A corpse.
A naked boy's corpse lay quietly on the luxurious red velvet tablecloth, like a dish served for a “gourmet feast.”
The fragmented yellow light cast upon his body, pale as white plaster, shimmered with a luster that was both glassy and reminiscent of water's surface.
Through the gaping wound in his pale abdomen, one could glimpse his crimson organs, red like the insides of a freshly opened pomegranate.
His amber eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, their dull irises reflecting nothing. A tiny black insect, resembling a fly but of an unidentifiable species, slowly crawled across his delicate face.
His slightly open mouth looked as though he were crying for help, the corners smeared with traces of black soil...
“Heh—!!!”
The first to react was Geng Hui, who had transformed into a harmless snail.
A sharp scream erupted from her mouthparts as her entire body tumbled off the chair, writhing in terror under the long dining table.
The other new players fared no better in their reactions.
The middle-aged man instinctively clutched his son in his arms. The boy with colorful braids stared wide-eyed and bit his lip, seemingly trying hard to suppress a scream.
The chef, on the other hand, shrank his burly frame into the narrow chair that barely accommodated him. Pointing at the corpse on the table, he stammered in horror, “This… this…”
Beyond that, no other sound escaped his mouth.
In contrast, the veteran players reacted much more calmly, silently observing the scene before them.
Jiang Yan glanced at the divine system that displayed the boy smiling brightly at him, then looked again at the lifeless body lying on the dining table. His emotions were complicated.
He hesitantly spoke, “Who… is he?”
“He is the human friend you invited. Yesterday, he arrived with your other friends to attend your wedding banquet. Have you forgotten?” the steward explained.
His voice was low and melodious, like a cello being played.
Jiang Yan fell silent.
At yesterday’s wedding banquet, was this boy among his human friends?
Of course not.
Although Jiang Yan didn’t know the exact memories that had been implanted in everyone, by now, he could more or less piece things together.
“This was a brutal and bloody murder,” said the steward lightly, as if commenting on how delicious dinner was.
He chuckled softly. “I have reason to suspect that one of you killed this poor boy, then infiltrated the King’s sleeping chambers to cruelly slaughter him.”
The others remained in their previous states, showing no dramatic reactions. Geng Hui, who had fallen off her chair, was still screaming.
“Alright! Confess your crimes!”
The steward’s voice rang out again. “Starting with you.”
As he spoke, he gently scratched Jiang Yan’s chin, muttering sarcastically, “God knows how many times I’ve said this today.”
“Let’s begin, dear sir,” he said, pointing directly at Yu Jia.
Yu Jia’s expression darkened, comparable to the bottom of the chef’s pot though Jiang Yan, of course, had never actually seen what the bottom of the chef’s pot looked like.
Taking a deep breath, Yu Jia fixed his gaze on the boy lying atop the long table and began to speak slowly.
“After the wedding banquet ended last night, I returned to my room. Just as I was about to sleep, there was a knock at my door.”
“I opened it, and it was Tao Shi.”
Jiang Yan blinked slightly, turning to look at Tao Shi.
Tao Shi’s eyes, hidden beneath his blue bangs, showed little emotion. It was clear he had no intention of refuting Yu Jia’s words.
Geng Hui’s screams continued unabated.
Yu Jia resumed, “He told me they were playing an interesting game and asked if I wanted to join.
“Since the maid had warned me earlier that we shouldn’t wander the castle at night, I instinctively wanted to refuse.
“However, Tao Shi said that everyone else was there, so I followed him out of the room.”
“The castle at night was pitch black and desolate, like the grand hall for judgment in hell… I don’t even know how long we walked before we stopped at the door of a room. The door wasn’t fully closed, and a faint light seeped out from inside.
“Tao Shi led me in, pushing the door open. The moment I stepped inside, I saw…”
Yu Jia paused for a moment, his tone growing heavier. “I saw them killing someone.”
“Ah—!”
Jiang Yan’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Under the long table, Geng Hui seemed to have been triggered by Yu Jia’s words, her screams nearly piercing everyone’s eardrums.
Unfazed by the chaos, Yu Jia continued recounting his story, as though narrating someone else’s tale.
To be precise, it wasn’t entirely his story—it was a memory forcibly implanted by the main system to advance the storyline of the instance.
Yu Jia said, “They were killing this boy.
“I’ve forgotten his name—or rather, in my memory, he seemed to have several names, but I couldn’t bring myself to say any of them.”
“I saw them, under the dim crystal chandelier, slicing his throat. Scarlet blood soaked the white cashmere carpet. He looked like a shattered porcelain doll, staring blankly at me…
“His soft black hair and pale skin, for a fleeting moment, made me believe that the one they killed wasn’t this child but… Jiang Yan.”
Yu Jia swallowed hard before continuing. “I was so terrified that I ran back to my room.
“The next day, when I heard the king’s bedroom echoing with screams, I thought it was this poor boy mourning his own death…”
As Yu Jia finished speaking, silence fell over the room.
Jiang Yan quietly observed him.
It was obvious that when the main system implanted the memory, it hadn’t considered Yu Jia’s personality. After all, anyone on the server knew Yu Jia wanted Jiang Yan dead.
So, upon witnessing players killing Jiang Yan, his first reaction should have been to step forward and ensure Jiang Yan was truly dead—not to flee in terror.
Setting that aside, would experienced players really panic and run blindly after stumbling upon a murder scene?
Obviously not.
The giant’s broad palm gently rubbed against Jiang Yan’s waist. In this surreal moment, Jiang Yan felt as if the boundary between in-game players and real NPCs was becoming blurred.
Real NPCs needed to participate in storyline votes just like players.
Meanwhile, players were beginning to act like real NPCs, performing roles the main system had forcibly assigned to them.
As this thought surfaced in his mind, Jiang Yan lowered his gaze slightly.
From the moment he entered the game, 663 had told him that the distinction between players and real NPCs was stark.
Players would never turn into real NPCs, and real NPCs could never become players.
This was predetermined the moment players and real NPCs signed their contracts with the Main God.
Yet now, in this prolonged and absurd instance, players and real NPCs were subtly overlapping in ways they never had before.
It all seemed to point to one underlying cause—
the Main God had genuinely malfunctioned.
Jiang Yan’s indifferent blue eyes reflected the entirety of the banquet hall. His gaze betrayed no emotion, as though his eyes were two crystalline screens merely replaying the events within the hall.
The small black insect darted across the boy’s dull amber pupils, crawled over his pale plaster-like face, and disappeared into his slightly open mouth.
In the vast banquet hall, the only sound left was Geng Hui’s heart-wrenching screams.
“Tch. So noisy,” Yu Xiu muttered coldly, glancing at Geng Hui’s vacant chair. He snapped his fingers lightly.
Snap.
No one knew what he had done, but Geng Hui fell silent.
Jiang Yan felt the giant’s arm around his waist tighten slightly. The giant spoke, his deep voice rumbling: “Do you clearly remember who committed the crime at that time?”
Yu Jia shook his head and replied, “But I’m certain that among them was a young lady. The moment his throat was cut, blood sprayed onto the puffed fabric of her pink gown.”
At his words, everyone instinctively turned to look at Geng Hui’s now-empty chair.
After a brief pause, Tao Shi spoke up: “Since I’ve been mentioned, I’ll go next.”
No one objected, so Tao Shi began speaking slowly:
“After the wedding ended, Xiao Feng and I went back to our room together. Whether it was his room or mine, I don’t quite remember.
“Some time passed—it was already dark, probably bedtime—and just as Xiao Feng and I were preparing to sleep, we heard a ‘thudding’ noise from outside.”
Jiang Yan raised an eyebrow slightly.
So, the ‘thudding’ noise occurred before the boy was murdered?
If the ‘thudding’ sound came from dismemberment, did that mean the king had already been dismembered before the boy was killed?
If the king had been killed and dismembered by one of the players present, then this boy must have been the next victim.
Currently, the main system hadn’t issued any new [Side Quest] prompts, which suggested that identifying the boy’s killer wasn’t important. Yu Jia had mentioned earlier that he saw a group of people committing the crime.
Alternatively, the one who led the group to kill this boy might also be the same person who killed the king.
Jiang Yan began to rack his brain, trying to recall details from the previous night.
He tried his hardest to remember when he might have lost consciousness. The only thing he could be sure of was that, at the moment he passed out, his husband was still alive—pressed down on him like a mountain.
Although, his memories of last night might not align perfectly with the main system’s actual storyline.
Meanwhile, Tao Shi continued:
“I wanted to open the door and see what was causing the sound, but as soon as I did, a maid standing at the doorway stopped me. Just like Yu Jia said, the maid warned me not to wander around the giant’s castle at night.
“But, as everyone knows, humanity’s greatest virtue is curiosity!
“So, after the maid left, Xiao Feng and I snuck out of the room.”
Tao Shi’s expression darkened—not from fear of what happened next, but because everything that followed had been forcibly implanted into his memory by the main system.
“Damn it!”
The feeling of being controlled like a puppet, manipulated at someone else’s whim, made Tao Shi incredibly frustrated.
Damn this main system!
If not for…
Damn! At least check the situation before glitching!
Tao Shi felt utterly aggrieved, forcing a grimace that was more a sneer than a smile. He began to narrate the completely out-of-character memory implanted in his mind with an emotionless tone:
“Xiao Feng and I wandered the dark corridors of the giant’s castle. We didn’t know where the sound came from, so we could only walk aimlessly. Eventually, we turned a corner and saw Lu Sha…”
Instantly, everyone’s gaze fell on Lu Sha’s strikingly handsome face, a mix of elven grace and giant’s features.
But Lu Sha merely glanced at the others, his face devoid of expression.
Tao Shi continued:
“I was about to ask him if he had heard the strange ‘thudding’ sound earlier, but Lu Sha looked at me and said: ‘Do you want to see? They’re killing someone.’
“His tone was calm, unnervingly calm, as if he were telling us they were hosting a ball and casually inviting us to join.
“So, Xiao Feng and I followed him.”
“When we entered the room, we saw a child lying on the ground. That child had black hair, skin as white as cream cheese, and… a pair of blue eyes, clear like glass.”
“What?!”
Yu Jia and Jian Hou exclaimed in shock simultaneously.
Jiang Yan stared at Tao Shi in disbelief.
Tao Shi looked up, meeting Jiang Yan’s crystalline blue eyes. A mocking, almost playful smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“Yes, the one I saw that night—the one they were killing—”
“Was you.”