Chapter 3: Headless Ghost

The next day, You Xi was awakened by a scream outside his door.

Ai, that’s the proper way to introduce an escape game.

The funny female ghost who came yesterday was obviously abnormal.

You Xi stared at the ceiling above his head dazedly. He was still young and had a romantic outlook. He had always thought he was born beautiful, different, uninhibited. But in the end, nothing was as good as the many otaku friends he had made in games. He has no match with others for the time being, and he may have no match until he dies.

With his head resting on his arm, You Xi let out a sigh of sadness and melancholy.

He didn’t want to die. Even if he was very against it, he had to get up from the coffin so early in the morning to see what’s going on outside.

At that moment, You Xi suddenly heard the sound of the system in his ears.

“Ding–“

“S-Level Player 004 has received 2 million game coins 16 hours after the start of ‘Midnight Villa.’ Congratulations to Player 004 for becoming famous overnight!”

The system administrator tried his best to suppress his excitement, but his tone wasn’t as unbiased and fair as he had hoped. Instead, he was full of obvious flattery.

“In under 34 hours, Player 004 has gained over 300,000 fans, and the gold master directly awarded 1 million coins on your game livestream room. No. 004, you are now on the homepage of the game, and a large number of fans are rushing crazily toward you–“

This year’s end-of-year awards must have been rewarded! The system administrator was about to explode with joy. What kind of godly luck was this; he had picked up such a big boss.

Powerful and mysterious, but the most important was that he was really good-looking and attracted men and women! The system administrator saw a rising star.

“When 003 swept through the escape game last year, he wasn’t as fast as you!” The system administrator spoke. “Here’s afternoon tea for you!”

The afternoon tea was rich, so You Xi was happy, but a livestream? Who was the livestream for? What could he buy with 2 million game coins?

Although he really wanted to know, You Xi couldn’t ask. Since he was pretending to be a boss, he could only hold back his curiosity and stick to his rules.

He didn’t worry. If there was a chance to complete the mission by fishing in troubled waters, he would definitely be able to figure it out after he escapes the Midnight Villa instance.

You Xi walked out of the room. Outside the door, the players gathered there saw that he had finally deigned to leave. He suddenly seemed as if he had found his backbone.

The pink haired TOM-laoshi said: “Sir, Dr. Liu is dead!”

Because he didn’t speak deeply with the other players, You Xi didn’t know which one Dr. Liu was and had to approach the corpse and observe carefully. Lying on the bed in the Wednesday room, the corpse was already completely different. According to the TOM-laoshi in the same room, he had died silently. It wasn’t until this morning that the TOM-laoshi woke up and found that he had died a miserable death.

You Xi resisted his nausea and fear, then finally matched the deceased with the characters in his mind.

Dr. Liu didn’t speak much. He sat to the right of the decapitated blonde girl during dinner last night. He had a big appetite; he ate half of the roast goose.

You Xi only had that impression of Dr. Liu.

You Xi leaned lazily on the table, the hazy morning light shining on his well-defined, romantic face. He seemed to be smiling but not smiling, and asked casually: “Tell me, what did you do yesterday?”

The TOM-laoshi looked at You Xi, trying to suppress the eagerness in his heart that was electrified by the boss. He recalled: “Yesterday afternoon, Dr. Liu and I entered the room together. I didn’t notice anything unusual, but Dr. Liu said that there was an odor in the room, so he forcefully requested to sleep by the window.”

While speaking, the curtains in the room were blown by the wind, and everyone saw a blood-red handprint on the white wall!

The temperature inside the room dropped instantly.

The TOM-laoshi seemed to remember something terrible. “After returning from dinner in the evening, Dr. Liu said that the odor was worse. I asked him what the smell was… He said it was like carrion. I was scared. I tried to get him to close the doors and windows to prevent things from crawling inside, but he insisted on opening the windows, and then this happened.”

The TOM-laoshi spoke, but his voice trembled at the end and he looked at You Xi pitifully. “But sir, I asked the others, and the window in the Friday room was also open last night. I don’t understand why our room was targeted? Please help me!”

You Xi: “……”

Eh. He had no clue at all.

He was wrong. He overestimated his IQ. Not everyone was capable of logical reasoning.

There was nothing, no logic connecting the clues. He couldn’t say that it was because the room smelled bed that he died first. Could he still be a boss if he told that kind of bullshit?

You Xi sneered. “You didn’t tell the truth. I can’t help you.”

Regardless, if you encounter something that you can’t solve, you can push the blame, Did TOM-laoshi tell the truth? Only TOM-laoshi knew, so the boss couldn’t break his image anyway, As long as the others still thought he was awesome, he wouldn’t fall apart!

The TOM-laoshi was really scared. “I’m sorry sir! Don’t be angry– I have an issue I’ve been keeping from you. You have to save me!”

The TOM-laoshi burst into tears. “Can everyone else leave? I’ll only tell you the truth.”

“Gu Mian stays. The others can leave.” You Xi spoke after thinking deeply for a while.

Gu Mian was flattered by You Xi calling his name. He adjusted his glasses and tried to hide his ambition and make himself appear as calm as possible.

The TOM-laoshi was still dissatisfied. Why did Gu Mian have to stay?

The faint smile on You Xi’s lips disappeared. His tone was extremely cold: “Your fate is your own. I have no time to accommodate your hypocrisy. Are you going to talk or not?”

The TOM-laoshi clenched his fists and struggled for a few seconds. “I’ll talk! I probably know where the smell of carrion was coming from.”

But he didn’t speak anymore. Instead, he sat on the edge of his bed and silently removed his shoes.

A breeze blew in and an unbearable stench rushed violently toward You Xi.

You Xi: “……” Damn, what kind of spell is this? Let me go, it’s so spicy!

You Xi’s eyes were narrowed at the stench cloud, and tears were about to flow out. Regardless of his boss demeanor, he immediately turned away. “Gu Mian, you will handle the rest.”

The boss waved his arms, but couldn’t get rid of the cloud.

Gu Mian wanted to step out with the boss, but because of what the boss said, he was forced to stay in the room drenched in the smell of rotten flesh.

Although it was very impolite, Gu Mian couldn’t take it and suddenly opened the window, breathing desperately. When he saw the room opposite the window, Gu Mian choked.

The TOM-laoshi put on his shows silently behind Gu Mian, and he was crying: “Is sir rejecting me?”

“No–” Gu Mian swallowed hard and gagged. “Mr. Liar, he saw this early in the morning. He intentionally left me behind, probably because he wanted me to see this.”

“What is it?” The TOM-laoshi leaned over to where Gu Mian was pointing. His pupils dilated instantly like Gu Mian’s.

After a long while, the two came out of the Wednesday room in a good mood.

When they arrived in the dining hall, You Xi was eating breakfast at the table. When he saw Gu Mian come down from the second floor, he smiled slightly, and shamelessly sold his dignity to buy the the little brother.

No one could resist You Xi’s charm when he smiled at them, not to mention Gu Mian had long admired him. For a moment, Gu Mian felt that he was favored by god and favored by his husband. [1] He had excellent grades ever since he was a child, but no matter how many times he placed first on an exam, he had never felt enclosed in joy like that moment.

After receiving gratitude from the boss, Gu Mian was floating among the clouds.

“About this matter.” You Xi asked. “Gu Mian, what do you think?”

You Xi took a sip of soup, squinted his eyes, and successfully used Di Renjie’s ‘Yuan Fang, what do you think?’ method to throw the problem to others. [2] You Xi hid his merit and fame and couldn’t help but praise himself! [3]

“First of all, all players who die in the game must be cremated on the spot, otherwise they may be cursed and demonized by the game.” Gu Mian spoke loudly. “Secondly, everyone must be careful of headless ghosts and shut their doors and windows tonight.”

Everyone looked flustered. Only You Xi looked happy.

Of course You Xi was happy. Gu Mian really had two brushes. [4] He encouraged Gu Mian to continue speaking using his eyes.

Gu Mian spoke again: “I saw handprints spread all the way from the opposite wall outside the window. They began from the windows of the dining hall on the first floor. The first room they passed was Sunday on the second floor, and the second was Wednesday.

“Unfortunately, sir’s window was closed tightly last night. The ghost who crawled out of the hall window couldn’t enter sir’s room and ended up in the Wednesday room. There should be a limit on the number of deaths per day in the game, so Dr. Liu, who was by the window, was killed by the headless ghost while Jiang Jiang survived.

Jiang Jiang was the real name of the TOM-laoshi.

You Xi was frightened when he heard that. Had he closed the window last night? That didn’t seem right… When he woke up at midnight, he still felt the wind blowing from outside.

Could it be that when he woke up last night, the headless ghost was actually looking at him from outside his window?

You Xi was scared for a while.

Aahhh, so terrible! But–

“Why is the ghost headless?” Xiao Lu, the boy who hadn’t appeared at dinner last night, wondered without understanding the situation.

“A player died last night and her head was cut off.” The TOM-laoshi explained. “When everyone woke up this morning, they found her head was still on the table and no one had taken care of it, but no one knew where the torso went.”

“It must be her who killed Dr. Liu last night!” The TOM-laoshi trembled. “We asked the villa attendants. They hate having dead in the villa. They don’t like to clean up the corpses, and it’s unlikely for someone to secretly hide the corpse. The head is still there, but the body is gone. There was only one explanation – the dead player became a ghost!”

“No wonder Old Liu’s face was chewed up when he died.” The man in the suit who hadn’t spoken before now said emotionally, “Maybe the female ghost will grow eyes and a nose after eating Old Liu’s face?”

“So we now need to cremate the corpse to prevent another accident.” Gu Mian was worried. “The question now is where are we going to cremate them? Stepping outside the villa will lead to death, but there isn’t a courtyard in the villa. Dealing with the corpse is a very difficult, serious, and urgent issue.”

You Xi had an ominous hunch, and sure enough, everyone’s eyes drifted to him again.

You Xi choked silently. Since he was pretending to be a big boss, he could no longer happily blend with the crowd.

...To be continued.... ...

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