Chapter 49

Chapter 49

The ice pack in his hand had lost its chill. Ning Shuo hurriedly lunged toward it. “I want it, I want it! Thanks, Ningning-”

During lunch, the King seemed very pleased. After encouraging the Players to keep up the good work, he didn’t head upstairs this time.

The King opened the doors of the Ancient Castle. “The weather is lovely. Come, look upon the roses I have so tenderly nurtured.”

The group returned to their room, and Ning Shuo pulled an item from his Backpack. “Take a look.”

It was a tiny Camera, no larger than a fingernail. Since it was black, just like the hat Xiao Wei had given him, it was nearly impossible to spot when attached to the brim.

After exporting the footage to a specific item, an image quickly flickered into existence in the void.

Everyone fixed their eyes on the projected screen. Even Luo Li, who was drowsy from her fever, widened her eyes in shock.

That wasn’t the sky at all.

Just as the roses were planted in the clouds, the world was inverted. Mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas all hung high above their heads.

Under the sunlight, nothing could remain hidden.

Only when the sun was about to set would a brief sunset glow appear in the sky before it faded into darkness.

When the sun rose again, the inverted world would reappear.

The clouds were stained red by the roses, while the space above their heads was a heavy, dark expanse of mountains and oceans. Water poured down from above, flowing into the clouds before returning to the ground suspended overhead, like an endless cycle of reincarnation.

It was as spectacular as it was eerie.

It was a sight none of them had ever seen before.

Even Rao Lin’s breath hitched for a moment. “It looks like the System invested quite a bit into this new Script.”

His tone was tinged with excitement. “If this Script were to be crushed…”

The System would probably be heartbroken.

As they looked at one another, they all read the same message in each other’s eyes.

Only the simple-minded, feverish Qi Yang looked back and forth, deciding to stick to his post. He would do whatever the Big Shots told him to do.

Ning Shuo took a closer look at the red lines behind their ears. “It’s the color of the roses. My guess was likely correct.”

He explained in detail, “Remember the ‘Cloud Soil’ outside? I suspect that, like the sky, its true nature is obscured by the Script’s effects at night, only revealing its original form during the day.”

During the day, while Ning Shuo was pruning the flower branches outside, the Maid had consistently prevented him from touching anything below the cloud layer.

“The texture feels like fictional clouds, but if they were real clouds, how could you grow roses in them?”

Forget roses; you couldn’t even grow weeds.

In this Script, roses could only be grown using the corpses of Good Persons who had performed good deeds that day, like Zhang Qicheng.

That was something they had all witnessed with their own eyes.

Rao Lin frowned. “But didn’t he lose points?”

Ning Wang replied, “Who knows? Maybe they were just afraid the Soil wouldn’t stay fresh.”

Keeping the soil fresh-it was a novel way of putting it, possessing a certain aesthetic that completely disregarded the survival of the “Soil” present in the room.

However, this explanation happened to account for everything: the so-called “kindness” was merely a preservative used to maintain them.

Qi Yang opened his mouth. “Then Li Ge…”

“There’s another possibility for an Evil Person,” Ning Wang said, leaning lazily against the wall. “They’ve deviated from the ‘Good Person’ persona.”

When he smiled, he looked exactly like Ning Shuo, but those familiar with him could see the difference between the two. “For example, if an NPC asks for my name and I say ‘Ning Wang’ while half-asleep, wouldn’t that be exposing myself?”

Luo Li fell silent for a moment before saying, “That matches the emotions I perceived.”

Seeing Ning Shuo and the other looking over, Luo Li remembered she had forgotten to explain. “It’s an ability with a 24-hour cooldown. I can sense lingering emotions on specific objects. These emotions are usually related to the Murderer or the plot. After the perception is complete, the object will appear as if it were destroyed by the Ghost/Monster that poses the greatest threat in the current Script.”
“On that petal, I sensed a great deal of despair, but it’s a despair closer to the silence after death-a feeling of total lifelessness.”

Just like roses blooming from a corpse.

Precisely because it wasn’t the immediate terror of facing death, Luo Li had said the roses weren’t the critical turning point of this Script.

Luo Li herself didn’t think her failure to explain this ability earlier was a big deal. She was a loner by nature, and over the past few years, she had only really associated with the likes of Rao Lin.

Ning Shuo and Ning Wang seemed to understand, so Luo Li looked at Qi Yang. “Do you get it?”

Qi Yang looked at her blankly. “Huh? My head doesn’t hurt.”

Everyone: “…”

Luo Li said crossly, “You should just go take a nap later.”

However, if what Ning Shuo said was true, it was a bone-chilling reality.

After all, there were so many roses outside. If each one represented a body, just like Zhang Qicheng’s corpse, how many bodies had to be buried out there?

Ning Shuo adjusted his glasses and smiled. “Though, this is just a hypothesis I’ve pieced together based on the clues.”

Rao Lin added, “It’s a valid hypothesis. This thing on the ear really does look like some kind of death mark.”

He reached out and gently rubbed Song Zhu’s ear, but it wouldn’t come off, so he eventually gave up.

Qi Yang asked, puzzled, “Why did it feel like stepping on solid ground if they were corpses?”

Having exerted too much physical energy that morning, Ning Shuo was a bit tired. He tapped the back of Ning Wang’s hand beside him, and Ning Wang took over the explanation. “It’s an effect of the Script.”

There was a saying in the System: The Rest Area is a home where Players can find sanctuary; the Script is the domain of NPCs.

When Ning Wang mentioned this phrase, Rao Lin frowned almost instinctively.

“NPCs can blur a Player’s specific perceptions guided by Script information. For example, when you first see the rose field, you subconsciously think it’s planted in solid ground. Even if you later realize how impossible it is for them to be planted on clouds, that first impression already exists. Even if you think many times afterward that the clouds aren’t solid enough, when you step on them, it will never feel like your true physical reality.”

Ning Wang looked at Rao Lin, his eyes flickering slightly. “However, this kind of thing should only be possible in a Central System competition Script. Zone F shouldn’t be able to produce such a high-level Script.”

Rao Lin cleared his throat. “According to System messages, this is indeed a Script that Zone A didn’t want, which eventually trickled down to Zone F.”

“Give me a perfect explanation once we’re out.”

“Of course.”

Ning Wang nodded. “The ‘Good Person’ falls ill on the second day. We don’t know what will happen to the ‘Evil Person’ yet, but with Li Ge as a precedent, we can guess they’ll attract monsters more easily than the ‘Good Person.'”

“It’s best not to trouble the NPCs after doing a good deed. Otherwise, who knows if you’ll be disposed of as ‘soon-to-be-expired’ Soil.”

Combining all the clues, once someone died or did a good deed, the King’s complexion improved significantly. The murderer’s motive was almost clear.

But even knowing the murderer was the King, they still had to find the Notary Office.

They had scoured the first, second, and third floors the previous day and hadn’t found the location of the Notary Office.

Excluding other possibilities, the Notary Office was either on Floors 4 and 5…

Or, it was outside.