Please Stop Pretending To Be a Cute Newcomer!

>He brought it up to his nose and sniffed it.
His eyes moved slightly, and after comparing it with his own mask, which had a red feather on a white background, he said, “Yours has a smell.”

 

“Huh?” Shen Qingcheng snatched the two masks and tried to smell them, “Why can't I smell it? What does it smell like?”

 

Lu Qi: “A little coquettish.”

 

Shen Qingcheng: “Eh, I suspect you are secretly insulting me.”

 

Lu Qi didn't understand at first, and when he figured it out he was struck speechless.
Who would say such things about themselves? He rubbed his temples, “You're not.”

 

Knock, knock.
The sound of knocking on the door interrupted them.

 

The wavering voice of what was probably a servant sounded outside the door, “Guests, please go back to your room as soon as possible.
After nine o'clock in the evening, do not leave or walk around.”

 

Shen Qingcheng glanced at the two-meter-wide bed in the center of the room.
“It's big enough for two.”

 

Lu Qi picked up the suitcase and ordered, “Turn on your terminal and send me a message if something happens.” He paused.
“The mask…”

 

Shen Qingcheng waved him off and said, “I’ll call you if I have any questions.”

 

Lu Qi nodded and left with the suitcase.

 

“Could it be that Lu Qi has some strange habits when he sleeps?” Shen Qingcheng said to himself after Lu Qi left.
Two meters was really wide, definitely wide enough.

 

He glanced around the room.
It was very spacious, decorated in dark colors, and there was a brightly colored oil painting hanging on the wall–very conspicuous in the drab room.

 

Shen Qingcheng’s attention was naturally pulled to it.
He approached to take a closer look: the painting was of a forest in spring, the sun was shining down upon it, and a pregnant doe was drinking water by a stream.

 

A very vibrant oil painting.

 

Before he turned away from the painting, he rummaged around the nearby parts of the room.
The wardrobe was empty, and there were few amenities in the bathroom, so he was probably in a guest room.

 

Shen Qingcheng, who hadn’t gained any knowledge, cleaned up a little, then washed up and had a good night's sleep.

 

The next day, Shen Qingcheng was woken up by the servant's knock, knock.

 

“Guests, please wash up and go downstairs within 20 minutes.
Breakfast will start in half an hour.”

 

Shen Qingcheng glanced out the window; the sky was gloomy, and he murmured hoarsely, “I choose not to eat.”

 

No one answered, and after a while, there was another knock, knock.

 

He pulled the quilt up to cover his head, “I’m not eating, stop knocking.”

 

After a moment of silence, Lu Qi pushed the door open and strode to the bed.
“It's me.”

 

Shen Qingcheng pulled down the quilt suddenly.
He looked at the handsome man, and then at the open door behind the man, and asked with a shocked face, “The doors can be opened from the outside?”

 

Lu Qi: “En.”

 

Damn it⁵.

 

The two of them went downstairs late.
When they got there, there were already several people sitting at the long table in the hall.
At a quick count, there were exactly ten.
It seemed that the previous night had been quite peaceful.

 

The ten people were discussing what they had seen and found out.
A girl who looked fifteen or sixteen years old had nestled in Gao Shulin's arms in panic, eyes filled with unhidden fear.

 

“You came? Sit,” He Wei greeted them familiarly.

 

Just after he finished speaking, Gao Shulin also greeted Lu Qi.
Lu Qi nodded at her and sat next to Shen Qingcheng.
Gao Shulin didn't care, she was just expressing her attitude so that He Wei’s group of players wouldn't have the final word.

 

He Wei smiled, didn't say anything further to Gao Shulin's target, and explained to them, “We are discussing the new clues and questions we gathered from last night.”

 

Another player picked up the thread of conversation–it was the male player who had first grabbed a mask.
He said, “I left my mask downstairs on purpose last night, but when I woke up this morning, I found it was beside my pillow.
I don't know if someone put it there purposefully or not.”

 

It seems that all of the players’ rooms were the same, and the doors could be opened from the outside.

 

However, what Shen Qingcheng was more curious about was whether his decision to leave the mask was spontaneous, or whether someone asked him to do so.
If he had just listened to someone else, then wasn’t He Wei’s brainwashing ability a bit too strong?

 

Following the male player, Gao Shulin said, “Let me speak for Xiao Liu.” Xiao Liu was the terrified girl huddled in her arms.

 

Gao Shulin: “Xiao Liu's room probably used to be the mistress of the castle’s bedroom.
She found half a diary left by the mistress in the bedroom, and it was written in the diary that the mistress’s husband was the owner of the castle.
He was a horror author, and in order to elevate his work, he chose to live in remote and eerie places to create immersively.”

 

Gao Shulin: “One time, the author came back from writing and told his wife that he often heard the sound of knocking on the window at night, and he would also see figures drifting past the window, but the places he chose were often deserted except for the author himself.
There shouldn’t have been a second person there.”

 

Xiao Liu trembled in her arms, as if remembering something frightening.
Gao Shulin patted her on the shoulder.

 

Xiao Liu bit her lip, “Gao-jie, I'm fine.”

 

She took a breath and summoned up her courage, saying, “Last night, I was very scared after reading the mistress’s diary.
I fell asleep very late, but I sleep lightly, and I was woken up by a creaking sound.

 

“It was the window.
Someone was picking the lock of the window.
There was someone outside the window.
When they saw I was awake, they smiled at me through the window.”

 

“It was red! It was all red!”

 

Finished speaking, she screamed and threw herself into Gao Shulin's arms, trembling.

 

 

 

TLN:

¹ I guess she’s the lady who spoke earlier?

² Literally “Big Bear” (大熊).
Not the same xiong as xiongdi (兄弟) or daxiongdi (大兄弟), but it is the same as in “Big Bear Ridge” (大熊岭).

³ Around 6 ½ feet.

⁴

 

Source

⁵ Literally “saw a ghost” (见鬼了), but functions as an expletive.

 

Yes, she really did say “window” that many times.