There's definitely something wrong with this murder mystery game

Xu Shuo fobbed off Zhan Qian, the cannon fodder of the story, and then followed the system's directions to go downstairs and return to his own room.

The other players probably had already explored their respective rooms, and most likely found some supplies; only he still didn't know what his assigned area looked like, or if there were any incriminating evidence exposing his identity.

Before dispersing, the diligent NPC butler provided a key time point.

Ten o'clock at night!

And now there was still an hour and a half until ten o'clock.

Once the clock struck, the monsters and ghosts would probably start their wild dance, and he needed to make some preparations to deal with them.

The chef's room was on the first floor to the right, near the staircase – there were three rooms lined up, presumably all for the servants.

Xu Shuo pushed open the door, then smoothly locked it behind him.

After glancing briefly at the layout of the room, Xu Shuo began to search for "his" belongings, but he found nothing extra on the desk or in the wardrobe; it was spotlessly clean.

On the desk lay several cookbooks with signs of frequent use—it seemed that the murderer had been very serious about playing the role of a chef, even the notes in an open notebook were about recipe improvements.

So, did he come to be a chef because of a grudge, or did he become a chef and then develop a grudge?

Xu Shuo idly flipped through the notebook; it contained recipe improvements and jot down notes about mundane matters, such as the butler saying the master wanted sweet and sour fish tomorrow, or another junior chef asking him for culinary advice.

There was no hint of the owner's emotional inclinations.

But a person about to commit murder couldn't possibly show no signs at all, unless he was a lunatic who didn't think with his brain.

There were no extra clues on the desk, and apart from the neatly folded clothes in the wardrobe, no suspicious items were found.

Xu Shuo sat on the bed in thought, then suddenly had an inspiration and bent down to look under the bed.

In the dark and narrow space under the bed, a box lay quietly in the deepest part.

Oh? A target found!

Xu Shuo quickly moved the tin box out and was delightfully surprised to find the lid locked with an old-fashioned lock.

Xu Shuo: "..."

He paused for a moment, then got up to leave the room, moving confidently through the dark parlor and dining room to the kitchen to grab a kitchen knife.

After returning to his room and re-locking the door, Xu Shuo brought the knife down directly onto the lock.

"Crack!"

The lock emitted a groan under the strain, with its springs coming loose inside; he then chopped it a few more times, completely breaking the lock off.

After dealing with the lock, Xu Shuo opened the box to find a withered rose first.

The rose had turned a dull red, and the withered, rotting flower lay silently on a white dress, decorating a morbidly melancholic scene with its deep red and pale white.

[Congratulations to player for triggering the character quest: Zhang Shou.]

The system suddenly chimed in.

Xu Shuo paused, swiped through the system's quest panel, and found that it wasn't a compulsory main mission and it didn't even have a clear task description.

But the identity of the chef was now completely revealed to him, and the character quest "Zhang Shou" appeared in the form of a card with a progress bar underneath, which was currently empty.

He wondered what would happen if it got filled.

...

Nightfall came.

The lights of the manor were all extinguished, and only dim glows remained at either end of the corridors within the villa, which failed to serve any illuminating purpose and only added a sense of gloom.

Soon, a door was quietly opened, and a petite figure stepped out of the room and turned into another corridor in the dark of night.

As she passed by the master bedroom, the figure seemed to glance at the door but didn't stop; she went straight to the door of the room at the very end of the corridor, twisted the doorknob without hesitation, and walked in.

The sound of a lock snapping shut came from inside.

At this moment, in the room near the corridor, Zhan Qian stopped straining her ears to listen and refocused her attention on the table in front of her.

She looked through the items she had brought, and apart from a commission letter from the Manor Owner, the rest were all sorts of weird and wonderful props required by a mysticist.

Here was the problem, the photographer didn't know photography, so as a mysticist, she was clueless about mysticism too!

Tarot cards, crosses, crystals, candles... What on earth were these things?

Could they really help find a ghost?

And perhaps there was an even more important question, was her identity a sham?

After all, in modern society... Forget it, forget it, why bother with science after traveling through time.

Zhan Qian organized the items, and the commission letter which the Manor Owner had given her delicately suggested that there were mysterious phenomena occurring in his manor. Therefore, he requested her to investigate, but other than that, no additional information was provided.

It was a very standard confidential commission letter.

"This game is so infuriating, it doesn't give any information at the start!" Zhan Qian ground her teeth as she put down the letter and picked up her pile of mystical items.

She took particular care to string up the cross and wear it.

Although she did not know if the item used to deal with vampires would be effective against wraiths, she decided to just bring it along anyway. Then, she lit the quaint-looking white candle and held it in her hands as a source of light.

Having prepared herself, Zhan Qian went to the door, hesitated for a moment, then went back into the room and sat down.

"It's only ten o'clock now. Maybe the ghosts haven't even come out yet," Zhan Qian muttered to herself. But sitting idly was also irritating, so she started rummaging through her backpack again.

...

Meanwhile, on the other side, a similar conversation took place.

"They've just turned out the lights, everyone is probably still awake."

"Then we should rest for a while, that way we'll have more energy later."

"You sleep on the floor."

"..."

Since their identities were that of a couple, Tan Xiaohe and Yang Ming stayed in the same guest room.

After entering, Yang Ming checked his tablet, only to find that not only were there no bugs, but the entire villa didn't even have cameras installed.

Yang Ming pondered, "What kind of situation would it be, to have so many servants yet casually not install any cameras?"

Tan Xiaohe lay on the bed, idly playing with her phone and replied casually, "Maybe there are ghosts in the villa."

"..."

After saying that, the room suddenly fell into silence, eerie and dark, illuminated only by the light of the computer screen and the muted sound of a mobile game—deeply eerie.

Suddenly, Tan Xiaohe found the man sitting on the floor odd and snickered, "You're not scared of ghosts, are you?"

Yang Ming's expression was awkward, "No."

Then, to prevent the woman from ridiculing him further, Yang Ming quickly changed the subject, "What do you think would happen if we failed the mainline quest?"

"Don't know," Tan Xiaohe said, bored with playing Candy Crush. "But I sure don't want to try it out."

"Neither do I."

"So don't drag me down."

"..."

With such a toxic teammate, Yang Ming really felt exhausted, but fortunately, they had only one task, and they had various practical props to assist them, so they should be able to complete the task soon.

He just wonders what the treasure would be.