Shattered Mask

Yu Xing raised his eyes and glanced at the woman's expression.

The woman merely smiled, with no other emotion visible. He patted Xiao Xuechen's somewhat stiff shoulder and said to the woman, "We slept very well last night. Thanks for asking."

Xiao Xuechen snapped back to her senses and put on a fake smile that Yu Xing considered highly practiced. "Yeah, I'm in good health. I'm not afraid of the cold."

Then she tugged on Yu Xing's fluffy sleeve. "Let's go out and see what happened!"

"Alright." Setting down his bowl, Yu Xing nodded at the woman and left with Xiao Xuechen.

The woman stared at their retreating backs, the smile on her face gradually fading. Once they had left and passed out of her sight, she raised a hand and touched the scar over her eye.

The scar was distinctly textured. She slowly walked over to the table and looked down with her uninjured eye.

Two bowls of millet porridge sat on the table. One was still full, while the other had been more than half consumed. No longer touched by human hands, the sticky white porridge gradually turned blood-red, bubbling as bloody blisters rose to the surface.

Based on the villagers' reactions outside, Yu Xing easily identified the direction where something had happened. After leaving their house, Ju Lan had likely run toward the village entrance.

On the way, they ran into Wei Fan, who was also heading toward the scene. The middle-aged man in his thirties looked as though he had not slept well either. Faint dark circles hung under his eyes, and he looked slightly exhausted.

Wei Fan greeted them. Xiao Xuechen moved closer and asked in a low voice, "Where are Xu Hong and Xu Yuan?"

"The two of them stayed in the house to study feng shui. Anyway, I can't understand anything they say." Wei Fan responded, then glanced at Yu Xing a few steps away and quietly asked Xiao Xuechen, "Were you alright last night? Nothing unexpected happened, right?"

"It's a long story. Overall, we were safe." Xiao Xuechen did not intend to explain everything to Wei Fan from the beginning right now. It would be far too much talking.

Yu Xing's ears twitched. He heard both what the other person wanted him to hear and what he did not.

His eyes curved with a smile. Spotting a group of villagers gathered in the distance, he passed the two people talking and quickly walked over.

Passing through the thin wall of people, he saw a petite figure.

It was Ju Lan.

She lay on the ground, pale-faced, with blood splattered all around her. Her body was covered in crisscrossing wounds, many deep enough to expose bone. Flesh had peeled open, and she looked utterly miserable.

A corpse had been discovered so early in the morning, yet these people did nothing and simply let it lie there.

But... what was that?

Beside Ju Lan's head lay several large fragments.

The fragments were white. Judging by their shapes, they would form a mask when pieced together.

A Persona Mask?

Yu Xing silently observed the villagers and discovered that they seemed unable to see the shattered mask beside the corpse.

Could it be that only Deduction Players could see it?

"An outsider died... what should we do? Throw her onto the mountain to feed the dogs?" Just then, someone among the villagers spoke, immediately drawing a chorus of agreement.

"Of course she can't be buried!"

"Feed her to the dogs. That little girl was pretty cute, but she doesn't look good after dying."

"Why did only one die..."

"..." Yu Xing put both hands into the pockets of his skinny jeans and glanced at the people speaking.

Those people all felt a chill run down their backs. Instinctively, they shut their mouths and rubbed their arms in confusion.

"Village chief, who's going to throw away the corpse?" After a while, a fairly young man looked at the village chief in the crowd and asked.

The village chief drew out his words, seeming to deliberate. "Well..."

"I'm afraid that can't be done as you wish." Seeing these people discussing it with such enthusiasm, as though the corpse were theirs to dispose of however they pleased, Yu Xing gave a cold laugh. A sharp glint flashed across his face and vanished.

Before coming here, he had wanted to see how the villagers would react. Now that he had, his suspicions about this game had deepened.

Last night had actually been a death threshold for the entire game. If he and Xiao Xuechen had not found the ancestral hall and received the hint, then how many people would have gone outside last night because of the ghosts' deception and threats, or because their companions begged for help?

Without firm vigilance, the odds were probably not low.

Seeing that only one person had died, the villagers seemed very disappointed.

Yu Xing walked over to Ju Lan's corpse and crouched down in front of it as if protecting her. "No one is allowed to touch her."

While no one was paying attention, he quickly touched the mask fragments. Immediately, a deduction prompt floated into his mind.

[Information obtained: "Persona Mask • Lan • Weakness." No removable sacrifice.]

After the prompt appeared, the fragments seemed to weather away, dispersing like smoke.

So, after a Deduction Player died, their mask would manifest. It seemed that one could even inherit the sacrifices embedded in the mask by its owner.

The conclusion flashed through Yu Xing's mind, and he raised an eyebrow.

The villagers all looked at him in surprise. "Oh, when did he get here? Didn't notice him just now."

"Young man," the village chief said, stepping forward when he saw that Yu Xing and Xiao Xuechen had both arrived, "you've seen the situation. How do you think we should handle your friend's corpse?"

Yu Xing smiled. They went straight to handling the corpse without even mentioning finding the murderer. It seems that this village has no concept of crime—or rather, no human rules at all.

Wei Fan wanted to step forward, but Xiao Xuechen pulled him back and shook her head, her eyes seeming to convey something.

What Xiao Xuechen's look meant: Don't interrupt the big shot while he's handling things.

What Wei Fan understood: Let San step on the landmines first. We'll watch for now.

So he gave up on going forward and silently observed the situation.

Yu Xing swept his gaze around, his polite tone carrying an unmistakable edge. "She came here with us. Leave the corpse to us. We don't need so much concern from you."

He had not softened last night despite Ju Lan's pleas, and he felt no guilt. He had not caused the reason, so he should not bear the consequence.

But as fellow Deduction Players, they could be considered half-companions. No matter what, he could not let this group of neither-human-nor-ghost things mistreat Ju Lan's corpse.

She looked so young. Becoming a Deduction Player was truly rotten luck.

Besides, when villagers died, they were given a funeral after the First Seven. Yet when outsiders died, they were not even worthy of burial. How should he put it... the distinction was truly clear-cut.

Hearing San speak so clearly, Xiao Xuechen poked Wei Fan's arm with her finger.

Fortunately, Wei Fan did not misunderstand this time. He strode forward in a few steps.

"That's right. We came together, after all. Let's bury her." Since Wei Fan was the only man present who looked relatively strong, he took the initiative to bend down and lift the somewhat horrifying corpse, carrying Ju Lan away from the villagers.

The villagers seemed somewhat agitated, but the village chief waved a hand and suppressed them.

"Outsiders don't deserve burial!" someone quietly protested. Yu Xing, who had stood up and had not yet gone far, heard it.

Hmph... His gaze darkened, disgust churning within him.

Just hearing those words put him in a bad mood.

And since they had put him in a bad mood... some things would have to pay the price.

For the moment, Yu Xing did not take any retaliatory action. He and Xiao Xuechen walked beside Wei Fan, passing through the village with him and entering the forest.

This was not the mountain where the ancestral hall was located. Since they did not know whether there were any taboos concerning that, Yu Xing and Xiao Xuechen tacitly guided Wei Fan toward another area to avoid triggering any unpleasant changes.

The plants around Guan Family Village were all withered. Whether it was the low mountain east of the village or the mountains on the other sides, the trees were dead and the weeds thick, all of it permeated by an inescapable aura of death.

Even with decent stamina, Wei Fan was utterly exhausted from carrying a corpse along the mountain path.

"Where's Carlos? Why haven't we seen him at all?" After reaching a place far enough away and hidden enough, Wei Fan, who did not know Carlos had disappeared last night, finally set down the corpse. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, then looked at the bloodstains on his clothes and gazed at Yu Xing enviously.

How nice. Those good-looking people never had to do physical labor!

"Carlos disappeared last night. We didn't see him in the village just now either. We have no idea where he went." Xiao Xuechen explained, taking one of the two shovels Yu Xing had swiftly taken from the village chief's house while passing by earlier.

Yu Xing handled the digging while Xiao Xuechen provided mostly useless help at the side. After a while, Yu Xing, now feeling quite tired, finally dug a usable hole.

Next came the burial.

None of the three feared the corpse. Wei Fan placed it into the hole and used the shovel to fill it with dirt.

"Ju Lan, right? Rest in peace."

Yu Xing had no interest in offering polite words to a corpse and sat to one side to rest.

"San." Xiao Xuechen suddenly sat down beside him.

"What is it, miss~?"

"Did you receive the information from Ju Lan's mask?" She smoothed her sleeve and gathered her curly hair behind her head, leaving a few slightly curled strands beside her temples. "I don't mean anything by it. I'm just curious—did she really have no sacrifice that could have saved her life? If she had, she shouldn't have been so powerless to resist..."

Aha~

Yu Xing flexed his fingers. The little queen's way of speaking is pretty good. She doesn't want to show that she questions me taking the mask information, yet she also wants to confirm whether I obtained Ju Lan's sacrifice.

But this also revealed quite a bit of information to him. At the very least, it proved that masks being left behind after a Deduction Player's death was not a low-probability event, but something that should be inevitable.

Otherwise, Xiao Xuechen would not have asked so naturally.

The corner of Yu Xing's mouth lifted. He was very satisfied with this little queen.

Capable, obedient, smart, never held others back, knew how to speak, and had a sense of proportion in handling matters.

He liked that.

...She had the potential to be cultivated into a teammate.

"You guessed right. Ju Lan had no sacrifice." The thoughts surging through Yu Xing's mind lasted only an instant. He answered Xiao Xuechen's question seamlessly, then began considering something else.

Were sacrifices really that difficult to obtain?

Ju Lan had participated in Investigator type deduction games before, which meant she had completed four Main Quests and might even have gone through several more deductions afterward.

After so many deduction games, she truly had not obtained even one sacrifice, and Xiao Xuechen had not seemed surprised by it either.

Perfect. Since becoming a Deduction Player, he had not contacted that person yet. Once this game ended, he would properly ask that person about the Absurd Deduction Game...