Rose Manor (7): The First Death

Qi Si savored the emotions in the scream and calmly stated the conclusion he had already known. "Someone's dead."

"D-Dead?" Lin Chen turned a pale face toward Qi Si. "Didn't they say we could avoid opening even a single blind box?"

"But unfortunately, rational people are a minority." Qi Si had already reached the door and pushed it open. "Lin Chen, interested in taking a look with me?"

He had seen quite a few dead people, but encountering life and death in the Eerie Game was a novel experience.

He was very curious about what exactly happened when someone died in the Eerie Game.

The moment he stepped out of the room, an intense stench of blood hit him head-on. It briefly overwhelmed the floral fragrance and mingled with the nauseating scent already hanging in the air, forming a cloying sweetness that seemed to cluster thickly around him.

Qi Si lowered his head and saw a pool of paint-like blood spread across the floor just a few centimeters ahead of his toes. It had already half-congealed, its surface uneven like lava, lying lifelessly on the ground. Thankfully, it had not stained his shoes.

Lin Chen saw the blood too. The next second, he let out a piercing scream, like a rooster being stepped on by the neck.

He screamed as he jumped back. If Qi Si had not dodged in time, Lin Chen would have been clinging to him by now.

"Go back first." Qi Si stroked the band around his right wrist and said as calmly as he could, "If you need to throw up, remember to clean it up yourself."

Lin Chen looked as though he had been granted a pardon. He spun around and rushed back into the room, followed by a loud bout of vomiting.

The blood originated from the center of the floor, where a dark mass lay sprawled. Zou Yan and Ye Zi were standing around it.

Qi Si carefully walked along the edge of the bloodstain and finally got a clear look at what lay on the floor.

It was a mangled corpse whose features were impossible to identify. Naked from head to toe, it had curled into a ball. Its skin had been carved into small pieces by chaotic lines, while fuzzy tendrils sprouted from the flesh. On closer inspection, they were clearly plant roots and stems.

Blooming roses erupted from the corpse's gaping mouth. Their thick stems plunged straight down its throat, as though its head had been used as a flowerpot.

Zou Yan and Ye Zi stood on either side, both relatively composed. Apart from the initial scream, whose source was unknown, there was no sign of their fear.

Ye Zi muttered hoarsely to herself, "Someone died on the very first night... I wonder which rule they broke..."

A trace of shared dread appeared in her eyes. "What a miserable way to die."

"The dead man is Brother Shen." Qi Si reached his conclusion. "He was around 183 to 185 centimeters tall, with an average build. That basically matches Brother Shen."

Ye Zi reflexively objected, "Even so, it might not necessarily be him..."

Without a word, Qi Si crouched beside the corpse. He took out a napkin he had pocketed from the dining table yesterday, wrapped it around his right hand, and gently touched the rose petals dyed crimson with blood.

He carefully moved aside the arm-length rose, and thick, half-congealed blood slowly seeped out.

Zou Yan watched his movements with an odd expression. "Qi Si, what are you doing?"

Qi Si replied blandly, "Didn't I say I was a specimen maker? Handling corpses is right up my alley."

Zou Yan: ...That's a remarkably broad definition of 'right up your alley.' Are the specimens you make even legitimate?

As he spoke, Qi Si clicked the corpse's jaw shut. His long, pale fingers brushed over the dead man's face. As if possessed by magic, they slid and danced across the corpse's features, quickly piecing together the mangled, bloody face into a barely recognizable human form. Shen Ming's face appeared before the three of them.

The dead man's identity was now beyond dispute. Zou Yan sucked in a breath, while Ye Zi's face immediately turned paper-white, not much better than the corpse's.

"How is that possible?" The girl's voice was bitter. "Brother Shen shouldn't have died. He was... he was an old Player..."

Qi Si asked in return, "Chang Xu, who shared a room with Brother Shen, is an old Player too, isn't he?"

He wiped his fingers clean with the napkin and swept his gaze around. "Where is Chang Xu? He shared a room with Brother Shen. Even if he didn't save him in passing, he should at least know something."

People tended to make connections. His words left plenty of room for speculation and deliberately guided their suspicions.

Ye Zi murmured, "Brother Shen was an old Player. No matter what, he shouldn't have failed to make it through the first day, unless..."

She swallowed the rest of her words. Just then, the door in the corner opened from within, revealing Chang Xu.

His black clothes were neat and orderly. He clearly had not just woken up—or rather, no one knew how long he had been awake or how much he had heard.

Qi Si narrowed his eyes at Chang Xu's gloomy face, as though it had never seen sunlight, and asked with a faint smile, "You can't possibly know nothing about Brother Shen's death, can you?"

"It's normal for you to suspect me, but Shen Ming's death truly had nothing to do with me." Chang Xu's voice was cold and calm, as if he had not heard the accusatory undertone in Qi Si's words at all. "Last night, an NPC suspected to be Miss Anna knocked on our door. After Shen Ming woke up, he wanted to open it. I made some noise while trying to stop him. Then the door was opened from outside, and vine-like anomalies reached in."

His concise account somehow felt cold and indifferent. Combined with Chang Xu's expressionless face, it made people's hearts turn chilly.

Ye Zi questioned him coldly, "Why did he die while you came out completely unharmed?"

Chang Xu answered tersely, "They couldn't beat me, so they changed targets and dragged Shen Ming away."

"Didn't you think of pulling him back?"

"I pulled him once, but couldn't hold on. I assessed the difference in strength. If I kept pulling, he would have been torn in half."

"That's only your side of the story..."

Seeing the situation become increasingly tense, Zou Yan stepped in at the right moment. "Enough. He's already dead. There's no use suspecting each other now. This is a team instance. I don't think Chang Xu had any reason to deliberately harm Shen Ming."

Ye Zi gave three cold laughs, her tone growing intense. "A team instance? There are no teams in this game at all! We're all old Players, so we all know about the 'Minimum Death Quota' mechanism. Once enough people die, the rest can clear the instance safely and even receive greater rewards. Who knows whether someone among us might be thinking that way?"

Qi Si listened quietly from the side, one brow slightly raised.

The question from last night had been answered. He had not expected the Eerie Game to truly have such a mechanism, one so reminiscent of raising venomous insects together.

Fortunately, he had always been solitary and viewed every game as a zero-sum contest. Harming others required no reason. As long as he got the chance, he would gladly try stabbing other Players in the back a few times.

The changing situation did not actually affect him much.

Zou Yan grabbed Ye Zi's sleeve and patiently persuaded her, "Rule Seven says that only ghosts and monsters can kill humans. At least in this instance, Players cannot kill one another."

Ye Zi said hoarsely, "Who says they have to do it themselves? They only need to hide a few clues and borrow the power of ghosts and monsters..."

Chang Xu had been looking down at the corpse the entire time. Now, he suddenly raised his eyes and stared coldly into Ye Zi's. "You seem to know quite a lot about how to harm people."

Ye Zi replied, "Likewise."

Qi Si stood to the side, leisurely watching the farce unfold before him.

These Players all seemed to have secrets, and the kind that involved quite a few things.

The factions within the Eerie Game were probably tangled and complex, having already developed all sorts of game-theory models. They were harder to deal with than he had imagined—and... more interesting.

Chang Xu gave Ye Zi an indifferent glance, said nothing more, and turned toward the stairwell.

Qi Si watched his retreating back, smiled to himself, and followed.

"Chang Xu, I have a question. After you woke up last night, how did you determine the exact time? You clearly violated Rule Two, so why did you survive?"

He deliberately muddied the waters further, probing from every angle in hopes of finding some unlucky fool to bear everyone's suspicions.

Now, he feigned hesitation and asked his final question. "Do you know something—or do you have some other means?"

Chang Xu did not say a word. He took a Pocket Watch from his clothes and tossed it to Qi Si.

The instant the antique bronze watch landed in his hand, a thread of chill seeped into his skin, and lines of text appeared before his eyes.

[Name: Pocket Watch of Fate (Damaged)]

[Type: Item]

[Effect: Displays objective time]

[Note: The God of Fate had long established the following belief: Punctuality is a good quality, especially after a contract has been formed.]