Chapter 155.1 The Horror Club
The two proud soldiers suffered defeat, and Xiao Hua met a tragic end.
Wen Shi was scolded into a retreat. Now, three individuals huddled in a corner. Eventually, it was Wen Shi who spoke up. “Here’s the situation. You decide.”
They had only one condition. After all, the game had clearly indicated the successful activation of the clue quest. The straw demon had to initiate this quest, regardless of what was said.
The straw demon’s vacant eyes almost gained expression as he glared furiously at the three unruly troublemakers.
Wen Shi, who was gearing up for a final effort, tried to speak up, “What if we just let it pass?”
A large amount of straw dust was carried by the wind, and because it was too scattered to avoid, Wen Shi ended up with his face covered in it, looking somewhat displeased.
Xiao Hua, who had recently been spat on, calmly said, “I was just about to strike it, and you were holding me back.”
Something like this should have been set on fire a long time ago.
That also required it to be burnable… Wen Shi pressed his temple, no longer speaking, just waiting to see how the scarecrow would arrange things.
The once lifeless courtyard fell into complete silence, making the night even more eerie.
Amidst the silence of the crowd, the scattered straw suddenly rustled. The straw demon came up with an idea. It lowered its head kindly, lips curving more than before, “Want to know the lord’s secret?”
Wen Shi nodded politely but cursed its nonsense inwardly.
The demon spat out another piece of straw from its mouth, and this time, the tip was stained with dark blood.
“Later, time will rewind to the point when the lord possessed the secret.”
Wen Shi’s guard shot up. The last time he dealt with a straw demom, it never mentioned rewind. It was all just empty conversation, and then a sudden and unexpected rewind.
“You can take turns experiencing this period of time, assuming a specific role and using it to uncover the lord’s secret by controlling them.” The straw bristled back into place. “But if, during your portrayal, you exhibit behavior that doesn’t match the character’s logic, it will be considered a failure, and at that point, you must surrender your entire soul.”
Li Nan got straight to the point, “Are all three of us portraying the same character, and is it only considered a pass if everyone succeeds?”
The scarecrow first nodded, addressing the first question, then shook its head for the second one, making the rules quite lenient, “Just one success is enough.”
The more lenient it was, the stronger the unease it brought. A broad win condition implied high task difficulty.
Wen Shi’s time as a transformed being was about to fade away. He gazed at the vanishing cat tail, his eyes revealing a hint of contemplation.
The game proposed by the straw demon aligned well with the role-playing theme of “The Horror Club”.
They needed to understand the psychology of the characters they would portray and avoid breaking character. At the same time, they had to be cautious about other matters. For example, during the rewind, any actions that altered history would be immediately nullified by the rules.
The straw demon emphasized this point, its tone eerie, “Anyone attempting to alter history will become a dead person.”
After saying that, it returned to the initial question, “Who will go first?”
Wen Shi and Xiao Hua both looked at the person who seemed the most composed.
When it came to role-playing, the more composed individuals were better suited for it. Li Nan didn’t refuse and stepped up to the demon again.
The scarecrow inserted the dark tip of the straw into the top of his head, and the moon in the night sky took on a faint crimson hue. Soon, more crimson mist poured down, enveloping Li Nan’s entire body.
The mist was so dense that it was impossible to tell what was happening inside.
Wen Shi’s gaze silently shifted to the straw demon. Through its smug expression, he knew that this time the rewind was successful. Before long, the demon disappeared as well.
During the long wait, Xiao Hua glanced at her phone. “We don’t have much time left.”
Considering the time spent on the taxi ride, more than an hour had already passed.
“Not much, but it’s enough.” Wen Shi believed that their current concern should be the quest itself.
The straw demon’s abilities and the game were not quite comparable. In the Big Factory inspection area’s time reversal, the inside and outside time were nearly a one-to-one match. However, in Sealed Coffin Village, it was quite the opposite. He had spent most of the night there, but when he returned to the instance world, hardly any time had passed.
Even though that was the case, waiting was the most patience-draining task. Just twenty minutes had passed, and both of them were starting to feel anxious. Xiao Hua leaned against a tree, tapping the trunk lightly with her fingernails. When she had almost created dents in the bark, there was finally a change in the red mist before them.
The thick fog dissipated, and a familiar figure walked out of it. Facing the questioning gazes of the two, Li Nan shook his head slightly, “It didn’t work.”
The straw demon reappeared, seemingly unsurprised by this outcome, evident by its particularly smug smile.
Xiao Hua remained cautious of the demon and directly asked, “What happened?”
The straw demon ignored their questions and coldly reminded them, “Thirty seconds.”
This meant they had thirty seconds to communicate.
Generally, all the requirements spoken by NPCs were thoroughly calculated by the game.
Xiao Hua’s brows were more furrowed tonight than they had been all year. Just how challenging was this clue quest, which specifically provided an opportunity for players to communicate?
As Li Nan quickly explained the situation, Xiao Hua dared not be distracted.
“All information unknown, I had no idea who I was portraying from start to finish. There were no native residents coming to communicate, and I couldn’t even see the character’s face clearly. It was like a complete mosaic,” Li Nan emphasized the crucial information. “I was monitoring the lord’s residence all night, and I received the notification sound of role-play failure just before dawn.”
“…During that time, a thief sneaked into the inner gate, and after a brief scream, they never came out.”
With only a few seconds left, Xiao Hua looked at Wen Shi, “Any ideas?”
Li Nan’s approach was correct, starting by uncovering the lord’s secrets, but unfortunately, the character he was portraying didn’t seem very composed. This choice of only observing without immediate action was deemed out-of-character for the role.
With just a few words, Wen Shi didn’t have much of a plan either and took the initiative, “This time, let me go.”
Their personalities were quite different from each other. By comparing their experiences before and after, they might gather more information.
When Wen Shi approached the straw demon, Li Nan seemed to catch a chill and softly coughed a couple of times.
The straw demon began to insert straw.
“Hiss.”
When the bloodstained straw pierced his head, it was much more painful than the previous time, almost reaching the point of agony. Wen Shi breathed slightly heavily.
In the dim and dizzying moment when the blood mist enveloped him, it was hard to say whether he had fainted from the pain or if it was disorientation caused by the teleportation.
When he lifted his eyelids again, the sky was equally dark. Rockeries and black stones… these elements reflected in his pupils, as if there had been no rewind at all.
Wen Shi looked around, but Xiao Hua and the Wandering Corpse mysteriously disappeared, and he couldn’t call them anymore. Everything indicated that he had truly returned to the past.
“Your skills will be temporarily frozen.”
“Your items will be temporarily frozen.”
“Please make a quick decision. Among all the professions in the Golden City, match a suitable identity for the character you’re playing.”
“The teleportation point is still at the lord’s residence,” Li Nan had said succinctly. Wen Shi had initially thought that he might have been teleported outside somewhere, possibly with overlooked clues. Now it appeared that there was no such transition at all.
The electronic watch’s screen still displayed the comments from the monsters.
Wen Shi glanced quickly. Some monsters, who had apparently retreated after seeing Boss Mei, were being mentioned again, with comments generally noting that they hadn’t seen this subplot within that chapter before.
Wen Shi, who had hoped to catch some scattered clues from the audience’s few words, completely gave up on the idea.
Suddenly, there was a sound of footsteps trying to be discreet from ahead. Wen Shi quickly hid behind a tree.
A suspicious figure appeared, and as he got closer, Wen Shi could see a slight, slender man dressed in black sportswear, carrying a backpack. The zipper wasn’t fully closed, revealing the end of a rope inside the bag. The man also had an orange-gray box hanging from his waist, and there was a faint sound of metal clinking as he walked.
In the past, when his house was burglarized, Wen Shi had seen thieves carrying these kinds of boxes, usually containing professional lock-picking tools.
The newcomer should be the thief that Li Nan mentioned.
The thief didn’t trigger the player’s encounter with a Ghost Wall, and effortlessly reached the second door. Seeing no one around, he bent down and carefully entered.
The dark aura in the courtyard grew even stronger, almost overflowing.
If it weren’t for Li Nan’s trial and error, Wen Shi had no intention of setting foot in this yard at all. After all, the formation was set up in the first courtyard. Even if the thief died, there was a high probability that his body would be taken out and buried somewhere here. Observing later would yield the same results.
But now he had to follow inside. As he passed a puddle on the ground, Wen Shi’s gaze froze.
It was even more blurred than a mosaic. In the water’s reflection, one couldn’t even make out a basic human shape.
“A real puzzle.” Face unseen, no items in his pocket. How was this role-playing? It could even be called a riddle.
The scenery behind the second door wasn’t much different from the front courtyard, except there weren’t as many piled-up stones on the ground.
The thief continued forward, taking out something resembling a stethoscope, and placed it on the third door, listening attentively to ensure he didn’t detect any footsteps.
This made him breathe a sigh of relief. Thieves were also one of the professions in the Golden City, although their information wasn’t disclosed to the public. If he could genuinely steal something from the lord’s residence based on his skills, he wouldn’t be pursued afterward.
The brother who hung out with him on the road last time said that the third gate of the City Lord’s residence was more difficult to open. As long as he paid attention to the wave of people patrolling at three o’clock in the evening, it was still very easy to steal something in the warehouse. However, all items in the safe must not be touched, otherwise the alarm will be triggered.
The walls were made of black bricks, with anti-climbing spike nets on top, and the third door was an electronic smart door.
It was now well past three o’clock. The thief took out a prepared magnetic card and a ball-headed knife, skillfully picking the lock. In less than a minute, there was a click, and the door opened.
Since everything was going smoothly, the thief couldn’t help but smile. He pushed the door open slightly to avoid making too much noise, then entered by squeezing through sideways. Wen Shi emerged from behind the tree, ready to follow suit.
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