Chapter 13: The Severed Finger

Yin Luo found Aunt Jing on a large terrace.

She was still in that long dress, elegant and serene. Her brown hair, gilded at the edges by the sunlight, was meticulously woven into an intricate updo and adorned with expensive jeweled hairpins, revealing the fair nape of her neck.

She looked every bit like a noblewoman who had stepped out of a medieval oil painting, not a housekeeper.

“Aunt Jing,” Yin Luo called out to her.

The woman turned, her gaze flowing. “What is it, Pearl?”

“I encountered a very terrifying monster last night,” the young boy said, tilting his head up.

“Did Pearl get hurt?” Aunt Jing frowned.

“No,” Yin Luo shook his head.

“That’s good,” the woman in the long dress said, stroking his head. “Pearl is so clever and brave; you don’t even need Aunt Jing to handle things by yourself.”

“But I didn’t get a clear look at the monster. I only saw a black claw. I don’t even know how it got into my room,” Yin Luo explained. “So then I climbed up to the second floor and ran into one of the guests.”

He gave a rough account of the previous night’s events—including Lin Yujing carving gems with his bare hands and the flames spontaneously erupting in Wei Congxin’s room—only omitting his own inner thoughts.

Though it unfolded like a casual chat between family, with one telling and the other listening earnestly, Yin Luo couldn’t shake the feeling that she was actually perfectly aware of everything that had happened.

Aunt Jing listened quietly, then her gaze fell upon the dark gold bracelet on Yin Luo’s wrist.

After a pause, she explained, “Pearl, that guest named Lin Yujing wasn’t strong enough to break the rules. He most likely dismantled the window limiter before the flames could enter.”

Yin Luo had harbored a similar suspicion. Not because he thought Lin Yujing wasn’t powerful, but because he knew the man’s character. Forty thousand yuan was nowhere near enough to make him exert any real effort.

Unless saving Wei Congxin was, in fact, a trivial, effortless act for him.

He still feigned a puzzled expression. “Huh? But how come that other guest couldn’t break it, no matter how hard he smashed?”

“Because he was outside the room,” Aunt Jing said. “For the person inside the room, the window is unbreakable. There’s no escape from the fire. But for the person outside, it’s just an ordinary window—perhaps slightly sturdier than usual, at most.”

Yin Luo understood. This game was extremely rule-oriented. As long as you acted within the rules, there were countless solutions. But the moment you tried to break a rule, it became nigh impossible.

What surprised him more, however, was how intimately Aunt Jing knew these rules. She was indeed, like himself, someone who had “descended” into this world, not a native NPC of the instance.

Thoughts swirled in Yin Luo’s mind.

At that moment, Aunt Jing suddenly said, “Pearl, stay away from those people.”

“Huh? Why?”

The woman in the long dress took his hand, leading him towards the dining room as she spoke. “Because they will ultimately leave, leaving you all alone. You’ll be sad.”

“I won’t be sad. Whether they stay here or leave, it won’t make me sad,” the black-haired youth said earnestly. “They are merely passers-by.”

“Good.” The long-skirted woman smiled. “That’s a good boy.”

…

On the other side, no matter how the players probed for information and scurried around the manor, the daylight hours passed without any incident.

Yin Luo’s own main quest hadn’t made the slightest progress either. He just found it somewhat absurd.

Revenge aside, was the mere task of “finding all parts of his own corpse” even humanly doable? And it didn’t even come with a single quest hint.

The black-haired youth felt like he was going bald from stress. His intuition even told him that he definitely couldn’t ask Aunt Jing this question directly.

When night fell and dinner was over, the players gathered together of their own accord again, all watching Aunt Jing expectantly.

“Please retire for the night,” the long-skirted woman said, leaving only this sentence behind. She was about to take Yin Luo and leave.

After waiting a long time for something more and getting nothing, Zou Zihao, whose emotions were already unstable, snapped with an even sharper tone. “And then? Is that it? Don’t you people have any hints? Isn’t this damn well your house? How can you not know what’s happening? I’m telling you, you hag, you’re doing this on purpose! You just want us dead!”

The woman in the long dress stared at him. Her originally dark irises gradually took on a crimson hue.

“Ahem, Ma’am, our apologies! Our friend here… his mind isn’t quite right. Please ignore him. What we meant to ask is: tonight, do we need to stay quietly inside our rooms like we did yesterday?” Qin Dan shot Zou Zihao a glare and hurriedly tried to smooth things over.

“No need,” the long-skirted woman said icily. “It will make no difference anyway.”

The players’ hearts tightened. They understood that today’s difficulty had escalated.

This wasn’t meant to comfort them. It was a blunt declaration that tonight’s monster was no longer bound by last night’s restrictions.

It no longer needed to rely on sound to find them this time.

Seeing that the person was about to leave, Wei Congxin had no choice but to steel himself and ask. “T-then what about me, Miss? My room is in that state…”

Aunt Jing remained polite towards him. “Guests may choose another room. There are servant quarters available on the back side of the second floor, or you may share a room with another guest.”

Without a second thought, Wei Congxin exclaimed, “Brother Lin! I beg you!”

Lin Yujing, who was sucking on a lollipop, mumbled a bit unclearly, “In your dreams.”

Wei Congxin shot back instantly. “Five hundred thousand!”

The ash-haired man grudgingly amended his stance. “Fine. Continue sleeping on the floor. No making strange noises. But if you court death yourself, this price won’t be enough to save your life.”

“Yes, yes, yes, Brother Lin, don’t you worry. I absolutely won’t snore.”

Qin Dan frowned, his focus on Lin Yujing intensifying.

He turned to Zou Zihao, whose anxiety and panic were now visibly unmasked, and said gently, “Don’t be afraid. I’m right next door. If you notice anything amiss, you can call for me.”

Zou Zihao was overjoyed, immediately plastering a fawning smile onto his face. “Brother Qin, you’re truly too kind. It’s so rare to meet a helpful senior like you who asks for nothing in return. I must have accumulated some great karmic merit in my past life to encounter someone like you…”

Qin Dan was at a loss for words. “Alright, alright. Save the flattery for when we’ve completed the quest. Anyway, be careful tonight. That monster knocking last night stopped at my door. The next might just be your room.”

“What?” A cold sweat instantly beaded on Zou Zihao’s forehead, and his lips went pale. “B-Brother Qin, I-I can’t do it. I’ll die…”

“Oh, you…” Qin Dan seemed exasperated. “Even if I help you through this instance, what will you do afterwards? Forget it. How about this: I’ll swap rooms with you. It just so happens I’d like to meet this monster myself, see if I can gather any information.”

“Really?” Overjoyed, Zou Zihao was so ecstatic that the fat on his face trembled. “Great, great! Thank you, Brother Qin, thank you, Brother Qin! You really are a great person.”

“Surely a good-guy card isn’t necessary for this? I was a newbie once too, after all,” Qin Dan joked.

Zhang Bing, standing at the back, listened to their exchange and just let out a scoff, saying nothing.

Yin Luo, blessed with sharp senses, quietly eavesdropped on their conversation. In a small voice, he said, “Aunt Jing, I want to stay in a room with them, too.”

“No, Pearl. That would be very impolite,” Aunt Jing gently refused him.

“But I’m scared, Aunt Jing. I’m scared to be all alone.” The black-haired youth lightly tugged at the hem of her clothes, his eyes downcast.

The woman in the long dress fell silent.

Sensing there was a sliver of room for negotiation, Yin Luo was about to probe further when Aunt Jing gently rejected him again. “No, Pearl. You must sleep in your own room at night.”

“But there’s a monster in my room,” the black-haired youth said, looking up at her. “I’ll die.”

“You won’t die! You absolutely will not die!” The long-skirted woman cut him off sharply and loudly. Then, as if realizing her words had been too harsh, she softened her tone and repeated, “You will not die, Pearl. You are always alive. If you truly feel afraid, just call my name.”

“Alright?”

Yin Luo found her words a little strange, but he knew further probing likely wouldn’t yield any other result.

He had no choice but to nod. “Fine.”

Perhaps still feeling uneasy, when the players had all returned to their respective rooms, the woman in the long dress finally took Yin Luo’s hand. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll see you upstairs.”

She led the black-haired youth back to the room full of dolls and repeated once more, “You will live. Pearl is the bravest of them all.”

Yin Luo tilted his head. “I know, I know, Aunt Jing. I’m not a little kid anymore.”

“In our hearts, you will always be a child.” The long-skirted woman sat on the edge of the bed and carefully tucked the blanket around him before standing up, ready to leave.

Just as she reached the door, she seemed to brush against a doll on the floor and paused her step.

“Why was this here?” The woman in the long dress looked down, picking up the roly-poly doll she had accidentally nudged and placing it casually on the small table directly opposite the bed.

After she left, Yin Luo shed his smile and returned to the impassivity he typically maintained around Lin Yujing and the others.

He hugged the motionless Little Bear in his arms, closing his eyes to think. When he opened them again, his gaze involuntarily landed on the roly-poly doll Aunt Jing had just moved.

It was a brightly colored roly-poly girl, its body still swaying back and forth. Its large eyes seemed to be smiling at the black-haired youth.

Yin Luo stared at it for a while. Suddenly struck by a thought, he scrambled up and took it to the bed.

Up close, he then noticed that the belly of this roly-poly doll, which was at least thirty centimeters tall, had a faint, fine seam running through its middle.

He pried it open with force. The top half of the doll separated from the bottom like a lid, revealing a smaller, identical roly-poly girl inside.

It was even a nesting doll.

Yin Luo, driven by some unknown impulse, opened this one too.

Inside was yet another smiling, large-eyed girl, looking right at him.

He opened it again.

And again.

He did this seven or eight times before his fingers finally touched something different—something cold and hard.

It was a severed finger. A pinky finger.

There was no decay. The bone structure was elegantly shaped, and the surface bore no other wounds.

It was as if it had just been taken from an ice cellar. It radiated a ceaseless chill, pale and rigid.

If not for the smooth cross-section, where veins and bone were clearly visible, one might almost mistake it for a model.

The black-haired youth stared at it for a long time before he slowly picked up the icy, severed finger and placed it beside his own left pinky.

From its size, to the shape of the nail, down to the very texture of the skin…

They were identical.