Chapter 78: Hopeless Sea |
[The Ancestral God of lingering bones walks upon the earth, and within the dome of skulls lies a great terror.
Most who witness Its true form descend into madness; only one prophet discerned the truth of the sin within.
The prophet relayed the facts he knew to his people, but the furious masses denounced him as an evil spirit spreading dangerous lies.
The execution on the cross proceeded as scheduled. The people said he deserved divine punishment, that his death was of no consequence—even though he retained a human form until the very end.]
[Identity Card: Humanoid Evil]
The surrounding scene faded to black, the images of the church, the believers, and the players slowly dissolving.
Qi Si found himself seated in an ethereal space. Before him, in the darkness, a pair of scarlet eyes slowly opened.
The god's gaze enveloped him from all directions, an unsettling sensation like being bathed in the light of a blood-red sun. There were no secrets, nowhere to hide.
After a long silence, Qi Si looked up and met those eyes directly. "Why are you everywhere? Even if this involves some so-called wager of the gods, you're showing far too much enthusiasm for a glorified cricket fight."
"I see. I understand."
Qi Si paused for a moment, then asked casually, as if making small talk, "Your Excellency, Evil God, how should I address you? Cardinal? God? Primeval Lord of Heaven? Buddha? Or... simply my backer?"
"'Qi,' as in 'contract.' That is my name." The god's voice held a hint of amusement, and its tone and cadence instantly shifted to match Qi Si's own, giving him the strange sensation of talking to himself.
"...If you are not accustomed to single-character names, you may call me 'Si Qi.' The two names have similar meanings, do they not?"
Listening to his own voice, Qi Si could only sense a profound, twisted sense of humor.
He sneered. "You didn't come all this way just to exchange a few pleasantries, did you?"
The gaze took on substance. Scarlet threads shot out from the darkness, one end disappearing into the dense chaos, the other coiling around Qi Si's little finger.
Qi Si's expression tightened. He then saw a swirling tide of thoughts converge before his eyes into a stark warning:
"Beware the Puppet Master."
...
"*Clang—*"
A resonant bell toll pierced through the dream. Darkness gave way to a foundation of light, and the scarlet glow receded into the distance, finally vanishing into the vast mist.
On the fourth toll, Qi Si opened his eyes to a brownish-yellow wooden ceiling, speckled with patches of eerie green mold, like dabs of oil paint on a canvas.
He lay listlessly on his back, his gaze fixed on the [Humanoid Evil] card in the upper-right corner. "Can I throw this identity card away?"
The Weird Game was concise: [No.]
"Then can I turn off its effect?"
[This is a 'passive effect' and cannot be manually deactivated.]
"..."
When Qi Si played games, he always hated having someone watch over his shoulder, especially someone who offered unsolicited advice. It didn't matter who it was...
He lifted his wrist with a look of utter despair, glanced at his Fate Pocket Watch, and then heard Chang Xu's cool voice from beside him. "What time is it?"
"Eight in the morning." Qi Si reined in his chaotic emotions, adjusted the hands on his watch, and answered with a smile.
Chang Xu, unsuspecting, sat up in bed, only to feel a heavy weight on his right hand.
He looked down and saw that a pristine ivory statue had appeared there at some point.
It appeared to be an effigy of an evil god, with three fish heads sprouting from its upper torso and a dozen tentacles extending from its lower body. It looked both sinister and grotesque.
Chang Xu belatedly recalled that he seemed to have had a strange dream, a dream that had even featured Qi Si...
He couldn't remember any of the details. He looked at Qi Si and, not understanding, asked, "Did something happen last night?"
"What?" Qi Si looked perfectly innocent as he nonchalantly took the statue from Chang Xu's hand and began to examine it.
Bringing something out of a dream... The mechanics of this instance were more interesting than he'd imagined.
He just didn't know if everything could be brought out, or if this statue had some special property.
"Brother Chang, this statue looks extraordinary. It's likely connected to Yuna." Qi Si adopted a cautious, serious expression. "I suggest I hide it with me for now, to avoid attracting Yuna's attention and causing trouble."
Chang Xu raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? If I'm not mistaken, this could be an item that anchors NPC aggro. If you carry it, you'll be drawing their hatred."
"First, since it appeared on you, Yuna would target you first. Keeping it with me would be unexpected. Second, I got a [Humanoid Evil] identity card from the starter pool. My affinity with evil gods is higher than yours, so I'll have an easier time getting important information from contact with the statue."
Qi Si paused, his smile sincere. "Finally, consider this my apology for not consulting you back at Rose Manor. If I really end up in danger, you wouldn't just stand by and watch me die, right?"
Chang Xu gave Qi Si a long, deep look, then said flatly, "If you really are in danger, give it back to me. I have more experience dealing with the supernatural than you do."
"Mhm, thanks, Brother Chang."
Qi Si hid the statue under his pillow, climbed out of bed, and walked toward the door.
At some point, the floor by the door had been soaked by water seeping in from outside, leaving a large, dark brown patch. It was as if a sudden flood had submerged the house last night, only to silently recede by morning.
"Something's happened."
Chang Xu moved to his side, pushed the door open, and made his assessment, sniffing the scent of blood mixed with the damp air.
The corridor floor outside was covered in scattered puddles. A thin film of water created a slick, uneven sheen, and in the dim light, the mottled patterns looked like the tracks of snakes and insects in the sand.
Qi Si glanced up and saw a room diagonally across the hall with its door wide open. The edges of the wooden door were splintered, likely forced.
Whoever was inside had surely met a grisly end.
Qi Si walked straight into the room and was hit by an overwhelming wave of blood.
Before him was a bed smeared with blood and gore. A pinkish-white skeleton, still hung with strips of flesh, lay flat on the mattress. Blood had soaked the sheets, obscuring their original color.
Qi Si approached, his eyes lowered to the corpse on the bed. From the scattered chunks of flesh, it was clear the victim had been devoured by some unknown creature. The feast must have been a lavish one, considering the pieces of meat dropped all over the floor in such a wasteful display.
Chang Xu silently came up beside him and pointed to a neat row of teeth marks on the corpse's left shoulder. "From the bite marks, it was a human, or some kind of humanoid mammal."
"No, it was a fish."
Qi Si extended two fingers toward the body and plucked a thin, gleaming scale from the gory mess.
It was a beautiful scale with an intricate pattern. Even stained with blood, it still shimmered with flecks of silver light.
"It must be some kind of half-human, half-fish monster. Not a mermaid, by the looks of it, but a fish-person with a human head and a fish body."
Chang Xu had no intention of discussing the assailant's species any further.
He took a step back to survey the surroundings. "No signs of a struggle. The victim must have died in their sleep." Qi Si bent down and picked up a chipped porcelain bowl from the pool of blood on the floor. "The victim didn't drink the soup Yuna sent before bed. They must have woken up mid-attack, realized something was wrong, and hastily drank it, but by then it was too late..."
"Seems the poor fellow was really panicking, even dropped the bowl and broke it. I wonder how much he'll have to pay for it, and if his remaining estate will be enough."
Chang Xu's brow twitched almost imperceptibly, his eyelashes fluttering twice.
Fortunately, Qi Si didn't continue with his gallows humor.
The gloating witness wiped the smile from his face in seconds, placed the bowl back on the floor, and stepped through the blood to the nightstand and low table to search them.
Unfortunately, every possible hiding spot was as clean as if it had been ransacked by a thief.
There was no leftover currency, nor any valuable clues. The room was empty, save for a corpse whose state of death had a certain artistic flair.
Slightly disappointed, Qi Si stepped back out of the room. He scraped the soles of his shoes on the wet floor, letting the bloodstains blossom like flowers and carrying the metallic scent out with him.
The other players began to emerge from their rooms. Their expressions soured upon smelling the blood. A few cast inquisitive glances toward Qi Si and Chang Xu, clearly suspicious about their presence at the scene.
Qi Si pretended not to notice, calmly parting the crowd and heading down the stairs to the ground floor.
Though Chang Xu didn't understand his intentions, he silently gave himself an "auto-follow" command and stuck close behind Qi Si, minimizing his presence like a shadow.
What happened at Rose Manor had turned out well, but it had still left him with some psychological scars.
He was terrified that if he didn't keep a close eye on Qi Si, he'd get screwed over again.
In the ground-floor hall, breakfast was already prepared—an all-fish feast, identical to last night's dinner.
With no other players around, there was no need for courtesy. The two early arrivals repeated their previous tactic, devouring the only vegetarian dish.
Over the next two minutes, eight or nine players, remembering last night's dinner, hurried downstairs. But they were a step too late. They could only glare at the table of clearly less-than-fresh fish, their mouths twitching as they gritted their teeth.
Another quarter of an hour passed before Lu Li, having finished examining the body, appeared at the top of the stairs.
He walked to the center of the hall and announced his findings in a heavy voice. "Gao Musheng is dead. The cause of death was waking up in the middle of the night. Xu Maochun is missing. The tracks indicate he left on his own, but we can't rule out the possibility he was entranced."
Qi Si remembered Xu Maochun was the backpacker who had tried to bargain.
He seemed so bold. Did he not drink the calming soup either?
One player let out a sigh of relief and muttered to himself, "It seems as long as you drink the soup Yuna brings, you'll be fine."
Lu Li's expression remained grim, and his voice was strained. "I didn't find a porcelain bowl in Xu Maochun's room. It's very likely Yuna never brought him any calming soup at all."
The implication behind his words was dreadful. The players weren't fools; they immediately understood what had happened.
The backpacker had offended Yuna, so she hadn't given him the soup. In the real world, this would be understandable, but in an instance, it was terrifying.
The players' fates depended on the whims of an NPC, an NPC who had a great deal of autonomy and could even decide the distribution of key items... This was highly unusual.
A few people began to murmur amongst themselves.
"As long as we don't offend Yuna, we should still get the soup, right?"
"Right, Xu Maochun must have offended her with his bad attitude..."
"Yeah, if I had to listen to him haggle like that, I'd be pissed off too!"
They framed their words as a review of the clues, but it sounded more like they were seeking reassurance, trying to convince themselves.
Lu Li lowered his head and sighed with self-reproach. "If I had thought of this yesterday and given him a reminder, he might not have died."
Hearing this, Angela quickly tried to console him. "Lu Li, you can't blame yourself. Before today, who could have guessed that not drinking the soup would be fatal?"
Lu Li shook his head and continued, "As you've all seen, our greatest enemies aren't each other, but the malevolent NPCs and ghosts."
"The friction between factions is trivial. Even if we abandon the optional quests, we'll only lose some points. But if the main quest fails, most of us will die."
"Therefore, we must work together and find a way to leave this place as soon as possible. The longer we delay, the worse our situation will become."
The atmosphere grew tense. The players knew his words were no empty threat.
There had been no progress on the faction quests. Apart from knowing that Lu Li was a "Merchant," everyone else's identity was a mystery.
The main quest, however, was clear: find a way to leave the island.
"Let's cooperate. Forget the side quests."
"Right, let's work together and figure out how to escape this island."
The players present made their decision, silently repeating the same answer in their minds.
As social creatures, cooperation was written into their genes. Even if it had been temporarily set aside by the Weird Game's malicious design, it was something they could easily pick up again at any moment.
And for some reason, after just one night, a deep-seated fear of this sea and this island had taken root in all of them. It was as if some ancestral, collective memory had been awakened, screaming a single message in unison: *An evil god lurks here. Flee.*
Liu Yuhan had kept her head down the whole time, doodling in a notebook with a pen.
She suddenly dropped her pen, her voice hoarse as she uttered a single word: "Boat."
"The key to this instance is a boat. We can use one to leave." The girl looked around at the others, her eyes dark as a ghost's behind her bangs. "Does anyone here know how to repair boats?"
Her words were abrupt and inexplicable, stunning the other players into a momentary silence. Only Zhang Hongfeng chuckled and said, "If it's a wooden boat, I can handle it. I'm handy with all sorts of woodwork."
Lu Li turned his head and met Liu Yuhan's eyes. "Have you discovered something? You could be a bit more specific. If your reasoning is sound, we can investigate it together."
"Everyone has their secrets. Forgive me, but I can't trust you." Liu Yuhan shook her head gently. "I can only say that this clue came from my skill."
Lu Li let out a short laugh. "Then I'm afraid I can't trust you either."
Liu Yuhan's eyes shot up, her gaze dark and haunting.
A few players exchanged uncertain glances, their allegiance wavering.
One was a highly-regarded guide writer from the game forums; the other was a veteran player who had cleared nineteen instances. Now they were at odds. Who should they side with?
Into the silence, a short man chuckled, trying to smooth things over. "Let's eat first. We can talk about our ideas after we've filled our stomachs."
And so, the players picked up their bowls and chopsticks, grimacing as they forced down the unpalatable fish.
No one mentioned last night's dream. It was unclear if they simply couldn't remember what had happened, or if they had discovered something they weren't willing to share.
In the silence, Qi Si set down his chopsticks and looked toward the counter.
The beautiful woman in the long blue dress stood ramrod straight behind the counter, as motionless and silent as a statue, maintaining a flawless smile.
Compared to the quiet, helpless little girl from the dream, she seemed much more confident and cheerful, yet it was as if she had no emotions of her own, her face permanently fixed in a smiling mask.