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Ch5 - Funeral (5)
The veteran players left, the second grandson also left, the remaining four people looked at each other wanting to say something but after the departure of the veteran players, there was an invisible wall between them.
“How about we go out and have a look? In any case, it’s about the same everywhere,” Xiao Mei gave a dry smile. She took a worn straw broom and took a deep breath before walking out of the mourning hall.
“What about us?” The old sweeper said, wanting to pluck up some courage.
A Song nodded.
Thus, after Xiao Mei, A Song and the old sweeper left one after another, only the monk sat motionlessly.
“At least it’s brighter here, it’s much safer.”
The monk comforted himself, he was terrified and continued to keep his head down.
He was an ordinary person, he had no power to go against the supernatural. He only knew of the dangers, but what was the use of that? It was better to stay in one place and leave everything behind for the time being.
The mourning hall was silent for a long time, Ren Yifei eyes honed onto that area.
He looked left and right, no one, he breathed a sigh of relief. With his left hand, he drew out a card from under the table and opened his eyes a bit more before sucking in a mouthful of incense smoke……?!
M-monk?
Ren Yifei felt his breath caught in his throat and almost coughed.
The monk was sitting on a bench in front on the left, hugging himself while trembling silently, only the golden letters glowed calmly overhead.
Wait a minute! The monk had his head down!
He put away the card, his eyelids moved back at the speed of 0.1 centimetres per second and calmed his breath.
Wasn’t this exactly like the original pose?
He had also acted as a corpse many times before.
In the front yard behind Ren Yifei and in between the two houses, players were coming in and out. They held lights as they open and close doors, making a lot of noise.
The old players were looking around methodically while the new players followed, mainly for the purpose of seeking protection.
“Did a player run out of the yard just now?” Xiao Mei found the shoes of the second grandson by the gate. She looked at the shabby looking gate, her heart was slightly moved: should she go out to have a look?
The lamp trimmer happened to pass by and glanced at Xiao Mei, “If you go out of this gate, you will definitely die.”
Without knowing for what reason, this person was obviously not in a good mood but she felt good intentions so she boldly stepped forward and asked, “Boss, may I ask why I would definitely die?”
“Who’s your boss?” The lamp trimmer frowned.
“Sorry, um, sir?” Xiao Mei replied in a low voice to curry favour.
The lamp trimmer stared silently at her for two seconds, then asked her, “Have you seen the keywords?”
“Happy funeral?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Jbggfma, rlcmf la’r j tjqqs oecfgji, kf kfgf ygbeuta tfgf ys atlr oecfgji. Ycmf kf ub bea bo atlr ujaf jcv bea bo atf gjcuf bo atf ‘oecfgji’, kf klii vlgfmais yf vfqglnfv bo atf lvfcalas bo j qijsfg jcv klii ecvbeyafvis vlf,” atf ijwq aglwwfg tjv j gjgf wbwfca bo yfcfnbifcmf jcv qjalfcais fzqijlcfv.
“Can I only stay where I first appeared?” Seeing that the other’s temper was good, Xiao Mei asked carefully.
“No,” the lamp trimmer shook his head, “Every game is different and players would need to judge for themselves. Cherish these two hours, time suspension is a benefit only novice games have.”
Xiao Mei still had a lot to ask but the lamp trimmer had already walked into the distance, heading for the backyard.
The veteran player was right, after a while, everyone’s cards heated up and the number changed from 9 to 8.
Card prompt:【One of the players had died, one-eighth of the ‘ghost’ seal is unlocked. 】
“What does it mean? It can’t be…” Xiao Mei, who was standing in the yard in a daze, looked at the card in her hand, her throat was dry. She didn’t dare think about it.
There has never been a moment when death had been so close to her.
The veteran players took a look and continued to search for clues; newcomers dying was part of the routine and couldn’t even make their eyebrows flinch.
Compare to this newcomer, they cared more about the hidden ninth player and the ‘ghost’.
The ‘ghost’ was hidden within the players, none of them knows who that player was and they trust no one except for themselves.
As for the ninth person who disappeared…
He has to be found!
On this side, there was no activity in the mourning hall and the ‘monk’ had not once looked up.
Ren Yifei observed for a long time and mustered up some courage. He sat at the table with a smile. Above the table, he skilfully held the playing cards in a fixed position with one hand while he took out the black card with the other under the table and took a quick glance.
Now, there were two prompts: ‘What people hate is what it hate.’ And ‘a player died, the ‘ghost’ had unlocked a seal.’
Regarding the first prompt, Ren Yifei’s understanding of it was: the ‘ghost’ cares very much about the players’ disrespect for the deceased.
The gold words that appeared above their head were the result of being ‘hated by people’, so it was also hated by the ‘ghost’.
Who would care if others disrespected the deceased?
The family of the deceased? Cross that out, that family seemed strange at first glance, even an amateur like him could see it.
Was it the deceased themselves?
Namely, the amiable elder that everyone spoke of, Granny Chun Zhi?
Ren Yifei put a question mark next to that name then continued to analyse the players who had entered the scene.
A total of nine players, eight players appeared, one died and among one of them is a ghost.
Are the remaining few players…destined to die?
Ren Yifei, who cherished his life, once again made up his mind: since the players are so dangerous, I’ll just become an NPC.
NPC Ren Yifei began to analyse the second point: the death of the players are directly proportional to the strength of the boss.
Therefore, in the later stage when the number of deaths increases, the stronger the boss becomes.
Oho, the boss is unexpectedly the type to grow into a late-stage boss. Wouldn’t that be bad for the players?
After some time, would players even have basic human rights?
Oh, doesn’t he seem to be an NPC now?
That’s okay.
It was almost 2 am when the few veteran players returned to the mourning hall one after the other.
An NPC, who secretly relaxed his muscles, sat upright while holding the playing cards with a triumphant smile. The curvature of his face was natural and relaxed.
How professional.
The eldest grandson’s wife looked at the other two, “Do you want to exchange clues? One valid clue per person. There’s no need to say who the ‘ghost’ is, everyone has their own guess.”
After debating for a few seconds, the lamp trimmer and the eldest grandson both nodded.
The eldest grandson’s wife immediately raised her hand and a translucent barrier wrapped around them, “The walls have ears.”
“I’ll go first,” the eldest grandson’s wife started talking, “Their family has five laying hens, but there are eight eggs in the henhouse that had not been picked. This amount equates to at least two days.”
She continued, “Eggs are something that farmers attach importance to. If they couldn’t tend to the chickens due to an accident, then the death of the deceased would’ve taken place two days ago. What exactly happened here two days ago?”
The lamp trimmer had already gone back to the altar lamps first, holding the oil pot that was used to add oil to the lamps in his hand, he exchanged his clue, “The backyard has a dried-up well, in it, I found a freshly used hemp rope with nail scratches on it, suspected to be related to the deceased.”
The eldest grandson also gave a clue, “I heard a conversation between the deceased’s daughter-in-law and the old monk. After chanting for seven days, the descendants who had been kneeling in front of the hall would be able to eliminate the deceased’s grievances.”
These were the three least important clues that were indeed valid. At least they now know that: the deceased may have been strangled or hanged, the cause of death was related to something that happened two days ago and the deceased’s family was in the know or involved with the death.
These clues can help them find the player that the ‘ghost’ was disguised as.
As for more important clues, these three would not exchange them. They couldn’t even be sure whether or not the ghost could be hiding within the trio, so they would definitely not reveal all their cards.
The eldest grandson’s wife removed the enchantment, and instead of mentioning the previous clues, they talked about the ‘ninth person’.
“I’ve searched everywhere, even the roof,” the lamp trimmer shook his head, “It seemed like they’re invisible.”
“I prefer to believe that they had disguised as an NPC rather than being invisible,” the eldest grandson suspected that the ninth person was hiding nearby, within the group of NPCs, watching them triumphantly.
This feeling made the eldest grandson very uncomfortable, he continued, “This copy was originally a recreation of the ‘ghost’ obsession. Its understanding of the copy surpasses any player and can disguise itself almost perfectly. The ‘ninth man’ could be this copy’s breakthrough.”
Everyone paid close attention to the mysterious disappearance of the ‘ninth man’.
The unknown means countless possibilities, meaning they need to do more eliminations, meaning more workload.
In addition, veteran players like everything to be in the palm of their hand.
Don’t be fooled by the fact that it would only be a face-to-face meeting, even if their name remained unknown, a lot of information could still be extracted.
Now that a player had disappeared, the feeling of not being in control made them anxious.
With only so much limited space and so many people, how did this ‘ninth person’ disappear?
When the three people were still mulling over these questions, 1 am quietly passed by and the world suddenly became noisy again.
The young night-watchman in front of the poker table suddenly slapped their cards down, “I won, come, hand over the money. Even if you don’t hand it over now, you’ll still have to hand it over later. It’s definitely my win all the same.”
“It’s definitely because the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, change location!” The three people on the opposite side were unwilling to lose a few copper coins.
Because he was too arrogant after winning, Ren Yifei was cast aside in the next round, lying pitifully on an empty table as if he had no bones.
Passing by, A Jie dissed him, “You deserved it.”
Ren Yifei didn’t move, the seemingly random position was carefully chosen, blocking with one side of his body while facing the corner of the wall, he used one hand to massage the other underneath the table.
The arm that was kept raised for two hours had lost consciousness and was similar to a piece of frozen tofu that was left hanging outside during winter.
Everything in the mourning hall was as usual, those who cried were still crying themselves hoarse, the chanting of scriptures returned to sounding like echoing hums and the spirit around the card table was the best, while only the state of the players was abnormal.
The monk silently sat alone in the corner while no one questioned the disappearance of the second grandson.
It was not until the other three players came back did the NPCs showed any reaction.
“Where did you go? No one can be found anywhere! The teapots over there are empty and things are also yet to be tidied,” the kitchen lady caught the player Xiao Mei and began cursing, her eyebrows were furrowed, she was extremely upset.
Xiao Mei apologised, again and again, humbling herself.
She has yet to notice, because of ‘negligence’, golden words also appeared above her head: ‘Errand runner’.
As for the other appearance of the old man, who was also blamed for negligence, a gold word also appeared above his head: ‘Sweeper’.
A Song, who was the latest to return, met up with A Liang for a scolding and the gold words ‘Night-watchman’ appeared above his head.
In one night, the second grandson died and three more players were exposed.
Ren Yifei tighten the vest around his body and continued to lie on the table.
He felt very tired, not just from staying up night after night but also from continuously acting.
The hand doesn’t seem to belong to him anymore. It was already his limit to be able to control playing the cards at that time.
Just sleep for a while, just closing his eyes for a bit…
Ren Yifei relaxed his body and forced himself into an emergency charging mode.
“Ahh-” a scream broke through the silence of the mourning hall.
He abruptly sprung up from the table, his eyes were bloodshot.