Salted Fish Zombie

Chapter 48.1: Manman (21)

June 24, 2023 by Wyrd

[A general created the world’s first Gu Man Tong using his own son. With him, he was invincible in battles.

My daughter will definitely assist me and help me to be victorious in whatever I pursue.

She will surely become the most formidable Gu Man Tong.]

On that yellowed paper were written words of madness, showcasing the extent of one person’s insanity.

Those absurd words, in the darkest corners, had fluctuations in the handwriting due to excitement.

Those cruel drawings, with the bloodiest parts circled repeatedly.

He possessed a gentle and refined temperament, an extraordinary family background and status, but also a heart driven to madness.

“Fairy tales, do other children know about fairy tales?” the little girl continued to ask.

Ning Su didn’t know how to explain to Manman what a fairy tale was.

In fairy tales, there were little fairies, little elves, but she only knew about little skeletons.

“Ah,” Ning Su said, “Then tonight, I’ll tell you a fairy tale.”

Manman pursed her lips and silently walked through the gate.

“Hmm?”

Sitting on the steps at the entrance of the first floor, waiting for them, was Gui Sheng, who ran towards them as soon as he saw them.

When he got excited or happy, he would run diagonally.

Manman corrected him, “Run straight, running diagonally trips you up, and you’ll end up running crooked.”

Gui Sheng said, “Okay!”

He held Ning Su’s arm and looked up at him.

Ning Su looked at him, then at Manman, and said, “Since neither of you wants to sleep, let me tell you a fairy tale.”

They sat on the grass where the Little Skeleton Band was holding a concert, each holding a cup of coffee, looking quite the part.

Ning Su began by telling the well-known story of the Little Mermaid.

Manman: “She’s so foolish, hurting herself for a man.”

Guisheng: “Hmm! Don’t fall in love with a prince.”

Ning Su: “...”

Ning Su then told the story of Cinderella.

Manman: “Why didn’t she kill her two wicked stepsisters?”

Guisheng: “You can’t kill the good stepsister.”

Ning Su: “...”

He wearily pressed his forehead. “It’s getting late. Let’s go to sleep.”

The three children walked silently upstairs.

When they were about to go to their respective rooms, Ning Su said, “Since we’re all so small and the bed is so big, why don’t we live in the same room as in the castle?”

A two-meter-wide bed was indeed very large for three children aged three, four, and five.

They slept in three directions, like a three-petaled flower, with their heads close together.

They didn’t know when they fell asleep.

When Manman opened her eyes, the other two boys were already awake.

She found them in the backyard.

Ning Su was carrying a basket, picking cherry tomatoes. From his expression, it was evident that he really liked these vegetables and plants.

That woman also liked them.

Two people who liked flowers and plants, yet they were completely different.

One immersed herself in the world of flowers and plants, escaping reality in weakness. She planted flowers and vegetables, as if that would make reality beautiful and bright, as if it would make her a good wife and mother.

One liked flowers, plants, and vegetables, appreciating the food and bright colors they provided in a dark world.

A weak person who turned a blind eye to the imminent death of her own daughter, a person who dared to stand against millions of monster children even with his lack of strength.

Gui Sheng squatted in front of the gardening field for a while and said, “Seeds?”

Ning Su responded loudly from the front, “It will definitely sprout!”

Gui Sheng nodded.

He picked up a small watering can and watered the strange seeds brought by her in the gardening field.

It had been many days since they were planted, but there was no sign of any movement.

When Ning Su turned around, he saw a little girl standing silently at the back door, staring at the gardening field.

Breakfast was eaten in silence.

After Ning Su finished eating and put down his chopsticks, he said, “I have to go out today.”

Gui Sheng raised his little head, “Hmm?”

Manman slowly finished the last sip of soup and said, “So you already know?”

Ning Su said, “I don’t know everything, it would be better if Manman is willing to tell me.”

He only knew that these ghost friends of theirs were indeed Gu Man Tong. And the world currently saw most of them as evil Gu Man Tong, or little ghosts.

They had deep resentment and hostility, so they should be difficult to deal with.

That’s why he wanted to go out, to see Zhu Shuangshuang and Ji Mingrui, he wasn’t too worried about Meng Jiang and Shi Tianzhu.

As for the other things, he wasn’t very clear and had many doubts.

For example, was Manman really the ghost master?

If the ghost friends liked to play with players, aside from tearing some of them apart when they first entered this street, what else would they do?

Manman said, “You can’t enter their house, that’s their domain, just like other players can’t come into our house.”

Ning Su: “Didn’t we enter that little girl with a tattered jacket’s house last night?”

Manman said, “That’s because she was about to vanish, her weak power couldn’t sustain the realm of the house.”

Ning Su remembered that when they first entered this street, when two players were torn apart by five ghost friends, Manman also said something similar.

She asked him if he thought they were cruel, and she said that those five ghost friends would also die.

Ning Su understood the meaning of companionship.

When ghost friends were destroyed, players would die, and vice versa. If players died, the ghost friends would slowly vanish from this world.

This was the second instance Ning Su had entered, and he didn’t understand. He heard at the base that the same instance could be opened indefinitely. If a player died and the ghost friends died with them, what would happen at the next opening of the instance?

Would the ghost friends resurrect and have their memories of this group of players erased, starting anew?

Or would new, countless ghost friends be created, constantly coming to Fairy Tale Town?

If this instance had a ghost master, and it was Manman, Ning Su thought it should be the former possibility. After all, an instance couldn’t change its ghost master.

In that case, Ning Su felt for the first time that it wasn’t just the players who suffered in this endless repetition within the game.

This group of children who had never been treated kindly, who died tragically and turned into vengeful ghosts, repeatedly experienced love and deception, constantly losing or fading away, trapped in an infinite cycle.

Ning Su: “I want to go and try.”

Those five ghost friends would rather vanish than leave a part of the player behind and keep the player company.

What about the other ghost friends?

Ning Su didn’t know what they would do.

He wanted to go and see for himself.

Manman sat quietly there and after a while said, “Go ahead, just remember to come back home.”

Ning Su was slightly stunned.

After finishing their meal, Ning Su left immediately, just as Manman had said, he couldn’t get in. The main gate was right in front of him, he could see the house and even hear the sounds inside, but once he crossed the gate, he couldn’t see the door to enter the house.

These houses, with different styles from different regions, seemed to exist in separate spaces. They blurred the spatial distances, just like the fetus statue on top of the castle and the monster children.

When the ghost friends inside the houses didn’t want to be disturbed by outsiders, the outsiders couldn’t enter. Ning Su stood on the dark, deserted street for a while, then thought it over and went back.

This was each player’s own game. Starting from entering the castle, every choice a player made led to a different outcome, just like life, where others couldn’t interfere.

When he returned, Gui Sheng and Manman were sitting side by side on the steps, waiting for him. Only six days remained out of the original thirty.

Ning Su asked Manman, “Aren’t you going to do something to me?”

Did she really intend to let him easily survive for 30 days, complete the mission, and leave the game? He was a bit unsure whether he had succeeded or failed.

She didn’t even try to keep him.

Manman replied, “I might turn you into one of us. That’s the only way I can keep you here and achieve the same existence.”

The little girl turned her face away, “After all, you’re not bad, and Gui Sheng, my little brother, is also good.”

“Ah,” Ning Su pondered for a moment, “Does that mean you’ll have to chop me into pieces? You might not be able to do that to me.”

He had been a stiff old zombie who had practiced for many years.

“...”

Manman: “I can burn you with fire and even extract corpse oil.”

Ning Su: “It’s a little embarrassing, but I’m not afraid of fire either.”

“...”

Manman: “I have many gruesome and terrifying methods that you can’t even imagine. I will definitely turn you into one of us.”

Ning Su fell silent.

He didn’t know if he should shatter the delicate heart of a young girl.

However, the little girl interpreted his silence differently.

The quiet little girl’s emotions fluctuated greatly. “Do you think I’m wicked and terrifying, not as good as that oil-painted puppet? Yes, I am a devil.”

“Because no one ever expected me to become a human!”

Her birth was meant to turn her into a Gu Man Tong.

Even when she was still in her mother’s womb, that man gave her the name Manman.

In this world, all parents anticipate what kind of person their child would become before or during pregnancy—someone excellent, healthy, or simply happy.

But for her, no one expected her to become a human being.

That man gave her life only to kill her and turn her into a Gu Man Tong.

He was a deranged, obsessed, and insecure person who was completely blinded by power and wealth.

He couldn’t bear mediocrity and had an insatiable desire for power.

Ever since he coincidentally obtained his first Gu Man Tong due to a fortuitous circumstance and received a promotion shortly after, he became addicted, yearning to possess one after another like a drug addict.

Initially, he sought Gu Man Tong through legitimate channels, but he soon became dissatisfied. He began purchasing even more sinister and dark Gu Man Tong from a black-clothed Azan overseas.

Just like an addict, as his power and wealth accumulated, his ambition and desires soared, and the darkness and pathology in his heart gradually spun out of control.

He was not satisfied with simply purchasing from various places; instead, he wanted to create a Gu Man Tong using his own bloodline.

Because he knew that a father created the very first Gu Man Tong in the world using his own son, and that was the most powerful Gu Man Tong.

He believed that only biological children with blood relations could provide the strongest support.

Thus, he developed such a twisted and insane idea.

Thus, this was the purpose of her birth.

The purpose of her birth was to be killed by her biological father and become a vengeful ghost filled with intense resentment, controllable and aiding him in gaining power and status.

From the moment of her birth, she did not drink milk, but human blood and corpse oil, and ate not baby food, but bodies and fresh organs.

From inside to outside, she was filled with evil, poison, and wickedness.

She didn’t understand fairy tales; she didn’t know right from wrong.

She was born as an evil spirit.

Even her own father’s flesh could be eaten.

Because she didn’t know that fathers were not meant to be eaten, her father killed her and ‘ate’ her.

She was a vengeful ghost, a fact that could never be changed.

The little girl ran away, leaving the two boys standing there in confusion.

She stayed alone in her room, not speaking or coming out to eat, regardless of how the two boys knocked on the door.

Only five days remaining out of thirty.

On this day, a huge stone that fell from the sky knocked Ning Su down.

That stone was a hundred times larger than him and could have turned him into a pulp.

Ning Su lay beneath the stone for half an hour, then dug himself out from the other side.