Chapter 267: Wraith (14) Red Robe Bathed in Sunlight

After Qi Si appeared in Lin Chen and Tang Yu’s line of sight, a gap quietly appeared in the Bamboo Forest, where they couldn’t find a way out before, just wide enough for two people to pass through.

The path they had taken to arrive reappeared perfectly in front of Qi Si, with the other end leading directly to their feet, remotely connecting the players who had split into two groups.

Scarecrows with human faces stood on either side of the path, like attendants welcoming and seeing off guests, quiet and obedient.

When the wind blew, the bamboo poles and scarecrows swayed in unison, making no strange sounds and not turning, as if the scene of them surrounding the players earlier was just an illusion.

And the latecomer Qi Si was the beam of light that pierced the illusion, simply by standing there, he pulled the two players trapped in a nightmare back into reality.

“Brother Lin!” Lin Chen subconsciously lifted his foot, about to walk towards the red-robed figure outside the Bamboo Forest.

Tang Yu grabbed him and whispered, “Wait a moment, be careful of a trick.”

It was not uncommon for Ghosts to impersonate players, so it was always better to be cautious.

Lin Chen retracted his foot and stood still beside Tang Yu.

Then he heard Qi Si chuckle from a distance, “Good vigilance. How about exchanging information? Tang Yu, former Jiuzhou Guild player, expelled for accidentally injuring a teammate, currently a free player.”

He appropriately cast his gaze towards Tang Yu, who had a tense face: “Let’s reintroduce ourselves. Lin Ya and I are cousins. We haven’t joined a guild yet, but we managed to get a team-up item through a certain channel, allowing us to enter the instance as a team.”

First, he reiterated information only known to players, ruling out the suspicion of a Ghost impersonation; then, he shared some information about himself, conveying goodwill and closing the distance—a very experienced and efficient way of socializing.

Tang Yu tightly clutched Lin Chen’s sleeve and asked casually, “Lin Wen, could you explain? Lin Ya and I stumbled around for a long time and couldn’t get out, but a path appeared as soon as you arrived. What’s the principle behind that?”

“The principle, actually, is nothing special,” Qi Si said slowly, his eyes half-closed. “Do you remember what the Scholar said earlier, not to get too close to the funeral procession, and that we must stand ten zhang away?

“You might have thought that was an exaggeration, fearing players would find important clues. But in my opinion, the Scholar might not have too much malice towards us; suggesting we follow the funeral procession out of town should also have been in hopes that we would discover something.

“I guess getting too close to the funeral procession makes it easy to be drawn into an illusion, just like you are now. And ten zhang is a safe distance that won’t be affected.”

He paused, then his fingertip suddenly emerged from his blood-red sleeve, pointing to the black and white muddy ground: “Look, I am currently exactly ten zhang away from you.

“I am outside the illusion, and you are inside the illusion, but Lin Ya can hear my voice through the team-up item, naturally re-establishing contact with the real world outside the illusion, thus being able to use me as an anchor to break through the illusionary realm.

“This also indicates that the items we brought into the instance from outside are not affected by this instance’s mechanisms.”

“So that’s how it is.” Tang Yu nodded solemnly, then forced a smile, “Thanks to you this time, otherwise, if I were desperate, I might have set the mountain on fire.”

He took a step forward, about to walk out of the Bamboo Forest along the small path paved with white pebbles, but saw Qi Si in the distance clearly take a large step back, maintaining a distance of ten zhang from him.

“Lin Wen, you are…”

“Before you leave the Bamboo Forest, I need you to help me complete an experiment.”

Qi Si looked up at Tang Yu; the distance of ten zhang was enough to make figures blurry like color blocks, and voices ethereal like Ghost whispers.

He smiled and said, “It’s not a very complicated experiment. You just need to pick any scarecrow and slash it with the saber at your waist.”

Tang Yu was stunned for two seconds, finally understanding Qi Si’s meaning, and his eyes widened: “Huh? You’re an old player, aren’t you mistaken? We finally got them to calm down, and now we’re going to provoke them? Are you tired of living?

“What if we provoke them and get chased throughout the entire instance? You know, when we were surrounded earlier, I only dared to cut bamboo, not them…”

Qi Si quietly ‘oh’-ed, lowered his eyes slightly, and took a step back.

In an instant, Tang Yu saw the scene around him expand like an ink painting with water dripping onto it, the dark green color spreading in the air, undergoing expansion and contraction deformation within a few seconds, gradually blurring into a hazy mess.

The path that had just appeared was painted over with the colors of the Bamboo Forest, the gaps were filled with dense bamboo poles in the blink of an eye, and the scarecrows on both sides twisted into a circle, surrounding Tang Yu and Lin Chen like a fence.

The real world seemed to exist centered around Qi Si; beyond a ten zhang radius, all was a forbidden zone of strangeness and illusion.

As Qi Si moved away, it was as if the world itself moved away with him.

“Damn it! Lin Wen, I’ll f*** you…” Just as Tang Yu was about to curse, he saw the scarecrows disperse again, and the path reappeared.

Qi Si, in his red robe, stood at the end of the path, his crimson silhouette embedded in the mist like blood, his voice gentle and harmless: “My apologies, I slipped just now and accidentally took a step back.

“I didn’t expect this instance’s mechanism to be so precise; the ten zhang distance can be neither more nor less.”

This was clearly an open lie.

Tang Yu was so angry he laughed: “Can’t you just say what you mean? If you want to try slashing a scarecrow, can’t you do it yourself?

“Let me stand in your position as a landmark, I’ll lend you my saber, you come over here and slash a scarecrow…”

“Um, Brother Lin, Brother Tang…” Lin Chen cautiously raised his hand, “How about I try? My luck has always been good; maybe nothing will happen if I slash it…”

Even before Qi Si took a step back, he had heard Qi Si’s reminder in his mind, so although he felt Qi Si’s actions were a bit aggressive, he wasn’t surprised.

He knew that Qi Si had helped him a lot, and he would stand by Qi Si no matter what; and Tang Yu, after spending time with him, didn’t seem like a bad person and had protected him in many details… Weighing the two, he could only mediate between them.

Qi Si saw through Lin Chen’s thoughts perfectly and sighed faintly: “Lin Ya, you didn’t kill anyone with a knife last night, so how can you do a control experiment?

“Aren’t you curious about what kind of beings the residents of Yanghua Town truly are, and why they have shadows?”

Lin Chen was speechless, genuinely confused about how slashing a scarecrow was a control experiment, and what it had to do with the latter two questions.

Tang Yu, however, understood Qi Si’s implied meaning, and his eyebrows slightly raised: “I somewhat understand your plan; you’re not trying to say…”

“It’s hard to say for now; we’ll only know after we try.”

Qi Si lifted the left half of his long sleeve, staring at the Pocket Watch of Fate on his wrist: “You don’t have to worry about mortal danger. I have an item that can rewind time by one minute, which can be activated at any time if you encounter an unmanageable situation.

“You can trust that I have no reason to harm you, and I am willing to guarantee your survival within certain limits. After all, I hope to survive with my cousin, and I definitely cannot take the NE clear route that triggers the minimum death toll mechanism.

“It’s unknown how long until the instance ends. To achieve a TE clear with the fewest casualties, I need the strength of you, an experienced and formidable former core player of the Jiuzhou Guild.

“And just as we cannot leave you, you are weak alone, and to achieve anything, you cannot do without our help. This is a team instance, isn’t it?”

Qi Si’s words were sincere and earnest, not empty rhetoric, but a pragmatic analysis from the perspective of self-interest; though cold, they were exceptionally credible.

There are no eternal friends, only eternal interests. Most old players who have survived until now deeply understand this principle.

Tang Yu stared intently for a long while, then nodded gently, acknowledging Qi Si’s explanation.

“Alright, alright, alright.” He said “alright” three times in a row, then turned and paced back and forth in front of a row of scarecrows beside him, finally stopping in front of a scarecrow wearing a black straw cape.

That was the scarecrow made from the newly deceased old man; Tang Yu had slashed this old man twice yesterday.

To conduct a control experiment, variables must be controlled, and the smaller the differences between experimental subjects, the better.

Lin Chen watched from the side, a little nervous, and Qi Si’s words involuntarily replayed in his mind.

‘No matter what, I will be the one who wants you to survive to the very end the most.’

‘I hope you can survive, and I will do everything in my power to ensure you make it to the end.’

‘I will do everything I can to help you survive…’

The Eerie Game is ever-changing; who can guarantee that someone will definitely survive to the end?

The context and tone of Qi Si’s words were too strange; Lin Chen always had a bad premonition, feeling that he might do something crazy, such as… killing other players.

“Brother Tang…” Lin Chen called out hesitantly.

“What’s wrong?” Tang Yu didn’t turn his head, and as he spoke, his hand moved, and the saber fell, cutting the scarecrow in half with a’sha’ sound.

The straw at the cut exploded loosely, the lower half of the scarecrow remained stuck in the dirt, while the upper half flew out, hitting a bamboo pole and sliding down.

Tang Yu watched the scarecrow’s remains, holding his breath and waiting for the next development.

Time passed minute by minute, with no unusual occurrences.

The scarecrow seemed to be just an ordinary scarecrow; apart from its eerie makeup, it had no other supernatural qualities, it wouldn’t revive, nor would it harm players who destroyed it.

“Did you feel it?” Qi Si asked lightly, then let his lifted sleeve fall.

Seeing Tang Yu in a daze, he added indifferently, “How does the sound and feel of cutting the scarecrow compare to when you killed NPCs last night?”

At this point, Lin Chen finally understood what Qi Si meant by the control experiment.

It seemed he had overthought it; Qi Si wasn’t intentionally trying to harm Tang Yu. As the only player who had killed an NPC, the task of cutting scarecrows really did have to fall to Tang Yu.

Under their gaze, Tang Yu held his saber, his expression unfathomable.

He seemed not to have heard Qi Si’s words, staring blankly at a certain point in the void before him. A few seconds later, he suddenly raised his saber again and slashed at another nearby scarecrow.

“Sha—” The upper half of the scarecrow fell, landing on the wet muddy ground.

Tang Yu turned to cut the third, fourth… “Sha, sha, sha…”

After experimenting five or six times, Tang Yu inserted his saber back into its sheath at his waist, his face ashen: “From the sound to the feel, there’s no difference. The old man I slashed twice last night, his body must have been made of scarecrow material.

“I understand somewhat now. NPCs are all Ghosts; their souls can possess anything at will. As long as there are new, intact scarecrows, their souls can attach to them. No wonder they couldn’t be killed by ordinary means…”

The previous questions were now easily resolved.

Ghosts attached to scarecrows, thus gaining form and shadows.

There were only a few types of clothes for scarecrows, so the townspeople’s attire was also monotonous, with the same profession using the same image.

Memories following the profession indicate that memories belong to the scarecrow itself.

The townspeople’s Ghosts randomly attach to different scarecrows, thereby acquiring corresponding memories.

Lin Chen stroked his chin thoughtfully: “That explains it. Professions and townspeople are separate. Professions are determined by the type of scarecrow, and when a townsperson’s Ghost attaches to a different scarecrow, they get a different identity…” “Does that mean the scarecrows possessed by each Ghost aren’t fixed daily? Do they have a specific time when they collectively unpossess, then reshuffle and randomly choose scarecrows to possess again?

“But if that old man was a Ghost, how was he killed by a Wraith? His body was a scarecrow; how would a tiger eat that? Would it just eat straw?”

New questions followed one after another. Tang Yu shook his head: “I don’t know, the clues are too messy. Let’s go back and find the Scholar. Perhaps we can ask Master Meng about the questions we can’t figure out then.”

Lin Chen: Why ask Master Meng about everything, hey!

As the two spoke, they walked one after another along the small path through the Bamboo Forest.

This time, Qi Si didn’t move, standing quietly with his hands at his sides, serving as a landmark.

Lin Chen and Tang Yu quickly exited the Bamboo Forest and stood beside Qi Si.

Qi Si faced them and smiled slightly: “Long time no see.”

Tang Yu gave a fake smile: “Good, good, good.”

He had been half-forced, half-persuaded by Qi Si to do a control experiment, and although he understood the reasoning behind it, it didn’t stop him from feeling annoyed.

Moreover, seeing the young man’s enigmatic attitude, half-speaking and half-hiding, he had the potential to mutate into a Slaughter-path player.

Lin Chen sensed the awkward atmosphere and subtly stood between the two, raising a question: “Brother Lin, Brother Tang, the name of this instance is ‘Wraith,’ and our main quest is more or less related to tigers, but why does it feel like we’re just circling the periphery of the clues and haven’t even seen a tiger’s shadow?”

“You will see it.” Qi Si’s smile did not diminish, “Master Meng led us to Yanghua Town precisely to deal with the tiger. Even if we don’t want to see the tiger, he will make us see it.

“Moreover, do you really think Wraiths must be related to tigers? Can soldiers who looted and plundered during wartime, or executioners of massacres, also be considered Wraiths?”

Qi Si’s words were chilling, sounding pointed.

Lin Chen nodded repeatedly: “Oh, right! Besides its original allusion, the idiom ‘acting as a tiger’s accomplice’ (Acting as an accomplice to a tyrant) mostly refers to serving as a villain’s henchman in its extended meaning.

“One person dies every day in Yanghua Town in exchange for the safety of others. Are those townspeople who complacently choose for the elderly in town to sacrifice themselves also members of the Wraiths?

“Not only that, there’s also Master Meng, who is ‘negotiating with a tiger’…”

“Lin Wen, did you find anything upstairs in the Residence?” Tang Yu, seeing the discussion about to go off-topic, interrupted Lin Chen’s interpretation cleanly.

He looked at Qi Si: “What’s the situation with the Residence here? What’s its relationship with the Residence on our side? What’s upstairs? Tell us about it.”

“Upstairs in the Residence, huh…” Qi Si clasped his hands, lowered his head, and looked at his fingers through his wide sleeves. “I saw Teacher Luo and the others in the left room, and the letters you wrote to them… Want to go up and take a look together?”