[Lu Family Courtyard] Eerie Artifact

"Hm?" Lu Qing's hand paused on her fan, and she frowned. "Xiao Yi, I just told you that 'identity' is very important in my Instance."

"Even I am bound by the rules inside the Instance. The only real help I can offer you is in this 'choice of identity.'"

She looked down and saw Ren Yi's eyes shining.

"No, Auntie, I don't just want the 'identity' of a servant in the Instance," Ren Yi said slowly.

"What I want is the identity of a 'participant.'"

"A participant?" Lu Qing paused, then her eyes crinkled as she smiled. "So that's what you're planning."

"I want to try something." Ren Yi nodded. "I want to see whether my rule can be triggered by people other than participants, or even people outside the Instance."

Ren Yi had always felt that there were plenty of loopholes he could exploit in his abstract rule.

Other Eeries had very straightforward sources of power. They either had to create emotions like fear inside an Instance or trick people into providing abstract energy such as "lies" and "refutations." In any case, they all had to be in the same space as their energy providers at the very least, so they could basically only target Instance participants.

But his rule was "make others happy."

That left the scope vague. Honestly, when Ren Yi first saw the rule, he had thought of comedians on television.

They could bring others plenty of "happiness" without ever leaving home.

He had asked Doctor Lin whether an Eerie could transmit emotions on a large scale through some medium and harvest them without coming into contact with its targets.

Doctor Lin's answer had been yes, but he had added one more thing.

"Don't even think about it. With your puny body, you'd better not think that far ahead yet."

The main difficulty with this idea was how to spread positive emotions directed specifically at the Eerie itself on a large scale.

The most direct way was through television and the internet, but not every world had those things.

Ren Yi had once wondered whether, when he grew stronger, he could create an Illusion that made people happy on a large scale and establish a positive feedback loop.

He hadn't expected the opportunity to come so soon. Here in his second Instance, the conditions for the experiment seemed to have fallen into place.

Ren Yi explained his idea to Lu Qing. As she listened, her eyes gradually lit up. She also glanced at Lu Zihan several times, her disappointment at his failure to live up to her expectations practically spilling out of her eyes.

"Auntie, it's fine if you can't do it," Ren Yi said, a little uncomfortable under her gaze. "You can just arrange an ordinary servant's identity for me. Even if I get nothing out of this, I can accept that. I mainly want to test this idea..."

"No, it's an interesting idea." The corners of Lu Qing's mouth slowly rose, an intrigued smile on her face. "I'm curious too. I can do what you're asking."

She tapped her palm gently with the ribs of her fan as she paced. "The real difficulty is in getting you to replace a participant and become one of the main characters in the 'livestream.' But..."

She stopped, a glimmer in her eyes. "You're in luck. I happen to have a way."

"But there's one thing I have to make clear beforehand." She suddenly put away her smile and turned to Ren Yi, her tone growing serious.

"As you know, an Instance is constrained by the rules of both sides. Even if you slip in among the participants, rules targeting you will still be generated. I can help conceal them and mislead people, but I can't make them disappear entirely. You'll have to deal with them yourself."

"I understand." Ren Yi nodded.

"Good." Lu Qing snapped her fan shut.

"Tomorrow morning, once the participants are in place, we'll make our move."

Once everything had been settled, Ren Yi and Lu Zihan enjoyed A-Mu's home-style farm cooking and spent a happy afternoon in the countryside.

They caught fish and teased birds, chased the big yellow dog by the gate, and flooded the ant nest in the courtyard. In short, for the little creatures in the Instance, evening finally came.

Around midnight, Lu Qing led Ren Yi and Lu Zihan, who had come along to watch out of curiosity, into the small wing room on the side of the courtyard where the servants lived.

Ren Yi had wondered during the day how this little single-story building, only about the size of two classrooms, could possibly fit a full hundred participants.

He had originally assumed it was magic, but now he saw it was exploitation.

The building was packed with cubicles like horse stalls. Each one had just enough room for a bed, and it was hard even to turn over.

"I was originally going to have them sleep on the floor," Lu Qing said as she walked. "But to keep our operation tonight from being discovered, I improved their accommodations a little and gave them private rooms instead."

Ren Yi asked curiously, "Auntie, how are you going to do it? Is your ability an Ammunition Type, or can you make sure they trigger the rules as soon as they enter the Instance?"

"Neither." Lu Qing smiled mysteriously and took a hairpin decorated with a hibiscus flower from her hair. "We'll use this."

"Mom, is that a prop?" Lu Zihan's eyes lit up beside her.

"'Prop' is what the participants call them. We usually call them 'Eerie Artifacts,'" Lu Qing corrected him. Then she gave her son an annoyed look. "Don't even think about it. It doesn't suit you. You aren't thinking of using a hairpin to behead people, are you?"

"Hehe." Lu Zihan scratched his head.

Ren Yi, meanwhile, could only let tears of envy flow from the corners of his mouth.

Lu Qing casually opened the door to a cubicle. "There's a short interval between the participants' arrival and the official start of the Instance. We need to get everything done in that time, so we won't have a chance to choose carefully. Let's pick one at random and see how Xiao Yi's luck holds up."

"Oh, does that mean we might pick a girl?" Lu Zihan's eyes lit up.

"What are you hoping for?" Ren Yi gave his best friend a speechless glare.

The countdown ticked away, second by second. The instant it reached zero, a figure abruptly appeared before the three Eeries.

Before the participant could make out the scene before him, he felt a pain in the back of his neck. A moment later, his whole body went rigid.

Holding the gold hairpin gracefully in one hand, Lu Qing slowly drew it down from the back of the participant's neck. His skin peeled away like a banana peel, yet not a single drop of blood came out.

Just as Ren Yi thought Lu Qing was going to peel off the participant's skin and have him wear it, she flicked her hairpin upward. Under his own despairing, terrified gaze, the participant melted into a stream of blood that flowed into his skin.

The skin then rapidly shrank in Lu Qing's hands. Using the hairpin as a needle, she stabbed it a few times, and the skin finally became a protective talisman half the size of a palm.

Ren Yi and Lu Zihan watched the horrifying scene before them with perfectly calm expressions.

"What a shame. It's a man," Lu Zihan said with some regret.