Incitement

Meanwhile, at the Village Chief's house.

"Hey-you lot!!"

A shout suddenly came from outside. An unfamiliar villager waved at the four grim-faced people inside.

"The Village Chief wants you to help build coffins at the Ancestral Hall."

With that, the villager set off to lead them to the Ancestral Hall. Song Qingzhang and the others followed silently, not daring to speak along the way.

"Here we are."

The Ancestral Hall wasn't far from the well, but its door had been tightly locked over the past few days. They had peered through the windows without spotting anything unusual. Now, at last, the door stood open.

Clang, clang.

The Village Chief was hammering wood inside. He turned his head when he heard their footsteps.

"You're here?"

They swallowed. The villager who had led them here had already left, leaving them no choice but to steel themselves and step inside the Ancestral Hall.

The room was several degrees colder than outside, with a particularly sinister chill. They all shuddered as they entered.

The Village Chief stood up, revealing what he had been hammering behind him.

Song Qingzhang's pupils constricted, and his fingers began trembling uncontrollably.

Four coffins sat there in plain sight.

The Village Chief casually tossed the hammer onto the floor, where it landed with a dull thud.

"I've finished the bodies. Only the lids still need making."

"Just right. One for each of you."

The way the Village Chief put it, it didn't sound as though he wanted them to build one coffin each.

It sounded as though each of them would be using one.

Qian Xin's knees buckled, and he nearly sank to the floor.

"Dead... Even that guy Li Xian is dead. We're next!"

After the Village Chief left the Ancestral Hall, Qian Xin spoke, on the verge of a breakdown.

"Damn it... Why is this instance so hard?!"

The other three didn't look much better, but compared with Qian Xin, they had managed to retain some composure.

Song Qingzhang spoke up. "Don't think like that... I still don't think Li Xian is dead."

"Not dead?" Qian Xin shot back heatedly. "I told you! I saw it myself, with my own eyes-Zhou Shan carried Li Xian's body away! Why do you keep thinking he can't die? What is he to you, Ultraman? Iron Man?"

Zhao Fengyi sighed and first said to Qian Xin, "Calm down."

Then he bent down and picked up the hammer the Village Chief had tossed onto the floor.

"Let's finish the coffins as quickly as we can, then go look for clues."

"I have a clue!" Song Qingzhang suddenly said.

"What? Seriously?"

Qian Xin's first reaction was disbelief.

"Seriously."

"Then hurry up and show us!"

Song Qingzhang took a deep breath and pulled something out of his pocket.

A palm-sized notebook.

When Li Xian had come out of the Village Chief's room, he hadn't just hidden in the Toilet himself. He had dragged Song Qingzhang in with him.

"I was in the last stall at the time," Song Qingzhang said.

Song Qingzhang said.

"Li Xian gave me the key. He said that once the Village Chief took him away, I should use the opportunity to find a notebook in the drawer."

"This is it."

He opened the notebook in front of them. It contained many unfamiliar names, either circled or crossed out. Song Qingzhang found three pages and pointed them out to the others in turn.

"Shen Xiaomei."

"Li Xiaojuan."

"Zhou Shan."

Those three familiar names were mixed in among the others, all circled in black. Shen Xiaomei's name also had a cross through it.

"I don't know what this notebook means, but it's a clue Li Xian risked his life to get for us."

"And since he left it with me... I think he must have been confident he could survive."

Song Qingzhang sounded certain. As the others looked at the notes in his hands, their emotions churned.

While the others remained unsure whether he was alive or dead, Li Xian was in the tiled-roof house at the Riverside, seemingly waiting for something.

There was still some time before it became completely dark. Li Xian planned to wait until nightfall before making his move.

This instance had to end tonight.

Everyone thought he was dead now, which was the only reason he could hide in this house that could hardly be called secluded.

But Zhou Shan's disappearance would be noticed by tomorrow at the latest. Once the villagers realized something was wrong, they would start searching.

At that point, it wouldn't matter where he hid.

All he needed to do now was wait until nightfall, then find Shen Xiaomei's body as quickly as possible.

There were three suspicious locations in total.

The well used to draw water, the Square Well at the Riverside, and the river itself.

To narrow down the location more precisely, he still needed some other information...

I wonder if Song Qingzhang got that notebook.

The sky gradually darkened. Li Xian wasn't in particularly good shape. Although his health points had stopped dropping, waves of pain continued to pulse through his chest.

With no clock or anything similar nearby, Li Xian could only judge the time by instinct.

It had gotten dark around seven last night. There was probably about an hour left until sunset now.

Li Xian propped himself up and suddenly spotted several figures in the distance through the window.

Villagers rarely came to this area. If people were showing up now, they were most likely looking for him.

Who is it? Villagers? Or the other players?

As the distant figures drew closer, Li Xian could make out four people from their silhouettes.

Qian Xin's booming voice reached Li Xian before he could see their faces clearly.

"I didn't expect a few coffin lids to take so long... We'd better hurry and look."

"What if he was thrown into the river? We don't have anything to fish him out with..."

"Fish what out?"

"Li Xian's corpse, obviously... Holy shit?!"

Qian Xin turned his head. Li Xian, whom he had thought thoroughly dead, stood behind him with his arms folded, looking at him.

Song Qingzhang shouted even louder than Qian Xin. "Li Xian! I knew you weren't dead... Mmph!"

Li Xian reached out and covered his mouth.

"Keep your voice down. Let's talk inside."

Song Qingzhang made a muffled sound of agreement in his throat, then nodded vigorously in case Li Xian hadn't understood.

The four followed Li Xian into the tiled-roof house to hide. Apart from Song Qingzhang, all of them stared at him in disbelief, their eyes practically bulging out of their heads.

"You... You're not dead? What happened?"

"I'll start with the bottom line," Li Xian replied.

"Zhou Shan is dead. We need to clear the instance before the Village Chief finds out."

Li Xian smiled at their bewildered, uncertain looks.

"Before that, there's something else I need to tell you."

He turned his gaze to Song Qingzhang. "You already know, don't you?"

Song Qingzhang nodded, then asked hesitantly, "...Can I say it?"

The other three listened to their cryptic exchange, completely lost.

Li Xian smiled and nodded. "Of course. We're all in the same boat now."

Zhou Shan was dead, and the Village Chief wouldn't spare any of them. So even if the others didn't want to... they would have to join him in clearing the true ending.

Song Qingzhang didn't understand the reasoning behind it, but seeing how certain Li Xian was, he spoke.

"Li Xian is the Bride, Li Xiaojuan."