Chapter 15: Deducing the Past |
The clues Chang Xu had found were similar in structure to Qi Si’s, each consisting of a cryptic four-line poem and five diary entries.
Judging by the tone, the diaries from the two sets of clues were written by different people, offering different perspectives that hinted at the full backstory.
Qi Si read through the clues twice, committing them to memory. He then took a sheet of paper and, standing at the desk, transcribed his own set of clues.
Then, holding the red dress, he repeated the theory he had shared with Lin Chen, earning a look of impressed confusion from Chang Xu.
With the two sets of clues combined, a story began to take shape.
"A noble family in decline had two daughters. The elder, Anna, was beautiful and perfect in every way. The younger, Annie, was quite plain by comparison. A man stumbled upon the manor, fell in love with Anna, and did everything he could to marry her. Unfortunately, he was too late. Believing he had abandoned her, Anna had already wasted away from grief."
"The reason time is so crucial," Qi Si continued, his voice a low blend of lament and mockery as his eyes scanned the words on the paper, "is that the clock was tampered with. It caused the man and Anna to miss each other on the night they had planned to elope, leading to a cascade of misunderstandings."
"Annie—driven by some twisted affection or perhaps a jealousy she herself didn't recognize—assumed her sister Anna's identity. When the man returned to the manor, she met him, killed him, and buried him in the garden."
Lin Chen already knew all this, so lying would have been easily exposed. Besides, the information itself wasn’t critical. Qi Si shared it freely, hoping to dissolve some of the wariness between his new partners.
Chang Xu replied, "Three bodies in total. Two men and one woman. My initial assessment is that they were all players."
"...I see."
So much for that. He had hoped they might find the body of Anna's brave suitor.
Qi Si felt a flicker of disappointment, but it quickly passed. "I tested it earlier," he went on. "The Miss Anna we met at the dinner table is a living person, which means she's likely the surviving sister, Annie. The real Anna is dead and will probably appear as a ghost."
Hearing this, Chang Xu’s brow furrowed. "We know Annie and Anna didn't look alike. For her to have impersonated Anna without anyone noticing suggests she could manipulate supernatural forces from a very early stage. I suspect the Rose Manor itself is inherently corrupt. She's just one piece of it, controlled by something else."
"That's my theory as well," Qi Si said with a nod.
Those who make the rules often have the privilege of breaking them, and it was clear Miss Anna had no such power. That meant someone—or something—else was responsible for the bizarre rules of the Rose Manor.
"The clues to complete this puzzle are either on the third floor or with Zou Yan and Yezi," Qi Si mused, his gaze returning to the four-line poem at the top of the page.
His own poem was ambiguous, like a prophecy or a curse. Just looking at it made his chest tighten with a suffocating ache.
In contrast, Chang Xu's four lines were much easier to understand.
[Forever I am bound by time]
[Where dawn and dusk collide]
[The cycle turns, year after year]
[And yesterday returns with me]
It was an obvious reference to a time loop.
Qi Si narrowed his eyes and asked pointedly, "Chang Xu, that Fate Pocket Watch of yours—do you carry it with you and check it often?"
"I look at it about every half hour." Chang Xu pulled the watch from his pocket and glanced at it again. "As far as I can recall, time has flowed normally since we entered this instance."
"Is that so?"
Qi Si believed him. Chang Xu wasn't a fool. Having found a clue related to time, he would have been extra vigilant, making a mistake unlikely.
Their deduction had hit a dead end. To move forward, they needed more information...
"Let's go. We'll check the third floor together," Qi Si said, reaching for the doorknob.
At that exact moment, the grandfather clock chimed for the first time.
...
In Guest Room 1, near the top of the stairs, Zou Yan and Yezi sat at a desk, their eyes fixed on an object that looked like a human eyeball.
[Name: Hermes' Eye (Right Eye)]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: ① After placing the left eye in a sealed space, you can view what the left eye sees through the right eye.
② During transmission, it significantly lowers the alertness and perception of nearby players.]
[Note: The gods know all, so says Hermes.]
Reflected on the surface of the eyeball was the scene from Chang Xu's room, including Qi Si's analysis of the backstory and the pair's decision to explore the third floor.
"The most brilliant strategy is to remain behind the curtain—to observe, to spy, to gather the most information while everyone else remains oblivious," Zou Yan said, smiling faintly at Yezi. "Compared to that, revealing your hand and joining the game openly is the worst possible choice. After all, we don't have the advantage when it comes to brute force."
Yezi stared down, silent, her mind replaying her every interaction with Zou Yan.
First, Zou Yan had played the part of a kind, harmless person to lower everyone's guard. Then, she had instructed Yezi to act foolish and arrogant, deliberately revealing her connection to Shen Ming to divert attention. Finally, she had instigated a public argument to convince the other players that the two of them could never be allies.
It was a masterful manipulation of human psychology. Yezi had initially thought that her alliance with Shen Ming would allow her to control Zou Yan. Even after Shen Ming's death, she had assumed they would be equal partners. But now, it was painfully clear that Zou Yan had been a step ahead of her from the very beginning.
Yezi recalled something Shen Ming had told her. She looked up and asked with a saccharine smile, "Zou Yan, this isn't your second instance, is it? A rookie couldn't possibly have an item like this. You're a veteran who spent points to enter this specific dungeon, right?"
Zou Yan countered, "Aren't you?"
Yezi's smile never faltered. "I'm a total newbie. I got screwed over by a contract with the company that signed me, racked up a ton of debt, and had no choice but to enter the game to try and make some money."
"So, is there something special about this instance? Why did you choose to come here? I heard you don't get any point rewards for entering a designated dungeon..."
"I see," Zou Yan replied with a knowing smile.
She had no intention of answering Yezi's questions. Instead, she looked directly into her eyes, her expression shifting to one of gentle compassion. "Could you help me with an experiment?"
"What kind of experiment?"
The clock's pendulum struck once, the sound echoing for a moment before vanishing into silence.
Zou Yan said, "Yezi, close your eyes."
...
The clock chimed once. It was one in the afternoon.
Chang Xu glanced at the pocket watch in his hand, and for the first time, his stoic expression wavered.
"The watch is an hour fast. Just now, in a single second, the hour hand jumped forward an entire hour. It's as if an hour was simply plucked from existence."
He twisted the knob to correct the time, his voice remaining utterly flat as he described the bizarre phenomenon, making it sound as mundane as the weather.
The moment Qi Si heard his words, he understood.
A mechanism within the instance had been triggered, most likely connected to the four-line poem from Chang Xu's room.
"Time was rewound by one hour," Qi Si deduced, looking around. "Don't tell me the game saw we were stuck and decided to give us a hint so we wouldn't hurt the average completion rate."
He offered the absurd joke, but no one laughed.
The time reversal was a clue provided by the game, but it could only have been triggered by a player who had solved a piece of the puzzle.
He was used to being the one making moves in the shadows, but it seemed someone had beaten him to it this time. Still, unexpected situations were what made things interesting, weren't they?
A slight, ill-timed smile touched Qi Si's lips as he stepped out of the room, his gaze lingering on the door of the adjacent guest room.
The dark, mottled wood was shut tight. It looked perfectly ordinary, and not a single sound escaped from within.
Behind him, Chang Xu seemed to have a sudden realization and began patting himself down.
A few seconds later, he pinched something between two fingers and pulled it from his breast pocket: an object that looked like an eyeball.
It was shattered, its surface webbed with broken blood vessels, yet the pupil continued to dilate and contract in a rhythmic, breath-like motion, like the last remnant of some impossibly resilient creature.
"Someone was spying on us," Chang Xu said, tossing the eyeball to Qi Si.
Qi Si caught it. As his skin touched the cool, fluid-like surface, a system notification appeared before his eyes.
[Name: Hermes' Eye (Left Eye) (Damaged)]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: ...]
Chang Xu’s expression was grim. "A little while ago, Liu Qingye and I made physical contact. I suspect she planted this on me then. The night before, I also had contact with Shen Ming, so I can't rule out that possibility."
Qi Si shook his head slowly. "It wasn't Shen Ming. He wouldn't have set something up for others right before he expected to die. He wasn't that selfless."
And with that, the threads connected, and all the previous inconsistencies suddenly made sense.
On the first day, Yezi had been cheerful and lively, even finding time to gossip. She clearly wasn't taking the life-or-death situation seriously. Her acting and intelligence were both above average.
But on the second day, she displayed an excessive amount of grief and pity over the corpse, then fell into a state of disarray, making one clumsy mistake after another.
She was like a completely different person.
Most people might have chalked it up to a normal reaction to trauma, but Qi Si, who had been acting his entire life, knew better. For him, it was a matter of professional instinct.
It seemed his intuition had been correct.
Qi Si smiled, tapping a finger against his chin. "Yezi's sudden argument with Zou Yan was likely just an act to create the illusion of a falling out. Pushing one person into the spotlight as a smokescreen to muddy the waters... what a fine plan."
Chang Xu's expression sharpened. "You mean..."
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