Chapter 31: Deadly Room Number (Part 11)

Shen Qingqiu kept looking at her with amusement in her eyes, yet beneath that amusement lay the same complex, indescribable feeling. She couldn’t understand Xiao Muyu’s inexplicable trust, but at that moment, Shen Qingqiu indeed gave the reaction she wanted. In fact, she felt happy about that trust, and this happiness didn’t stem from achieving something she had expected to gain.

Once they finished explaining, the system announced again: “Congratulations to player Xiao Muyu for successfully completing the side quest and receiving a hidden reward: Stopwatch.”

Stopwatch
Rarity: A
Acquisition method: Triggering the sixth round of the Deadly Rooms has a low probability of dropping the item.
Item description: A stopwatch for timing. Pausing the stopwatch will freeze time in that space for ten seconds. Every member will remain still except for the user. Do not underestimate these ten seconds; they are enough for you to die several times, or to save yourself several times. Please use it wisely. This item is rare, and cannot be sought after.
Usage limit: 6 times
Cooldown time: 24 hours!

Xiao Muyu felt her heart skip a beat as she read the item details. The ability to freeze time for ten seconds made the stopwatch a life-saving tool. Although this item was rated A, having six uses with a one-day cooldown was already incredibly powerful.

Chen Kaijie and the other two hadn’t yet fully grasped what just happened. The moment they heard the system’s announcement, and saw the item Xiao Muyu had drawn, they were shocked. This item was truly ingenious; it could be a lifeline at a critical moment.

Chen Kaijie couldn’t hide the envy in his eyes, but he quickly pulled himself together. Although it wasn’t he who had obtained it, Xiao Muyu was still a reassuring presence in their group. Even if Xiao Muyu always seemed cold and distant, Chen Kaijie felt she wasn’t someone who would ignore others in peril. More importantly, this system announcement was enough to indicate that Shen Qingqiu hadn’t made the wrong choice earlier.

After Xiao Muyu received the item, Shen Qingqiu walked over with a smile in her eyes. It was rare for her usually cold face to show such a complex emotion, and as Shen Qingqiu reached her, Xiao Muyu softly said, “Thank you.”

Shen Qingqiu curled her lips slightly and stared at her with a slight shift in her gaze. “You’ve thanked me many times already.”

Xiao Muyu pressed her lips together, then reached out and handed the item she had just drawn to Shen Qingqiu. “I don’t have much to give you, but I got this with your help. Take it, as repayment for your favor.”

While Shen Qingqiu was still stunned, Xiao Muyu stuffed the card into her hand and immediately turned away to inspect what she had noticed on Ni De’s portrait earlier.

Shen Qingqiu glanced at the A-grade card in her hand, and the smile on her face completely disappeared—she was not happy. Shen Qingqiu raised her head and gave a sweeping glance at Chen Kaijie, who was staring in disbelief at the item in her hand.

Chen Kaijie quickly averted his gaze as Shen Qingqiu turned and walked to Xiao Muyu’s side.

She handed the card back and sneered. “This one thing is not enough to repay a favor like mine. We cleared the quest together. You may have triggered it, but had we failed, you wouldn’t have been the only one to pay the price. By helping you, I was also helping myself.”

Xiao Muyu looked at the item in her hand, her brows furrowing. She lifted her head to look at Shen Qingqiu, and in those gray eyes, there was none of the usual playful wit. Instead, they were dark and indifferent, and a slight heaviness settled in Xiao Muyu’s heart.

“Tell me, do you or do you not trust me?”

Shen Qingqiu’s gaze had already fallen on the right wrist of the person in the portrait. Her voice was low and cold, with a hint of mockery, making Xiao Muyu feel somewhat uncomfortable.

The discomfort stemmed from the fact that Shen Qingqiu had hit the mark. Deep down, Xiao Muyu was indeed wary of Shen Qingqiu. Encountering Shen Qingqiu twice in this world in such a short time was too much of a coincidence. Moreover, Shen Qingqiu’s attitude toward her was too strange. Yet, in moments of life and death, Xiao Muyu unconsciously found herself trusting her.

Just like earlier, she had no confidence at all in convincing Chen Kaijie and the other two, so she simply conveyed her intentions to Shen Qingqiu, and had her intimidate them instead. Just as Chen Kaijie had said, this was completely reckless behavior.

If she had more time to think, she definitely wouldn’t have acted so carelessly. However, this was one of those situations where there was no ‘if’.

Shen Qingqiu didn’t expect an answer from her, her gaze already fixed on the overly subtle mark. She rubbed it with her hand—it wasn’t a stain; it was indeed a pattern.

“You saw this just now, and that’s what triggered the side-quest?” Shen Qingqiu, seemingly no longer caught up in the previous emotions, asked Xiao Muyu.

Xiao Muyu nodded and had no choice but to put the card away.

“What is it? Looks like an ‘H’. Is it a letter or a symbol?” Chen Kaijie and the others gathered around to take a look. One by one, they examined it, and confirmed it was indeed in the shape of an ‘H’.

At that moment, Su Jin’s urgent voice came through: “There’s one here too!”

The five of them immediately turned their heads in unison to look at Su Jin. Xiao Muyu was about to go over, but in the corner of her eye, she noticed the others had stiffened.

‘There are five?’

Xiao Muyu wasn’t the only one. Shen Qingqiu and the others also realized something was wrong, as their expressions all froze in shock.

Su Jin’s initially delighted expression quickly turned to terror when she saw the five people across from her. Over there…

Xiao Muyu immediately stepped back—there was another Su Jin behind them!

“Is there no end to this?” Chen Kaijie was overwhelmed with confusion.

“Who… who’s the real one?” Zuo Tiantian was completely dumbfounded.

They really couldn’t remember whether Su Jin had initially been standing with them, or had walked away.

“Do we have to guess again?”

Xiao Muyu frowned, glancing at the two completely identical Su Jins. Neither of them was frozen like she had been earlier. Xiao Muyu thought of something and then uttered two words firmly: “Sword, come!”

This mysterious command made Chen Kaijie think she was about to summon a sword. They were wondering where Xiao Muyu had even gotten a sword, when the Su Jin standing on their side suddenly had a peach wood sword appear in her hand.

This sword originally belonged to Wang Yushan, and then was given to Su Jin previously. The summoning command for this peach wood sword was: “Sword, come!”

The peach wood sword had passed from Wang Yushan to Su Jin, but wasn’t bound to her yet. As long as Su Jin didn’t reject, someone else could summon the sword.

When the sword appeared, Su Jin froze for a moment before immediately swinging it toward the mirror image. Shen Qingqiu swiftly locked onto the target and, without hesitation, eliminated the other one. Fake Su Jin went back into the portrait on the wall without fuss.

“Are these fakes gonna come at us in waves?” Chen Kaijie barely finished speaking when the system interrupted.

“To obtain a key clue for clearing the round, please identify your companions correctly. If you fail, the clue will be erased! You have one minute for each time.”

The veins on Chen Kaijie’s forehead bulged in frustration. “Couldn’t you explain the game rules all at once? We’ve gone through this twice already, and you only decide to inform us now?”

The system fell silent for a moment, and then its voice sounded oddly muffled.

“Players have completed the side-quest before the system could make an announcement.”

Chen Kaijie: ……

He turned to look at Xiao Muyu, momentarily at a loss for words. She had actually managed to catch the system off guard.

What followed was a series of appearances. Both Zuo Tiantian and Chen Kaijie were mentally prepared. After going through so many challenges together, the group had developed a certain understanding and rapport with one another. When Chen Kaijie spoke, he purposefully muddled things up by attributing Shen Qingqiu’s actions to Xiao Muyu, while Zuo Tiantian went even further, directly claiming she was the person from the portrait, taking the complete opposite approach.

The portrait ghosts could mimic people, peer into their memories, even imitate their speech patterns and behavior down to every detail. However, they hadn’t yet learned the complexities and subtleties of human interactions.

The enormous carousel lantern continued to spin, and the fire burning atop it perfectly illuminated the eight portraits on the walls.

Out of the eight portraits, only Shen Qingqiu’s remained completely still, which made Xiao Muyu and the others feel a vague sense of unease.

“What’s going on? Weren’t we supposed to identify our companions? Why isn’t Miss Shen’s portrait following the usual pattern?” Chen Kaijie’s eyes were filled with tension, and both Xiao Muyu and Shen Qingqiu knew exactly what was making him nervous.

“Seven portraits have already come to life. Are you guys sure we’ve gathered all the clues?” Shen Qingqiu asked in a low voice, and kept staring at her own portrait ahead.

Every time a portrait came to life and then returned to the wall, a symbol would appear on the wrist, which was likely the clue they were looking for.

“In order, the letters are H, N, F, K, C, CA, I.” Xiao Muyu recited the letters they had gathered from the seven portraits. A headache began to throb in her forehead.

If these symbols were letters, they would form no recognizable word. She had even considered their positions in the alphabet, but that didn’t seem to make sense either. The strangest thing was that on Zuo Tiantian’s painting, the symbol was two letters—CA.

Just as Xiao Muyu finished speaking, the carousel lantern, which had been rotating clockwise, suddenly stopped, then began spinning rapidly in the opposite direction. The central flame started to sway violently.

As the tension mounted, the lantern abruptly stopped. While the five of them struggled to regain their balance, there was a loud boom, and the wall with Shen Qingqiu’s portrait suddenly swung open.

“So, Miss Shen is the way out?” Su Jin murmured unsurely.

The group stared at the newly revealed exit, exchanging confused glances, but it gave them hope. Xiao Muyu walked over, stood at the exit, and peered outside. Her heart instantly began to tremble with shock.

The astonishment in her eyes was clear to Shen Qingqiu and the others, prompting them to look out as well. The moment they did, they also froze in place.

They seemed to be in a boundless place with no end in sight, floating in the vast emptiness of the universe. Enormous carousel lanterns, like stars in this cosmic void, floated in the darkness, acting as the only sources of light. There was no end above, and no handholds below. It stretched endlessly in all directions.

Near and far, the carousel lanterns, each large enough to hold over ten people, gradually shrank in size, and in the farthest distance, only a faint red glow remained.

There were dimly lit pathways connecting the lanterns, like interweaving spider silk, or red lines on a crime board. The scene resembled the endless array of lanterns hung along the ancient streets of Chang’an—magnificent and dazzling, yet strangely unsettling.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” Zuo Tiantian murmured, momentarily forgetting the dangerous place they were in, her eyes filled with awe. It was truly beautiful here.

But Xiao Muyu quickly snapped out of the magnificent, romantic landscape. Her gaze became heavy as she focused on the narrow path ahead, which could only accommodate one person at a time.

She took a deep breath and was the first to step onto it. The path was stable, but its edges blended into the surrounding darkness, and walking on it, while suspended in midair, put significant pressure on her.

“Just a reminder, no one knows what’ll happen if you fall.” Xiao Muyu’s calm voice pulled Zuo Tiantian and Su Jin back from their dreamlike state to reality. Her words were not easy to hear, causing their expressions to darken, yet they had to muster their spirits and move forward.

The five of them formed a line, stepping one by one onto the pathway that would lead them to an unknown destination, and whatever awaited them there.

Once they left, the carousel lantern behind them immediately closed. From above, the entire space looked down on them, and they appeared like small grasshoppers on a string, reduced to five tiny dots slowly moving along that red line.

Xiao Muyu, who was at the front, couldn’t shake the feeling that she had forgotten something. Unable to help herself, she glanced back at her companions. The four behind her were still following closely, with no one missing.

The path stretched for more than two hundred meters, and by the time they saw the carousel lantern ahead, the door was already open.

“Are we going in?” Su Jin’s heart was racing. It was another carousel lantern, and despite being so close, they couldn’t see what was inside.

“We don’t have a choice.”

Shen Qingqiu remained calm, accompanying Xiao Muyu as they stepped inside. The remaining three didn’t linger either, and once they entered, the door closed behind them.

Behind them, at the other end of the path they had come from, a tall woman appeared. She held a dagger in her hand, her gaze fixed intently on the direction the five had gone, and her gray pupils gradually turned red under the lantern light.

---

Author had something to say:

Xiao Xiao: I hate myself; I’m all talk and no action!
Xiao Shen: As long as I like you, that’s enough.
Xiao Xiao: I’ll change.
Xiao Shen: Look, here we go again.