CH 5

(One Toffee)

There was no error in the logic he derived his answer from, but it was not the right answer. 

It was just…

Zhou Wenyan lowered his head to see Shen Dongqing frowning in frustration, and he could not help feeling funny.

Although this was the first time he met this young man, he wanted to be closer to him in an inexplicable way.

“I’ll give you a simple hint,” Zhou Wenyan ignored the system sounding in his ear as he said slowly, “Maybe what you are looking for isn’t just the person who killed Mr. A.” 

The conditions to clear the novice level were usually not difficult, and they were more like brain teasers.

Oftentimes, however, players would be confused by the system’s prompts and walk themselves into the dead end. As long as the questions were taken apart, they could easily find the correct answer.

While the others were still thinking about the meaning of the sentence, Shen Dongqing’s eyes lit up and he blurted out: “In actuality, everyone is a murderer.”

The person who took an axe and hacked away was Mr. A, and he killed the hostess, his insane mother and his twin daughters.

But they were holding Mr. A’s funeral now, which was to say that the four people who had turned into ghosts had killed Mr. A. Therefore, in this house, through and through, no one was spared.

Thus, every one of them was a murderer.

“Bingo!” Zhou Wenyan snapped his fingers, “Your guess is correct.”

He stood up. Before he took a step forward, he turned around again and took out something from his trench coat pocket before he placed it in Shen Dongqing’s palm. Under a doubtful gaze, he smiled slightly: “Reward.” 

Saying that, Zhou Wenyan strode out of the hall.

The bus was still parked outside and the door opened silently.

Zhou Wenyan got on. Then, he looked back at the house and slanted his head before he uttered soundlessly: “See you next time.”

Beep— 

The door closed and set off. Despite the partition of glass, his blurred silhouette was still visible.

Ktf yer vgbnf boo ja j iflregfis rqffv jcv la kjr fnfcaejiis rkjiibkfv ys atf vjgxcfrr jr lo la tjv fcafgfv jcbatfg kbgiv.

Vtfc Gbcudlcu bqfcfv tlr tjcv.

Oslcu lc tlr qjiw…. C abooff? 

C mjcvs qjqfg klat j rwjii yeccs qglcafv bc la kjr kgjqqfv jgbecv atf rqtfglmji mjcvs, jcv la kjr fzagfwfis meaf jcv la rwfiifv bo wlix.

Shen Dongqing peeled away the paper and tossed the toffee into his mouth. The rich taste of milk suffused through his mouth and he squinted his eyes from the sweetness. Before the toffee could fully melt, he saw the scene suddenly change.

Everyone disappeared from his sight.

The hostess, who looked fairly younger, was wearing a cheerful smile as she walked in, and the light and shadow behind her was blurred instead of being a deep, entrenching darkness. 

This was the complete story.

The hostess had married into this family and gave birth to pair of lively and cute little girls, and life was blessed and perfect. However, there was one regrettable imperfection: it was that Mr. A was short-tempered, and he constantly suspected that the hostess had an ambiguous relationship with the tenant next door, and he even doubted whether his twin daughters were his own children.

Therefore, one night, an intoxicated Mr. A had picked his axe and hacked the hostess and his twin daughters to death, and the mother-in-law who had came out to stop him also died under his axe.

The four were not reconciled, and they turned into ferocious ghosts. 

Both Mr. A and the indifferent tenants were trapped inside the house and all of them died at the hands of the ghosts in the end.

In this house, the past would be repeated in a loop once every three days. It welcomed one batch of players after another, until this instance…

The lights in front of his eyes went dark, and all the pictures disappeared.

【 Congratulations, you have completed the novice task, Closing in Progress– 】 

【 With a score of A in this instance, you are awarded with 500 points, no special reward drop 】

【 Due to an irregular playing method, the Novice Copy [Mr A’s Funeral] is permanently closed, Deducting 300 points from the player 】

【 Remaining Player Points: 200, the System Mall has been opened. 】

The hoarse girl paused before she opened her mouth again, and there was an additional grit of teeth to her voice. 

【 The official game will open in three days, wishing the player a happy game 】

Shen Dongqing bit the semi-soft toffee into half and found himself in a clean and narrow single room, with a translucent light curtain suspended in front of him.

Shen Dongqing did not care about the deducted points and started shopping happily.

There were three type of goods in the System Mall. 

One of them was daily necessities, comprising mainly of food and clothes; the other were goods that strengthened the body which could boost a person’s strength and even change their constitution; the last was auxiliary, wherein peach wood swords, talismans and objects that dealt damage to ghosts were offered.

The latter two categories were very expensive. With the 200 points that Shen Dongqing possessed, he could only exchange it for talismans with low efficacy.

Shen Dongqing skipped across them without looking.

What was he going to buy a talisman for? 

It was used against ghosts, and he was uncomfortable just from looking at it.

Shen Dongqing thought about it and asked: “Is there a phone with internet access?”

He glanced at his phone. Perhaps by virtue of the fact that it had been in another world, he did not manage to receive a signal then.

The word “NO” appeared on the light screen. 

“Okay,” he shrugged his shoulders before he seemed to think of something else. He asked: “Do you have the toffee I ate just now?”

He lifted the left-over candy wrapped and shook it.

The toffee that Zhou Wenyan gave him was delicious.

It would be great if he could buy a jar of it and slowly eat it. 

The system stared at it for a long while.

Why did it look like one of clues for a S-level copy? Did a novice player just eat it?

Shen Dongqing reminisced the sweet aftertaste and asked again: “Is there?”

The system was silent for a moment and the two large letters on the light curtain remained unchanged, and three large exclamation marks were added at the back. 

Dissatisfied, Shen Dongqing muttered: “Useless shopping mall.”

Shen Dongqing had no other choice but to buy other snacks. The products in the daily necessities section was extremely cheap, and after he spent all his points, he had a hill of snacks piled on his bed.

Shen Dongqing cheered and forgot his previous dissatisfaction as he threw himself into the ocean of snacks.

* 

S-level Copy [White Leather Notebook]

“Boss, you’re finally back.” A bespectacled young man breathed out a sigh of relief when he saw Zhou Wenyan’s figure approaching.  “The third stage of the copy is about to begin.”

S-level copies had to be upgraded.

The first stage might be a low-level copy, but after completing a certain task, it could become a higher-levelled copy. 

Zhou Wenyan gave a brief explanation: “The system arrested me and took me away to become a coolie.”

Generally speaking, failures were not supposed to occur in the Infinite Nightmare Game, but in the event where a failure did occur, the system could not interfere with the game process and it could only drag a player in to rectify the situation.

The bespectacled man glanced at him. “Why was there a warning as well?”

Once that was mentioned, Zhou Wenyan recalled the young man who had a dimple in his cheek whenever he smiled. 

“Boss, what are you thinking about? Why are you smiling like…” The bespectacled man could not think of an appropriate adjective, “ripples?”

Zhou Wenyan raised his hand to strike him with a palm, and gave him a cold, sweeping glance.

The bespectacled man staggered, and quickly changed the topic after laughing out two dry notes: “Big boss, is the clue on you? The third stage requires the clue…”

“It’s gone,” said Zhou Wenyan calmly. 

The bespectacled man did not fully absorb his words: “Oh, it’s gone, wait, it’s gone?! How did you lose it?”

Zhou Wenyan’s lashes fluttered a little: “Used it to coax someone.”

Startled, the bespectacled man yelled: “Who did you use it on?!”

Zhou Wenyan strode past him and said placidly, “Stop throwing a fuss, I’ll just look for it again.” 

The bespectacled man followed him and opened the notebook: “The clue is in a C-level copy, and it concerns the Campus’ Strange Talks…”