Chapter 188 – Red Maple Boarding School (25): “They Still Haven’t Found the Cure They Wanted”

Two centuries ago, two races separated by vast oceans met eyes across an endless expanse of Black Soil. With no shared language or script, they could communicate only through the most primitive gestures and pantomime.

The strangers found the unfamiliar land and sweltering climate hard to bear. Flustered, they drove off venomous insects and beasts, pitched flimsy tents on the damp earth, and begged the indigenous people—still living by primitive means—for food.

Thanks to the locals’ hospitality, the newcomers soon saw the land’s marvels: gold and precious gems lay in heaps; toss a seed into the soil and a rich harvest followed.

Greed urged them to seize the land for themselves, but arrogance drove them even more. In their eyes, an advanced civilization remaking a backward one was only natural.

Conquest and colonization went smoothly. More and more foreigners took root; the germs they carried spread, and plague swept the locals, emptying yet more land for occupation.

Human desire knows no bounds. Absurdly, people often can’t tell coveting, killing, gluttony and lust apart, lumping every status-flaunting act into one.

Once the new continent was theirs, they hunted the natives like deer or cattle, yet eagerly indulged every desire forbidden by public morals.

Some diseases don’t spread the usual way, but after brazen, unnatural debauchery, new plagues bred in dank, fetid corners—like divine punishment upon sinners.

Wrinkled mushrooms sprouted from the sufferers’ moist skin, a shameful secret never spoken; agony sent them scurrying for cures, trying every bizarre remedy.

They smeared native brain tissue on sores, hid blisters under scalps, even drank human blood and ate human flesh. When all else failed, some heard of witchcraft and clutched at it like a lifeline.

They turned their gaze on the Indigenous Peoples Charity Foundation and Red Maple Boarding School, gnawed away a share of the discourse, and used it to experiment and kill in secret.

Tiny corpses filled the Maple Forest Graveyard; blood-soaked earth could no longer bear trees, only scattered yellow flowers and pale mushrooms.

The secret slowly leaked; plague and public opinion hampered the intruders, so they burned every trace and looked for fresh soil where sin could run free.

Death replayed its tragedy, the feast of evil revolved again and again, yet in the end they still hadn’t found the cure they wanted… In the shadow-haunted Graveyard Zhang Yiyu trembled as she pointed the way; Chen Lidong walked beside her, beating back ghosts, boots crunching the uneven ground and grinding mushrooms to pulp.

In the hush Chen Lidong asked abruptly, “That ‘Si Qi’ you mentioned—the one the forums claimed broke free after being controlled by the Puppeteer?”

Zhang Yiyu naturally knew which incident he meant.

At the close of the Hopeless Sea instance, Qi Si forced Chang Xu to shut down the livestream, threatened him with the Sea-God Scepter while under the Puppeteer’s control, and finally stabbed Chang Xu several times—almost killing him.

The Puppeteer showed extreme interest in the Sea-God Scepter, sacrificing three puppets and alerting every faction. Afterwards Liu Yuhan posted that Qi Si had ultimately shaken off the Puppeteer’s control, veiling the affair in mystery.

The Eerie Investigation Bureau’s Jiangcheng Branch pored over the archived footage again and again; Investigators still argue over details and truth, with no clear conclusion reached.

Some say Qi Si’s skill is unique—one of the few players able to escape the Puppeteer’s influence—and must be recruited; he could become a key pawn between the Bureau and the Sera Guild.

Others say Qi Si is no better than the Sera Guild; killing Chang Xu might not have been coercion but a double act with the Puppeteer to muddy the waters.

The Bureau naturally kept all this from Zhang Yiyu, yet she has a nose for gossip and had already dug up most of what had happened before entering the instance.

“It’s him,” Zhang Yiyu answered frankly. “But I don’t know if he really broke free; his Soul Contract feels awfully similar to the Puppeteer’s skill…”

Chen Lidong cut her off impatiently. “Of course they’re alike—only the alike can counter each other.”

As a Sera Guild reservist he knew Qi Si had already escaped the Puppeteer; otherwise the guy’s long con would have been a farce of “the dragon king’s temple flooded by the river god.”

Only now did he connect the name “Si Qi” with the Puppeteer; subconsciously he’d assumed anyone who could make that Puppeteer lose face must be far beyond his reach, never appearing in the same instance.

Yet fate is wondrous: the fellow had fallen on hard times, motionless and at his mercy—an easy back-stab whenever he wished.

He could almost see it: the one who’d snapped the Puppeteer’s strings would surely be on that lord’s mind, and if he could rid the lord of that thorn, the reward points would be anything but small.

Good news puts a spring in one’s step. Chen Lidong sneered and urged, “Hurry up—don’t you hate him for forcing you to sign that Contract? I’ll kill him right now.”

Zhang Yiyu had never imagined things would turn out like this. At first she’d simply felt Qi Si couldn’t even protect himself and had wanted to give up on saving him; she never expected that in the blink of an eye she’d not only refuse to help but actually rush up to stab him in the back.

Such flip-flopping and betrayal was hardly honorable, but when she glanced at the dagger glinting coldly in Chen Lidong’s hand she decided her life mattered more and could only whisper, “Mm, I… we’ll kill him together.”

Chen Lidong looked even more pleased. “Little girl, next time you run into something like this, come to me—no need to fear those showy frauds!”

“O-oh, thank you, big shot!”

The damp air condensed into beads of water on the soil, sticking to the butterfly’s thin wings like glue. Corpses of flowers and butterflies piled on the grave dirt, forming a carpet a finger thick that rustled when stepped on.

Zhang Yiyu stared straight ahead, forcing herself not to look at the monsters around her, and drifted forward as if sleepwalking until she reached the place Qi Si had once pointed out with a soul leaf.

A white stone tombstone, its edges worn, stood slanted and alone in the dirt, the shallow scratch “47” carved upon it. Behind it yawned a deep pit holding a black-wood coffin, its lid tightly shut.

Chen Lidong stepped to the edge of the pit and pointed at the coffin. “Si Qi’s lying in there?”

“Sh-should be.” Zhang Yiyu lowered her head at the plain, unadorned coffin, her voice as small as a mosquito’s.

In the end she was just too weak; from start to finish she could only be led by the nose with no other choice.

If only she were stronger—strong enough to fight any player to a standstill—how could she be trapped and coerced like this?

“Tell me, could this be an act you two cooked up to lure me here and kill me?” Chen Lidong stepped onto the coffin lid, in no hurry to open it.

He turned, narrowing his eyes as he studied Zhang Yiyu’s face. “He’s no fool; having you dash over in full view of everyone is practically begging to be found. When I lift the lid, some hidden weapon isn’t going to shoot out and kill me, right?”

Zhang Yiyu shuddered and hastily shook her head. “N-no, impossible! It won’t happen!”

The more Chen Lidong watched her shrinking, timid manner, the more suspicious he became.

As someone who could stand against Puppeteer, how could “Si Qi” fall so easily in this little instance?

If Soul Contract really were a skill akin to Puppet Threads, how could Zhang Yiyu break free so simply?

Chen Lidong glanced at the Truth Ring on his finger, its surface still blood-red; he knew Zhang Yiyu wasn’t lying.

But not lying didn’t equal telling the whole truth—sometimes a partial truth was deadlier than a lie.

“Si Qi” was treacherous; who could say he hadn’t deceived even his pawn?

“Heh, I won’t open it—I’ll kill him right through the coffin.” Having decided, Chen Lidong raised White Blade and stabbed at the lid.

The impact numbed his arm; he staggered back and looked again—there wasn’t even a scratch on the coffin.

The coffin was far sturdier than he’d expected; as a key prop of the instance it probably couldn’t be destroyed by player force.

In an instant Chen Lidong understood why “Si Qi” dared to lie inside—he was betting that to kill him one would have to open the coffin.

The more he thought about it, the less he dared open it—yet turning tail was equally unacceptable.

He looked left and right, his gaze landing on the mound of dirt beside the pit, and sneered, “Si Qi, oh Si Qi—bet you never saw this coming. I’ll bury you without opening the lid; let’s see you crawl out of that.”

Zhang Yiyu shivered, suffering in silence.

These Veteran Players were inhuman one after another; compared with them she, a monster, seemed almost normal… Chen Lidong gave her no time to react, kicking the loose soil into the pit while producing a shovel from nowhere and motioning for her to help.

Zhang Yiyu clenched her teeth and finally took the shovel, scooping dirt into the pit strike after strike.

In barely ten minutes the two of them had refilled the pit behind Tombstone 47.

Finally Chen Lidong stepped onto the low mound and stamped it hard, only satisfied once the soil was firmly packed.

He turned to Zhang Yiyu, his grim expression replaced by a gentle smile. “Little girl, next let’s sync our story for when we get back.”

Zhang Yiyu’s eyes widened. “…Huh?”

“You should already know—I’m the ‘Philanthropist’. You exposed my identity earlier and lied that killing was a mandatory task; I haven’t settled that with you yet.”

Chen Lidong delivered the threat in a mild tone; seeing the girl properly cowed, he continued, “Of course, I’ve no interest in killing you and don’t plan to expose your lies. On the contrary, I need you to keep deceiving them—best if they die off one by one on the road… You’ve already fooled them once; what does it matter who you cooperate with?”

The turn of events was completely beyond Zhang Yiyu’s expectations. She asked in bewilderment, “But why? Isn’t the instance cleared just by preparing enough medicine to cure everyone’s insomnia syndrome?” It wasn’t some impossible task like killing Ms. Medina—why bother with a minimum-death mechanism?

“Are you stupid?” Chen Lidong stared at the system prompt—【Prepare sufficient medicine to cure all players of “insomnia syndrome”】—and grinned like a fiend. “The fewer people left, the less medicine we need, and the easier it becomes to clear the main quest…”