52. Sacrifices equal players—this makes perfect sense.

Chen Sheng had no recollection whatsoever of what the headless girl was saying. As he pondered whether the identity he had assumed—namely, the troublesome “Chen Jue Shen”—had managed to make enemies not only among the living but now also among the dead, the headless girl began recounting what she had witnessed that night.

Of course, she didn’t explain in a straightforward manner; instead, she spoke as if answering her own questions, a kind of self-dialogue.

“You possess a punishment weapon, so naturally you aren’t afraid of Black-Faced Wuchang…” she said, then paused, seeming to realize she had put her head on backwards, which might explain the senseless question. Quickly, she cradled her head in her hands.

With a popping sound, like pulling a cork from a bottle, she removed her head. Then, as if spinning a basketball, she twirled it with one finger, and once her face was turned toward Chen Sheng, she pressed her head back onto her neck.

The process, though described at length, was in reality swift and fluid, with a grace reminiscent of ancient dancers, completed in less than two seconds.

Chen Sheng was utterly astonished.

The scene was so absurd that he was at a loss for words.

“So, are you a fierce spirit?” With her head properly reattached, the headless girl couldn’t help but ask. As she spoke, she unconsciously rubbed her hands together.

The gesture carried many meanings, all easily understood given the circumstances.

In that instant, Chen Sheng caught the unspoken plea: “Big boss, may I cling to you? I’m just a newbie, but I can keep things cool!”

“I’m human,” Chen Sheng replied, rolling his eyes.

He hadn’t even “changed classes”; his game level was “LV0.” In this healing game, his racial attributes ought to remain unchanged.

Naturally, the headless girl didn’t believe him.

Holding a punishment weapon but claiming to be human—who was he trying to fool? Ghosts? Well, she was a ghost herself…

She could only sneak a sidelong glance at Chen Sheng, feeling weak, helpless, and too timid to complain.

“Why did Black-Faced Wuchang try to ambush me?” Chen Sheng, piecing together the girl’s muttered words, had already grasped a rough outline of the situation.

When he first exited the game normally, the “boss monster” Black-Faced Wuchang was attempting to ambush him, and the girl’s cry of “Ghost!” had been prompted by that event.

“I think I know, but if you’re not afraid of Black-Faced Wuchang, I can tell you,” she said.

“Go ahead!” Chen Sheng answered immediately. How could a player fear a wild monster? It wasn’t Baron Nashor, after all.

Seeing his confidence, the headless girl continued, “It’s actually related to a corpse ghost. Because the soul-capturing rope failed to catch you, Black-Faced Wuchang tore that corpse ghost apart. Officially, he said it was because the corpse ghost stepped with his left foot first during the gathering…”

“Though Black-Faced Wuchang is notorious for capricious moods, that explanation seems…” She glanced at Chen Sheng, her meaning clear.

“You mean Black-Faced Wuchang was summoned by the corpse ghost?” Chen Sheng’s eyes showed a trace of contemplation; he recalled a ghost fitting her description—a ghost who, during his night shift at the precinct, came to report his own murder.

“Why would the corpse ghost summon Black and White Wuchang?” Chen Sheng pressed.

“Every so often, Black and White Wuchang sweep the area around Upper Sanjiang City, clearing out ghosts. The timing is unpredictable—sometimes only half a day passes before the next sweep. This keeps the local ghosts anxious, yet afraid to leave for fear of becoming wandering spirits. Eventually, under someone’s guidance, a deal was struck: any ghost offering a sacrifice to Black-Faced Wuchang would be spared from the purge.”

Chen Sheng was surprised by this revelation. He had assumed Black-Faced Wuchang was one of the city’s three great “ghost kings,” ruling over all supernatural entities here.

But unexpectedly, Black-Faced Wuchang was actually tasked with cleansing ghosts!

No wonder, despite Upper Sanjiang City being set as the epicenter of bizarre events in the healing game, Chen Sheng had never encountered any particularly vicious, murderous ghosts.

“So the sacrifice demanded by Black and White Wuchang… is the player?” Chen Sheng concluded, the logic fitting all known facts.

He nodded to himself.

Wild monsters targeting players—how fitting for a game’s food chain!

No longer in doubt, he pointed toward the room at the end of the corridor. “Is the human skin in there your handiwork?”

“It’s not mine.” The headless girl shook her head. Her malice wasn’t yet strong enough to manifest such power; she didn’t even know how she died—her head simply fell off inexplicably—so her conditions for harming others were bizarre. To this day, she hadn’t killed anyone!

Had she not accidentally witnessed a police officer being drained and absorbed some vital energy, her strength would be even weaker.

“He was drained by another human skin,” she said.

“Another human skin?” Chen Sheng turned to look at the room at the corridor’s end, then, without hesitation, his form blurred as he moved at astonishing speed to the doorway.

Inside, the skin that had previously lain atop the desk was gone, replaced by a set of trainee police uniforms on the floor.

Scanning the room, Chen Sheng quickly noticed a pile of “things” stacked on the ground.

They looked like folded towels, but had a semi-translucent quality, yellow tinged with pale white.

“What happened here? Can you tell me?” Sensing a sudden chill nearby, Chen Sheng asked without thinking.

“I don’t know how it started. I was afraid Black-Faced Wuchang would sweep again, so I hid here. I only saw the necktie originally kept in a box suddenly transform into a human skin, which then drained the man dry.”

“And the other human skin?”

“After draining him, it became just like a living person, ecstatic, shouting as it ran out.”

“Was it a man or a woman? What did it say?” Chen Sheng asked.

“It was a man. He kept repeating that he’d finally come back to life, and lamented that he could never return… The rest was too strange for me to understand. He mentioned a little cabin, a black-and-white grave-house city—I’ve never heard of those, so I didn’t tell you more.” The headless girl explained. At the time, the human skin had babbled about places she couldn’t comprehend, so she left it at that.