As the night on the second day fell, everyone lit up a candle in the dining room.
Thinking of the plot in last night’s dream, Yue Xingwen looked at his classmates and said, “For tonight room relocation, 8 people will stay in exactly 8 rooms. If the dream appears again, everyone must watch carefully and collect the clues in the dream.”
They were missing a plot line last night due to Luo Jiajia and Lu Kai dropping the chain, and they always felt that the dream clues were not complete. Yue Xingwen speculated that the plot clues of the dream would appear repeatedly, and he took the initiative to choose the room where Luo Jiajia stayed. “I’ll stay in room no. 8 tonight.”
Gao Xiaoxin hurriedly said, “Can I continue to stay in room no. 6?”
Yue Xingwen nodded slightly and looked at Gao Yongqiang, “There aren’t enough people, so it’s best for you two to split up and each take a room to collect clues, is that okay?”
Gao Yongqiang simply said, “No problem. I’ll stay in room no. 4, next to Xiaoxin.”
Jiang Pingce said, “You guys pick first.”
Liu Zhaoqing and Ke Shaobin chose room no. 5 and 7 respectively. Qin Miao and Qin Lu chose room no. 2 and 3, leaving only room no. 1.
Everyone looked at Jiang Pingce in unison.
Jiang Pingce’s tone was flat, “I’ll stay in room no. 1.”
Room no. 1 was decorated as a wedding room, which already had a creepy vibe, and then today a storage room was found next to the bed with six neatly arranged corpses. People still did not really want to be in the same room as the corpses psychologically…
Jiang Pingce looked indifferent, seemingly unconcerned about ‘sleeping in the same room with a corpse’.
Yue Xingwen came over and whispered, “You have to be more careful. We opened the storage room during the day and disturbed the dead. Room no. 1 is likely to be the most dangerous.”
Jiang Pingce said, “En, don’t worry. I’ll pay attention.”
Yue Xingwen smiled, patted his shoulder to show comfort, and turned back to tell everyone. “Just like last night, when you encounter an attack from the ghost brides, go out at the first opportunity and gather in front of Qin Lu’s room, and let Qin Lu’s plate movement lead everyone to escape.”
They were led upstairs by Yue Xingwen, and each of them entered the rooms separately.
Yue Xingwen walked into room no. 8 and slept on the wooden bed. After drifting off to sleep, he did have another dream.
It was a cold winter day in the dream, the sky was full of snow and a little girl of about 8 years old was begging around with a broken bowl. She fell in the snow and was beaten all over by passing punks. Just as she was dying, a noble man in gorgeous clothes rescued her and took her to the carriage.
The carriage moved on and finally stopped in front of a very grand gate with a plaque that read ‘Zhao’s Residence’.
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.
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He sat up and found a female ghost standing by the bed, looking at him steadily. The moonlight spilling through the window pane into the room, and the female ghost standing to block it, looking even paler as paper, her lips were so red that they looked like it was stained with human blood…
Yue Xingwen’s heartbeat almost stopped.
Ghost sister, it was scary for you to look at me quietly like that, okay! Students with bad hearts were probably going to go crazy with fear.
Yue Xingwen rushed to the door with a single stride and shouted. “Everyone gather quickly!”
The students in the other rooms also ran out, apparently all frightened by the ghosts. Their faces were uglier than one another, only Jiang Pingce looked calm, not expecting his room no. 1 to be the safest instead.
Qin Lu took out the globe straight away and switched everyone out of the forest in three successive plate movements.
Yue Xingwen looked back—— Seven female ghosts stood neatly at the edge of the forest, as if they were afraid of something, and did not continue to pursue. Last night, too, they would stop at the edge of the forest and not take another step forward.
Yue Xingwen looked at them carefully and asked with a doubt. “They’re not coming over. They are afraid of something, right?”
Jiang Pingce guessed, “Afraid of Su Wanxin?”
Yue Xingwen turned around and took out the map of the examination room that he had drawn during the day and looked at it carefully, followed by looking into the distance for a moment, “Looking over from this direction, Su Wanxin’s grave is indeed right over there. Is it because they were chosen as Su Wanxin’s sacrifice, so they are afraid of Su Wanxin? Su Wanxin is like the boss of the entire examination room, and these seven female ghosts are the little mobs?”
That explanation would make sense; It did seem like something more powerful prevented these seven female ghosts from continuing their pursuit once they reached the edge of the forest. In the forest, they moved like wind and could catch them in an instant, and their attacks were extremely harsh and vicious. However, once they were out of the forest, they did not dare to cross the line beyond because of Su Wanxin’s tombstone.
Yue Xingwen understood it in this way for now, he took out the flint stone, found some dry branches and lit a fire. He gathered everyone around it and sat down, saying, “Let’s sort out the dream clues. In room no.8, I dreamt of a little girl in rags who was saved by Mr. Zhao, who took her back to the Zhao’s Residence, gave her a clean set of pink clothes, and named her Xiao You. She loved to wear pink, and she should be the same person as the woman in pink who sewed the rag doll that Young Ke dreamt of last night.”
Gao Xiaoxin from room no. 6 said, “I dreamt that after the bride was buried, someone came to her tombstone and placed a large bouquet of chrysanthemums for her; The person was a doctor, carrying a medicine basket, and crying very sadly in front of the tomb.”
Gao Yongqiang from room no. 4 said, “My dream was about a matchmaker proposing a marriage, which seems to be the same as classmate Qin Lu’s dream last night.”
Qin Miao in room no.2 said, “My dream is also the same as last night.”
Yue Xingwen looked at Jiang Pingce, who said in a low voice, “I dreamt of a wedding, the same as your dream last night. The note on the rag doll is still unreadable.”
Liu Zhaoqing said, “I dreamt of a new clue. Miss Su was married when a sister hugged her and cried. Miss Su comforted her sister and said ‘It’s okay, this sister is just married, I’ll come back to see you later.’ In addition, the Su family has sent two dowry maidservants named, Chun Lan and Chun Yu, to accompany Miss Su in her marriage.”
Liu Zhaoqing paused and then added. “By the way, the married Miss Su, who looks exactly like Su Wanxin in the photo. So, Xingwen’s reasoning was right—— The dream world is an ancient version of a script based on Su Wanxin’s experiences.”
Ke Shaobin said, “I dreamt of a middle-aged woman wearing blue clothes with her hair tied in a bun, whom Miss Su called Aunt Chen; She went to find the fortune teller to have her fortune told and calculated the eight characters of the male and female protagonists. Miss Su’s birthday happens to be the seventh day of the seventh month.”
Everyone fell silent for a moment, and they were thinking with their heads lowered.
Yue Xingwen closed his eyes and sorted out his thoughts before saying, “Four new clues have emerged. One being that Mr. Zhao saved a girl when he was young, most likely the woman in pink who sewed the rag dolls; Second, the female protagonist Su Wanxin also has a sister; Third, after the female protagonist died, the doctor had visited the tomb to pay his respects; The fourth is Aunt Chen, and the two dowry maidservants, Chun Lan and Chun Yu.”
He took out his dictionary and tore off a piece of paper, he began to draw the characters’ relationship tree.
Su Wanxin, Mr. Zhao was placed in the very middle of the character tree, and these two were the center of the whole thing.
On the right side of Mr. Zhao, Yue Xingwen added a female character ‘Xiao You’, the beggar girl he saved when she was young and was adopted into the Zhao family. Perhaps this girl secretly had feelings for him, designed a curse, and poisoned the bride?
Yue Xingwen added the ‘sister’ on the left side of Miss Su. When Miss Su got married, her sister said ‘I’m afraid you won’t come back’. It was not known if she really could not let go of her sister, or if she was jealous of her sister and deliberately said such unlucky words?
The guard should be Miss Su’s bodyguard and secretly in love with her that he drew her picture; The doctor also obviously liked Miss Su and went to pay respect in front of Miss Su’s tombstone.
He handed the drawn characters’ relationship tree to Jiang Pingce.
Miss Su, Mr. Zhao, Xiao You, Sister Su, doctor, guard, matchmaker, Aunt Chen, Chun Lan, Chun Yu…
Jiang Pingce frowned at the complex characters’ relationship tree. After a moment, he suddenly said, “Ten people, three men and seven women, it matched up with the number and gender of the suitcases.”
Yue Xingwen nodded. “It seems, this is the entire players of the murder mystery game.”
The first round of clues last night was not clear enough, and after the second wave of clues was given tonight, the whole thing and the characters were much clearer.
In the muder mystery game, the most suspected one for Miss Su’s eventual death were currently these——
Xiao You, who was rescued by Mr. Zhao when she was young. She loved him and sewed rag dolls to curse his wife, with clear motives and simple, crude methods. And her sewed rag dolls gave the clue last night.
Sister Su, the passage she said when her sister got married was very strange, it was possible that she was jealous of her sister and plotted against her?
Aunt Chen, who was the only one that clearly knew the birth dates of the male and female protagonists.
The guard, a strong martial artist. He liked the female protagonist, and he was displeased to see her marry someone else, and simply killed her because he could not get her?
The doctor. Although he looked sad as he cried bitterly at the tombstone of the female protagonist, they could not rule out the possibility that he came to the grave to repent and cry because of love and hate, having killed her.
From the perspective of the screenwriter of the murder mystery game, the girls and the matchmaker were usually set up as passers-by who found clues.
The ten-person murder myster game’s players were now in place, with a dog-blood love drama. They still needed to find more clues to deduce the who the murderer was. In reality, due to the number of people and suitcases matching up, had also given a new line of thought in Yue Xingwen’s mind.
Yue Xingwen said, “Our previous guess could also be wrong. The murderer usually lives in the basement, but when he killed someone, he would mix in with the 10 people in the murder myster game, pretending to be a player, and bringing his luggage to this inn with the others.”
Qin Miao frowned slightly, “However, isn’t the murder mystery case usually done by friends to met up and have fun together? Were they feel at ease when playing the murder mystery game with strangers?”
Yue Xingwen said, “In addition to real friends, there are also online friends.”
Ke Shaobin immediately raised his hand and spoke seriously. “I heard that there are many forums such as murder mystery game and escape room. Although some people have not met in reality, they can talk very well in the forum, and they can add WeChat or QQ, make a group chat and boast. After chatting for a while and getting familiar with each other, someone in the group suggested that they went to a certain place and play the murder mystery game by the way. I don’t think the first thing that comes to most people’s mind is something as horrible as ‘there’s a murderer’.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. They were also college students in their 20s who had joined some groups.
Those who had never met, chatting inside WeChat groups or QQ groups could also chat very lively. The relationship between some online friends could be even better than the friends in reality. There were also some people who chatted for a long while and then met in real life.
As the murder myster game’s fans, of course, they could make time to go and meet each other to play.
The idea of going on an immersive ancient murder mystery game with some lively online friends was a fresh and exciting experience.
The murderer mixed in such a group first, using the method of ‘luring the online friends to play the murder mystery game’, to invite people from all over the country to the trap inn he had arranged in advance. Then, pick a suitable target as the sacrifice.
Since in this script, the bride was the first to die. After the player who played the bride died, the other would not immediately perceive that something was wrong—— because the bride in the script was also dead.
They could not possibly have thought that the player playing the bride would actually be killed!
And the murderer who killed the bride in the script, maybe, was also the murderer who killed these brides in reality?
Yue Xingwen said, “Su Wanxin’s birthday was the seventh day of the seventh month. It can match the number ‘seven’, the murderer killed seven brides, it feels like using a kind of formation to transcend the bride’s departed spirit? In ancient times, there were indeed some crooked ways that used living people as sacrifices.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
In this way, the script and reality lines could be matched. Since the murderer was mixed among the players, all they had to do was roll out the murderer who killed Miss Su in the script, and they could find out the murderer in reality!
So much thinking needed this time.
For these games, you need to be deeply in Chinese culture, because role—playing games in general are super unpopular chamber entertainment, the most popular is historical battle reenactments on major holidays
Thank you very much for the translation 🤍🤍🤍
*in my country