Chapter 38 (1/2)

Translator: Atlas Studios

Editor: Atlas Studios

This was a feeling that Tang Luo would never experience. He wasn’t filthy rich, but he didn’t need to worry over the bit of money for his day-to-day needs.

Even after receiving the compensation sum from the demolition of their old family property and buying a new property, Zhang Yuchou’s family still had a few hundred thousand yuan left over.

However, he was working by himself away from home. That money was his capital for when he got married in the future. He couldn’t possibly use that money for his daily expenses.

Thus, he was the exact opposite of Tang Luo and had to live from hand to mouth.

“Yes, yes, yes.” Tang Luo gave a few absolutely insincere sounds of assent and changed the topic to what he was here for. “You haven’t told me what you encountered.”

“Do you really believe me?” asked Zhang Yuchou.

“Do you want to reimburse the cost of my high-speed rail ticket and hotel stay?” Tang Luo mock-berated him in amusement. “Would I come all the way here if I didn’t? Do I have too much money to spare?”

Zhang Yuchou didn’t reply yes like what he used to do in the past. Instead, he replied with a serious countenance, “I’ve encountered a Dish God1.”

“Dish God?”

The Dish God, as the name implied, it referred to the god of the dish. This was a metaphorical term of address. As the saying went, “That which cannot be measured or predicted is referred to as God.”

Its origin came from the fuji1 of ancient times and was a divination technique.

As time passed, it gradually evolved into a supernatural game.

In horror movies, it was one of the common death-seeking methods used by the main character’s clique of friends, who were experts at death-seeking.

Other methods included but were not limited to going for vacations in chalets located in extremely remote areas, watching videos rumored to be cursed, accessing out-of-bounds buildings, exploring abandoned houses, and so on.

To put it in the perspective of modern science, games like the Dish God or Pen God1 were actually psychological mind games with a heavy focus on characteristics like suggestibility, exaggeration, and unintentional subconscious actions.

Even local horror films provided a scientific explanation of “Everything was caused by human factors”.

One must believe in science!

However, in the case of Tang Luo’s life experiences, he had already long gone past the stage of shouting, “This doesn’t make sense1!”

Tang Luo gestured to Zhang Yuchou to continue. He was curious as to why this fellow would play such an out-of-style game.

That’s right, among the younger crowd of this era, things like the Dish God, Pen God, and so on belonged to the category of games that had already gone out of style.

Even if they wanted to play such games, there were supernatural apps and the Mobile Phone God, weren’t there?

One must keep up with times.

Local horror films were about the only ones left that clearly wished to prove these scientific theories right and continued to invite the presence of the Dish God and Pen God time after time with their fearless and indomitable spirits.

“I have a coworker who wanted to hint at his feelings and confess to the girl he likes through the Dish God,” replied Zhang Yuchou.

“…”

After a second of silence, Tang Luo gave him a thumbs up. “What a f*cking talent!”

To have thought of using a supernatural game to hint at and confess his feelings, that guy must have been single for more than 20 years and received more than ten Nice Guy cards1.

“The girl he likes is a fan of the occult.” Zhang Yuchou shot him down.

Tang Luo lowered his thumb. The world truly worked in fascinating ways.

“And then? So all of you went along with him and played the dish god game?” asked Tang Luo.

“We didn’t really want to either.” Zhang Yuchou had a defeated look on his face. “But that fellow’s the assistant manager of our department, even though he’s only two years older than me. He asked us to stay back until 12 A.M. and said that we were free to do anything we wanted in the meantime, including even going home, just that we had to return before midnight. Helping him out this one time would count as two sessions of overtime!

“That’s 500 bucks, you know. Tell me, who could resist that?”

When he reached this part, Zhang Yuchou’s tone of voice even became worked up.

What was big money? This was it!

To youngsters like Zhang Yuchou, who had been brutally whipped by society, even if they verbally rejected something, their actions were very true to themselves.

This might not be the case when they got older, though. Even if they wanted to, their bodies wouldn’t be able to keep up either.

Thus, just like that, Zhang Yuchou and three other coworkers had stayed behind. Including the department’s young assistant manager and the girl he was interested in, there had been a total of six people—four men and two women.

Although it hadn’t been the standard setup of two men and two women, they could go ahead and play, nonetheless.

However, who knew that playing a simple game would lead to trouble instead?

The game had gone pretty smoothly that night. The confession had been successful too. But the manager had been so thrilled that he had ended up committing a taboo.

This so-called taboo was the rules of the game. For example, questions must be asked one person at a time.

After a round of questions, when the players were supposed to send the Dish God back, they must close their eyes and chant, “Dish God, Dish God, please go back,” thrice.

At that point, the Dish God would reset to its original position.

Everyone must finish their questions before the Dish God could be invited to go back.

After inviting the Dish God over, one mustn’t neglect the procedures in sending the Dish God back too.

The mistake they made was that they had discontinued the game right in the middle without allowing everyone to finish their questions and neglecting to send the Dish God back.

Even the girl who had been confessed to, had merely treated the supernatural as an interest and nothing more.

None of them had given much attention to this matter.

After the confession’s success, they had packed up and returned home in anticipation of the overtime pay they would be rewarded the next day.

However, it hadn’t come. What had come instead was the news of the assistant manager’s death.

“Speaking of which, considering that all of you were playing this game in the middle of the night in the company, and someone even died as a result…” Tang Luo asked, “If the deceased hadn’t been the one to suggest it, surely your boss would have been all ready to kill?”

“My boss is heartbroken,” replied Zhang Yuchou. “The assistant manager of the department is his son. Otherwise, how do you think he got that position when he’s so young?”

“…”

“Our office forbids office romances.” Zhang Yuchou supplemented.

“I understand now.” Tang Luo nodded.

Why was this pure and simple supernatural case so grounded in reality?

“I heard from others that the assistant manager’s death was extremely horrifying, as if he had been cut 1,000 times. Blood was everywhere.”

“How did he die?” asked Tang Luo.

“He was sliced to death by the shards of a broken dish,” replied Zhang Yuchou.

“Eh?” Tang Luo raised his eyebrows slightly.