Chapter 5: Rose Manor (IV) – The Quatrain

The door of the ancient castle was fitted with the simplest mechanical lock, the kind that could be handled with a piece of wire.

Qi Si opened the door with the key and led the way into the room.

Before him was a guest room of about twelve square meters. Yellowed wallpaper clung snugly to the four walls, barely concealing the water stains and mold that announced its age.

The decaying, festering ceiling was dotted with black ulcers, from which sprouted grass shoots like worms on a scab, ready to drip down with pus at any moment.

The room was lit only by an oil lamp on the nightstand. In the center stood a large bed enough for two people, and to its right was a primitive desk piled with books and notes.

Qi Si recalled his childhood experience playing horror games and guessed there might be clues hidden inside.

He walked over, his pale fingertips brushing across the yellowed papyrus cover. He pinched a page and paused in mid-air.

After a few breaths, his fingers moved slightly, but in the end, he only casually flipped through the topmost notebook without further reading or exploration.

Just now, he had noticed that there were no clocks in the room, nor anything that could indicate the exact time.

Combined with what the rule said, there was a high probability that something was going to happen.

It was already half-dark outside. Through the dusty French windows, the sea of roses in the garden could be vaguely seen.

The dense patches of plants were too thick; flowers and leaves tangled and obscured each other. The fragmented shadows across the window looked like pairs of malicious eyes, constantly spying on the scene inside the room.

Previously, Qi Si thought the entire castle was chillingly eerie perhaps just because there were no windows in the corridors and halls, leaving them devoid of sunlight year-round.

He hadn’t expected that seeing the gloomy sky and the large shadows cast by the roses outside would make it feel even more ghostly and spine-chilling.

Fortunately, the room was equipped with curtains. Qi Si pulled them shut without hesitation—out of sight, out of mind.

Considering how horror movies often feature scenes where an eerie wind blows the curtains open, he dragged a stool from beside the desk to pin them down.

Then, he checked the door gap to ensure that once locked, there were no mechanisms that could open it from the outside.

He had always been suspicious to an appalling degree.

Perhaps it was because he had seen too much darkness, or perhaps because he himself wasn’t exactly a person of light, but his outward behavior was one of extreme vigilance and caution.

This point had indeed helped him avoid many dangers.

Time was not on his side, so Qi Si reluctantly gave up on a more comprehensive inspection and returned to the bedside.

At first glance, the bed was quite flat and unremarkable.

He lowered his eyes for a moment, and following a hunch, he whipped back the bedsheet.

On the yellowed white mattress lay a bright red European-style court dress. The intricate lace and beadwork were pressed into a variegated picture, looking as if it had been placed there for a long time.

Qi Si picked up the long dress and shook it, but nothing else fell out.

Boring. If it were him, he would have put some body parts inside to give someone a fright.

Lin Chen followed Qi Si into the room, keeping his head down from start to finish, not daring to look around.

He had never played horror games; he usually played tower defense and open-world games.

But he didn’t want to seem useless, so he began to carefully feel his way from the corner of the wall, searching inch by inch with the attitude of cleaning a dorm room.

The rustle of fabric came from behind him, accompanied by Qi Si’s sinister voice: “Lin Chen, do you think if someone kills another just to possess them, that counts as love?”

Lin Chen straightened up with a start, and as soon as he turned his head, he saw a bizarre scene.

The black-haired youth was holding the old-fashioned red dress, his expression perfectly hidden in the shadows, making it hard to see clearly.

It was clearly a perfectly normal action, yet it gave the visual impression of a psychopathic killer displaying a victim’s clothing.

“Brother Qi, what… what’s the situation?”

“This?” Qi Si lowered his head and said in a reminiscent tone, “I fell in love with someone…”

“Huh?”

“She was so wonderful that all the most beautiful words in the world couldn’t describe her beauty. I humbly, fervently, and shamefully wanted to possess her, but this love, which the world would not tolerate, was destined to remain unspoken…”

The youth’s voice was very calm, but the content of his words was filled with madness, suppression, and darkness, like a black vortex in deep water, clammy and suffocating as it swallowed passing souls.

Lin Chen couldn’t help but shudder, cold sweat seeping from his palms. He suddenly realized that he didn’t actually know Qi Si.

He was the last one to enter from outside the castle, and there were bloodstains on his clothes. Was it possible he had already been replaced by Ghosts?

Suggesting they stay together might not have been out of kindness; maybe he was just a psychopathic killer who had set his sights on him and wanted to strike regardless of the consequences… “What are you thinking?”

Qi Si folded the dress in his hands and threw it onto the nearby stool, clicking his tongue lightly. “I found this dress under the mattress. The above was just my guess about the background story of this instance; it might not be right.”

Lin Chen breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought…”

“Thought what? If I were a psycho, you wouldn’t be standing here so comfortably right now. You’d either never be able to wake up, or, well, you’d wake up in a rather unpleasant form.”

Qi Si was accustomed to repeatedly manipulating the emotions of others with words to weaken their vigilance.

He looked at Lin Chen with a half-smile, as if he had just made an inconsequential joke. “Sorry, I got a bit too immersed in my reasoning just now, it was indeed a bit scary… It won’t happen again.”

Lin Chen swallowed hard, feeling embarrassed, thinking he was being far too paranoid. How many psychopathic killers could there be in the world, and what were the odds he’d just happen to meet one?

Then he heard the youth’s tone change as he drawled, “By the way, Lin Chen, are you really a newcomer entering an instance for the first time? What do you do in reality, and how did you get into the game?”

Ten minutes later, Qi Si had completely figured out Lin Chen’s life story.

His father was a worker, his mother was unemployed, and the family carried high-interest loans from the Federal Foundation. He had worked hard to get into a prestigious university and earned a scholarship… Not long ago, he went out to tutor someone. On his way back, he heard someone calling for help in a deep alley. When he rushed over, he found a group of thugs harassing a girl… In a fit of passion, he went forward to berate them, but was swarmed, punched, and kicked, and his consciousness gradually faded… “Hmm, a good story. At least it sounds flawless.”

Qi Si smiled nonchalantly and lay back. “It’s late. Time to sleep. Let’s both get some rest early.”

Lin Chen heard this tone that clearly didn’t quite believe him and wanted to say something more, but he saw that Qi Si had already closed his eyes.

Eh? Just going to sleep like that? Not going to look for clues first?

He was muttering to himself, but in the end, he didn’t dare to provoke the “veteran player,” so he shut his mouth awkwardly.

There was no clock in the room, so it was impossible to know the exact time. The safest way to avoid violating the rules was to simply sleep until dawn.

Seeing that Qi Si only took up half the bed and left plenty of space, Lin Chen cautiously took off his shoes and climbed onto the bed.

From beginning to end, he intentionally kept his distance from Qi Si, as if afraid of any accidental contact that might cause unpleasantness.

This was a person who was simple and ordinary to the extreme, who hadn’t experienced much of society’s evils and was thrown into the Eerie Game without warning, making it inevitable for him to feel at a loss.

At such a time, if someone showed even a little kindness, he would treat it as a lifeline, someone he had to follow and please.

Qi Si saw through this clearly and was happy to see it happen.

He narrowed his eyes and smiled mischievously. “Lin Chen, actually, there’s a reason I chose to share a room with you.”

Lin Chen was startled. “What reason?”

The real reason is that you’re also a newcomer, so I’m not afraid of you seeing through me… Qi Si answered in his mind, but on the surface, he said lightly, “Probably because your name sounds like a novel Protagonist. I feel like investing in you won’t be a loss.”

Lin Chen froze for two seconds before replying somewhat awkwardly, “Uh… really? Haha, my parents both loved reading xuanhuan novels, so they probably named me after one… Sigh, I’m an only child. When they get old, they’ll have to rely on me to take care of them… I can’t die yet; I must survive…”

A bit of inconsequential small talk was conducive to bridging the psychological distance and reducing the barrier between strangers; too much conversation would seem forced.

Qi Si turned his back, pulled the bedsheet over himself, and said calmly, “Lin Chen, you died for ‘kindness’. The Eerie Game giving you a chance at a new life might just be a reward for your good deeds. I have a feeling you will survive.

“However, it’s already late. If you want to survive, fall asleep as soon as possible to avoid violating the rules.”

Lin Chen nodded repeatedly. “Mhm! Thanks, Brother Qi. I’m going to sleep now!”

Qi Si smiled and waited for him to lie down, then propped himself up halfway to blow out the oil lamp by the bed.

The single wick flickered twice and then vanished, leaving behind a darkness where one couldn’t see their own hand.

In the darkness where all scenery was linked with fear, Lin Chen’s trembling voice soon sounded: “Qi… Brother Qi, I’m a bit scared. I can’t sleep…”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Qi Si said with his eyes closed. “I don’t trust the others, so I didn’t say it at the dinner table. But now I can tell you: I tested it earlier, and Miss Anna is a living person—do you remember rule seven?”

“Uh… only Ghosts can kill humans, so Miss Anna can’t do anything to us?”

“Mhm. So sleep peacefully.”

Ten minutes later.

Lin Chen murmured pitifully, “Brother Qi, I still can’t sleep… Usually, I’d still be in evening classes at this time. I’m not sleepy at all…”

Qi Si said neither warmly nor coldly, “Count sheep to a thousand. If you don’t want to die, hurry up and sleep.”

Lin Chen: “Mhm!”

Half an hour later.

Lin Chen let out another gnat-like wail: “Qi… Brother Qi, I’m sorry…”

Qi Si felt the tool’s fear as clearly as a flame. He opened his eyes in the dark and let out a long breath.

He touched the bracelet on his right wrist. Small tools like blades, wires, and silver needles shifted between his fingertips, finally being replaced by a blunt-tipped small awl.

He commanded, “Turn your back to me.”

“Oh.” Lin Chen didn’t understand why, but he did as he was told.

The next second, Qi Si jabbed his Fengchi point with the awl.

Seeing this guy, who looked like a total weakling at first glance, finally successfully pass out, Qi Si fiercely retracted his criminal tool and closed his eyes again.

In the pitch-black silence, only the sound of shallow breathing could be heard.

In Qi Si’s Hall of Thought, four blood-red lines of text slowly wove together, taking root in his memory as if they had life.

【My chest decays】

【Flesh spreads on the ground】

【Roses dwell herein】

【Tomorrow we shall endure together】

Previously, when Qi Si had casually flipped through the notebook on the desk, he had only looked at these four lines of poetry transcribed on the title page.

At that time, he had habitually recited the words in his mind. Suddenly, the auditory hallucination of plants “rustling” as they grew arose in his ears, and even his fingertips touching the page began to itch.

Countless eerie images that could only be seen in dreams flashed before his eyes. He saw thorny vines weaving into golden chains, binding a pure white Idol from all directions; lush green flower bushes grew wildly, and from their depths, crimson eyes opened, looking at him across a vast expanse of time and space… This kind of thing, which looked both strange and dangerous, was better left for the daytime for the tool to study.

Yes, he would first trick Lin Chen into interacting with it. If no results could be tested, he would then lure other players to tread on the mine. If no one took the bait, he would implement moral kidnapping… Scheming so maliciously, Qi Si unknowingly fell into a deep sleep.