Again 1

After taking care of the venue, Lin Sheng walked out of the rented courtyard.

A sign hung outside the courtyard: Iron Fist Fighting Club.

There were still unfinished construction marks around the place, and in some spots, the black paint hadn't been applied properly.

"They really did just throw together a place," Lin Sheng said, speechless.

No wonder those guys had moved so fast.

He didn't look around any longer. He scanned both sides of the street where the Iron Fist Club was located.

Right next door, on the right, was an Internet cafe. A sign hung by the entrance: New Century Internet Cafe.

A few teenagers around fifteen or sixteen were squatting outside, smoking and casually bragging as they puffed away.

"I haven't been online in ages. Might as well go check it out."

Lin Sheng had an idea and casually headed toward the Internet cafe.

He passed the two young smokers and pushed open the cafe's glass door.

Inside were two neat rows of slightly dirty computers.

The manager's counter was on the right side of the entrance. Behind it, a girl who looked no older than twenty was eating instant noodles while watching a soap opera.

A sign on the counter read: 1.5 yuan per hour, recharge 100 yuan as a member and get 50 yuan free.

"Give me a computer for three hours."

Lin Sheng glanced at the clock on the wall. Since he was already out today, he'd told his family he was going on a picnic with friends. He had the whole afternoon to himself.

It was only a little after three. Three hours online, then dinner and home. Perfect.

The girl at the counter looked up at him.

"Give me your ID number. Do you remember it? If not, I'll make you a temporary card. It'll cost a little more."

Lin Sheng quickly gave her his number, paid, and rented a computer.

He also bought a bottle of mineral water at the counter, then carried it over and sat down at his assigned computer.

He pressed the power button and waited with practiced ease for the blue CPU logo, then the motherboard logo, to appear on the screen, followed by the operating system, NWE.

NWE was this world's equivalent of the Windows platform, an operating system developed overseas and widely pirated in Celine.

After sitting down, Lin Sheng pulled his chair closer to the screen, placed his hand on the mouse, and deftly clicked an icon on the desktop.

It was an animated icon of a blue-and-white interstellar warship.

It was Star Path, the real-time strategy game currently popular in Celine, similar to the first StarCraft.

Its gameplay was a bit like StarCraft mixed with Red Alert.

It had once been Lin Sheng's favorite game.

He'd even joined an online group of fellow fans.

He quickly logged in. His username was Seven Foot Sweat.

As soon as he entered the game's sci-fi-themed interface, a string of notification sounds came from the friends list on the right.

Sunset Star: 'You there?'

Sunset Star: 'Come on, let's get a game going!'

Sunset Star: 'You there or not?'

Sunset Star: 'Still not online?'

Fallen Leaf on the Horizon: 'Seven Foot, you there?'

King's Hatred: 'Fuck! Lost again! Seven Foot, if you don't get on soon, our group's gonna get steamrolled!'

Sunset Star: 'The guys from Copper Furnace are acting like such assholes! Seven Foot, message me when you get on! You're the only one missing!'

Sunset Star: 'How come you're still not on!?'

Lin Sheng checked the timestamps. The most recent messages were from two days ago.

He was pretty skilled, so in the small group where he and a few friends took turns playing together, he'd always been the team's main player.

Unfortunately, ever since he'd come to Nightmare, he'd devoted most of his energy to the dream world. It had been a long time since he'd played.

Even when he occasionally went to an Internet cafe, it was to look up information about the dream world and swordsmanship.

Beep-beep.

Suddenly, a notification sounded.

Sunset Star: 'You're finally on! Let's get going!'

Lin Sheng was surprised. Of the eight people in the small group, this guy was online the most often. He was practically obsessed with Star Path and could play from morning till night when he got carried away.

"All right. You set up the team," Lin Sheng replied.

"Okay."

They quickly teamed up, then called the others, but the rest weren't online.

The game soon began, and they were matched with random opponents.

Although Lin Sheng hadn't played in a long time, the game mostly depended on your reaction speed and strategic sense. It was somewhat like fighting.

So his skills hadn't deteriorated much. He and Sunset Star quickly scored their first kill.

They dispatched the two opponents in the first match cleanly and efficiently, taking less than twenty minutes.

Then came the second match, followed by the third.

After playing for nearly an hour, Lin Sheng started to lose interest. He paused the game.

Sunset Star: 'What's up? It's a day off today, isn't it?'

Seven Foot Sweat: 'I've got something to do. I'm done.'

Sunset Star: 'What the hell do you have to do? Come on!'

Seven Foot Sweat: 'I really do have something to do. Things are busy at home lately. I don't have that much time to play.'

Sunset Star: 'Even Crown isn't this busy. Aren't you a student? What are you busy with all day?'

Seven Foot Sweat: 'Just some things I need to take care of.'

Sunset Star: 'Crown's supposed to be passing through Huaisha soon. How about we have a get-together here in Huaisha? I'll cover the venue!'

Lin Sheng looked at the screen and smiled.

He'd told the group he was a broke student, with little pocket money and not much time to spend online. Sunset Star, on the other hand, seemed to come from a well-off family and didn't seem to care about the Internet fees at all.

Now he was even offering to cover the venue. Clearly, he had money to spare.

Lin Sheng smiled and casually replied:

'Whatever works. Let's see what everyone thinks.'

Sunset Star sent a few more complaints. They played one more match, then Lin Sheng logged off.

With the game closed, he opened a search engine and, with practiced ease, went to browse the Huaisha City forum and see if there were any new posts.

Soon, a post from two hours earlier caught his eye.

'Robbery and murder in Blackwater District, south of the city—live updates!'

Lin Sheng narrowed his eyes and quickly clicked on it.

The post had been made by someone called Wind Whisperer. The first post contained a photo of the crime scene.

It seemed to be inside an unfinished room at a construction site.

The ground was covered in dark red blood, and three words had been written on the wall: "Do you love me?"

Lin Sheng narrowed his eyes and scanned the replies below.

'This damn place again. There've been several incidents at this abandoned construction site, and people still don't listen—they still go there to hang out! They must have a death wish!'

'Last time it was a guy, robbed and killed there too. That place is seriously creepy.'

'That's not all. A couple disappeared there before, and the only thing left was blood all over the room.'

'Have the police been there?'

'They've been there who knows how many times. No use. The killer didn't leave anything behind.'

Lin Sheng silently read through all the replies, then fell into thought.

Huaisha wasn't a huge city, but it wasn't small either. He'd heard of several unsolved cases like this one.

The police had investigated them many times, but were helpless. In the end, they usually made up an excuse, arrested someone, and declared the case closed.

Anyone with a bit of sense could tell those closed cases were just a way to fool the public.

He hadn't paid much attention to them before, at most chatting about them as idle gossip. But now, thinking it over, something seemed off.

There seemed to be too many cases the police couldn't solve.

He browsed a few other posts, and soon found another old post about a similar locked-room murder. It was another unsolved case, and it still hadn't been cracked.

After closing the forum, Lin Sheng glanced over the current affairs news. Celine and Redon were still bickering every day.

The two sides kept trading verbal attacks and moving troops to their borders, as if they might go to war at any moment.

But in fact, the situation had been going on for more than a year. At first, people had been nervous, but after so long, they'd gotten used to it.