Chapter 15

(This, this was too wonderful.)

Upon walking up to Gu Liang, Perennial w.a.n.g froze, as though he had seen through the fact that he was a man.

But what Gu Liang did not antic.i.p.ate was that he would re-immerse himself in the act very quickly after he had caught by his misconception. “Wife, did you prepare the calming soup for me? Many thanks. I’ll drink it now.”

Gu Liang’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Don’t call me that. This isn’t a real performance and you’re not a NPC, why are you immersing yourself in the act so deeply? Furthermore…”

Furthermore, are you aware that you are the deceased in this scenario?

Hearing that, Perennial w.a.n.g gave him an exhausted smile before he sat on the wooden stool.

After a long moment, he gazed at Gu Liang. “Are you a new player? Have you only played ‘Death of Boss Bai’?”

“You’re an old player?” Gu Liang asked.

“Yes, but not exactly. I’ve been through a lot of scripts but I’ve always drifted around the simple grade scripts, and I’ve never been in contact with the higher difficulties.” Perennial w.a.n.g issued a sigh, “I’m already used to this game. As you continue to play this game, you’ll discover that immersing yourself in the role can help you forget reality, and forgetting isn’t necessarily right or wrong. You have to let yourself be immersed in the game, because if you’re too sober… you’ll go insane.”

Gu Liang did not reply and appeared noncommittal. However, his left brow raised by a smidgen and the corners of lips slanted downwards ever so slightly, revealing a faint touch of disdain; it was evident that he disagreed with Perennial w.a.n.g’s words.

Despite the imminence of his death, Perennial w.a.n.g chose to lift up the calming soup and drank a mouthful of it with perfect composure.

Unable to stop him in time, Gu Liang’s eyebrows could not help but wrinkle. “Do you know that—”

“I know that I’m the deceased tonight. After playing so many scripts, I’m already numb towards the concept of life and death. Now that it’s finally my turn to die, I feel like I’ve been exonerated instead.”

Perennial w.a.n.g smiled with abandon. Suddenly, he seemed to think of something meaningful as he told Gu Liang: “Wife, I know that there’s knockout drops inside the soup. I also know about the matter between you and Master Hui.”

“Is that so? Have you no care, despite the fact that Beauty Yi is treating you in such a manner?”

Naturally, he was unwilling to pretend to be Beauty Yi, so he avoided using the “I” word.

An inexplicable and strange smile emerged on Perennial w.a.n.g’s face. He paused, only saying: “I can’t give you spoilers blatantly. But I can give you a word of reminder: if Perennial w.a.n.g actually was a martial arts expert who had lived for several hundred years, would such a trivial knockout drug make him unconscious?”

Gu Liang did not respond. Perennial w.a.n.g shook his head and took another huge gulp of the drugged soup. “But it’s good that this soup has a knockout drug. Since that is the case, I’ll be oblivious and senseless when I’m being killed. There won’t be any pain. It’s enough.”

Perennial w.a.n.g’s words were loaded with contradictions.

Through the feigned death medicine incident in the previous scenario, Yang Ye had already verified— in this game, no matter how inconceivable something was, it was definitely tenable as long as it was stated in the script.

And in this current script’s settings, Perennial w.a.n.g was a peak master pract.i.tioner with several hundred years’ worth of cultivated internal energy, and such an expert would never be knocked out by a trivial knockout drug. Which also signified that the person in front of him should not be afraid of the knockout drops.

Why did he say such words then?

It was possible that the player acting as Perennial w.a.n.g was trying to throw his order of thinking into disarray, hence the nonsense he was speaking.

Or maybe… he said it on purpose. Was he trying to hint at something?

As Gu Liang was contemplating this point, Perennial w.a.n.g, who was drinking the drugged soup leisurely, suddenly asked him: “Right, in the ‘Death of Boss Bai’, did you find the murderer?”

“Mn,” Gu Liang nodded.

Perennial w.a.n.g gave him a thumbs up. “You must have played well then. I casted the wrong vote. I erred in my judgement, harmed a good person, and even implicated the detective. I felt so guilty I wanted to diek2026; now that it’s finally my turn, I can relieve myself of it.”

Gu Liang went silent for a moment before he asked: “Why did you vote wrongly? How did the Son Bai in your instance accomplish it?”

Perennial w.a.n.g: “In accordance with the script, he already invited Boss Bai to his room at nine in the morning and allowed Boss Bai to eat the poisoned foodstuff, right?”

Gu Liang nodded his head. “Correct. That was when the game just began.”

Perennial w.a.n.g: “The Son Bai in my instance, purposefully brought a gla.s.s of water and went to knock on Boss Bai’s door at 11:30, before he proceeded to make an encounter with the detective and have a conversation with him. He went out of his way to give himself a witness. As a new player, he was frankly amazing and very audacious; he directly pulled the detective into being his witness.”

Gu Liang understood the murderer’s playing method.

He paid special attention to the detective’s movements, and even went as far as talking to the detective in advance to lead him into strolling the second-floor corridor around 11:30. And when this happened, he could have a “chance” encounter with the detective when he went to look for Boss Bai at 11:30. That would in turn, make the detective his eyewitness for that specific time of poisoning.

The white moonlight poison needs three hours to take effect. Since that was the case, everyone would have the perception that his poison could only act up at 2:30. Meanwhile, the time of Brother Bai’s stabbing was at two o’ clock.

Gu Liang tossed him a question: “So you voted for Brother Bai?”

Perennial w.a.n.g nodded. “Yes.”

Despite maintaining a long moment of silence, Gu Liang still spoke in the end: “You’re not truly in the wrong. Sometimes, an easier script means that the murderer has more s.p.a.ce to play in.”

Perennial w.a.n.g laughed bitterly. “Thanks. The fact that there’s someone to comfort me before I die is worthwhile.”

“I have some questions I would like to ask you.” Gu Liang touched the red cord on his wrist. He asked: “How many scripts have you played, and how much do you know about this game?”

Perennial w.a.n.g replied, “I only know that everyone, more or less, has committed crimes before. At least in my case, I’ve stolen things. Additionally, it seems like whenever someone enters a scenario, it isn’t an arbitrary choice. The difficulty of the script is determined by a player’s performance during the case solving. Take me for example, I’ve always performed poorly, which is why I’ve been muddling along in the lower grade and simpler scenarios.

“I’ve also heard that this script,《Painted Skins · Long Lived》, is a comparatively harder script among all the simple ones. I only managed to reach this script after muddling around for so long. You’re not the same, you performed well, and you managed to get here after finis.h.i.+ng your first scenario.”

— Hence, this implies that if you work hard and live on, there was a possibility of clearance and leaving this game one day?

Unfortunately, Gu Liang could not extract more information from Perennial w.a.n.g because the knockout drops took effect and he promptly fell unconscious.

Gu Liang supported him to the bed and helped him lie down. After staring at him for a moment, he left the bedroom.

Following the directions shown on the map in his card, he avoided the guards of Xiaoyao Sect and arrived at a small trail leading to the guest room on the west side.

In the middle of his journey, he pa.s.sed by a fake mountain and nearly collided with the rock wall face first.

Gu Liang attributed his misdirection to a combination of complicated outside terrain and the fact that he could barely see in the dark.

But when he took out the map to check it, he realised he hadn’t walked incorrectly. The map obviously showed that there was supposed to be a shortcut here.

However, Gu Liang did not have the luxury of contemplating this discrepancy when the time his script outlined was about to arrive. Thus, he could only walk the long way around the fake mountain and continue walking in the direction of the guest room behind the rock structure.

In the end, he reached the guest room on time.

And in compliance with the map prompts, he walked up to knock on a certain guest’s room door.

It happened to be exactly zi s.h.i.+.

A male voice sounded from behind the door.

“Oh, my little lover has arrived.”

Gu Liang could not be more familiar with this voice.

Just as the door was pushed open from the inside, Gu Liang raised his eyebrows slightly. The face, which honestly deserved a punch in his opinion, came into view.

***

The bright moon was hung in the sky, and the curtain of night was heavy.

A lantern hung under the eaves; the light seeped through a decorative and carved wooden fretwork of a beauty from a traditional Chinese painting, illuminating the person under it, whose face looked like it was carved out of exquisite jade, and it even fell into those tea coloured eyes.

In that instance, Yang Ye was a little stupefied.

“You… it’s you?”

“It’s me. It’s a pity that it wasn’t some pretty looking lady who could be your lover.”

Gu Liang walked around him and entered the room.

The room the monk was staying in was more crude and simpler by comparison, since there were only a few long benches and a wooden bed.

Gu Liang randomly picked up a wooden bench and sat down. Raising his eyelids, he took another glance at Yang Ye. Despite trying to hold it back, he still laughed in the end. “You look quite good with a bald head. Did the men in black shave it for you? Hm? Where are your gla.s.ses?”

Truth to be told, Yang Ye hadn’t recovered his senses in the least.

Gu Liang was wearing a long red robe, the ends of his black hair was dragging along the floor and his eyes were limpid and cold; his entire person had the taste of a celestial being with flesh of ice and bones of jade featured in paintings. He even possessed a slightly demonic disposition, which formed a bizarre harmony with his simple and unadorned appearance.

—This, this is too enigmatic.

Yang Ye had the habit of adjusting his gla.s.ses, and it was only then that he reacted to the fact that he did not have any gla.s.ses to adjust. Thus, he touched his nose conveniently. “The men in black were considerate, they even prepared contact lenses for me.”

Huh, they were truly something.

Gu Liang raised his eyebrows while nodding slightly. After a moment, he realised that Yang Ye was still staring at him.

Instinctively, Gu Liang could feel that Yang Ye was finding some pretext to poke fun at the fact that he was wearing a female costume.

Gu Liang asked him: “Why do you keep staring at me?”

Yang Ye walked up to sit in front of him and continued staring at him at a closer distance. “Because you’re good to look at.”

“Is that so? Red clothes and long hair dead in the night, you probably think I look like a ghost.”

“If you were Nie Xiao Qian, I don’t mind being Ning Cai Chen once.”

“Quit making jokes at my expense. What comes around, goes around; you’ll be the one wearing a female costume next.”

“Huh? You think I’m making a joke about you?”

“What else?”

He had never seen a man complimenting another man for his good looks. If he wasn’t running on a bank of jokes currently, what was it?

Pink scarf, wearing female costumes… It was obvious that he was not feminine by any means, so why was he being slapped with these labels whenever he was in Yang Ye’s company?

Tch, he’s truly unromantic.

Yang Ye let out a soft sigh as he propped his arms up on the table to look at him. “Nothing really. I didn’t think that I would get to meet you again. It’s quite fortuitous.”

On the other hand, Gu Liang stood up again to survey the room from left to right, and chanced upon the camera and notebook sitting on the wooden shelf by the bed.

This room was too simple and crude. Yang Ye could not hide these items even if he tried because the room was not even furnished with a cupboard.

“You’re the detective again?”

“You’re right on that count.”

“Congratulations.”

“Hey, my face is black, but I have no choice.”

Yang Ye rubbed his nose and looked at him smilingly. “So, are you the murderer, Beauty Yi?”

Gu Liang turned his head back with an exceedingly bland gaze. “Call me Gu Liang.”

“Sure. Gu Liang, Liang Liang, are you the murderer?”

“Liang Liang?” Gu Liang raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t know the source?”

“I don’t, what does it signify?”

“……”

Yang Ye sauntered up to him. He could not help but ask: “No way, are you living in the modern era? Don’t you go on Weibo or the internet?”

“I go on the internet to read the news. Weibo, not so much.” It was unknown if Gu Liang recalled something awful that had happened to him in the past but his complexion changed in an instant. The smile in his eyes disappeared without a trace and his tea-coloured eyes darkened.

Observing the strange difference in his expression, Yang Ye did not pursue the topic any further and only chose to pat him on the shoulder. “There’s no hidden meaning in the source, it’s just the name of a song.”

“En,” Gu Liang nodded before he glanced back at Yang Ye. “Either way, I have a feeling I’m not the murderer. And this instance’s case might be more peculiar. Considering how the methods of killing will involve some abstruse fantasy elements and how the leads might not be as direct, we’ll need to rely on our imagination to make deductions.”

“You’re already starting to help me?” Yang Ye wrapped both his arms around his chest, smiling.

Gu Liang tossed him a strange look in reply before he s.h.i.+fted his gaze towards the only bed in the room.

His expression was serious, seemingly deep in contemplation.

T/N: To the comments that questioned if Yang Ye was Perennial w.a.n.g and dead. No, he’s the monk and bald x)