Chapter 261: Wraith (Part 8) — No Destruction of State Treasury

Qi Si ultimately did not attempt to climb out of the Residence through the window.

The reason was simple: the old man’s corpse still had bloodstains, and the skeletons below still had strips of half-rotted flesh hanging from them. It was too dirty. And the Residence didn’t seem to have a place to bathe.

Qi Si and Lin Chen took advantage of the ample morning light to search the room from inside out. They found no new clues and were unable to complete the missing words in the letter.

“Baiyang River has fallen. The soldiers and civilians are gathered in Yanghua Town, resisting the invasion of foreign tribes…”

Lin Chen had already memorized the content of the letter. Now, he frowned in distress, muttering, “‘Baiyang River’ sounds so familiar. I must have seen relevant information about it in reality, but why can’t I remember it all of a sudden?”

As the only place name appearing on the letter, the three characters “Baiyang River” were not unfamiliar to Qi Si either.

This was likely a real-world location, and this instance probably had a significant connection to reality.

However, Qi Si, who never deliberately collected information or memorized knowledge points, couldn’t recall any historical allusions related to Baiyang River.

When Lin Chen cast a pleading look at him, he calmly said, “If you can’t remember it either, it means this information isn’t important, at least not critical to clearing this instance.

“The Eerie Game primarily tests players’ talents in strength and intelligence. While the amount of information is a parameter for calculating intelligence, it doesn’t play a decisive role; on the contrary, it might even provide misleading interference.

“Just as one cannot conclude that farmers are dumber than students because they can’t solve complex math problems, a fair game would not create a predicament that cannot be solved without knowing a certain piece of knowledge.”

Lin Chen nodded, understanding little but feeling impressed, finally giving up on dwelling on the true meaning of the letter.

Qi Si, meanwhile, sat by the bedside table, took out a pen and paper from his backpack, and wrote down the deductions about the instance’s mechanics they had discussed earlier.

When the hour hand of the Pocket Watch of Fate passed the Roman numeral “seven,” there was finally movement outside the door.

First, the sound of cloth shoes stepping on loose steps, a’shasha’ and ‘gachi’ alternating for a while, before finally settling on solid ground.

Then, the ‘dada’ sound of footsteps on wooden boards grew closer, stopping in front of the door of the room on the left.

‘Hualala,’ it was the sound of chains being unlocked.

Luo Haihua and her husband’s door was opened.

The footsteps continued, stopping in front of the middle wooden door, and the chains were unlocked in the same manner.

Qi Si had already stood at the doorway upon hearing the footsteps, and he clearly saw the figure holding a bunch of keys at a glance.

It was a white-haired old woman, her wrinkled skin sagging downwards like a layer of hanging gauze that would flutter with a gust of wind.

She wore a rough bamboo hat and a black robe, her body hunched. Her legs trembled under the burden, causing the bunch of keys in her hand to sway, emitting crisp ‘lingling’ sounds.

Qi Si looked at the distinctly human-shaped shadow behind the old woman and asked with a smile, “Madam, may I ask where the old man who brought us to the Residence yesterday went? He said he would take care of our food and lodging, so why didn’t he come this morning?”

Upon hearing this, the old woman slowly turned her face towards Qi Si and said in a hoarse voice, “Young man, I have always been in charge of this Residence. Last night, it was also I who led you here and assigned your rooms. Have you forgotten?”

Her attitude was sincere, and her confusion did not seem feigned.

Qi Si lifted his eyelids to meet her gaze, smiling apologetically, “I’m sorry, I might have been half-asleep and confused it with something I dreamed.

“It’s just… I do seem to have encountered a talkative old man in this area, about your height, and dressed similarly to you.”

He gestured with his hand in an affected manner, fabricating a story, “One of my companions accidentally bumped into him last night, and he fell. It was too late then, and we were in a hurry, so we didn’t pay much attention to his condition… I wonder if that old man returned later and if he’s alright.”

The old woman listened with her head nodding, as if dozing off.

After hearing the last sentence, she shook her head, “This area is all under my charge. Only outside guests are allowed to stay; no one else is permitted to enter. I haven’t seen anyone else dressed like me; this attire can only be worn by one living person.”

The old woman stated the unreasonable rule in a matter-of-fact tone, adding a touch of the eerie.

Lin Chen listened for a while from the side and couldn’t help but press, “Madam, why isn’t anyone else allowed in this area? Also, what’s so special about this attire that only one person can wear it?”

The old woman turned to him and chuckled, “Young man, you don’t know. If everyone gathered here, how could we distinguish between Wraiths and humans?

“In our town, one set of clothes represents one profession. One person is enough to manage the Residence, and this profession belongs only to me.”

She appeared very patient and willing to answer the players’ questions, seeming like a warm and hospitable human old lady from every angle.

—She seems to be an NPC who can provide a lot of information; we must make full use of her.

Qi Si asked curiously, “Madam, the war outside is fierce, yet your town seems unaffected.”

“Isn’t that right?” The old woman opened up, “We all fled from the north, losing land and lives along the way. Many people died.

“They conscripted soldiers and sent them to the battlefield. My son died, my grandson died. I’m just an old bag of bones; how much suffering have I endured? I don’t know when I’ll die too.

“Fortunately, Master Meng found Yanghua Town and invited Grandpa Mountain God to preside over it, keeping those soldiers away. That’s how we managed to live in peace.”

The background of this instance indeed involved war, which matched the content of the letter. The relationship between the tiger demon and the townspeople also seemed complicated, not merely a predatory one.

Qi Si thought of the piled-up skeletons behind the Residence, knowing that these townspeople had most likely died in the war, though he hadn’t realized it.

He took a few steps back, yielding the window, and feigned hesitation, “Madam, there’s one more thing I’m not sure if I should bother you with… This matter is truly too strange.”

The sun had risen higher than before, and the light streaming through the window into the room had shortened to the foot of the bed by the window, bright like a grid drawn with paint.

Seeing Qi Si and Lin Chen both looking in the same direction, the old woman slowly stepped forward, craning her neck to look into the room, “Young man, what happened? Is there something wrong with our Residence?”

Qi Si pointed to the window, “Last night, as soon as it got dark, it was noisy outside the window, with ‘dong dong’ sounds of knocking, as if countless people were gathered by the window, trying to rush in.

“I originally intended to stay up, but at Zi Hour, I fell into a daze and slept. This morning, I found several holes in the window.”

He lowered his eyes and said softly, “Moreover, I always feel like many people are watching me from outside the window… Do you think those Wraiths hidden in the town might be hiding behind the Residence, targeting us outsiders?”

“This is no small matter! I’ll come and see what’s going on.” The old woman’s expression became serious. Leaning on her cane, she tottered into the room.

She stood by the window, leaning on the windowsill, and looked down.

A half-story-high pile of corpses was right before her eyes, stark white like a sand mountain.

The corpse of the old man in the bamboo hat and black clothes lay on top, like an embellishment on the mountain peak, just an arm’s length from the old woman.

The old woman gazed around for a long time, her expression showing no great ripple, but rather filled with confusion.

She turned her head left and right, slowly straightened her back, and mumbled, “No, there’s nothing outside… Just a good mountain, a good bamboo forest, not a single person in sight. Could it be that they all retreated?”

Qi Si glanced at the old woman’s eyes. They were murky and vacant, unfocused.

It seemed she really saw nothing.

Or rather, the scene she saw was different from what the players saw.

Come to think of it, if those corpses were indeed the remains of refugees who died in the war, the townspeople certainly couldn’t be allowed to see them, otherwise it wouldn’t be conducive to unity and stability… Qi Si asked, “Madam, can you tell us what you saw?”

“I saw a bamboo forest…” The old woman suddenly stopped speaking, her face filled with bewilderment, and she murmured, “Can’t you see what it’s like outside? Master Meng said that only Wraiths see things differently from us…”

“You’re overthinking it,” Qi Si interrupted with a smile. “We can see it. Not only is there a bamboo forest outside, but there’s also a mountain.”

The old woman regained her senses, scrutinizing Qi Si up and down, her eyes clouded as if covered by a shadow.

Two seconds later, she grumbled, turned around, walked out of Qi Si and Lin Chen’s room, and headed towards Tang Yu and Qiu Xin’s room.

There wasn’t much to linger on in the room they had already searched, so Qi Si and Lin Chen silently followed her out.

Qi Si headed straight for the room of Luo Haihua and her husband on the left.

He had a premonition that during the time he was talking with the old woman, there had been no sound from Luo Haihua and her husband’s side, which probably meant bad news.

Qi Si felt no sadness at the deaths of these two; instead, he was curious about how they died and their death poses, wondering if there would be anything new.

Of course, he was more concerned about whether their room would leave behind any valuable clues, such as letters pointing to the worldview.

The room on the left was eerily quiet, even the scent and color were so faint it was like they were covered in a thin mist, as if nothing had ever existed.

Qi Si entered the room but saw no corpses, nor any human figures.

The two living people had seemingly evaporated into thin air, leaving no trace.

The bedside tables in the room had clearly been moved, stacked one on top of the other by the window, just enough to block it. This made the room appear dim like dusk, even in the morning.

Disheveled bedding was piled on the bed, indicating someone had lain there, but now it had lost its warmth, becoming cold and damp.

Two lanterns lay overturned in the corner, tattered like waste paper.

Qi Si moved the bedside table blocking the window, and light instantly flooded into the room.

He placed the bedside table back by the bed, reached out, and felt around its surface, pulling out a yellowed letter from a crack in the wood, and began to read it.

Lin Chen followed Qi Si into the room like a ghost, curiously leaning over and reading the words aloud:

“If this city falls, then our homeland will be lost, and your children’s assets will all become slaves and treasury…”

“Many are the loyalists in the southeast. With the royal army gone, perhaps a sliver of hope remains. We should gather firewood, burn palaces, and destroy pavilions. Jewels, gold, and tripods, rather let them turn to ashes than benefit the enemy.”

He habitually summarized, “This letter is a continuation of the one in our room. After they retreated to Yanghua Town, they couldn’t even defend Yanghua Town, so to prevent the invaders from acquiring supplies, they planned to burn Yanghua Town to the ground…”

As Lin Chen narrated, an inexplicable sense of grief and sorrow seeped into his skin from where his fingertips touched the letter. The black-on-white letter was momentarily dotted with splashes of blood, then instantly scattered like smoke.

Qi Si handed the letter to Lin Chen, then sat down by the window, pulled open the bedside table’s drawer, and his hand felt a handful of ashes inside.

Whether it was a life review or a death replay, the illusion of Luo Jianhua tightly embracing Luo Haihua, with flames spreading along the bedsheets and thick smoke billowing, appeared before his eyes after the lanterns overturned.

Accompanied by the smell of smoke and char, fearful cries, and the sound of things being torn apart… The hallucination appeared for only a moment and then vanished, impossible to grasp.

Yet, Qi Si inexplicably knew that it was an image of Yanghua Town’s past.

This undoubtedly corresponded to another part of the worldview, related to war. He didn’t know what connection it had to the Wraiths, but it looked very troublesome.

Qi Si withdrew his hand from the drawer, took out a handkerchief to wipe his fingertips clean, and looked at Lin Chen, saying indifferently, “There was a fire here last night. It was probably caused when the lanterns overturned, and Luo Haihua and her husband didn’t have time to stop it.”

“Ah? A fire?” Lin Chen looked around, asking, “This room is clean, and the furnishings aren’t damaged. It doesn’t look like there was a fire.”

“Who knows?” Qi Si picked up one of the lanterns from the floor and placed it on the bedside table along with the white paper he used for notes. “If you’re really curious about what happened, tonight we might try not bothering with the lanterns and letting them fall to the ground to see what happens.”

Lin Chen: Not curious at all, thank you.

He hesitated for two seconds, then cautiously asked, “Brother Qi, where are Teacher Luo and the others? Did they go out through the window?”

Disappearing at night in an instance is practically a death sentence. But Lin Chen was still unwilling to believe the biggest possibility.

Although Luo Haihua and her husband had only known him for a day, they seemed like good people, and he genuinely didn’t want such people to die so casually and insignificantly.

“Perhaps,” Qi Si had no intention of shattering Lin Chen’s beautiful fantasy. “Without seeing the bodies, nothing is conclusive. Maybe they just entered another space.”

He offered a lukewarm comfort, staring at the lantern on the bedside table, his thoughts gradually drifting.

Generally speaking, an instance with a total of only seven people would not have large-scale deaths on the first night.

The early survival difficulty of puzzle-solving instances is low, and the same room and death point would not take two people at once.

That would be too wasteful, too uneconomical, and inconsistent with the general rules of game design.

Moreover, from Qi Si’s experience last night, the lanterns did not fall quickly. A normal person could react completely and upright them before the situation became irreversible.

Although Luo Haihua and her husband were not young, as experienced players, they couldn’t possibly lack even that much reaction speed.

At the very least, they should have life-saving items, even if they were consumables with strict conditions of use.

In any case, these two shouldn’t have died together so inexplicably and silently on the first night… Meanwhile, the old woman opened the door to Tang Yu and Qiu Xin’s room, saying something unknown.

Soon, Tang Yu’s clear voice rang out loudly in the hallway, “Madam, I really didn’t kill her! She was gone when I woke up this morning, believe me!”

The old woman smiled, “I believe you. Wraiths leave bloodstains when they harm people, and you don’t smell of blood, so you didn’t harm anyone.”

“Thank you, Madam…”

“But, your companion must have left through the window. You opened the window at night, and who knows if any Wraiths entered the room…”

“What does that have to do with me? I’m perfectly fine, not dead…”

“Who knows if the current you is human or ghost? Tonight, you’ll have to come back here and be confined for another day.”

“Damn it!”

Qi Si clearly heard the conversation between the person and the NPC, his lowered eyelids concealing the darkness in his eyes.

The choice for the Wraith has been made; this is good.