Under the overcast sky, within the church district of Divian’s north city, countless congregation members were bustling about inside and out. The Wolf Blood Society armed themselves and formed ranks, while the lingering citizens and believers were being urged to leave the church.
Yan Wei, along with Lin Zhen and Yu Feizhou, lay in wait, deliberately placing those items in conspicuous spots on their persons. Not only did they fail to attract anyone from the opposing faction, but the female ghost also did not approach any of them throughout the night.
However, when they woke up in the morning and stepped out of their rooms, they noticed that the atmosphere in the school had suddenly turned gloomy.
Some of the NPC students who had risen earlier looked pale, some hurried back to their rooms, while others clamored to call for a Taoist priest.
Yan Wei spread out his Perception and found that the main issue seemed to be one of the rooms they were staying in, and a group of people gathered in the school’s reception hall. He sent Lin Zhen and Yu Feizhou to check the room while he headed to the reception hall.
The reception hall was crowded, but most people wore plain white robes and looked tense, with some even showing signs of grief amidst their panic. They stood in the hall, where a coffin was placed in the center.
“He passed away this morning, covered in cadaveric spots,” the page boy, clearly flustered, hurriedly explained to the people surrounding the coffin. “We quickly bought a coffin and immediately called for you. We really can’t open it; what if something sinister happens…”
Among the group, clearly not from the school, a middle-aged woman said, “My son was fine yesterday. How is it that after moving in last night, I can’t even see his body the next day? What if there’s been a mistake?”
She leaned over the coffin and began to cry.
The page boy became even more flustered, wanting to pull her up but also afraid to approach the coffin. He instinctively took a few steps back, hesitating on the side, and could only say, “This… everyone knows about this. Maybe we should wait for the master to return? But keeping the body here is not a solution; there are still many people in the school.”
Someone pulled the woman and said, “Why don’t we take the coffin home first? These past few years have been so eerie; it really wouldn’t be good if the corpse came to life after opening the coffin. I also hope the school made a mistake, but… ah, wasn’t he the only one living in that room? Who else could it be?”
The page boy immediately agreed: “Yesterday he was telling me that after settling his things in the school, he planned to sneak out to the Huayun Tower to see the girls—though the school prohibits such activities. I advised him, but he didn’t seem to listen. Though his body is covered in cadaveric spots, his face is unmistakable.”
After some more entanglement, the middle-aged woman finally called for the strong men she had brought along, and they carried the coffin away.
As the coffin passed by Yan Wei, instead of the smell of decay, a faint woody aroma wafted out—it was the scent of agarwood. However, the agarwood used for the coffin was clearly inferior to what Yan Wei had in his possession, even vastly so. The scent was very faint, and only Yan Wei’s nearly abnormal Perception could detect it from a distance.
At this moment, Yu Feizhou, who had gone to check the residence, connected with Yan Wei’s Perception.
[Yan Wei, it’s confirmed. A student who arrived last night just died in this room. Others are too scared to come near and are detouring around. We’re currently in his room.]
[I saw it too; his body is in the reception hall.] Yan Wei replied. [Anything unusual?]
[No… actually, yes.]
[Hmm?]
Lin Zhen, carefree as ever, bumped into Yan Wei’s Perception: [It’s just that everything here is too normal, normal to the point of being strange. There’s no trace of the floral scent the female ghost had the other day, nor any signs of a struggle. Based on my daily experience of getting into fights, nothing happened in this room.]
Yu Feizhou: [We can’t tell how this person was killed by the female ghost last night.]
Yan Wei emerged from the shadows and said: [If we can’t tell, then it means the female ghost indeed didn’t kill him last night.]
He had been curious; when the female ghost secretly attacked him at night, it was a floral scent that triggered that indescribable dream. But these past few days, whether he infiltrated the deceased’s home or visited the place of death, he hadn’t detected any such floral scent.
If a scent were to dissipate, it would take time.
Given the suddenness of these deaths, if the elusive female ghost had indeed killed them at that moment, the accelerated decay of the corpses from the time of death to their discovery and burial would not have been enough for the floral scent to dissipate to the point where even his Perception couldn’t detect it.
He leaned towards the idea that the female ghost had acted earlier, before the deaths.
Her method of killing was different from most of the vengeful spirits they had encountered in instances. The victims might have been targeted earlier, and it just took some time from being targeted to their deaths. Thus, the deaths appeared sudden, with bodies covered in cadaveric spots and emaciated, as if drained in an instant. In reality, the victims had been targeted for a while, gradually losing their vitality, and the sudden death was just the final manifestation.
If he had truly succumbed to that erotic dream that night, he probably wouldn’t have died immediately either, but would have waited for a period until his vitality was completely drained, then suddenly died.
This person wasn’t killed in the school last night—otherwise, with the three of them present, and Song Cheng’an and the others in the Guanyin Temple across the way, it would have been impossible for everyone to be completely unaware. If that were the case, the female ghost could have easily taken them all.
It was more likely that this person had been targeted somewhere before coming to the school.
But where?
At this moment, others in the school, perhaps fearing bad luck, had already dispersed.
Yan Wei, who had been hiding and watching these people carry the coffin away from the school, combined with what Yu Feizhou and Lin Zhen had said, roughly understood some of the reasons and walked into the reception hall.
The page boy, seemingly also disdainful of the place where the coffin had just been placed, nervously hurried away without cleaning up the mess in the reception hall.
Perhaps because this person had died so suddenly, and the family was only concerned with carrying the coffin away, some of the deceased’s personal items were still piled on the tea table. Yan Wei walked over to take a look. They were nothing of value, just some stationery and scattered trinkets.
Yan Wei flipped through them but found nothing related to evil spirits. Just as he was about to give up, his peripheral vision caught a wooden plaque in the far corner of the clutter.
This wooden plaque was about half the size of an adult man’s palm, with a flower carved on it—looking at the pattern, it seemed to be a balsam flower. The plaque didn’t seem like something a man would carry around, nor did it look like an accessory, as it had no cord for hanging.
It looked like… a door plaque.
A commotion arose at the school’s entrance, accompanied by some chatter. Someone was at the door.
Yan Wei’s eyes narrowed slightly. He sent a message to Song Cheng’an, asking them to help investigate the origin of this balsam flower plaque. He picked up the plaque and turned to walk towards the school’s entrance.
Suddenly, a notification sounded in his mind.
[Congratulations, Player, for unlocking a main storyline-related side quest. You have obtained the mission-limited item “Balsam Flower Plaque” and have progressed 2 points in the main quest. You currently have a total of 15 points in the main quest, temporarily ranking first among all players in this instance.]
There’s a notification for being temporarily first?
This means that as long as he maintains the lead, he can know the upper limit of everyone’s progress in the entire instance. Or if he suddenly is no longer first, he can also gain information.
Being the fastest in progress actually has such a hidden benefit.
[Side quest activated—Please investigate clues related to this item to discover the cause of death for most of the inexplicably deceased victims. Note: This side quest is only an additional trigger and aids the main quest but is not mandatory. You can choose to complete it or directly abandon it.]
[If the side quest is completed, in addition to the corresponding instance progress reward, the player will receive an additional reward: knowledge of the number of people in both factions.]
Yan Wei paused in his steps.
Knowledge of the number of people in both factions?
This reward, seemingly just a number, has an obvious role.
And although it’s said that the side quest does not affect the main quest, the side quest is somewhat an extension of the main quest. The information obtained after completion will inevitably help the main quest and cannot slow it down.
In an instant, Yan Wei had decided to first figure out how the female ghost killed these men.
He stepped onto the path where the snow had already begun to freeze, braving the cold outside as he walked towards the school’s entrance, silently tucking the balsam flower plaque into his sleeve.
The path became busier with people coming and going, including some unfamiliar faces Yan Wei hadn’t seen these past few days, and a few people carrying boxes passed by him. When he reached the entrance, he noticed several people unloading luggage from a few carriages.
At the forefront of these carriages stood two people.
One was a man who appeared to be in his thirties, dressed in a very simple blue linen shirt. His looks weren’t strikingly handsome, but his features were distinct and three-dimensional, giving off a very comfortable aura overall. This man was directing the people moving the luggage.
Without needing to guess, just by looking at him and the school’s page boy and a few others from the school who came forward, Yan Wei knew this was the Mr. Bai they had been waiting for these past few days.
Yan Wei’s identity was Mr. Bai’s distant younger cousin, and under the instance’s effect, Mr. Bai naturally recognized him. Seeing him, Mr. Bai smiled at him.
With too many people around now, and players and NPCs indistinguishable, Yan Wei didn’t plan to have any interaction with Mr. Bai here. After returning the smile, his gaze swept to the person next to Mr. Bai.
This person was very familiar to Yan Wei.
“Standing there spacing out?” someone called out to Yan Wei. “We’re short on hands; come give us a hand.”
Lin Qing glanced at the person and said indifferently, “Can’t you move it yourself?”
The person immediately fell silent, picked up the heavy luggage, and left deep footprints in the snow. The luggage was covered in snow, seemingly carrying some moisture, with ice beads forming on top.
Yan Wei and Lin Qing exchanged a glance, temporarily not speaking.
After the luggage was moved, amidst the escort of some page boys and students, Mr. Bai walked into the school with his hands tucked in his sleeves. From start to finish, he remained composed, his demeanor broad and open, yet his posture upright, much like the impression the school gave—high moral standing and strict discipline.
Just from this brief encounter, Yan Wei couldn’t see how such a person could be involved with the Black Sea and the female ghost.
As Mr. Bai passed by Yan Wei, he stopped and spoke a few words to him, mainly about how he had been traveling and would need to handle some school matters upon his return, promising to have a private talk with Yan Wei the next day.
Yan Wei naturally agreed.
But Mr. Bai was a key figure, and both factions were likely aware of this. Leaving him unattended could lead to the opposing faction directly targeting NPCs to hinder them, which would be troublesome. Through his skill, Yan Wei instructed Lin Zhen to keep a close eye on Mr. Bai in the shadows, then went with Lin Qing to find an unoccupied pavilion in the school.
The pavilion was exposed to the cold wind, chilling one’s cheeks. Surrounding it were buildings and white snow, dispersing all light but absorbing most sounds. After the school’s eerie death, aside from the people carrying the coffin away and Mr. Bai’s return, everything was eerily quiet.
“If you hadn’t shown up,” Yan Wei sat on a bench in the pavilion, teasing, “I almost thought you were assigned to the opposing faction.”
Lin Qing seriously replied, “Wouldn’t that be even more reason to show up, to fish for information from you?”
Yan Wei: “…” That made it sound like Lin Qing was indeed in the opposing faction.
Lin Qing added seriously, “But I wouldn’t do such things. I would just kill my own people, taking one out to help you.”
Yan Wei: “…………” That might be a bit much.
He must have had a shaky hand when dividing, giving all the humor cells to Lin Zhen.
He decided to get straight to the point: “So what’s your identity? How did you end up returning with Mr. Bai?”
Lin Qing’s expression suddenly became much more serious. He frowned deeply and said gravely, “My identity is just a cover to blend into the instance’s background, but why I returned with Mr. Bai… you’ve hit the nail on the head. I think the arrangement of a player—that is, me—being loaded into the instance to accompany Mr. Bai on a journey and return is for the purpose of witnessing.”
“Witnessing what?”
“I know Mr. Bai had previously sent someone to deliver a letter, seeking some items capable of exorcising evil. Those items should be with you? The reason for needing these items is to resolve the ominous events in Guanyin Town these past few years. Mr. Bai’s trip was to invite a Taoist priest capable of using these items to exorcise evil from Guanyin Town.”
Yan Wei’s brow twitched, his gaze darkening, already somewhat anticipating what Lin Qing was about to say.
“When I accompanied Mr. Bai to find someone, I personally witnessed that Taoist priest die in front of the Buddha statue.”
After receiving Yan Wei’s message, Song Cheng’an didn’t hesitate and immediately sent messages to Yu Zhengqing and Zhong Bufan, planning to investigate where the balsam flower plaque came from and its purpose.
They agreed to meet at a secluded side hall in the Guanyin Temple.
Song Cheng’an waited for a while, but Zhong Bufan, who didn’t reside in the Guanyin Temple, arrived first. As soon as he arrived, he started circling around Song Cheng’an, asking various questions about v, this time with added variety, including mentions of Yan Wei’s performance in this instance.
But to Song Cheng’an, Zhong Bufan was still only talking about Yan Wei, giving him a headache.
With a face colder than the surrounding snow, he ignored Zhong Bufan completely, waiting at the side hall entrance for a while.
“Something’s wrong.” Song Cheng’an suddenly said.
The chattering Zhong Bufan also suddenly stopped. He frowned: “Where’s that idiot Yu Zhengqing? Isn’t he closer?”
“Did your Black Ring receive any messages from him?”
“No.”
They looked at each other and simultaneously headed towards Yu Zhengqing’s residence in the Guanyin Temple.
Song Cheng’an arrived first. The door to Yu Zhengqing’s residence was wide open, and inside, continuous clashing sounds could be heard.
He rushed in and saw Yu Zhengqing holding a Legendary Item, engaged in a fierce battle with a player in a green short coat and a mask.
This unknown player’s physical stats didn’t seem to match those of a seasoned high-level player like Yu Zhengqing, but the person moved agilely, not engaging in direct confrontation with Yu Zhengqing, and kept reaching towards Yu Zhengqing’s sleeves.
As soon as Song Cheng’an entered, Zhong Bufan, following behind, immediately drew out an item.
Before they could act, the person suddenly pulled out a longbow, drew the string, and shot two black arrow feathers towards Song Cheng’an and Zhong Bufan.
The two instinctively turned to dodge the arrows, and in the blink of an eye, the person had disappeared before the three.
Zhong Bufan wanted to chase, but Yu Zhengqing stopped him: “You can’t catch up; he’s probably already far away. Lin Qiao’s skill is to teleport between two items using fixed points. He likely had something from Lin Qiao on him, allowing him to teleport to a distant location. Without knowing the teleportation endpoint, chasing is futile.”
Song Cheng’an asked: “Your item?”
As the player with the highest prestige and strength among them, and with Yan Wei absent, Song Cheng’an, as usual, carried himself with an air of authority, his words full of interrogation and pressure.
Yu Zhengqing dared not offend Song Cheng’an and immediately said, “Don’t worry, he didn’t take it. But… this…”
Zhong Bufan had already bent down to pick up the two arrows shot at them.
“I don’t recognize these arrows,” Zhong Bufan said. “I just reached the high-level not long ago and haven’t collaborated or clashed with many players. You two have more experience; take a look?”
Song Cheng’an clearly recognized them.
His expression immediately turned unpleasant.
Yu Zhengqing pointed at the arrows: “I’ve seen these before! That brat Lin Zhen, before this instance started, led people directly into our Yue Mang headquarters, and his arrows looked just like these! The way that person used them was the same—a bow without arrows, just pulling the string would automatically produce such arrows to shoot.”
Zhong Bufan looked at Song Cheng’an—he noticed Song Cheng’an’s expression was off.
“I’ve seen these arrows too,” he said, “but not that Lin Zhen. I’ve entered two high-level instances with Lin Qing; I’ve seen him use them.”
