Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Qin Nan stared at the private room door, then turned his head back like he’d seen a ghost, staring at Jian Fan.

“No one followed us and was eavesdropping on our conversation just now, right?” Qin Nan asked.

Jian Fan looked at him but didn’t answer. Instead, he asked a question: “What do you think a Vampire is?”

“It’s a Vampire, what else?” Qin Nan originally thought he and Jian Fan were on the same wavelength, but now, he felt there was still a certain gap between them.

Jian Fan explained, “Most people think of Vampires as supernatural creatures, but in the earliest legends, Vampires referred to corpses that crawled out of their graves after death. Do you remember how the bartender described Bloody Mary?”

Bloody Mary often appeared as a corpse, a witch, or a ghost.

“So, you mean Bloody Mary and Vampires are… equivalent?” Qin Nan finally realized what Jian Fan was trying to express.

“Bloody Mary isn’t a Vampire. It’s the bartender-the real message he wanted to tell us wasn’t about the legend of Bloody Mary, but something related to Vampires.” Mu Xin also caught Jian Fan’s implication.

Jian Fan walked toward the exit of the private room, explaining for Qin Nan’s benefit as he went, “Remember what I said back in the world of the Death Crew?”

Qin Nan replied, “You don’t talk much, but when you do, you actually say quite a lot.”

“The Realm of Death cannot determine our order of death or the manner of our death. Not only that, our different reactions and ways of handling things will lead to different results. A preview of the future? What exactly would it be previewing? The plot of this environmental setting?” Toward the end, Jian Fan’s tone carried a hint of a sneer.

At this point, the point was clear.

“There is no preview of the future at all,” Qin Nan followed up immediately.

Jian Fan had already opened the door to the room.

Qin Nan continued, “If Bloody Mary is a proxy for a Vampire, then the so-called summoning of Bloody Mary is simply summoning a Vampire. And once a Vampire is summoned, if the idea of a future preview doesn’t hold up, then it must be what comes after.”

Thinking of the words the bartender had said afterward, Qin Nan froze.

If the summoning went wrong, Mary would inflict torture upon the summoners, even stealing their bodies and souls, drinking their blood dry, and gouging out their eyeballs.

To put it simply, they would die.

Qin Nan sucked in a breath of cold air. If the summoning failed, they died; if the summoning succeeded and brought a Vampire, wouldn’t they still be finished? Therefore, as long as one performed the summoning, it was equivalent to triggering a Death Setting.

But Jian Fan said…

“What exactly are you trying to confirm?” Qin Nan asked, trying his best to think about the situation with an exaggerated, unusual mindset. “You aren’t talking about… stealing souls and stealing bodies, are you?”

Jian Fan stopped, turned to look at Qin Nan, and said, “Why is that impossible?”

“Do you know what you’re saying?” Beyond shock, Qin Nan didn’t know what emotion to display.

Jian Fan remained calm. “We’ll have an answer soon.”

Even as an Old Player, Mu Xin looked incredulous as she listened to Jian Fan. “I can follow your logic, but like Qin Nan, I think… that’s impossible, right? If that’s really how it is, how are we even supposed to play?”

Jian Fan’s tone remained unchanged. “I’m betting that those who summoned her won’t die. At least, not ‘die’ in the way we perceive it.”

Qin Nan and Mu Xin exchanged glances.

Jian Fan started walking out, and Qin Nan and Mu Xin naturally followed.
They soon found the people they were looking for.

It was the two men who had been with Qi Shuping.

Jian Fan had noticed them following the moment they started. He didn’t mind having an extra tail or two; his goal from the beginning had been to find an environment that matched the bartender’s description for summoning Mary.

When they had entered their previous private room, the two men were already behind them. However, instead of knocking and making their presence known, they chose to eavesdrop from outside.

This method of operation clearly revealed their intentions.

In that case, Jian Fan couldn’t be blamed for setting them up.

To be precise, Jian Fan hadn’t actually done anything; he simply continued with his own plan. Regardless of whether they were outside or not, Qin Nan and the others would have questioned his motives, and he naturally would have explained his deductions regarding the mirrors and the summoning of Bloody Mary to clear their doubts.

The only difference was that someone else had overheard his reasoning and then attempted to steal the fruits of another’s wisdom.

Even with that information, the choice of whether or not to actually attempt the ritual still rested entirely in their own hands.

Jian Fan spotted one of the men standing by a private room door, seemingly acting as a lookout. As Jian Fan saw him, the man also spotted Jian Fan’s group of three.

A flicker of guilt flashed across the man’s face, and he took the initiative to greet them. “Haha, hello there! What a coincidence, seeing you guys here.”

“If we weren’t here, how could you be here?” Qin Nan sneered.

The man’s expression stiffened. He cleared his throat and fell silent. Regardless, they had already done what they came to do. So what if they were caught tailing them? In the Realm of Death, betrayals and backstabbing were common occurrences; they hadn’t done anything that extreme.

The man thought this with a clear conscience.

However, at that moment, a shrill scream suddenly erupted from inside the room.

“Wang Hao!” The man’s expression changed instantly. He rushed to push open the door, but after taking only a single step inside, he stopped and turned back to look at Qin Nan and the others.

“Uh, why don’t you guys go first?” the man said cautiously.

Qin Nan had truly never met someone so cowardly and shameless.

Jian Fan walked straight forward. Seeing this, the man hurried to swing the door open wider, bowing slightly with a fawning smile. “Big shot, please, after you.”

Jian Fan entered the room, with Qin Nan and Mu Xin following close behind. The man smiled broadly and waited until all three were inside before scurrying in after them, sticking close to their heels for fear of being left alone.

The room wasn’t large. The lights were off, leaving it pitch black.

Jian Fan switched on the lights and walked directly toward the bathroom.

The bathroom door was wide open. It was also dark inside, but now that the lights in the main room were on, enough light spilled in to reveal a figure standing in front of the mirror.

It was likely the man the lookout had called Wang Hao.

The scream from moments ago must have come from him. He was currently standing before the mirror with his back to them, making it impossible to tell what his condition was.

Jian Fan stopped at the bathroom entrance.

Qin Nan and Mu Xin exchanged a glance. Was he actually still alive?

The man hiding at the back of the group peeked his head out from behind Qin Nan. Seeing that the three of them weren’t reacting, he called out weakly, “Wang Hao?”

The person standing before the mirror finally seemed to snap out of it at the sound of his name. He moved his stiff body and slowly turned around to face them.