Chapter Summaries

Ji Xun’s group avoided the cook’s feast, hunted pheasants for lunch, and searched the mansion for clues. They found a gemstone matching the mistress’s earring in an iron soldier’s armor and lingerie hidden in the maid’s room, suggesting she had a lover in the mansion.

• After other players judged the cook’s food safe, Ji Xun stopped Tang Cha from eating and led their group outside.
• Ji Xun caught pheasants, and Tang Cha, Fang Rui, Lu Jiancheng, and Ji Xun ate them in the woods.
• The group returned to the mansion and found a bloodstained gemstone lodged in an iron soldier’s armor.
• Fang Rui recognized the gemstone as resembling the mistress’s earring in the owners’ photograph.
• In the maid’s room, Fang Rui found lingerie hidden among the uniforms and said the maid appeared to have a lover in the mansion.

Ji Xun and his companions investigated the mansion, learning about the mistress’s past marriages and the butler’s warnings about food and nighttime wandering. That night, they heard Wan Mingfei flee from something he called a ghost, then the sounds of snapping floorboards and both men fell silent.

• Ji Xun learned from the butler that the maid had a lover in town, and Fang Rui suspected the lover was inside the mansion.
• Fang Rui found seven marriage contracts in the study, and the butler explained that two belonged to Katherine, who had married the current master after her first husband, Mr. Lin, died.
• Ji Xun’s group avoided the cook’s meals, explored the upper floors, and learned that leaving their rooms at night or eating unknown food could be dangerous.
• Deng Tianyu warned Ji Xun’s group that the butler had cautioned players against wandering at night because some corridor floorboards were loose.
• At night, Wan Mingfei screamed that he had seen a ghost and ran toward the entrance despite his companion’s warnings; floorboards snapped, his companion wailed, and both men went silent.

After Li Hongbo and Wan Mingfei died under suspicious circumstances, Ji Xun and the others searched the couple’s bedroom and found the mistress’s matching earring and a fishnet stocking. Ji Xun suspected the Maid’s connection to the couple’s deaths, while the butler’s repeated claims about the couple’s loving relationship seemed suspicious.

• Ji Xun and the others found Li Hongbo dead with a nail between his eyebrows and discovered Wan Mingfei impaled on the Iron Soldier’s spear.
• The butler dismissed both deaths as accidents, and Ji Xun mentioned that Wan Mingfei had shouted about a ghost the night before.
• The butler opened the couple’s bedroom, where Ji Xun found an earring matching the one recovered from the armor and Brother Dong’s group found a fishnet stocking in the mistress’s wardrobe.
• Ji Xun, Tang Cha, Lu Jiancheng, and Fang Rui theorized that the Maid had left the stocking to expose an affair with the Male Host, and Ji Xun questioned the butler’s insistence that the couple had been happy.

Ji Xun learned from the cook that the master had secretly been having an affair with the maid, while Brother Dong was lured into the mistress’s wardrobe and killed. The players were left without a clear lead on the mistress’s murder, and Brother Dong became the latest victim.

• Ji Xun tricked the cook into revealing that the master had been secretly meeting the maid, and noticed a possible cellar hatch in the kitchen.
• Ji Xun told Fang Rui, Tang Cha, and Lu Jiancheng about the affair, and they considered whether the maid might have provoked the mistress.
• Tang Cha warned the players not to eat the cook’s meatball noodles, but Brother Dong dismissed the warning and accused the others of causing the earlier deaths.
• After the lights went out, Brother Dong heard a woman’s voice and followed it to the mistress’s bedroom.
• Brother Dong saw a naked woman in the wardrobe, lunged toward her, and was decapitated when the wardrobe doors slammed shut.

After three more players died in the mistress’s bedroom, Ji Xun’s group explored the Painting Studio with Gu Rui and uncovered clues linking its portraits to the mansion’s Marriage Contracts. Ji Xun realized that the women in all seven portraits were the same person.

• The players discovered that Brother Dong and his two lackeys had died gruesomely in the mistress’s bedroom, and Deng Tianyu urged everyone to stay together.
• Gu Rui offered to work with Ji Xun and traded him the key to the Painting Studio, which he had found under the Master Bedroom mattress.
• Ji Xun, Gu Rui, and the others entered the Painting Studio and saw the mistress’s resentful self-portrait overlooking a sofa where her husband and the maid had carried on their affair.
• Ji Xun sent Gu Rui downstairs to lunch while his teammates searched the studio, then hinted they would see the result of his advice that night.
• Fang Rui and the others found seven portraits that might correspond to the seven Marriage Contracts, and Ji Xun concluded that all the women depicted were the same person.

Ji Xun and the others discovered that the mistress had appeared in disguise in several portraits and found newspaper obituaries for six of her husbands. That night, they found the corridor sabotaged with upward-pointing nails and entered a guest room where one player was eating his own fingers.

• Ji Xun, Tang Cha, and Fang Rui realized that five portraits showed the mistress disguised as different women, suggesting she had married seven times.
• Gu Rui joined Ji Xun and the others in their room for the night, and Fang Rui proposed searching the study’s newspapers for wedding and funeral notices.
• Tang Cha found an obituary for Mr. Lin signed by Katherine, and the group discovered five similar obituaries for other husbands who had died within six years.
• Gu Rui stayed awake as the group heard strange noises, and Ji Xun led them into the corridor, where they found broken floorboards hiding upward-pointing nails.
• Ji Xun forced open a guest room and found one player imitating an opera singer while another chewed on his own fingers and offered them carrots.

Ji Xun, Gu Rui, and the others stopped several players from harming themselves and each other during the night, then gathered the survivors to discuss what had happened. Deng Tianyu asked Gu Rui to explain why everyone had acted strangely, leaving the cause of the nightly attacks to be revealed.

• Gu Rui and Ji Xun knocked out a player who was biting off his own fingers, while Tang Cha and Lu Jiancheng subdued another player trying to strangle himself.
• The group found more players making bizarre suicide attempts and encountered Deng Tianyu, who said he had skipped dinner and stayed awake.
• They rescued two players from their violent roommate, then knocked out the attacker after he gave an evasive account of what he had seen.
• The group found a couple together in bed and knocked them both unconscious; Deng Tianyu explained to Ji Xun what a couple was.
• The survivors gathered in the living room the next morning, and Deng Tianyu asked Gu Rui to explain what had happened during the night.

After Xu Xingfa died for confronting the Cook, the players grew wary of the Cook’s food, and Ji Xun stopped him from cutting off Liu Jincheng’s fingers. Ji Xun planned to investigate a hidden room in the kitchen with Deng Tianyu while Gu Rui helped lure the Cook away.

• Xu Xingfa accused the Cook of murdering the mistress, charged into the kitchen, and died, reducing the player count to sixteen.
• Deng Tianyu urged the players to share clues, and one player reported that the Maid had threatened to expose the Male Host’s secrets.
• The players refused the Cook’s noodles, and Ji Xun stopped him from attacking Liu Jincheng before insulting his cooking.
• Ji Xun proposed investigating a hidden room in the kitchen with Deng Tianyu, while asking Gu Rui to lure the Cook away.

Fang Rui and the others examined the mansion’s mystery while Ji Xun discovered a hidden passage leading to the Black Pine Forest and learned the black mushrooms could cause madness. Ji Xun exposed Deng Tianyu as the player behind several deaths and confronted him, ending with Deng Tianyu’s guilt revealed but the confrontation unresolved.

• Fang Rui reviewed the suspects and unanswered questions, and she wondered whether the Male Host had died from mushroom poisoning.
• The players released pheasants into the mansion to distract the Butler and Cook while Ji Xun and Deng Tianyu searched the kitchen.
• Ji Xun and Deng Tianyu found a trapdoor and a hidden passage that led into the Black Pine Forest, where Little Mushroom warned Ji Xun not to touch the black mushrooms.
• Ji Xun woke from his vision after Hei Hei bit his finger and realized Deng Tianyu had set a trap in the corridor.
• Ji Xun accused Deng Tianyu of poisoning Wan Mingfei and misleading Xu Xingfa, then produced a bottle as evidence; Deng Tianyu crushed it, but Ji Xun revealed he had another.

Ji Xun found the Maid and Mr. Lin’s bodies in a hidden chamber and identified the Male Host as the killer. The players began clearing the instance, while Gu Rui asked to team up with Ji Xun and Tang Cha recoiled from the foul notebook Ji Xun brought back.

• Ji Xun refused Deng Tianyu’s offer to cooperate, and Deng Tianyu cleared the instance after naming the Male Host as the killer.
• Ji Xun found the Maid and Mr. Lin’s bodies, black mushrooms, and a notebook in the hidden chamber.
• Ji Xun returned to the dining room and distracted the Cook after Lu Jiancheng criticized the food.
• Ji Xun told the players that the man in the portrait had killed the mistress, and Liu Jincheng and the others cleared the instance by giving that answer.
• Gu Rui asked to team up with Ji Xun, who returned to the room and gave Tang Cha the foul notebook.