"Check this paper and see if it’s your dad’s handwriting," Li Cheng handed the paper to Xiao Feng, who inspected it carefully and shook his head firmly, "No, this isn’t how my dad writes."
"Alright, it would have been simpler if it was." Li Cheng sighed, "Let’s keep looking for other papers in the room. Just a birth date won’t make Zhao Xinglang this agitated. There must be more content."
Yu Anjian was flipping through the books on the bookshelf and said, "This old paper and its writing are clearly not from the past two years. Could it be related to the Jianghu alchemist mentioned by old Feng ten years ago?"
Bai Zhi shook her head and pulled open a drawer in the bookshelf, "Xiao Feng was only twelve ten years ago, right? Back then, there wasn’t any killing field game, nor were Jianghu fortune-tellers that accurate, predicting he would marry a wife with a specific birth date?"
"Maybe they really are that accurate? I saw an ad just a while ago," Li Cheng suddenly changed his tone, reciting in a magnetic voice, "Fate is destined; happiness is your own. Want to know your love compatibility? Text your names, like ’Guo Jing + Huang Rong,’ to XXXXX, and you’ll find out the answer."
Yu Anjian twitched the corner of his eye and couldn’t help but tease, "That’s way too old school, man. You are showing your age!"
"Really? Then what I saw on TV must have been ’The internet pulls the strings of destiny, cherish this connection. Click the online link with your mouse, check your love fortune. True love might just be in the bunk above you.’"
Yu Anjian twitched his eye again, "Since when does a TV have a mouse? And what’s with the bunk above? Something’s not right here."
"Still searching for love? That’s so out. Why not download apps like Momo, Tantan, Soul, Night Talk, Nearby Friends..."
"Hey hey, is this skipping straight from blind dates to flirting after repeated failures?" Yu Anjian felt a cold sweat forming on his forehead, "What’s next? The community committee hanging banners in the neighborhood warning everyone not to engage in intimate chats with strangers online to avoid scams?"
"Ha ha ha, how could that be? Nowadays everyone has the anti-fraud app installed." Li Cheng stopped his search and pushed up his glasses, "Hmm... so there’s really no other paper to be found in the study?"
"Possibility one, Zhao Xinglang saw the complete clue somewhere else, got too excited, and brought only one piece of paper here. Possibility two, he brought the complete clue, but the person he spoke with took away the rest of the paper."
Li Cheng analyzed, "Considering the fresh burn marks on the edge of the paper, it’s unlikely Zhao Xinglang burned it himself. I’m more inclined to believe the second explanation.
That is, someone burnt the paper to destroy evidence but didn’t burn it completely, and Zhao Xinglang saw it, leading to a series of events.
Moreover, from Zhao Xinglang’s last phone call, we know he was aware that this person would harm the Feng family, especially little Feng.
Now the question is, who is that person, how did they kill Zhao Xinglang, what is the missing content on the paper, and where was the paper burned.
If I’m not mistaken, by following him, we should be able to find the clue."
He walked out of the study towards the hall. The hurried footsteps "thud, thud, thud" came from the second floor again.
Just like Zhao Xinglang caught in a loop of death, Wang Beipo also repeated the actions from his life, running past the second floor once more.
Li Cheng pushed off the railing and flipped onto the second floor, chasing after Wang Beipo as he ran forward.
The others followed behind, and, feeling that the two ordinary people were running too slowly, Yu Anjian simply carried Xiao Feng, while Bai Zhi picked up Xiao Feng’s wife and child.
Wang Beipo ran as if he knew the destination well, sprinting straight to the middle of the corridor, crashing into the wall.
The living image seemed only to record the person’s movements, not the effects of those movements. In everyone’s view, Wang Beipo went straight through the wall.
Or more accurately, through a hidden door disguised as a wall.
Li Cheng approached and felt along the wall, indeed discovering subtle differences in depth. He pressed hard along the edge of the indented area and pushed open the secret door.
Inside was a space neither big nor small. The walls were strung with masks, ancient coins, brushes, paper fans, and other items connected by hemp rope. A pile of bones drenched in blood lay in the corner, and a collection of extinguished candles were placed on the floor. In the middle of the candles was a nearly two-meter-long redwood coffin, half-open.
The image of Wang Beipo looked extremely tense. He flipped his hand, took out a long-handled axe from the void, and chopped at the coffin with all his might.
Just as the axe was about to strike, the real Wang Beipo shuddered—the image showed something piercing through his chest from behind, crushing his heart, causing his body to stiffen and slowly fall forward onto the ground.
In the living image, Wang Beipo’s body quickly disintegrated into liquid, leaving only a blurry flesh-covered skull that merged with the blood and bones in the corner.
The image ended there, and the loop began anew.
Li Cheng squatted down, dipped his fingers inside the skull, and felt the temperature of the blood, "It’s still warm; the time of death is very recent, almost the same as Zhao Xinglang’s."
He turned to look at Xiao Feng, "Did you know about this secret room?"
Feng was shocked and frightened, shaking his head, "I don’t know. Ever since Mom passed away, I only come back once a year during Chinese New Year."
Bai Zhi reached out to hold the door so that the secret chamber’s hidden door wouldn’t close completely. Covering her mouth and nose, she questioned: "How did Wang Beipo find this place?"
"It’s hard to say, he may have used some detection skill after being attacked. It’s also possible that during his leisure walk, by analyzing the house’s dimensions, the thickness of the wall panels, the length of the corridors and other data, he deduced that this villa contained a hidden room—he had been in this villa half a day longer than us."
Li Cheng glanced at the axe covered by the melted remains of Wang Beipo’s body. In the Slaughter Field Game, when the holder dies, the binding status of the equipment props is interrupted, allowing any player to see its attributes and add it to their Backpack.
This axe was a Rare Quality Weapon, with a Special Effect of Consuming Physical Value to launch a powerful cleave. It requires a Strength Attribute of at least 10 points.
Based on the player forum’s recommended attribute points allocation, Wang Beipo’s Level was at least Lv8, and possibly even Lv9.
Such an expert dying so unexpectedly can only prove that the thing that killed him was definitely not some Ordinary curse.
Li Cheng swept past the corpse and looked towards the coffin in the middle of the candle pile.
The coffin was half-open with rusty iron nails nailed on the lid. Judging by the corrosion of the nails, they had been there for quite a few years.
As for the inside of the coffin, there were fragments of clothes, a copper basin, and the dried stains left by the highly decayed body. No bones were seen.
"This is my mom’s coffin..." Feng said with difficulty, recalling the scene at the time of the funeral, "She wasn’t cremated back then."
By rights, the modern cremation regulations are to burn completely, but wealthy families like the Feng family can always find a way.
"Your mother was quite healthy and could even open the coffin herself."
Li Cheng tapped the coffin lid with some emotion, "Judging from the twisted angles of the nails, the scattered wood chips, the color of the holes in the side panels of the coffin, and the corroded marks around the wooden holes, the coffin has been opened twice.
The first time was opened from the outside, then re-nailed with the original old nails. That was within one or two months.
The second time was forcefully opened from the inside. Very recently, probably today.
In other words, your mom rose from the coffin resurrected."
This sentence, which at a glance might sound like an insult, was quite fitting here. Feng was speechlessly at a loss, unable to imagine why all this would happen.
"Resurrecting a corpse that’s been dead for several years..."
As though snapping back to realization, "This isn’t logical, the soul has been dispersed for so long, and even with a Perfect Quality large bottle of Healing Potion, it wouldn’t be possible. Unless it’s the Hidden Room’s Wish Room or the Dead River. Whether those two places even exist is still a question. Could it be Dead Spirit spells?"
"Let’s open it and see."
Li Cheng pushed open the coffin lid, took out chopsticks, and began sifting through the contents.
The fragments of clothing were undoubtedly from a woman’s funeral gown, soaked in corpse oil after many years. The copper basin, however, was relatively new, with ashes at the bottom and signs of being scorched around the basin.
Li Cheng stirred the ashes with chopsticks and picked out the only piece of yellow paper that had not been completely burned.
The material of the yellow paper was the same as the one from the study, with "Supreme Cave Destiny Changing Scripture" written on the front, and on the back "...For those who suffer from misfortune and calamity, they may find a relative or friend with profound fortune and rare destiny, ****, and thereby Deceive Heaven and Change Fate, extend life and vitality, eradicate all illnesses, and even reach Taiyin Refining, Corpse Disintegration, Body Transformation..."
A segment of the text in the middle was deliberately smeared out with ink.
The general meaning was that if someone is plagued by adversity, they could choose a suitable person from their relatives or friends and use some method to change fate, eliminate diseases, extend their life, and even transcend life and death.
The storyline was gradually becoming clear: someone was deceived by the so-called "Supreme Cave Destiny Changing Scripture," foolishly attempting to resurrect the long-dead lady of the Feng family, but the result was contrary to their wishes and turned into a tragedy.
Zhao Xinglang must have seen the unburned piece of paper in the wooden coffin, realized the truth, ran to confront that person, and ended up meeting his own demise.
"If you want to know the answer, there’s probably only one way."
With that said, Li Cheng took out a timed explosive from the Backpack and threw it into the coffin.
Heavy footsteps with a sticky feeling came from the corridor, clearly different from Wang Beipo’s footsteps when he was alive.
All three players realized this at the same time, drew their swords silently, and stepped out of the hidden door.
In the corridor, a skinless bloody corpse, its tendons exposed, holding in its hand the head of the villa’s nanny who died with eyes wide open, was slowly advancing. This text is hosted at ɴovelfire.net