Online Friends Meet Up!

The ancestral hall had already given them a bloody warning: no matter what, after midnight, they could not let anyone into the room.

Though it meant standing by and watching someone die, Xiao Xuechen still held firm to that belief—she had warned Ju Lan of everything she could. Under those circumstances, Ju Lan had gone out and ended up being hunted down. That was not her or San's fault.

If she chose to open the window and let someone in, the consequences might drag down two people instead of one. Neither she nor San would escape.

So... sorry.

Xiao Xuechen turned her head away rather than look at Ju Lan's expression. That resentful glare did not make her afraid or guilty. Instead, it made her sigh softly.

Some people... deep down, still liked throwing their own mistakes onto others and making them bear the consequences.

"Not bad. Pretty smart." Yu Xing praised her in an unreadable tone. His eyes curved as he actually smiled.

His gaze drifted over Ju Lan. The window he was holding shut was being hammered with loud bangs from outside. His tone remained flat, while the corner of his eye caught sight of villagers carrying woodcutting knives drawing closer. "Stop knocking. We're not opening it."

"Can you really just leave me to die!?" Ju Lan gritted her teeth. The thing behind her was already closing in. She shot the two people in the room a hateful look, then turned and fled crying in another direction.

Yu Xing watched as the two villagers did not even glance at them. They merely chased after Ju Lan in a state unlike that of living people.

At last, it was quiet outside.

"Will she die?" Xiao Xuechen rubbed her arm, her pretty lashes trembling slightly.

Yu Xing withdrew his hand from the window frame and smiled. "Having regrets now, little miss?"

Xiao Xuechen shook her head. "No."

"That's good. I rather... like little misses who know how to consider the bigger picture~" Yu Xing leaned against the window and rolled his wrist.

Seeing his fair wrist, which looked as though it held no strength at all, Xiao Xuechen suddenly shuddered.

She remembered the dangerous aura hidden beneath this handsome guy's appearance.

He liked people who considered the bigger picture... so what if her answer just now had been to open the window?

She figured San still would not have opened it, and would probably wait until dawn before throwing her out.

"Still, if the consequence of going outside at night is only being chased by two humanoid monsters... then death isn't guaranteed." Completely unaware that his image in the little queen's mind had gone thoroughly off the rails, Yu Xing continued.

"Mm... yeah, that's right. There are plenty of sacrificial offerings that could help her hide." Xiao Xuechen gave a nasal hum and casually sat down on the bed where Yu Xing had been sleeping. "But judging by Ju Lan's condition, she probably hasn't been through many deductions. She won't have much of a reserve of offerings."

"Oh? Does she need to hide?" Yu Xing rhythmically tapped the windowsill with his fingers. While speaking, he was also keeping an eye on the outside.

After all, the village chief and the woman were still nearby. They might come back for another round.

Moonlight spilled over the desolation, lending the entire village an eerie yet inexplicable calm—if one ignored the undead monsters and ghosts that could appear at any moment.

After asking that question, Yu Xing fell silent. Xiao Xuechen did not know how to answer either.

Did she need to run?

She probably did.

Maybe experts had ways to fight head-on, but a near-newbie like her, who had not even advanced to Advanced Deducer, could only do everything she could to stay alive.

After all, Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Deducers were often assigned by the randomizer into the same game. The gap between the three ranks was not all that large. The only differences were sacrificial offering usage and deduction experience.

The rank after Advanced Deducer was the one that could truly bring about a qualitative leap. She did not know much about it.

Xiao Xuechen considered herself a rookie who still had much to learn, while San... was probably an Advanced Deducer, right?

After a while, just as Xiao Xuechen began to feel that things would get awkward if neither of them spoke again, Yu Xing picked up where he had left off. "If she's strong enough, lasting until the rooster crows at dawn won't be a problem."

"But she isn't strong enough."

Xiao Xuechen's words sounded a little heartless, but they were true.

Sure enough, before long, a woman's scream sounded in the distance.

Ju Lan, it seemed, had been caught.

Xiao Xuechen sighed again.

She had seen plenty of Deducers die... She no longer felt the terror she had at first. She would surely see many more deaths in the future. She was used to it.

"So sleepy~" Yu Xing covered his mouth and yawned, a mist of drowsiness rising in his eyes.

He unhappily realized that he really would not be able to sleep tonight.

With that window there, the village chief and the woman could push it open and enter whenever he let his guard down, doing whatever they pleased.

One Deduce had basically been confirmed dead already. He did not want to give the ghosts any more chances to show off.

"Should we move something over and block the window?" Thinking of that as the fading scream died away, Xiao Xuechen suggested it again.

"Didn't I say it already? The furnishings in this room... we shouldn't touch any of them." Yu Xing openly sat beside her and started rummaging through his backpack. "I have a theory. If it gets confirmed later, I can tell you about it."

"Oh..." Sounds impressive!

Yu Xing took out his easel. It was a box easel, apparently custom-made for his character in the past. It was very light, with many of the tools stored directly inside. "Right now, though, I'm rather curious. Where did Carlos run off to?"

Oh, right.

Xiao Xuechen blinked. Ju Lan and Carlos had been staying together, but when she woke up, Carlos was gone, leaving only a paper doll on the bed.

Normally, Carlos, who was outside the room, should have been the first target of all the ghostly things in the village. Yet they had heard no commotion at all. That could only mean Carlos had fooled those things and gone off to do something else.

"He seems like someone with plenty of ideas." Yu Xing had already set up the easel, and a hint of interest rose in him toward the Magician who had gone off alone.

He had gone to sleep, then woken up to find the man gone.

Was this the legendary—making a living person vanish?

Hopefully, they would still see a whole Carlos tomorrow.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Xiao Xuechen watched Yu Xing set himself up as though he were about to paint, and suddenly felt a little lost.

"We can't sleep tonight, so I'll paint something to pass the time." The moon was high in the sky, bathing everything in sight in cold tones. A rare flicker of interest stirred in him.

"Wow." Xiao Xuechen had never expected San, whose character setting was that of a painter, to genuinely enjoy painting so much. She leaned over to inspect his tools. "Is it a sketch?"

"Sketching would work too, but oil painting is what I'm best at." Yu Xing smiled at Xiao Xuechen and took out a canvas, spreading it out. Unfortunately, he had not brought a painting stool, so he could only make do with the bed.

"Oil painting!?" Xiao Xuechen did not know much about art. She had thought every oil painting took a very long time to complete.

"I'll just paint something casually. I can't be bothered to wait for it to dry." Yu Xing did not mind Xiao Xuechen watching. He was merely acting on a whim, doing something random to drive away his sleepiness.

He adjusted the easel's height and placed his brushes, palette knives, palette, brush-washing cup, and other items on the bedside table. He clipped small spring-bottomed paint cups onto the palette, then looked around.

No mahlstick, QAQ...

A mahlstick, also called a hand-rest stick, was used to support the arm while painting. A weak, lazy person like Yu Xing used one every time he painted in real life.

"What are you going to paint? Um... can you even see?" Xiao Xuechen was curious.

It was the middle of the night, and there were no lights. The darkness was frightening. If it were her, she would go blind just trying to look, let alone paint.

"I can see. Very clearly." Yu Xing mixed some colors. As he looked at the bleak landscape outside the window and the few nearby houses, a cool gleam faintly reflected in his eyes.

Thanks to this body, his night vision... was especially good.

For the time that followed, Yu Xing painted while Xiao Xuechen watched for a while, only to realize she could not see anything and that her eyes were genuinely about to go blind. So she took out her phone, crouched beside the window for the light, and played an offline game.

The two occasionally chatted, and for a while, the scene became unexpectedly harmonious.

Only... about an hour later, as Yu Xing painted, an inharmonious element appeared outside the window.

It was a head, with half a body attached beneath it.

Yu Xing recognized that head. He had seen it not long ago.

Eyes blank.

Skin grayish-white.

Lips purple.

...Corpse spots conspicuous.

The newcomer... or rather, the ghost, stared unblinkingly at Yu Xing. Its lips trembled as though it wanted to say something, but they could not part no matter what.

Yu Xing's hand paused. He raised a brow in surprise.

Sensing that something was wrong, Xiao Xuechen abruptly looked up and instantly met the face outside the glass—the face she had seen in the coffin before.

Zhou Yongsheng!

"Oh my god!"

This time, with the window between them, she was not too frightened. Zhou Yongsheng stood there quietly, neither stating its purpose nor showing any intent to harm them, only silently watching Yu Xing paint. Instead, confusion rose within her.

Was it a corpse or a ghost?

What had it come for? Did it want to get inside too?

On the night of First Seven, it had really returned. She just did not know what it had come back for this time.

Xiao Xuechen could not help wanting to step back first, but seeing that Yu Xing showed no reaction, she forced herself to remain where she was—standing in a position where she could immediately close the window if the ghost pushed it open.

"Oh, you're here?" Yu Xing set down his brush and wanted to stand up and move closer. But Zhou Yongsheng, who had been standing there blankly, suddenly shook its head urgently and pointed at his easel.

"You want to watch me paint?" Yu Xing guessed.

Zhou Yongsheng outside nodded.

Oh-ho, was he a real fan? Yu Xing was genuinely curious now. Could it be that all those things this friend who had died young said online about being his fan had been heartfelt?

Not easy. Then why had he tricked his idol into his village? What exactly did he want?

Just to have his idol attend his funeral?

Yu Xing muttered to himself inwardly and picked up his brush again. Zhou Yongsheng became still once more.

The painting was of a real scene rather than something abstract. The canvas mostly showed the view outside the window, with only the window frame visible at the bottom and a curly-haired woman in the lower-right corner holding a phone and playing a game.

The colors leaned toward blue, cold and bizarre.

He stared at the silent male ghost outside the window for a while, then thought it over and added another stroke.

A crew-cut young man with an ordinary face, smiling eyes, and neat clothing slowly appeared in the center of the painting.

Within that eerie, cold-toned painting, only the young man was wrapped in warm colors, carefree between the brows.