chapter 14

“Bro, you’re not joking, right?” Qin Nan was about to struggle to his feet.

Jian Fan looked at him blankly and countered, “Does it sound funny to you?”

No, it did not.

So Jian Fan was serious. Xia Zeqin wasn’t Xia Zeqin.

Then what was he?

Qin Nan felt like his mind was about to crack.

He’d barely wrapped his head around the fact that he’d somehow ended up in a place called the Realm of Death. And now he was being told that even among the other Players like him, something was off. Qin Nan had no idea what he was supposed to feel about that.

Jian Fan understood his mood and, for once, added an extra explanation. “It’s only a guess for now.”

Qin Nan’s mouth twitched. That didn’t comfort him at all. Jian Fan might call it a guess, but judging from the time they’d spent together, Jian Fan would never bring up something completely baseless. If he was saying it out loud, maybe it wasn’t a hundred percent certain, but there had to be a seventy or eighty percent chance he was right.

Which actually made it worse. The fact that it wasn’t confirmed just meant Jian Fan still didn’t have enough information. The less they knew, the more danger they were in.

Realizing his thoughts were spiraling further and further away because of this revelation, Qin Nan shuddered and forcibly hit the brakes on his own terrifying train of thought, dragging his attention back to the game world right in front of him.

“Why do you think Xia Zeqin’s female companion got erased?” Qin Nan asked.

“You really don’t know?” Jian Fan sounded mildly puzzled.

“Why would I know?” Qin Nan was baffled. He might have gone through one world already, but that just made him a newbie slightly older than Xu Tian-barely. And at least Xu Tian had prompts to guide her. He was a newbie with no prompts now. He was worse off than Xu Tian.

“The rules of the Murder Mystery Game,” Jian Fan reminded him.

“I know the rules of the Murder Mystery Game, but what does that have to do with being erased?” Qin Nan said, then paused, replaying the scene where the girl vanished. After a beat, he asked uncertainly, “Because she said something you’re not supposed to say in a Murder Mystery Game?”

Jian Fan gave him a look that clearly said: you got it.

Right now, their situation counted as an immersive Murder Mystery Game. Everyone was role-playing the characters in the Script. But they weren’t actually people from the Script, so discrepancies were inevitable. The way they talked, the way they acted-it was impossible to be a perfect match. Minor differences couldn’t be helped. They weren’t exactly nailing their performances, but up until now, no one had been erased over it. Whereas that little speech from Xia Zeqin’s companion just now…

Qin Nan replayed it again and shivered.

Her little monologue had stepped on landmines every other sentence. “I don’t know,” “the Script didn’t say”-those were things that had no business showing up in a Murder Mystery Game.

In other words, certain words and actions that clearly violated the game’s rules were very likely to trigger the Death Setting and get you erased by the game. However, if you only nudged the boundary a little, it seemed the game could still tolerate it.

Qin Nan thought back to what he’d said during the self-introduction round and felt cold sweat break out on his back.

If this world had stricter rules, wouldn’t that one line about never having played before have gotten him killed on the spot?

“Ever read webnovels?” Jian Fan suddenly asked.

Qin Nan was a little thrown by the sudden change of topic, but he still nodded. “Yeah. What does that have to do with this game world?”

“Webnovels have things like ‘author’s notes’ or little annotations. They’re content outside the actual story, not part of the main text,” Jian Fan said. “When you introduced yourself, you laid out your background first, then added that line about ‘is that how I should introduce myself?’ After that. Xia Zeqin did something similar. He was reasoning in character, but then, outside of that reasoning, he tacked on a remark about the Murder Mystery Game itself. You and he are both following the plot inside the ‘main text’ and only adding comments in the ‘author’s note’ area that doesn’t affect the story.

“But she didn’t. She dropped her line right in the middle of the main text and stepped directly on a landmine.”

Maybe Jian Fan couldn’t stand the sheer panic on Qin Nan’s face, because he, very rarely, went into a whole long explanation just to spell it out for him.
“Put that way, do you understand?” Jian Fan asked.

Qin Nan nodded.

“I’m probably not the only one who’s figured this out, right?” Qin Nan asked cautiously.

Jian Fan paused, then said, “Don’t make me regret choosing you as my teammate.”

“…”

“I’m not being stupid! It’s only my second time. I still can’t accept that people can have this much malice toward each other. Try to understand,” Qin Nan said, a little helpless.

Jian Fan didn’t respond.

“Skipping past that-what did you think about what everyone said just now?” Qin Nan asked. He had a few ideas, but if he could hear Jian Fan’s take, he’d feel more certain. After all, as a newbie, there was just too much he didn’t know.

“Three people,” Jian Fan said, naming them straight out. “Qin Weiyi, Mu Xin, Xu Tian.”

Qin Nan frowned. “Qin Weiyi, I get. His behavior already says plenty. Xu Tian-she freaked out at the end and kind of fell apart, but during the discussion, that one question she asked you really does need a closer look. But Mu Xin…” His brow knit tighter and tighter.

Jian Fan didn’t give any more hints, and Qin Nan didn’t need them.

“Mu Xin-I had some contact with her before this world started. Going by what they said, Mu Xin might just be lucky, coasting through and winning without doing anything. But luck is too abstract. Coasting through one or two worlds isn’t strange, but coasting through every time? There’s no way that’s just luck. And their three-person team…” Halfway through, Qin Nan suddenly got it.

He laughed. “Mu Xin is the center of that three-person team.”

He’d interacted with Lin Junruo the most. Aside from calling her stupid, he couldn’t think of a better word. As for Zheng Jueming, his performance during the discussion was a complete mess. Neither of them looked like Old Players at all, which only highlighted how different Mu Xin was.

“But if Mu Xin really is that smart, why didn’t she choose stronger teammates instead of those two…” Qin Nan’s expression was hard to describe. Teammates like that were nothing but dead weight.

“Keep watching,” Jian Fan said.

Qin Nan nodded. “Right. Maybe it’s an act-on purpose-to lower our guard.”

Jian Fan’s expression paused for a beat. Then he added, “Drop the ‘our.'”

“…”

Fine. You’re smart, Jian Fan-your brain really is wired different. Qin Nan complained silently, then switched topics on his own. “By the way, Xia Zeqin didn’t find any clues in your room. Did you hide them, or was he doing it on purpose?”

As they spoke, the two of them turned into a corridor, pulling away from the main group. Out here, aside from them, there weren’t any other Players in sight.

Qin Nan was waiting for Jian Fan’s answer when, the moment he finished speaking, Jian Fan suddenly moved. He seized Qin Nan, wrenched both his arms behind his back, and slammed him against a nearby pillar.

Qin Nan’s face was squashed against the pillar, completely dumbfounded-and at the same time, he felt a sharp dagger press into his waist.

No way… A terrifying thought rose in Qin Nan’s mind.

Could the killer in this world-be Jian Fan?

Qin Nan could practically feel this world’s malice toward him overflowing.