Chapter 11: The Returner on a Snowy Night (5)
Li Shuangshuang was feeling somewhat apprehensive.
She had been in Yong Ye City for a month and a half, completed a few missions, and encountered many people, but she had never seen anyone quite like Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng. They were powerful; even if they just stood there without speaking, their presence was impossible to ignore.
Just earlier, while hiding in the kitchen, she had witnessed through the window Jin Cheng aiming an arrow at Zhang Zhiqiu. That scene only solidified her belief.
She was a bit afraid of Jin Cheng, but having Tang Cuo around made her feel significantly more at ease.
“The waitress specifically asked you to help prepare lunch by name, correct?” Tang Cuo asked.
“Yes,” Li Shuangshuang replied, carefully recalling the situation. “She said she couldn’t manage it alone and asked for my help. M-maybe because I’m a girl, she singled me out. I’ve been busy in the kitchen with her ever since we came in, right up until she said she felt unwell and needed to rest. Then I was left here alone.”
Tang Cuo pressed further, “Did she say anything to you while you were here?”
Li Shuangshuang hesitated for a moment. “Just ordinary small talk…”
“This is very important. Think carefully.”
“Uh… she talked about the weather, complaining that it’s been terrible lately, and how the blizzard came just as she was about to go down the mountain instead of earlier or later. The rest of the time she just talked about lunch. She mentioned that Li Yingjun likes potato and beef stew, so I… I poisoned the stew…”
Tang Cuo frowned slightly.
Thinking she had said something wrong, Li Shuangshuang looked at him nervously, only to hear him ask: “Did she say anything else about going down the mountain?”
“She… oh, right. She also mentioned something about training new employees, complaining that newbies are hard to train. I was too nervous at the time, and she only said it in passing, so I don’t remember the exact words.”
Tang Cuo switched to another question. “Who gave you the poison?”
Li Shuangshuang answered without hesitation, “Zhang Zhiqiu.”
“Alright, you can go out first.”
Watching her leave, Tang Cuo tapped the fire tongs rhythmically. Amidst the clink-clink sound, his mind raced. He remembered that when they first entered the instance, the waitress named Xiao Yuan had said something specific—
“My contract was up and I was about to resign and go down the mountain. I was just waiting for the new employee to arrive for the handover, but now I’m trapped here too.”
Who was this “new employee”? Had they already arrived? Could it be the non-player hidden among them?
If so, why would this new employee, an NPC, mix in with the players? What was their objective? Was it Qu Li? Or the two-faced Zhang Zhiqiu?
“Need a hint?” Jin Cheng asked.
“You have one?” Tang Cuo looked up.
Jin Cheng, holding a tomato he’d gotten from who knows where, was deftly peeling it. The small, exquisite silver folding knife danced effortlessly in his hand. But this was the first time Tang Cuo had ever seen someone peel a tomato before eating it. What kind of weird habit was that?
“You’re staring at me so intently, should I peel one for you too?”
“Thanks.”
Jin Cheng hadn’t expected Tang Cuo to actually nod. The corner of his mouth twitched. But a real man keeps his word, never going back on a promise. It was just a bit boring to do it in silence, so he spoke while peeling: “I saved you twice, and now I’m giving you a hint. Tell me, how should you thank me?”
Tang Cuo remained expressionless. “We are both players, and we both need to clear the instance. Why should I thank you?”
Jin Cheng thought this made a fucking lot of sense, so he countered with something equally logical: “I could just wait for all of you to die and then clear the instance myself.”
“How does that benefit you?”
“I feel like it.”
Tang Cuo didn’t believe half a word of it.
He simply turned back to tending the fire, not forgetting to remind Jin Cheng before he did: “Don’t forget my tomato.”
Aren’t you a funny guy?
Jin Cheng pulled up a small wooden stump, sat down, and studied him intently for a moment before saying, “Mr. Crow favors you so much, perhaps he’s taken a liking to your sense of humor.”
Oh.
Tang Cuo ignored him.
“How much do you know about Yong Ye City?” Jin Cheng suddenly turned serious.
“Absolutely nothing,” Tang Cuo replied.
“Makes sense. You just arrived and were assigned to Zone F,” Jin Cheng said. “There are some rules in Yong Ye City that information brokers won’t sell. You’ll only find out by completing many missions or ranking up to the higher zones. These aren’t exactly secrets, but knowing them won’t necessarily help you.”
Tang Cuo also grew serious. “Like what?”
Jin Cheng: “After death, people enter Yong Ye City and are told that everything in their past life was just a game. Completing this game and earning initial points is the first step to survival. Yong Ye City’s mission system is like a massive filtering mechanism. Excellent players rank up step by step and eventually earn enough points to re-enter reincarnation. But what about those who die during the missions? Where do you think they go?”
“Their souls scatter?”
“No, very few people truly have their souls scattered. Compared to Yong Ye City’s missions, soul scattering is a release. Many players in the lower zones think they’re dead, but they aren’t actually dead. They could become Xiao Yuan, or they could become Li Yingjun.”
Tang Cuo instantly thought of the people swallowed by black holes in the Lucky Big Wheel. With Jin Cheng’s explanation, their fate seemed clear now.
“Are you saying players who fail missions are trapped in instances? And when Xiao Yuan said she was about to go down the mountain, it means her punishment time is up?”
“Exactly. This is ‘Karma.’ You can think of it as career karma or karmic retribution. Every player bears different ‘Karma’ and suffers for a different amount of time—three years, five years, maybe even centuries. Once their ‘Karma’ is cleared, they are free.”
“Free?”
“Reincarnation.”
“During their punishment, do they know what they are doing?”
“No, they are just NPCs.”
Tang Cuo understood now.
Xiao Yuan’s karma was almost cleared, so she would leave here to reincarnate. And the newbie replacing her must be another player who died during a mission.
In other words, out of the eight of them, one was a “dead person.”
Did he (she) know they were dead?
Bubble, bubble. The water boiled.
Knock, knock. A knock on the door sounded almost simultaneously.
Without waiting for Tang Cuo or Jin Cheng to respond, Peng Mingfan pushed the door open and walked in, sporting a band-aid on his face. He casually closed the door, walked up to them, and stated bluntly: “I suspect there’s something wrong with Zhang Zhiqiu.”
Tang Cuo was equally direct. “Why?”
“This is a deductive instance, and Li Yingjun came back from the dead. Even a simpleton like Qian Wei could guess that Li Yingjun isn’t easy to kill and we shouldn’t act rashly. But not only did Zhang Zhiqiu instigate Li Shuangshuang to use poison, he also repeatedly tried to incite us into killing him directly earlier.”
Jin Cheng smiled. “You make a good point, but doesn’t Zhang Zhiqiu’s behavior prove he’s very smart? He hoped Li Shuangshuang would poison Li Yingjun. When that plan failed, he hoped I’d shoot him dead with an arrow. He doesn’t have to bear any risks himself.”
Peng Mingfan took a deep breath. “I know. But what if he is the NPC? For example, what if killing Li Yingjun triggers some kind of punishment, and under his instigation, we step into the trap one by one?”
“So?” Tang Cuo looked straight into Peng Mingfan’s eyes, his expression calm. Peng Mingfan’s heart inexplicably trembled, but he fearlessly met the gaze and declared—
“Let Zhang Zhiqiu do it himself.”
Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng exchanged a glance. Jin Cheng handed the bowl of sliced tomatoes to Tang Cuo, turned to Peng Mingfan, and asked, “What if it turns out he’s not an NPC in the end?”
Peng Mingfan stayed silent for a few seconds before answering, “Then I’ll do it the next time. The mission requires killing Yingjun; someone has to do it eventually, whether it’s you or me.”
“Very good. You have guts.” Jin Cheng wiped his hands and stood up. “How do you plan to make him do it?”
Peng Mingfan clearly had it all figured out, immediately replying: “Voting. Qian Wei and I have two votes, you guys have two votes. That’s already half the votes.”
This was practically a covert alliance.
Tang Cuo re-evaluated Peng Mingfan internally. This student-looking boy was probably the most shrewd among them. It was obvious who the strongest players were among the eight. This move not only tested Zhang Zhiqiu but also roped Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng in. A very calculated move.
However, Peng Mingfan seemed to be a person with a bottom line. At least he had tried to stop Li Shuangshuang from poisoning the food earlier, so Tang Cuo’s impression of him wasn’t bad.
The three returned to the lobby one after another, Peng Mingfan leaving first, followed by Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng strolling out leisurely. On his way out, Tang Cuo even found sugar in the kitchen and added a spoonful to his bowl of tomatoes.
Jin Cheng saw this and looked highly disapproving.
Adding sugar to eat a tomato?
In the lobby, Xiao Yuan the waitress was arguing defensively, “How could that be! There must be some misunderstanding. You guys must have done something to provoke Brother Yingjun. He has such a good temper. Every day he just chops wood and chops wood. He wouldn’t even hurt a small animal, so how could he hurt you?”
The person talking to her was still An Ning. “But he did attack us.”
Xiao Yuan still looked incredulous, and Li Yingjun himself wasn’t there. They were discussing the correct way to kill him, and to prevent him from hearing, they had locked him in the linen closet next to the first-floor bathroom.
Zhang Zhiqiu sat in the lounge area, quietly observing the interaction between Xiao Yuan and An Ning. When he saw Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo, he simply nodded, showing no unusual behavior.
“Really, Brother Yingjun wouldn’t hurt anyone. He can’t even speak, you shouldn’t treat him like this…” Xiao Yuan was still trying hard to argue.
Peng Mingfan walked straight up to her and said, “We’re hungry. Is lunch not ready yet?”
Xiao Yuan was slightly taken aback, then looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, I’ll go prepare it right now. Could anyone of you…”
Peng Mingfan cut her off. “Go by yourself.”
“O-Okay,” Xiao Yuan finally left.
With only the eight players left in the lobby, Peng Mingfan quickly brought up the voting idea. Some looked thoughtful, some nodded, and others frowned.
Zhang Zhiqiu recalled Peng Mingfan’s initiative to go to the kitchen and call Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng earlier. If he couldn’t see the problem here, he would have lived all these years in vain.
“I object.” He stood up, but his gaze fell on An Ning. “You two are pairs, while this little girl and I are solo. This kind of voting doesn’t seem very fair to us.”
An Ning, however, smiled brightly. “I don’t mind. Let’s just vote.”
Zhang Zhiqiu secretly clenched his fists, but his expression remained relatively calm. He said, “If you have no objections, then of course I don’t either. But for the sake of fairness, I propose a blind vote.”
A blind vote?
Peng Mingfan scrutinized Zhang Zhiqiu deeply, wondering what trick he was pulling now. But Zhang Zhiqiu’s request was reasonable, and since they hadn’t openly fallen out yet, it was hard to refuse.
The blind vote began.
Peng Mingfan found a blank sheet of paper and cut it into eight equal pieces. Everyone wrote down a name, folded the paper, and placed it together to shuffle before opening them publicly. Peng Mingfan was the one reading the votes. He picked up the first piece of paper, and unsurprisingly, it read—
“Zhang Zhiqiu, one vote.”
“Li Shuangshuang, one vote.”
Peng Mingfan glanced at Zhang Zhiqiu and continued reading.
“Zhao Ping, one vote.”
“Peng Mingfan, one vote.”
“Li Shuangshuang, one vote.”
The closer he got to the end, the heavier Peng Mingfan’s tone became, nearly losing his composure. Five votes had been cast, the distribution was so even, and Zhang Zhiqiu only had one vote. How was this possible!
He quickly opened the remaining votes and was shocked to see two for Li Shuangshuang and one for Qian Wei.
Li Shuangshuang actually had three votes!
“Why did you stop reading?” Zhang Zhiqiu asked, feigning confusion.
Peng Mingfan clutched the slips of paper tightly, not answering immediately. An Ning, Zhao Ping, and the others also sensed something was wrong. Their gazes swept over Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng, then back to Zhang Zhiqiu, their brows furrowing.
They could somewhat guess Peng Mingfan’s plan, so almost all of them had voted for Zhang Zhiqiu.
An Ning was quick-witted. She immediately stepped forward, looked at all eight slips, and found the one she had written. The handwriting was indeed hers, but the name had changed from Zhang Zhiqiu to Zhao Ping.
“There’s something wrong with the votes.” An Ning looked at Peng Mingfan.
Peng Mingfan looked at Zhang Zhiqiu.
Zhang Zhiqiu said, “Why are you looking at me? I’ve cooperated with your vote, but I don’t have the immense capability to tamper with it right under everyone’s noses.”
Zhao Ping hesitated, saying, “Could it be the system? The game chose the executioner itself?”
Upon hearing this, Li Shuangshuang’s face turned deathly pale.
Zhang Zhiqiu said nothing more, merely shaking his head to indicate he didn’t know either.
Tang Cuo hadn’t expressed his opinion from start to finish. Only now did he whisper to Jin Cheng, “In Yong Ye City’s combat system, are there related abilities?”
Jin Cheng smiled. “Yes.”
Tang Cuo then declared loudly, “Let’s vote openly.”
“An open vote isn’t impossible, but it’s not everyone’s first time playing the game. You should know the consequences of opposing the system.” Zhang Zhiqiu’s tone was slightly grave. “Have you forgotten? A newbie triggered the priority rule for this mission. It seems that newbie is Qu Li. She most likely acted rashly without knowing anything because it was her first mission, which is why she disappeared. Otherwise, how do you explain it?”
Hearing this, both Zhao Ping and Li Shuangshuang looked hesitant, and even An Ning seemed thoughtful.
Qu Li’s situation was indeed hard to explain. When Zhang Zhiqiu framed it like that, it actually made some sense.
Qian Wei immediately grew anxious. “How can you guarantee what you’re saying is right?”
“I can’t guarantee it,” Zhang Zhiqiu said, appearing very honest. “But can you guarantee your approach is correct? This is a Yong Ye City mission, not a simple deductive game or playing house. You can’t just clear it with a casual ‘because’ and ‘therefore’.”
“You!” Qian Wei almost jumped up. Insulting his intelligence was fine, but how could he insult Pengpeng’s?! Pengpeng was so quiet, his intelligence was all he had going for him!
Peng Mingfan held him back. “Then what do you propose?”
The two sides confronted each other, the atmosphere tense.
Jin Cheng watched the battle with his arms crossed, even having the leisure to offer commentary: “The kid is still too soft. When you spoke up just now, you should have used your momentum to directly crush Zhang Zhiqiu. Let him talk smoothly, don’t worry about whether the system interference is real or not—just confront him head-on first.”
Tang Cuo glanced sideways. “You want to confront him?”
Jin Cheng smiled. Just as he was about to speak, Tang Cuo ruthlessly looked away and stepped forward directly into the center of the stalemate. He had taken off his military coat, maintaining his posture with his hands in his trench coat pockets. He turned to Zhang Zhiqiu and said, “You got one thing wrong. Qu Li is indeed a newbie, but the one who triggered the priority rule was me.”
As soon as the words fell, astonishment crept onto everyone’s faces.
Qian Wei was especially full of question marks. You fucking fought a bear so fiercely earlier, and you’re telling me you’re a newbie???
“Let’s vote by a show of hands. Whoever gets the most votes will do it, and I’ll go with them.” Tang Cuo caught a glimpse of Xiao Yuan coming out of the kitchen from the corner of his eye. It seemed lunch was finally ready, so he continued, “The time is set for after lunch.”
