned to Si Yisi and flashed him a stiff, fawning smile.

Even ghosts these days are eager to cling to someone powerful?!

After Si Yisi dealt with the moving corpses of the passengers, he tore a curtain into long strips and tied them together into a bundle, making a neat “dumpling” of them. He even stuffed a wad of shredded curtain into each of their mouths for good measure.

“Mmmm! Mmmm!” The muffled wailing of ghosts echoed throughout the bus.

As for the unlucky female driver and the equally unlucky Ah Tu, the driver had been electrocuted to the point of becoming a roasted ghost. Her charred body even emitted a faint scent of roasted meat.

Si Yisi also noticed the air-conditioner ghost’s fawning smile. He had no interest in dealing with such an uninspiring ghost and decided to just let her off the hook.

“Uh, we’ve taken over the bus. What’s next, boss?” Mo Wuchang cautiously reminded him, noticing that Si Yisi, with his tear-filled eyes and dramatic presence, didn’t seem done having his fun.

However, Mo Wuchang felt his nerves fraying. The gap between him and this “boss”; no, between him and this big shot, was just too vast to ignore.

Lost confidence.jpg.

Si Yisi clapped his hands, turned his tearful eyes to the gathered ghosts, and said weakly, in a slow and delicate voice, “Hand over your money.”

The air-conditioner ghost immediately extended several ghostly, mist-wreathed arms. With a few quick motions, coins clattered into Si Yisi’s open palm—Perfectly forming a stack.

Wow, what efficiency! What dedication to servitude! Mo Wuchang was once again deeply impressed.

He was, astonishingly, outclassed by a ghost.

It felt a little disheartening.

“Goodbye. Safe travels,” Si Yisi said, uttering what sounded like a friendly farewell but felt more like a curse. With the ghost money in hand, he leisurely stepped off the bus.

Behind him, the ghosts collapsed into a pitiful heap, crying tears of blood that stained the floor of the bus.

Wuwuwu.

They’re bullying ghosts! Wuwuwu!

The female driver’s body twitched, then twitched again; each jerk oddly specific, like a dead loach still insisting on flopping around.

Si Yisi, thoroughly refreshed from robbing the ghosts, showed no signs of distress apart from his slightly swollen eyelids.

He then blocked the old landlord in the storage room, handing him a pile of ghost coins.

What effect would this have?

Could it allow me to move into the haunted house? Or perhaps increase the fun and challenge of the experience?

With his heart set on tearing apart live ghosts with his bare hands, Si Yisi eagerly awaited the outcome.