Sin is eternal, and with neglect and indulgence, it grows into a man-eating beast.
The beast’s claws tear at the passing crowds, falling silent only at the moment of death.
Five of the six rooms housed ghosts born from the players' sins. Hansen was already one of them, but his death had erased his transgression, which meant only four of the ghosts could actually cause harm.
To survive the next three days, the players had to either choose the room occupied by their own corresponding ghost, or select the empty room, or the one corresponding to Hansen.
A fifty-fifty chance of success—not bad at all.
Even if they chose wrong, it wasn’t a death sentence. Tonight, no one would die. They just needed to identify which player was linked to the ghost in their room, then find a way to get that player killed the next day.
Just like... how they had voted to kill Hansen today.
Qi Si mulled this over for a moment, then looked at Charlie. "Excuse me, do the ghosts born from sin vary in strength?"
Once a player died, their corresponding sin would lose its ability to harm others. In a way, the interests of the sin and the player were aligned.
He wondered if it was possible to reach an understanding with his own sin, to get it to help him deal with the other players.
"Vary in strength? Of course, they do. The greater the sin you carry, the more powerful the ghost you nourish," Charlie explained, then paused, his tone shifting. "Of course, the ghosts cannot attack one another. Their strength might only make a difference when it comes to choosing which room to occupy."
Dong Xiwen’s ears twitched.
If the strength of the sin influenced their choice of room, did that mean the stronger sins would occupy the rooms with lower numbers?
Still, was there really any discernible pattern to choosing a room?
Staring at the six identical doors before him, distinguished only by their numbers, Dong Xiwen was inexplicably reminded of the wooden door he had pushed open upon entering the instance.
He asked tentatively, "Is there any more information you can give us? These doors all look the same."
"Leave it all to fate!" Charlie threw his arms open, his voice filled with a manic fervor. "Drama! I must see drama!"
Listening to his almost unhinged shouting, the players knew they wouldn't get any more answers out of him.
The instance's direction was clear: "randomness" and "drama." Every choice was left to the players, and if they chose wrong, it was their own bad luck.
At the very least, the main NPC, Charlie, didn't seem to mind if the players died at random.
Cynthia gracefully walked over to Qi Si's side. "Mr. Zhou Ke, I'm very interested in hearing your opinion. You said before that you excel at these kinds of games, that you can rationally analyze the situation and contribute to the team."
"There are too few clues. Any judgment I make now could interfere with solving the puzzle." Qi Si glanced up at the ceiling, his eyes fixed on the golden tassels. "We have an entire act tomorrow to devise a strategy, don't we?"
Sharing a room with a sin-ghost wasn't necessarily a death sentence, as long as you killed the corresponding player. In fact, randomly killing any player to sate the ghosts' hunger could buy a day of peace.
The two had already formed an alliance, which gave them two votes. In the next voting session, it would be much easier to rally support and cast some unlucky soul out as a sacrifice.
Cynthia understood Qi Si's underlying message and gave an elegant nod. "I'll see you tomorrow, then. I wish you a pleasant evening."
Qi Si let out a soft "Mm," watching as Cynthia slowly walked into the first door on the far left. The smile on his face gradually faded.
Cynthia likely believed she carried the greatest sin, so her corresponding ghost would be the strongest and would therefore occupy the first room.
But Qi Si remembered that in the *Flesh-Eating* instance, the god Qi himself had described him as "deeply sinful."
Whose sin truly resided in that first room was debatable, and he feared this could lead to unforeseen complications...
Of course, Qi Si never put all his eggs in one basket. Even if things went south with Cynthia, he was confident he could find other allies.
Elsewhere, He Hui clutched the hem of her clothes, her nervous gaze darting between the remaining five doors.
Dong Xiwen leaned in and whispered, "My guess is, the stronger the sin, the earlier the room it occupies. We should try to pick one of the later ones."
He Hui muttered a quick thank you before hurrying to the room directly in front of her and pushing the door open.
It was Room 3. There seemed to be no reason for her choice; it was as if she were simply indulging Charlie's whims with a completely random pick.
Seeing that He Hui had ignored his advice, Dong Xiwen rubbed his nose in disappointment. Not wasting any more time, he walked straight to the last room, Room 6, and went inside.
As he turned to close the door, his eyes caught a glimpse of Qi Si, still standing motionless in the same spot. He couldn't help but feel a little perplexed.
This "perverted serial killer Zhou Ke" seemed so arrogant. Why was he being so indecisive now?
Qi Si calmly noted the room numbers of the three players before turning to Charlie with a smile. "Mr. Charlie, I don't believe you said only one person can stay in each room."
Charlie was silent for two seconds, his voice a little dry when he finally spoke. "I did indeed forget to mention that. Of course, two people can share a room, but the room will only protect the first person who enters."
"Protect?" Qi Si's voice rose slightly. "Does that mean there's danger inside the room, or that something from outside will try to get in?"
Charlie let out a rasping chuckle. "That is something for you to consider tomorrow."
Qi Si stroked his chin and asked another question. "Can I choose a room for myself first, and then go visit someone else?"
"The rules don't forbid it. You can do whatever you want—but you'll be responsible for the consequences, of course." A hint of impatience crept into Charlie's voice. "Sir, I suggest you choose your accommodations soon. Night is falling."
Qi Si walked directly to Room 4. Just as he was about to push the door, he glanced back over his shoulder. "Mr. Charlie, one last question. Where do you live?"
"I live right here on the stage," Charlie said with a snarl.
Qi Si had a gut feeling he had touched upon something critical, but he had no intention of pushing his luck and provoking the NPC further.
He reached out and gave the door to Room 4 a push, discovering that it swung open easily, as if it had no latch.
He then moved a few steps to the right and tried the wooden door of Room 5, finding that it, too, opened with little effort.
Next, he tried the door to Room 6, but this time it wouldn't budge. He couldn't tell if it was locked from the inside or due to some mechanism of the instance itself.
"So doors chosen by other players can't be opened, but the doors to empty rooms can be pushed open at will?" Qi Si narrowed his eyes. Behind him, the stage lights remained a riot of color, and Charlie's figure, swallowed by the light and shadow, flickered and jumped as if from a bad connection.
Twisted black shadows materialized in the void, reaching their claws out toward the center of the stage like a wave. Their bodies, however, were stuck together like melting slime, slowing their advance.
A few clusters of shadows seemed to spot Qi Si lingering on the stage and changed direction, beginning to ooze toward him.
Qi Si had no desire to find out what would happen if they touched him. He immediately ducked into Room 4 and slammed the door shut behind him.
The room had no windows, which helped him relax. He leaned his back against the door, surveying the scene before him with keen interest.
In the center of his vision was a large, neatly made bed. The bedspread was covered in abstract patterns painted in bright colors; Qi Si's artistic sensibilities couldn't decipher any particular meaning from them.
The rest of the decor was simple. The walls were covered in wallpaper with an interlocking pattern of red, yellow, and blue. In a corner far from the door, a pile of stage props—costumes, puppets, and the like—was stacked high.
Qi Si strolled over casually and lifted a blue skirt lying on top of the pile. A faint, almost imperceptible scent of blood met his nose.
With the anticipation of a child opening a mystery box, he patiently moved aside the jumble of puppet limbs and cloth dolls, revealing the massive corpse hidden beneath.
The corpse was clearly not human. Its hairy torso was topped with a massive wolf's head, which was riddled with festering sores. Plump, white maggots squirmed in and out of the flesh.
There were no wounds on the vital parts of the body, but where its four limbs should have been, human hands and feet had been crudely stitched on. They were still dripping blood onto the floor.
[Monster Name: Man-Beast (Dead)]
[Corresponding Player: Hansen]
[Description: A great, evil wolf has grown human limbs, or perhaps a sinful human has grown the torso of an evil wolf. Is he a man, or is he a beast? That is the question.]
[Trigger: Indiscriminately attacks anyone weaker than him.]
[Attack Method: Tearing, gnawing.]
[Note: Everyone is free to choose whether to be a human or a beast. But some people enjoy casting their companions into the role of beasts, or perhaps persuading others to be human while they themselves become the beast.]
Qi Si's eyebrow twitched. "So this is a ghost born from sin? How ugly..."
He hadn't expected his luck to be this good. He had actually chosen the room occupied by the sin of the already-dead Hansen.
This meant that for the next two acts, his primary goal was no longer to figure out how to kill someone, but rather how to keep from being killed himself.
Qi Si loathed protection missions, and that included protecting himself.
Avoiding becoming a target was difficult. In comparison, killing someone quickly was more practical. After all, only one person needed to die each act; no one would have a reason to kill another.
As if realizing its purpose had been fulfilled, the beast's corpse melted away like a snowdrift doused in hot water. Within seconds, it had turned into a pool of bloody liquid that seeped into the floorboards and vanished without a trace.
Black smoke curled up from where the body had disappeared, slowly coalescing into a black card.
[Role Card - Cannon Fodder (Expired)]
[Description: He didn't fit in. He was repulsive. He was mediocre and ordinary. He was unnoticeable. And so, he was cruelly murdered by the playwright. A warning of a crisis, a prelude to the revelry, a turning point in the plot, a need for excitement—his death was careless and absurd, unremembered, unmourned. The audience's eyes were stolen by the protagonist; no one cared that a nobody died in a corner.]
Qi Si pinched the card between two fingers. After reading the text on it, his eyes narrowed slightly.
...
In Room 6, Dong Xiwen stood by a desk, flipping through pages filled with script fragments.
The room contained nothing but a bed and a desk, and the desk was piled high with stacks of papyrus that clearly held important clues.
The moment Dong Xiwen had entered the room, he had made a beeline for the desk.
Considering that someone had already died today and the ghosts wouldn't be active, he picked up the pages and began to read.
[Charlie: My new play has been banned by the king again. I must write a new script and stage it as soon as possible. I promise this will be a brilliant story, the people will absolutely love it! Every theater will perform it, everyone will hear my voice. Oh, how wonderful that will be!]
[Puppet: Sir, you said the same thing before you wrote the last script. But even if it hadn't been banned, it still didn't draw much of an audience. Every performance lost money. You were eating stale black bread for a month just to stage a few more shows!]
[Charlie (tearing at his hair): But why? Is it because my stories are no good? I visited thirty-nine villages to write the most realistic scenes! I used the most beautiful words to adorn the story for the audience's aesthetic pleasure! I poured all my heart and soul into it, so why don't they like it?]
[Puppet: Sir, with all due respect, your stories are truly dull. The audience doesn't want to see how farmers toil in the countryside or how workers live in the factories. They want to see princesses and princes fall in love, they want to see the king defeat the monarch of an enemy nation—but you can never write those things. Any interesting story becomes lifeless in your hands!]
Dong Xiwen yawned as he read the boring dialogue. "He thinks he's a misunderstood genius, when he's really just a talentless bore. Who in their right mind would watch something so dull? ...I have to say, Charlie really has a gift for putting people to sleep. I suffer from insomnia in the real world, but here in this instance, I'm getting drowsy after just four paragraphs..."
He muttered his complaints with his head down, completely oblivious to the dozen or so crimson eyes that had torn open slits in the ceiling and were now staring down at him with malevolent intent.
With the barely audible scratching of a pen on paper, the words on the papyrus writhed as if alive, seeping into his system interface.
[Charlie: Then what should I do? I don't want to write about princes and princesses, and I don't care about the king's political achievements. Is there no other path for me?]
[Puppet: My dear sir, why not give me your pen? Let me try to write a story for you, one that will make the audience cheer and revel for you!]
[Charlie hands his quill and papyrus to his puppet. The puppet puts on Charlie's clothes and steps onto the stage.]
..................
[Note]"The Blind" is a representative work of symbolist drama by Maurice Maeterlinck. It tells the story of 12 blind people lost in a vast primeval forest who, after the death of the priest who once guided them, continue to wait foolishly for his rescue, expressing the capriciousness of death and fate.