Chapter 13 Bloodstains

"This is…"

Charlie froze. Behind the posters was a large patch of blood!

In disbelief, he immediately dropped the poster he had just picked up and tore off all the remaining posters on the wall. Sure enough, more bloodstains were hidden behind them!

"What are you still doing here?"

Julian and Lu Xiaoyao, who had finally calmed down, came downstairs, only to find Charlie still standing by the staircase, his expression dumbfounded. Following his gaze, the others quickly noticed it too.

"This…"

Da Yao looked down at the posters on the ground. Through Lu Xiaoyao's memories, she vaguely remembered something. Then she turned to Wang Wenfei, who was standing at the back, her face pale.

Wang Wenfei really didn't expect that there would be such things behind the posters she and Hu Yue had torn off earlier!

She thought in a daze, if she had been more impulsive and torn them further, would she have discovered even more?

"What does this mean?"

Looking at the large patches of blood on the wall, everyone confirmed that this must be some kind of clue, but they couldn't deduce what it was.

Da Yao looked at the spray pattern of the blood on the wall, as well as the neat bloodstains at the bottom. Looking towards the staircase entrance, she began to piece things together in her mind. Finally, she said, "Someone was chased and killed. They were caught on the stairs and slashed, perhaps in the artery, hence the spraying blood…"

Da Yao pointed to the patch of blood at the very top, a place difficult for a person of average height to reach. Then she pointed to the neat bloodstains below, the increasingly faint traces as they went down, and continued, "After that, he leaned against the wall, with nowhere to escape, and was eventually dragged away…"

At this point, Lu Xiaoyao sighed regretfully, "It's a pity that there are no bloodstains on the ground, so we don't know where he was dragged to."

"Maybe to the vegetable garden behind the house."

Wang Wenfei mentioned the vegetable garden, and everyone shuddered.

Yes.

The fragmented corpses in the vegetable garden, combined with what the mysterious merchant had said earlier, were those missing travelers killed there by some kind of evil spirit?

The clues on the wall had thrown everyone, who had originally planned to take a shower and sort out their thoughts, into disarray once again.

"Le-let's take a shower first."

The four of them were blocking the staircase. Finally, Julian spoke again, "After showering, let's ask the mysterious merchant for more details."

So far, even if they had to admit it, much of the information had been provided by the mysterious merchant.

···

"Huh? Are you saying that a tragedy once happened in my shop?"

As if he were truly a living person, Mu Chen frowned, looking at the four players who were staring at him with a troubled expression.

After a while, they saw him sigh and say, "Maybe, there are indeed rumors that something happened here. But I don't know about that. All I know is that we provide warm and safe lodging for lost travelers."

Sometimes, the more you tell the truth, the less people believe you.

No one actually believed the truth that Mu Chen had just told. Charlie was a little anxious and said again, "What do you mean 'maybe'? You weren't so uncertain this morning when you told us about the legend of the evil spirit here."

"Yes, but isn't that just a legend? As for whether a case really happened, I've only vaguely heard about it, so I'm not sure. But I've heard the legend many times, ever since my wife and I came here."

*Mmm*, the legend has existed since I died and became a ghost.

As for what kind of tragedy, it happened after the original character died but before he became a ghost, so how would he know?

Mu Chen thought to himself, but the players expressed doubt about his answer.

"Is that so?" The players looked troubled, seemingly not having obtained the answer they wanted from him.

"Then boss, what was the shop like when you and your wife came here? If there really was a murder, didn't you notice anything at all?"

Finally, Da Yao stared intently at Mu Chen's face, asking him word by word.

She was different from Lu Xiaoyao and the other players because she shared a body with Lu Xiaoyao, so her memories were naturally suppressed when Lu Xiaoyao entered the game.

But she was different, she came in midway, she wouldn't forget everything, and the system couldn't suppress her memories midway.

Therefore, she remembered Mu Chen's face clearly from the previous games.

Sometimes a player, sometimes a boss, but in this game, he's a mysterious merchant?

This was very wrong!

If she thought about it more deeply, Da Yao might really be able to discover the truth about Mu Chen and Ming Mei switching identities.

Unfortunately, Da Yao's bias towards Ming Mei was only greater than Lu Xiaoyao's!

She even suspected that the mysterious merchant was originally Ming Mei, and that the "villain boss specialist" in front of her had used some vicious means to transfer this function to himself.

Judging from the current awakening of NPCs' consciousness, if the person in front of her was a villain Boss, he might be able to do it.

In that case, wouldn't the Boss and the mysterious merchant be one and the same in this game?!!

Although Mu Chen couldn't read minds, he couldn't pretend to be blind to the obvious prejudice in Da Yao's gaze towards him.

However, wasn't that the effect he wanted?

"Mmm… I had some suspicions."

Mu Chen's sudden nod surprised everyone.

"Maybe, as you said, this place used to be a haunted house and many people died? If that's the case, it would explain why there hasn't been much business here for so long…"

A look of relief flashed across Mu Chen's face, followed by a look of melancholy. The expressions on the faces of the four people opposite him couldn't help but twist after hearing what he said.

What this person (ghost) was saying was really problematic!

……

"What do you think of the mysterious merchant's answer?"

After receiving Mu Chen's answer, the four of them went upstairs with heavy hearts and gathered in Julian's room again to discuss.

"Full of lies." Da Yao spoke first, "If they didn't know, what about the posters on the wall that covered the bloodstains? If a normal person took over a shop and saw this scene, wouldn't they inquire about it and be startled? He might not only be a merchant, maybe there's a new change in this game, and his identity is actually two-in-one?"

Da Yao's guess that Mu Chen might be a Boss + merchant, two identities combined into one, hadn't been eliminated, while the other three expressed disbelief in this initial idea of hers.

"Although he doesn't look like a good person, he did sell us boxed lunches after all, so it shouldn't be that way, right?"

Charlie first refuted Da Yao's 'two-in-one' guess again, and then said, "However, judging from the fact that they use plain water to cook, it's obvious that they're not living people either. I mean… maybe, maybe the two of them are the ones who died in this hotel before, but their obsessions are too deep…

In that case, after death, they became ghosts and repeated their lives before death. The illusion in front of them is not only to deceive the tourists who come here, but also to deceive themselves, as if they don't even know they're dead…"

"If you say it like that, it's indeed possible…"

Charlie's reasoning was accepted by more people, but Da Yao still didn't let go, retorting, "Then—what about the evil spirit? Is there really only one NPC besides the boss and his wife?"

"You have 'two-in-one', so I can have a 'two-missing-one' guess, too~"

Da Yao: "…"

"Maybe? The boss and his wife are in the shop, and the evil spirit is outside, so he can't get in."

Seeing that Da Yao was speechless, Charlie continued to speak, but then his expression changed and he began to refute himself, "Wait, if he can't get in, what happened to the tragedy that occurred in this hotel in the first place?"

"Either one of the boss and his wife is the hidden evil spirit, or this evil spirit NPC can actually enter the hotel, but there may be some settings, such as—being able to enter in a few days, or obtaining someone else's permission."

Julian combined the previous statements of the other players and gave such an answer, then he raised his eyes to look at everyone, "It depends on who you're more willing to believe."