Chapter 83 "The Little Taoist Priest": The Conjoined Sisters' Treasure Chest Murder Case...
A terrifying thing happened: a bizarre puppet theater actually appeared in the house, and all the white lanterns that had been there before suddenly lit up.
With a creak, the door behind them closed without anyone noticing. The flame licked the candlestick, illuminating the entire room with an eerie atmosphere, and the puppet's expression and posture became inexplicably aggressive.
"Game in progress, evacuation from the theater is prohibited." This means that from now on, all audience members must not leave the puppets' sight.
Of course, the system can easily summon a few more real-world teammates to come and die.
There were still six people left in Jian Dieda's theater seats that he could pull in. He used the pig-slaughtering knife and the old lady's foot-binding cloth from before, turned over the extra werewolf killing cards in the package, and several transmigrators who fell down in a sorry state appeared out of nowhere from the top of the box with an extra hole.
"Oh my god, I was just using the toilet!"
The man at the front was an acquaintance from the mountain god temple whom they had met before.
"There's more to Xiaomei's case than meets the eye. We need to team up to solve the mystery and open the boxes. As long as I clear the level, all the rewards will still be yours, as long as you can persevere to the end." — Jian Dieda typed rapidly on the tutorial panel, and the group fell silent.
Practice makes perfect, and everyone knows Jian Dieda's style now. Apart from his mysterious background, he can be described in one sentence: ruthless and taciturn, a very reliable teammate.
So, if taking this risk with Jane and Dale can yield a hefty reward from the script, then entering this bizarre theater isn't such a bad idea. Besides, they're different from NPCs; for them, 'dying' means emptying the prize pool and returning to the real world. They do have the advantages of being players.
However, the sheer horror of the circus itself startled them. The inhuman puppets on their heads looked truly bizarre. Could anyone explain whether the puppets on their heads were living people or just dummies?
The bizarre, mannequin-like limbs hanging in the air, mimicking cat's cradle and dancing, make this puppet invasion game truly terrifying.
Jane Dieda remained silent; he had already given everyone time to consider.
Jane couldn't tell anyone that besides the boss everyone thought was there, there was another hidden 'boss' in the team, just half a step away from them.
System notification: ["Congratulations on triggering the Mother Goddess bloodline event. The Witch's son, the Formless Demon, has recovered 30% of his memories, and his corruption progress has reached 15%!"]
Zhong Ding had his back to Jian Dieda, so it was impossible to see any change in his expression. The addition of other players to the team shouldn't have seemed strange to him or Bai Xiaosheng, but Jian Dieda vaguely sensed that his palm was placed sideways in front of him, and his gloomy black hair covered his face, which looked like he had just recovered from a serious illness. He was hiding some strange scales on the back of his hand.
The spoilers from the system's last episode flashed through Jian Dieda's mind, and he felt that Zhong Ding was acting strangely again.
Thinking about it carefully, it's not impossible. According to the setting, before the administrator restricted player levels and enforced real-name authentication, there were many women abandoned by players in the system in Qingyang Town. She and her children never knew that the men who disappeared never treated them as human beings.
This situation is not uncommon.
They are just a string of code.
The so-called love and actions in the game are nothing more than a walkthrough record designed by a group of humans after studying the strategy guide.
Male players only see entering Qingyang Town as a thrilling part of the dungeon.
Only the women, their memories beyond repair, became ghosts rejected by other NPCs in the game. Zhong Ding's mother was an NPC, abandoned by the players outside the game world, becoming a system bug. Therefore, something called a 'virus,' but not really, must have been passed down to him as well.
"Can you see these players? Your father, like me, comes from the real world, you know that, right?" Will these words become the fatal condition that triggers Zhong Ding's complete descent into darkness?
Once the cooldown period was over, everyone officially began to approach the puppet stage.
Like other puppets, they are bound by strings, and it seems that other conditions are required to 'trigger' the performance.
However, each of them received a personal wooden box from the very first round of entry.
Because all the boxes looked the same, Jane was the last to choose a box. After he got his, he didn't open it. Instead, he stared at the stage. Suddenly, a puppet hanging upside down fell down and landed on top of their heads.
"The circus performance and quiz are about to begin. Those who answer correctly can open the first round of treasure chests."
They were holding boxes, being stared at intently by the puppet announcer.
I felt so uncomfortable that I got goosebumps all over my body.
Bai Xiaosheng, pale-faced, looked at the box and said, "When we came in last time, we saw a photo... It showed two little girls, and they were holding props for a puppet show... And I don't know how to put it, the content of that photo... you'll understand when you see it..."
This was clearly something the system wouldn't allow Bai Xiaosheng to say. Fortunately, the terrifying photo was quickly found. On the wall, which seemed to have entered another time and space, a black and white photo from the Republican era appeared. Dusting off the dust, the old-fashioned sisters who grew up in a brothel sat in the middle of the frame. They were performing a puppet show in a Peking Opera troupe, but the puppets weren't scary.
What's chilling is that these twin sisters are conjoined twins.
Their upper bodies were fused together, and their shared legs were deformed and horribly grotesque, like tadpoles that had undergone abnormal development and grown limbs. In addition, the twin sisters' faces were also different. One little girl, with a plum blossom in her sideburns, was only eight or nine years old, but had already grown into a charming young lady. The other girl was not only very plain-looking, but also had a timid look in her eyes when she looked at her feet, and was not at all endearing.
The mysterious drop of the photo, along with a system notification, included a paintbrush to circle the truth, which seemed to be the condition for unlocking the side quest.
"Congratulations on unlocking the 'Twin Box' storyline! You can uncover clues by asking questions, but the questions must be closed-ended. Once you deduce a side clue that matches the correct answer by 80%, the team can trigger the next round of arrival storyline speculation!"
Jane Dieda's ghost story live stream has always been open to the public, and people started discussing it as soon as they saw it.
The team also started discussing it.
Everyone's 'ghost stories' have extremely high intelligence.
"One of these conjoined twins must be Xiaomei!"
"Nonsense, we can all see the relationship between these two sisters. The key is that we need to correctly deduce what happened in Xiaomei's story back then. We only have one chance to answer this question. If any of the details are wrong, your answer will be completely rejected by the system."
"...Then, what exactly happened?"
Actually, they didn't need to ask to guess that the story must be related to Xiaomei and her sister. The key question was, how did these conjoined twins become one person?
Jian Dieda is also reviewing the question.
It is known that Xiaomei was a disciple of the Peking Opera troupe, and considering the era of the photo, the little girl must be a young Xiaomei.
He also discovered that puppets appeared multiple times in the earlier part of the story, specifically in the storyline involving Master Li. Could they then deduce that Master Li met Xiao Mei while watching her performance at the Pear Garden? All the previous puppets were foreshadowing for Xiao Mei, except that at that time, Xiao Mei, who was still performing puppet shows, was not yet a girl with a normal appearance.
Jian Dieda felt his thinking had become clearer, and he proactively asked the system three questions: "Is there only one living person in this photo?"
"yes."
So, the one who has died is the younger sister, and the one who survived is Xiaomei, whom they had met before.
Jane Diedda then asked, "Does the photo show one or more perpetrators?"
"yes."
"..."
This suggests that the story behind the photo must involve one or more murders.
After a moment of silence, Jian Dieda asked his third question: "Is the fact that only one person could survive the murder depicted in the photo the reason why this happened?"
Jane Dieder's questioning order and manner were very strange.
Not to mention ordinary people, even his teammates on both sides couldn't understand it and thought that the Taoist was up to his old tricks again. But Zhong Ding didn't seem to think so. He never doubted Jian Dieda. He trusted his lover even more than he trusted himself.
The system's voice confirmed everything.
"yes."
"The direct cause of the dismemberment murder was that only one of the two people had to survive."
Some viewers in the live chat didn't understand.
"What does this mean? Sisters fighting? Is it because of jealousy?"
"Could it be that my sister is jealous of normal people? Xiaomei may look beautiful on the surface, but her heart is so wicked it's disgusting... She's practically a villainous supporting character from a fairy tale!"
"But can one of the conjoined twins live if they are separated? A living person isn't a puppet that can be pieced back together and still be used..."
...
Because the answer determines who gets to be the first to open the box.
Everyone is going back and reorganizing the clues.
With his teammates having already voted for their respective werewolves, Jian Dieda proactively asked Bai Xiaosheng, "What do you think of this case?"
Bai Xiaosheng adjusted his glasses, frowning. "Excuse me for speaking frankly, but I think... Xiaomei may have lied to everyone. From the moment we found the photos, we can deduce that she has been hiding her background. But if she hasn't done anything wrong, why would she be afraid of people knowing that she has a younger sister?"
Zhong Ding disagreed with him and was forced to interrupt: "Brother, what if she's just afraid of being discovered to be different from others?"
This was the first time he had ever shown his emotions so openly. Zhong Ding prided himself on his upbringing, but for some reason, he felt a surge of discomfort. However, there was one person who knew.
Jian Dieda remained silent, not wanting to interrupt Zhong Ding's emotional expression. Upon hearing this, Bai Xiaosheng also spread his hands, expressing his confusion: "Zhong Ding, what's wrong with you? Do you think what I said is unreasonable? But aren't Xiao Mei's actions just a sign of guilt?"
Zhong Ding was stunned. Bai Xiaosheng's eyes looked helpless, his face full of vague confusion. He looked down at the back of his hand with a strange self-mockery in his expression. "...Do you think that a person's fear of being discovered as a monster is called a guilty conscience?"
He suddenly realized that everyone, except for Master Jian, thought so.
These teammates, the people in the town, they were all normal, they had never seen conjoined twins before.
Even Bai Xiaosheng really can't put himself in that situation.
In his view, the conjoined twins Xiaomei is very likely the suspect who harmed Furongdan and Antique Zhang, and her sister might be a very dangerous vengeful ghost. One of the sisters must be the real culprit who kidnapped the children in the town.
Zhong Ding understood Bai Xiaosheng's eagerness to save people. His eyes were so dark after the light. He silently processed his discomfort and didn't say much, but the atmosphere became even stranger.
“…You’re right, yes, very right.” Zhong Ding said slowly to Bai Xiaosheng.
Zhong Ding is not usually like this, it's really unusual for him to be like this now. Bai Xiaosheng doesn't know why... and then he remembered something else.
The reason he didn't actively seek out the two companions on the street was because, after his companions disappeared, he had suspected that Zhong Ding was also related to the strange case in Qingyang Town.
Jian Dieda certainly didn't give him a chance to get close to Zhong Ding. He handed in his answer sheet, and the result was exactly 80% accuracy. But to his surprise, someone else had a higher accuracy than him this time.
This is the same guy who just insulted Xiaomei; he's also the male player I met last time.
The male player exclaimed with ecstasy, "My answer matches 81%! Host, will I be the first to open the chest? I've been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. If I beat the game, I can level up!"
This player is good at playing games all night long. He must also have unfulfilled personal wishes in real life, so this box must be his.
With a smile, the male player walked step by step toward the first treasure chest. What was inside the box was hidden by his body, but strangely enough, everyone felt a rustling sound in their ears.
Jane had a bad feeling.
Everyone has read the rulebook; logically, they should have the judgment to make that judgment.
But the first thing this person said to them after opening the box was:
"Heavens...it glows, I can touch its light...it's mine now, all mine..."
Just then, a chilling children's song started playing on the stage. Those present recognized it as one of the nursery rhymes from the night the child was abducted, called "Moon Goddess." The lyrics were roughly about not picking up things under the moonlight, otherwise they would become your substitute, or another version of you, and you would be replaced forever.
Jian Dieda said, "Fire, candles, throw them all over there, quickly burn the box, Bai Xiaosheng, hurry."
But it was too late; Bai Xiaosheng's candles could no longer be lit.
With a "ding-dong" sound, the system cut off the light source in the pitch-black room.
The rulebook said no noise was allowed, but everyone heard an extremely heart-wrenching male scream.
A strong, pungent fishy smell permeated the haunted house in the ancient town.
Bai Xiaosheng: "...I didn't mean to...the fire just won't start..."
Everyone was breathless and had already guessed what they might see next. But when a row of pale white lanterns lit up the room, the eerie light revealed a new puppet. This puppet was their teammate, whose eyes, which seemed to have been dead for a long time, were full of loose threads.
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