Ch. 30 - A Reply from the Ghost Wife

At that moment, everyone’s eyes were fixed on the envelope.

Earlier, they had pretended Lin Yuan had injured his right hand to explain the change in handwriting, and they hadn’t used any nicknames—just in case. Still, no one knew if Lin Yuan had any particular writing habits, like calling his wife “darling” in every letter or something like that. If so, they’d be completely exposed. With so little information to work from, this was the best they could manage.

Sun Qian nervously opened the envelope, slowly pulled the letter out, and unfolded it. Everyone leaned in close, and as their eyes scanned the page, their expressions changed.

The letter read:

[Dear, did you hurt your hand? I’m very worried and want to come see you tonight. I believe our love will heal your injury—because love can dispel all that is unpleasant. Stay home tonight and wait for me — Yours, Xinran.]

Shit.

Everyone broke into a cold sweat.

She’s coming tonight?!

If she found out Lin Yuan had been killed and they were impersonating him to write back, there was no doubt about it—total party wipe.

It was already dangerous enough at night with the walking corpse Lin Yuan. Now his wife was on her way too? A ghost husband-and-wife tag team? Game over.

“What do we do?!” Wang Jian cried out in a panic, staring out the window as if he could already see a ghostly figure setting out for their house.

“We need to reply immediately. We absolutely can’t let the ghost wife visit us!” Sun Qian wiped the sweat from his forehead, his tone urgent.

……

While Bai Wan and the others were struggling through the unsolvable dungeon, the Paranormal Game forums were buzzing.

Every player’s dungeon entries were logged publicly, and it didn’t take long for some keen onlookers to notice Bai Wan had entered an unsolvable-level dungeon.

“Damn… ‘Family’ hit an unsolvable dungeon on just his second run. That’s some luck…”

“What a waste. He’s got the most potential of any newcomer right now, but even the most monstrous genius can’t survive a dungeon like that before they’ve had time to develop.”

“Place your bets! Place your bets! Will ‘Family’ clear the dungeon ‘The Letter’…?”

Thanks to his infamy—being the first player ever to receive a negative rating and a debuffing title, yet still managed to break into the top 48 of the bounty rankings as a newcomer—Bai Wan had already become a hot topic. And now he’d entered the notorious unsolvable dungeon ‘The Letter’? The buzz was off the charts.

The forums exploded with activity. Some were just there to spectate, some came to gloat, some were opening betting pools, and others… were telling fortunes.

“Greetings, fellow game players of the forum. I’m your old friend, Yellow Brow Taoist. Today I’ll be talking about the hottest new player: ‘Family’. Now look here, let’s break it down character by character…”

“The first character in ‘Family’ is 家. On top, you’ve got a 宀 —symbolizing a roof. Below that is 豕, which is pronounced like ‘shi’ and sounds like shit—meaning pig. In ancient times, pigs were symbols of stupidity and bad luck. When you put a pig under a roof, you’re literally locking bad luck into your home. How can that not bring disaster? That’s why ‘Family’ is cursed with such misfortune!”

“You want to avoid ending up in an unsolvable dungeon like him? Add me on WeChat. I’ll send you my exclusive 18GB fortune analysis kit. Turn your fate around—never fear bad luck again!”

“Master, I’ve messaged you on WeChat!”

“Please save me, Master! I don’t want to end up in an unsolvable dungeon!”

“Master, I’ll even warm your bed!”

“…But aren’t you a guy?”

“Shut it! Don’t come between me and the Master's bond!”

“……”

In truth, not everyone messaging Yellow Brow Daoist actually believed in his nonsense. But hey, if ghosts and paranormal games were real, then someone having an actual Taoist bloodline wasn’t that far-fetched either.

…

Liu Tong scrolled through the game forums, laughing his ass off.

God, these dumbass netizens are so much fun.

But he also felt a twinge of worry. Yuening was in the same dungeon. He hoped she’d make it out safe. As for Bai Wan? He wasn’t worried in the slightest. That thick-skinned bastard was more likely to outlive the ghosts than die to one.

Zhou Lu and the others were also watching the forums closely. 

Bai Wan and Su Yuening were both key members of the Lan City team. Even though they hadn’t known them for long, they were all sincerely hoping the two of them would come back safe.

…

In the heart of Longbei City, there was a certain unremarkable office building. One of the rooms was shrouded entirely in darkness.

A middle-aged man in a suit stepped up to the blackness and said, “Chief… ‘Family’ has entered the unsolvable dungeon ‘The Letter’.”

Silence.

Then a strange, genderless voice echoed from the darkness.

“…I know.”

That voice betrayed no hint of age or gender—it was an eerily strange sound.

The man chuckled. “It’s rare for a newcomer to make the top 50 bounty list after their first dungeon. ‘Family’ has real potential. You said yourself: plenty of geniuses have appeared since this game began, but few have lived long enough to grow. Potential means nothing without survival.”

“If he manages to clear this dungeon, shall we invest in him? We’re running low on fresh blood among our official Para-Hunters.”

Another long silence.

Then the voice responded.

“…Yes.”

The suited man bowed, smiled, and gently closed the door. “Then I shan’t disturb you further.”

……

Back in the haunted ‘Letter’ dungeon, Bai Wan had no idea he was causing such a stir in the real world. His attention was wholly focused on surviving the dungeon.

Staring at the ghost wife’s letter, he frowned.

Love…

The word had shown up more than once now. The first letter also went on about love this and love that…

By all appearances, Lin Yuan and his wife had been deeply in love. He’d come from a poor rural background, while her background was still unclear—but definitely better off, or her parents wouldn’t have objected to the marriage. Xinran had gone against her family’s wishes and eloped with him. Then, for some unknown reason, they were separated… and she died.

What kind of hidden story lay behind their love?

What was the true path of survival in this dungeon about “The Letter”? And what exactly was hidden inside that eerie warehouse?

Bai Wan sank into thought. He felt like he was on the verge of grasping something—but just needed a bit more clarity.

Meanwhile, Sun Qian and the others were discussing how to reply to the ghost wife’s letter. 

They all agreed: whatever happens, they must not let her come here.

After drafting the reply together, they handed it to Xu Bing to write. She picked up the pencil and began to write, but the lead snapped on the first stroke.

Snap.

“Easy with it, don’t press so hard. That’s the only pencil we found in the house,” Sun Qian reminded her.

Xu Bing paused. She didn’t think she’d used that much force. She sharpened the pencil with a knife and tried again, even more gently.

Snap.

The lead broke again.

Her eyes widened.

I swear I didn’t press hard…

“Be careful… we don’t have much of the pencil left,” Wang Jian said nervously.

“I am being careful…” Xu Bing stared at the cursed-looking pencil and tried again.

Suddenly, Bai Wan stiffened and quietly edged back, guilt flickering across his face.

Not my fault, not my fault… he muttered in his head.

Xu Bing tried once more.

And the pencil broke. Again.

Again and again, every attempt ended with another loud snap.

Even the usually unflappable Sun Qian was sweating now. His hand trembled as he lit a cigarette.

Fuck… Don’t tell me we’re about to die in an unsolvable dungeon because the pencil lead kept snapping and we couldn’t reply to the ghost wife. 

That’d be the dumbest cause of death ever. I’d rather have the lie exposed and get eaten by the ghost than to go out like this.

What are the forums going to say?

‘Sun Qian and the party perished due to excessive pencil pressure. No pencil, no reply, no survival.’

If that’s the case… that’d be so damn embarrassing.

He nearly choked on his cigarette from the sheer embarrassment thinking about it.

Sun Qian yanked the pencil from Xu Bing’s hands. “Move. I’ll do it.”

He refused to believe it—could it really be that cursed?

Using his left hand, Sun Qian gently lowered the pencil onto the paper and carefully began to write.

Snap!

This time the pencil didn’t break, but instead… a long tear ripped right through the middle of the previously pristine sheet.

Xu Bing: “……”

Sun Qian: “……”

The hell?!

The room fell into stunned silence.

Sun Qian’s face darkened, his body frozen in place. He stared at the ripped sheet, a herd of profanities stampeded through his mind.

Are you messing with me right now?

The rest of the group stared, mouths hanging open, all wondering the same thing—are they done for? Is there even a way out of this?

Bai Wan’s expression also soured as several novel titles started flashing through his mind:

“Bugged Into Teamwipe: A Hilarious Misadventure”

“Clearing an Unsolvable Dungeon by First Annihilating My Own Party”

“How to Destroy a Paranormal Letter Quest by Ripping Up the Letter”

A few seconds later, Wang Jian forced a dry laugh. “At least the pencil didn’t snap this time, right?”

“R-right… maybe we can find some tape? Stick the letter back together and still use it?”

“Yeah, tape… let’s look for some…”

“...”

Meanwhile, Su Yuening stared suspiciously at Bai Wan.

This was just too coincidental. It felt all too familiar. She recalled how the moment Bai Wan had arrived at Lan City headquarters, everyone bugged out on the stairs… then the meteor shower hit the graveyard… and she got pulled into this goddamn dungeon just by shaking his hand.

There’s something off about Bai Wan...

Su Yuening narrowed her eyes.

Maybe this unsolvable dungeon wasn't the real danger—maybe being friends with him was the greater threat.

…

Several minutes later...

Everyone returned, somehow having found a roll of tape, and patched up the torn letter. Thankfully, the rest of the writing went off without any further accidents. No more broken pencil tips.

The reply they ended up writing was:

[I miss you too. I want to see you so badly. But now is not the right time. Just wait a little longer. Someday soon, we’ll no longer be apart and can finally be together.]

The whole strategy was based on the idea that Lin Yuan and his wife were living apart for some reason. They didn’t need to know why—just use that fact to justify that now wasn’t a good time to meet.

Whether the ghost would buy it or not… they could only hope.

After finishing the reply, everyone exchanged looks.

The letter was a mess—creased, patched with tape down the middle, and clearly manhandled from all the broken pencil attempts.

“Think this is gonna be okay?” Wang Jian asked doubtfully, holding the tattered thing like it might bite him. “If I were her, I’d already be on a killing spree.”

Sun Qian also hesitated, “I have no idea…”

It wasn’t like he had ever torn up a ghost’s letter before. Or rather, normal people shouldn’t have this kind of experience to begin with.

“There’s no other choice, just throwing a Hail Mary at this point.,” Sun Qian muttered helplessly.

A minute later, the letter vanished into thin air from the tabletop—proof that it had been delivered. They could only pray that the ghost lady wasn’t petty enough to be upset over the condition of the letter.

“Let’s move. We need to explore more of Mingkou Town today,” Sun Qian urged after checking the time, a rising urgency in his voice.

They’d already spent two days in the dungeon and still knew next to nothing about Lin Yuan or Xinran. If this kept up, the next five daily replies would become nearly impossible to manage.

Everyone agreed—Bai Wan included.

His little sister had also entered the dungeon, and by now had probably been assigned an NPC role. If he could just find her, they might learn more about how this “Letter” dungeon worked.

But more important than that… was the Skull Shop. The extremely rare, blood-red Skull Shop…

According to Captain Zhou Lu, every unsolvable-level dungeon had one.

That was Bai Wan’s real target in this run.

He needed to find the hidden Skull Shop and use it to buy access to the Abandoned Village dungeon, hunt down information about the Ghostsmith, and eventually repair The Midnight Hawk—unlocking his special class as Ghost Captain.

Bai Wan couldn’t help getting excited.

What kind of abilities would that job unlock? Could he pilot a ghost ship? He couldn’t wait to try ramming paranormals with it.

And then there was the shop’s rare menu items…He could restock rare ingredients and hand them over to his ship’s navigator—no, the cook, to Granny Nami—so she could prepare even stronger signature ghost dishes.

But where exactly would the Skull Shop appear?

Somewhere in Mingkou Town?

…Or maybe even inside that mysterious warehouse?

Bai Wan frowned at the thought.

That place had triggered a heartbeat warning—a sign of a ghost way beyond the dungeon’s normal difficulty. And considering this was already an unsolvable-level dungeon, whatever was inside must be unimaginably deadly.

Do I have the strength to face it?

He did have a Blood Husk Idol, a Bloody Skeleton Bandage, and a few powerful bugs. He might not be entirely helpless. And in just one more day, his Large Sunlight Mushroom would arrive.

The item, normally priced at 100 Mario Coins, had only cost him 30 due to the newcomer discount. It was clearly a rare good—capable of giving his sunflower a huge burst of sunlight, letting him summon even more powerful plants.

Just one more day to go.

Thinking of this, Bai Wan tapped the sunflower on his shoulder.

In an instant, their connection was activated. He’d discovered last night that touching the sunflower let him manually summon plants. If he didn’t touch it, the sunflower would act on its own, summoning randomly when it saw fit.

They’d been in the dungeon for two days now, and he’d gathered enough sunlight to release some plants.

For now, only the Peashooter and Wall-nut were unlocked. Maybe the other plants required more sunlight… or maybe they just hadn’t been unlocked yet. His sunflower was still only level 1—it had room to grow.

He also noticed that some plants had upgrade icons hovering over them. Like the Peashooter, which could evolve by consuming more sunlight.

Bai Wan was starting to get curious.  What would an upgraded Peashooter look like?

With that in mind, he followed the team out to explore Mingkou Town.

Unfortunately, the town really was too sparsely populated. They couldn’t even find anyone to ask for directions. The few elderly folks they did spot were either deaf or too hard to understand.

Time ticked by, and tension rose.

Xinran had promised she’d come tonight. They’d sent a reply trying to stop her, but who knew if it had worked?

If it didn’t, they’d be screwed.

There was already a moving corpse, a ghost—Lin Yuan—inside the house. If his ghost wife showed up too, they’d be caught in a paranormal pincer attack.

After more fruitless searching, the sky began to darken. Just like that, another unproductive day had passed.

“This isn’t good…” Luo Ya frowned. “If we keep finding nothing, how are we supposed to keep replying to the ghost’s letters?”

“Time to head back. We can think while walking,” Sun Qian said, glancing at the darkening sky.

Nighttime in this dungeon was extremely dangerous. They couldn’t afford to linger and the group began the walk back to Lin Yuan’s house.

Near the house was a large stone, a kind of landmark. 

As they reached a point where they could see the stone, the group suddenly stopped.

A pitch-black figure stood atop the boulder.

It raised one puppet-like arm and waved at them slowly.

Boom!!

Goosebumps rippled across their bodies. Without a word, everyone turned and ran in different directions.

A ghost had come out of the house to chase them!

Run!

That was the only thought on anyone’s mind.

Bai Wan bolted full-speed toward the rear.

Then suddenly, his entire body went cold.

He saw that same dark silhouette blinking rapidly behind him—closing in at terrifying speed.

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