The system's scan turned up nothing, so Li Qing could only follow the procedure and pick a wooden token at random from those in front of the statue. It had the number 1 written on it, presumably one of the six room numbers.
Even after leaving the ancestral hall, he was still thinking about the Fortune Lady. Wasn't this stage supposed to be "the Fortune Lady's arrangements"? Why wasn't the boss herself here?
Was it a bug, or part of the normal procedure?
It wasn't until Gong Yao's voice called him back that he paid attention again. "Qing, what's it like in there?"
Li Qing came back to himself and saw the others watching him nervously.
"It's safe inside," he said.
Only then did Xu Yuan feel reassured enough to go in second. The girls went in and came out with their wooden tokens one after another. Zhao Yu wanted to see Yuan Sisi's, but she tucked it against her chest.
Zhao Yu immediately glared at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Yuan Sisi ignored him and turned to Aunt Liu. "Auntie, can we let other people see our wooden tokens?"
Aunt Liu gave her another look and asked, "Is he the one you fancy?"
"Of course not!" Yuan Sisi said.
"You can tell others which room you're in, or choose to keep it secret and wait for the Fortune Lady to select a more suitable partner for you. However..."
She looked at them and slowly smiled. "Knowing the room is one thing. Reaching it successfully is another."
Then she took out a pair of Heart-Knots and placed one in Li Qing's hand and the other in Gong Yao's. "This is the Fortune Lady's reward for the pair most in tune with each other. Whoever holds these Heart-Knots will be certain to find each other."
Li Qing looked up at Gong Yao and found Gong Yao looking back at him.
They exchanged a glance, then looked away at the same time.
Yuan Sisi, Ding Yi, and Zhou Qing all looked somewhat envious. Zhao Yu was disdainful, Wu Nianfang stared into space, and Xu Yuan gazed at Wan Yingjun adoringly. Wan Yingjun, however, stared straight at the pair of Heart-Knots, clearly calculating something.
Sure enough, he spoke up casually. "'Holds'?"
Aunt Liu smiled without answering, and everyone present suddenly understood-
Although the Heart-Knots were Li Qing and Gong Yao's reward, they didn't truly belong to them.
Worried, Yuan Sisi spoke up immediately. "You two had better keep them safe!"
Zhao Yu said with ill intent, "That's right. There's still a long time before dark."
Gong Yao curled his lips into a smile and said nothing.
The brides could now choose to return to their rooms. Although the grooms had no rooms of their own, they could rest anywhere except the brides' chambers.
Yuan Sisi had wanted to go back with Li Qing, but she hesitated when she saw Wu Nianfang clutching her wooden token, looking a little lost.
Wu Nianfang was the only person left without a partner in the previous round. No one knew what fate awaited her.
Yuan Sisi went over and linked arms with Wu Nianfang. "Don't be too scared. The other side still doesn't know all our room numbers. Maybe you'll have a partner tonight?"
Zhou Qing gloated. "If she isn't left alone, someone else will be. Do you want to be the one without a partner?"
Zhao Yu sneered. "Heaven help me, I certainly don't want to be paired with her. Who knows what bad luck I'd run into!"
Seeing that they were about to start arguing again, Li Qing walked over to Gong Yao and asked, neither loudly nor quietly, "Would you be willing to pair up with her?"
Gong Yao froze.
The others heard him and fell silent too, looking at Li Qing in surprise.
The moment Li Qing spoke, Gong Yao understood the choice he was offering him.
Should he continue monitoring this administrator whose intentions remained unclear, or take a greater risk to protect someone on the brink of danger?
Gong Yao gave a helpless smile, his answer already clear.
Li Qing returned to Wu Nianfang and held out his wooden token and Heart-Knot.
"Let's switch," Li Qing said. "You might be safer with him."
Everyone erupted at once. Zhao Yu sneered. "Idiot."
Wan Yingjun tried to persuade him kindly. "Li Qing, why put yourself through this? You're exposing both of yourselves to a lot of unnecessary danger."
Wu Nianfang gave Li Qing a surprised look, thanked him quietly, and exchanged tokens with him.
Xu Yuan made a snide remark from the side. "Ha, what a waste of playing the good guy. Look, all she gave you was a thank-you. Nothing else at all!"
Unbothered, Li Qing tucked the token marked 6 into his trench coat pocket. "I'm going back to rest."
"I'm coming too!" Yuan Sisi hurriedly said.
The others stayed where they were and watched the two leave.
Yuan Sisi jogged after him and finally caught up with Li Qing in the corridor leading to their quarters.
"Hey, wait... wait for me!"
Li Qing stopped and half turned around. "What is it?"
Yuan Sisi smiled shyly. "I'm going back with you."
They walked for a while. Yuan Sisi furtively checked that no one was nearby before asking in a low voice, "What are you planning to do tonight? If one of us really does end up alone, we'll be breaking the first rule, 'Don't stay in your room alone'..."
"No one will be left alone."
"Huh? But there are only nine of us now..."
"I think the only way a bride can break the first rule is by refusing to open the door for a groom," Li Qing explained calmly. "Otherwise, the theoretical mortality rate here would be much higher."
What he didn't tell Yuan Sisi was that a death rule triggered by bad luck was such a garbage design that his colleagues would ridicule it until the instance was shut down for a major overhaul.
Yuan Sisi nodded, only half understanding, then broke out in a cold sweat again. "Then the extra person..."
"Theoretically, that would only increase the difficulty. It wouldn't kill you immediately."
This instance was only C-rank and allowed a fair margin for error. Only the final condition could sentence someone to death:
When they "married" on the third day, their partner had to be a player.
If they chose an instance NPC, they would probably be trapped in this instance forever...
...But that was only "in theory."
So far, this instance's mortality rate was still within the normal range.
At what point had things gone wrong to produce the 90% mortality rate recorded in the incident report?
Night soon fell amid everyone's apprehension.
Li Qing sat quietly at the dressing table. Reflected in his pale, glass-bead eyes was not the figure in the mirror, but a row of monitoring data.
He was too far away, and some back-end permissions had been disabled because of the identity verification issue. As a result, Li Qing could only monitor the game units' vital signs.
Including himself, the life-form scan detected nine people, corresponding to the nine remaining brides and grooms.
Ten minutes passed. No one died.
Twenty minutes passed. The number still hadn't dropped.
Then came the thirtieth minute after dark.
[Remaining life forms: 10]
Not only had the number failed to decrease, it was increasing!
[Remaining life forms: 11] [Remaining life forms: 12]
The count rose to twelve, the starting number for the Fortune Lady's matchmaking.
The game had finally begun.
Just then, three knocks sounded at the door.
Li Qing got up and walked toward it.
On the right side of the light screen in front of him were all the brides' nighttime rules:
[Before the groom arrives, the night watchwoman will check whether the bride is in her room.] [The night watchwoman will check at least once. Please open the door for her once within three knocks, or she will break down the door.] [If no one is outside after you open the door, turn off the lights immediately and kneel facing the wall until the night watchwoman appears again and turns the lights back on for the bride.]
Li Qing opened the door. No one was outside.
He immediately flipped the switch by the door to turn off the lights, knelt facing the wall, and brought up the back-end command interface...
[No boss unit detected nearby. Please try again.] [No boss unit detected nearby. Please try again.]
Li Qing: ?
The next moment, pain shot through the back of his neck, and everything went completely black.
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