The Eerie Kitchen, An Old Actor's Instant Immersion

Compared to others, Lin Yu trusted Xia Yue more.

Or rather, of the six people currently present, Lin Yu felt Xia Yue was the least likely to be a werewolf, though Chen Zhuo looked a bit foolish.

Second place, perhaps, was this delicate Xia Yue!

But no matter what, Lin Yu couldn't fully trust Xia Yue.

Just as Xia Yue didn't seem to fully trust him either.

What's more, to maintain his persona as a "confident and self-assured detective," it wasn't convenient for him to start searching around in front of Xia Yue.

And Lin Yu actually had something he wanted to find!

"The letter mentioned there were boxes in the ancient castle, but the boxes were divided into human boxes and werewolf boxes..."

Lin Yu began searching in the engineering room, wanting to see if there were any boxes here.

Besides the engine, the engineering room also contained some other equipment and facilities, which were somewhat messy.

According to the letter, human boxes should contain "supplies" and "items" that would be very helpful to the human faction.

If he could find a box and get something useful from it, Lin Yu would feel much more confident.

Lin Yu did a rough scan and found that although the engineering room looked cluttered with miscellaneous items, in reality...

Those miscellaneous items were utterly useless.

But Lin Yu couldn't say he found nothing.

The smell of incomplete combustion from the generator, the constant blaring alarm, and the choking dust stirred up from rummaging through the piles of junk gave Lin Yu a headache.

"I've already wasted two minutes... No, I can't waste any more time in this room!"

Lin Yu opened the door to the engineering room.

After walking out, he immediately felt refreshed.

Then, he locked onto the room opposite the stairwell.

"This door looks quite large," Lin Yu muttered.

There were a total of two staircases in the ancient castle: one was a spiral staircase in the center, running through all three floors of the castle. The other was a broken staircase on the edge of the castle.

The ancient castle was very large, with over a dozen different rooms or secret chambers on the second floor alone.

With time being tight, Lin Yu could only choose the nearest one.

This was also why they had to split into groups—because the ancient castle was too big. If they all stayed together and ran around, even with a planned route, it would be extremely tight, leaving very little room for error.

As he approached the large door, Lin Yu also saw the name of the room written on the doorplate.

"Kitchen."

Lin Yu didn't hesitate and pushed open the kitchen door.

As soon as he entered the kitchen, Lin Yu smelled a faint fishy odor.

"Damn, how long has it been since this kitchen was cleaned?" Lin Yu couldn't help but wrinkle his nose. "No wonder there's a task on the schedule later to clean the kitchen."

"But I wonder what mechanism would be triggered or what danger would be attracted if the kitchen isn't cleaned..."

On the kitchen walls, there were some black and red marks, looking somewhat like dried blood from an unknown period.

There was more blood on the floor, and it was very dirty.

On the countertop, there were not only many pieces of raw meat but even hanging limbs!

Seeing this, Lin Yu felt a chill.

Especially the limbs—shriveled and twisted, somewhat resembling human limbs, but not entirely.

It gave Lin Yu the creeps.

"Why is the kitchen like this? Who's in charge of these limbs and meat? The owner of this ancient castle is too morbid..."

"Living in such a big house, can't they afford a cleaner? At least hire a chef who likes cleanliness."

Lin Yu, suppressing his disgust, leaned closer to the limbs to examine them.

They were covered in blood and already somewhat rotten and dry, making it difficult for Lin Yu to determine what kind of creature they belonged to.

From a distance, they looked a bit humanoid, but up close, they didn't seem quite right.

Lin Yu didn't want to linger here and left immediately.

However, after leaving the kitchen, he discovered that in a corner next to the kitchen, there was a brown box.

"It's a box, a brown box!" Lin Yu was somewhat surprised.

Red boxes belonged to werewolves... this was mentioned in the letter.

And his identity was human; he probably wouldn't be able to open a werewolf's box.

But the box in front of him was brown, which meant it was a box that humans could open!

Lin Yu walked up and fiddled with the switch on the box. As if sensing him, the switch clicked, and the box opened.

Inside was a well-packaged loaf of bread and a bottle of water.

"It's food... Looks like whoever left the box knew that the kitchen was so filthy, it'd be hard to find food in this ancient castle."

Lin Yu picked up the bread, tore open the packaging, and quickly ate it all with the water.

After he was full and had drunk his fill, he walked back to the engineering room.

He didn't want to reveal to Xia Yue that he had opened the human's box. Although the human faction was a good identity... the most crucial point was that the two werewolves likely didn't know each other's identities.

The letter had hinted at this.

"A werewolf's disguise can often fool even their own kind."

In other words, in this game, werewolves didn't know who their other teammate was.

Therefore, Lin Yu didn't need to prove his "human" identity by opening the box.

It wouldn't benefit him—assuming Xia Yue was a werewolf, she wouldn't make a move until she was sure he wasn't her werewolf teammate.

"But why hasn't Xia Yue returned yet?"

He knew time was running out.

Lin Yu had been estimating the time in his mind since earlier. Xia Yue had been gone for about eight minutes now—more than two minutes past his estimated five and a half.

This made the time for completing the mission even more pressing.

If Xia Yue didn't come back soon, they might not even be able to finish the mission.

"Could she have run into some trouble?"

Lin Yu was already struggling with whether he should go to the first floor to find Xia Yue.

But before Lin Yu could make up his mind to move...

Bang!

The door to the engineering room was flung open.

Xia Yue appeared at the doorway, panting, carrying a bottle of lubricating oil.

Her hair was messy, there was some sweat on her forehead, and her white coat was dirty.

Xia Yue quickly walked over and said apologetically, "Sorry... The lubricating oil was placed quite high up, and it took me quite some effort to get it."

As she got closer, Lin Yu noticed Xia Yue's face was flushed. She kept tugging at the collar of her round-neck shirt under her white coat to fan herself, looking quite endearing.

Lin Yu instinctively wanted to comfort her, but he immediately realized...

His current persona was the aloof and arrogant "Detective."

So, the veteran actor Lin Yu got into character instantly, merely letting out a cold snort.

"It's fine, it didn't take too long."

With that, he took the lubricating oil, skillfully found the engine part that needed it, and easily completed the task.