Chapter 31: Reverse Killing

Shen Qingcheng had put the manuscripts safely into his pockets. Suddenly, he remembered why they had gone to the low-rise building. Hadn’t he been trying to find whoever had been peeking at him?

Not to mention, that little girl had disappeared in the direction of the low building, but he hadn’t seen her since.

He clicked his tongue in confusion, "Could that skinless and shameless¹ person be the fourth NPC?"

Lu Qi thought about the phrase "skinless and shameless" and replied, "No, the fourth NPC is a young man."

Seeing the doubt in Shen Qingcheng's eyes, Lu Qi said, "The four NPCs appeared before you got to the castle."

No wonder! It seemed that he couldn’t run away in the future, as he would miss key information if he got lost.

He spread out the manuscript.

The master's manuscript messily recorded many of his occasional flashes of inspiration. He seemed to be preparing a new book, and the basic content, such as background and character settings, were mentioned in the notes.

He wrote thriller novels, so he had to describe some real or fake "ghosts" to create a terrifying atmosphere. A few incoherent words caught the attention of Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi.

Faceless person, skinning, blood, axe.

Wasn’t that the red ghost that the master saw? The red ghost had actually been created by the master himself!

"The mechanic of this copy is novels turning into reality?" Shen Qingcheng considered his point, then refuted himself.

"No, no, that would be too arbitrary. In that case, we would only be facing ghosts, where would the four NPCs have come from? And the weapon he wrote about was an axe, and what we saw was a long hook."

"Look at this." Lu Qi tapped his index finger under a row of words.

It read: In pursuit of authenticity, I decided to buy a few animals to try it on.

Animals!

A thought flashed through his mind, too fast for Shen Qingcheng to register it. He was so anxious that he grabbed Lu Qi’s forearm and shook it vigorously. "It’s-it’s that painting on the wall! It matches!"

A smile flashed across Lu Qi's eyes, "En, it matches."

Shen Qingcheng anxiously said, "Wait, I still haven't figured it out, you lay it out for me."

Lu Qi asked back, "Have you ever seen an animal skinned?"

Shen Qingcheng shook his head.

Lu Qi: "To skin an animal, in order to ensure the integrity of the fur, a long hook will be hooked into the animal's mouth to hang it up."

Shen Qingcheng: "A long hook?"

Lu Qi: "The master should have bought a lot of animals to skin himself for the novel's realism, so it makes sense that skinned people and long hooks would appear."

What was this called? The wheel of fortune² turned, and a hunter was killed by his prey.

Shen Qingcheng: "The red ghost is the master, who was skinned by his prey."

Lu Qi: "No, it's the mistress."

Shen Qingcheng looked over.

Lu Qi paused and said, "It had breasts."

Shen Qingcheng squinted at him, and suddenly smiled, "Hey, Lu-dage observed very carefully~"

Lu Qi pursed his lips, and closed his eyes. After a moment, he said, "Professional habits."

In the evening, the two came back after eating outside. When they returned to the castle, the players in the lobby hadn't yet dispersed after eating. The little girl wasn’t there. It was unclear if she hadn’t shown up or if she had already left.

He Zhi and Gao Shulin sat at the two ends of the long table. Occasionally their eyes met, and He Zhi nodded gently, while Gao Shulin turned her eyes away without heeding him.

Shen Qingcheng's teeth itched because of their duplicity.

He was not surprised that the two of them had been able to escape from the red ghost shadow. At any rate, anyone who was able to win over a group of followers definitely had some means of preserving their own lives.

But He Wei seemed to be injured.

Shen Qingcheng noticed the bandage on his arm and his pale face, and was thoughtful.

"Don't worry, it's only a minor injury," He Wei said with a smile when he noticed Shen Meiren's gaze. "I didn't have much luck this afternoon and ran into a ghost, so I got a little wounded. "

"Wei-ge is amazing!"

"Yeah, that ghost was the faceless ghost who killed Xiao Liu and Wei Tian!"

Shen Qingcheng, who knew the truth: Why didn’t you say when the encounter happened, hm?

He strongly suspected that the remaining players were firmly on He Wei and Gao Shulin’s sides, and were caught in their rhythm.

Noticing that he didn't reply, He Wei looked worried. "How are you and Lu Qi? Did you encounter any danger this afternoon?"

Shen Qingcheng was about to speak.

Lu Qi: "No."

He Wei was a little surprised that Lu Qi had taken the initiative to speak out. In his impression, he had always been quite taciturn. He glanced at Shen Meiren, then withdrew his eyes and asked, "Did you gain anything? We found some clues this afternoon."

Lu Qi: "A few drawings."

He didn't mention the manuscripts because he didn't want He Wei and Gao Shulin to know that they had been to the low-rise building. He just wanted to exchange the paintings for information.

He Wei and Gao Shulin's players had found a diagnostic note and a few pages torn out from a diary, respectively.

The diagnosis was given by a psychiatrist to the male host. It stated in black and white that the male host did indeed have a relatively serious mental illness, visual and auditory hallucinations, and suggested that he be treated as soon as possible.

There were several bottles of pills next to the diagnostic instructions, indicating that the master had started receiving treatment after learning of his condition.

The diary pages they found were incomplete, just part of what had been torn out. In it, the mistress wrote that the master had gradually developed from visual and auditory hallucinations to violent tendencies.

He was always nervous and thought that there was a great danger hidden around him. In order to protect himself, he would attack people and things around him with all available tools.

The master was in an abnormal state at that time. When he realized that what he was attacking was a ghost who wanted to hurt him, he began permanently keeping an axe at his side for self-protection.

The mistress was terrified. Breaking the furniture with the axe was one thing, but what if her husband hurt himself or the children?

He Wei: "Those were the clues we found, what about you?"

The scraps of drawing paper were on Shen Qingcheng's person, so he took them out and handed them to He Wei.

He Wei, Gao Shulin, and the other players gathered around to look carefully.

Shen Qingcheng heard the impetuous male player, Hong Ganglie, ask angrily, "What kind of clue is this? It's practically waste paper!"

He Wei interjects, "This is proof that our thinking just now was right. The master really had hallucinations because of his mental illness at the beginning, and the faceless ghost appeared later."

His next words couldn't be heard clearly--Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi had already gone up to the second floor.

Indeed, the clues of He Shi and his group showed that the master had likely been mentally ill at first, and the faceless ghost--that is, the red ghost--had appeared later.

The drawings Shen Qingcheng had found lent credence to this idea.

It could explain why some of the children's paintings only had a black figure, representing the master, because at that time everything had just been the imagination of the master.

He imagined a ghost who wanted to hurt him, and then fought back to protect himself.

But at that time, since the master had started receiving treatment, why did his condition become more and more serious?

He thought of the animals painted in each room. Not only the male owner's illness, but perhaps the appearance of the red faceless ghost was also related to these animals.

The intricate story lines really made people's brains hurt. In comparison, Lu Qi, who had inferred that the male host was mentally ill without having the clue of the diagnosis, seemed very cool.

Shen Qingcheng turned his gaze to his well-defined profile face, and his eyes lit up, "How did you know that in the first place? Without having the clue of the medical certificate, you inferred that the male host was mentally ill, that's amazing! "

A big thigh really was a big thigh.

He had just wanted to vent his wonder, so he didn’t care when Lu Qi didn't answer. When he was outside his room, he waved to him, "Good night~"

Before going to bed, Shen Qingcheng stood in front of the oil painting in his room and looked at the pregnant doe for a long while. He then lowered his head and looked at the red mask with white cat paw marks.

What was the relationship between the two?

Xiao Liu was dead, and he didn’t know who the faceless ghost would be going after that night.

Shen Qingcheng had a peaceful night. When he woke up the next morning, there was fine snow drifting around outside the window. Noting that it was extremely cold that day, he dug a thick scarf and gloves out of his suitcase before going out.

Lu Qi was leaning against the wall right outside the door, waiting for him. Lu Qi’s gaze was lowered, like he was thinking deeply. The dim wall lamp cast a warm light on his handsome eyebrows and eyes.

"Good morning, Lu Qi." Shen Qingcheng greeted energetically.

Lu Qi stood up straight and replied, "Morning."

The two walked downstairs side by side.

Shen Qingcheng: "What are we doing today?"

Lu Qi: "Going to the low-rise building."

Shen Qingcheng: "Eh?"

Lu Qi: "The low-rise building is where the master worked, so there should be more than one clue."

Shen Qingcheng nodded, though the thick scarf made his movement a bit difficult. "You're right."

The two of them were in good condition. Compared to their relaxed state of mind, the atmosphere of the players downstairs was not as good.

They didn't stop in the lobby, wanting to leave before the little girl came out. As they passed by, Shen Qingcheng heard something: a male player said that he had heard the sound of his window being pried open the previous night.

Ah, so the faceless ghost had been going after him.

The players had experienced Xiao Liu's incident, and now knew that most of the people whose windows were tampered with wouldn’t survive the next night, so that player was emotionally shattered.

He Shi and Gao Shulin were comforting him, not wanting his emotions to affect the others.

Shen Qingcheng didn't think much about it. If he really wanted to comfort him, he might as well quickly solve the story line and clear the copy.

They deliberately picked some extra nuts and berries for that day’s breakfast, and the two of them ate while walking towards the low building.

Shen Qingcheng ate a particularly sour berry, so sour that his eyes scrunched. Then he took what Lu Qi handed him and stuffed it into his mouth; it was much sweeter.

The low-rise building was still the same as when they had left the previous day. The only difference was that a layer of white snow had fallen on the black vines.

Lu Qi walked in front. One hand grabbed Shen Qingcheng's wrist, and the other pushed open the damp wooden door.

It was dark inside, and Lu Qi lit a candle he had taken from his room.

Just when Shen Qingcheng thought they were going to search each room one by one like the day before, Lu Qi led him straight to the bookshelf in the corner.

Lu Qi said, "I'll be done in a second." Then he handed the candle to him.

Shen Qingcheng was left holding the candlestick, and before he could understand the meaning of that sentence, Lu Qi was already fumbling for something on the bookshelf next to him.

He found it and twisted, causing a click and the heavy wooden bookshelf to slowly move to the side.

There was a square entrance on the ground where the bookshelves had originally been, and the darkness inside was blacker than that of the low-rise building.

Shen Qingcheng: "!"

Lu Qi took the candlestick again, and Shen Qingcheng said, "How did you know there is a tunnel here?"

It seems that after he met Lu Qi, he was always asking questions like "How did you know?" Was it making him look stupid?

Lu Qi: "It’s a basement. There were traces of movement on the ground. I was interrupted by the sound from upstairs yesterday."

Shen Qingcheng's automatic mental translation:

It's not a tunnel, it's a basement. I knew there was a basement because I saw traces on the ground, and I saw it yesterday, but I was interrupted by the sound from upstairs and didn't have time to go down.

Shen Qingcheng refused to accept it, "Ignoring how fast you are, your eyesight is still so good--why didn’t the game seal it?!”

At first, he hadn’t thought it was a big deal. It made little difference for him if his yinyang eyes were sealed, but he wasn’t suffering from deprivation, but inequity! How come this dog game only sealed him?

Lu Qi: "?"

He asked, "What did the game seal for you?"

Shen Qingcheng angrily said, "It's nothing, just my eyesight and arrogant spirit."

Lu Qi: "..."

Deciding that Shen Meiren was making trouble again, he grabbed his wrist and turned around. "Well, let's go down."

Shen Qingcheng was puzzled. He had been wronged, yet Lu Qi’s reaction was so bland--shouldn't he be complaining about the dogshit game company with him at this point?

Connecting the ground and the basement was a wooden ladder, which was covered with dust. It seemed that no one had been there for a long time.

The space below was bigger than they had thought, and Shen Qingcheng looked left and right with a gaze that seemed to be "unseeing with open eyes³".

Next to him, Lu Qi found the wall light switch in the corner. Click.

When the lights came on, Shen Qingcheng was almost scared to death by the red figure hanging on the opposite wall with his head down.

TLN:

¹ Literally “without clothes and without face” (没皮没脸).

² Literally “the wheel of fengshui turned” (风水轮流转). Fengshui literally translates to “wind water”, and is also known as Chinese geomancy. It’s a traditional practice of using energy sources to harmonize people with their environments. Today, I believe it’s most often used in interior design.

³ Literally “open eyes but blind” (睁眼瞎), used to describe uneducated/illiterate people. In this case, probably used in the most literal sense.