novelraw Chapter 15 : Silent Companion
Chapter 15 : Silent Companion
Chapter 15: Silent Companion
Jiang City Funeral Home.
This was the end point of the city’s noise, where the air all year round carried a peculiar smell—a mix of disinfectant and burning incense.
For most people, this was a place of taboo and sorrow. But for Su Wan, it was both her home and her workplace.
On the day the game began, Su Wan was restoring the facial features of an old man who had died in a car accident.
Wearing a mask and gloves, she moved the repair needle and tweezers deftly between her slender fingers. Her expression was focused and devout, as if she were restoring a precious work of art.
When that cold oracle sounded in her mind, her hand only paused slightly before resuming its steady motion.
【Welcome to ‘Game of Gods’】
【Matching player identity and faction】
【Identity match complete】
【Faction match complete】
【Player: Su Wan】
【Identity: Mortician】
【Faction: Radiance】
【Death, for you, is not an end but a new beginning】
……
Su Wan neither panicked nor rejoiced. She simply accepted the fact in silence, then continued her meticulous work.
For a girl who had grown up among corpses and had long been accustomed to life and death, nothing was more important than the respect she owed to the departed before her.
The game had not changed Su Wan’s life much.
She still went to work and went home on schedule, tending to the dead and comforting grieving families.
Among all the players, Su Wan was the quietest.
She was like a spider lurking in its web, calmly digesting the game’s rules and using her extraordinary composure to understand the essence of this cruel contest.
To survive—that was the only rule.
Until the notice came of 【Hermit】Li Ming’s death.
That cold system prompt was the first time Su Wan’s tranquil heart rippled.
Li Ming’s unnatural death filled her with both anger and unease.
She began to observe the world around her with an almost obsessive attention to detail.
The funeral home was her domain. Every stir of the wind, every falling leaf’s path—none escaped her eyes.
Soon, she discovered something abnormal.
The crows and stray cats that usually fought over offerings had subtly changed their behavior.
They no longer foraged or played at random but instead perched like trained sentinels on fixed vantage points—rooftops, treetops, telephone poles—turning their heads rhythmically, as if watching the entire area.
Sharp-minded Su Wan immediately realized this was another player’s ability.
Someone had established a vast reconnaissance network with animals as its nodes.
Friend or foe?
She couldn’t tell.
But she decided to test it.
The next morning, as usual, Su Wan opened the second-floor window of her workspace to air it out.
Her calm gaze swept toward the rooftop opposite, where a crow was clearly watching her.
Slowly, she raised her hand and brushed aside the loose strands of hair by her temples.
Then, looking straight at the crow, she pronounced two words, one by one.
“Radiance.”
After that, Su Wan ignored the crow, turned around, and continued her day’s work as though nothing had happened.
……
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, in the zoo dormitory.
Yang Li lay on her bed with her eyes closed. Her consciousness was like a massive network server, connected simultaneously to thousands of moving “cameras.”
She saw police deploying across the city. She saw Sun Na and Zhang Jie hiding in that abandoned factory.
She even saw, through a rat that had crawled into the sewer, Wang Defa sneaking out of a KTV bar.
At that moment, one of the “crow cameras” from the western city funeral home transmitted an unusual image.
In the image, a girl in a plain long dress, her face delicate and pale, was saying something to the crow’s lens.
Yang Li immediately switched her consciousness into that crow and replayed the footage over and over.
“Ra…diance…”
Yang Li abruptly sat up, a trace of both joy and caution flashing in her eyes.
A teammate!
She had actually discovered a teammate this way!
Who was this girl?
How had she detected her surveillance network?
Yang Li immediately mobilized all “cameras” near the funeral home to observe the girl from every angle.
Then she discovered that this girl, named Su Wan, lived a life so simple it bordered on dullness—she went only between the workspace and her dorm, never once leaving the funeral home grounds.
Yet her powers of observation were terrifyingly sharp.
It was as if she had an instinctive control over her surroundings.
This was an extremely cautious and exceptionally intelligent player.
Yang Li pondered for a moment, then decided to respond to Su Wan’s test.
But she did not go in person.
Until she could be certain the other was completely trustworthy, keeping a safe distance was the best choice.
……
The next morning.
Su Wan once again pushed open her workspace window.
Out of habit, she glanced at the opposite rooftop—the same crow was still perched there.
But today, something new lay on her spotless windowsill.
A small scrap of notebook paper, slightly dampened by dew.
Su Wan’s eyes narrowed slightly. She put on gloves and carefully picked up the note.
On it, written in neat pencil handwriting, was a single line:
“The sky and the earth are both watching you, my friend. —【Beast Tamer】”
Su Wan stared at the words, and at last, a faint, almost imperceptible ripple stirred within her calm eyes.
She stepped to the window and said to the crow, “If you need help, you can come to me. But I won’t leave this place.”
The funeral home was Su Wan’s domain—her fortress.
As long as she remained here, she had absolute confidence she could handle anything.
After that, Su Wan placed the note—along with her written analyses and hypotheses on the powers of all known players, gathered from recent online news—into a locked drawer.
Then she changed into her work uniform and prepared for another day, as though everything that had just happened was nothing more than a trivial episode in the morning.
Meanwhile, in the zoo, Yang Li—watching Su Wan’s reply through the eyes of a crow—shrugged helplessly.
“All right, a shut-in support player.”
Although slightly disappointed that the other was unwilling to come out and fight alongside her, Yang Li understood her caution.
At least now, she had a confirmed ally.
Even if that ally was more than ten kilometers away.
But through her animal companions, that distance was no obstacle.
A silent companion—one that made Yang Li feel she was no longer alone.