42 - Identity Exposure

Translated by rabbitrisu

“Gushan Notes – Postscript.”

Sitting in the candelit main hall, Su Zimo took out the manuscript he found in the second floor corridor from his backpack. It was a three star ghost tool that was completely unremarkable based on its outward appearance.

In addition to the value of the ghost tool’s special ability, the manuscript also had a postscript belonging to the ‘Gushan Notes.’

“Editor Wu Qiushan.” Su Zimo stretched out his hand to smooth down the page and read it word by word. “The complete draft of ‘Gushan Notes’ has been completed. In his later years, he just wanted peace and quiet. Instead of dealing with his children’s chores, it is better to walk the lonely mountain.”

Su Zimo could see that the postscript was a letter from the old man who wrote ‘Gushan Notes’ to the editor. At the beginning, it carried on slightly, but the tone of the text was completely different than before.

“My friend Qiushan, you have always said that this strange old man’s ideas are a bit stubborn. After all, there is nothing better for the elderly than good health and grandchildren around their knees. This old man once disagreed, but that was superficial.”

“In mid-May, this old man got a grandchild called Pingting. Bai Pingting.”

“When the star was born to save the Golden Temple, it is said that his body was clothed in snow… ¹ This old man often laughed at the ancients’ exaggerated words, but then he first met Pingting, he realized that their descriptions of infants wasn’t exaggerated. It wasn’t even worth one in ten thousands of my family’s Pingting.”

“The baby’s babbling wasn’t understandable, but she looked like a drop of pearls on a jade plate, very beautiful.”

“The baby couldn’t recognize anything yet, but her eyes were as shimmering as the moon, clean and bright.”

“My friend Qiushan, I picked up a pen again after a few days. This strange old man felt that ‘Gushan Notes’ was tasteless. It was indeed as you said. It was meaningless and empty. It was all just stubborn thoughts of an old man. It wasn’t practical. It’s better to walk around the park and talk with strangers and watch children play together. It’s much more interesting.”

“With this as a postscript, it’s done.”

“August 16th, sunny, written in the house together with Pingting.”

“Hahaha!” Su Zimo just remembered the postscript written by the old man. Elder Fang Qin who was sitting beside him laughed and watched Su Zimo, and blurt out, “Now I know why your grandpa particularly likes this book. It turns out that his temper was really exactly the same as the author of this ‘Gushan Notes’ book. They’re both obviously cantankerous old men, and they’re both known as ‘intergenerational pamperers,’ who not only treat grandchildren as treasures. Their tempers are exactly the same!”

Before he finished speaking, Elder Fang Qin found that he had a slip of the tongue, and quickly looked away.

“It turns out that Elder Fang was really a friend of Grandpa.” Su Zimo had already expected something before. Now Elder Fang Qin had said that, so he could be sure. The reason why he thought this elder looked familiar is because he saw him at the funeral before.

“Well. Unfortunately. The old man grew up wearing a pair of open crotch pants.” Fang Qin’s face was a little unpleasant.

“But why…” Su Zimo was surprised.

“Why haven’t you seen this old man before?” Fang Qin seemed to see through Su Zimo’s thoughts, and showed a bitter smile. “Your grandfather and I are different. Although we grew up together, we have different backgrounds and different fates. There are intersections, but our paths are not the same. The most different thing is that this old man was a widower in his life. My lover left early, without even leaving a child and a half. This old man is still alone.”

“Your grandfather is the bad one!” Fang Qin said, puffing on his beard and glaring. “I heard that he was mad about the affairs of a few children in the family, so I ran over and comforted him, but the old man was desperately showing off his grandson in front of me. He let me watch his grandson wet the bed, and have his diapers changed. After a while, even let me watch his grandson blow bubbles. I was annoyed!”

“Grandpa really is…” Su Zimo smiled and wanted to comfort him.

“What are you laughing at, the grandson isn’t your baby!” As soon as Fang Qin’s words fell, he saw the smile on Su Zimo’s face stiffened, and continued in satisfaction. “The old man wasn’t in good health in recent years. I went to see him a few times, but you and I never formally met.”

Elder Fang Qin’s remarks were endless, but he hadn’t disclosed any information related to Su Zimo or Su Heng. Nor has he made it clear that the two people hadn’t been able to meet formally because Su Zimo had been in a coma in recent years.

“Let’s come back to the postscript.” Su Zimo quickly changed the subject. While collecting clues, ‘acknowledging family’ was obviously a bit inappropriate, but the surrounding trainers had been waiting quietly.

“Everyone saw what happened on the second floor just now.” Su Zimo’s expression pinched and he carefully analyzed. “It made a noise on the second floor. Every time we woke up in a room and something tried to attack us, it should have been the ghost of this old man. My guess is that the old man has a very dear granddaughter, and even opened the door between the playroom and study so that he could spend more time with her. It’s just that the old man may rely on a wheelchair because of a serious illness. The granddaughter and others in the villa may have also left for some reason and left the old man here alone.”

“If I were the old man, I would become a very resentful and fierce ghost.” Xiao Huo next to him started trembling a little. “His favorite granddaughter went with her parents, leaving him alone to stay in the villa as an old man. All of the staff arranged by his children were a group of rats that are only capable of touching chickens and stealing dogs. ² From the housekeeper to the family doctor, everyone should be ashamed. Not only did they deceive the old man’s children, they also sold the books the old man collected and cherished. They shut the old man on the second floor to keep him from getting out. In this situation, it’s not strange that he became a ghost!”

“Xiao Huo, you said… it was the housekeeper who shut the old man on the second floor?” Dr. Jin showed a thoughtful expression.

“What else?” Xiao Huo spread his hands. “The old man doesn’t seem the type to drink lukewarm water. ³ If he’s not locked up, how could he let the housekeeper do something wrong?”

“Kid’s pretty good at using idioms?” The madman who had sat next to Xiao Huo at some point patted him twice on the shoulder. “Maybe he can be admitted to a regular university.”

“What do you mean, my Xiao Huo-ge is a school bully!” Xiao Huo flushed with rage.

“Don’t joke, look at Xiao Su over there.” The madman gestured to Su Zimo, who was sitting and holding his glasses while analyzing the manuscript. “That’s the face of a school bully.”

“No, that’s the face of evil.” Xiao Huo’s eyes twitched. “It looks so white, and he wears such a pair of glasses.”

The next second, Su Zimo glanced at him.

“…….”

“What Xiao Huo said is indeed possible.” Su Zimo nodded in agreement. “After all, the blockade on the second floor is the only place we could pry open. The windows and doors in other places look similar, so why can’t we pry those open?”

“And there’s a lot of food stacked in the master bedroom where the old man is.” Liu Xu also frowned. “There are also many canned goods there that are hard for the old man to eat, and they haven’t been moved at all.”

After hearing Liu Xu’s words, the other trainers present couldn’t help but show indignant expressions.

“I even have an underdeveloped guess.” Su Zimo thought for a while. “If the entrance on the second floor was artificially sealed by the housekeeper, would the gates and windows of the villa be sealed by the old man after he turned into a ghost in this nightmare world?”

“We never thought about that.” Dr. Jin also contemplated. “We’ve always been accustomed to the nightmare world being a closed space. Sometimes if we appear on the street, we’ll encounter a barrier in the air while just walking. But listening to Su Zimo’s words, I really think that after the old man became a ghost, he may ‘use one’s method to repay them.’ ⁴

For a reason that only a few people knew, when Cheng Yun was seated this time, Bai Man and Dr. Jin sat on either side of him. Some may feel that they sat like that because of friendship, but to Su Zimo, it was an arrangement that the two trainers had agreed on when they were alone on the third floor.

They don’t want this guy in Cheng Yun’s skin to act rashly.

“I don’t sympathize with those guys at all.” Qi Xiaomin had always been enthusiastic, but this time she was a little angry.

“Speaking of…”

Just then, Cheng Yun, who had been acting oddly, suddenly stood up, squinted, and said, “I found something in the maids’ room before. I think it may be a very important clue.”

Su Zimo and Bai Man didn’t expect Cheng Yun would say such a thing.

If Cheng Yun was really someone in disguise, if the person was really someone evading the twentieth nightmare world, then the thing he must want to avoid most right now would be task clearance.

The actions he carries out at this moment should be either stealing someone else’s ghost tools or deliberately failing to clear the task. Those two points should be correct.

Helping investigate clues… it’s impossible.

Bai Man and Dr. Jon got up almost instantly, standing on either side of Cheng Yun.

The situation looked very strange for a while, and the unsuspecting trainers all felt the unusual atmosphere.

“I’m going now…” Cheng Yun left his seat and took a step back.

However, he hadn’t yet finished his words when Bai Man immediately grabbed his arm and a standard dagger came near Cheng Yun’s wrist. In the next second, Dr. Jin had already walked behind him, grasping his shoulder with one hand and holding her ghost scalpel against his neck with the other.

“Hello? What are you doing!” Without realizing that something was wrong with Cheng Yun, Xiao Huo blurted out, “Are you possessed by a ghost?”

“Who’s a person, who’s a ghost, who’s a mouse, just wait for yourself.” Bai Man twisted Cheng Yun’s arm upward. “The true Cheng Yun wouldn’t forget the photo of himself and his sister in his wallet, nor would he forget the name Cheng Xiaomeng.”

“Just because of that?” Cheng Yun looked like he was crying and laughing simultaneously. “I just thought there were some things that didn’t need to be said. I’m different from Mr. Du over there. I don’t like to talk about some real-world things.”

“Is that so? So you know that the girl in the photo is Cheng Xiaomeng?” Dr. Jin narrowed her eyes.

“She’s my sister, how could I not know?”

Bai Man tightened her grip on Cheng Yun’s arm again, and said coldly: “As a good brother, you must at least remember that your sister’s name is Cheng Jingmeng, not Cheng Xiaomeng.”

“……”

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“You can’t just close one eye to this so that everyone can comfortable finish this task?” The person in Cheng Yun’s skin sneered. “As long as you follow the script, at most only a few people will suffer some losses. Why should they be as ugly as they are now?”

Su Zimo got up, watching Cheng Yun be held by the trainers without any tension. Suddenly he felt as if something wasn’t right. The cards played by Cheng Yun might not be so simple.

All the other trainers there also stood up and looked at ‘Cheng Yun’ in surprise.

In particular, Du Xin and Qi Xiaomin, both members of Dawn, looked unbelievably at the team leader ‘Cheng Yun,’ who had been trusted and relied upon by them.

Translator’s Notes:

@Fake!Yun:

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Footnotes

<ol>Poem/Song by 释正觉 (Shi Zhengjue) – 星攒金殿降生时，称体宫衣覆雪肌。功就转身全合父，光中潜拨玉轮移。 To touch chickens and steal dogs: petty theft To drink lukewarm water: to be a pushover 以彼之道，还治彼身: To punish someone the same way that person did something, to ‘give them a taste of their own medicine’</ol>