Wen Di tried to push him away: “He’s dead. I need to clean up.”
Lu Jieyang held his shoulder: “No need for you to do it. I’ll take care of it for you, okay?”
Wen Di was taken aback. Lu Jieyang released the hand covering his eyes, cupped his face, gazed into his eyes, and said with a smile, “Am I not considerate? I’ll handle it for you, and you can give me a little reward, okay?”
Wen Di’s heart raced wildly. Besides panic, there were other emotions stirring within him. He bit his lip: “I don’t need your help. I’ll clean it up myself.”
Lu Jieyang’s eyes darkened. “Do it yourself? Are you sure? Can your small frame even move a body? With such heavy snow today and slippery roads, walking is already difficult. How do you plan to handle the body?”
Why did Lu Jieyang speak so casually about disposing of a body? Wen Di thought perhaps it was because he was a Player. All Players were accustomed to corpses and handled them with ease.
While the two were discussing the disposal of the body, Fu Zhen noticed something amiss. His sharp eyes fixed on Wen Di: “Already thinking about disposing of the body? Don’t you want to know how he died? Or do you already know how he died?”
NPCs didn’t know they were Players, so naturally, they wouldn’t know about the so-called taboo rules. However, if an NPC was aware of the truth behind a death, it meant they knew about the so-called “taboo.”
In this Instance, key NPCs usually had some knowledge. Extracting what they knew would help them deduce the true taboo rules.
Wen Di felt a momentary panic at the question. He instinctively lowered his head, then quickly shook it: “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.”
He seemed like an NPC programmed to only care about their meals and the cleanliness of the inn, indifferent to everything else.
“Fine, you don’t have to know, but we need to uncover the truth. Until we figure out how he died, the body cannot be cleaned up.”
Fu Zhen’s words were directed not only at Wen Di but also at Lu Jieyang.
Lu Jieyang was strange.
He had noticed his peculiarities more than once.
They were both Players. After a Player’s death, their primary concern should be figuring out how they died, investigating clues to deduce the taboo conditions, and surviving until the Instance’s end.
This Instance lasted ten days. They had at most ten days to uncover what had happened in this inn. The more they knew, the more leverage they would have to survive in the final moments.
But after the first Player died, Lu Jieyang’s first move was to help this NPC clean up the body.
Moreover, he didn’t seem the least bit flustered. Initially, they had all thought Lu Jieyang was a newcomer, but his calm demeanor in the face of a corpse was nothing like a newcomer.
Unless, like veteran Players, he was accustomed to corpses, it was impossible to be so composed.
Looking back from the day before yesterday until now, it seemed Liu Yajun had arbitrarily labeled him as a newcomer. Lu Jieyang had never once claimed to be a newcomer.
Not only had he never said he was a newcomer, but he had also never mentioned anything outside the Instance.
“Alright, then Wen Wen should go back to the room first. Come out after we’ve dealt with the body.”
Lu Jieyang firmly grasped Wen Di’s hand and pulled him away. As they turned, Wen Di couldn’t help but try to look back at the body that had fallen from the sky, but Lu Jieyang blocked his view with his other hand and pressed his head down.
“Alright, Wen Wen, be good. You’ll have nightmares if you see it.”
Wen Di felt very uncomfortable. Lu Jieyang was being far too enthusiastic toward him, to the point where it made him uneasy. He thought Lu Jieyang was trying to dig for clues from him, but Lu Jieyang hadn’t mentioned anything or asked him about any taboos.
He was completely different from Fu Zhen. Players like Fu Zhen were normal.
Wen Di couldn’t see through Lu Jieyang.
Suddenly remembering something, Wen Di looked up at the handsome profile of the tall young man. “How did you know he bullied me yesterday? Weren’t you gone at that time?”
A flicker of something dark passed through Lu Jieyang’s eyes, but when he looked down at Wen Di, there was nothing unusual. He said in a gentle tone, “The inn is only so big. How could I not know?”
Wen Di was brushed off.
Wen Di was escorted back to his room and left alone for a while.
Lying on the bed, he caught a familiar yet strange scent. He suddenly remembered that he seemed to have dreamed last night. What did he dream about? It seemed he dreamed of his dead husband?
He seemed to have spoken with his dead husband, but he couldn’t remember what they said.
【You’ve done so many bad things, and now you’re scared?】
Wen Di rubbed his suddenly aching temples, his dark eyes clouded with confusion. Did his husband say that?
He pouted unhappily. What bad things had he done?
At least before his husband died, he hadn’t done anything bad… Now, if he did bad things, it was only to bring his husband back to life. So others could call him bad, but his husband couldn’t.
He got up from the bed, crouched down, and pulled a wooden box from under the bed.
Taking the key from his chest, he unlocked it. Inside the wooden box were five yellow talismans drawn in blood.
After his husband died, he fell into deep depression, tormented by grief. Even the psychologist his parents found for him couldn’t help. Later, he sought out a renowned master. He wanted to die and asked the master to find a way to bind his soul to his husband’s ghost after death so they could reunite.
But the master told him he didn’t need to die—he had a way to bring his husband back to life.
After asking about him and his husband, the master set up a Sigil Array in the top-floor room to temporarily trap his husband’s soul in this inn, preventing it from being lost outside.
The master said his husband died too young, with unfulfilled wishes and too much resentment, becoming a vengeful ghost—five lives had to be offered to summon him back to the world.
These five Players were the sacrifices to resurrect his husband.
As long as he lured them into the top-floor room, they would be lost to the “ghost’s” power, gradually losing themselves until they died under his husband’s illusions.
But there was a prerequisite. “Ghosts” also had rules. His husband only killed those “tainted by lust.” That was what the master told him.
He asked the master why, and the master explained it was because his husband had never consummated their marriage while alive, so he harbored resentment toward such people.
Therefore, Wen Di’s task was to make them “tainted by lust,” then lure them to the room, where they would become part of the Sigil Array to resurrect his husband.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Wen Di snapped back to reality, quickly shoved the small box back under the bed, returned the key to his chest, and stood up.
“Who is it?”
He touched the doorknob, turned it, and widened his eyes in confusion. “Why won’t it open?”
“It’s me,” Fu Zhen’s voice was unusually deep. “Who locked you in there?”
Wen Di’s heart tightened. “What?”
Fu Zhen said coldly, “Was it Lu Jieyang? He really is a madman.”