Ch9 - Funeral (9)

The moon is cold and desolate while the night is vast, when will those annoying players finish their tasks?

NPC Ren Yifei kept his relaxed sleeping face while maintaining one hand and one foot hanging in mid-air.

Fortunately, most of his body as well as his elbows and knees, which were used for support, were all securely on the bench or else he’s afraid that he would’ve been done for.

There were so many NPCs, why was he the only one being bullied?

He would’ve been lying down properly, enjoying the weather which was neither too cold nor too hot and neither too humid nor too dry. Enjoying the fact that he had three benches to use as a small bed, a coat to cover him and the bamboo hut to provide shade and shelter him from the elements at night.

Not only was it safe to lie here, he only needs to open his eyes to be able to see the entire yard including the most remote parts, which couldn’t get any better.

He laid there, looking at that sky, the clouds, the moon, the dew on the ground becomefrost; there was nothing to entertain his active mind. Who knew that a player would come and with astonishing force, kick away one-third of his bed.

Psycho, ‘A Fei’ will remember him.

“Dead…someone died!” The voice of the sweeper penetrated the clay walls and interrupted Ren Yifei’s bitter thoughts.

Dead? who?

Both from the inside and outside of the mourning hall, players who were sleeping all opened their eyes. Following the sound of the voice, the information on the card changed, the eight survivors had now become seven.

The lamp trimmer jumped up, his fingers raking through his hair in frustration as his face darkened, “Go.”

Xiao Mei followed without saying a word, the eldest grandson’s wife and the eldest grandson also set off one after the other. As fast as they could, several players made their way to where the sweeper was, which was in the backyard.

The door to the woodshed was opened and a player was burned to death inside, it would’ve only taken a few minutes for them to stop breathing yet their whole body was burnt to a crisp.

“Stop screaming and tell us what you saw,” the eldest grandson impatiently chided the sweeper.

The sweeper was stunned, and seeing how fierce the eldest grandson was, he trembled even more, “I- I and he came to the backyard, and said, each check one side…”

He spoke incoherently due to fear, yet everyone was still able to understand.

The sweeper and A Song had come to the backyard, each going in different directions to search for clues. After searching for a long time, the sweeper hadn’t seen A Song and so he went to look for him.

He had searched for a while and thought that the woodshed felt off, so he opened it.

However, as soon as the door to the woodshed was opened, the person lying on the pile of wood burst into flames and within a few minutes, the man was charred to death.

“He was still alive…” the sweeper trembled and kept repeating, “When I opened the door, he was still alive.”

The eldest grandson’s wife looked at him and shook her head, “Tsk, another one.” Another one who couldn’t endure and collapsed.

The newcomer’s misery seemed to make her feel a little better: when she was down, there have to be others who were even more miserable.

The lamp trimmer walked over, covering his nose to check it over.

The corpse’s eyes were wide open, his mouth was black and his expression was distorted. The hair had become powder and the skin had been completely charred, there were still traces of twine and clothing left on his body which used to be a bunch of rags.

“Being burnt alive- now one more of the boss’s seal has been removed, it’ll be tougher to deal with,” the lamp trimmer signed and looked down to find the card.

He took away the card and the golden words, ‘Night-watchmen’, above the head of the corpse immediately disappeared.

“Wd’A UATYTAA, YTd’A Nf.”

GCJ LNoR mtfooJt Nyz xfNO VJf LJAm mCJ gNhXeNtz AftIm, mCJ LNoR mtfooJt ENLXJz UDfhXLe ECfLJ xfNO VJf CNz mO lOq fy OtzJt mO hNmhC DR.

“ZQb, LGtw’E EaGE rIbtJw…”

“W sJfm, dIT YQPqQJN NUp,” dIT YLPq diQPPTi AdffB AdQYY Sfi L PfPTJd, IQA TcqiTAAQfJ mLA NYffPp, “EITiT’A AdQYY LJfdITi AUAqTGd, dIT JQJdI qTiAfJ mIf ILBJ’d AIfmJ Uq…”

“WCNm?” xfNO VJf zfzy’m CJNt hLJNtLe.

dOEJFJt, mCJ LNoR mtfooJt ImORRJz tJIROyzfyq.

Wd BQBJ’d dLsT YfJN Sfi dIT TYBTAd NiLJBAfJ’A mQST, dIT TYBTAd NiLJBAfJ LJB dIT BLeTB AmTTqTi df LiiQaT Ld dIT PfUiJQJN ILYY.

A new victim had appeared and the knife that was hanging above their heads inched a little closer.It was almost the end of the second night, how were they not able to find any clues? Even the veteran players were starting to feel discouraged.

The ever-burning flames of the altar lamps flickered. Despite, enveloping them in its warm light, their bodies were cold, just like their mood at that moment.

“Let’s talk,” the lamp trimmer pulled out a stool and sat down.

Xiao Mei displayed her unusual ability for flattery and immediately stationed herself behind the lamp trimmer while grabbing a handful of peanuts as an offering.

Since they couldn’t sleep, why not sit down and have a discussion? The eldest grandson’s wife and the eldest grandson both found a seat and sat down.

The sweeper seemed to have lost hissoul, he was still unable to accept the fact that he had witnessed a live player die in front of him.

As for the monk in the corner, he had been abandoned, no one regarded him.

“The second night is about to pass and we still have nothing to show for it,” the lamp trimmer smiled as he spoke, “It seemed unreasonable for a novice game, with three veteran players, to play out like this.”

The eldest grandson’s wife looked away as she combed through her hair irritably.

The eldest grandson scrutinised the lamp trimmer, “You seem to have a clue?”

“Yes,” the lamp trimmer laughed, “But unfortunately, it’s invalid.”

“What was the clue?” The eldest grandson asked.

The lamp trimmer glanced at him and said in a low voice, “I found two rope marks on the beam in Granny Chun Zhi’s room, as well as a pair of uneven slippers.”

Two rope marks on the beam?

Who else was hanged?

The eldest grandson’s wife raised her head with a grave expression, “Did Granny Chun Zhi and the second grandson die in the same way? First strangled, then disguised as hanging?”

She linked back to the previous clue that the time of death was pushed forward, ”The real time of death and the deemed time of death were perhaps a day apart …… her family did it?”

“That’s right. That’s what I had suspected, too. The family of the deceased acted panicked, afraid and guilty, which is not how they should have acted if it was a normal death, or if they were killed by someone else,” the lamp trimmer added.

“Granny Chun Zhi had uneven legs, so that already had a suspect. As you’re already aware of, the player merely took on the skin of the person while the core is still their own, so she would certainly act out of character at some point. However…” the lamp trimmer remembered the ‘night-watchman’ who had already burned to death and silently swallowed his displeasure.

Since this was the case, they could only move on.

The eldest grandson and the eldest grandson’s wife both thought of the player who had a limp. However, that person was now gone.

“Is this actually a novice game?” The eldest grandson’s wife felt as though she had been lied to. Wouldn’t this level of difficulty destroy any group of newcomers?

“I think that the road to a breakthrough lies in the ninth person,” the lamp trimmer’s eyes slowly scanned through the NPCs, “I suspect that person is hidden in the NPCs. The ‘ghost’s’ familiarity of this instance far surpass our’s, so it would have the ability to do so.”

“Sir, what kind of existence is the ‘ghost’?” Xiao Mei asked in a low voice.

“The instance is created from the memory of the ‘ghost’, this is its territory.”

Xiao Mei immediately understood, “So you suspect that the ninth person is the ‘ghost’ and that they’re disguised as an NPC? Won’t that be too much of an advantage? How can we find it?”

“There are restrictions,” it was the eldest grandson who spoke this time.

“The NPCs in the instance have a pattern to their actions, and these instances are also derivation, they won’t be the exact same as the memory of the ‘ghost’. In addition, no matter how many times the ‘ghost’ had entered the instance, it will have no memory of its past experiences. Only after clearing the instance would it be able to remember the countless cycles it had been through.”

“Time suspension is a benefit of a novice instance, maybe we can use it to find the ninth person,” the eldest grandson’s wife’s eyes lit up.

“Should we check these NPCs?” Xiao Mei asked the lamp trimmer.

The lamp trimmer nodded before shaking his head, “You can check, but you can’t use harmful means.”

To the player Xiao Mei’s delight, the lamp trimmer decided to add a few more words, “The ‘ghost’ can’t kill an NPC, once the ‘ghost’ find the wrong target and kill an NPC, the game will immediately stop. The players fair slightly better, however, killing an NPC will cause all the NPC’s favourability to drop, causing the difficulty of the game to increase- the game could even fail.”

The eldest grandson suddenly recalled the fact that he had just kicked a certain NPC’s ‘bed’, um…this shouldn’t be considered as harming them, right?

He rubbed his forehead and changed the subject, “Since the second night is about to pass, tomorrow at midnight, thoroughly check the mourning hall and houses, check every NPC and find the ninth person!”

Everyone looked at each other and nodded wordlessly: OK.

2 am arrived and all the NPCs recovered.

Miraculously, as if the pause button had been pushed again, the world returned to operate as usual. Ren Yifei sat up and stretched his body, “Huh? How did one of the stools fall down?… A Jie, what’s the time?”

“Did you not hear the sound of the watchman’s clappers? It’s two in the morning,” as a player pretending to be an NPC, he didn’t feel weird at all.

Ren Yifei yawned, the players in the mourning hall each had a different expression.

He vaguely heard a lot of the previous conversation between the players, but the voices were too low so the information was a little fuzzy.

But it was certain that this group wanted to find him, sieving through all the NPCs, on the third night.

He’s in trouble…

He already knows the cause of Granny Chun Zhi’s death and the identity of the murderer. But what about the murderer’s motive?

A quarter of an hour later, a loud scream broke through the sky, and he knew that a body had been found.

This time, it was the kitchen lady who found the charred body as she was about to go to the backyard to get some firewood.

The crowd once again came up, they tried to identify the body for half a day but could not recognise who it was, so they wrote down everyone’s name one by one, and immediately, A Song’s name came up.

“Is it possible that his gambling debts attracted some enemies?” The night-watchmen were discussing spiritedly, “I knew his tendency to gamble would certainly lead to a day like this.”

Tendency to gamble? A Song’s expression when he looked at the poker table was not the expression a gambler ought to show.

There are just too many doubts regarding this man, not only did he limp when he walked, he was the one who died out of all people.

Ren Yifei was like the other players, they had all suspected A Song. Because all the suspicions and clues pointed to him.

But the other players still have the ‘ninth person’ to suspect, since Ren Yifei himself was the ‘ninth person’, his choice was clear.

“How could you die…”

Ren Yifei had felt that something was amiss about this situation from the start and found an excuse to go to the backyard.

The corpse had disappeared, and just like the second grandson, A Song’s existence was erased, no one would’ve remembered that this person had been there.

He searched the woodshed for a while but found nothing.

He didn’t know how the ‘ghost’ did it. The corpse had been charred completely yet there was nothing wrong with the firewood in the woodshed.

Ren Yifei exited the woodshed and was about to leave.

“Why is that rose wilting?” Under the banana tree, a listless rose attracted his attention.

Was it because of pests?

He was bored so he went up to take a look.

The problem could be spotted at a glance. The colour of the soil was not quite right, it looked as though the soiled had been turned over in the past two days.

Dead people, still have the heart to plant flowers?

Ren Yifei looked up and saw that there was no one around.

He brought out a shovel from the woodshed and inserted the school into the soil, using this foot to step on it. The soil was indeed dug not long ago and was still very soft.

With the moon shrouded and strong winds, he once again looked up left and right, and then looked back.

There is no one around, this was a good time.

It did not take long to dig below the rose before the shovel struck something odd.

Ren Yifei was about to take a closer look when suddenly he heard footsteps.

He immediately straightened the rose, took the soil to press down on the roost a little and dodged into the back of the banana tree, sticking close to it.

He was thin, squatting there carefully under the cover of the night, he couldn’t be seen.

The sound of footsteps from the distance came closer, then stopped not far in front of the banana tree.

Translator note: Sorry for the mishap, I just suck at using tech in general. I accidentally clicked publish instead of preview for Chapter 12, so to compensate, here’s an early update for chapter 9.