After Edmund disappeared, the players picked up his necklace and the map that was next to the corpse. Luo closed the hidden compartment under the piano and they were about to leave.
Suddenly, as if it was unable to endure the power of time any longer, the musical score displayed on the piano became a pile of dust, and a system notification that had not appeared in a while was received:
“Damaged a setting prop; Madam Bella has noticed you.”
The players were taken aback. Madam Bella hadn’t reacted at all when they tore down a wall before, yet they had directly drawn her hostility when a musical score ruined itself.
Unlike everyone else, Xiao Lan received another exclusive notification:
“Poverty value increased by 1000. Xiao Lan is still just this broke.”
Unexpectedly, it was the long unseen poverty value notification! However… A musical score in an aristocratic home was this expensive?
Xiao Lan speculated that perhaps the method to obtain poverty value was to damage items which the boss or NPCs cared about.
For example, to Zhang Dong, everything in his beloved supermarket belonged to him, even if it was in pieces; while for Gu Mo, it was the items in the setting which she created.
Xiao Lan hadn’t gained any poverty value before regardless of whether he tore down walls or destroyed ornaments, most likely because Madam Bella simply didn’t care about these things. No matter how expensive these things were, none of them mattered to her. As for Annie’s room, perhaps it was because Annie only cared for her elder sister and didn’t care about her own room.
But Madam Bella couldn’t bear for even a musical score in the piano room to be damaged. After all, this was something that contained beautiful memories of her and Edmund.
She only cared about this piano room!
Xiao Lan’s eyes instantly lit up and he tried to study the things in the room to see if there was a suitable opportunity for him to turn them into poverty value, just before clearing this instance so as to avoid attracting enmity.
His gaze latched onto a flower vase at the side. This looked very easy to carry. However, his fingers barely brushed the flower vase when the vase containing wilted flowers also turned into dust like the musical score.
“Damaged a setting prop; Madam Bella remembers you in her heart.”
“Poverty value increased by 400,000, Xiao Lan is so broke he’s incomparably happy.”
Xiao Lan drew back his hand. “…”
This really was a scam.
He definitely couldn’t be happy at the boss remembering him.
At that moment, a new system notification appeared, and all his other thoughts ground to a halt.
“Unreasonable guests have intruded into her beloved piano room; indignant Madam Bella has decided to return to the manor early.”
Xiao Lan stopped planning to look at the other things in the room.
The things here would fall to pieces at a touch and couldn’t be taken away at all.
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.
If he trashed this music room, he might reap a tremendous amount of poverty value, but would also reap a tremendous amount of Madam Bella’s enmity. When that time came, Madam Bella might directly teleport over and smack him to death with one slap.
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At that moment, Wang Taidi pointed at the window which had the curtains drawn open to make it easier for them to find clues. “Guys, look at that!”
The players turned to look and saw an ominous, blood-red colour appear on the distant horizon. It covered the sky and enveloped the sun as it surged swiftly towards the manor. This red colour made one think of — Otey’s scarlet eyes.
It was likely Madam Bella. She was hurrying over, and at that speed, it probably wouldn’t take her long.
“Hurry! We have to leave the manor!” Xiao Lan yelled.
There was no time to hesitate, and everyone rushed out of the piano room right away and headed for the basement based on the directions in Edmund’s map.
.
When the players ran into the corridor, they realised that the entire manor was no longer the same; it was like a terrible monster that was waking up from a long, deep slumber and unfolding its body.
The corridor in front of them was no longer the same as before.
Many side passages and corners had appeared in the corridor that had initially been perfectly straight, and it was constantly changing and letting out rustling sounds. The windows on both sides had lengthened considerably and were shifting around at a weird pace.
Before they could figure out how to react, the floor under their feet suddenly started to break apart before being put together again like toy building blocks to form a new corridor.
The floor under Xiao Lan’s feet moved to the left, and Luo responded swiftly by directly leaping over from his position to grab Xiao Lan tightly.
On the other side, the floor under Wang Taidi, this unlucky child, directly split apart and he fell. He tried to grab the floorboards on the sides, but unfortunately missed. At the critical moment, Wang Ke reacted quickly and stuck out his sword so that he caught his family’s dumb little brother by the waistband on the reverse edge of his sword before he flung him backward and then dragged him back to where Wang Ke was.
Instantly, countless corridors appeared between both parties and obstructed their line of sight. The players were thus separated.
Xiao Lan looked at the unfamiliar corridor in front of him and grew wary.
All of this was clearly to stall for time.
If the players were trapped until Madam Bella returned, beginner players and suppressed advanced players clearly couldn’t go up against that level of strength directly.
He had barely taken a couple of steps when a maid walked out from around the corner in front of them.
She had a wooden expression and her eyes were lifeless, like a puppet under control, and she rushed straight at Xiao Lan. Her behaviour made Xiao Lan recall those players who had eaten Madam Bella’s food at dinner previously. Could it be that the maids in the manor were also players who had failed to clear the instance?
It was extremely likely.
Xiao Lan dodged the maid’s frontal attack and, seizing the opportunity when her back was facing him, hit her on the back of her neck to knock her out.
After that, he casually found a room to toss her in and locked the door.
In a critical moment when they were fleeing for their lives, it was better not to become entangled with the NPCs.
As they continued forward for some time, the walls of the corridor intertwined and the environment transformed once more. This time, there was a room up ahead in the corridor which looked like a kitchen. If Xiao Lan wanted to move forward, he would have to pass through this space.
Xiao Lan carefully entered the kitchen. It looked very calm since it was empty; at first glance, there didn’t seem to be any dangers lurking in here.
When he passed by a chopping board, Xiao Lan’s gaze was drawn to it.
There was a knife on the chopping board; this in itself wasn’t unusual, but what was strange was that it was clearly a modern, stainless steel fruit knife, which was completely incongruous with this lavish instance.
Xiao Lan picked up the knife.
【Name: This is a dagger coated in highly toxic poison (High-grade item, already bound)】
【Ability: Is randomly poisonous with each use, and may not necessarily be highly toxic. This fellow is clickbait】
【Explanation: Although it just looks like a fruit knife worth not more than ten yuan, it really has poison on it; please do not lick it】
This time, the poverty value notification didn’t pop up. It seemed that it was absolutely no problem for Xiao Lan to use poverty-related items like this. That was something truly worth celebrating.
— My ass.
Xiao Lan could already imagine it: when everyone was holding their magnificent equipment, he was holding a ten-yuan knife in his left hand, and a twenty-yuan saucepan lid in his right…
I don’t want to be humiliated!
Xiao Lan looked at the knife. “Luo, I might be the owner who owns the least in history.”
Luo smiled as he said, “But you possess all our debts.”
Xiao Lan: “…”
They simply couldn’t communicate at all today!!!
Dislike was dislike, but this was a high-grade item ah! It seemed even more suitable for Xiao Lan compared with Demeter’s Blade; moreover, its supplementary poison ability seemed very useful too.
In the end, Xiao Lan still quickly put this knife into his item rucksack. From this moment on, he was someone who possessed a weapon.
The two of them left the kitchen without mishap.
.
When they stepped into the next section of the corridor, Xiao Lan became wary for no reason.
This section of the corridor was very quiet, with only the faint scraping and rustling sounds of the walls changing; there also weren’t any signs of the maids who would attack the players wildly.
It looked very calm.
But there was a strange smell in the air, like a mix of blood and vomit. It then blended with the smell of incense in the manor, and was especially perturbing.
There was the sound of two sets of footsteps from around the corner up ahead. One set sounded heavy and panicked, like someone who was heavily wounded and fleeing for their life.
The other sounded neither too fast nor too slow, as if they were taking a stroll through the manor.
Paired together, it sounded very odd.
Xiao Lan and Luo stopped walking and assumed a defensive stance as they waited for the people up ahead to appear. Xiao Lan even took out 【This is a dagger coated in highly toxic poison】 — it would be easier to attack with it in hand.
The heavy and messy footsteps got closer and someone finally appeared in front of them.
It was hard to call this a person.
He was originally very big and tall; now, he stooped as he curled in on himself. There were large bruises on his exposed skin, and several of them were already turning purplish-black. Furthermore, they seemed to spread at an unbelievable rate with each step that he took.
This was the big man with the somewhat cruel gaze from when everyone first entered the game.
He already looked a little out of it and was relying completely on instinct to move forward. As he coughed, he muttered continuously, “I’m guilty… murder… shouldn’t… let, let me go…”
This appearance made Xiao Lan think of the Black Death of legend; that was, the bubonic plague.
Patients with the black plague would have symptoms of sepsis appear all over their body within a short period of time. They became delirious after that, and generally died within three days. It was called ‘Black Death’ because there would be extensive bleeding and bruising on the skin which gave the corpse a purplish-black appearance after death.
However, this person’s symptoms were progressing too quickly and changed practically every minute, as if someone was manipulating them.
Suddenly, that person’s blurry gaze landed on human figures. It was as if he was seeing hope, and he used all his strength to scramble over. He stretched out one hand that had already turned purplish-black. “Save… Save me! Save me!”
Xiao Lan swiftly retreated and increased the distance between them; the bubonic plague could be transmitted through droplets in the air!
That person was still unwilling to give up and he wheezed as he switched directions and still wanted to reach out to Xiao Lan.
In the next second, a shiny scalpel flew out from the pitch-black corridor behind him and directly pierced the man in the back of his head. This person immediately collapsed without another sound.
“Hehe, my apologies. I didn’t pay attention to my prey for one moment and caused him to disturb you.” The voice was low and hoarse, and gave a weak sense of not enough qi and blood.
A person walked out from the darkness. He was tall and thin with hair as white as snow, and was wearing a long, black windbreaker, a wide-brimmed hat and a beaked mask. He bowed slightly to Xiao Lan to express his apology.
It was Qi Ning.
Baobao Notes
I just checked my kofi page and was terrified to discover so many people donating to this novel. Thank you guys so much! I want to name all, but not everyone donated to this novel only, so I love you guys! You guys know who you are <3
Woah… Qi Ning looks so cool here tbh…
Thanks for the chapter!
“Oh look, an expensive looking vase!” it crumbles down “Oh shiet… the boss is coming back, fast coming back… RUUUUN!!”
Thx for the ch (≧▽≦)/
Geez, I thought the plague doctor mask was a getup. Either way, they have bigger things to worry about.
Thanks for the chapter!
I really like this Qi Ning, I hope he’ll stay as a friend after this instance :3
Thank you for the chapter!! ❤️❤️
Thanks for the chapter!
Thank you for the great translation ♥️
When a secondary character immediately attracts all of your interest! I really want to read a story focusing on Qi Ning now!
Thanks for your hard work translating!
Ahhhh what’s next? How do they get as many players out? (At least the Wang brothers and Qing Ning since I can’t remember the rest xD)
Thanks for the chapter <3
Thanks for the update
Sepsis would technically be correct, but you could switch to gangrene/necrosis or buboes if you want it to sound more like part of the disease.
But honestly, the author isn’t describing the bubonic plague, it sounds more like septicemic plague, which is a little different but tends to have the purple-black bruising apparently
Such a Gentleman ~ Qi Ning
bro just getting the curse of binding on all of this poverty like items, though, unlike minecraft i like these will stay with you even after death
maybe he wears a plage doctor mask because he’s covered in boils? his ability to give others plague?