Backstory 1

"Who is the child's father?"

The question posed by the instance system clearly referred to the female corpse they had encountered. Among the clues they had obtained from her body were signs that she had given birth and suffered prolonged abuse.

There was a scar across her belly, indicating a C-section performed at a proper hospital. There was a good chance she had been married.

The woman had not appeared in the workers' group photo, and her age did not match theirs. Besides, these workers were students suffering under oppression themselves. They had neither the strength nor the free time to bully anyone else.

So the abuse she had suffered could not have been bullying. Clearly, there was no connection between her and the students.

That left only domestic violence.

Anyone who could bring his wife to work at the boss's factory must have had close ties to him. Six people fit that description.

Ma Hui and Chunju were women, so they could be ruled out.

Li Qiang, Zhang Zhi, Wu Yong-which of those three could it be?

Or perhaps the answer lay outside that group: the child's father was the boss himself! There had been a green desk lamp and a brand-new notebook in the boss's office. Wasn't it suspicious for those two things to appear in such a rundown factory? The boss had even hired overseers specifically so he could slack off.

Why would an uncultured brute need to buy an eye-friendly desk lamp for his office?

There was only one possibility: the boss's child occasionally came to the factory to do homework.

The reasoning was tenuous, but it was the best of a bad lot. Wei Yanchi was willing to take the gamble, so naturally, he chose the boss as the child's father.

But he did not know the boss's name.

That was fine. He did not need to.

Right now, he was only speaking to these dead workers. Everyone knew that bosses who exploited others were given the nickname Zhou Bapi.

His gamble had paid off.

A trace of madness lurked in Wei Yanchi's gentle, luminous eyes, yet his face seemed to always carry a perfectly measured smile. He looked like a kind older brother from next door, a second male lead in a romance novel, clean and clear.

The second question.

"Who does Ma Hui like?"

This question was no easier than the previous one.

Ma Hui was the boss's younger cousin. Their various connections suggested that her standing with him was far from low-in fact, it was quite high. She could easily get him to hire people connected to her.

Take Wu Yong, for example. He was a friend of the younger brother of a man Ma Hui regarded as an older brother. Even with such a distant connection, Ma Hui had managed to get him in. And clearly, she had not brought him in as a worker, but directly as an overseer. If he had been a worker, Wu Yong would not have been one of the six survivors.

So who would a woman with that much influence like?

The answer naturally lay among the other five. Ma Hui would never have let someone she liked die.

First, rule out the boss.

That left Wu Yong, Zhang Zhi, and Li Qiang. Would Ma Hui be interested in any of those three? The answer was no. With her privileged family background, why would she fancy three spineless losers who had gotten their jobs through connections? Those three were entirely dependent on the boss.

So why not be a little bolder? What if Ma Hui was a lesbian?

Chunju's connection to the boss was distant-so distant that he could easily have ignored her. Yet she had still entered the factory and become one of the six survivors.

Could Ma Hui really have had no hand in that?

Of course not.

The deduction was complete. The person Ma Hui liked was Chunju.

Cold sweat coated Xie De's palms, and his heart hammered in his chest. He could smell the waves of foul stench coming from those flame-charred corpses. They eyed him hungrily, only to withdraw their gazes in disappointment after he answered correctly.

He understood that a single wrong answer would leave him facing the same fate as Fang Jueshan: made into canned human meat, failing the challenge and being erased along with 455.

With trembling fingers, he drew out a cigarette. The nicotine in the slim cigarette, carrying the sweet scent of cedar, forcefully suppressed his terror and lingering dread. A spark flared in the dim factory, and the rising white smoke veiled his cold, handsome features.

No one noticed his panic or how shaken he was.

Only the phone in his pocket vibrated again as 455 comforted him. "It's all right, host. You've got me, haven't you? Even if you're a coward who can't tell one grain from another, I won't look down on you."

"...Thanks for the comfort."

Xie De blew out a smoke ring. Beneath the veil of his silver-white hair, his movements looked casual and composed.

With both questions answered correctly, the instance system immediately posed the next one.

"Player Three, please answer: why did the boss forbid teenage romance?"

"You have thirty seconds to answer."

It was actually going in player-number order?

Then Beiwei would be next.

Yue Xiamo gave a cold snort, her chilling gaze sweeping over Wei Yanchi.

Wei Yanchi supplied an answer. "Kuman Thong."

Now that Yue Xiamo had something to go on, she immediately spoke, her voice hoarse.

"Because the boss was afraid of a backlash! He was a scumbag running a factory, evading taxes and withholding wages. He had a guilty conscience! So he obtained a Kuman Thong from Thailand, hoping to borrow good fortune. Naturally, he didn't dare let these workers date. He was afraid someone would get pregnant and then miscarry inside his factory, causing the Kuman Thong to turn on him."

"Correct."

Before the next question was posed, Wei Yanchi leaned close to Xie De. His warm breath stood out in the icy surroundings, impossibly full of life.

"Mr. 39?"

What did he want?

Xie De shot him an irritated glance. That damn protagonist gave other people answers, but not him, leaving him scared out of his wits. Was that any way to treat a partner?

The look startled Wei Yanchi, but he quickly caught on and said in a slightly coaxing tone, "Yue Xiamo is a highly capable fighter, and she has plenty of connections in the real world, too. Now she owes me a favor, which means she has no choice but to stick with us. I wasn't giving her the clue just for her sake."

Uh, he really didn't need to explain all that.

Xie De's thoughts briefly veered off course. Wait, what exactly did the protagonist think of him?

Before he could dwell on it, however, Wei Yanchi handed him a Bluetooth earpiece. "Mr. 39, I noticed your earpiece was broken. That might make things inconvenient for you, so you can use mine."

Wow, the protagonist was really nice.

Instantly forgetting his resentment over the protagonist's failure to give him the answer, Xie De took the earpiece from his hand and offered a faint, sincere smile. "Thank you."

The faint smile flashed across his face like freshly unfurled frost catching the light on a clear day. This mysterious powerhouse was finally willing to show him a little warmth.

Wei Yanchi lowered his eyes, curling his fingers in a decidedly good mood. 39's brief touch had left a faint tickle behind.