Because they took a detour, there were already many people inside when they arrived, all of them classmates.
This is a building similar to a Fujian Tulou (earthen building), three stories high, with no windows and only a small entrance/exit. However, it is square, resembling a coffin.
From the outside, the building doesn't look small, but once you go inside, you realize that the interior is cramped, the space is low, and it's neither well-ventilated nor well-lit, making it feel very oppressive.
The courtyard here is particularly small; it feels like the sun only shines on the ground at midday. It is surrounded by rooms on all four sides, with three narrow corridors running around it.
Even just a glance at such a house makes it hard to breathe. It's like seeing a woman with broken feet from bound feet, or a waist deformed by a corset—it suffocates both psychologically and physically.
The rooms upstairs were all locked, but they could see the furnishings through the carved windows. The rooms were airtight, with black furniture in the corners, all dusty and gray, making it impossible to tell the gender of the occupants, except for a three-inch pointed shoe peeking out from the corner.
Ren Yifei suddenly felt nauseous, a feeling far more real than when he had feigned fear and vomiting. No animal can rival humans in how they torment their own kind.
"What a pity! If we had stayed another night, we could have stayed to test our courage." A student in front of me was filming, and he was talking eloquently to the camera.
"Aren't you afraid?" someone asked.
"What are you afraid of?" He grinned lewdly. "If there really were so many young women... hehehehe."
Ren Yifei frowned.
"What's wrong?" Saman asked politely.
"It's nothing, it's just a bit stuffy here." Ren Yifei continued to reinforce the impression that Xia Chuan didn't like it here. "If this kind of place were used to warn future generations, it would have some educational value. But to display it like this with such pride, I don't know if they are reminiscing or regretting."
"Tsk," the boy next to him scoffed, "talks too much."
"Boom!" A muffled clap of thunder echoed in the sky, making the sky seem even darker.
"Oh my!" The crowd, already caught up in the atmosphere, was startled. "Is it going to rain?"
"Didn't they say there would be thunderstorms here tonight?" This was a student who had checked the weather forecast. "Please don't let it come earlier; I always feel uneasy taking a bus during thunderstorms."
"Surely not? If we can't go back, won't we just have to stay another night? Why is the weather forecast so inaccurate?"
"Weather forecasts aren't necessarily inaccurate," Ren Yifei thought.
He had been wondering how the dungeon could keep these people in the village if he didn't take any action. Now, looking at the overcast weather forecast and listening to the muffled thunder, he roughly understood the tricks of the Desolate Corner.
As the saying goes, a rainy day is a day to keep guests.
It wasn't raining outside, but the thunder kept rumbling. Humans have an instinctive fear of lightning, so the crowd refused to go outside and remained in the corridor. In the dim light, they all turned on their phones to bolster their courage.
Ren Yifei was still using the second phone (the one in the black bag) to browse the school forum; he was almost finished reading all the posts from that period.
"Hmm?" His finger stopped on a certain page and didn't move.
Holy crap, I heard there's a girl at our school who's really wild outside of school.
Black text flashed rapidly across Ren Yifei's glasses on the white screen. The poster used many words like "doubt," "guess," and "possibly," but all of them were referring to a girl in a certain class in the second year of high school who seemed well-behaved but was selling herself and had connections with people outside of school.
Because there were no keywords, he hadn't found the post before. But judging from the posting time, it was about half a month before his sister's suicide, and not long after she discovered she was pregnant.
He clicked on this person's account, which included a profile picture, personal description, zodiac sign, favorite celebrities, and so on.
Following this post, he posted several similar posts, some of which have been locked, but the titles alone reveal their malicious intent.
Looking at this person's previous posts, most of them were complaints about a boring and mediocre life or a certain subject. However, there was one post where he said that a beautiful girl had been assigned to his class, and he fell in love with her at first sight. She was very innocent and pure.
Ren Yifei slightly raised his head. What he 'saw' was not the darkening sky outside, but the booklet placed in the black bag.
The profile picture is of a certain sports star, along with the birthday corresponding to that zodiac sign. The person likes a muscular Western celebrity, and is bad at math and English…
Each small fragment then matched the records in the booklet.
The owner of this account, the person hidden behind the internet, his shadow appears on the white wall.
His eyelashes behind his glasses blinked, like water droplets falling on calm water, creating ripples. His calm was momentarily shattered: So that's how it is.
After a while, the thunder stopped and the clouds in the sky dispersed, and a group of more than a dozen people came out of Widow's Castle.
"It's almost lunchtime, but there's not much to eat nearby."
It's not peak tourist season, so many shops in Wutong Village that cater to tourists are closed. Through the mirrors, you can see some handicrafts inside—all bought wholesale from a small commodities market for just a few yuan a piece.
Not far along, people taking a different route came towards us.
The school beauty and Xiaomin, Liu Jinjie and Hei Pi, Chi Bo, and the man with the DSLR camera who had been scolded earlier for taking photos without permission. Suddenly, the man raised his DSLR and pointed it at Saman in front of him: "May I take a picture?"
"No," Saman replied coldly.
Everyone else looked at him with surprise, a hint of rejection in their eyes that they themselves were unaware of—Saman's identity as a player had been exposed.
Jiang Shaobo looks cool, but he's actually a show-off who loves to flaunt his personality. He's quite adept at having his picture taken. Generally speaking, he won't refuse even if a man takes his picture.
Ren Yifei avoided him and kept a distance of three meters.
This is how an NPC should react to a player. Seeing his expression, Saman knew his wish to follow the storyline with 'Shanchuan' was going to be dashed.
'Mountains and Rivers' clearly have some special plan. I'm really curious whether 'Chess Piece' is someone he's using.
"So, how was Widow's Castle? Was it fun?"
"It's just like that, all old houses. Maybe it'll be interesting to come over at night."
The two groups shared their observations. Stripped of its eerie veneer, Widow's Castle was just an old building, no different in essence from other old buildings elsewhere.
"It would be much more interesting if we went out exploring at night and tested our courage," someone else remarked.
"Xia Chuan, when did you become acquainted with Jiang Shaobo?"
Ren Yifei appeared in front of Hei Pi and the others without them noticing, and was stopped. He looked at these impolite boys, his gaze sweeping over their faces one by one.
"Have you been causing me trouble all this time because I voted against it?"
"What?" Blackie and the others were surprised that his topic had turned to this. "We just can't stand your arrogant attitude. Studying is good, that's all."
"I see. But it's true that I'm good at studying."
This fact infuriated them so much that, even in public, they chose to attack him: "Do you want to die?"
With his collar being grabbed, Ren Yifei coughed loudly. Their conflict attracted other people, who separated them and tried to quiet both sides down: "It's already a graduation trip, what's there to be upset about? After all this time as classmates."
"How inexplicable." Ren Yifei straightened his collar. Just as he walked past these people, he suddenly stopped: "Chi Bo, your online name is 'One Sword Sweeps Away a Million Enemies'?"
Chi Bo was taken aback, his expression saying: How did you know?
As his gaze swept over Saman's yellowed teeth, Ren Yifei understood everything. He turned and left the group, and even left Saman behind.
NPCs may exhibit a hostility towards players who have already been identified, including but not limited to being unwilling to act together.
Samantha himself had some things to do, and he needed to eliminate options one by one.
"That's perfect," they both thought at the same time.
Ren Yifei didn't visit any other attractions but went straight back to the guesthouse. His teacher was sitting in the courtyard, talking to the driver, and looked at him with surprise: "Xia Chuan, why are you back?"
"We've already gone to Widow's Castle, but we couldn't find a place to eat... I wonder if it will rain today." Ren Yifei seemed a little irritable, a hint of displeasure showing beneath his calm face.
Teacher Wang looked at the sky and said, "Even if it rains, it's okay. There aren't many guests here, so you can stay another day. Of course, it would be best if it didn't rain, otherwise it would be quite troublesome."
The driver next to him silently smoked. He saw Ren Yifei, looked at him for a few seconds, and then looked away.
Ren Yifei: "..." The driver's gaze at us at the rest stop earlier wasn't an illusion, so why?
Then he went to the kitchen and asked for a bowl of noodles.
In the kitchen, he met two other classmates who hadn't gone out. They were girls sitting in a corner whispering, "The lightning just now was a bit scary. I really don't know why we came to this remote and impoverished place. There's nothing here."
Ren Yifei listened to their conversation while turning on his No. 1 phone (the phone the original owner used).
He had never looked closely at the original owner's number one phone until now. The first thing he did was check the contact number to see if there were any nicknames that he should pay attention to.
The first row is for teachers, classmates, and landlords; you have to scroll back to see other people.
Most of them are relatives. Congratulations to him on getting into the law department of X University.
"Law Department..."
The major the original owner chose was truly ironic.
A doctor appeared after my relative, but when I clicked on the link, he was only asking about my insomnia. The doctor said he needed to relax and asked if I was under too much pressure from the college entrance exam.
"It'll be fine once you get past this hurdle," the doctor comforted him.
"You're right," the original owner replied.
He kept scrolling, watching intently without blinking.
He almost scrolled past the lawyer's nickname. Ren Yifei clicked on it, and there were only two sentences: "No evidence, little hope," and "Let's talk in person." Judging from the specific time, it was after his sister's accident and before the original owner of this body enrolled in school.
He clicked on the profile picture and saw the business card. He could even find this lawyer online; he had helped people win several cases of school bullying.
The noodles arrived shortly, but the girls chatting nearby continued eating slowly and talking quietly, though Ren Yifei had excellent hearing.
"See that? It's disgusting, isn't it? A bunch of leaves supporting two black-hearted flowers. Girls know this, but boys seem to be blind."
"Those leaves are rotten leaves too. Ha, Chi Bo was so eager to pursue that girl back then, but who would have thought he would be the one to call her a whore."
"Shh, don't mention it, it's creepy. I don't want to remember it, it's too terrifying."
Their conversation quickly shifted to another topic, this time a particular singer.
Ren Yifei lowered his head and ate his noodles.
He knew everything the two girls were saying; their words merely confirmed the matter indirectly.
The original owner had placed a pack of cigarettes in the black bag—a pack that had been processed and disguised as sealed. This hinted at one of the people the original owner intended to kill.
There were three people smoking here: the driver, Chi Bo, and Jiang Shaobo. Ren Yifei didn't think the cigarettes were prepared for the driver or Jiang Shaobo from the beginning, because those two had their own cigarettes, and Chi Bo just happened to have lost his.
It's so clever that it's hard to ignore.
However, at that time, Ren Yifei had not yet figured out what Chi Bo's connection was with this matter, so he did not take action.
Now, the cigarettes have found
their place.