Return my money? Yes. Return my life? No.-Something’s Not Right with This Healing Game(Words lacking in substance are as disgraceful as coarse speech.)

After listening to the headless girl’s account, Chen Sheng simply nodded calmly and said, “Let’s head inside. Just stay close to me.”

To Chen Sheng, this was nothing more than a hidden backstory of the ghost town. Or, more precisely, this was the healing game using this “NPC” to provide him with some clues about the town.

Such techniques were common. As long as the game wasn’t something like a matching puzzle or a block-stacking challenge, any exploration-driven game would use this sort of method to convey information to the player. Hints half-veiled and half-revealed, always guiding the player onward.

In short, there was nothing remarkable about it.

However, Chen Sheng’s air of effortless composure left the headless girl momentarily bewildered. Hadn’t she made it perfectly clear? There was a ghost in the town ascending to the rank of a vengeful spirit—yet this man showed not a flicker of concern.

But soon enough, the headless girl collected herself. If he had no reaction, so be it—at least he wasn’t driving her away!

“Oh, okay!” she quickly responded twice, her severed head beaming with joy.

Chen Sheng then strode into the town of his own accord.

Golden Town at night was especially deserted. Perhaps it was well past midnight; all the households were fast asleep, and as he walked the streets, not a soul could be seen.

Chen Sheng paid it no mind. A ghost town where the living entered and only the dead left—such an eerie atmosphere was only to be expected. Even in real life, an escape room or haunted house would go to great lengths to set the mood!

Besides, this healing game didn’t even bother with a warm, comforting background theme.

“Where are we going?” the headless girl asked as she trailed beside Chen Sheng, her head swiveling as she watched the curses being repelled from all around.

“Aren’t you taking me to find that Reincarnator?” Chen Sheng glanced at her.

He couldn’t see the curses in the wind.

To him, the headless girl’s constant head-spinning simply seemed odd. Then again, maybe she was pretending to be a bamboo dragonfly.

With that thought, he let it slide.

The headless girl, on the other hand, shuddered at his glance before hurriedly leading the way.

“This way. Over there, there are no houses—just a river, and past it, an abandoned building. He lives in that building…”

It wasn’t far, so they arrived quickly. However, the building was empty.

Still, Chen Sheng noticed signs that someone had lived there for some time. He just couldn’t tell when the person had left or for how long they had stayed before departing.

“What’s your relationship with this Reincarnator?” Chen Sheng asked.

“There’s not really any connection. He came from another region to mine for gold, but he was cheated. I happened to pass by one day and saw he had nothing to eat, so I lent him my pocket money, and then…”

“And then you got to know him?”

The headless girl shook her head. “Then he came to borrow money again the next day.”

Chen Sheng hadn’t expected this twist: “…”

He suppressed a silent complaint and quickly asked, “When did he become a Reincarnator? Did he tell you?”

“He did. He told me,” the headless girl nodded. “It was the fifth day after I met him. He was overjoyed and said he’d become a Reincarnator and could soon repay me. And then he borrowed my pocket money again…”

As she spoke, her expression twisted, and a ghastly green light flickered in her eyes. Malice seemed to plunge the temperature of the building several degrees lower. “He owes me exactly one hundred Dao Coins! And to this day, he hasn’t paid me back! I have to find him! No matter where he runs, I’ll find him and make him pay me back!”

Chen Sheng’s mouth twitched again: “…”

To be honest, when he saw the headless girl’s odd mood as she recalled the past, he’d thought it was going to be a melodramatic tale of tragic love.

Who would have thought it was just about unpaid debt…

Watching the headless girl nearly reveal her true form from the anger of being owed money, Chen Sheng found there were too many things to ridicule, and he was too weary to try.

Still, considering the girl’s age and the purchasing power of Dao Coins here, a hundred Dao Coins was no small sum in real-world terms.

After all, a late-night barbecue here cost only eight Dao Coins.

Even high-paying jobs offered only five hundred Dao Coins a month.

So this headless girl was practically a little rich lady among “NPCs.”

Chen Sheng considered it, thinking there might be valuable clues to dig up here—perhaps even a side quest with generous rewards.

So he consoled her, “You have to look on the bright side. See, this place has been abandoned for so long, and there’s nothing of value left—but that doesn’t mean he ran away. Maybe he died on a Reincarnation Quest? From what I know, Reincarnators have to complete specific tasks, and if they fail, the Main God kills them.”

But as soon as Chen Sheng finished, the headless girl’s aura darkened further. The ghostly green glow in her eyes blazed up, nearly becoming twin beams.

“Then I’ll never get my money back?”

With a low growl, she seemed to turn sinister, black miasma curling around her.

She had transformed from a benign ghost to a fierce specter.

“Give me back my money!”

The headless girl bared her fangs and claws, emitting a shrill, terrifying howl.

Chen Sheng’s lips twitched again: “…”

As frightening as she looked—perfectly in line with every evil ghost trope—her line was just…

“Give me back my money?”

Shouldn’t it be “Give me back my life?”

Shouting about money—her aura had taken a nosedive!

Then, Chen Sheng once again “summoned” his “beginner’s gear.”

When he’d entered the town earlier, he had “put away” this “beginner’s gear.”

In the past, he’d always felt foolish running around with weapons drawn in games. Yet, the game companies that only cared about reskinning templates and raking in cash, pouring fortunes into advertising, never saw it that way.

It had left Chen Sheng with some lingering resentment.

So, when he found that the “beginner’s gear” in this healing game could be stowed or summoned at will, he made a habit of putting it away after use, only calling it forth when necessary.

As soon as the gallows appeared, the headless girl—nothing more than a hapless, low-level ghost—immediately sobered up. She snapped out of her sinister frenzy, cowering in the corner with her head in her hands.

“Sob, sob… I don’t want the money anymore…”