45 - Lifeline

Translated by rabbitrisu

Su Zimo wasn’t a professional at feeding others medicine.

He had tried to feed puppies calcium tablets before, but the puppies clenched their teeth and wouldn’t relax. Su Zimo was at a loss.

But for Liu Xu, it didn’t seem to be a troublesome thing. He just reached out when the snake was screaming desperately, and with a ‘click’ of the snake’s jaw, threw the white pill inside his mouth. He took a bottle of drinking water from the supplies on the table and unscrewed the lid then slammed it into the snake’s mouth.

At first, the snake refused to swallow, allowing water to escape his mouth.

But then, Liu Xu struck a spot on his body again, and the next time, the snake swallowed the water and sleeping pill into his stomach.

After Liu Xu let go of the snake’s jaw, the snake originally wanted to spit it out before it took effect, but he couldn’t vomit after gagging for a long time. He could only look fiercely at Su Zimo and the other trainers and say, “Don’t think that clearing the task is so easy. You’ve wasted so much time on me, and you haven’t found the lifeline yet? Hahaha, I’ll be happy to meet you in the next nightmare world!”

“And you… I’ll find you.” The viper’s eyes reddened with anger and he stared closely in Su Zimo’s direction. “Then get the slave mark and burn it into your arm!”

“Wu–“

It didn’t take long for the snake to stop speaking. The person seemed to have drank several bottles of high-alcohol wine, sitting and dangling from the chair. After a while, the snake who was handcuffed behind him slept with his head down.

“He took sleeping pills? Will he wake up soon?” Bai Man looked worried about the effect of the drug.

However, Su Zimo knew that it wasn’t an ordinary sleeping pill at all. The venomous snake, as the owner of the ghost weapon, should also know that the sleeping pill would make him sleep for a long time and even prevent attacks by malicious spirits!

“In any case, we still need to find clues about the lifeline as soon as possible.” Su Zimo said, and looked at the other trainers around him. “Let’s think about it. In addition to the story about the patient and the other people, what clues have I accidentally overlooked? Anything at all.”

When Su Zimo and Du Xin looked at each other, the larger boy who had always looked at him with eager eyes avoided his sight.

Perhaps it was because when the snake suggested using the slave mark before, he really hesitated. The distance between him and Su Zimo may have become greater than before, and it was more difficult to draw close.

“Actually, when I first entered this nightmare world, I mentioned one thing. I don’t know if it’s useful for this task.” The madman raised his hand to gesture.

“What it it?” Su Zimo thought about it, but he didn’t have any recollection of it. This told him that when the madman mentioned it, he didn’t care.

“Remember the cloth covering the mirror?” The madman looked at the securely covered mirror before saying, “That was originally the tablecloth on the dining table. When we first came to the main hall, there were many plates, cutlery, and candlesticks on the table. The plates on the edges hadn’t been touched, and the dishes in the middle of the table had already spoiled.”

“It seems so. Because the snake cleared the table off so quickly, I almost forgot until now.” Dr. Jin also recalled.

Bai Man, who was standing next to Dr. Jin, was simple and organized when coming to this world. Now, she stared at the sleeping snake and watched as if worried he would wake up again and secretly break out of the ordinary handcuffs.

“At that time, I said that based on the table setting, it seemed that a banquet was being prepared in the main hall.” The madman shook his head again. “But then we learned more and more information, and I felt that the group of servants and the housekeeper wouldn’t prepare a special banquet for the elder on the second floor. Even if there was a banquet, it would just be a group of bastards entertaining themselves, so I didn’t care too much.”

“But you need any clues, so…”

“Banquet.” Su Zimo repeated the word, then said contemplatively, “In fact, since entering this nightmare world, I’ve thought it was like a well-designed puzzle game. What we saw in each person’s room, as well as the things in each room on the third floor all became a clue to help us understand what happened. If we think like that… the banquet in the main hall may not be useless self-entertainment.”

“Assuming the banquet was prepared for the elder, then if they’ve completely imprisoned the elder, why would they kindly prepare the banquet?” Su Zimo couldn’t help wondering.

“You mean… we’re looking for clues based on an unreliable guess?” Dr. Jin disagreed. “Su Zimo, the housekeeper of this villa cheated the old man out of millions. Including property, that may mean tens of millions or more at a time. It’s not surprising that this group of jerks who tasted sweets held hundreds of banquets to celebrate.” ¹

“No.” The madman shook his head. “Although the dining table was full of dishes at the time, there were only four sets of tableware for eating on the edge. One set for the main position, two sets on one side, and one on the other side. They prepared a banquet for four people, but the food on the table was luxurious enough for at least twenty people, so I decided that it was a banquet.”

“A banquet with only four attendees? There are ten staff members and the family doctor…”

“The villa owner’s family of three plus the elder makes a total of four people.” Su Zimo didn’t wait for Dr. Jin to finish. He quickly pondered, “This must be a very important banquet. It’s important enough that the family of three who don’t even visit on weekdays must also attend. Because of this, the household staff who were afraid of exposing the money they embezzled needed to pretend to be ordinary servants in front of them in order to not be convicted as criminals. They would prepare for the banquet, and even let the elder… also attend the banquet?”

“But didn’t they worry that the old man would expose everything? Even if the blockade on the second floor was removed on the day of the banquet, wouldn’t the old man take the opportunity to tell them everything?” Su Zimo found another problem.

All the problems seemed to be focused on the elder, but there is always a way to step over the threshold.

After thinking about it for a while, Su Zimo set that question to the side and contemplated another question. “What banquet could be so important? If the family needed to attend, it should be related to a celebration or a special date? Date… I seem to have seen a special date somewhere…”

“In the housekeeper’s account books? No, that day is wrong…”

Even for a computer, organizing data takes time. ²

Su Zimo, who couldn’t find the information after a while, looked up and asked the other trainers. “I think the banquet should be related to a special day, like a holiday, etc. Have you found a calendar or something similar in the other rooms before?”

“There’s one in the housekeeper’s room.” Elder Fang Qin announced, striding directly and vigorously out, then returning after a while with a dirty calendar he found in the housekeeper’s room. “The calendar has four pages torn off, and there’s a circle drawn on the page for May.”

“It’s May 15th.” Su Zimo was certain.

“Yes.” Elder Fang Qin was surprised. “It’s indeed the 15th.”

Everyone’s eyes focused on Su Zimo.

“It was in the last postscript I was reading, so you may not have noticed this little thing.” Su Zimo looked at the number ’15’ outlined in thick ink on the calendar and suddenly felt a little tired. “May 15th. It was the birthday of the old man’s granddaughter, Bai Pingting.”

“I should have thought of that!”

Su Zimo facepalmed, then took off his backpack and removed the two things he found in the master bedroom cabinet on the third floor when he first came to this world.

[Nightmare Brand Pink Lotus Dress (No Stars)]

[Description: Put it on, you’re my little princess.]

[Nightmare Brand Teddy Bear (No Stars)]

[Description: It is best not to let children and toys be alone in a room at night… just kidding.]

“I discovered these in the master bedroom before. When I found it, they were in a tattered box with old straps on the outside. Now that I think about it, those should’ve been gift boxes with silk ribbons used to hold her birthday presents.” As Su Zimo hugged the teddy bear, it brought an inexplicable sense of harmony to the outsiders. “The banquet being prepared in this hall should be the birthday party from the elder’s granddaughter. The whole family agreed to be in the villa and hold a birthday party here.”

“I really admire how you can hide such a large thing in your bag.” Qi Xiaomin couldn’t help hiding her face.

“It’s not just a birthday party.” The madman interjected. “It’s still an unfinished birthday party. After all, the tableware hasn’t been touched at all, which means that the party was over before it even started! The abandoned villa still has an unfinished birthday party!”

[Boom!]

The madman’s voice just fell when there was a loud noise again from the second floor above them. Then, a familiar cold wind blew through the room. All the candles in the main hall were blown out instantly, and the whole hall suddenly dimmed like before.

Su Zimo looked around and found that he could only vaguely see the silhouettes of everyone in the dark, and those silhouettes looked a little different from the original trainers. For example, after Fang Qin handed the calendar to Su Zimo just now, he had been standing next to Su Zimo, but when he turned his head, he didn’t see a thin old man. Instead, it was a very tall and very fat figure!

They were different from all the trainers Su Zimo knew.

[Ah…. wu wu wu….. ah–]

Another series of unexplained sounds came from the direction of the staircase. Su Zimo looked at the source of the sound and saw that there was an extra figure in a wheelchair on the staircase.

[Boom! Boom! Boom!]

The figure slammed the handrails of the wheelchair vigorously. He was making the bang sound that Su Zimo heard before, and constantly letting out ambiguous noises. It was confusing to hear what he really wanted to say.

After a few seconds, the cold wind disappeared from the hall and the extinguished candles were re-lit. They burned higher and brighter. The entire hall was illuminated as if it were daylight, even making it feel dazzlingly bright.

“It seems that your guess was confirmed, madman.” Dr. Jin raised his eyes and glanced at the madman next to her. “If you don’t hurry and commit suicide, you may pass the threshold.”

“Actually, this isn’t bad.” The madman scratched his head helplessly, and the corners of his eyes were slack. He didn’t know when he started to feel energetic. “If I count carefully, then If we pass this time, I might be able to participate in the twentieth nightmare world with hero Liu Xu later. After all, there aren’t many people who have the courage to challenge it and they aren’t easy to meet.”

“You said you didn’t remember the number of times before.” Liu Xu ‘poked’ a knife next to him.

“I was lying.” The madman shrugged. “How could I not remember my own death countdown?”

The snake was now on his nineteenth time, and the madman and Liu Xu both seemed to be on the eighteenth… Su Zimo looked at the trainers around him, and didn’t expect that there would be so many critical people in this world at the same time.

Critical, Su Zimo quite liked that title.

“In short, judging from the situation just now, the madman’s guess was officially confirmed. There’s an unfinished birthday party in the villa.” Su Zimo pulled them back on topic. “Since it’s unfinished, then some people or ghosts may want it to continue, though I don’t know why the old man always refused to speak. Whether it’s the housekeeper’s business or banquet business, as long as the old man could tell, things wouldn’t have become so troublesome.”

“Maybe it’s because he couldn’t speak at all.” Dr. Jin stomped on the side with annoyance. “I’m guessing that the old gentleman on the second floor had a certain disease, and understand why the servants would blockade him on the second floor without any qualms, not even worrying about the old man revealing their secrets.”

“What?”

“From the start until now, we were always randomly divided into different rooms. Only when we wore obvious uniforms would we be divided into the corresponding rooms. This may not just be a prank, but because the person doing this… or the ghost, confuses the relationship between the location and the characters because their judgement ability or their ability to understand and arrange things has declined.” Dr. Jin became serious in an instant. “Simply put, old people with this disease often put things in the wrong place.”

“The voice of the malicious spirit who may not be able to distinguish between our content is still here not to frighten us, but because they’ve lost most of their language skills.” Dr. Jin took a deep breath. “Even the attacks on us by the malicious spirit can correspond to the mood swings and irritability of this disease when it appears.”

“Think of it this way… This serious illness may also be the reason why the elder’s children left the villa with their granddaughter. In their view, the sick old man may be a burden.” Dr. Jin said, pinching the arm of the madman beside her angrily.

Translator’s Notes:

So the evil thing in this nightmare world is… Dementia? Alzheimer’s? Some amyloid disease?

Footnotes

<ol>To taste sweets is to experience something nice or luxurious. Metaphor, author is comparing Su Zimo to a computer bc he’s so analytical.</ol>