The Trial Game of Life

What about the ghosts? Holding onto this speculation, Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng searched the other rooms, mainly Yu Wangnian’s study. At this time, Yu Wangnian was newly married and would definitely stay with the lady. Therefore, he should share the same room with the lady, while the study just remained purely as a study.

They found Yu Wangnian’s diary in the study room. Although this diary didn’t carry any contents following 1916, it wasn’t smeared with blood and could help fill in the missing details.

[8th October 1915

I’ve never seen a girl who looks so much like a lilac flower. She must have taken my mind away, otherwise, how could I be this sleepless?

13th February 1916

Wanwan’s heart isn’t with me, but I still can’t give up.

It’s just that I don’t know what kind of man she cares about?

2nd July 1916

I can finally touch Wanwan’s heart. The gods must have listened to my prayers.

7th October 1916

The wedding is just around the corner. A seriously ill woman who claimed to be Father’s first wife appeared in the mansion with a weak-looking boy. She hoped to let him stay here.

This is really beyond my expectation. I must send someone back to my hometown to investigate it.

8th October 1916

His name is Yu Wangri.

10th October 1916

We’ve tied the knot. The joy of today was overwhelming.

11th October 1916

It wasn’t my intention that she would die here. I was just afraid that her illness would contaminate my Wanwan. I couldn’t explain everything to the guests, so I asked them to go to the basement to avoid the scrutinisation.

Just after one night, she passed on.

The teenager was perhaps unable to accept the death of his mother, so he suffered a heart attack and was still unconscious now. Although Dr. Lin was at fault, my fault was graver. If I hadn’t put them in the basement, Dr. Lin wouldn’t treat them so lightly.

It’s too late to regret.]

Yu Wangnian’s current diary didn’t contain much, but these were the only entries that were useful. Altogether, they could roughly outline a complete story. Jin Cheng closed the diary, leisurely sat in a chair and tapped his fingers on the table: “I didn’t expect this to be a revenge plan by the son of the first wife.”

If the man in the attic was Yu Wangri, then he secretly returned to the mansion definitely to seek revenge. Everything that happened after that could now be explained perfectly.

In 1916, Yu Wangri suffered a heart attack, but he certainly didn’t die. Yu Wangnian mistakenly thought he was dead and sent the body away from the mansion, which also planted a disaster for the future.

Many years later, Yu Wangri went back here as the young miss’ piano teacher. He must know that Lin Wan was seriously in love with Yu Wangyue, so he deliberately seduced Lin Wan using his looks, which were somewhat similar to Yu Wangyue’s.

Lin Wan was caught in this trap, and the leaking of this affair must have been manipulated by Yu Wangri.

This incident was like a fuse that completely detonated the subsequent tragedies in this mansion. What role did Yu Wangri play in it?

He seduced Lin Wan, but it was Lin Wan who later put the blame on Yu Wangyue. She loved him so much that it turned into hatred.

The middle-aged maid died because of greed, and the young servant died for a similar reason.

As for Dr. Lin, his arrogance and indifference indirectly led to the death of Yu Wangri’s mother, and his death must have been because of Yu Wangri. At that time, pretending to be the lady, the young servant communicated with Yu Wangri in the attic in an attempt to put the blame on the lady. Yu Wangri might have done something such that it led to the murder of Dr. Lin instead.

The bathroom where the doctor was killed was very close to his attic. There was no bathroom in the attic, so if Yu Wangri wanted to take a shower, he must go there. He had every opportunity to make a move.

But it wasn’t him who directly killed the doctor.

He was playing with people’s hearts but not actually killing them. While the entire mansion was heading to its brutal ending, he sat quietly in the attic, watching the people underneath kill each other.

Finally, he walked out of the place completely unharmed.

Needless to say, the danger of this plan was immeasurable. With just one wrong step, everything would be exposed. Him having similar looks as Yu Wangyue might be his best tool, yet at the same time his biggest flaw.

Jin Cheng: “So, Yu Wangyue didn’t know the truth until after he died. The NPCs in this dungeon can’t see ghosts, so Yu Wangri wouldn’t be alert against a ghost.”

Tang Cuo nodded.

After Yu Wangyue knew the truth, he began to play the music composed by Wangri, hoping to send a hint to those who were still alive. But his effort was all fruitless.

“The problem now is ― how to open the main door.” 

The full story had more or less been figured, but the mansion’s main door was still tightly closed, while the door to the basement couldn’t be opened either. Tang Cuo went through all the details of the story once again, then he laid out the unused items one by one.

They were the music box and the key that Tang Cuo got on the butler’s keychain in 1924.

There were three unopened doors: the mansion’s main door, the basement door and the lady’s room door.

There was no other way but to keep searching.

Tang Cuo was currently most curious about the remaining key from the butler’s keychain. It was the key he got when he first entered the dungeon, but he hadn’t used it until now. This was strange.

He searched and searched, then walked back and forth in the mansion, and suddenly, something fell out of him. He took a closer look and found a hole in his trench coat pocket.

What fell out was the amulet that Chi Yan gave him, which was said to bring good luck. It was carried away by the wind blowing in from the crack on the door and fell under the telephone stand.

Tang Cuo bent over to pick it up, but when he looked up and his eyes stopped at the telephone, he was stunned.

“What’s wrong?” Jin Cheng asked.

“The most dangerous place is the safest one.” Tang Cuo straightened up immediately, picked up the telephone and turned it over. There was a keyhole at the bottom of the phone. He showed the keyhole to Jin Cheng, his eyes beaming with a rarely-seen flash of light.

Jin Cheng smiled. They had almost turned the entire Yu Mansion upside down yet only ignored the phone that they had been constantly using to make calls. Wasn’t this the most exposed place?

Tang Cuo inserted the key found in 1924 and it fitted perfectly.

In the secret compartment at the bottom of the phone was a key. It must be the key to the mansion’s main door. Now that they thought about it, it was indeed quite reasonable. Many people put their door key near the entrance, either in the shoe cabinet or other convenient places.

The telephone stand also happened to be suitable, because it was only five or six meters away from the main door.

This was probably called thinking too much might turn out to be harmful. Tang Cuo never expected that the way to clear this dungeon would be so simple.

But since they hadn’t obtained the [Twelve Movements], they couldn’t leave now. Jin Cheng put away the key, then the two continued to look for a way to open the basement and the lady’s room.

Tang Cuo looked at the clock in the living room. It was 10.30 in the evening.

“Where is Rong Yi now?”

“Probably still jumping repeatedly.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t worry, he isn’t as smart as you, and his life isn’t easy.”

Jin Cheng always slandered people behind their back without any restraint. He was, in fact, especially evil. As his words fell, he took out a piece of chocolate from his pocket and gave it to Tang Cuo: “The corpse has been disposed of, but what about the ghost?”

Tang Cuo took it: “Where did you take it from?”

“The coffee table in the living room, Yu Wang Nian and Lin Wan’s wedding candy bar. It should carry some ‘happiness’ in it.” Jin Cheng said confidently.

Are you sure you aren’t giving me a curse instead? 

Tang Cuo silently complained, but the chocolate looked good and was imported, so he peeled off the wrap and ate it. While eating, he answered: “The body isn’t here, so the ghost isn’t here either. For Yu Wangnian, the butler and others, their corpses are all left in the mansion, while the doctor’s corpse is shredded into pieces. The connection with the bodies is still here, so the ghosts appear. On the other hand, the corpse of Yu Wangri’s mother is entirely cleaned up.”

Jin Cheng nodded. This also made sense.

At this moment, Qi Hui stumbled up from the door of the basement, shouting loudly: “I saw a key! A key is lying next to Meng Ping’s body!”

Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng hurried down to the basement.

But at this moment, Jin Cheng frowned slightly.

As fast as lightning, he conjured his mechanical bow and turned around to shoot an arrow. “Whoosh ―” The long arrow dashed across the living room and through the gap in the chandelier, heading straight for the staircase.

Rong Yi’s figure appeared and dodged the arrow. Because of the move, the pocket watch in his hand swayed irregularly, but his spell casting wasn’t interrupted.

Tang Cuo clearly felt that his body suddenly became heavy, as if something had overwhelmed the air around him and blocked him from stepping forward. At the last moment, Tang Cuo looked back at the clock on the wall.

“Click.” The second hand stopped moving.

Tang Cuo, Jin Cheng and Qi Hui were rooted to the staircase leading to the basement because time had stopped.

Rong Yi spit out a mouthful of blood. He supported himself on the stair railings and wiped the blood off the corner of his mouth. When he raised his head again, his face was pale but his eyes were resolute. He walked past the three men without stopping or even looking at them.

He went straight to the basement door, confirmed the location of the key through the crack on the door and took out a sword to hook the key out.

After getting the key, he quickly tried it on the basement door. He couldn’t open it, so he headed to the second floor.

Tang Cuo couldn’t move and could only watch him leave. Just when Rong Yi’s figure disappeared at the corner of the stairs, Jin Cheng suddenly blinked playfully at Tang Cuo.

Qi Hui was still engulfed in the sorrow following his teammate’s death and the shock from being made to stand here. When he saw this scene between the two bosses, he just wished he was blind.

Every second of him freezing here felt like a year.

No one knew how long had passed. Perhaps it was a few minutes or half an hour, but Rong Yi finally came back. He walked in a hurry, his face seemed a bit paler than before, then he quickly walked past the three of them again to head towards the door.

Tang Cuo couldn’t look back, but he could hear the sound of the key turning.

Jin Cheng smiled.

He moved his neck slowly, then turned around slowly, raised his bow and mounted an arrow. After all that, he said with a threatening smile: “Give me the key, else, someone’s going to be hit badly.”

The second his voice fell, time regained its flow.

This time, Rong Yi froze as his whole body stiffened, but it was only within a blink of an eye. He turned his head back calmly and said: “With my current state, I really can’t hold you down.”

Jin Cheng: “So you play tricks on me again.”

And why are you saying that sounding like an all-innocent girl?

Rong Yi frowned, his expression looking as though he was eating a ton of bitter medicine.

“You’ve foreseen this.”

“That’s because I’m smarter.” Jin Cheng took out the one-time-use item that Wen Xiaoming gave him before entering the dungeon and threw it on the ground. If he knew that the Time Master might enter the dungeon, how could he not prepare anything? He never took it out prior to this because it wasn’t the right time.

Rong Yi decided to stop talking to Jin Cheng. Talking to this person was seriously more unbearable than failing this dungeon.

Jin Cheng spread his hands and turned to Tang Cuo for comfort.

Tang Cuo ignored him, stepped forward and pulled the door that had been partially opened by Rong Yi. Just before walking in, he turned around and asked Rong Yi: “What’s in the lady’s room?”

Rong Yi: “You can go and see for yourself.”

Tang Cuo: “I’m lazy.”

I can put up a performance of spitting out blood right on this spot, do you know?

Rong Yi was really a good-tempered man so he swallowed his anger and started to explain: “Beside the key to the basement in the lady’s room, there’s also a confession letter she’s sandwiched in the book. The day before the wedding, Yu Wangri saw her confessing to Yu Wangyue and being rejected by him. The next day, Yu Wangri’s mother fell sick in the basement. Feeling insecure, Lin Wan called the doctor away from treating her, which the doctor played along with and unintentionally killed the mother.”

Tang Cuo understood well. No wonder that in this whole tragedy, lady Lin Wan had the worst end.

She went through the torture of being bed-ridden all day, was killed by her own daughter later and eventually turned into an angry ghost, eternally unable to escape.

Thinking of this, Tang Cuo turned and walked into the basement. Entering his eyes was a music score painted with crimson blood that someone hadn’t wiped away in time.

Yu Wangri, the young man who was trapped in the basement with his seriously ill mother, couldn’t call for help, so he wrote this song in grief and anger.

This might be his curse to the mansion.

Now that the music score was already here, how could they turn it into the 6th Movement? Thinking about this, Tang Cuo took out the only item that hadn’t been used yet ― the music box.

At this time, Jin Cheng stepped forward: “Try winding the music box and putting it on the ground.”

Tang Cuo followed his words.

The next instant, the music box began to turn and the missing melody finally came. It was the [Song of Gods, Lambs and Crows]. With the sound of the music, the crimson music score on the wall seemed to come to life, its blood trickling down the wall and slowly flowing into the bottom of the music box.

It was terrifying yet magnificent at the same time.

From the rotating disk, a Holy Light gradually spread out and a thin sheet of paper emerged in the light.

“Ding!”

“Congratulations to the players for obtaining the 6th Movement!”

The translator has something to say:

In retrospect, I’m flabbergasted at how melodramatic this family is. Isn’t this the classic ‘everybody dies’ trope? （￣□￣；）If you’re somehow lost by now, here’s a quick summary of the saga (I’ve put some numbering to note down how many people were involved):

• The Middle-aged Maid (1) steals from The House Owner (2)
• The Young Servant (3) wants to seduce The House Owner to become the next lady but ends up getting killed by him
• The Lady (4) commits adultery with The Teacher (5), who resembles the house owner’s Younger Brother (6)
• Due to this affair, The House Owner has The Butler (7) poison the lady
• The House Owner, angry at The Lady’s adultery, locks up The Teacher in the basement and The Younger Brother in the attic
• The Younger Brother dies of a heart attack
• The House Owner, wanting to hide The Younger Brother’s death, moves The Teacher to the attic
• The Lady dies slowly with the poison. The Daughter (8) eventually kills the lady.
• The Doctor (9), who is the lady’s personal physician, is silenced for he knows too much
• The Butler and The House Owner are killed by The Lady’s ghost
• The Teacher turns out to be an illegitimate son from The First Wife (10), who, many years ago, was accidentally sent to her death by The House Owner
• Ultimately, The Teacher sits on his throne in the attic and watch the whole household burn
• Ten years later, The Teacher / The Illegitimate Son comes back to the house and, like his half-brother, dies of a heart attack
• To end the whole saga, The Daughter burns down everything.

Goodness gracious, this can probably be made into a 2000-episode soap opera…