At this hour, any normal person would have been asleep already.
But Nagata Takaya and the others were gathered inside a ruined temple in the middle of nowhere, and there were even rumors that this mountain was haunted, so none of them were exactly eager to fall asleep here.
Thankfully, they were all high school or college students. Maybe not at the peak of their energy, but absolutely at the age when they were best at staying up all night.
After discussing it, they decided not to sleep at all and instead play some small games in the broken temple to pass the time.
"I brought a deck of cards." Yoshida Saori rummaged through her backpack and quickly pulled out a box of playing cards.
Nagata Takaya sighed. "Honestly, I'd rather play Yu-Gi-Oh..."
"But I didn't bring any with me. Besides, the game's rules are way too complicated. I've tried a bunch of times and still can't figure it out..." As she spoke, Yoshida Saori turned to Xu Fu and invited her warmly, "Xu-chan! Want to play cards with us?"
What she got in return was Xu Fu's listless response.
"Xu-chan is already an old woman now. There's a fatal generation gap between me and you forever-energetic youngsters, so don't bother me. Let me get some proper sleep, snore snore..."
"Seriously, why do you talk like such an old lady when you look so young?" Yoshida Saori said, completely baffled.
Xu Fu took a few steps around the temple, wondering whether the filthy floor was clean enough to just lie down on and sleep. She really was getting sleepy.
Rain was still pouring outside with a noisy rush, though it did seem to be easing up. Maybe it would stop before long.
Yoshida Saori had just finished shuffling when a figure suddenly sat down beside her.
"Xu Fu?"
"I changed my mind. I'll play cards with you after all," Xu Fu said expressionlessly.
The reason she had changed her mind so suddenly was that she had just noticed something off about these students' auras.
Their vital energy was turbid, their foreheads were dim, and the fire of their fate flickered unstably... Put simply: their faces were clouded with doom, and today was bound to end in blood.
Xu Fu was worried something might happen after she fell asleep, so she forced herself to stay awake and joined them in playing cards.
Maybe Yasukawa Nagisa was still angry at her boyfriend Morita Taku, because instead of sitting beside him, she deliberately sat on one side of Xu Fu, with Yoshida Saori taking the other.
That treatment made Xu Fu think back to the time she'd gone to a horror-themed escape room with friends.
There had been a minimum headcount requirement, so besides them, there had also been two other couples. Seven people in total.
What she remembered most clearly from that outing was this: when they passed through one particularly scary section, probably because of how they were standing, the two girls from those couples each grabbed one of her arms in fright instead of clinging to their own boyfriends.
Mm... and after that, those two guys were suddenly super proactive and super brave through every part of the game. Wonder why that could have been... Xu Fu-chan has absolutely no idea~
Back to the present... with Yasukawa Nagisa and Yoshida Saori sitting this close, they weren't trying to peek at her cards, were they?
Time passed bit by bit, and the sound of the rain outside was so soothing it felt like a lullaby.
Just playing cards really was too dull...
"Uwaaah..." Morita Taku yawned.
"Uwaaah..." As if infected by it, Nagata Takaya followed with an enormous yawn of his own, squeezing a few sleepy tears from the corners of his eyes.
This won't do...
Realizing that, Nagata Takaya thought for a bit and came up with an idea.
"How about this? To wake everyone up, I'll tell you some rumors about this area."
In other words, it was time for ghost stories.
They'd be scary, sure, but that was exactly why they'd help keep people awake.
And besides, there were five living people here. Even if there really were ghosts, surely they'd be scared off by all the yang energy coming off them... Morita Taku and the others used that logic to convince themselves and agreed to Nagata Takaya's suggestion.
Nagata Takaya searched up some local supernatural rumors on his phone and read them aloud.
"Rumor one: more than one person has heard a baby crying on this mountain."
"Rumor two: an old man once ran into a bear while cutting firewood on this mountain and was devoured whole, flesh and skin alike. Later, people began seeing a monster here with the old man's head and a bear's body. It calls out to ignorant passersby for help, and if anyone gets close, it bites their neck clean through. Supposedly, that dead old man is looking for someone to take his place."
"Rumor three: many, many pale figures wander around this area. They say they were once villagers from a settlement somewhere on this mountain, but the village was destroyed for unknown reasons, and everyone in it died. Either attachment to the land or obsession with finding out how they died turned them into spirits that can do nothing but roam this mountain forever."
"Rumor four: if you enter this mountain during the two time periods from five to seven at night or from three to five in the morning—that is, the so-called 'hour of meeting demons'—you'll be transported to another world."
"Rumor five: several people have vanished on this mountain for no apparent reason."
"Uwah! These rumors are terrifying..." Yoshida Saori wrapped an arm dramatically around Xu Fu's neck, then asked with a smile, "Xu-chan? Are you scared? If you are, you can hide in onee-chan's arms. Onee-chan will protect you!"
At last, Xu Fu understood.
Yoshida Saori was scared of ghosts too. All this exaggerated behavior was just her way of driving off her fear, the same way some people shout loudly to steel their nerves. It was really the same principle.
The reason Yoshida Saori had been so eager to get close to her from the beginning was probably to reassure herself that Xu Fu was human, not some ghost, and ease the unease in her heart.
"If you're scared of ghosts, Saori, you can hide by my side instead~" Xu Fu no longer resisted her closeness the way she had before. She patted Yoshida Saori on the shoulder and comforted her. "If it's just ordinary little ghosts, all Xu Fu-chan has to do is stand there full of fighting spirit and they'll all run away in terror! Hm-hm-hm! Even though Xu Fu-chan is already the cutest in all the world, my abilities are top-tier too~!"
Yoshida Saori didn't believe her. She just assumed Xu Fu was trying to comfort her.
"Mmh! Xu-chan, you are way too cute! Rub rub rub rub rub rub rub~! Thank you for comforting me. As long as Xu-chan is here, I won't be scared no matter how many demons and ghosts show up!"
"Wah-ha-ha! Even though everything you said is objectively true, I'm still very happy to hear it! I shall forgive your disrespect this once!"
Their back-and-forth also drove away some of the fear in everyone else's hearts.
Outside the temple, the torrential rain that had lasted all night finally began to die down. The last few drops fell intermittently from the eaves, dimpling the puddles with ripples that grew fewer and fewer.
A faint glimmer had barely appeared in the east, and Yoshida Saori's group was already eager to leave this broken temple. The rain had only just stopped, but they were ready to head down the mountain at once.
"These are for you."
Xu Fu gave each of the four students a doll.
"Xu Fu, this is...?"
"A doll handmade by Xu Fu-chan herself~! I had to make them in a rush, and I didn't have very good materials, so they're just barely usable... probably?" Xu Fu tilted her head, not sounding very confident. "Saori, make sure you keep yours with you at all times, okay~? When I'm not around, it'll have to protect you instead. Same for you three! No matter what, don't just throw them away! Do you have any idea how rare these are? You couldn't buy one for any amount of money!"
Even without knowing their true value, the four of them still accepted the gifts gratefully, since they were a token of Xu Fu's feelings.
"Xu-chan, do you want to come down the mountain with us?" Before leaving, Yoshida Saori even made a point of inviting her along.
"No, no, you all go on ahead. I'm going to stay here a little longer." Xu Fu shook her head and chose to remain in the temple.
She remembered clearly that before these four students had come into the temple to shelter from the rain, they'd been fine. It was only after entering that deathly energy had begun clinging to them. That made her think the problem was in this temple itself, and once Yoshida Saori and the others left, she intended to investigate the place.
She couldn't act freely with ordinary people around.
Meanwhile, after parting ways with Xu Fu, the four students started down the mountain path.
Even though they hadn't run into any ghosts like they'd hoped, they had met an unbelievably cute girl, so the trip hadn't been a waste.
As they walked, Morita Taku kept sneaking glances at Yasukawa Nagisa, thinking about how to get her to stop being mad at him.
Then he saw the doll in her arms, and a thought flashed through his head.
He knew that although Yasukawa Nagisa looked cold on the outside, she loved cute things—especially plush dolls. So he gave her the doll Xu Fu had given him, while sincerely apologizing and admitting he'd been wrong.
Handing someone else's heartfelt gift over to another person was, objectively speaking, a pretty awful thing to do. But he and Yasukawa Nagisa were dating. They were one family, not "another person," so to him, the doll given to him naturally belonged to Yasukawa Nagisa too. Morita Taku saw nothing wrong with it.
Nagata Takaya, walking at the front, suddenly stopped and rubbed his eyes hard.
Weird. They were supposed to be heading down the mountain, weren't they? They had definitely been walking downhill the whole time.
So then... what was with that temple up ahead that looked so horribly familiar?!
Back in the temple, Xu Fu—who still hadn't found the slightest clue—suddenly sensed that Nagata Takaya and the others had returned, and frowned in confusion.
She walked to the doorway, looked at the four who had come back, and asked, "What's wrong? Did you forget something?"
"Xu...-chan?" Yoshida Saori stared at her in disbelief.
It wasn't just Yoshida Saori. The other three had the same expression, as though they'd run into something they simply couldn't understand.
"No way."
"We really came back?"
"Weren't we walking forward the whole time? So how did we end up back here again?"
The unease on their faces didn't look fake, and neither did the implications in what they were saying. Xu Fu frowned.
"What happened to you? Can you tell me?"
After hearing their rough account of what they had experienced, Xu Fu's expression instantly became colorful.
They had... been made to walk in circles by a ghost?
Xu Fu focused and examined the four of them carefully again, only to find that the ominous deathly energy was still wrapped around them.
It looked like something had set its sights on them.
"Try going down the mountain one more time," Xu Fu proposed. "This time, I'll go with you."
They set out on the same road again, but this time Nagata Takaya and the others could no longer stay as calm as before. The shadows around them looked far more sinister and terrifying now.
Still, because they didn't want to embarrass themselves in front of the women they liked, the two men, Nagata Takaya and Morita Taku, both screwed up their courage and took the lead and rear, respectively, keeping the three girls—including Xu Fu—in the middle.
At least you could praise their courage.
"...?!"
"What's wrong, Nagisa?"
Yasukawa Nagisa suddenly froze in place. The strange reaction immediately made Morita Taku, who was walking behind her, worry.
"You... don't hear it?" Yasukawa Nagisa's face turned ugly. "There's crying... a child crying."
"Crying? Where's there crying?!"
"Don't scare me like that!"
The moment Yasukawa Nagisa said that, everyone naturally thought of one of the supernatural rumors Nagata Takaya had mentioned earlier. Panic-stricken, they all looked around wildly, trying to find the child's crying she was talking about.
But they couldn't hear anything.
Was Yasukawa Nagisa imagining it? Or trying to scare them?
No—that really was the sound of a child crying.
Xu Fu could hear it, and she could also hear the nearly overflowing negative energy contained within it.
Resentful spirits... and multiple child spirits at that.
Xu Fu didn't say what she had discovered, afraid that it would only make the others panic more. Instead, she comforted them in another way.
"There's something you should remember... People fear ghosts three parts, but ghosts fear people seven."
"People fear ghosts three parts, but ghosts fear people seven?"
Yoshida Saori and the others all repeated it, though none of them quite understood what it meant.
Xu Fu explained, "Humans are afraid of ghosts, but sometimes humans are far more frightening than ghosts. That's why a lot of little ghosts try all kinds of tricks to scare people before they ever show themselves. If their target is timid and weak, they'll bully them without restraint. But if you act brave enough, those little ghosts who only pick on the weak will be the ones frightened off by you instead."
"So remember this... even if evil spirits really do exist, if they don't show themselves directly and only use different methods to scare you, then that means they're afraid too. In times like that, the first one to show fear loses! The best thing you can do is make yourself seem fiercer than the ghost. Scare them so badly they don't dare touch you!"
The group kept moving down the mountain path, while Xu Fu considered a response plan in her heart.
If all I have is crying, it'll be hard to pinpoint where they are. I'll have to use divination...
Suddenly, the space around them twisted.
Xu Fu noticed the abnormality, but she was still a step too late. By the time she looked up, she was the only one left on the mountain path. The four people who had been with her just moments ago had all vanished.
"We... really came back again."
Staring at the abandoned temple, Yoshida Saori's eyes filled with deep unease.
"Xu-chan... have you figured anything out?"
"Mm... unfortunately, I still don't understand what's happening either."
With "Xu Fu" standing there with her back to the four of them, she spoke without turning around.
"But no matter where we go, we always end up back at this temple, right? That means the real problem has to be this temple. If we search carefully, we should be able to find some clues here."
No matter how unwilling they were, Yoshida Saori and the others had to admit that "Xu Fu" made sense. It was probably the only path left to them.
"I guess that's all we can do..."
Because "Xu Fu" had her back to them, none of them could see her expression.
She was smiling...
A smile no human being could ever possess—brimming with malice, utterly warped and vile.
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T/N: uh oh....