LABMY CH154

The unsettling clouds of doubt shrouded the top of the ancient castle perched on the cliff, with the ever-present mist surrounding it refusing to dissipate.

The sunlight could not penetrate through, the withered flower branches in the garden, the dried-up fountain filled with decaying leaves, and the top floor piled with corpses together made up this eerie castle.

And now, within this castle of bones, a group of living people had intruded, yet they did not bring any signs of life to this deathly place. Instead, they only added several fresh corpses to its collection.

The ominous crimson spread, and the atmosphere of the castle was now entirely different from the first day.

“The name of the ghost for this round is: Xu Shu.”

In the castle’s grand hall, the name “Xu Shu” occupied the entire screen. The cold and mechanical electronic voice had barely sounded when a man in his forties in the corner turned and ran.

Throughout the hall, more than a dozen people stood scattered in various positions, maintaining distance from one another.

Some remained near the exit, unwilling to step inside, merely listening to the announcement from the doorway.

Each person kept a safe distance from the others, watching with wary eyes.

Previously, they had all been waiting in the dining room, watching as time passed. When the time was up, the ceiling of the dining room had opened, and mechanical arms extended to drop pieces of paper.

They had climbed onto chairs and tables, smashed the ceiling panels with tools, only for the fire that erupted from the hidden space to burn the nearest person and reduce all the paper strips inside to ashes.

That was the last time names were announced in such a manner. The next morning, the person whose name should have appeared was instead found dead in their room, making everyone even more suspicious and defensive toward one another.

The blond-haired man who could pick locks and the middle-aged man who had been a suspect were both tied up, yet they still ended up dead.

Everyone understood then—the game had fully begun. Some people hid among the group, slaughtering one after another.

From then on, those whose names appeared no longer dared to sleep in their rooms. Those whose names had not appeared would still barricade their doors before resting. Yet, the deaths continued.

Every person in the group appeared innocent and kind, but as more and more bodies were discovered, that so-called kindness became an unbearable mockery.

The name on the screen vanished, replaced by the letter “H.” He smirked exaggeratedly, his voice filled with a tempting allure.

“The ghost for this round seems to be a woman.”

“A woman, huh? Not much strength. Should be easy to deal with, right?”

“What are you all waiting for? Kill her, and victory will be closer.”

H reached out and clapped his hands. With a snap, a light illuminated another glass display case—inside was a stack of cash.

“Win the game, and everything will be yours.”

“No one outside will ever know what happened here. Once you leave, you will have an unimaginable amount of money and a bright future.”

“Enjoy the game, my dear players.”

Jian Yuanbai coldly watched the screen, where the speaker’s face was completely obscured.

“Staining your hands with innocent blood… and you think your future will still be bright?”

After saying this, he did not wait for H’s reaction and turned to leave with Shen Tingyue.

At this point, everyone was already suspicious of one another. The moment someone’s name appeared, anyone approaching them would instinctively flee.

Jian Yuanbai no longer wasted time trying to convince those whose names had been displayed to trust him. The most important thing now was to figure out who was behind all of this.

He still cared about the first victim—Lu Yongye’s death—so he once again took Shen Tingyue to Lu Yongye’s room.

This was Jian Yuanbai’s third time here. The first time, he had found the corpse. The second time, he had moved the body because it had been hidden in the wardrobe for too long and was starting to rot, threatening to release its stench.

Initially, he had hidden the body to delay the start of the game. Later, he had done it for Shen Tingyue’s sake.

The group was restless and unstable—if they found Lu Yongye’s body, Shen Tingyue would inevitably become a suspect and be attacked.

Although Jian Yuanbai knew, at least to some extent, that Shen Tingyue might be capable of protecting himself, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, he still wanted to protect him.

The abandoned room’s faint traces, that remark from Shen Tingyue that seemed uncharacteristic of him, and Li Lijie’s reaction when he heard Shen Tingyue speak without any suspicion—these all stuck in Jian Yuanbai’s mind.

He kept Shen Tingyue close, even sharing a bed at night, partly for protection but not entirely for that reason.

The first time he had only conducted a cursory check of the room. The second time, he had been preoccupied with moving the body in the middle of the night. Now, upon returning for the third time, Jian Yuanbai crouched down and examined the door lock again.

There were no signs of forced entry, just as he had observed the first time.

The room was impeccably clean. The murderer had left no traces. The window ledge was narrow, and the distance between the windows of adjacent rooms was too great—there was no way someone could have climbed in.

Jian Yuanbai’s gaze suddenly halted. Above a scratch mark, he reached out and touched it. There was something there.

Shen Tingyue noticed him standing by the window without moving and asked, “Found something?”

Jian Yuanbai pointed at the scratch mark. “This shouldn’t be here.”

Shen Tingyue leaned in for a closer look. He pinched his chin thoughtfully, then mimed a grappling hook being thrown onto the window frame. “Maybe they hooked something here, climbed up, and then entered?”

Jian Yuanbai shook his head. “There are no claw marks or indentations on the window frame. If they had used a grappling hook, it would have needed to support the weight of a person, and there should be visible damage where it was anchored.”

“Not just on the window—there’s no such mark anywhere in the entire room.”

“Put it this way: this room doesn’t look like anyone ever entered it.”

Shen Tingyue half-understood and responded with a vague “Oh.” Then, he pulled out a playing card and handed it to Jian Yuanbai. “I found this in the hidden compartment of Lu Yongye’s suitcase.”

Jian Yuanbai took the card and examined it. Its overall design was dark.

On it was a figure seated on a throne—a “man” with grotesque horns growing from his head, and even more disturbing, eyes growing upon those horns.

The figure did not show its face, only revealing a pair of horns covered with dense eyes. Those eyes seemed to be staring at the one holding the card through the card itself, giving them a deeply unsettling and oppressive feeling.

On the back of the card was a line of text: “To the esteemed and noble Yula Zans.”

“Yula Zans Great One?” Jian Yuanbai flipped the card over and looked at the image again. “Is this some kind of character from an anime?”

On the first day, Lu Yongye had worn a dark-themed Lolita dress, so it wasn’t surprising that she liked this kind of dark aesthetic character.

Jian Yuanbai sighed. He still remembered how Lu Yongye had told him she was scared and wanted to leave.

But in the end, after so much hesitation, Lu Yongye, who had come here at such a young age—perhaps drawn in by curiosity and excitement—lost her life because of it.

Jian Yuanbai stood at the doorway all night, yet Lu Yongye still died.

A pale, slender hand reached out and poked the monster on the throne. “He’s very annoying. He’s an evil god.”

Shen Tingyue pinched his chin, then shook his head again, frowning with a look of disgust. “No, no. He doesn’t deserve to be called a god.”

Jian Yuanbai was taken aback. “You know him?”

“Did I see him before in an anime or game? Something like that?”

Shen Tingyue let out a soft “Ah,” then looked up with clear, innocent eyes. “What’s anime?”

A little vampire who had been locked away for over a hundred years wouldn’t know what anime was. Just seeing creatures on a square screen talking was already shocking enough for him—how could he possibly understand that stories could unfold within it?

Jian Yuanbai asked, “Then how do you know him?”

Shen Tingyue’s gaze darted around as he stammered, “I just know, that’s all.”

Vampires gained power through blood. Though Shen Tingyue couldn’t get fully nourished from Jian Yuanbai, he could still take in a little, and he could feel his strength slowly returning—though so gradually that it was barely noticeable.

Some of his memories were also faintly coming back, but not much. He still couldn’t recall why he had been nailed into a coffin.

Just like how he recognized the Yula Zans on the card as a malicious being but couldn’t remember why he hated him.

Jian Yuanbai flicked Shen Tingyue on the forehead. “Liar.”

“If you don’t tell the truth, you’re not allowed to bite today.”

Shen Tingyue’s eyes widened instantly. “How could you do this?”

Faced with Jian Yuanbai’s ambiguous expression, Shen Tingyue pouted in grievance. “I really don’t remember anything.”

“Can the punishment be changed to biting a finger instead of a neck?”

Jian Yuanbai raised an eyebrow. “You think this is a punishment?”

Shen Tingyue nodded vigorously. “Yes! It’s a very, very severe punishment.”

Jian Yuanbai smirked. “Then it stays as a punishment. As for biting fingers—if you still don’t tell me anything, that won’t be allowed either.”

He held the card between two fingers and raised it in front of Shen Tingyue. “Now, can you tell me how you know him?”

Shen Tingyue glared at the card in frustration and muttered under his breath, “If I had known, I wouldn’t have taken it out.”

“If you dare hide clues, you won’t be allowed to bite for a whole week.” Jian Yuanbai said casually.

The young vampire’s beautiful eyes widened in shock. He bit his lip, looking furious but unable to argue back. In the end, he couldn’t hold it in and whispered, “You’re so annoying.”

Jian Yuanbai arched a brow. “I’m annoying? Then two weeks.”

With a muffled thud, the young vampire crashed into the tall, handsome man’s arms, hurriedly covering his mouth with a hand, his expression caught between panic and despair. “I was talking about me! I was talking about me! Please stop saying more!”

“It’s me who’s annoying.”

“But I really don’t remember why I know him.”

Shen Tingyue’s eyes filled with tears as he kept his hand firmly over Jian Yuanbai’s mouth, terrified that another second later, the man would announce an even longer punishment.

Jian Yuanbai, having teased him to satisfaction, let out a quiet chuckle. Seeing Shen Tingyue so anxious yet unable to say anything useful, he decided to drop the subject—for now. But he made a mental note of Yula Zans, planning to investigate later.

An evil god? That sounded a lot like a cult deity.

Jian Yuanbai spread his hands, signaling that he wouldn’t speak anymore. Shen Tingyue hesitantly let go, watching as Jian Yuanbai walked over to the desk and pulled open a drawer.

The contents of the drawer caught Jian Yuanbai’s attention. Inside, there were only two items: a stack of sticky notes and a pen.

Jian Yuanbai frowned slightly. He had seen the exact same items in his own room before. If that was the case, then perhaps every drawer in every room contained them.

“Don’t you think using written notes to announce names is a bit redundant?”

Shen Tingyue perked up, nodding with great seriousness. “Yes, yes! It’s completely unnecessary.”

“We figured out how to open the ceiling panels so easily, and then the method of announcing names changed to a broadcast on that screen—so why not just broadcast it from the start?”

He clenched one hand into a fist and smacked it against his palm. “It’s totally redundant.”

Jian Yuanbai, seeing his tense, cautious expression, held back a laugh and asked, “Then why do something so unnecessary?”

“Uh?”

The little vampire was stunned. He absentmindedly pinched his chin, pressing so hard that it left a crescent-shaped mark, yet he still couldn’t think of an answer.

With his delicate face scrunched up, he looked at Jian Yuanbai pitifully and murmured, “I… I don’t know.”

“Can you not punish me for that?”

Shen Tingyue had really tried his best to cooperate, but he genuinely didn’t know the answer…

Jian Yuanbai completely ignored that plea and casually said his guess: “Maybe it’s to make the game more interesting.”

The little vampire left to the side looked listless, hesitating to speak to Jian Yuanbai.

He didn’t dare say it out loud but had cursed “bad thing” in his heart eight hundred times.

This trip couldn’t be considered entirely fruitless. Jian Yuanbai took Shen Tingyue and left, making their way through the twists and turns of the ancient castle.

Shen Tingyue was a bit puzzled. “Where are we going?”

Jian Yuanbai replied, “To find Jia Qi.”

Shen Tingyue was even more confused. “Haven’t we been watching him for two days already?”

Jia Qi, the man with glasses, was in his round of the game. Everyone else was waiting in the dining room.

He had passed his round in the simplest and safest way, but after that day, Jian Yuanbai felt something was off and had followed him for two days.

Shen Tingyue, dragged along, had suffered from poor sleep.

Jian Yuanbai said, “This time, it’s for a different reason.”

From what he had learned about Jia Qi during those two days of surveillance, Jian Yuanbai easily found him.

Inside a cloakroom on the upper floors of the castle, with large windows providing a good view, Jia Qi, hearing the door open, turned around warily. When he saw that it was Jian Yuanbai, his expression stiffened. “It’s you. What do you want?”

Jian Yuanbai stepped forward, but Jia Qi immediately stopped him. “Don’t come any closer. Stay where you are.”

“What do you want?”

Jian Yuanbai didn’t mind and stayed put. “In a game like this, where one must abandon their conscience, the ones targeted first are often the safest.”

“In the beginning, no one dares to kill. But when the shadow of death looms, and people go mad, becoming the hunted ghost then is the most dangerous.”

“Would you agree?”

Jia Qi asked, “What exactly are you saying?”

Jian Yuanbai still didn’t answer. “At first, I thought my guess was wrong, but after you, the order of the names turned out to be correct.”

“You’re the anomaly in the name order. There’s a rule in the game: if, after the game checkpoints at 5 o’clock and 2 a.m., you kill the person whose name appears, you become the next one to be hunted.”

“So at the time, I assumed you were the first murderer.”

Jia Qi’s face changed. “I didn’t.”

Jian Yuanbai nodded. “I watched you for two days.”

He had initially concluded that Jia Qi had no intent to kill again and was planning to wait before making a move. But what he found in Lu Yongye’s room made him realize he might have been wrong.

“If I’m not mistaken, that day, after a body was discovered and the group was in chaos, the sound of the grandfather clock rang. You were the one who suggested checking the note first.”

“You were the first to enter. Before anyone else stepped into the dining room, you had already taken the note.”

Jia Qi’s face changed repeatedly. Jian Yuanbai continued, “You had enough time to swap the real note with one you had prepared in advance.”

“And you never handed the note to anyone. You only held it up and let everyone take a quick look.”

“Afraid that your handwriting wouldn’t match?”

“A stack of sticky notes and a pen—every room had them, placed in the drawer. In this unfamiliar environment, very few would think to check the drawers. This is a hidden game mechanic.”

Jian Yuanbai asked, “Am I right?”

Jia Qi’s expression tensed to the extreme. “This is just your speculation. Do you have any proof?”

If others found out about this, in such a tense, paranoid environment, someone might turn on him out of anger.

Jian Yuanbai reassured, “Don’t worry. Survival is a basic instinct. I won’t tell anyone what you did.”

He looked at Jia Qi seriously. “I just want to know—who was the real name on that note?”

According to the rules, the unbroken chain of notifications made everyone disbelieve the players who insisted they went to bed after 2 a.m.

Even those players themselves began to doubt. But Jian Yuanbai didn’t think that, under those circumstances, they would have misremembered the time.

That was why he had watched Jia Qi for two days.

Now, he suspected that Jia Qi had swapped the note himself rather than breaking the rules by committing murder.

More importantly, he realized one crucial thing—

Who had truly initiated this deadly game?

Jia Qi was silent for a long time before meeting Jian Yuanbai’s gaze and slowly pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Here.”

Jian Yuanbai took the note and opened it.

The name on it made him freeze. It was an ordinary name, one Jian Yuanbai remembered clearly.

The problem was—

This person had been seated in the first row, fourth position.

His name had appeared in the correct order.

And that person—was already dead.

He had been electrocuted in front of everyone at the iron gate.

At that moment, Jian Yuanbai suddenly understood something.

…

Nightfall shrouded the eerie castle.

Xu Shu covered her mouth, trembling as she hid under the crude wooden bed in the servants’ quarters. Her whole body pressed tightly against the cold wall, as if trying to disappear into it.

Clang—

The sound of the grandfather clock marked 2 a.m., signaling the end of this round.

Xu Shu let out a sharp breath, drenched in sweat, and slowly crawled out from under the bed.

A pair of shoes appeared in front of her.

The figure squatted down in front of her.

She swallowed nervously and stammered, “The game is over. You can’t kill me. If you do, you’ll be the next one hunted.”

“If I die, your name will be called.”

A soft squelching sound followed.

Xu Shu clutched her throat as blood gushed out, her eyes wide with shock.

In the last moment of her life, she heard a deep, muffled voice.

“You mean the game rules?”

“That rule was fake.”