Chapter 8: The Returner on a Snowy Night (2)
Ten minutes later, everyone gathered in the downstairs lobby to make dumplings.
The round-faced waitress almost fainted upon seeing the corpse and was still in shock, so naturally, she couldn’t take on the heavy responsibility of making dumplings. However, apart from the middle-aged man, the rest of the people at the scene were all young. Not many of them had mastered this skill, and even the three ladies were helpless.
The woman in the red dress still sat alone on one side, looking indifferent. The girl wearing the windbreaker appeared a bit timid, while the pretty girl with short hair was much more active, constantly staying by the waitress’s side to strike up a conversation.
In the end, the middle-aged man and the two boys who looked like students took over the rolling pins. The buzz-cut boy stirred the meat filling in the enamel basin with an inquiring and solemn expression, as if trying to stare a hole into it.
“I say, this meat is clean, right?” he asked.
The lobby wasn’t noisy. When he asked this question, everyone heard it and understood—a shady inn, human meat, a common trope.
The waitress burst into tears with a waa, “How can you say that?”
The buzz-cut boy looked a bit embarrassed and cast a pleading look at the boy with thick black-framed glasses. Glasses looked thoughtful, put down the dumpling wrapper, and said, “I’ll go to the kitchen to take a look.”
The windbreaker guy also immediately stood up, “I’ll go with you.”
The waitress felt even more wronged. The short-haired girl took the opportunity to ask, “You know that Li Yingjun, right? Who is he? Why would he die here?”
“I don’t know either,” the waitress sobbed softly and said, “He is the best woodcutter around here. He usually delivers our firewood. I don’t know why he would suddenly die here. He’s the only woodcutter we have here. Now that he’s dead, what are we going to do…”
Woodcutter.
Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng exchanged a glance, both seeing the same inquiry in each other’s eyes. With his hands stuffed in his trench coat pockets, Tang Cuo asked, “Did you see where the firewood is kept when you went down earlier?”
Jin Cheng: “The backyard.”
Without needing to say more, the two immediately headed towards the backyard.
Buzz-cut hurriedly asked, “Where are you guys going?”
Neither of them looked back. Jin Cheng waved his hand, “To check the firewood.”
The backyard wasn’t large. A circle of wooden stakes enclosed an area of over ten square meters. On the right side was a utility shed covered with thatch. The howling wind blew, occasionally scraping off a few pieces of thatch that fell to the ground, only to be quickly covered by the heavy snow.
Beyond the backyard was a dense mountain forest. This hostel was situated on a gentle slope halfway up the mountain, with no village in front and no inn behind; no signs of human habitation could be seen nearby.
The utility shed had no door, but because today’s wind was blowing from behind it, not much snow had fallen inside. All the firewood was neatly stacked against the wall, covered with a layer of waterproof tarpaulin. On the other side of the shed were a chainsaw, hemp rope, an axe, and a bunch of other tools.
Tang Cuo lifted the tarpaulin to take a look. Some of the firewood was new, and some was old. The part stacked on the outside looked freshly chopped. Only one thing was very strange—this firewood wasn’t dry; it felt greasy to the touch and had a peculiar, faint fragrance.
“What kind of tree is this?” Tang Cuo asked.
“It doesn’t look like a common species.” Jin Cheng also squatted down, picked one up to inspect it. However, the texture of the firewood was really quite unpleasant. He quickly tossed it aside and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his hands in disgust.
Then he looked towards the mountain forest in the back and said, “If we want to find out, we might have to go inside and take a look.”
But no matter what genre of story it is, there is always this rule—never enter a forest.
Tang Cuo didn’t rush out recklessly. His gaze swept over the second-floor windows and found the one belonging to the public bathhouse. Following that window down, the ground was a blanket of white snow, with no footprints remaining.
Jin Cheng said, “The snow is heavy; it can completely cover footprints in ten minutes.”
Tang Cuo: “When you saw the bronze statue, was it covered?”
Jin Cheng: “The bronze statue was directly beneath the window, with only a little bit of snow covering it.”
In other words, the bronze statue had just been thrown down a few minutes before they discovered the corpse.
Thinking of this, Jin Cheng said, “Whenever I arrive at a new place, I have a habit of taking a lap around the area first, so there shouldn’t be anyone who discovered the corpse earlier than me. Therefore, the person who threw the bronze statue down is either that waitress or an NPC hidden among the nine of us.”
Tang Cuo: “Why would they throw it?”
Jin Cheng was still wiping his hands methodically. Hearing this, he smiled and said, “That is something you, the great detective, should be thinking about.”
He called Tang Cuo “great detective,” but it wasn’t to the point that he had guessed Tang Cuo’s profession before he died. Tang Cuo didn’t take it to heart either. Seeing nothing else around that particularly required attention, he turned and went inside.
The guy with black-framed glasses and the windbreaker guy who went to the kitchen also returned. Both said there was nothing unusual in the kitchen; the freezer contained only ordinary pork and beef. They even found an underground storage room and saw relatively fresh potatoes, Napa cabbage, and radishes.
All in all, apart from the corpse hidden in the locker, this hostel seemed like an ordinary hostel.
Everyone felt a little more at ease, so naturally, there were no psychological barriers to eating this dinner. The waitress was still in shock and hid back in her room. The woman in the windbreaker bit her lip, thought for a moment, and finally mustered up the courage to take the initiative to take over the task of boiling the dumplings.
“I… I’ll go.”
No matter the environment, hot food always puts people in a good mood. Next to the lobby was the lounge, equipped with a bar counter, a pool table, and other entertainment facilities, as well as several small tables against the wall. The two rooms were connected. Everyone sat here in twos and threes eating dumplings, and the atmosphere was not bad.
The buzz-cut boy was the most active and took the lead in introducing himself: “My name is Qian Wei, and this is my classmate Peng Mingfan. We two have always been doing missions together, and our grades are so-so. I hope everyone will look after us.”
The windbreaker guy immediately followed: “My name is Zhao Ping, and this is my companion Li Shuangshuang. We are players from the same batch.”
Companion, not girlfriend. Tang Cuo silently took note.
Tang Cuo could tell that these people were not playing the game for the first time. Although some were timid, they were all cautious and not panicked. The lady in red might be a newcomer, but she was consistently aloof and only spat out a name—
“Qu Li.”
The middle-aged man glanced at her and said, “Zhang Zhiqiu.”
The short-haired girl smiled, straightforward and generous: “You guys can just call me An Ning.”
After Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng also introduced themselves, the atmosphere cooled down again. Tang Cuo observed openly and honestly, but didn’t expect that just looking at Qu Li a few more times would earn him an eye roll from her.
Jin Cheng, on the other hand, found it amusing.
Qian Wei exchanged a glance with Peng Mingfan, cleared his throat, and said, “So what do we… do now? It says to kill Yingjun, but Yingjun is already dead. Are we supposed to find the murderer now?”
An Ning said, “Are you sure the murderer is currently among us? Is it that only non-player?”
“I didn’t say that!” Qian Wei was so anxious he almost jumped up.
“First, we need to know if any of the players got the murderer card, and whether we are considered outsiders or part of this story.” Peng Mingfan pushed up his glasses; despite his young age, he was very smart. “Although Blizzard Villa is a deduction puzzle, Yong Ye City’s games are never as simple as just deduction. Someone else will definitely die next.”
The middle-aged man Zhang Zhiqiu nodded, “Yingjun is dead, yet we haven’t cleared the stage. This proves that either he isn’t dead, or he isn’t Yingjun at all.”
Zhao Ping was stunned, then retorted, “But that waitress also said he is Li Yingjun. Furthermore, there’s his ID card to prove it. If he isn’t Yingjun, then who could be Yingjun?”
There were a total of nine people here. Who could be Yingjun?
Could it be that Yingjun hasn’t appeared yet?
Or could he resurrect in a dead body?
Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng didn’t participate in the entire process. The two sat by the tea table near the window. Next to it was an iron-art shelving unit placed against the wall, filled with many books and potted plants.
From a pile of books, Jin Cheng found a box of puzzles. Printed on the puzzle box was an Impressionist-style oil painting depicting four trees under a twilight sky. He looked quite satisfied, dumped the puzzle pieces onto the table with a clatter, and extremely domineeringly occupied more than half the table. By the time everyone finished their discussion, he had already completed one corner.
The result of the discussion was—wait.
There was no other way.
At this time, Zhang Zhiqiu revealed some leadership qualities. “Although it was morning when we entered the instance, it’s best to follow the time within the instance, otherwise it’s easy to lack energy at critical moments. It’s night now. Everyone go back to your rooms to rest, but try not to be alone when resting, okay? The three ladies will sleep in one room, and the others will have at least two people per room. If anything happens, shout out immediately.”
There was nothing to argue against this. Even the not-so-sociable Qu Li didn’t object.
This hostel wasn’t large. The rooms were mostly dormitory-style bunk beds, plus one single room and one standard room. The men let the ladies have the standard room, and the rest didn’t fight for the single room, opting for the bunk beds instead. Anyway, everyone could choose to sleep on the bottom bunk, which was quite convenient.
The final arrangement was Zhang Zhiqiu and Zhao Ping in one room, the two students in one room, and Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng in one room.
Before returning to his room, Tang Cuo went to the public bathhouse to take another look.
Li Yingjun’s corpse was still the same as before. Its limbs were growing stiffer; he was completely dead. Jin Cheng leaned against the sink with his arms crossed and said, “This doesn’t quite seem like a low-end match in Zone F.”
Tang Cuo turned his head: “How so?”
Jin Cheng: “In ordinary low-end matches, newcomers are reckless and die right off the bat, but such games usually aren’t very difficult, and the plot setup is somewhat rough. However, the players in this round aren’t reckless at all and seem to have a good skill level. That middle-aged man probably uses a spear; the calluses on his hands are very obvious. Therefore—the system’s evaluation of you must be very high. How exactly were you assigned to Zone F?”
The topic circled around and suddenly landed back on Tang Cuo. He answered a question with a question: “Are you saying that the system triggered priority and assigned me teammates based on its evaluation of me?”
Jin Cheng: “Absolutely.”
Spouting foreign nonsense, Tang Cuo hated speaking bird language (foreign language) the most.
“Why couldn’t it be because of you?” Tang Cuo asked in return.
“Because they are not qualified enough,” Jin Cheng said.
Narcissism is a disease.
Tang Cuo saw that he was quite sick with it and didn’t want to talk to him for the time being, so he went straight back to his room. The room was chosen at random; the walls were a fresh navy blue, looking quite nice.
On the other side, in the room of the two students.
Qian Wei hung onto the ladder like a monkey, racking his brains thinking about Li Yingjun, and said, “Don’t you think that guy wearing a mask is very suspicious? He was the first to discover the corpse, the first to find the murder weapon, and he’s hiding his face. Why didn’t you let me test him just now?”
Peng Mingfan asked in return: “Then what about the person next to him? The two of them clearly know each other, but there’s only one non-player.”
Qian Wei was dumbfounded. After a long while, he slapped his head again: “Then wouldn’t the ones who are alone be the most suspicious? That one in red, and Zhang Zhiqiu.”
“The lone ones could also be newcomers.” Peng Mingfan pushed up his glasses and said, “Don’t you think it’s strange? It was only about 10:00 AM when we entered the game. What kind of newcomer is so formidable that they go do a mission before even twenty-four hours have passed since arriving in Yong Ye City?”
Qian Wei finally realized and clicked his tongue in amazement. Thinking back to when they first started, they procrastinated for over a week, making full preparations before daring to accept a mission. There were plenty of newcomers who dragged it out until the deadline before being forced onto the stage.
The newcomer this time was not simple.
Who could he (she) be?
The same doubts played out next door, but Zhang Zhiqiu and Zhao Ping were meeting for the first time, and both were wary that the other might be that sole non-player. After exchanging a few words, they didn’t dare say more.
The night passed in silence.
The next day, almost at 5:30 AM, urgent pounding on the doors broke the tranquility of the hostel.
“Wake up quickly! Something’s happened!” Short-haired An Ning pounded on the doors room by room, sweeping through the corridor like a whirlwind, waking everyone up.
Everyone had slept with their clothes on last night, so they got up very quickly. In just five minutes, they all appeared in the hallway, asking each other what exactly had happened.
Deathly pale, Li Shuangshuang squatted at the door of the second-to-last room. Seeing everyone approach, she hurriedly stood up: “She’s gone! Qu Li, who slept in the same room with us last night, is gone. There was no warning at all, none of us noticed. We just woke up and she was…”
At this time, An Ning came running back frantically, panting, “Not downstairs either.”
Zhang Zhiqiu frowned: “When did you discover she was gone?”
An Ning’s complexion wasn’t too good either: “When we woke up, we didn’t see her. We have no idea when she disappeared.”
Zhang Zhiqiu: “You didn’t hear any sounds last night?”
An Ning and Li Shuangshuang both shook their heads. Suddenly, An Ning thought of something else and said, “I shouldn’t have slept so deeply. Thinking about it now, it seems I didn’t even have a single dream yesterday.”
Qian Wei immediately raised his hand: “Me too.”
After asking around, everyone had slept very deeply last night, revealing a bizarre and unusual feeling. Peng Mingfan pondered, his peripheral vision catching sight of Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng standing on the outskirts of the crowd, and said, “You two didn’t either?”
Jin Cheng leaned against the wall, curling his lips: “Little friend, what are you suspecting?”
Peng Mingfan shut his mouth and stayed silent. Jin Cheng just smiled and said no more.
Soon, everyone searched the inside and outside of the hostel again, but found nothing. There wasn’t even an extra footprint, let alone any bloodstains. Qu Li seemed to have evaporated from the face of the earth, disappearing without a trace.
Close to 6:00 AM, everyone gathered in the downstairs lobby again.
Having slept for a night, the waitress seemed to have recovered. Smiling, she brought out a large pot of porridge. While nimbly grabbing bowls to serve everyone, she comforted them, “Don’t worry, she might have just gone for a walk in the woods outside. The scenery here is quite nice, and the air is fresh. After everyone eats, we can go look for her again. Maybe we’ll find her right away.”
An Ning stared at her: “Didn’t you say heavy snow blocked the mountain? Why would she run out by herself?”
The waitress was immediately at a loss, stammering an explanation: “I… I just wanted to comfort you all, I had no malicious intentions…”
An Ning pressed on: “Then tell us, which direction should we search in?”
The waitress was speechless again, muttering softly, “I haven’t been outside either. I was originally supposed to go down the mountain but couldn’t. How should I know…”
Hearing this, Tang Cuo slightly narrowed his eyes, feeling something was amiss.
The others also picked up some other meaning from these words, each staring intently at the waitress. Jin Cheng, on the other hand, was calm and collected, holding his bowl of porridge like he was watching a play.
“Smack! Smack!”
A sudden sound broke the deadlock, like a fierce wind slapping against the door panel, making everyone’s hearts tremble.
Everyone simultaneously looked toward the source of the sound. Separated by the windproof curtain, they couldn’t see the situation outside the door, but they could see a pair of leather boots through the faintly visible crack in the door.
“Smack! Smack!” A snowflake drifted in through the crack of the vibrating door panel, quickly melting into water.
“Who?” Qian Wei stood up abruptly.
Li Shuangshuang nervously grabbed Zhao Ping’s sleeve.
The round-faced waitress, however, looked as usual, even carrying a hint of a smile on her face. She reached out to wipe her hands on her apron, walked quickly to the door, and explained cheerfully while opening it, “It should be the woodcutter.”
The w-w-woodcutter?
The taut string in his mind was suddenly plucked. Qian Wei’s eyes widened, and he instinctively wanted to step forward to stop her, but it was already too late. The moment the door opened, wind and snow poured in, blowing the menus on the table into a frenzy.
Coming in with the wind and snow was a tall man. Around thirty years old, with short hair and stubble, wearing a black fur-collared leather jacket, carrying a bundle of firewood on his back and an axe in his hand.
It was exactly Li Yingjun.
