Chapter Nineteen: Rose Manor (Eighteen) Subjective Time

"Assuming my deductions are correct, a time loop has occurred, and there were nine players who initially entered this instance..." Qi Si crumpled the photograph in his hand, tossed it to the floor, and gazed at the streaks of rain outside the window.

"Knowing myself, faced with a one-third mortality rate, I would likely ensure I didn't break any rules, wait for any three unlucky souls to violate them and die, and then clear the instance with ease."

He had only told half the truth; the reality was far more ruthless.

Entering the game for the first time, he had been forced to pose as a veteran. To carve out a sliver of survival in such a tight spot, he had to be more cautious and calculating than everyone else.

Upon learning of the Weird Game’s "minimum death count" mechanism—which functioned like raising venomous insects in a jar—he knew he had to strike first to avoid becoming a sacrifice. He had to seize every opportunity to reduce the number of players. Those three corpses in the garden might well have been his own handiwork.

Of course, this scenario existed only in his deductions; ultimately, he had no memory of the so-called "first round."

Qi Si suddenly recalled that he had appeared in the garden outside the manor the moment he opened his eyes, while the other players had been sitting comfortably inside. Because he arrived late, he was relegated to the seat closest to the head of the table—the most dangerous spot.

It was precisely for this reason that, out of a certain curiosity toward his own kind, he had probed Miss Anna, seemingly catching her attention. That was what led to his decision to explore the third floor and unravel the world-building, seeking a chance at life under the intense scrutiny of the NPCs.

Everything felt orchestrated. And that someone had an incredibly precise grasp of his psychology...

The only person who truly understands him has always been himself.

In an instant, the clues connected. Qi Si felt he understood; the fog dissipated, and everything became clear.

He collected his thoughts and offered a brilliant smile. "It seems the 'let others die so I may live' approach has likely failed; otherwise, a new loop wouldn't have started. To clear the game, the only path left is to unravel the world-building."

Chang Xu was silent for a moment before saying, "According to my intuition, my first choice would be to unravel the world-building to minimize the mortality rate."

Qi Si chuckled inwardly at this, though he had no intention of refuting it.

He often spoke such righteous, polished words himself. When facing police interrogations in the real world, he could effortlessly fabricate long monologues, perfectly embodying the persona of a "law-abiding, model citizen."

"It seems unraveling the world-building is quite difficult, Brother Chang. You haven't succeeded in two consecutive rounds." Without waiting for a response from the bewildered Chang Xu, Qi Si walked straight toward the room at the very end of the third floor.

It was the only room he hadn't explored yet, and it looked much neater than the others. The door was spotless, and the keyhole was polished to a shine; someone was clearly living inside.

Qi Si pushed aside the vines that swayed without a breeze in the hallway, stepped over the carpet of fallen leaves, and stopped before the door. He narrowed his eyes at the withered petals scattered in the door gap.

"There's someone inside," Chang Xu said, looking at the carvings on the door. "We might run into Miss Anna."

In this context, the "Miss Anna" he referred to was naturally the one the players had seen at the dinner table—the younger sister from the melodramatic story. Even though both the sister and the older sister were "Miss Anna" in the lore of the instance, and encountering either on the third floor meant violating the ninth rule, the younger sister in the black dress was relatively more dangerous.

"We shouldn't run into her, and if we do, it's just our bad luck," Qi Si said with a smile. "I suddenly remembered I forgot to tell you something. Back in the garden, I actually had a somewhat productive conversation with Miss Anna."

...

9:00 AM, the garden.

After Qi Si asked the butler to see Miss Anna, she arrived late, dressed in a black gown.

After some brief pleasantries, Qi Si asked casually, "Miss Anna, where do you usually spend your time? Where can I find you?"

Miss Anna replied, "I like standing in the garden. You can find me in the garden after the rain."

"But the butler said you live on the third floor."

"I don't like the third floor. There is no light there."

"It sounds like you live like a rose."

...

Qi Si omitted several "charming scoundrel" lines that would have made anyone call him a "player" and went straight to his conclusion: "So I deduced that Miss Anna should still be in the garden at this moment."

He finished speaking and knocked twice on the door.

Last night, a ghost knocked on his door; this morning, he was knocking on a ghost's door. Thinking about it, there was a sense of drama and humor that made him curl his lips.

Seeing that Qi Si didn't choose to pick the lock with a wire but instead knocked politely, Chang Xu squinted, noncommittal. While this might alert the enemy, the politeness could potentially lower the NPC's hostility.

If there were no surprises, the person inside was the real "Anna"—the one in the red dress mentioned in the rules. She could be trusted and was, at best, a relatively safe NPC.

On the third knock, with a long, creaking sound, the tightly shut door slowly swung open.

A stench of decay, mixed with the heavy scent of flowers, rushed out. Twisted, tangled vines and foliage knotted within the room, filling almost every space with black and green, leaving only a glimpse of red visible through the gaps in the stems.

It was a withered old woman with wrinkled skin; half her face had rotted away, and there was nothing beautiful about her. She groaned, delirious, as if she might die at any moment, yet her cloudy eyes were fixed directly on Qi Si.

She asked, "What time is it now?"

Qi Si glanced at Chang Xu, who picked up his pocket watch and replied, "Two-zero-two in the afternoon."

The old woman tilted her head, struggling to process the information. After a while, she let out a wheezing laugh. "Today's one o'clock in the afternoon is longer than yesterday's."

Having said this, she bowed her head and drifted into a stupor, showing no desire to deal with the two uninvited guests any longer.

Qi Si watched her quietly for a long time, a soft smile appearing on his face.

He pushed aside the vines, walked toward the old woman, crouched halfway before her, and asked word for word, "Do you want to see him?"

The old woman was startled awake. She looked up, staring blankly ahead, her eyes reflecting no one.

Qi Si smiled and began to narrate in the tone of someone recounting a memory: "After that day, he left the manor and returned to his fief, but he never forgot you. It took him many years to convince his father before he rushed back to find you, but alas, you were no longer in this world."

As Qi Si spoke, ripples gradually formed in the old woman's dead-pool eyes. She reached out to grab his sleeve and murmured, "I want to see him... I want to see him... Where is he?"

"I don't know." Qi Si lowered his lashes, masking the darkness growing in his eyes. "However, I have two companions who should know his whereabouts. Do you want to see them?"

The old woman stared at him fixedly.

Qi Si coaxed her, enunciating clearly: "You just need to say that you want Zou Yan and Liu Qingye to come to the third floor to see you."

The old woman: "I want Zou Yan and Liu Qingye to come to the third floor to see me..."

The moment her voice fell, Qi Si ruthlessly pulled his sleeve away and gestured to Chang Xu: "Done, let's go."

Chang Xu thought for a moment, understood Qi Si's maneuver, and frowned. "You want Zou Yan and Yezi to violate the rules too?"

The old woman was also Miss Anna. By having her issue an order to see Zou Yan and Yezi on the third floor, he had placed them in a dilemma.

If they came, they would violate the ninth rule: [Please try your best not to go to the third floor. If you do go, you must not be discovered by Miss Anna.]

If they didn't come, they would violate the fourth rule: [Do not refuse Miss Anna's requests. Try to satisfy everything she asks of you. Miss Anna dislikes disobedient guests.]

Either way, they would violate at least one rule.

Faced with Chang Xu's question, Qi Si did not deny it; instead, he flashed a malicious smile. "There is safety in numbers. Since we've all chosen the thankless path of unraveling the world-building, I don't want to die alone."

"Why spare Lin Chen?"

"Ah, sorry, I forgot to tell you earlier. Lin Chen already came up here before us. So, theoretically, everyone has violated the same number of rules now..." Qi Si looked toward the ceiling, his expression innocent. "Alas, it really wasn't easy for me to balance the scales."

Chang Xu: ...6.

At this point, he finally realized that this seemingly harmless guy beside him didn't say a single truthful word!

What was this person's true purpose in cooperating with him? Had he already fallen into a trap?

Qi Si looked at Chang Xu's wary expression and just smiled dismissively.

He had never possessed the self-sacrificing spirit to bear everything alone. From the moment he decided to explore the third floor, he had formulated a risk-sharing plan, determined to drag all the players down with him. It could be said that from the moment he had Lin Chen scout the third floor and set a verbal trap to induce a rule violation, every subsequent action and event had been within his plan.

Now, he had undoubtedly succeeded.

Qi Si walked out of the room, closed the door behind him, and reviewed the situation in his mind.

The old woman could perceive the abnormality in time and conclude that "today's one o'clock is longer than yesterday's," which meant the ghosts could maintain their mobility during time loops. Yet, she remained in a semi-rotten state throughout the endless cycle.

Did this mean that in this instance, an individual's mobility and their physical state were separate?

At this point, the tangled threads had all been cleared.

Qi Si looked at the seventh rule on the system interface.

[7. Only ghosts can kill humans. Please firmly believe that you are human.]

He had originally thought this was a restrictive rule to prevent players from killing each other. He had wondered why a "Weird Game" filled with the flavor of raising venomous insects would be so kind.

Now it seemed the correct answer to clearing the instance was written right there in the rule.

By setting the primary NPC—the malevolent Miss Anna—as a human, and specifically stating "ghosts can kill humans," the hint could not have been more obvious.