Bizarre Honkai, a Wife-Chasing Crematorium

"Thud… thud… thud…"

The sound faded as the shadowy figure moved further away from the door and window, its footsteps barely audible.

"Is it gone?" Changle asked. "I can't hear the footsteps anymore. Are we safe now?"

"Safe?"

Li Mo glanced at her. Changle instinctively recoiled, her fists clenching, a reflexive response to his gaze.

She found Mingyue's gaze… unsettling, especially his dark, clouded eyes, like those of a corpse, dilated and unfocused.

Li Mo took out his phone, quickly checking the time.

As expected, no ghost could enter the room before 10:30 pm.

After all, in the previous timeline, he had only encountered two ghosts: the portrait ghost possessing the living and Granny Cat-Face assimilating everyone.

Noticing Changle's subtle reaction, Li Mo softened his tone. "From the moment you decided to climb this mountain, safety became a distant memory."

"Every precious gift demands a price."

"Not just for you, but for me as well."

"If you seek an audience with the Immortal and her blessings, you must also accept the possibility of Bizzare contamination and demonic attacks."

"We were never safe, not in the past, not now, and not in the future. Because you have seen these things, you are bound to be entangled by them. There's no escape."

Li Mo turned off his phone. One of his eyes peered through the window, his neck craned above the window frame, like an inverted hanged man, staring at the fleeting light from his phone.

The window screen obscured his face, leaving only a vague outline.

Hanging upside down… without any support, floating in mid-air?

Li Mo noticed that the figure's hands hung limply, like a drowned corpse, not gripping anything.

Like a painting on a wall, except the wall had become something else.

It seemed the portrait ghost required two conditions to be met simultaneously: eye contact and physical touch.

Li Mo hoped it wasn't the air itself; otherwise, he would be constantly touching the portrait ghost and might die just by glancing at it.

"Mingyue…"

"Yes, it hasn't left. It's climbed onto the roof… persistent, desperately searching for another way into the room."

"No, they don't have brains."

Li Mo's expression remained flat. He looked around. Only the window and the door offered access.

The vent above the stove was sealed.

To a ghost, the window was like a wall, not a passage.

The door was the esophagus. They could enter through it and wreak havoc.

But only if someone opened it for them.

Both the ghost stomach and the Head Ghost were dormant. The ghost stomach couldn't open its esophagus on its own, so the esophagus could only be opened manually.

In the previous timeline, the group in the room had been annihilated because they hadn't considered this, and the portrait ghost, disguised as one of them, had opened the door, allowing Granny Cat-Face to enter unimpeded.

Perhaps Granny Cat-Face hadn't even needed to act. The others might have triggered the portrait ghost's killing rule through touch and eye contact.

Granny Cat-Face had just come to collect a few heads, turning the derivatives into her kind.

Li Mo pondered. Based on the current information, not opening the door gave them a high chance of survival.

The ghosts couldn't enter, and if they didn't leave, they wouldn't trigger any rules.

Even though Li Mo's flashlight had attracted their attention, they hadn't tried to break in.

They were simple ghosts, incapable of complex thought.

If they had human-like intelligence, the door wouldn't have stopped them.

But they were just mindless beings, following their own rules, incapable of such ingenuity.

Their only attempt was the knocking, a habit from their previous lives, waiting for a response, completely harmless.

"Don't act rashly. Firing the gun and damaging the room might disrupt the balance between the rules. That's probably what that demon outside wants."

"A ghost that enjoys scaring people."

Li Mo's gaze was calm as he stared at the forehead of the assassin possessed by the portrait ghost.

He felt no emotion, almost bored.

"Balance of rules?" Changle learned more new terms from Mingyue, concepts she had never heard of before.

"You don't need to know this. Just do as I say. I don't mind keeping you alive. I told you during the climb, following me was a wise choice. However, it was also the most reckless choice. You shouldn't have come."

Changle lowered her head, unable to argue.

Judging by the current situation, Mingyue was absolutely right. So many talented individuals had perished.

Only she, protected by her jade pendant, and two assassins had survived, thanks to Mingyue's guidance.

"Can we… survive the night just by maintaining the status quo?" Changle asked cautiously.

"No. There's another demon, Granny Cat-Face, the one we encountered during the climb. Avoid eye contact with her and act according to the situation."

Changle's eyes widened in disbelief. She bit her lip, finally asking, "How do you know that… Granny Cat-Face will come?"

"..."

Li Mo paused, weighing the pros and cons of revealing the truth.

He couldn't tell her about his restart ability. Changle was suspected of having some unknown Bizzare contamination, and he didn't need to reveal his trump card to a stranger.

Moreover, this stranger might be a Bizzare Entity herself.

He would never trust information from someone directly involved, even if she was a princess.

Fabricating a lie was the most practical solution. In Li Mo's current mental state, deceiving her would be easy.

But there was no need.

He didn't even want to explain. There was no need to engage too much with a potential Bizzare Entity. He owed her nothing.

The prolonged silence changed the atmosphere in the room, making it slightly awkward, the air almost freezing.

"Meow…"

A sharp, piercing meow broke the silence.

Good news and bad news arrived simultaneously. Li Mo and Changle tensed.

"Meow…"

Another meow. A new silhouette appeared outside the door.

The portrait ghost, hanging upside down outside the window, suddenly fell to the ground, stood up stiffly, and walked to the door.

Now, two ghosts were gathered at the entrance.

"What should we do now?" Changle asked urgently.

In her judgment, the assassins wouldn't open the door due to their training, but Granny Cat-Face wouldn't care about such things. The martial artists who hadn't followed Mingyue were all dead.

Most martial artists were unrestrained and uninhibited. If Granny Cat-Face came from the common folk or the martial world, she might actually push the door open.

Mingyue had repeatedly warned them not to let any demon into the room.

Changle wasn't stupid. If a demon entered, something unknown would happen, and they would no longer be safe, the room no longer a sanctuary.

Thinking of this, Changle gripped the Bizzare Handgun, putting aside her questions about Mingyue's precognitive abilities.

"The moment the door is destroyed, shoot immediately. I'll handle the rest. Just don't die. But only if the door is destroyed. Don't shoot prematurely."

Li Mo clenched his left hand, walking towards Granny Cat-Face and the portrait ghost, separated only by a flimsy wooden door.

Two silhouettes outside: one tall, the adult portrait ghost, and one hunched, Granny Cat-Face.

The hunched figure opened its mouth several times, trying to speak, but some Bizzare force prevented it.

Changle hadn't noticed that Mingyue had said "destroyed," not "opened."

Li Mo understood the logic of Bizzare Entities. When facing another Bizzare force, they would experience a kind of lag or bug, like a computer program, taking time to process.

With so many intertwined rules, some lower-priority rules would inevitably be suppressed.

The room was a relatively complete ghost. Before being partially devoured by the Head Ghost, it had comprised the Blood of Decay, the stove, the portrait, and itself—four ghosts in total.

But the room itself probably shouldn't be counted; it was more like a boundary.

Right now, the ghost stomach room and the Head Ghost were both dormant, but the residual rules were definitely not something incomplete, single-entity ghosts like the portrait ghost and Granny Cat-Face could easily overcome.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The frantic knocking was proof of this. Granny Cat-Face had joined the portrait ghost, tirelessly pounding on the door.

Li Mo narrowed his eyes, glancing back at the dormant Head Ghost…

The assassin possessed by the portrait ghost wasn't knocking due to his habits from when he was alive, but because of some rule of the room. Knocking was the only way for it to enter.

"Mingyue, Mingyue?"

"Yes?"

"What if the door breaks from the knocking?"

Changle, from a mortal's perspective, raised a very practical question.

If it had been earlier, Li Mo might have quipped, "If a door governed by Bizzare rules could be broken by physical force, I'd twist my head off and give it to you."

But he wasn't in the mood now. His emotional center had almost completely shut down.

"The door won't break."

"Um… I understand."

Changle looked uneasily at the shaking wooden door. Logically, if the demons outside kept knocking, an ordinary wooden door would break.

But for now, she could only comfort herself with the thought that Mingyue was right.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The knocking continued, the wooden door shaking like a leaf in the wind, as if the ghosts outside were about to break it down.

Li Mo remained motionless. If the door was destroyed, he would be the first in their path.

But the door was the ghost stomach's esophagus; it couldn't be opened by physical force. Certain conditions had to be met.

For example: a living person.

A living person could freely enter and exit the ghost stomach, simply pushing the "esophagus" open.

After all, one of the ghost stomach's rules was to digest the people inside.

This was easy to understand.

However…

"A living person can enter the ghost stomach without restriction, so what conditions must a ghost fulfill to enter?"

"The loudness of the knocking? The frequency?"

"Since the portrait ghost and Granny Cat-Face haven't given up, it means there must be another way for a ghost to enter, besides a living person opening the door."

Li Mo murmured. The portrait ghost outside still showed no reaction, which meant sound wasn't the trigger.

His intuition told him he needed to figure out this condition to minimize the risk of being attacked at night.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

"..."

Suddenly, the knocking stopped. Granny Cat-Face and the portrait ghost began to pace around the room, just like the portrait ghost earlier, as if waiting for something.

"Is it over?"

"Wait…"

Li Mo glanced back at the dormant Head Ghost, the empty stove, and the missing portrait.

A bold hypothesis formed in his mind.

They knew there were living people inside and wanted to enter and kill them.

"They know I'm here, but they've suddenly stopped trying to enter."

"Not because they've given up, but because they've been repelled, their rules clashing with the room's."

"The ghosts outside want to come in, but the dormant ghost stomach is preventing them. Due to the clash of rules, the portrait ghost and Granny Cat-Face have stopped trying to enter. Since the room doesn't have the main hall's blocking ability, they'll linger nearby."

"Waiting…"

"They're waiting for more ghosts. Ghosts don't need to fulfill any specific conditions to enter; they just need enough numbers to overwhelm the ghost stomach's threshold."

"This might be the truth. It all makes sense."

"But how do I verify this?"

Bold hypothesis, careful verification. It was time for verification.

Testing Bizzare rules was a life-or-death gamble, but Li Mo still had two restarts. If he overused his Bizzare powers, he would only have one left.

Restarts couldn't be used carelessly, only for crucial information worth risking his life for.

"The combined knocking force of the portrait ghost and Granny Cat-Face isn't that strong. The door seems to be able to withstand more."

"Two ghosts outside, only one Head Ghost inside…"

"But the Head Ghost devoured the stove, the portrait, and the Blood of Decay, plus itself, that's four ghosts."

"The Bizzare Handgun, the thermometer, and the Bizzare Coins Pardofelis created shouldn't count as ghosts."

"If they did, there would be at least six ghosts inside, and the ghost stomach's 'esophagus' wouldn't be shaking so violently."

"So Bizzare items aren't counted in the clash of rules."

Li Mo looked down at his left hand, the limb he had obtained in the world Yae Kasumi created through memetic contamination, possessing some Bizzare properties.

Did this hand count as a ghost?

"No, it shouldn't… My left hand is attached to me, and the ghost stomach recognizes me as a living person, so the Bizzare Bud left hand would naturally be classified as part of a living being."

"Four ghosts is the room's limit."

Li Mo had figured out the maximum number of ghosts the room could withstand. Once the number of ghosts outside exceeded this limit, the ghost stomach's "esophagus" would be breached…