Chapter 297: Ziggurat?

In the past several years, Feng Ziyu had investigated several places before he came up with this document about Ziggurat. The content was so preposterous and unbelievable that if Han Fei had not been to the cryptic world himself, he wouldn’t believe such locations exist at Xin Lu. In the 1st edition of Perfect Life, to increase authenticity, part of the gaming set was inspired by real life, and that included the Ziggurat personally designed by Immortal Pharma’s past director. No one knew what Ziggurat's real name was, Ziggurat was just a codename but the locale had been closely related to death ever since its creation. Following the deaths of the director and the tester who went insane, Feng Ziyu was the living person who knew Ziggurat the best. He had personally tested all the missions available at Ziggurat and had been to most of the rooms at Ziggurat.

“Since the beginning, I noticed the connection between Ziggurat and real life. On the surface, Ziggurat claims to be a virtual location created by Immortal Pharma’s director, but once you were inside it, you would notice its tenuous relationship to reality. As a tester, I had checked the missions at Ziggurat multiple times, they all looked normal on the surface but they had such sinister details.

“Take for example, there is a deliveryman outside Building 1 of Ziggurat, he came to Ziggurat for his job, taking a temporary post from his colleague. According to the game’s design, the deliveryman’s attitude was completely different from a normal NPC, he was extremely cunning and crazy. He would inject the water from the toilet into the bottled water using a syringe and hid his cut nails inside the food. When the deliveryman made his 3rd delivery, he was encountered by one of the tenants, a father. The man discovered his crazy actions and got into an argument with him. Just as it was about to escalate to a fight, the player would be dragged into it. Based on different choices, the ending of the deliveryman would be different.

“The best result was when the deliveryman was arrested by the police, he would be given therapy but I realized things were not that simple. The first problem was the deliveryman supposedly took over from his colleague and entered the Ziggurat but what exactly happened to his colleague, the game didn’t explain. This was very unlike the photon computer, there was only one explanation, that part of the history had been purposely wiped away. I tried to look into similar events in real life and realized with shock that something similar really did happen at Xin Lu many years ago.

“It was a double murder case. Two deliverymen were tricked to a neighbourhood called Qiu Yun Residence, it was a high-end apartment. The two deliverymen were killed and stuffed inside their own respective delivery boxes. The case had been solved, the culprit was a father, he lived in Room 0314. If you think this was an isolated case, then you couldn’t be more wrong.

“Inside the small Ziggurat, there were more than 10 such storylines, almost every single NPC had their own story to tell. I’ve looked through most of them and discovered something shocking. Almost 50 percent of the NPC were modelled after actual people, their gory and bloody murders were written into the seemingly mundane everyday life stories at Ziggurat!

“In Perfect Life, with the players’ help, their stories would soon be tied up perfectly, the complete opposite of what happened in real life. These accidents and cases were gathered together, I really couldn’t understand why the dead director would design a place like this.

“As I investigated further, I noticed something even weirder. The NPC connected to murder cases were all living in Room with the number 4. In fact, the greater the number of 4 in their room number, the more terrifying their stories were. Based on that, I started to get curious about the people and things inside Room 4444. I tried my best to recall and flipped through the company’s internal records but then I noticed something, there was no info related to Room 4444 at the company. The only person who had been into Room 4444 was that colleague of mine, the tester who went insane. Room 4444 must have something important hidden inside it, the reason why my colleague went crazy. I used various excuses to access the company’s inner data and wade through the sea of data but the truth had fully been hidden away.

“Then again, I didn’t really come away with nothing. When I was testing Ziggurat, I accidentally entered a hidden room—Room 4944, I remembered its layout very clearly. In my investigation, I found out the room was modelled after Immortal Pharma’s Director’s childhood room.” There was a picture under that line and when he saw that picture, Han Fei’s eyes widened with shock. The decoration of Room 4944 was similar to the room of the previous building manager at Happiness Neighbourhood!

“Based on my earlier speculation, the greater the number of 4 on the room number, the more harrowing its inhabitants’ tales. It would then seem like the director didn’t have an enjoyable childhood.” Feng Ziyu investigated all the rooms he had been in and came to a scary conclusion. Almost half the NPC at Ziggurat were tied to murder cases, it was hard to imagine such a locale would exist in an Iyashikei game.

Taking in all the details, Han Fei memorized the cases and their corresponding room number. While he did that, his spine chilled. Compared to Ziggurat, the Happiness Neighbourhood was really ‘happy’.

“Qiu Yun Residence, Pear Blossom Neighbourhood, Blue Sky High-End Apartment, Happiness Street Temporary Homes…” Ziggurat consisted of a lot of different places but there was one place that Feng Ziyu specially marked out where he hoped Han Fei could go in person to investigate.

“Pear Blossom Neighbourhood?” The neighbourhood had a very common name and it was an old neighbourhood but it was also where the dead Immortal Pharma director spent his childhood. ‘9 NPCs at Ziggurat are tied to this place. Looks like it is worth checking out.’

The address of Pear Blossom Neighbourhood was marked out on the map. Feng Ziyu was a very detail-orientated person. He reminded Han Fei that if he did go to Pear Blossom Neighbourhood, he should go and find a person. The person was a once-famous horror film director but he lost his mind after his family got caught in an accident. Feng Ziyu paid him special attention because he had seen a few NPCs inside Room 4144 and they appeared to the director’s family. Coincidentally enough, there was a black and white picture inside Room 4144 that looked 70 percent like that director.

The director was the only one alive but his picture was treated as the portrait of the deceased in the cryptic world. The boundary between the living and dead appeared to have been inverted.