DLMSWSHH Chapter 30

TL: Hua

Chapter 30: Servant

Inside the chapel, the menservants were cleaning the filth from the confessional. The friction of brooms against the floor created a faint rustling sound. Outside, the thick mist was gradually dissipating, allowing the warm mountain sunlight to stream in. It pierced through the clouds, spilling onto the chapel floor as it grew clean and refreshed.

Splash.

Archie threw a bucket of clean water onto the ground.

The menservant used cleaning agents to strip away the stains, and a light floral scent began to permeate the air.

Zhong Ming stared at Li Yizhi through the warm-hued air. Sunlight filtered through the stained glass, hitting Zhong Ming’s face and giving his dark irises a nearly translucent quality.

Li Yizhi stood in the shadows, his face obscured. After a moment, the corners of his mouth curled up in the darkness. “What did you say?”

His tone was relaxed, trailing off with a hint of teasing as he looked at Zhong Ming. “Are you putting me on trial?”

Li Yizhi lowered his head and let out a few muffled chuckles. Shaking his head as if helpless, he raised his hands toward Zhong Ming in a gesture of surrender.

“I haven’t done a thing,” he said with a smile, adding at the end, “especially nothing that I did to wrong you.”

He made it sound as if a husband were being forced to confess in front of his wife. Li Yizhi’s warm smile and casual attitude instantly shattered the tension that had just built up between them.

Zhong Ming looked at him, thinking that there were likely few people in this world better at acting or playing dumb than the man before him.

Li Yizhi crinkled his eyes at him. “Trust me. Let’s not stay here; we’ll end up smelling like this place—”

He reached out to take Zhong Ming’s hand, but in the next second, Zhong Ming spoke suddenly.

“I know who you are.” His tone was calm, stating it directly: “You used to be a player.” There was no doubt in his voice; it was a total affirmation.

Li Yizhi’s hand froze in mid-air. After a moment, he withdrew his hand with a slight stiffness, tucked it into his pocket, and watched Zhong Ming silently. The smile on his face gradually vanished.

Li Yizhi was born with “smiling” eyes that made everyone feel as though they were basking in a spring breeze. When such a person suddenly turns cold, it exerts immense psychological pressure on his opponent.

Yet, Zhong Ming stared back without blinking.

Li Yizhi locked eyes with him for a moment before lowering his head and sighing helplessly. Then, he reached into his pocket for a cigarette case and pulled one out. With a crisp click, he lit the cigarette with a lighter, tilted his head back to take a long drag, and slowly exhaled.

Amidst the swirling smoke, he hooked his lips into a smile again and looked at Zhong Ming.

“Could you pretend you never said that just now?”

Upon hearing this, Zhong Ming’s thick lashes trembled slightly.

With those words, the atmosphere around Li Yizhi seemed to undergo a subtle shift, as if something had peeked out from beneath his usual mask of peace and friendliness. He held the cigarette between his slender fingers, the tip glowing red. He shook the cigarette, letting the gray ash fall, then lowered his head to grip the filter with his teeth. His eyes pinned Zhong Ming from under his brow.

“Pretend you didn’t say it,” he repeated, his tone carrying a slight, heavy emphasis. “And I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it.”

A faint scent of tobacco swirled between them, but something else had suddenly pulled taut. Li Yizhi watched him intently, like a leopard facing off with a gazelle, waiting for that split second when the prey’s gaze would waver.

But Zhong Ming did not back down. He asked, “Is that a threat?”

Li Yizhi’s hand paused, more ash falling. The smile at the corner of his mouth deepened. “How could it be?”

He lowered his head, fell silent for a moment, then looked up again, choosing his words carefully: “I am requesting you.”

It sounded like a concession.

However, Zhong Ming didn’t take the bait. He shifted his gaze to the menservants scrubbing the floors nearby.

“It’s not just you.” Zhong Ming calmly looked toward Archie, Sun Qian, and the others. “Every lower-level servant here was once a player.”

He didn’t bother lowering his voice.

Li Yizhi stiffened instantly. The look of ease finally vanished from his face, and the hand holding the cigarette jerked so violently that the burning tip scorched his finger. Snapping back to reality, he whipped his head around to scan the room.

The servants were busy cleaning up the blood and filth, seemingly oblivious to the conversation. Li Yizhi’s brow twitched. He withdrew his gaze and looked at the composed Zhong Ming with a complicated expression. Finally, he sighed and grabbed Zhong Ming’s hand.

“Come on. Let’s talk somewhere else.”

Zhong Ming didn’t actually care about the location. Since he had said it aloud, he wasn’t afraid of being overheard.

However, as Li Yizhi gripped his wrist and pulled him away, Zhong Ming didn’t resist. He followed him out of the chapel and into the garden behind the building.

Behind the chapel was a small clearing filled with white daisies. In the center of the flowerbed stood a wooden cross.

Li Yizhi entered the backyard and plopped down on the steps. His cigarette glowed red in the shadows. He let out a long sigh and looked up at Zhong Ming. “Just how much do you know?”

At that moment, Zhong Ming was tilting his head, his finger brushing against a white daisy winding around the cross. Hearing the question, he turned back to Li Yizhi.

“I found a list in the archives,” Zhong Ming said softly. “There are over thirty names on it, including all the current lower-level servants and some people I don’t recognize.”

He applied a bit of pressure with his fingers, plucking a small daisy from the stem. “The names I didn’t recognize were crossed out. I assume those are the names of servants who died in the past.”

His voice was gentle and calm, but Li Yizhi was stunned. He held the burning cigarette to his lips, forgetting to take a puff for a long time.

Zhong Ming continued: “There are two numbers after every name. The first is relatively short, usually just a few months, but the second is very long.” He looked at the daisy in his hand. “So, I assume the first number is how long you survived as a player, and the second is how long you’ve served as an NPC in this haunted house.”

“I compared the numbers for everyone. You’ve been an NPC the longest.”

Zhong Ming paused, lifting his eyes to meet Li Yizhi’s.

“As a servant, you have been in this game for 22 years.”

Upon hearing this, Li Yizhi’s hand holding the cigarette trembled.

As if finally coming to his senses, he lowered his head to take a drag of his cigarette. Only after a long while did he look up again.

“Is it possible you misread it?” Li Yizhi forced a smile and pointed to his own face. “Do I look like a man in his forties to you?”

Zhong Ming narrowed his eyes. He reached into his bag, pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper, and unfolded it in front of Li Yizhi, checking the contents.

“It says ’22’ right after your name.”

Li Yizhi was dumbfounded. Watching the yellowed paper in the youth’s hand, his jaw nearly dropped.

“…You took it out?” His expression changed instantly. “What about Tao? If he finds out—”

Zhong Ming looked at the list calmly. “He won’t find out. The archives are currently being reorganized.”

Then, he turned to Li Yizhi and raised an eyebrow. “So… you were in your early twenties when you entered the game?”

Before Li Yizhi could react, Zhong Ming looked back down. “Which means that after becoming an NPC, your physical body stopped at the age you died.”

Li Yizhi realized he had let the cat out of the bag. He paused for a long time before letting out a massive sigh, like a punctured balloon. His tense posture slumped as he leaned his hands on his knees, head hanging low, exhaling a cloud of smoke. When he looked up again, his expression had relaxed into a helpless smile.

“Fine. You win.”

He loosened up, seemingly giving up on the act. He leaned back against the wall and looked up at the sky.

“Shit. I really didn’t want you to know about this.”

Listening to his somewhat dejected words, Zhong Ming folded the list and tucked it into his pocket. He then looked at Li Yizhi.

“So, you were a player. Jack was a mercenary; were you one too?”

Li Yizhi didn’t even bother asking how Zhong Ming knew about Jack’s past. He stared at the blue sky for a moment, took a deep breath, and then held out his hand, ticking off his fingers.

“Jack, Archie, and that red-haired guy, Ryan, those three were all mercenaries,” he said. “Though Archie wasn’t in the same unit. He used to be a regular soldier in some small Eastern European country. When the government collapsed, he had no choice but to go into exile like the others, turning from a regular soldier into a mercenary.”

Zhong Ming’s eyes widened slightly. He hadn’t expected so many mercenaries among the menservants. But thinking back to the reactions of the staff when the players rebelled the other day, their skills were indeed suspiciously good.

Li Yizhi seemed to see through his thoughts. He lowered his head, lit another cigarette, and slowly exhaled.

“It’s not like just anyone gets the chance to become an NPC.” His handsome face became blurred behind the smoke, a mockingly derisive smile touching his lips. He tapped his finger on the steps. “Only the ‘most outstanding’ players are granted a special ‘resurrection’ by the Duke to become servants of the haunted house.”

He threw two quotation marks in the air: “To become so-called ‘outstanding’ players, there are two conditions.”

Li Yizhi held up one finger. “One: You have to survive the Confessional stage.”

He held up a second. “Two: You have to survive the longest out of your batch of players.”

Zhong Ming’s eyes widened.

Li Yizhi crossed his hands under his chin. “In other words, players who become NPCs usually have extreme physical fitness, mental fortitude, and all sorts of survival tricks.” He paused, then shrugged. “Or, they’re just incredibly lucky and managed to hide until the very end.”

He gave two examples: “Like Jack, for example. Hardly any player can beat him. But Sun Qian? He just had the dumb luck to be the last one standing in his group. With his skills, he wouldn’t have lasted a week in any other batch.”

“But those are just the general rules,” Li Yizhi added. “Sometimes the quality of the players is so poor that even if the whole team is wiped out, no one gets resurrected.”

Zhong Ming frowned deeply. But before he could speak, Li Yizhi continued, “It’s actually quite easy to understand, isn’t it?”

He crinkled his eyes, a dark glint passing through them. “You’ve seen it. The players who join this game are a bunch of desperate outlaws. To suppress them, picking the strongest players to serve as NPCs is the most efficient method.”

Li Yizhi spoke with a hint of irony. “After all, the high-level servants and the ‘Masters’ of this house won’t lower themselves to handle the trivial task of maintaining order.” He curled his lip and pointed to himself, eyes narrowing slightly. “Isn’t it a great deal? To ‘recycle’ the top 10% of those who failed the game and use them as the front line against the newcomers?”

Li Yizhi’s tone was cynical. He brought the cigarette to his lips, took a deep drag, and looked down.

“If it were me, I’d do the same thing.”

Hearing this, Zhong Ming lowered his eyes.

It was true; using former players to oppose subsequent players was a highly efficient strategy.

Zhong Ming pondered in silence, remaining unshaken by the chilling story Li Yizhi had told. After a long while, he looked up at Li Yizhi and asked, “What about the upper-level servants? Where do they come from?”

Li Yizhi shook his head. “I don’t know. They were already here back when I joined the game. Maybe they’re just part of the game’s built-in system.”

Zhong Ming nodded, then pressed further, “You’ve said all this, but you still haven’t mentioned what your ‘sin’ was.”

Li Yizhi’s movements stiffened instantly. Zhong Ming watched him, saying softly, “You’re always telling me that no one who comes to this game is a good person.” He blinked slowly. “Then what about you? Why did you end up here?”

Jack and the other mercenary-turned-servants were easy to understand. Their hands were likely stained with many lives. But Li Yizhi? Zhong Ming narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the man before him for the first time. What had he done? And why did he ultimately die in the haunted house?

Li Yizhi looked at Zhong Ming, his brow twitching as he sensed the youth’s resolve. He reached out with his right hand and rubbed his face vigorously.

“…You’re about to strip me down to my last layer of dignity.”

Li Yizhi looked up, offering Zhong Ming a helpless smile. “Just assume I committed murder and arson, same as the rest of them.”

Zhong Ming narrowed his eyes, his gaze brimming with distrust. He didn’t believe Li Yizhi was that kind of person; the man lacked the bloodthirsty aura that clung to Jack and the others. Moreover, he was too clever, too cunning. He didn’t seem like the type of mercenary who won through brute force.

But Li Yizhi clearly had no intention of telling the truth. Zhong Ming looked down, thought for a moment, and then met Li Yizhi’s eyes again.

“If I really thought of you that way, would you be happy?” Zhong Ming whispered, his eyes narrowing. “You keep telling me to stay away from the players because none of them are good people. Following that logic, shouldn’t I be staying away from you, too?”

Li Yizhi’s expression shifted, his heart tightening for a split second. He wanted to tell Zhong Ming, “Yes, you really should stay away from me,” but the words wouldn’t come out. After a few seconds of internal struggle, he looked down, took a heavy drag of his cigarette, and sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day. His shoulders slumped; despite his tall, imposing frame, he looked somewhat pathetic standing before Zhong Ming.

After a long silence, he looked up at Zhong Ming’s youthful, beautiful face illuminated by the sunlight and said, out of nowhere: “Why don’t we just get married?”

Li Yizhi seemed to be throwing caution to the wind, acting like a rogue as he grinned at Zhong Ming. “They say there are no secrets between husband and wife. If you marry me, I’ll tell you everything.”

Zhong Ming was stunned, his eyes widening in shock. He hadn’t expected the man to be so shameless.

Seeing that he had finally broken Zhong Ming’s calm facade, Li Yizhi’s despondency faded slightly. He cocked an eyebrow. “Seriously, consider me. I might have been a servant in this game the longest, but I’m in better physical shape than any of them. That guy Jack has been hacked to pieces by players so many times he’s practically a patchwork.”

Zhong Ming pursed his lips, feeling utterly speechless. Seeing that Li Yizhi refused to mention his past even when pushed this far, Zhong Ming knew it wasn’t the right time.

He changed the subject: “What about me? Do you know what happened to me?”

He had no memories. He couldn’t find a single clue.

Li Yizhi widened his eyes slightly, holding up two fingers as if swearing an oath. “That, I truly don’t know. Feng Tang was the one who brought you back.” He paused. “At first, I thought you were a player. But your body’s ability to self-heal, and the way Madam Mary and the others treat you—”

He cut himself off, looking Zhong Ming over carefully. Then, he stood up, walked over to him, and reached out to touch Zhong Ming’s pale cheek.

“Most importantly, your eyes are different from ours.” Li Yizhi brushed a strand of hair away from Zhong Ming’s temple, tracing the shape of his eyes through the air with a fingertip. “I knew from the second day that you’ve definitely never done anything bad. You’re a particularly obedient darling…”

By the end, his voice had dropped into a low, affectionate murmur. Zhong Ming, however, frowned, keenly catching a specific name.

“Who is Feng Tang?”

Li Yizhi withdrew his hand. “I haven’t told you? He’s the head of the upper-level menservants.” He added, “But he’s been out on some mission lately. Sounds like he ran into some trouble; Matthew went to help him.”

Zhong Ming blinked, only then realizing he hadn’t seen Matthew around the mansion for several days.

Feng Tang? Was he the one who brought him to the haunted house? Zhong Ming lowered his head and rubbed his temples hard; he had absolutely no memory of this “Feng Tang.”

Zhong Ming tried to think for a while but came up empty. He looked up to ask Li Yizhi more only for the chapel doors to creak open suddenly.

The heavy wooden door let out a soft thud.

“…So this is where you are.”

A raspy male voice rang out.

Zhong Ming had assumed the menservants were finished with the cleanup, but when he turned his head and saw the person walking out of the chapel, his eyes widened in shock.

Leaning against the wooden doorframe was the blonde mercenary. He raised his blue eyes and smiled at Zhong Ming.

Zhong Ming’s pupils contracted instantly.

The man was missing an arm. He was covered in blood, and his blonde hair was matted into sticky clumps against his forehead. Seeing Zhong Ming’s look of astonishment, the blonde mercenary chuckled. He looked down, reached into his pocket for a cigarette, and seeing it was soaked with blood, he paused, muttering to himself, “I wonder if this will still light?”

Ultimately, he put the blood-stained cigarette in his mouth and looked at Zhong Ming. “Got a light?”

“God damn it.”

Li Yizhi cursed beside him. Zhong Ming glanced over and saw Li Yizhi’s brow furrowed, his expression incredibly dark. “Tougher than he looks.”

Li Yizhi reached out, pushing Zhong Ming back a few steps, and gave a quick, sharp instruction: “If you see this blonde guy from now on, steer clear. Do not, under any circumstances, get into a conflict with him, understood?”

Zhong Ming bit his lip and nodded. “Okay.”

Li Yizhi turned and walked toward the blonde mercenary. Zhong Ming stayed where he was, watching as Li Yizhi said something to the man. The mercenary clearly knew that NPCs couldn’t initiate attacks on players; he just raised an eyebrow and spat back a few words. Though Zhong Ming couldn’t hear what was said, it clearly wasn’t pleasant. He saw Li Yizhi’s right hand clench and unclench several times at his side.

Eventually, the blonde mercenary left, clutching his severed arm. Jack emerged from the chapel next, and when Li Yizhi saw him, the two immediately fell into a heated argument, seemingly fighting over why the blonde mercenary had been allowed to live.

Zhong Ming looked away.

One week after the haunted house dungeon began, only two players remained.

A heinous mercenary and a single, innocent girl.

Zhong Ming sensed a touch of irony in it. The setup of this game sometimes felt like a sick experiment on human nature.

Peace returned to the haunted house once more. By the second day after the confessional incident, the blonde mercenary’s body had returned to its original state. He was down to his last life.

For the next few days, the mansion fell into an eerie silence. Both the mercenary and the girl stayed in their respective rooms, never coming downstairs except to eat.

Meanwhile, Zhong Ming became exceptionally busy. Madam Mary began teaching him the duties of a butler firsthand, filling his daily schedule to the brim. The head housekeeper placed great importance on details such as the location of every room, the order of the keys, and the supply of essentials like food; Zhong Ming had to learn to oversee every detail.

Zhong Ming was so busy he barely had time for anything else. He even saw less of Albert, which caused the young master to sulk for days. Eventually, the young master realized his “silent treatment” was completely ineffective. Zhong Ming hadn’t even noticed his mood. If Albert didn’t initiate a conversation, Zhong Ming would truly go days without being seen. Defeated, the young master eventually declared a unilateral end to their cold war and sought out Zhong Ming for hugs and affection.

While learning his duties, Zhong Ming didn’t forget to monitor the players. He followed Li Yizhi’s advice and stayed away from the blonde mercenary, though he didn’t have to try hard, as the man kept himself locked in his room doing who-knows-what. The surviving girl, on the other hand, was the opposite. She would only talk to Zhong Ming.

“Xiao Zhong, w-what should I do?” Since the confessional, the girl had been crying day and night. Her eyes were swollen like walnuts as she clung to Zhong Ming’s sleeve. “Help me, please help me.”

Seeing her collapsed on the floor, her legs too weak to stand, Zhong Ming frowned. Though she hadn’t been attacked by monsters, the pain of her boyfriend’s death and the shock of hearing the truth in the confessional seemed enough to push the poor girl to a breakdown.

“What do I do? I… I really didn’t know the game was like this—”

She slumped on the floor, tears streaming onto the ground. She had cried so much over the past few days that her voice was raspy and her expression dazed.

“Why was Chengcheng that kind of person?” She shook her head as if trying to deny reality, her bloodshot eyes staring at Zhong Ming. “He wasn’t like that before. We’ve known each other for so long. Our families have been friends for generations. How did he become like this?”

She directed these questions at Zhong Ming, but he had no answers. He looked away, his eyes landing on the scattered pill bottles on the floor. In a short amount of time, she had gone through several bottles of medication, clearly exceeding the prescribed dosage.

Zhong Ming’s heart sank. He knelt down and took her thin shoulders.

“Ye Qing, stand up first.”

Through their interactions over the last few days, he had learned her name. Her name was Ye Qing, a bright girl. Before entering the game, she had been a graduate student at a top-tier university and had already been fast-tracked for a PhD. She had intended to take a semester off to try her luck in this game with her boyfriend, thinking that if they couldn’t clear it, the company would just pick them up and she could go back to her studies.

Now it was clear: no one was coming for her. The company didn’t care whether they lived or died.

While Ye Qing was brilliant, she had been sheltered by her family and lived in an academic ivory tower. Like many students in her position, she lacked an understanding of the world’s darkness and was prone to trusting others. This wasn’t necessarily a flaw; everyone eventually faces a turning point where they stumble and learn to grow.

It was just that for Ye Qing, the price of that lesson was far too high.

Seeing she wasn’t responding, Zhong Ming leaned down, pulled her arm over his shoulder, and helped her up from the floor to sit on the bed. He then turned to pour a glass of warm water and handed it to her.

“Drink some water first.”

Ye Qing drank as she cried. Zhong Ming watched her tears splash into the glass and felt like half of what she was drinking was her own salty tears. This girl sure can cry, he thought. Unable to bear it any longer, he pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her.

“Wipe your face.”

Ye Qing froze, looking at the handkerchief. It was a white silk square with a tiny rose embroidered in the corner, smelling faintly sweet. She hesitated, her hand trembling as she took it and pressed it to her face. The silk was instantly soaked, a wet patch spreading across the rose.

“I’m sorry,” she said through her sobs. “I… I ruined your handkerchief.”

Zhong Ming shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

After she finished the water, her crying subsided into aggrieved whimpers. Zhong Ming took back the soaked handkerchief and, seeing her shoulders still shaking, sighed. He dropped to one knee so he was at eye level with her.

“Calm down.”

Zhong Ming kept his voice as soft as possible. Ye Qing looked at him, her voice trembling. “Zhong Ming, you’re so kind.”

Zhong Ming was taken aback, feeling a bit helpless at being labeled a “good person” so suddenly. He gave her a small smile.

“I know this is hard,” he said slowly. “But the dead cannot return. Perhaps forgetting what happened that day would make things easier for you.”

He spoke gently, choosing his words with extreme care for fear of triggering another breakdown. From her perspective, letting go of years of affection and facing the fact that her boyfriend had been a villain was incredibly difficult. But given the circumstances, he feared that if she remained this despondent, her life would soon come to an end.

Under his persuasion, Ye Qing seemed to settle a little. She looked at him with her swollen eyes.

“…I understand.” She let out a small sob. “I just… I just need a little more time.”

Zhong Ming frowned at these words.

At that moment, two soft taps suddenly came from outside the door.

Zhong Ming turned his head to see Li Yizhi leaning against the doorframe. Withdrawing the hand he had used to knock, Li Yizhi flashed a smile at the two of them.

“Sorry to interrupt.”

He looked at Zhong Ming and beckoned to him. “Come here.”

Zhong Ming paused, then stood up from the floor and walked toward the door. Li Yizhi waited for him to reach his side, gave a nod to Ye Qing inside, and then pulled the door shut with a heavy thud.

“Why are you telling her so much?” Li Yizhi asked, his brow furrowed as soon as the door closed.

Zhong Ming looked up, his own expression clouded. “What’s wrong? I didn’t reveal any clues. Besides, Ye Qing isn’t a bad person.”

“I know,” Li Yizhi said. He paused, pulled Zhong Ming aside, and looked down at him. “I know she’s a good person… but in this game, sometimes cowardice is more terrifying than evil.”

Zhong Ming went quiet for a moment before whispering, “Is there really no way to escape the game?”

Li Yizhi shook his head. “Without special items, it’s basically impossible.” And as a pure newcomer, Ye Qing clearly possessed nothing to save her life. Li Yizhi was silent for a while before continuing, “About ten years ago, I heard a manservant say there’s an exit to this instance hidden somewhere in the haunted house. But I don’t know where it is.”

“And even if there were an exit, she’d have to be able to find it. Look at her, does she look like someone capable of putting in the effort to hunt for clues?”

Zhong Ming hesitated, then sighed. It was true; Ye Qing looked like she didn’t even have the strength to go downstairs for a meal.

However, just as the two were conversing, a scream of terror suddenly rang out.

Zhong Ming jolted in shock. Because they had just been speaking, he recognized it instantly as Ye Qing’s voice.

He whipped his head around toward the room at the end of the hallway.

There, from the crack beneath the door, blood was slowly seeping out.

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