Chapter 65: Before Dawn (3)
The sudden appearance of a third person sent a chill through both Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng. The panicked cry for help pierced through the receiver so loudly that even Qi Hui heard it.
“Zhou Dahai!” Overjoyed and alarmed, Qi Hui lunged at the telephone, looking as if he wanted to dive straight into the receiver.
“Qi Hui? Is that you, Qi Hui?! Hurry and save me; there are ghosts here!” The two teammates yelled to each other across the phone line, each screaming more hoarsely than the last.
Suffering from a double sonic attack, Tang Cuo’s eardrums nearly burst. Jin Cheng fared slightly better and decisively intervened: “Zhou Dahai, calm down. What exactly is the situation on your end?”
Hearing this, Qi Hui wanted to ask questions too, but Tang Cuo immediately clamped down on his wrist, shooting him a cold glare—dare to say another word?
Qi Hui promptly shut his mouth. The big boss was truly terrifying.
On the other end, Zhou Dahai finally regained a sliver of rationality and hastily replied, “I don’t know! The moment I entered the instance, I was in a basement. It’s a fucking mourning hall down here! There’s a coffin, a spirit tablet, and a ghost!!! I barely managed to escape, but the ghost is still there, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit—”
It was unknown what Zhou Dahai saw next, but his string of curses was accompanied by the heavy thud of something crashing to the ground, making everyone’s brows knot in tension. Qi Hui clenched his fists anxiously.
“Zhou Dahai? Zhou Dahai?” Jin Cheng called out.
After a long ten seconds or so, a response finally came from the other side. “Fuck, that scared me to death. I finally ran out of the basement, but the ghost followed me out! I’m the only one here; this is terrifying…”
Jin Cheng quickly asked, “Whose mourning hall is in the basement?”
Zhou Dahai answered without hesitation, “Yu, Yu Wangyue! I think I saw that name on the spirit tablet!”
Jin Cheng: “What year are you in?”
“I don’t know! How the hell am I supposed to know that?!”
“You—”
Just as Jin Cheng was about to ask another question, the crackle of static interrupted him, and the call was forcibly disconnected.
Tang Cuo and Qi Hui lost all connection as well. The two exchanged a glance, and Qi Hui said with immense worry, “Zhou Dahai is all alone over there. Will he be okay?”
Tang Cuo retorted, “If you knew something could happen to you, why did you even come?”
Qi Hui was left speechless. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but ultimately swallowed his words.
Tang Cuo didn’t press him further. He glanced down at the old fountain pen in his hand, pocketed it for the time being, and began to search the area. Snapping out of his daze, Qi Hui hurried to keep up. “What are we looking for now?”
“The basement,” Tang Cuo replied succinctly.
“Oh right, the basement!” Zhou Dahai had said that he was in the basement the moment he entered the instance.
Since it was a basement, the entrance had to be on the first floor. The two searched every suspicious corner and finally discovered an anomaly near the dining room cupboard.
There was a hidden mechanism here; turning an animal ornament on the cupboard allowed the entire unit to be pushed aside.
Behind the cupboard was a staircase leading downward. It was pitch black inside, so dark you couldn’t see your own hand in front of your face. Rejecting Qi Hui’s homemade torch, Tang Cuo found a candlestick, lit it, and took the lead walking down.
Qi Hui followed closely behind.
About three minutes later, the two finally reached level ground, but a locked door blocked their path.
Looking at the locked door, Qi Hui pushed it forcefully a few times to no avail. Growing slightly frantic, he complained, “We have to find keys again? Are we just going to be looking for keys forever?”
Tang Cuo: “Where are the two leftover keys from earlier? Try them.”
Qi Hui smacked his forehead in sudden realization. He quickly pulled out the butler’s keyring and tried the two remaining keys. The first one didn’t work, but the second one fit perfectly!
“It’s open!” Qi Hui pushed the door open forcefully.
Holding the candlestick, Tang Cuo stepped inside. By the flickering candlelight, he took in the sight of the basement and couldn’t help but frown—just as Zhou Dahai had said, this was indeed a mourning hall.
In front of a black coffin, white chrysanthemums sat on a desk, clustered around a spirit tablet that read: Spirit Tablet of Deceased Brother Yu Wangyue.
Yu Wangyue was Yu Wangnian’s younger brother. Yu Wangyue died, and his older brother set up a spirit tablet for him; this wasn’t hard to understand. When Tang Cuo first heard Yu Wangyue’s name from Zhou Dahai, he assumed Zhou Dahai’s timeline took place after his own. Yu Wangyue had died, so his body was moved from the attic to the basement.
But looking at it now, there was a Yu Wangyue living in the attic, and a dead Yu Wangyue in the basement.
Who was the real Yu Wangyue?
Tang Cuo walked up to the coffin, casually set the candlestick on the desk, and prepared to open it. Although Qi Hui was a bit afraid of ghosts and remained on high alert for the one Zhou Dahai had mentioned, he didn’t slack off when it came to business and hurriedly stepped forward to help.
With their combined strength, the coffin lid was quickly pushed aside, revealing a shriveled corpse. At the same time, an odor blending the stench of a rotting corpse with a peculiar fragrance rushed into their faces.
“Cough, cough…” Qi Hui reflexively covered his nose and mouth. Glancing up, he saw that Tang Cuo hadn’t even batted an eye and was already reaching out to touch the corpse. A big boss truly is a big boss.
“The corpse underwent a special preservation treatment and is kept very intact. But judging by the degree of desiccation, he’s been dead for at least a few months.” The more Tang Cuo looked, the heavier his doubts grew.
No matter how twisted Yu Wangnian was—imprisoning his own brother and feeding his wife slow-acting poison—he wouldn’t secretly set up a spirit tablet for a fake brother. Yet based purely on height, age, and hair, this corpse looked exactly like the attic occupant.
Furthermore, the key to the basement was in the butler’s possession, meaning that aside from Yu Wangnian, the butler also knew about this place. The butler had to be Yu Wangnian’s absolute confidant, involved in nearly everything.
“There don’t seem to be any ghosts here. Where did the ghost go?” Qi Hui felt both relieved and confused.
“If it’s not here, it’s somewhere else,” Tang Cuo said, rummaging through the pockets of the corpse’s clothes and pulling out a key. He currently had no way of determining the chronological order of his and Zhou Dahai’s timelines, but having a key made things easier.
There had to be a room belonging to Yu Wangyue in the Yu Residence.
“Let’s go.” Tang Cuo quickly headed for the second floor. Passing the living room, he glanced at the wall clock; there were only nine minutes left until midnight. He involuntarily sped up, heading straight for the rooms next to the master bedroom.
As the younger brother, Yu Wangyue couldn’t possibly live in the master bedroom, so they started trying the guest rooms.
On the second try, with a click, the door opened.
Feeling that a simple “holy shit” could no longer adequately express his reverence for the big boss, Qi Hui maintained his composure and followed Tang Cuo into the room. However, the very first second he stepped inside, another “Holy shit!” slipped from his lips.
There was a ghost in the room. And it was a ghost that looked exactly like the corpse in the coffin. It stood by the window, slowly turning its head to look at them.
“Yu Wangyue,” Tang Cuo called his name, neither dodging nor hiding.
Yu Wangyue’s gaze lingered on him for barely a second, his eyes dull and hollow. Soon, as if sensing something, a sliver of light finally returned to his eyes. Then, drifting weightlessly, he floated straight through the wall and outside.
“Wh-What’s up with him? Is he not going to fight?” Qi Hui asked in a low voice, his gun already cocked.
Tang Cuo shook his head. A theory was gradually forming in his mind, but it required empirical proof. So, he followed behind Yu Wangyue, walking slowly down the corridor, until they finally stopped before a door.
Yu Wangyue floated inside.
“Where is this?” Qi Hui looked around, suddenly struck by realization. “The piano room?”
Tang Cuo didn’t answer. He was counting down in his head.
“Ten.” “Nine.” … “Three.” “Two.” “One.” Bong—
The grandfather clock in the living room chimed the hour. It was midnight. An eerie, cheerful piano melody drifted from the room before them. It was the exact melody of The Song of the God, Lambs, and the Crow.
Qi Hui couldn’t help but shiver.
Tang Cuo peered through the crack in the door to observe the room. He couldn’t see the piano, but he could see the window diagonally facing the door. The window was still sealed by iron bars, but while the bars could lock people in, they couldn’t lock out the moonlight. The night breeze blew open the white chiffon curtains, and moonlight spilled across the floor like water.
Looking at it now, the “12:00: Piano room” written on the butler’s blackboard likely referred to the piano music that suddenly played in the piano room at midnight.
The esteemed Young Master of the Yu Residence had died, yet his older brother kept his death a secret, even imprisoning someone who looked suspiciously like “Yu Wangyue” in the attic.
He must have died harboring grievances, his ghost wandering the residence all day, playing this melody at the stroke of midnight.
“G-Ghost!” Qi Hui’s shout interrupted Tang Cuo’s thoughts once more. Tang Cuo abruptly turned around to find that the dismembered ghost had also appeared in the corridor, staring fixedly at them.
No, perhaps it was staring at the piano room.
Not daring to act carelessly, Tang Cuo immediately summoned the Sword of Judgment. But right at that moment, he felt a bizarre fluctuation of power, like a—magnetic field!
Yes, he remembered the term Jin Cheng had used. Sweeping his gaze over the faintly visible ripples in the air around them, a bold conjecture formed in his mind.
In a flash, he grabbed Qi Hui’s arm.
The next instant, their vision went black.
After a dizzying spin, Qi Hui stared in astonishment at the pitch-black darkness where he couldn’t even see his own hand. Just as he was about to ask what was going on, a chilling, eerie gust of wind swept up from behind him, making his scalp go numb.
Fireball Spell!
Tang Cuo cast the magic in a rush. A fist-sized fireball wobbled unsteadily toward their rear, illuminating a female ghost with disheveled hair.
The female ghost was dressed in white. Her skin was ghastly pale, her eyes blood-red, and her lips crimson as blood. At a mere glance, she could scare the soul right out of a person’s body.
The fireball hit her hand, but it was easily swatted away by her withered, branch-like ghost claws, completely useless.
“Go!” Tang Cuo forcefully shoved Qi Hui away and confronted the female ghost himself.
“Brother Tang!” Qi Hui hadn’t expected Tang Cuo to actually protect him at the critical moment. Moved yet terrified, he grit his teeth, raised his gun, and fired back.
Bang! The bullet passed cleanly through the female ghost’s body, causing absolutely no damage. Qi Hui’s heart sank. Just then, he saw another figure dart past his eyes.
The person kicked off the wall, moving as light as a swallow. With a flick of his left hand, specks of starlight sprinkled from between his fingers, flying straight at the female ghost.
The moment the starlight touched the female ghost’s body, it instantly ignited into flames. The female ghost let out a piercing shriek, frantically swatting at the fire to extinguish it.
Seizing the opportunity, the newcomer grabbed Tang Cuo’s wrist and quickly dragged him downstairs.
Belatedly realizing he had been left behind, Qi Hui scrambled to catch up. “Wait for me!”
A moment later, in the first-floor living room.
Shrinking next to the telephone, Qi Hui still couldn’t believe his eyes. “Did we just jump to 1926? What exactly is going on? Wasn’t there piano music just now? Where did it go?”
The piano music was gone. Before him stood only Tang Cuo, as calm as ever, and Jin Cheng, wearing a smile.
Jin Cheng was in a genuinely good mood right now. After staring at ghosts for over two hours, finally seeing his little disciple’s face made him feel the young man had grown even more handsome. At a time like this, Qi Hui naturally didn’t exist in his eyes. He even physically blocked the space between Qi Hui and Tang Cuo, hogging Tang Cuo’s entire line of sight as he asked, “How did you get over here?”
Tang Cuo: “We hypothesized earlier that players can travel between different timelines. My time was two hours earlier than yours. When the piano played, I came over.”
The theory of time travel was deduced from the time gap between them. If this theory held true, there had to be an anchor point capable of piercing through all the timelines.
This anchor point would also be highly unique, perhaps even the original source of all the anomalies in the Yu Residence.
When the midnight piano sounded and the spatial fluctuations appeared, Tang Cuo thought of this immediately. Without time to analyze it deeply, he took a bold risk and mentally chanted the year “1926.” As a result, he successfully traveled through time.
Qi Hui listened, completely bewildered.
Jin Cheng, however, understood immediately. “Looking at it this way, Yu Wangyue’s death is the source. His ghost plays the piano in the piano room every night at midnight. Players can use his music to travel through different timelines, unravel the mysteries, and escape the Yu Residence.”
Tang Cuo: “The biggest question right now is, who is the person in the attic?”
Jin Cheng: “My intuition tells me the clue probably isn’t on our end. Besides Zhou Dahai, there are two other players left. They’re either trapped and couldn’t answer the phone, or they’re intentionally lying low.”
Hearing this, Qi Hui finally couldn’t help but interject, “My teammates wouldn’t do that! They aren’t that kind of people!”
Jin Cheng countered with a smile, “Who said they were your teammates? Are you sure about that?”
Qi Hui froze, finally realizing he had made a grave error. He had always assumed that since the four of them followed Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo into the mission wall, all four of them must have made it in.
But in the Mission Hall back then, were the four of them really the only ones watching Jin Cheng?
There were six people in the instance: Jin Cheng, Tang Cuo, himself, and Zhou Dahai. Who were the remaining two? Staying completely silent for this long meant there was a high probability they were enemies, not friends. Moreover, the contents of their phone conversations might have already been entirely eavesdropped on. The other party could obtain clues without making a sound and might even have already found a way to clear the instance.
More importantly, if Tang Cuo could travel to Jin Cheng’s timeline, the others naturally could too.
At that thought, cold sweat instantly poured down Qi Hui’s face.
