Outrageous. Utterly, jaw-droppingly outrageous.

But this very outrageousness seemed to tickle a strange, perverse sense of amusement in the onlookers.

“What else do you want to know, you crazy woman!” The old man clearly wasn’t operating under the delusion that she was joking. Even if she didn’t follow through, the terrifying brute lurking behind her most certainly would!

The list of things Ding Yi wanted to know stretched longer than a politician’s promises. If she truly started asking, they’d be here until the roosters crowed, and then some.

“Where is that famed oiled paper umbrella?” The question cut through the tense air.

“I don’t know!” The old man’s voice was a panicked squeak, his agitation even more palpable than the previous day. “I honestly don’t know! That’s ancient history, stuff from hundreds of years ago! How in the blazes would I know?”

Hundreds of years ago, huh?

Ding Yi chewed on these words, her brow furrowed in thought. She subtly nudged Qin Yuan’s arm with her elbow. He caught her drift immediately, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face as he toyed with the seal, as if it were the most fascinating trinket imaginable.

“I really don’t know! I swear, I have no idea!” The old man’s voice rose to a frantic pitch, blood now trickling freely from his abused nose. He’d encountered his fair share of oddballs in his long, miserable existence, but these two… were in a league of their own, each seemingly more unhinged than the last.

The old man’s increasingly desperate screams and pleas evoked a complicated mix of emotions in the silent observers.

Putting aside the sheer audacity of witnessing it firsthand, they’d never even heard whispers of a Wisher brazenly threatening an NPC with the sweet embrace of permanent death within a trial instance. The sheer gall of it was almost… impressive in a twisted sort of way.

“Ask something else! Anything! I’ll tell you everything I know, I swear!” The old man’s promise was a desperate, whimpering plea.

Qin Yuan’s eyes flicked towards Ding Yi, a silent question: stamp him now, or let him ramble on a bit more? His expression suggested he was equally entertained either way.

Ding Yi idly twirled the old man’s pipe between her fingers, a thoughtful expression on her face. “But you see, the problem is, you’ll probably lie through your teeth. And I wouldn’t have a clue whether what you’re spewing is truth or utter nonsense…”

“If there’s even a single fib in anything I tell you from this moment on, may I be struck down by a vengeful god and suffer a truly agonizing demise!” The old man’s dramatic pronouncement hung in the air, thick with desperation.

Ding Yi opened her mouth to reply, but with a decisive movement, Qin Yuan retrieved his seal. “Alright, enough games. Ask him directly.” His tone left no room for further debate.

The old man was clearly about as trustworthy as a politician’s promises, but Ding Yi found herself strangely willing to put her faith in Qin Yuan’s judgment.

Cutting straight to the chase, she asked, “Those female memorial tablets in the ancestral hall… how did they all die?”

The old man, who had been squirming and whimpering, suddenly stilled. His face underwent a bizarre transformation, a flicker of intense fear replacing the earlier panic. His struggles intensified. “Can’t say!” he choked out.

“Can’t say!” The words were almost a sob.

He seemed genuinely terrified of something. His aged features began to contort, the early signs of some grotesque mutation flickering across his skin. But before this transformation could take hold, Qin Yuan’s fist connected with the old man’s jaw with a sickening thwack, silencing him once more.

Qin Yuan’s voice was utterly devoid of emotion. “Change the question.”

Ding Yi glanced at the hand that had just delivered the brutal punch, then at the old man’s slightly more sunken cheek. She cleared her throat. “You mentioned yesterday that the town mayor is Chen Jinsheng. So why isn’t his memorial tablet in the ancestral hall?”

“That damned sinner! Deserves to be ground into dust and scattered to the winds! Still wants to pollute the ancestral hall after death? I spit on him! Letting his wretched bones rot in the graveyard is already the greatest kindness we ever showed him!” The old man’s voice was thick with vehement hatred.

“How do I get to this graveyard?” Ding Yi’s question was direct and to the point.

“…The small path… right next to the ancestral hall. Just… follow it up.” The old man spat out a mouthful of blood, the crimson staining his chin.

“And how do I find the town mayor’s grave specifically?”

The old man spat again, a grimace of pain contorting his already ruined features. “Go to the graveyard… start counting from the very first grave you see. Walk straight in. The eighth one. That’s his.”

“No tombstone?” Ding Yi pressed.

“Humph.” The old man clearly wanted to unleash a torrent of sarcastic remarks, but a wary glance at Qin Yuan’s ever-present hand and the menacing pipe in Ding Yi’s hand stopped him short. He swallowed his frustration with a visible gulp. “No. Just… mounds of dirt.”

“Then how are you supposed to know who’s who?” Ding Yi tilted her head, a hint of genuine curiosity in her voice.

“How would I not know?!” The old man’s voice was sharp with annoyance. “The eighth one! The eighth one! How many times do I have to say it, you dimwit!”

“Alright, alright, I get it.” Ding Yi held up her hands in mock surrender.

She glanced up at the sky, then deliberately tucked the old man’s pipe into the collar of his tattered shirt. Turning, she picked up the heavy stone she’d used the previous day. Seeing this, Qin Yuan smoothly tossed the bloodied seal at her feet.

The stone landed with a dull thud, and another seal shattered into so many pieces that it would take a miracle to reassemble it.

“You—!” The old man choked, a strangled gasp caught in his throat, sending a fresh wave of pain through his battered body.

“Might as well check if he’s got any more of these little trinkets on him,” Ding Yi said to Qin Yuan, her tone utterly casual.

“No more!” the old man shrieked, his voice cracking. “What do you think this is, some kind of worthless junk sale?!”

Ding Yi offered an innocent shrug. “Just being thorough.”

“Well, I think we’re done here for today,” Ding Yi announced, placing the stone back where she’d found it. She clapped her hands together, a bright, almost cheerful smile gracing her lips as she waved goodbye to the thoroughly traumatized old man. “I’ll be sure to pop by again if anything else pops into my head.”

“You’ll be right here tomorrow, holding court at the shop entrance, right? See you then!” Her cheerful farewell was almost surreal.

Spectators: What in the actual hell? See you tomorrow?!

The old man’s strangled “get out” had already formed on the tip of his tongue, but one look at the implacable figure of Qin Yuan standing silently behind Ding Yi forced him to swallow it down hard. Instead, he vented his impotent rage on the nearest inanimate object, kicking his small stool with such force that it splintered into pieces.

It wasn’t just the old man who felt like his sanity was slowly unraveling.

Not far from their bizarre exchange, the copy supervisor who had generously granted himself invisibility, 0723, was rapidly approaching a full-blown meltdown.

Ever since he’d received the soul-crushing news that the instance he was assigned to babysit was none other than the boss’s first disciplinary rodeo, he’d already resigned himself to the inevitable blare of the alarm. Hope had long since fled.

But he hadn’t anticipated that the boss wouldn’t be the only monumental pain in the backside in this particular hellscape.

Who in the blazes could explain where that woman had crawled out from?!

Threatening and physically assaulting NPCs?! In broad daylight?!

This… this… this was beyond the norm!

Utterly flabbergasted, 0723 shoved his perpetually slipping sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose, desperately trying to wrangle his fractured sanity back into some semblance of order.

Yesterday, he’d had a vague inkling that this newcomer was… different. But she hadn’t been this unhinged yesterday. He’d actually seen her engaging in what appeared to be normal human interaction – talking, even laughing.

Well, a newbie who could still manage coherent conversation and even laughter upon entering this delightful realm was either blessed with extraordinary fortitude or was certifiably insane.

Having observed her antics all day today… the diagnosis was clear.

This woman wasn’t just crazy; she possessed a certain… effectiveness in her madness.

How these two walking disasters had managed to find each other was a cosmic mystery that 0723 didn’t even want to begin to unravel.

To say the situation was strange was a monumental understatement. It had been bizarre from the moment Qin Yuan, the veritable apex predator of rule-breaking managers, had been assigned to this measly C-level instance. For managers who flagrantly disregarded regulations, the main AI usually slapped them with A-level punishment instances, the digital equivalent of a medieval torture chamber.

Oiled Paper Umbrella was originally a C-level cakewalk. It was only bumped up to a precarious A-level status because the punished manager decided to grace it with his presence.

0723 glanced at the light screen, flickering a frantic red in his hand. He gritted his teeth with a grimace, resolutely pretending he didn’t see the imminent system meltdown, and shoved the offending device deep into his pocket. He had a sinking premonition that this bizarre interaction with the old man would be the least outrageous thing these two lunatics would do.

Of course, the boss had to be aware of the escalating chaos. He was the direct overlord of all supervisors, the grand poobah of all administrators, even if he always… well, he had to know. If 0723 dared to issue a warning at this juncture, the boss would likely flay him alive with a digital rubber chicken.

Just as 0723 was silently chanting his mantra of “I see nothing, I know nothing,” his gaze, through the thin, tinted lenses of his sunglasses, inexplicably met Qin Yuan’s.

Even though he was cloaked in invisibility, a trick even seasoned Wishers couldn’t penetrate, Qin Yuan definitely couldn’t see him.

But he still broke out in a cold sweat at that piercing, knowing look.

Great. He’d survived another day. By the skin of his teeth and a healthy dose of willful ignorance.

Back at the inn, Ding Yi headed straight for the second floor. As she passed the room at the foot of the stairs, she noticed that the gruesome bloodstains that had overflowed from under the door had vanished. Behind the now slightly ajar door, the scene was clean and tidy, as if the morning’s horrifying discovery had been nothing more than a vivid nightmare.

Ding Yi didn’t linger, a shiver still tracing its way down her spine. She returned to her room and carefully retrieved the thick book she had tucked into her waistband.

“I’m so sorry, Sister!” Yan Ming, who had just entered the room and witnessed her pulling out the dusty tome, exclaimed, his face a mixture of guilt and concern. He began to backpedal, intending to give her privacy, but was effectively blocked by Qin Yuan, who was just stepping into the doorway.

“I’m really, really sorry!” Yan Ming stammered again, his eyes darting nervously between Ding Yi and the book.

“It’s alright, no biggie. Want to come over and decipher this ancient book with me?” Ding Yi waved a dismissive hand, then settled into a cross-legged position on the floor, the book open in her lap. “Qingping News,” she read aloud, the title surprisingly straightforward.

The traditional characters weren’t overly simplified and weren’t too obscure either. She could usually glean its meaning from the surrounding context if she stumbled upon a particularly enigmatic word.

The book wasn’t particularly thick, but every page was crammed with dense columns of text, demanding considerable focus and brainpower to decipher a single page.

However, the initial dozen or so pages were a dry recounting of Qingping’s early history, stretching back hundreds of years to the very beginnings of written records. Interestingly, Qingping hadn’t yet embraced the art of crafting oiled paper umbrellas even in those ancient times.

Ding Yi skimmed through this historical preamble, her eyes scanning for key terms, until the familiar three characters for “oiled paper umbrella” finally appeared. By this point in the narrative, the town mayor had already changed hands four times.