Chapter 204
Chapter 204
“You were on the fourth floor. Didn’t you see Shi Chen or the other woman?” Jian Fan asked suddenly.
Mu Xin shook her head.
Then she asked, “What about you?”
Yellow Hair frowned. “That’s strange. This villa only has four floors and a courtyard. We didn’t search it carefully, but we’ve made a rough circuit of the place, and we never saw either of them. We don’t know that woman, so maybe she’s deliberately avoiding us, but Shi Chen shouldn’t be.”
“We can’t be sure of that,” Lin Junruo offered. “What if he figured out that he had to kill every Player to leave, so he decided to hide, watch us, and wait for an opening?”
Yellow Hair nodded. “That’s possible too.” Then he looked at Jian Fan. “What do you think? You wouldn’t have asked about them out of nowhere unless you’d guessed something, right?”
“I’m afraid the villa isn’t the only area where we can move around,” Jian Fan said.
The others looked surprised.
“Mu Xin made a tremendous amount of noise just now. Aside from Xia Zeqin, anyone else who was alive should have heard it and come to investigate,” Jian Fan explained.
It might have taken them some time to reach the source, but so long had passed without anyone appearing that Jian Fan suspected they might not be here at all.
“If they’re outside the villa, it would be perfectly normal for them not to hear. We never finished searching the courtyard,” Qin Nan said.
Jian Fan inclined his head without denying it. “That’s one possibility.”
Jian Fan hadn’t dismissed the idea, yet Qin Nan himself frowned first.
After thinking for a moment, he looked at Jian Fan and Qin Weiyi. “You two had a view of the whole courtyard earlier. Did you see any cherry trees anywhere?”
“Cherry trees?” Qin Weiyi was surprised by the question. He quickly shook his head. “The courtyard is designed in a Chinese style–little bridges and flowing water, artificial hills and decorative rocks. I saw clusters of roses and peonies, but definitely no cherry blossoms.”
Qin Nan looked at Jian Fan.
Jian Fan shook his head as well.
“Then that’s odd.” Qin Nan frowned, almost talking to himself. “Could there really be somewhere else?”
“What makes you say that?” Qin Weiyi asked.
“Yellow Hair said you reached one hundred percent similarity before. That means the background was identical. If the card face accounts for the environment, then shouldn’t the setting shown on each of our cards exist somewhere within the area we can access?” Qin Nan said.
Jian Fan inclined his head in agreement.
Qin Weiyi nodded too. “Presumably. What’s the problem?”
Qin Nan gave a helpless laugh. “That’s exactly the problem. The setting on my card is a cherry blossom path, but there isn’t one anywhere here.”
“The courtyard is pretty big. Maybe we missed it? Why don’t we take another walk around outside?” Yellow Hair suggested.
At that, Lu Jing silently raised a hand.
Everyone turned to him and waited for him to speak.
Faced with all their eyes, Lu Jing lowered his voice and asked, “Am I allowed to talk?”
Everyone: “…”
They really had forgotten about that. Lu Jing believed he had spoken quietly, but… Qin Weiyi glanced at the tablet, then sighed. “Forget it. Go ahead.”
Little Princess probably wasn’t their enemy.
Besides, even if she discovered Lu Jing’s existence, she wouldn’t necessarily know that his combat ability was completely broken.
Lu Jing relaxed.
“The background on my card is an amusement park,” he said.
There was at least a chance Qin Nan’s cherry blossom path might be hidden somewhere in the courtyard, but there was absolutely no way Lu Jing’s amusement park could fit inside it.
Just as Jian Fan had said, there had to be another area they could access.
One was the villa where they now stood, and the other was an amusement park. Qin Nan’s cherry blossom path was probably inside the park as well. Shi Chen and the unfamiliar woman, neither of whom had appeared at all, were most likely there now.
But how did one switch from the villa to the amusement park?
“The greenhouse’s other exit?” Lin Junruo said suddenly.
The others considered it.
They had originally thought the greenhouse’s other exit might be the key to breaking through the second layer of illusion. Now it seemed entirely possible that Lin Junruo was right instead.
The greenhouse’s other exit might lead to a second playable map.
As for how they could reach the female lead’s world, that would require further thought.
“Search the villa first,” Jian Fan said, halting the discussion before it ran any further.
No matter how many theories they produced, they would have to verify them one step at a time.
They would certainly return to the greenhouse, but for now they needed to finish searching the villa for other clues. Once they had exhausted every possibility here, they could try the greenhouse’s second exit.
Then they would see whether an amusement park lay on the other side.
As for the current situations of Shi Chen and the other woman, no one was particularly concerned.
“All right. Since we’re already on the fourth floor, shall we start here and work our way down?” Qin Weiyi proposed.
Jian Fan had no objection.
Naturally, neither did anyone else.
The group began searching the fourth floor.
Aside from a sitting room, the floor contained nothing but bedrooms. Most were simply furnished guest rooms with little inside.
They made a full circuit but discovered nothing and saw no trace of Xia Zeqin.
Empty-handed, they descended to the third floor.
Its layout was entirely different.
There were only two bedrooms. One was where Lin Junruo and Yellow Hair had stayed earlier and presumably belonged to Little Princess. The other was a guest room next door.
The guest room contained nothing of note, though it was much larger than those upstairs and considerably more lavishly decorated.
The rest of the third floor had been opened into one large area, with a study, a home theater, and a music room each occupying a corner, as well as a lounge area.
There was far more to search here.
The entire space retained abundant traces of Little Princess’s daily life.
“Start looking,” Qin Weiyi said after sweeping his gaze across it.
Everyone immediately spread out.
Lu Jing followed Qin Weiyi.
Even if a clue were placed directly in front of him, Lu Jing doubted he would notice anything amiss. He simply gave up on searching. It made more sense to stay close to Qin Weiyi so he could protect him if anything unexpected happened.
Qin Weiyi took Lu Jing over to the study.
Floor-to-ceiling bookcases covered two adjoining walls, both enormous shelves packed with books. A quick glance showed Qin Weiyi every genre imaginable. He spotted the titles of quite a few romance novels, along with some books that looked highly technical.
Still, the romance novels seemed to take up the most space.
Little Princess truly was the female lead of a romance game.