The livestream viewers were stunned by this turn of events.
As outsiders, they could see every detail clearly.
Not only had Che Quan survived breaking the instance's rules, he had even made the vicious female ghost shrink back and scramble for an excuse to back down.
Had this instance gone completely off the rails?!
[Our little beauty's got some serious strength in him.]
[Is this a pureblood vampire's ability? My god, beautiful AND powerful? Is this for real?]
[Does this mean I have a chance to make a fortune? Betting on the little beauty to pull off an impossible clear really was the right move!]
The five followed Che Quan, cautiously entering Chang Jianfeng's room to investigate.
They turned on the light. The moment Chang Jianfeng, the last of the five, entered, the door slammed shut without a breeze. The bang sounded like a gunshot, startling their hearts into a frantic flutter for several seconds.
But with the absurdly calm and indifferent Che Quan in the room, none of them remained particularly uneasy, and they soon began searching earnestly for clues.
As for Che Quan, he still did nothing.
-He was the last pureblood vampire at the century's end, nobility among nobles. How could he possibly bend down and rummage around like these humans, getting himself covered in dust?
Che Quan settled into an armchair and watched the five conduct their exhaustive search with aloof reserve. After roughly three minutes, the impatience in his eyes spread in widening ripples, like a stone dropped into a lake.
Finally, unable to hold back, he said in a low, cold voice, "Stop wasting time searching blindly."
They had started combing through every last detail without even knowing what they were looking for. They were getting half the results for twice the effort, and might well end up empty-handed.
Che Quan's voice was clear and languid, carrying a young man's innate arrogance and a faint listlessness born of displeasure.
Before this, Che Quan had only said, "No need." Those two brief, quickly spoken words had given them no chance to make out what his voice sounded like.
Now that they suddenly heard it properly, they were once again utterly captivated.
All five looked up at Che Quan in the armchair, waiting for him to continue.
Seeing this, Che Quan grew even more irritated by his predicament of having to "cooperate" with humans, and his tone became colder still.
"The owner of this villa isn't surnamed Miao."
Those words struck them like a bolt from the blue.
Chang Jianfeng's eyes widened. Ning Dantong, Miao Rouning, and Chen Yuxiang exchanged looks, then concentrated on thinking back over what had happened.
Miao Rouning said shakily, "My instance identity really doesn't say this villa belongs to my family."
Chang Jianfeng immediately objected. "But doesn't mine say we were all invited to Miao's family villa to celebrate?"
Yuan Zhou looked so frightened he was on the verge of tears. "Could ghosts have led us astray and made us wander into some haunted villa...?"
At that moment, Ning Dantong managed to stay composed as she said:
"Probably not. I remember my instance identity only says I'm the top student in the neighboring senior class, Class Three. I'm close to Miao because we're both students Mr. Chang thinks highly of. But that housekeeper said I was her young mistress's cousin... What does that tell us?"
Chen Yuxiang swallowed and answered Ning Dantong's question. "It means this 'young mistress' isn't Miao, and this isn't her family's villa either."
"Exactly. When the housekeeper first said all that, I felt something was off. Now I finally know what it was! Who puts the owner's room on the same floor as the guests when she comes home?"
Ning Dantong spoke as she recalled the scene.
When the housekeeper approached Miao Rouning earlier, she had slyly said, "Miss, this is your room. Please turn in early, and sweet dreams."
That was what had misled them into believing Miao Rouning was the "young mistress" the housekeeper had mentioned.
Che Quan watched their belated realization without expression, then decisively looked away.
Out of sight, out of mind.
At that moment, the chat flooded with viewers clamoring to snuggle up to Che Quan.
[Our little beauty doesn't talk much, but every word hits the mark. He's hit me right in the heart.]
[What do I do? He gets prettier the longer I look. I've seen beautiful people before, but never a boy this stunning in an instance livestream.]
[I still love him most when he shows those adorably soft little fangs and his eyes turn bright red. It gets me so fired up. Too bad it's so hard to catch-even just now, it only lasted a few seconds. I'm crying.]
The five gathered their thoughts and decided to spend around ten minutes quickly searching every room. What they were looking for now was-anything that could establish the villa owner's identity.
Anything at all.
Ideally, it would also help them discover what connection they had to the owner of this haunted villa.
Seeing that the five were no longer blindly wasting their efforts, Che Quan rose and headed out of the room.
Ning Dantong couldn't help asking with concern, "Where are you going? It's dangerous out there."
Although Che Quan disdained associating with humans, he never behaved with arrogant discourtesy. He paused for the moment and turned his head slightly to reply, "The third floor. Oh, there might be clues downstairs, too."
At that, not only Ning Dantong but the other four searching the room looked up in alarm.
"Downstairs?"
Miao Rouning repeated it in disbelief.
"B-but there are ghosts downstairs!"
Hearing that, Che Quan said indifferently, "It's not midnight yet. What is there to fear?"
With that, Che Quan left the room and headed straight for the third floor.
Just as he was about to climb the stairs to the third floor, Che Quan keenly sensed a surge of hateful killing intent.
He stopped and glanced around the staircase.
It was pitch-black. Compared with the dim second-floor corridor, the darkness farther up the stairs was even deeper.
Looks like the key to this idiotic puzzle is up there.
Che Quan gave a cold smile.
He climbed the steps one by one, counting them. There were eighteen in all.
The third floor was completely dark.
Something sinister seemed to stir in the darkness, where one couldn't even see a hand in front of one's face.
Unfortunately for it, Che Quan was a vampire.
Seeing at night was child's play.
He could make out the third floor's layout without any difficulty and moved through it with effortless ease-
Unlike the second floor with its many rooms, the third floor was more like one expansive floor, with a large room on either side.
Its layout was symmetrical, too.
One room's door was firmly shut, while the other stood ajar.
Che Quan stood between them and casually looked them over for a few seconds before choosing the room on the left, whose door was ajar.
Meanwhile, countless viewers watching from Che Quan's perspective wailed in the chat:
[Heeelp, why can't I see anything...?]
[It doesn't look like the feed's gone black, either.]
[The lights on the villa's third floor probably aren't on. It's that dark.]
Che Quan approached the room on the left and lazily kicked open the half-closed door, his manner indifferent. Just as he was about to look around inside, a mechanical voice sounded in his mind, delivering a cautious warning:
[Warning! Due to drawing excessive aggro from the instance BOSS, the skin hunger syndrome buff on Player 002, Che Quan, has increased in effect by 300%. Please seek help from your instance identity's "crush" as soon as possible. Otherwise, you will lose consciousness from physical exhaustion, and your chance of death will multiply!]
Che Quan: "?"
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