Chapter 90
Chapter 90
The woman in white looked down at the bun that had rolled to her feet, and her eyes instantly turned dark and vicious. A bone-chilling cold radiated from her entire body.
“Captain, Meiya said the innkeeper hates people who waste food!” Yang Yan hurried forward to remind her.
Meng Zhenzhen, her face pale, looked at Yang Yan. Yang Yan wore an expression of concern as she quickly bent down by the woman in white’s feet to pick up the half-eaten meat bun.
But the moment she bent over, her body suddenly went rigid.
The woman’s skirt was fluttering in the wind. Beneath that white hem, there were no legs at all!
Forcing herself to stay calm, Yang Yan slowly picked up the bun, her face already drained of blood.
“Hurry… hurry up and eat it…” Yang Yan handed the bun back to Meng Zhenzhen.
“You!” Meng Zhenzhen glared furiously at Yang Yan.
Yang Yan shook her head and, out of the corner of her eye, glanced at the woman in white. She did not dare say what she had seen right in front of her.
The woman in white smiled and leaned closer to them, looking at the bun in Meng Zhenzhen’s hand. “It’s fine. If it’s dirty, don’t eat it.”
The instant the woman came closer, every hair on Meng Zhenzhen’s body stood on end. Experience told her that even if there really was something wrong with the filling in this bun, she had no choice but to eat it now. Otherwise, the woman in front of her definitely would not let her off!
With that thought, Meng Zhenzhen steeled herself, stuffed the remaining half of the bun into her mouth, and chewed mechanically. She forced down the urge to vomit and swallowed it.
Everyone watched the scene in silence. Wei Sen and the others were even more certain of their earlier guess.
The Fatty who had died last night had violated the rules by wasting food, and had been killed by the innkeeper standing before them!
As for Fatty’s vanished corpse, it had probably already gone into Meng Zhenzhen’s stomach…
But the woman’s corpse was still unaccounted for.
Seeing that Meng Zhenzhen had finished the bun, the woman in white seemed to be in a much better mood. She straightened and looked at everyone.
“Welcome, everyone, to Aurora Inn. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am the innkeeper of this establishment. You may also call me Lili. It is a shame the Aurora did not appear last night, but since you will all be staying here for a full seven days, I am sure you will be able to see an Aurora that belongs to you.”
“Um!” Liu Shuang stood up. “The heavy snow sealing off the mountain counts as force majeure, right? Could you give us a discount on the room fees?”
Lili paused for a moment, then slowly approached Liu Shuang. “Is this guest unable to pay the remaining room fees?”
“O-of course not!” Liu Shuang denied it. “It’s just that everyone’s ‘money’ was earned by ‘risking our lives.’ If we can save a little, of course that would be better! With the mountain snowed in, your rooms would be empty anyway, so why not give us a bit more of a discount?”
Lili smiled, her eyes narrowing into slits. Her entire face exuded an indescribably inhuman quality. “My apologies, but the room fees are already the lowest discount I can offer you. Of course, if someone is unwilling to pay the room fee, there is another way.”
“What way?” Liu Shuang pressed.
“There are several empty rooms on the fourth floor. If you do not mind them, you may stay there for free. If you need one, just let Meiya know in advance.”
Liu Shuang froze where he stood.
The empty rooms on the fourth floor could be stayed in for free!
But he remembered that on the first day, Meiya had said the fourth floor was the innkeeper’s private area. All guests were forbidden from going to the fourth floor, and if the innkeeper discovered them, the consequences would be severe!
The innkeeper’s words and the employee’s words contradicted each other. Then… who should they listen to?
“Brother Shuang, it’s fine. We should stay in the guest rooms to be safe!” Xia Susu said to Liu Shuang. “You don’t need to save these Merit Points for us!”
Liu Shuang nodded thoughtfully. “True. To be safe, we’d better stay in the guest rooms.”
With that, Liu Shuang snorted at Lili. “Fine, no discount then. I’m never coming back! And I’m going to leave you a bad review online!”
Lili smiled faintly. “Dear guest, I’m truly sorry for giving you such an unpleasant experience.”
She didn’t linger. Her gaze shifted to Meiya. “Meiya, be sure to take good care of our guests.”
Meiya kept her eyes lowered the whole time and nodded with great respect. “Yes, innkeeper.”
Lili turned and headed for the inn’s front doors.
At the entrance sat a bouquet of red roses and an exquisite wooden gift box. Lili picked up the roses and the box as naturally as could be, then went upstairs with them.
Only after Lili disappeared around the stairwell did everyone finally let out a breath.
“When did those roses and that gift show up by the door?” Wei Sen asked.
Lao Wang said, “They were there when I came down this morning. I didn’t know who they belonged to, so I didn’t dare touch them. And those aren’t real roses… They’re carved from ice.”
“Makes sense. Roses couldn’t bloom in a frozen place like this,” Wei Sen said.
“That ice wasn’t dyed red with blood, was it?” Xia Susu ventured.
Lao Wang pressed his lips into a hard line and said heavily, “It was.”
Everyone sucked in a cold breath. It seemed there was finally a clue about the other missing body.
“Meiya, who sent those roses and that gift to the innkeeper?” Wei Sen looked toward Meiya beside them.
This NPC seemed terrified of the innkeeper. She had to know something.
Meiya shook her head. “I’m not sure. But whenever guests check in, a mysterious person sends the innkeeper roses and a gift.”
Wei Sen asked, “What’s inside the wooden box?”
“I’m sorry, but those are the innkeeper’s personal belongings. I have no right to look through them without permission.” As Meiya spoke, she pushed the serving cart and prepared to leave. “Once you’ve finished eating, you may move about freely. The forest is very large, so please don’t wander too far. Getting lost would be extremely dangerous.”
After saying that, Meiya left the dining room, clearly unwilling to reveal anything more about the innkeeper.
He Xu said, “Based on what we know so far, the one who killed Fatty was most likely the innkeeper, because Fatty broke the rule against wasting food. As for the woman from Blue Team, the thing that killed her should be something in the forest…”
“I remember there are thirteen village households living in the forest. Could the villagers have done it?” Lin Xiaoxue asked.
Guo Lan said, “We can’t rule that out. But it could also have been whatever left those tracks in the snow that Wei Sen photographed last night.”
Chen Lin took a deep breath. “It feels like this forest is hiding an Eerie Entity at every turn…”
Zhou Jie gave a derisive snort, his gaze sweeping over everyone with a hint of contempt. “What did you expect? This is an S-Rank Instance.”
Everyone fell silent. After one day and one night, they had all deeply felt the difference between an S-Rank Instance and a C-rank Instance.
Although a C-rank Instance was terrifying too, an Order Keeper didn’t die this quickly in one. And the Eerie Entity doing the killing wouldn’t stand right in front of everyone like this innkeeper did…
He Xu stood up and said, “Let’s split up and investigate during the day. There are too many mysteries in this Instance. Right now, the only way to clear it we know of is surviving seven days. The more clues we find, the better our chance of leaving this place early.”
Wei Sen looked at the map in the group chat. First was this inn. She needed to search every area except the fourth floor. Then there was the forest…
The villagers living in the forest, as well as the Black Buddha worshipped at the village entrance-she needed to investigate them properly again.