Gao Tian stood on a deserted park path, holding the urn and lost in thought for a long time.

’So the question is, should I play this game?’

It seemed Gao Tian didn’t have much of a choice.

From the beginning, he was frantically hunted by a ghost. The taxi driver had looked at him like a man already dead before leaving. Now, he finally had a way to fight back, a chance to reclaim some small measure of control over his own destiny. This was already a huge step forward.

Even if it was a sliver of hope so faint as to be negligible, he had to grasp it. He couldn’t just stand there foolishly, waiting for the malevolent spirit to come find him.

Besides, even if the urn’s game was an unknown, the potential rewards were enormous. If he succeeded, he wouldn’t just survive this ordeal; he could even seal the red-eyed man inside it and, in turn, obtain its pattern for killing.

It was a complete reversal of the natural order. Simply incredible.

’According to the instruction manual, the holder should take the urn back to the initial scene of the haunting for the best effect, right?’

Gao Tian had been on the third floor of Ping Shui Apartments when he opened the black package. That’s when the red-eyed man appeared out of thin air in the alley and started hunting him. So, the best strategy now was to return to his third-floor apartment in Ping Shui Apartments. The starting point of it all.

’Since the red-eyed man isn’t coming for me, I’ll go to it.’

As Gao Tian walked along the park path, he initially thought about making some preparations before heading back. But on second thought, there was no point. The game arranged by the urn was completely random. How could anyone prepare for that?

Gao Tian rode a shared bike on the way back.

At the entrance of Ping Shui Apartments, late at night, the security guards in the guardhouse had all vanished, gone who-knows-where. When he got back to his building, Building 3, he found the entrance hastily cordoned off with police tape—a blockade that was purely for show.

It was probably just as the taxi driver had said. So many supernatural incidents had been happening lately that even the police couldn’t handle them anymore.

The whole of society was already in a state of semi-collapse, with terrifying things happening all around every day. The normal life Gao Tian had known had, at some point, ceased to exist.

That night, he finally saw the world for what it truly was.

Gao Tian casually tore down the police tape and walked into the stairwell.

The voice-activated lights, triggered by his footsteps, made a SIZZLING sound. They flickered on and off, unable to illuminate the stairwell as they normally would.

Gao Tian’s footsteps echoed with a dull thud on the stairs.

Unlike when he fled Ping Shui Apartments, he made no effort to hide the sound of his footsteps. On the contrary, Gao Tian was waiting for the ghost to find him. He was deliberately revealing his location to lure it out.

No matter what, he would bring everything to a definitive end tonight.

In the dark hallway, Gao Tian felt like he had stepped on something sticky. A black liquid was seeping out from under the door of a neighboring apartment, pooling across most of the floor and reeking of blood.

He passed other apartments whose doors were wide open, even at three or four in the morning, revealing pitch-black interiors completely devoid of any human sound.

Gao Tian ignored these bizarre and unsettling sights. He just carried the urn, his face expressionless, as he passed the second floor and walked up to the third.

He patted his coat pocket and realized he’d been in such a rush to leave that he had forgotten his keys. He’d thought he might not be able to get back in, but when he reached his own front door, he found that the security door—as thick as a book—had been mostly torn from its hinges by some terrifying, monstrous force. It was completely warped and ruined.

’It’s a strength unimaginable for a human.’

’My decision to leave immediately instead of trying to fight it head-on with a baseball bat was one hundred percent correct.’

Gao Tian bent down and slipped back into his home through the large, shattered hole.

The inside of the apartment was wrecked beyond recognition. The bed, wardrobe, and desk had all been thrown about and smashed, turning the room into a pile of rubble. A thick, metallic scent of blood drifted from the kitchen, which was piled high with black, unidentifiable junk, and the air hummed with the BUZZ of flies.

It seemed that after the red-eyed man had crawled into his home and not found him, it had vented its rage on the apartment. Only then had it left Ping Shui Apartments to continue its pursuit all the way to the park.

Gao Tian didn’t go to check the kitchen. Instead, he found a relatively open spot and sat down. He placed the urn in front of him and quietly awaited his fate.

That thing did not keep him waiting long.

A moment later, the sound of heavy footsteps came from the hallway outside. The owner of the footsteps drew closer and closer, pausing silently for a moment after reaching Gao Tian’s front door. Then, from the inner room, Gao Tian heard the sound of the entire security door being forced open. The owner of the footsteps walked in and continued toward the inner room.

’It’s here.’

As the distance between them shrank, every muscle in Gao Tian’s body tensed up again.

He was separated from the ghost by just a thin wall. To be honest, at this very moment, Gao Tian was starting to feel a pang of regret. He began to wonder if coming back on his own had been a wise choice. Maybe it would have been better to stay in the park. The malevolent spirit had stopped chasing him then, after all.

After all, compared to a human, a ghost’s power was simply overwhelming. Once it found him, all it had to do was kill him on the spot. It didn’t need to sit down and play some bullshit game with him.

Now, his only hope was that this urn truly had the effect described in the instruction manual.

With a CRASH, the wooden door, as flimsy as a piece of paper, was kicked in by the visitor from outside.

The humanoid silhouette standing in the doorway stepped inside, one foot at a time. Its eyes, so red they seemed to be bleeding, glowed with an ominous light in the darkness.

The two Gao Tians met.

Gao Tian saw that the ghost had copied his face almost perfectly. The only differences were its deathly pale skin and its turbid, scarlet eyes. It was also missing its right eye. Without that single flaw, it would have been completely identical to him.

After encountering Gao Tian, "Gao Tian" didn’t attack immediately. It just stood in the doorway. The two Gao Tians observed each other.

This continued until the urn in front of Gao Tian slowly opened on its own, untouched. Countless specks of grayish-white powder from the bottom flew out as if scrambling over each other, like a living waterfall, scattering and dancing in the air of the dark room.

At the same time, a set of strange rules took shape automatically in the minds of both Gao Tian and "Gao Tian":

"Congratulations, you have drawn the simplest game: Rock, Paper, Scissors!

"The rules of the game are quite ordinary: Rock crushes Scissors, Scissors cuts Paper, Paper covers Rock. You will play a best-of-three match. The first to win two rounds will win the game.

"In the event of a tie, the round is void and you will proceed to the next one.

"The rules have now been fully explained. Please begin the game as soon as possible.

"If a winner has not been decided after ten minutes, then both parties, be they human or ghost, will be declared losers and imprisoned within the urn." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

...

The game they had drawn was Rock, Paper, Scissors—a game even a child could play.

The game involved almost no strategy; victory was 99 percent luck.

Furthermore, as Gao Tian listened to the rules, he noticed that the "Gao Tian" opposite him was motionless, its face devoid of expression. It was clearly listening intently to the urn’s rules as well.

Without a doubt, the urn was working. Although he didn’t know how, it was clear that even a ghost this powerful had to completely abide by the rules set by the supernatural object, unable to overstep them in the slightest.

Realizing this, Gao Tian relaxed slightly. Even if it was just a game of pure luck, at least he had a chance to win. That was infinitely better than his first encounter with the red-eyed man, when he had been chased through the streets like a stray dog, only to be killed like one by the roadside.

Just before the game began, Gao Tian looked up at his opponent and tried to communicate with it.

After all, the chance to have a face-to-face chat with a ghost wasn’t something you got every day. It might even be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

He was so tense he had looped back around to being completely relaxed. ’Even if I’m going to die, I might as well not die with a long face.’

Gao Tian:

"Hey, even though you’re a ghost, you must have been alive once, right?

"Do you still have your memories from when you were human? What does it feel like to be a ghost?

"I’ve always been curious. For a malevolent spirit like you, filled with so much hatred and constantly hunting the living, is it really that much fun?

"Also, why are you so fixated on taking my appearance? What will happen when you’ve completely transformed into my exact likeness?"

"Gao Tian’s" blood-red pupils just stared at Gao Tian, turbid and emotionless. Its sharp, thin lips remained sealed, not uttering a sound.

’Looks like this filthy thing refuses to communicate with me.’

’If the urn weren’t here suppressing it, it probably couldn’t even be bothered to stop at the doorway. It would have just come in and torn me to pieces.’

Since the malevolent spirit was so introverted and disliked chatting, Gao Tian didn’t press it.

The first round of the best-of-three Rock, Paper, Scissors match began.

One human, one ghost, they swung their arms at the same time.

To say Rock, Paper, Scissors is a game of 100 percent luck isn’t entirely true. It contains a bit of strategy and counter-strategy that can slightly increase one’s win rate.

For example, statistics show that in the first round, people are most likely to throw "Rock," with a probability as high as 37.5%.

This is because "Rock" is a fist, and a fist gives the player a sense of power and control.

Therefore, to counter the ghost, Gao Tian should logically throw "Paper."