Chapter 138: Grand Performance (I) Prologue

Because the stage is filled with evil spirits,

The light blinded the people’s eyes.

—Volume III: Light and Evil

He dusted off his suit and stared suspiciously at the decorative patterns on the wooden door in front of him.

He didn’t know where this place was; the cramped corridors twisted and turned a thousand times, and the dark corners were littered with Puppet parts and exaggeratedly colored stage costumes, looking very much like a third-rate horror game from over a decade ago.

The lighting in most places was very dim, and even the shadows cast by objects were faint, which didn’t conform to optical common sense.

Only the wooden door was lit up, as if all the lighting was focused there, deliberately designed to attract a passerby’s attention.

He felt something was off, so he looked away from the wooden door and tried to walk elsewhere.

But he soon discovered that no matter which direction he went, he would always end up back where he started—in front of this wooden door.

He was clearly trapped in this eerie building; he had no choice but to open the door.

“What’s behind the door? There shouldn’t be a ‘jump scare upon opening’ setting, right?”

He muttered to himself as he reached out and turned the doorknob.

In an instant, the wooden door vanished, and he was enveloped by a blinding white light, briefly losing his vision.

“Everyone is here; only you were missing,” an elderly female voice sounded not far away.

He squinted with effort and then opened his eyes wide; after doing this several times, he finally regained his sight.

In front of him was a massive stage, with countless golden silk threads and strings of beads hanging from overhead.

From the conical roof, red and blue colored sails hung loosely, their fabric edges outlined with dark gold woven threads.

A table spanned the center of the stage, bathed in chaotic colored light and shadow, making its outline almost impossible to see clearly.

He could only faintly see five chairs arranged around it, with four people already seated.

Indeed… only he was missing.

He walked over, sat in the empty seat, and secretly sized up the others.

The one who had spoken just now was a thin Caucasian woman wearing a solemn deep blue gown. She looked to be in her sixties or seventies, with a kind yet dignified smile on her face.

“You can call me Cynthia. This is my seventh time coming in.” The woman’s voice was steady and her pronunciation was clear and resonant, as if she were facing a vast audience.

To the woman’s right sat a young girl with a bowl cut, her appearance delicate and calm. She wore a student skirt and looked like she was still in high school. Sensing his gaze, the girl smiled somewhat unnaturally and said, “I am He Hui, this is my fourth time.”

“Hansen, fifth time.” The man sitting next to the girl shrugged and introduced himself. This man was built like a bull with powerful muscles and a full beard, looking like someone not to be trifled with.

His brain worked rapidly, intensely analyzing the information he received, such as the identities, backgrounds, and strengths of the people before him.

“My name is Dong Xiwen.” He showed a friendly smile and chose his words carefully to tell a lie, “This is my third time.”

Unexpectedly, as soon as he said this, the expressions of the several people present became playful—some with understanding, some with mockery, and some with the viciousness of a predator looking at prey.

His heart skipped a beat, and a strong sense of unease spread through his veins.

Did he say something wrong? To avoid showing too many flaws, he had already understated the number… “Did you not count the Novice Pool?” A light tsk sounded from a corner. “The Novice Pool has three instances, don’t forget.”

‘There’s actually a setting like a Novice Pool? Meaning these people are all veteran players who cleared the Novice Pool? Then what’s my situation? A rookie player accidentally entering a pro-level match?’

He complained inwardly and quickly corrected himself: “Oh, so you all count the novice instances. If those are included, then this is my sixth time.”

Hansen let out a cold sneer, clearly not believing him.

However, the others didn’t raise any more questions.

He maintained a calm expression and looked at the person who had given him a way out.

That person wore a white shirt so clean it was untainted by a speck of dust and an exaggeratedly smiling joker mask. Their specific appearance and age were hidden, but judging by the voice, they shouldn’t be very old.

So this person is also a player? From the outfit, I thought they were an NPC… “What a coincidence, it’s my sixth time too.” The person in the joker mask seemed to have seen through his confusion and said with a smile, “I’m Zhou Ke. I bought the mask in the mall.”

Zhou Ke, a homophone for Joker—it’s obviously a fake name, right?

He grumbled internally but also noted a piece of information: the Eerie Game has a mall where one can purchase certain items.

“By the way, just to clarify beforehand, the name I just gave is a fake one.” ‘Zhou Ke’ suddenly turned his face toward everyone, his voice sounding a bit muffled through the mask. “I hope that in a bit, you won’t jump out and accuse me over name-related issues.”

…On the morning of March 31st, Qi Si was woken up by a phone call.

A staff member from the Funeral Enforcement Team told him that the side in Jin City had already helped him level his ancestral graves and scatter his relatives’ ashes.

A problem solved without having to move, Qi Si was in a good mood. Seizing the moment, he got out of bed, dug a cardboard box out from the pile of junk under the bed, put the Statue of the Joyous God inside, and sealed it with tape.

He took the cardboard box, marked with the location and estimated delivery time, downstairs. He slipped into a surveillance blind spot and waited all morning until he finally caught a passing kid.

When the little brat heard Qi Si say he was willing to trade a piece of candy for an errand, he happily helped deliver the dangerous item to the post office. After returning to report, he even puffed out his chest and told Qi Si that he could find him for similar jobs in the future.

As for whether he would praise Qi Si’s taste after eating that chili-flavored mint or gain a new understanding of the deviousness of adults, that remained to be seen.

Qi Si found a random restaurant for lunch and bought some tin foil for folding joss paper on the way back, before leisurely returning home.

He lay on the bed and, riding the drowsiness of a nap, entered the Game Space. Sitting on the high-backed chair, he began to study his inventory of items.

The 【Rose Heart】 was very useful for lowering others’ vigilance. Paired with the 【Soul Contract】 skill, it made it quite convenient to trick people into signing certain unfair agreements.

The 【Pocket Watch of Fate】 could be used to tell time and perform a rewind. It was currently his most powerful life-saving item, effectively reducing the cost of trial and error and providing a safety net.

The 【Sea-God Scepter】… well, it was heavy and would be pretty good for spearing or roasting fish.

As for using it to attack other entities… Qi Si believed that before he could even raise this harpoon, he would have already been discovered and subdued.

Looking at it comprehensively, for a player who had only cleared five instances, this item panel was actually quite decent—

He wouldn’t be helpless in the face of a crisis, and sometimes he could even seize one or two turning points to dominate the situation.

But the specialization was also real.

Perhaps because he hadn’t made any wishes to increase his combat power, throughout his journey of clearing instances, Qi Si hadn’t encountered a single item that could effectively boost his fighting strength.

Current him was no different from him in the 【Rose Manor】; he would go down at a single touch.

The only difference was probably that with the 【Pocket Watch of Fate】, he could go down twice.

What concerned Qi Si was that the 【Evil God Finger Bone】 had been lost in Shuangxi Town, and Qi expressed inability to help.

This meant that if he encountered the Puppeteer again, he definitely wouldn’t have as much luck as he did in the 【Hopeless Sea】.

Setting aside the fact that the opponent had already figured out his background, just the 【Puppet Threads】 skill alone was enough to make him wary.

The only good news was that the Puppeteer currently didn’t know he had lost the 【Evil God Finger Bone】, so they surely wouldn’t act rashly.

He might be able to use the information gap to create a time gap, striving to clear a few more instances to accumulate items and see if he could find a way to solve the problem.

“If it really comes to it, I’ll just cut off my pinky. After all, the mechanism of those Puppet Threads seems quite strict; they have to wrap around the pinky to take effect.”

Qi Si stroked his chin, thinking with no small amount of malice.

Of course, that was a last resort. As a taxidermist, he still cherished his hands very much.

The Soul Leaf to the right of the high-backed chair glowed brightly, transforming the events that occurred during Qi Si’s absence into visual information and transmitting it into his mind.

White Crow had performed several more prayers, secretly expressing a hope that the “God” would perform a miracle in reality, likely trying to test how much strength the current Qi possessed.

Qi Si neither agreed nor refused.

If a god responded to every request from a believer, being a god would lose all its class.

On the other side, Liu Yuhan had already finished her sixth instance. It was a new instance, and her point reserves seemed to be exhausted.

This time, Qi Si directly transferred all ten thousand of her reward points to his own account, determined not to give her another chance to specify an instance to enter.

Afterward, Qi Si spent two thousand points to buy a joker mask.

This thing had no special effects, yet it was quite expensive. It was likely targeting a market demand and jacking up the price.

The points in his account became 【60600】, which was exceptionally auspicious.

Qi Si put the mask on his face before starting to match for an instance.

After the 【Shuangxi Town】 instance ended, no posts about him appeared on the Forum.

It wasn’t that Shang Qingbei was lenient; it was most likely just because that day was a Monday, and Shang Qingbei was at school and couldn’t get to his phone… Qi Si didn’t want to pin his hopes on everyone he met in the future being a minor without a phone, so he could only spend a huge sum to do something about his face.

Although wearing a mask looked far from upright and made it very easy to become a suspect, it was still better than being tracked down in real life after harming someone in the game.

【Randomly generating instance…】

【instance loading… Loading complete】

【instance Name: “Grand Performance”】

【instance Type: Multiplayer Puzzle】

【Pre-hint: We are all guilty】

A string of silver-white text scrolled past, and the basic information about the instance settled on the system interface in the top left corner of his vision.

Qi Si opened his eyes and was nearly blinded by the stage lights shining down from above.

In an instant, his vision switched from extreme darkness to high-saturation white with no transition, as if a PPT had abruptly switched from one slide to another.

The entire world was submerged in light. It was clearly silent, yet it created a noisy and clamorous atmosphere.

Qi Si found himself standing in the center of a massive stage, with stage lights from various directions focused on him.

He looked around but saw no audience seating.

The room was enclosed, and the entire floor was part of the stage area.

The alternating red and white color scheme of the walls reminded one of a temporary circus, but the various gems embedded in them made it more luxurious than the most prestigious opera house.

Although Qi Si had a strong desire to perform, he didn’t want to be pushed to the center of the stage at all.

He preferred finding a dark corner to perform a monologue for himself, or catching an unlucky soul for a one-on-one session of intimidation or deception.

He shielded his eyes from the blinding light with his hand and lightly stepped back toward the edge of the stage.

However, this instance seemed determined to expose creatures of the shadows to the light; no matter where Qi Si went, a spotlight followed him.

In the very center of the stage sat a round table. Its surface was carved with intricate patterns, and at the five equidistant points, numbers from 1 to 5 were marked in gouache-textured white. Next to each number sat a set of paper and pen, along with a high-backed chair.

Qi Si walked over and tried to drag the number one chair closest to him.

The chair seemed to be fixed to the floor by some force; no matter how hard he pulled, it wouldn’t budge.

He then tried to poke the paper and pen in front of the chair, and this time they actually moved.

The ballpoint pen rolled along, stopping abruptly just before touching the adjacent number’s area.

Qi Si settled into the number one chair and reached out to grab the paper at position 2, only to find his hand passing through it, as if through a blurred phantom.

He tried touching the paper and pens at the other positions as well, and without exception, he couldn’t touch them.

Clearly, he had been determined by the instance as “Player 1” and could not encroach upon the territory of other players.

“It really is a fair puzzle game. It seems I can’t scribble on other people’s paper. I just don’t know if aggressive behavior is permitted…”

Qi Si’s gaze fell upon the words “Multiplayer Puzzle” on the system interface.

It wasn’t a team instance, which meant there might be a clear competitive relationship between players.

The game content likely wouldn’t be a group of people holding clues and writing on paper to reconstruct the truth—the kind of script murder game that could be called “playing house.”

So what would it be?

If it was a faction confrontation game like the 【Hopeless Sea】, he would have to find a way to recruit a teammate. Whether to find someone smart or someone stupid was a matter of strategy… As Qi Si was thinking, another person appeared on the stage and walked up to him: “Hello, I’m He Hui. This is my fourth instance, please look after me.”

The newcomer was a delicate young girl with fine features on a pale face. Her expression was timid and weak, very introverted.

After greeting him, the girl sat down in seat number 3, one position away from Qi Si, sitting very properly and stiffly.

“Are you afraid?” Qi Si asked.

“Yes, how could I not be? So many people have died; I might die soon too,” the girl calling herself “He Hui” said pessimistically. “What I fear most is puzzles. My math isn’t good. I’ve forced myself to read many mystery novels over the past half month, but I couldn’t understand most of them…”

Qi Si gave a light chuckle, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

Two minutes later, Hansen, with his bulging muscles, appeared and sat in seat number 2.

Another minute passed, and the elderly Cynthia came over and sat in seat number 4.

Seeing that almost everyone was here, Qi Si adjusted the joker mask on his face and introduced himself: “You can call me Zhou Ke…”