Chapter 97: Transmigrated as a Fraudulent Male Streamer (21)
Not long ago, a thought had suddenly struck him: why had the original Cen Yu in the novel never encountered any harassment from this “ghost” until he was finally killed while fleeing in panic on the fourth night?
Because Cen Yu had been a staunch atheist all along.
He firmly believed that everything had a scientific explanation and that ghosts simply didn’t exist in this world.
The reason he was killed on the fourth night was that the continuous string of bizarre events after joining the class reunion had shaken his convictions—until he finally couldn’t take it anymore and ran after sharing a room with a ghost on the fourth night.
He had come to believe that ghosts existed in the world, and so he was killed by a ghost.
“You can’t touch anyone who doesn’t believe in your existence,” Cen Yu said, picking his way through the floating clutter and pushing the door open to step outside.
Spotting He Yongning outside the door, he raised the hammer in his hand and addressed the entity inside the room, “Bye-bye, Little Yu.”
Seeing Cen Yu completely unharmed, He Yongning breathed a massive sigh of relief. Then he heard Cen Yu’s parting words—naturally, he still remembered the tomb owner Yu Sheng had mentioned earlier.
He turned to look toward the old house, where the floating clutter inside had already crashed back down to the floor.
Although He Yongning desperately wanted to know how Cen Yu had discovered the entity’s identity, he knew this was no place to linger and immediately grabbed Cen Yu’s arm to pull him away.
Seeing Cen Yu staring blankly into space, he assumed the guy was stunned with fright and acted with utmost care. Little did he know that at this very moment, Cen Yu was having a fierce argument with the System in his head.
“If you don’t believe he’s a ghost, then what do you think he is?” The fat cat had naturally overheard Cen Yu’s speech, and it could even see the thoughts inside Cen Yu’s mind.
“I believe he’s a vixen spirit,” Cen Yu said.
“…?” The fat cat was stunned. “That works too?”
“Why wouldn’t it?!” Cen Yu countered as a matter of course. “This is a horror story! The underlying logic is that if you don’t believe in the existence of ghosts, the ghost has no way to touch or harm anyone who genuinely doesn’t believe in him.”
At that thought, Cen Yu began bargaining with the System again. “Can you guys change this task or what?”
The fat cat looked at him guardedly. “Change it how?”
“Don’t you think this task is super lame?” Cen Yu said. “Did I come all the way here to do a task just to get killed by a ghost?”
“…” It did sound a bit lame, the fat cat thought to itself.
“Besides, I’ve already seen through the underlying reason why everyone gets killed by the ghost,” Cen Yu said, staring at the fat cat. “Am I supposed to disbelieve in ghosts for the first three days, and then suddenly believe in ghosts on the fourth day?”
“Should I just flip-flop back and forth?”
It was only just now that Cen Yu had cracked the underlying logic of this instance.
For the original Cen Yu in the novel, he had always been an atheist, so he didn’t encounter any ghosts in the early stages—not until his beliefs shattered on the fourth night.
But current Cen Yu was different.
He had known from the very beginning that this was a horror novel, and that ghosts truly existed within it.
So when he entered in person, he naturally already believed in the existence of this ghost.
That was why that thing had been able to touch him.
Cen Yu pondered the “Little Yu” who had appeared in his live stream earlier, gradually coming to understand the logic behind the entity’s actions—
Little Yu had told him to go into the haunted house because there was definitely a ghost inside.
As long as Cen Yu believed it, the entity could touch him.
“…That actually makes some sense,” the fat cat muttered under its breath.
“I’ll go report this,” it grumbled, bargaining with Cen Yu like a stingy boss. “But let me tell you, it’s not like we can change it every single time.”
“It’s only because you performed well in the last task…”
“Got it, Director Cat,” Cen Yu waved a hand at the fat cat in his mind. “Go fast, come back fast.”
By the time He Yongning and Cen Yu arrived back at the entrance of Jiang Tuan’s house, Jiang Tuan looked at the two out-of-breath men with a strange expression. “What were you two up to?”
He noticed the claw hammer Cen Yu was holding, looking back and forth as he felt it looked suspiciously like the one he kept in his courtyard…?
“Took a trip to my old house,” He Yongning said.
He turned to Jiang Tuan. “I have something to ask you.”
Watching their receding backs, Cen Yu looked up toward the third floor and caught sight of Pei Hengyun—
“Is He Yongning’s house doing okay?” Pei Hengyun asked.
“Not great,” Cen Yu called back up to him. “It got ransacked.”
Catching his breath slightly, he walked through the living room, set the claw hammer down on the living room table, and then climbed up to the third floor in one go.
When he reached the third-floor bedroom, he found that Pei Hengyun, who should have been resting in bed, was sitting in a chair out on the balcony instead. Spotting Cen Yu, he turned to look at him. “Ransacked?”
Pei Hengyun put on a frightened expression.
“Does that mean a lot of things were stolen?”
What could possibly be missing? Cen Yu thought to himself, His house didn’t have anything valuable to begin with.
That was the plain truth; there really wasn’t a single valuable item in He Yongning’s house. At that thought, Cen Yu suddenly looked at Pei Hengyun with a touch of curiosity. “Why haven’t you come back all these years?”
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he conversed with Pei Hengyun as if merely chatting casually. “Looking at that painting of yours, I figured you must be pretty nostalgic about your high school days.”
Cen Yu knew why Pei Hengyun hadn’t returned. Pei Hengyun had only had his grandmother, and after she passed away during his sophomore year of high school, he no longer had any family here. So after the college entrance exams, he had packed up all his belongings and left his hometown behind.
As for Pei Hengyun…
Cen Yu leaned back slightly, propping his hands on the bed as he looked at Pei Hengyun. “You’ve never actually told me about your family background, have you?”
Cen Yu realized that his memories regarding the past were extremely hazy, which shouldn’t be the case.
In the last world, he could recall plenty of basic details—like how he and Yu Xinyu met, or how he and Sang Qianshan became friends… Yet when he tried to recall how he had met Pei Hengyun now, as well as Pei Hengyun’s family situation and even his own, he found only a complete blur.
When he first entered the instance, he had assumed it was because this was a short novel and his character was merely a minor extra with little screen time, so such background details hadn’t been designed at all.
Now, it seemed… that was likely not the case.
Pei Hengyun listened carefully to Cen Yu’s words, keeping his posture entirely unchanged, as if trying to conceal something behind his back.
“My family…”
As if recalling something, Pei Hengyun said softly, “None of my family members are around anymore either.”
Although he had already anticipated it, hearing those words out of the blue still made Cen Yu freeze for a moment. Right then, his phone vibrated again.
Holding his stomach, he said, “Gotta use the bathroom.”
Under Pei Hengyun’s gaze, he walked out toward the bathroom outside the bedroom.
Pei Hengyun simply sat there quietly, watching Cen Yu’s hurried back as he left. He shifted his body slightly, revealing a dense array of deep handprints pressed into the wall behind him.
“Little Yu…”
“You’ve clearly already noticed.”
The moment Cen Yu bolted into the bathroom, he opened his phone.
The messages from Little Le were very simple, consisting of only two lines—
[Little Le: HOLY SHIT!!! Bro, you were actually scammed?!!!]
[Little Le: I asked that school—there’s no art teacher named Pei Hengyun there at all!]
