[You cleared the dungeon.]
The system only sent a few words.
Liu Tong and the others looked at each other, clearly sensing the dismissive and somewhat halfhearted tone in the system’s message. But regardless of tone, clearing the game was clearing the game.
Then, another message popped up in their minds.
[Congratulations, players, for successfully clearing the Ghost Cruise through a special method. Now, let’s reveal the actual way to clear the game.
You all thought the design blueprint was the key to clearing the game, didn’t you? Heh. You’ve all been tricked. The blueprint doesn’t contain any information about the mysterious wooden cabin on the second floor. It was a trap from the very beginning.]
Everyone was stunned. So the design blueprint was just a red herring? And it didn’t include the wooden cabin? Then how were they supposed to locate it?
The system continued:
[You must be wondering how to use the locator. Heh. It’s simple. To locate a room that can’t be located—just change your perspective. Make the abstract concrete. Did none of you think to ask: if the current ‘Chen Weiyu’ is the ghost… then where is the real Chen Weiyu?]
The realization hit like a thunderclap. Only now did they finally understand just how simple the actual solution had been.
If the ghost had replaced Chen Weiyu, then the real one must be locked inside the wooden cabin. Which meant… all they had to do was locate her.
“We’ve been tricked,” Liu Tong muttered as he recalled the locator’s instructions:
[To locate a room, you must know its room number.] And the old woman had mentioned that the blueprint was in the library.
Too cunning. It had all been misdirection—designed to lure them into chasing a room number, when in reality the wooden cabin didn’t have one. The real solution was to locate the person who had been replaced.
Acting immediately, Liu Tong took out the locator and input Chen Weiyu’s name.
In the next moment, the radar-like device projected a glowing red arrow. The arrow extended rapidly across the room and finally pointed… straight into the wall.
In a flash, the hidden wooden cabin emerged into view, the arrow piercing directly through its door.
Bai Wan and the others exchanged a look and headed upstairs to the mysterious room. Inside, they found a bare, unfinished space with nothing but a table. A person lay sprawled on the wooden floor.
It was the real Chen Weiyu.
Just as expected—locating the wooden cabin was never about the room. It was about assigning it a coordinate, and Chen Weiyu’s presence had provided exactly that.
On the lone table lay a small diary. Curious, the group flipped through it.
The diary was brief, barely a couple hundred words, describing a story about a scholar who encountered a ghost on his way to take an exam. The scholar fled to the feet of a divine statue, where the ghost was repelled.
Every other page was blank.
“So this is the final lifeline? The statue in the main hall was real? Then why didn’t it work?” Liu Tong fell into thought.
“It’s because the ghost disguised itself as a human,” Bai Wan said immediately. That had been bothering him from the start—why did the ghost go through the trouble of pretending to be a person?
Now it made sense: it was to bypass the statue’s detection.
The system chimed in again:
[Correct. The statue in the main hall is real. It can repel ghosts. But in this game, the ghost disguised itself as a human to fool the statue’s detection, hence, it remained undisturbed.
Therefore, the true method of clearing this game is to carry the real person, who was replaced by the ghost, out of the cabin and bring them face-to-face with the impostor. Since no two people in this world are exactly alike, the statue will recognize the false one and expel the ghost. That is the correct method of clearing the game.]
Liu Tong and the others were genuinely impressed.
That really was the intended path: find the replaced person, bring them back to the main hall, and force a confrontation. Once the statue detected the ghost’s disguise, it would eliminate it, allowing the players to clear the dungeon.
From the beginning, they’d been caught in the game’s misdirection, chasing after a useless blueprint. If they had followed the intended flow, they might’ve been in far greater danger.
Liu Tong and Zhang Wen couldn’t help but glance at Bai Wan.
Because of this strange, chaotic newcomer, the ghost had been sealed in the wall…twice. The entire process had been derailed. Nobody cared about the blueprint anymore. They were all focused on the old woman’s incredible steak.
At this moment, the two of them suddenly felt a bit sorry for the game system. What was supposed to be a serious, nerve-wracking storyline had been thoroughly derailed by Bai Wan into an absolute circus.
No wonder the game system sounded so annoyed.
The system coldly continued:
[The statue devours the ghost right before your eyes. You feel safe and relieved. But little did you know… the true terror… was the statue itself.]
Everyone’s heart skipped a beat.
The once-serene statue of Guanyin in the main hall opened its eyes.
It blinked into the center of the hall like it had teleported.
Once solemn, the statue now twisted into a grotesque grin. Its lips stretched from ear to ear, twin crescent-shaped pupils gleaming in its sockets, and thick blood oozed from its oversized ears. The statue’s bloated head creaked downward with the sound of metal scraping against metal, smiling kindly down at them.
From its back, eight twisted, shadowy arms erupted.
In an instant, the entire ghost ship fell still.
The suffocating pressure rooted Bai Wan in place. Malice so thick it was almost visible bled from the idol like a storm of black fog.
What…what the hell is this…thing? Is it even a statue anymore?
The blackened Guanyin burst through the window and soared into the sky.
What happened next would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
A thick fog blanketed the sea, and within it, an unfathomably massive figure stood in the mist—hundreds, perhaps thousands of meters tall—like a divine entity towering over the ocean, gazing disdainfully down at the world.
Drawn by some unknown force, Bai Wan and the others raised their eyes.
A faint, serene smile lingered across its features. But the moment they saw it, every nerve in their bodies shrieked in terror. Their hearts thudded uncontrollably.
Because that face—that face was exactly the same as the one on the statue.
And around that colossal figure floated numerous other idols, identical in appearance. The statue on their ship was just one of many.
Though the godlike figure’s expression radiated mercy and peace, the sheer dread gnawing at their souls said otherwise. No words were needed. That thing—it wasn’t divine.
It was a paranormal entity. An entity beyond human comprehension.
Then a thought struck them all at once.
The diary… the little girl’s words… They had seen a god… This… god.
A few moments later, the fog began to disperse. The figure vanished, leaving no trace of where it had gone.
Only then did Bai Wan and the others dare to breathe again.
At the same time, a final message echoed in their minds:
[You have cleared the Ghost Cruise dungeon. You may now exit freely. Final results will be tallied shortly. In one hour, all players will be automatically removed.]