Chapter 20: Rose Manor (19) Innocent Murder

Zou Yan stood outside Room 2 for five minutes, but there was no response from Lin Chen.

It was as if the room had been empty all along.

Yet she clearly remembered that Lin Chen had not stepped out once since entering the room.

Over her years as a psychologist, Zou Yan had accumulated a wealth of experience, allowing her to discern a person’s character with just a brief interaction.

She knew Lin Chen lacked assertiveness and cunning, and was easily soft-hearted; generally speaking, he would never stand by and watch someone die.

Where exactly had things gone wrong? Did Lin Chen know something?

Zou Yan’s gaze narrowed slightly, catching a faint scent of what could only be called a “variable.”

She felt a flicker of unease, but upon seeing her right hand, which was wrapped in vines, her composure quickly returned.

It was fine. She had already grasped the greatest secret of this instance; even if she couldn’t kill Lin Chen, killing someone else would be just the same.

It was a pity. Qi Si was clearly the type of person well-suited for the Eerie Game. Since he was unwilling to accept her olive branch, he would simply have to die.

Having made her decision, Zou Yan turned and walked toward the stairs.

Inside the room, Lin Chen’s palms were slick with clammy sweat, making it nearly impossible to grip the slippery key.

He exhaled in relief as he listened to the footsteps outside the door gradually fade away.

Zou Yan was definitely trouble. It was a good thing he hadn’t opened the door.

Was this what the Eerie Game was like? He had to remain vigilant at all times; even among fellow humans, there was no room for trust.

Lin Chen felt as if he had come to a realization, and the cognitive barriers that had been built up over the past twenty years began to fracture.

He took a deep breath, and just as he was about to retreat to the bed, a knock sounded on the door once more.

Miss Anna’s voice came from outside: “Is anyone there? Could you please open the door?”

Lin Chen’s hair stood on end, and he could no longer suppress the urge to vent internally: ‘Why are you all picking on me? Do I really look that easy to trick? At least come up with a better routine, seriously!’

On the Third Floor, Qi Si paused at the top of the stairs, standing behind the railing to peer downward.

Blackish-green vines spread along the handrails on both sides, slicing his downward view into disjointed, crooked angles. Through the gaps between the foliage, the path ahead was obscured, leaving him to only guess at what lay ahead through the phantoms in the gloom.

Qi Si clicked his tongue twice. “It would be a real waste not to set an ambush in this terrain. Do you think someone might be down there waiting to block us?”

Chang Xu understood his implication.

The two of them had already spent an hour on the Third Floor, and there was no telling what variables might have emerged downstairs.

The appearance of the 【Hermes’ Eye】 indirectly indicated that at least one of either Zou Yan or Ye Zi was a veteran player who knew their information like the back of their hand.

One hour was more than enough time to set a trap.

“Lend me a blade.” Chang Xu looked at Qi Si, his tone matter-of-fact. “I’ve trained in this; the weapon will be more effective in my hands.”

Handing a weapon to someone else was the height of stupidity, especially when trust was in short supply.

Qi Si pretended not to hear. He drew a blade from his bracelet, clamped it between his fingers, and took a half-step back, gesturing for Chang Xu to take the lead.

He added a blatant dose of moral coercion for good measure: “Brother Chang, the capable should do more. I’ve always admired the police profession—the rest of this path is up to you.”

Chang Xu swept a glance at him but said nothing. He raised his hand to push aside the vines on either side of the stairs and walked in front.

Qi Si followed half a step behind, maintaining the perfect distance to both attack and retreat.

After the preceding series of events, their cooperative relationship was on shaky ground.

Under the “insect-raising” mechanism of the Eerie Game, there was little trust to be found between players to begin with. Qi Si and Chang Xu’s brief cooperation had merely been a matter of mutual convenience.

Due to Shen Ming’s death, Chang Xu was facing a crisis of trust and struggled to find companions. He naturally lacked the information needed to decipher the instance’s worldview and required deeper exploration.

Qi Si lacked deep knowledge of the Eerie Game, and his combat prowess was nothing to write home about; he desperately needed a capable companion to serve as a buffer during exploration.

For the exploration of the Third Floor, they had been the most suitable partners.

But now that the exploration was over, their cooperation seemed less important. Furthermore, Qi Si had openly admitted to withholding information on several key points…

Although Chang Xu was a bit slow in social matters, he was not stupid. He gradually began to realize that when he had first become the target of everyone’s ire, there had seemingly been a shadow of Qi Si using his words to guide the other players’ thoughts…

By now, he had already labeled Qi Si as “not a good person.” He would let it slide for this instance, but if they ever met again, he would absolutely not believe a single word from this man!

The staircase wasn’t long, and even with the obstruction of the rampant vines, it wasn’t difficult to traverse.

Turning the corner, they could see the scene on the second floor. Dark green vines climbed up to the corridor ceiling, hanging down from above like door curtains or decorative ribbons, dancing wildly in a breeze that seemed to come from nowhere.

Whether it was because Chang Xu had slowed his pace or some other reason, the distance between him and Qi Si grew smaller and smaller, until they were only half a step apart—close enough to touch with a raised hand.

“Chang Xu! Qi Si! Ye Zi is trying to kill me, save me…”

Zou Yan came rushing through the vines, her white trench coat billowing. Reddish-brown bloodstains bloomed across her chest like roses in a watercolor painting. She stumbled toward the stairs like a nimble animal being chased by a hunter, her panic laced with cunning.

Qi Si looked at her right hand, which she was hiding behind her back, and let out a scoff. “Wasn’t Ye Zi already killed by you? What kind of act is this? A vengeful spirit coming for your life?”

The pervasive mist seeped through the diluted red of the pool of blood. The vines hanging from above grew longer and longer, weaving a giant, crisscrossing net between the heavens and the earth.

Even after being exposed, Zou Yan did not drop her look of panic. Her blood-smeared face, resembling a mask from a dance drama, was hidden in the shadows cast by the vines. Dense, thorny branches burst forth from the veins in her right arm, spraying droplets of blood that fell like a shower of red rain.

“My apologies, I was just guessing. I didn’t expect you to expose yourself.” The smile on Qi Si’s face widened.

Ye Zi was already dead, yet the photograph in the second room on the Third Floor had not displayed her face. Did this mean that Miss Anna was not omniscient in this instance?

The guests who had been snatched from thin air and thrown into the manor appeared to be at a disadvantage, but that did not necessarily mean there was no way to break the situation.

Qi Si observed Zou Yan’s performance and recited softly, “My chest decays, my flesh spreads upon the ground, roses reside here, and tomorrow, they shall endure with me…”

“So, you fuse roses with your own flesh to gain power comparable to that of Ghosts? So that was the meaning behind those four lines of poetry. Thank you for helping me test it out.”

The nourishment of flesh and blood provided the soil for the Eerie to grow, and the vines spreading across the corridor thrashed about like bared fangs and claws. The sound of the torrential rain breached the stone walls, washing over the ancient castle with a roar that surged like the tides.

The crisis triggered an alarm deep within his consciousness. Chang Xu reflexively arched his back and clenched his fists, adopting a leopard-like attack stance, poised and ready.

He had been different from others since childhood, naturally capable of restraining certain Ghosts, and “those people” had always intended to cultivate him into a machine for dealing with the Eerie.

Even if Zou Yan had mastered some of the Eerie powers within this instance, he might still have the strength to put up a fight.

Chang Xu fell into a state of intense focus; Zou Yan’s figure split into various angles and cross-sections before his eyes. Finding the right angle, he lunged forward.

A flicker of dread crossed Zou Yan’s eyes—a warning of danger from a beast, rather than a rational human judgment. In an instant, she burst forth with a speed that did not belong to a human, disappearing briefly before reappearing a step away.

Chang Xu lunged to meet her, bending his elbow to strike at Zou Yan’s neck. His skin barely grazed her as she leaned backward at an angle no human could achieve, dodging toward Qi Si.

She raised her right hand, and the sound of wind, accompanied by a thick stench of blood, descended upon him. The rosebuds wrapped around her arm opened and closed like the eyes of gods and demons, but they were thrust toward Qi Si.

Chang Xu saw her intention. Reflexively, he kicked off the ground to gain momentum, throwing himself between her and Qi Si.

The rose vines shriveled timidly the moment they touched his body, as if they had come into contact with fire or strong acid. Zou Yan stumbled backward, letting out a high-pitched wail.

‘I can take her.’ Chang Xu made the judgment in his heart, turning his fist into a palm to grab for Zou Yan’s neck.

However, the next second, he felt a chill at the back of his neck, followed by the incomparably sharp pain of a blade slicing straight through his artery.

Qi Si withdrew the blade. Blood sprayed out in a bright red ribbon, soaking into the black collar without leaving a trace.

A cold like falling into an ice cellar wrapped around him, layer upon layer. Chang Xu’s pupils dilated and then contracted as he belatedly realized what had happened.

Through his scattering consciousness, Qi Si’s smiling voice drifted leisurely into his ears: “As expected of someone who’s trained; your carotid artery is much more prominent than an ordinary person’s.”

The voice was too nonchalant, stirring in Chang Xu the dangerous intuition of a beast facing its natural predator. He collapsed weakly to his knees, struggling to look back.

In the dim light, the young man’s white shirt, already stained with blood, was splattered with a fresh layer of crimson, creating a scene as tragically beautiful as a richly colored oil painting.

The killer gently wiped the blood from the side of the blade with his fingers, his smile growing even more innocent and harmless, as if the person who had just struck the blow were someone else. “My apologies, Brother Chang, but I’m afraid I have to trouble you to die for a moment.”

He paused, then added in a joking tone, “But considering that you likely won’t remember what happened during this time later, I’ll spare you a long-winded apology.”

Still the same infuriatingly boring sense of humor…

Chang Xu didn’t know what emotion he should be feeling. Anger, hatred, or resentment? Or perhaps, just like before, indifference—neither joy nor sorrow?

All he could feel at this moment was a fatigue urging him to sleep, as if he were submerged in a dead sea that no longer flowed.

He took one last look at Qi Si, and finally, drained of his last ounce of strength, his head drooped, and he closed his eyes.