The woman in the red wedding dress lunged to bite Gong Yao's neck, her long hair flying wildly and her face a livid blue-black!
Gong Yao spun around, drew a Black Longsword from somewhere, and held it upright before him, blocking the Ghost Bride's attack!
"Miss Wu?" he exclaimed in surprise.
Wu Nianfang no longer resembled the quiet, gentle woman she had been during the day. Her eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, as though she had been dead for days, and she stared viciously at Gong Yao and Li Qing.
An icy wind instantly swept through the small Ancestral Hall, extinguishing every candle inside!
Gong Yao's longsword gave off a faint golden glow in the darkness.
Rather than attack, he turned his head halfway toward Li Qing and asked, "What's going on?"
Li Qing said, "It's night, and we're outside our rooms, so we've met Fortune Lady's conditions for killing."
He pressed one hand against Gong Yao's back. The golden glow holding the Female Ghost at bay immediately brightened, particles like pixels flickering around it.
Li Qing moved closer to Gong Yao, tilted his head up toward his ear, and whispered, "Turn off the livestream. I'll help you leave the Dungeon Instance."
Gong Yao hesitated for only a second before Li Qing received a notification that the Livestream System had been shut down.
Li Qing stepped forward and looked into the Female Ghost's cloudy eyes. "Wu Nianfang, stop for now. I'm Li Qing, a Death Instance administrator, Employee ID S-A9B08F013. I have some questions for you."
Wu Nianfang's eyes shifted. She looked sluggishly at Li Qing, as though lost in thought, but made no move to continue attacking.
Li Qing took out his Work ID with one hand and waved it before Wu Nianfang's eyes. With the other, he opened the Admin Backend and retrieved her information-
[Querying boss data] [ERROR: boss data retrieval failed] [Loading data...]
An error?
Before Li Qing could check what had caused the error, several lines of information popped up-
[Name: Wu Nianfang] [ID: P-SWC00752/B-C9999002] [Status: deceased/BOSS (99/9999)] [Bound system: null]
...This wasn't the panel a boss should have.
Every entity within a Dungeon Instance had its own unique identifier, consisting of a role code and an eight-character unique ID.
N stood for ordinary NPCs, B for bosses, and P for players.
Wu Nianfang's identifiers had originally included a player ID beginning with P, but it had now turned gray, replaced by a bright red boss ID.
Yet the "Bound system" field below was also data that only players possessed.
"You used to be a player?" Li Qing asked.
Gong Yao's pupils contracted slightly in shock.
Wu Nianfang seemed unmoved and remained silent.
"You can speak now, can't you?" Li Qing said evenly. "If you can't, I'll have to use special measures to reset your status."
Wu Nianfang's lips moved slightly. At last, she showed a trace of hesitation.
Li Qing added, "Your power will also be reset to zero. There are still people you want to kill, aren't there?"
The silence lasted more than ten minutes. Just as Gong Yao, still locked in the standoff, began breathing more heavily, Wu Nianfang finally took a step back and stopped attacking.
The glow on the Black Longsword gradually faded. Li Qing walked beneath the statue and relit the candles.
Warm yellow candlelight once again filled the Ancestral Hall. Wu Nianfang knelt on the cushion again, looking every bit the gentle bride, with no trace of the vicious expression she had worn as a vengeful ghost.
Li Qing sat across from her. Gong Yao seemed entirely unbothered by her being a ghost and sat down beside him. "Little administrator, you have one more hour. I'm almost out of the time I'm allowed to keep my livestream off today."
Li Qing said, "That's enough."
When Wu Nianfang spoke again, her voice was as lovely as before:
"I was indeed a player once, and I died in this Dungeon Instance."
"Dead players become creatures in the Dungeon Instance?" Gong Yao looked at Li Qing.
Li Qing said, "Some Dungeon Instances convert dead players' data. Others erase their existence outright."
Then he traced Wu Nianfang's player ID on the floor with his finger.
"But in the former case, that data is only a 'projection' of the original, a copy based on the original player. The original player's data disappears completely, and the copied portion is assigned a new identifier by the Dungeon Instance.
"But she's different. Although she died, she's still using her original data."
Both men turned toward Wu Nianfang.
Wu Nianfang gazed somberly at the marks his finger had left on the floor. "Yes, I'm already dead, but I still remember everything about being a player. We're trapped here, round after round. Every NPC's memories are reset, except for us brides who died here.
"The man you questioned was right. There originally was no 'Fortune Lady' in this world. But imagine how much resentment those innocent girls who died every year carried. After a hundred years, just as they wished, 'Fortune Lady' was born."
She gave a strange smile.
"That was the first Fortune Lady, the true boss of this Dungeon Instance."
Gong Yao couldn't help looking up at the kind-faced statue. She gazed down at the three of them sitting on the floor, candlelight casting a malicious shadow across her face.
"She doesn't look full of resentment."
"Naturally, the people who built the statue wanted her to be beautiful and kindly, like all the good women of Fortune Star Village."
Wu Nianfang's voice was quiet, but mockery lurked in her tone.
Li Qing paid no attention to the statue whose data he couldn't detect. "The first Fortune Lady?"
"Yes. Later, she died, in the very run of the Dungeon Instance I took part in."
"According to the Dungeon Instance's settings, Fortune Lady can't be killed."
Wu Nianfang said, "How would I know? The boss was killed, and we thought we could all get out alive. But once the greatest threat was gone, that player became the one who held power over life and death. Then I died, the same way as all the brides abducted in this world."
The moment Fortune Lady died, this Dungeon Instance should have submitted an error report for the Maintenance Team and Technical Team to handle.
But for some unknown reason, the Dungeon Instance had selected the dead player Wu Nianfang to take Fortune Lady's place, making her B-C9999002.
"This is a serious incident," concluded the administrator Li Qing, who had recorded everything. "On behalf of the Dungeon Instance system, I apologize for the irregular processing of your death data. I'll fix this bug as soon as possible."
Wu Nianfang asked, "Once you fix the bug, will we cease to exist?"
Li Qing said, "Yes."
Wu Nianfang lowered her eyes, looking a little sad.
After a while, she said softly, "That's fine, too. Every year, I have to wake up again in the place where I died, then watch more people like me die. I can only kill people, not save them. I've had enough of living for a long time now."
Gong Yao sighed softly and leaned against the offering table, staring into space with an unfocused gaze, as though caught in memories.
In normal human social interaction, I should probably offer some comfort now... Li Qing thought.
But no one had taught him what to say at a time like this, so he sensibly kept his mouth shut and sat in silence with the man and the ghost.
Ten minutes later-once Li Qing judged that Wu Nianfang's emotions should have settled again-he asked another question. "After you, other 'brides' died as well. Where did those 'brides' go?"
Wu Nianfang slowly raised her eyes and stared at Li Qing.
Then she laughed softly-
"Where else could they go after dying? Naturally, just like me, they all became new 'Fortune Ladies.'"
Before you continue