Chapter 52
Chapter 52
Rao Lin nodded. “To be precise, all of Zone ABC is.”
Ning Shuo held the page between his fingers and only turned it over after a long while.
Looked at this way, the System was truly vast beyond measure.
It could even interfere with the dead.
Because the zones were different, Rao Lin had experienced some of the earlier Scripts, while others were ones he had never been matched into.
They flipped to the last few pages.
[This Script drags on more than the others. It actually has a seven-day limit, and you can’t even leave early.]
[How can there be a Script where you clear it just by doing good deeds for seven days? Isn’t that obviously suspicious? And the roses outside-how can they grow on clouds?]
[Someone died… A rose bloomed from his chest, exactly like the roses outside.]
[Today is the second day. Everyone who did a good deed has a fever. Only the few who failed to do one by accident haven’t gotten sick… So this is where the Script Effect is.]
[That NPC said I have to do good deeds for three consecutive days before he’ll take me to the study. The appearance-changing items from the System Shop don’t work on NPCs… Shit.]
[This is the third day I’ve done good deeds. When I got up this morning, I could barely walk. Good thing I was in decent shape before I died.]
[After dinner, I followed the Castle Master up to the fourth floor. He showed me around the entire Ancient Castle, but there was one room on the top floor he wouldn’t let me see.]
[I thought of the people who died over the last few days, and of the Butler dragging their bodies up to the fourth floor.]
[I didn’t insist on going in. The King took me to stand by his window and look out over the entire Rose Field.]
[The higher you stand, the more you can grasp just how vast this rose plantation is.]
[…And the more terrifying it becomes.]
[If what I’m thinking is right… are all of those the “Soil”?]
[The King took me back. He didn’t notice that I used the mirror and his blind spot to snatch a few pages of Parchment from the desk.]
[Thank God. At least the Script won’t be unsolvable. It will definitely leave clues behind.]
[Holy shit…]
[There is a legend in this world: Those truly blessed with good fortune will ascend to Sky City amid the roses’ grand welcome. There, a miraculous medicine can cure all illness.]
[No wonder… No wonder the Castle Owner has been looking better and better these past few days.]
[His name is Camberny. He killed everyone, whether they were a Good Person or a Bad Person. If someone was an Evil Person, he would demand that they do one good deed before killing them. If someone was a Good Person, he would try to keep them alive, but only for less than seven days. Once a Good Person reaches that point, they have to die.]
[Before a Good Person dies, the King will squeeze out their last bit of value: Soil.]
[On the seventh day, whether you’re a Good Person or a Bad Person, you have to die.]
[Camberny has been dead for a long time!]
Camberny. The King’s name.
If they were going to make an Accusation, that was exactly what they needed.
The last line had clearly been written in a state of utter panic. The handwriting was rushed, like a message left at the cost of someone’s life while they were fleeing.
And then there was the “Parchment” Nian Chao had mentioned. Since it was something he could take while the NPC wasn’t paying attention, it wouldn’t have been hidden somewhere too obscure. But the two of them had already searched the study once and hadn’t found it. That proved the notebook Nian Chao left behind, which couldn’t disappear when the Script reset, had replaced the Parchment’s role in transmitting the clue-so the Parchment could be destroyed by the NPC.
Luo Li frowned. “So there was never any such thing as surviving seven days.”
If they really made it to the seventh day, everyone would die.
Bad Persons wouldn’t live until the seventh day. And even if Good Persons did make it that far, they would probably be riddled with illness.
Rao Lin shook his head. “The Script won’t give us an unsolvable problem.”
Qi Yang also understood the plot of this Script now. “But once it reaches the seventh day…”
Song Zhu said, “There is one thing in this Script that many people have overlooked.”
Qi Yang froze. Then his eyes widened as he looked toward the corridor.
Oil paintings hung along the corridor. Both Ning Shuo and Ning Wang had been attacked by that thing before.
Luo Li said, “Corrosion.”
Right. The final state of the rose petal she had predicted was connected to the greatest threat in the Script.
It was just that she had jumped to conclusions and assumed the Corrosion referred to the decay after corpses turned into “Soil.”
At that thought, Luo Li glanced at Qi Yang and thought to herself that the kid really was lucky. That thing had never come for him even once.
And even though she lived with him, she hadn’t been affected in the slightest either.
Among the group sharing Good Deed Points, it seemed the two of them were the only ones who had never been attacked.
Once they had more or less finished discussing it, they prepared to go out and take another look.
Ning Shuo reminded them, “I saw livor mortis already appearing on the King. Maybe killing someone with his own hands in front of everyone brought him some kind of backlash. Be careful. He might start drawing nutrients from the ‘Soil.'”
No sooner had he finished speaking than a commotion broke out beyond the door.
History always repeated itself in astonishingly similar ways. Someone outside shouted, “Xiang Henian is dead!”
Everyone subconsciously looked at Ning Shuo.
Ning Banxian shrugged.
This time, it really was a coincidence.
…
Xiang Henian’s real name was Jia Nian.
His luck couldn’t exactly be called good, but it wasn’t exactly bad either.
The two people who had shared a room with him were both dead, yet he had been fortunate enough to survive each time.
However, after going through the first two corpses, he was clearly in poor shape.
On the first day, he and Li Ge had given false testimony for Zhang Qicheng. As a result, Zhang Qicheng and Li Ge had died one after another.
Jia Nian kept feeling as if his turn would be next.
After seeing Li Ge’s corpse and the terrible sight of him dying with his eyes wide open, Jia Nian’s mind had obviously suffered a tremendous shock.
He did not even notice that the Good Person Player group from the previous day was in terrible condition, nor did he realize that the other Player participants were deliberately avoiding dealings with the NPC side, let alone offering help.
When a Maid came to him for help, he numbly did quite a lot for her.
When Ning Shuo said he was going outside to prune the flowers, Jia Nian even secretly sneered to himself: All you had to do was a few small tasks. Why insist on doing such exhausting work?
Without realizing it, he had accumulated as many as seven Good Deed Points.
Jia Nian was secretly delighted, thinking that this should completely erase the sin of giving false testimony yesterday.
The King even praised him at the dining table, and Jia Nian was overjoyed.
After returning to his room, Jia Nian lay down on the bed and took a nap, his heart full of happiness.
In his daze, he felt someone stroking his face.
Jia Nian cracked his eyelids open. The first thing he saw was the mirror placed in the room.
He suddenly thought of Zhang Qicheng, who had died so gruesomely.
Zhang Qicheng’s death was obviously related to the mirror, so the first thing everyone did when they returned to their rooms was cover the mirror with something.
Jia Nian was no exception.
But… where was the thing he had used to cover the mirror?
His head suddenly grew heavy. A hand had been placed on top of Jia Nian’s head.
The voice behind him was clearly sinister, yet it forced out an awkward sort of affection. “Child, your soul is pure enough now. It can be sent to Rose Castle.”
…
Xiang Henian’s corpse was exactly the same as Zhang Qicheng’s. The only difference was that there were no marks on his face from being cut by the mirror.
He lay on the bed with his hands folded, his expression peaceful, as if he were merely sleeping.
And from his chest bloomed a single gorgeous, dewy rose.
The new Butler was Saixi, the one who had reported Fair to the King. Gone was his previous petty, smug air. Like a copy of Fair, he stroked that rose, ignoring the way its thorns pierced his hand.
Aside from key NPC roles, which retained their memories, the rest of the NPC cast all acted according to their instructions.
And the Butler was clearly nothing more than an insignificant NPC carrying out the King’s orders.