Chapter 55

Chapter 55

“Run!”

Qin Nan hissed urgently, bolting the moment the words left his lips.

After a split second of shock, Mu Xin and Jian Fan reacted instantly.

Exposure could be salvaged, but death offered no second chances.

The three of them began sprinting back the way they had come.

The door swung open from the inside, and Lu Jing appeared in the doorway. He watched the retreating figures of Qin Nan and the others with a bewildered expression. “Xiao Qin? Why are Qin Nan and the others running?”

The trio, mid-sprint, came to a screeching halt.

Qin Weiyi followed behind, leisurely strolling to the doorway. He looked at the three people who had stopped and curled his lips into a smirk. “They probably thought the thing inside was a Vampire or something of that sort.”

The three turned around. Seeing Qin Weiyi and Lu Jing standing perfectly fine at the door, their hearts were flooded with a complex mix of emotions.

“Why are you still standing there?” Qin Weiyi asked when he saw they hadn’t moved. Then, he chuckled. “You aren’t suspecting that I’m not the real Qin Weiyi, are you?”

They had indeed harbored that suspicion, but hearing those words confirmed his identity.

The Vampires behind the scenes likely didn’t know they had discovered the secret yet. This was exactly the kind of thing the real Qin Weiyi would say.

The trio turned back once more.

As they approached, Qin Weiyi stepped aside to clear the way, allowing them to enter the room. Once they were inside, Lu Jing efficiently closed and locked the door.

“Did you guys lock it?” Qin Nan asked, glancing at Lu Jing.

Qin Weiyi nodded. “This is the only room here, and there’s no other way out. If someone found this place and we had a face-to-face encounter, wouldn’t I be finished?”

“If someone finds out there’s people inside, you’re going to be finished sooner or later anyway,” Qin Nan grumbled.

He had been scared out of his wits just now.

Jian Fan didn’t dwell on such trifles. He was already scanning the room’s interior.

Seeing this, Qin Weiyi stopped joking with Qin Nan and began explaining the situation. “You mentioned before that the Bartender who mixes the Bloody Mary leaves through this Staff Passage. So, after the Bar staff finished their shifts and I was sure no one was left, I came over here.”

“You move fast,” Qin Nan noted.

Qin Weiyi gave a short laugh but didn’t take the bait. He continued describing the room. “I’ve already done a preliminary search. Everything looks normal; I haven’t found anything suspicious yet.”

Even though he hadn’t found any clues, it was clear Qin Weiyi felt there was something wrong with this room.

Qin Nan also began to survey the scene.

It looked like a storage room for miscellaneous items, filled with a cluttered mess. Qin Nan did a quick sweep: a pile of broken electronic keyboards and other instruments were shoved into a corner, along with some old-looking tables and chairs.

There really wasn’t anything strange about it.

A Bar would always be upgrading its equipment; the items here were just things the Bar had phased out.

“Have you checked the other side?” Jian Fan asked.

Qin Weiyi shook his head. “I haven’t had the chance yet.” He looked at Jian Fan. “Well? Did you find anything?”

Jian Fan didn’t reply. Instead, he stepped forward and began digging through the pile of junk with his bare hands. Seeing this, Qin Nan immediately joined in. Mu Xin hesitated for a moment before staying where she was, watching the two of them work.

Jian Fan moved quickly.

He seemed to have found something. Suddenly standing up, he tossed an object at Qin Weiyi’s feet.

Qin Weiyi looked down.
It was a coil of hemp rope.

“You didn’t look at all, did you?” Jian Fan stepped back from the clutter, mocking him without mercy.

Qin Weiyi: “…”

Qin Weiyi looked down at the rope for a few moments, then said somewhat apologetically, “I didn’t notice it.” After a pause, he thought for a moment and added, “If Lu Jing and I hadn’t rummaged through this pile first, you wouldn’t have found it so easily.”

“Are you sure you rummaged through it and didn’t just bury it deeper?” Jian Fan said bluntly.

Qin Weiyi didn’t get angry; he simply turned to look at Lu Jing with an expressionless face.

Lu Jing scratched his head awkwardly. “Well… I’m just a careless guy. Xiao Qin, you said to look for things that look strange. What’s so strange about a hemp rope? It looked like junk, so I just tossed it aside. I didn’t…”

“You can shut up now,” Qin Weiyi interrupted coldly.

Lu Jing shut his mouth, looking quite aggrieved.

“What’s so strange about a hemp rope?” Mu Xin couldn’t figure it out. However, she never considered herself the smartest person in the room, so if she didn’t understand, she simply asked.

Qin Nan didn’t understand either, but since it had been singled out, there had to be a problem. He thought about it from the perspective of the rope itself.

“Is it because a rope like this shouldn’t be in a Bar?” Qin Nan tried to speculate.

This room was filled with old items replaced or discarded from the Bar. What kind of ‘old item’ was a hemp rope? Under normal circumstances, what kind of shopkeeper would keep a coil of rope in their store? Even if they used it for tying boxes or other tasks, it would only be a small amount. A whole coil like this was truly unusual.

That had to be it, right?

Qin Nan wasn’t entirely sure.

Jian Fan picked up the rope again and pointed to a very small area. “There’s blood.”

Qin Nan, Mu Xin, and Lu Jing immediately shifted their gaze to where Jian Fan was pointing.

On this small section of the rope, there were indeed speckles of blood. If one looked closely, they were visible, but when the whole coil was bunched together, it was incredibly inconspicuous.

“Are your eyes microscopes?” Lu Jing was shocked.

He was clearly the first one to find the rope, but he hadn’t thought anything was wrong with it and had just thrown it back into the pile. Now, he was being told there was blood on it.

If Jian Fan hadn’t pointed it out, he really wouldn’t have noticed a thing.

For once, Qin Nan and Mu Xin felt a sense of shared sentiment with Lu Jing.

“It’s just red. Maybe it’s tomato juice or something?” Qin Nan offered another possibility. It was hard to be certain based on such a small detail.

Jian Fan looked at Qin Nan. Perhaps because it was Qin Nan asking, Jian Fan showed a rare bit of patience as he reminded him, “In this place, we don’t follow the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ It’s better to believe it’s there than to assume it isn’t.”

Even if it wasn’t blood, so what? This was the Realm of Death; it was better to be safe than sorry. If they misjudged this point, the worst that could happen was some wasted effort and unnecessary worry. But if their judgment was correct and they failed to take it seriously, the consequences would be dire.

“Then is this rope used for tying people up?” Qin Nan spoke again.

This time, without waiting for Jian Fan to answer, he continued his own deduction. “Vampires hunt for food. Those chosen by vampires should die instantly. So the blood in the Bloody Mary… could it be that people are tied up here to have their fresh blood drained, then served to the vampires in the Bar as a Bloody Mary?”