chapter 13

Night fell, and the atmosphere at the dinner table hit rock bottom.

Even Wang Meng, who had always been their de facto leader, lost his drive. At this point, even he no longer believed that a 100% death rate was just some Instance bug.

For a level-zero Instance, normally from entry to exit, the number of deaths rarely exceeded three. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have come here to grind experience.

Now look at them. Only two nights in, their clues were still a mess, the mission had no clear direction, and three people were already dead.

They finished eating without much conversation and silently went back to their rooms.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to share clues-they were just afraid that the information they’d traded clues for would turn out to be worthless.

After washing up, Chu Yue and Shen Yubi lay on the bed, going over the day’s discoveries.

Shen Yubi sounded a bit disgruntled. “Brother, your charm’s not that great, huh. That woman on the 4th Floor didn’t give us anything useful at all.”

It wasn’t that the woman didn’t know; she simply told them to investigate on their own. The only concrete answer she’d given was something they already knew.

“It wasn’t completely useless,” Chu Yue said calmly. “At least we got to bump the probability of Li Ergou’s Wife being a player from 99.999% up to 100%.”

“…Well, when you put it that way, it’s not wrong,” Shen Yubi admitted. “Right, what do you think about that letter in the wooden box?”

Chu Yue opened his eyes and thought back to what he’d seen earlier that day. He pondered for a few seconds. “I do have a bit of an idea, but it’s only a guess. We’ll go to the Plaza tomorrow and take another look.”

There wasn’t that much information in that letter. It was a suicide note Li Ergou’s Wife had prepared long beforehand.

She hadn’t explicitly stated her identity, but she did mention how the townsfolk rejected all Outsiders and would never accept her. She told Li Ergou not to lose himself because of her and not to do anything foolish.

Calling it a suicide note, it felt more like a reserved, roundabout love letter.

Using the contents of the letter as a springboard, the two of them exchanged a few opinions. In the middle of their discussion, a sudden knocking sounded on the door.

Wang Meng’s voice came from outside. “You two still awake? Come out and talk for a bit?”

Chu Yue got up and opened the door just a crack, only revealing half his body. Looking at the two standing outside, his voice was cool. “What is it?”

Wang Meng didn’t mind his attitude. He raised his hand, revealing the sheets of paper in his hand. “Want to trade information?”

With just one glance, Chu Yue recognized where they were from-Li Ergou’s house.

Thin paper with black characters faintly visible… it made him think of the empty wooden box in the right-hand drawer.

Even so, his attitude didn’t change. He simply said, neatly and directly, that he was fine with it.

After waiting a moment and not seeing Chu Yue make a move, Wang Meng’s roommate couldn’t hold back. “What about your clue? We risked our necks to get this from Li Ergou’s house. It might even be the key clue. What are you going to trade for it?”

Hearing that, Chu Yue shifted his gaze from the sheets of paper to Wang Meng. “These were in the wooden box in the study, right?”

Wang Meng didn’t answer, but his roommate’s face showed a flicker of surprise, and Chu Yue knew he’d guessed correctly.

He let the corner of his mouth curl up slightly. “I found another wooden box that was hidden away. My information might be more valuable than yours.”

A glint flashed in Wang Meng’s eyes. He couldn’t tell whether Chu Yue was bluffing, but time was tight, and he quickly made a decision.

Gritting his teeth, he handed the papers over and stared straight at Chu Yue. “I want to see what was in the other box.”

Chu Yue took the clue and lowered his head to read as he called back into the room, “Xiao Yu, let Brother Wang take a look at what you found earlier today.”

Compared to the handwriting they’d seen during the day, the clue Wang Meng brought had no advantage beyond being written in simplified characters. It was clearly written by Li Ergou.

[April 16, Rain, 16℃

Today the Town Chief called me over. The rain was coming down pretty hard. I had an umbrella, but I still ended up soaked through. I felt a little cold.

I had a bad feeling. It’s finally my turn for that matter.

The Town Chief’s office lights were off. He sat behind his desk, staring straight at me. The wrinkles on his tangerine-peel face made him look a bit scary, but I wasn’t afraid.

When he spoke, it was exactly what I’d expected. I didn’t want to make that deal with him, but then he mentioned Brother Youxiang. Brother Youxiang and his family refused, and in the end they wound up scattered-wife gone, children gone.

I knew he was threatening me. This town is like that. They reject all Outsiders, to the point of madness. There’s nowhere I can run.

I couldn’t refuse. Honestly, it’s not even that hard a job for me. Yes, I agreed to the Town Chief’s deal.

From now on I can give my wife a better life. We’ll have adorable children. They’ll never know what a rotten man I really am.]

[April 24, Clear, 20℃

Business has picked up. Everyone in town buys their meat from me. I’m pretty happy, but I also feel a bit uneasy.

After I finished that thing, the Town Chief gave me some sedatives. I took them; something really wasn’t right with me.

Maybe taking the medicine is what’s wrong. I feel like I’ve forgotten something important. I can’t remember what the deal with the Town Chief was about at all.

The Town Chief said our transaction was already complete and it didn’t matter if I forgot.

But deep down, I can’t help suspecting that the deal wasn’t as simple as I thought. There must be something about it that I don’t know.
If his wife found out, would she be angry?]

There were two clues in total, looking like diary pages.

But the first page had a huge X drawn across it, with “He lied to me!” written on the side. The four characters bristled with resentment; when the exclamation mark at the end was written, the pen tip had stabbed right through the paper.

“From these two pages of Li Ergou’s diary, we can see that the Instance we entered is very likely a scam.” Wang Meng took the clue back, fury in his eyes. “A premeditated slaughter.”

Otherwise, the death rate would never be a hundred percent. It just seemed that now, the two cooperating sides had fallen out.

Chu Yue understood what he meant, but didn’t pick up the thread.

“Xiao Yu.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” Shen Yubi wriggled his way out from beside Chu Yue and held something out in front of Wang Meng. “This is it.”

“What is that!”

The moment he saw the Pearl Hair Clip in Shen Yubi’s hand, Li Jia couldn’t stop himself from shrieking.

“We give you such important clues, and you try to fob us off with some crappy hair clip?”

“What crappy hair clip? Do you even know how to talk? This is a clue I found! The fact that it wasn’t sitting on Li Ergou’s Wife’s dressing table proves it’s a clue, okay? Do you get that? If you don’t want to look, fine by me.” Shen Yubi was not the type to humor him. As he spoke, he started to pull his hand back, but Wang Meng was quicker and intercepted him.

“Of course we’ll look. I still trust the character of you two little brothers. Since you say you found it in another wooden box, then it has to be an important clue.”

As he spoke, he picked up the hair clip and examined it carefully.

But a hair clip was just a hair clip; by itself it didn’t contain much information.

Wang Meng turned it over in his hands for a long time and failed to see anything, so he had no choice but to hand it back.

The two sides quickly exchanged clues, then hurried back to their own rooms while there was still time.

Lights off. Back in bed.

Shen Yubi nudged Chu Yue’s arm. “Well? Is the clue Wang Meng gave us useful? What did it say?”

Chu Yue tugged the blanket up and replied, “Pretty useful. It looks like Li Ergou’s diary. But Wang Meng definitely kept some of it for himself.”

Then he synced up everything he’d just read with Shen Yubi.

That bit of information wasn’t nearly enough for Wang Meng to be so sure this Instance was a scam.

But for them, it really was useful.

“Li Ergou’s Wife is a player-an Outsider. Aside from a handful of exceptions, a lot of the townsfolk rejected her. To let his wife live in the town, Li Ergou made some kind of deal with the Town Chief. His butcher shop started booming, and his wife was allowed to stay in town. But in the end, his wife still died. It was the Town Chief who broke their agreement.”

Chu Yue paused when he finished. “That’s about it. But there are still some points that don’t make sense.”

Shen Yubi picked up where he left off. “The contradiction is whether Li Ergou lied or not.”

Chu Yue: “Right.”

“If Li Ergou knew his wife was dead, he wouldn’t have said she went back to her parents’ home. But if he didn’t know she was dead, why would he say the Town Chief tricked him?

“And the fact that Li Ergou forgot the contents of his deal with the Town Chief is also very suspicious. Maybe Wang Meng is right, and this really is a scam.

“Not just targeting Li Ergou, but the players too.

“First use Li Ergou’s Wife to trick him into making a deal, then have Li Ergou release a fake quest to generate an Instance and lure players in to be slaughtered?”

Chu Yue was a newcomer; he didn’t really understand how things worked in the Nightmare Trading Center.

But since Wang Meng could come up with that theory, maybe this kind of thing was allowed?

Then why would they do it? What benefit did killing players bring them?

If it was for food, that obviously didn’t hold up.

Today, the Woman on the 4th Floor had said the new batch of meat had a sour taste. That meant the meat they’d been eating before was regular pork; they weren’t used to the taste of human flesh.

Shen Yubi agreed with Chu Yue about the goal of Li Ergou’s deal with the Town Chief, but he had a different take on the nature of that deal.

“The quest has to be real. The System would verify it-there’s no such thing as forging a quest to construct an Instance. In this little town, the residents don’t know they’re inside a game. To them, players are just Outsiders they call in for help when they run into trouble.” His voice dropped. “From where I’m standing, the deal between Li Ergou and the Town Chief is probably…”

Chu Yue was still waiting for him to go on, but what he got instead was the sound of steady breathing. He turned his head and saw that Shen Yubi had already fallen asleep.

His brows knit slightly. Shen Yubi’s small face had sunk into the pillow, making him look obedient and adorable.

Chu Yue pulled the blanket up a little higher, tucking it over half of his chin.

Looking at him, the irritation gnawing at him slowly subsided.

That child back then-he never even got the chance to learn his name, and he’d never have the chance now.

Could it have something to do with this Nightmare Trading Center?

Night was deep. He had no idea what time it was. In the silence, all he could hear was the fine, pattering sound of rain outside the window.

“It’s raining,” Chu Yue murmured.

Maybe this rain meant something.

“Good night.”