DSMC Chapter 57

There is no medicine for regret in this world.

Yan Jiyun felt that he had to leave with Liang Yu, otherwise he always felt like he would miss something.

Liang Yu took Yan Jiyun and left the hotel once again.

When he was with Tang Shi, Liang Yu looked like an inexperienced rich young master, but Yan Jiyun noticed that once he left the inn, his entire temperament became steadier.

Yan Jiyun remembered that he was invited to Qingyun Town by Chen Xiaoyu. His behavior today was very strange, and in the system, Liang Yu’s bond value must be very high for Yan Jiyun to control him with consciousness. Could it be that he originally planned to come to Qingyun Town, that he had another purpose here?

Liang Yu sped up his steps and returned to the Yunxiao Hotel. 

Yan Jiyun didn’t know who he wanted to find here.

He found that the information Liang Yu showed him was only the tip of the iceberg; every NPC in this scene seemed to be hiding huge secrets.

Could it be that every NPC in this instance had a background and setting? This clearly wasn’t a plot exploration type.

At this time, the lobby of the Yunxiao Hotel was very quiet. At the front desk, there was only a sleepy male receptionist constantly nodding off. When Liang Yu came in, he tried hard to open his eyes, and then continued lying down to sleep again.

After the global scene opened, the hotel’s layout visibly became sturdier. When they entered in the third round, the stairs would creak when stepped on; now it felt like a newly built building, very solid.

Liang Yu quickly went upstairs.

Chen Xiaoyu and the others were also staying on the fourth floor, and the room Liang Yu booked earlier was on the fourth floor too. But he didn’t go to the fourth floor, instead he headed straight for the third floor.

He arrived at a room number that looked extremely familiar to Yan Jiyun. Liang Yu knocked on the door.

Yan Jiyun remembered, this was the gentleman’s room, and he still had the gentleman’s high-level prop “Pocket Watch”.

Liang Yu and the gentleman knew each other.

With a click, the gentleman opened the door and said to Liang Yu, “Mr. Liang, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

Liang Yu replied, “Something minor delayed me, sorry.”

The gentleman said, “It’s fine. You’re my employer, you can come anytime. Come in first, I have new discoveries in my investigation.”

Liang Yu looked back to make sure no one saw him before entering the gentleman’s room.

After entering, he put Yan Jiyun down and let the black cat out.

The gentleman said, “You’re quite kindhearted, even rescuing small animals.”

Liang Yu said with a straight face, “It insisted on following me.”

Yan Jiyun: “……”

The gentleman suddenly thought of the paw print on his notebook. “This cat has been to my room and left paw prints on my notebook.”

He laid his notebook open for Liang Yu to admire the perfectly neat paw prints on it.

Yan Jiyun pretended he understood nothing. He jumped onto the desk and lay down, forepaws stretched forward, hind legs elegantly forming a V-shape, making him look especially long, almost taking up the entire 1.2-meter-long desk.

Liang Yu couldn’t resist and stroked Oreo’s fur. “Such nice fur. If someone else took it in, this fur would probably become coarse.”

Yan Jiyun pushed his hand away with a hind leg. ‘Thank you, but stop touching me!’

“How strange, why is it so obedient in front of Tang Shi? But I can’t even touch you?”

Yan Jiyun: “……”

Not exactly, mainly because Tang Shi was gentle and wouldn’t randomly touch his fur.

The gentleman smiled. “Some cats don’t like others touching their bodies. Scratching its chin should be okay.”

But Liang Yu only wanted to touch Oreo’s fur.

This was just a small interlude.

After the gentleman placed his organized investigation material in front of Liang Yu, they no longer had time to play with the cat.

The gentleman’s surname was Gao, and he was a private detective. Liang Yu addressed him as Detective Gao.

In Yan Jiyun’s real world, there were also private detectives, but what they mostly did was help people find cats, or take evidence of a partner’s cheating for clients. It was hardly considered a legal profession.

An instance was an instance. Some things existed logically, some didn’t, but in the instance, just treat it as logical.

Yan Jiyun stayed lying quietly, listening to what big matter they were conspiring about.

Detective Gao handed a written document to Liang Yu. “This is the information I’ve found during these days here. Young people don’t know what happened back then, middle-aged people only know half, and only the elderly know the truth.”

Liang Yu examined the investigated content one by one. “Why did they want to cover up the truth?”

The chair Liang Yu sat on was close to the desk. Yan Jiyun stretched his head closer to read along with him.

Yan Jiyun had seen Detective Gao’s notebook before. Back then it only had a few keywords, and he didn’t understand the full picture so he couldn’t guess what it meant. Now, there was no need to guess anymore. Everything was written clearly in the notebook, with each suspicious point listed clearly. More importantly, Detective Gao even made a relationship chart, and after looking at it, Yan Jiyun felt enlightened. The previously clouded relationships were now organized clearly.

It turned out that Qingyun Town was originally not a town, but a village, one hour away from the county by car.

More than twenty years ago, Qingyun Village was no different from most villages. The villagers lived a simple life, working at sunrise and resting at sunset. At that time, the trend of going out to earn money had not yet reached everyone, so the village population was still plentiful.

Then one day, someone bought a large piece of their land and suddenly built a massive castle like those seen in Western dramas. The villagers never expected someone would come here specifically to build such a manor.

Everyone respected and feared the people who built it. After the castle was completed, the villagers saw a family move in.

There were not many people in that family. The villagers did not dare to get close, feeling worlds apart from them, and only observed from afar.

The new castle owners became the villagers’ favorite topic.

Until one day—

Yan Jiyun was reading slower since it was later at night, and Liang Yu flipped the page.

Damn it, he didn’t see what was written next.

The second page already described events that came after.

Something unknown happened in the castle. From then on, no one ever lived there again. The village chief of Qingyun Village took over its management. A few years later, borrowing the fame of the castle, Qingyun Village was renamed Qingyun Town and given a beautiful, romantic love story to the castle.

Yan Jiyun already knew the later parts. Nothing very specific, Detective Gao didn’t seem very competent.

The third page was the relationship chart.

He listed ten names in total.

One of them was the village chief from back then, who has now become the town mayor of Qingyun Town; after that was his home address.

There was even a name Yan Jiyun was familiar with on the list.

Zhang Ming, No. 250, Xiaoyun Street.

Huh? Isn’t that Uncle Ming the veterinarian?

He remembered that house number exactly, after all, 250 was too easy to remember.

He didn’t recognize the other names.

Detective Gao pointed at the names and explained to Liang Yu. “When the castle incident happened, these people were all suspects at the time. They were all villagers of Qingyun Village.”

Liang Yu pointed at Zhang Ming’s name and asked, “Isn’t that Zhang Ming the pig castrator? How did he end up on the list?”

Detective Gao answered, “He’s also quite suspicious. Think about his job. He often moves between villages. The local case report says that when the castle incident happened he was working in another village. In any case, I don’t really believe that, so I listed him as a key person to investigate.”

Liang Yu nodded. “That suspicion is reasonable. By the way, I happened to go to his house today with a friend and found a black stone. He told us that this stone has passed through several people’s hands, and there are maybe four pieces or maybe ten. Could it be that this stone was the main cause of the castle incident back then?”

Detective Gao, who was sharp, asked back, “Is there anything special about the stone?”

Liang Yu: “He said nothing special, but it’s odd that he had it appraised. Doesn’t that mean he knows something?”

Detective Gao: “There’s a good chance. He said four or ten stones… matching the ten people I investigated.”

Yan Jiyun: “……”

So, is this a plot exploration instance or not?

None of these ten NPC names are within the NPCs available in the high-level prop exchange, so the stones they hold must be resurrection props!

Yan Jiyun felt even more determined to follow Liang Yu now; following him might let them continue to find the Revival Stones.

Liang Yu asked him, “How many people have you investigated so far?”

Detective Gao: “I’ve just compiled their names and haven’t had time to investigate in depth. The old folks in Qingyun Town are tight-lipped. The information I get is all through their children.”

Liang Yu said with a steady face, “I want to find those ten stones. Maybe putting them together will reveal some information.”

Detective Gao: “But that’s a bit difficult; it’ll take going house to house. Still, you’re right. If the ten stones are each held by ten people, they must be trying to hide some secret.”

Liang Yu: “Mm. If we can find the stones that would be even better. Move quickly.”

Detective Gao: “Alright, I’ll do my best. After the Rose Festival, there will be fewer people in Qingyun Town and it’ll be harder to sneak around. The people of Qingyun Town are very wary of outsiders.”

Liang Yu: “I know. You keep collecting information and restore the truth of what happened at the castle. I’ll go find those ten stones.”

Yan Jiyun didn’t dare interrupt. Every sentence contained a lot of information.

He extracted several key points:

First, the story of the owner of Siyun Castle wasn’t the romantic legend the tourist brochure made it out to be; behind it was another, chilling story.

Second, Liang Yu hadn’t come here purely for travel. He might have some special relation to Siyun Castle. The castle’s owner supposedly died about twenty years ago; Liang Yu was twenty-two or twenty-three now, and therefore, he might be a child of the castle owner. That would conflict with previous claims in the brochure that the castle owner had no children.

Third, the people of Qingyun Town collectively guarded the castle’s true secret. Detective Gao had only pried out some information; Yan Jiyun still couldn’t tell exactly what happened.

Fourth, the ten “Revival Stones” might be the key to unlocking the castle incident.

After sorting these points, Yan Jiyun noticed it wasn’t hard to see that almost every household in Qingyun Town was related to one another to some degree.

No wonder allied NPCs can counter each other. People from the same village know one another’s roots. Who doesn’t know who?

Detective Gao’s relationship chart was a huge help to Yan Jiyun. He had to pocket it later and make two copies for his teammates. Having the relationship chart would be enormously useful in upcoming team and solo battles.

However, Yan Jiyun was now worried that Gu Wenzhu and Qiu Xi might be targeted by players from other teams. If other teams concentrated on attacking Qiu Xi or Gu Wenzhu, they probably couldn’t win; controlling NPCs requires splitting attention, and if two enemy players plus two NPCs attacked, his teammates would be eliminated.

He didn’t have enough experience cards to team up with them, but he could follow Liang Yu to look for Revival Stones as a precaution!

There was no other way for now. The three of them couldn’t fight together at the moment.

Liang Yu put away the materials Detective Gao had given him, picked up Yan Jiyun and stuffed him into his backpack. Luckily Tang Shi’s backpack had plenty of capacity; otherwise a twelve-pound cat wouldn’t fit and it would have been very cramped.

While Liang Yu wasn’t paying attention, Yan Jiyun stuck his head out. He had just been lying on his side and felt something pressing against his back.

He reached a paw and unhooked the right-side backpack pocket. Inside was Uncle Ming’s stone from his house.

When did Liang Yu slip the stone out?

Did he already know Uncle Ming had a stone? Had he known about this before Detective Gao arrived?

Wait. Yan Jiyun had a sudden thought: could he have deliberately gotten close to Tang Shi because Tang Shi knew Uncle Ming, and he purposely fed him skewers?

That probably wasn’t it. Liang Yu couldn’t have planned on him gnawing meat. At the time he only meant to let him smell it.

So maybe he intended to use Tang Shi to reach Uncle Ming and then find the stone.

But if he already knew, why hire Detective Gao? Perhaps to throw people off.

Who told him about the castle incident then?

Too bad the NPC exchange list’s NPC information couldn’t be checked now. Otherwise he could guess who was helping Liang Yu by the names.

Yan Jiyun skimmed the battle updates among the teams and saw a notification in the teammate channel: Qiu Xi had successfully sent a gift.

His NPC was Butler Cao of Siyun Castle.

Thinking carefully, the appearance of “Butler Cao” was abrupt.

Through observing all the NPCs in the global scene, Yan Jiyun discovered that every redeemed NPC in Qingyun Town had a fixed role.

But Butler Cao was different. The castle currently has no owner. It was a tourist attraction and didn’t need a steward.

So here was the question: in what identity did Butler Cao appear?

If he appeared as the castle’s steward, he would look extremely out of place in Qingyun Town, so he must have a reasonable identity.

At first, he hadn’t figured it out, but now it seemed Butler Cao was someone secretly embedded in Qingyun Town, and he was likely working with Liang Yu.

If so, then Liang Yu’s identity was almost obvious. He was very likely the child of the Siyun Castle couple.

Only someone related by blood to the incident would risk everything to uncover the truth. The villains would only try to cover it up!

To think Liang Yu might actually be an NPC with a “deep blood feud”, Wasn’t this basically Hamlet? 

Then what about Tang Shi?

He’d always lived with his adoptive family, and his adoptive parents later died.

The NPC backstories in this game were one more tragic than the other. It was practically documentary-level misery.

After quietly zipping the pocket with the stone back up, Liang Yu had already reached his destination.

Yan Jiyun looked up and was awed by the wall, which was at least two meters high. He couldn’t see where it ended. This must be the home of someone very wealthy or very powerful in Qingyun Town.

He heard, besides Liang Yu, some messy footsteps inside, judging by their conversation, they were players.

“This courtyard is too big. There’s even a dog bigger than a wolf over there. What do we do?”

“Didn’t we find sedatives in the bar earlier? Put it in a bun and feed it to the dog.”

“That makes sense.”

Yan Jiyun: “…..”

These two sounded smart, but why did they have buns with them in the middle of the night?

Liang Yu moved with excellent agility, choosing a spot where a few bricks had been stacked and pulled himself up onto the wall. The bricks had clearly been placed by those two players, which just made things easier for Liang Yu.

Yan Jiyun stayed obediently in the backpack. Why walk when he had a human vehicle? He needed to save his stamina for later battles.

Liang Yu dropped down from the wall and shifted the backpack to his chest to prevent it revealing his presence later.

Yan Jiyun: “……”

They were almost face-to-face, nose-to-nose with Liang-Hamlet-Yu.

Liang Yu nearly jumped. When had Oreo poked his head out? Those glowing eyes were startling!

[Want to be Human] livestream channel: 

“Ahhhh Liang Yu is so handsome! First-person view almost kissing him! Kitty, go for it!”

“I think the cat has already figured out Liang Yu’s identity.”

“What identity??”

“You really don’t know this instance isn’t actually a PvP one but a plot exploration one?”

“What do you mean??”

“No one’s explaining? Fine, I’ll explain. Siyun Castle was originally a search-type instance — adventure and puzzle solving. The protagonists were Liang Yu and Tang Shi, college students returning from the city. They planned to go hiking, but due to rain stayed at Siyun Castle. Then weird things happened and their classmates died one by one. The player’s task was to find the culprit and uncover the hidden truth of the castle incident.”

“That sounds pretty normal. Castle = murder mystery. Castle instances are already boring. Nothing new.”

“Exactly. Castle instances were everywhere and audience numbers dropped. So [Destiny] changed the gameplay.”

“Why does what you know differ from what I know? I knew about supernatural castle instances changing, but Siyun Castle wasn’t one of them.”

“Huh? There’s more?”

“Of course. In three years, no player ever cleared it with a new ending, the death rate was absurdly high, with 9 out of 10 runs ended with total party wipe. So the main storyline was sealed and changed into the current format. I remember an NPC with extremely high stats. He was smart and hard to beat, and players couldn’t defeat him at all. A 24-hour instance was crushed into a 1-hour speedrun of total destruction. To this day, no player has beaten the fastest wipe record.”

“Who was that NPC?”

Liang Yu set the backpack in front of him and took out a black mask.

Yan Jiyun thought, ‘Wow, this guy even had full gear.’

The players tossed the drug-laced bun to the big dog at the entrance. It quickly passed out.

Tsk.

Yan Jiyun thought, ‘These two must frequent shady bars in real life to know which drugs knock people out.’

Liang Yu slipped in through the back kitchen door ahead of them. If he’d gone through the front, he would have run into them.

Clearly, Liang Yu had a purpose; the two players were still wandering blindly. Finding stones in a giant map was too hard, especially with limited time.

The people inside were sleeping. Liang Yu skipped the first floor and headed directly to the second.

The villa was even larger and more luxurious than expected. Even the moonlight reflecting off the tiles showed how expensive they were.

Of course, as an NPC, Liang Yu didn’t need a flashlight, moving freely as if he already knew where the valuables were stored.

On the second floor, the master bedroom.

Someone was sleeping inside. Even the slightest sound would wake the owners.

The couple’s snores thundered, rising and falling, sleeping so deeply even thunder might not wake them.

Yan Jiyun popped open the zipper and jumped out. Liang Yu was searching for stones and so was he. Working together would speed things up.

Liang Yu said to him, “Don’t make a sound later. Or I’ll stew you.”

Yan Jiyun: “……”

Threatening a cat? He officially dissolved their dual-blade alliance!

Liang Yu searched all the bedroom furniture quietly to avoid making noise, so progress was slow.

Yan Jiyun slipped into the woman’s walk-in closet.

Luxury designer handbags, jewelry, all displayed in glass cases.

He tested each one. It wasn’t the blue gem, nor was the red gem. Pearl necklace… no. 

At the top was a dark red box he couldn’t reach.

He ran back and pawed at Liang Yu’s pants, signaling a discovery.

Without doubt, Liang Yu abandoned a drawer full of family-planning products.

Yan Jiyun glanced. ‘Wow, impressive… definitely needs censoring.’

He led Liang Yu into the closet and pointed upward. Liang Yu spotted it immediately.

He took down the box and opened it in front of Yan Jiyun. Inside was an irregular black stone, almost identical to Uncle Ming’s.

No. It was slightly different.

Yan Jiyun reached a paw to confirm if it was a Revival Stone—

[Congratulations, Team F Player No. 29, for obtaining the resurrection prop “Revival Stone”.]

[Prop automatically shared with teammates.]

Good, it was real.

This family didn’t value the stone, probably because the elder who originally got it had passed away. His son didn’t care much, so it was found quickly.

Liang Yu decided to head to the next household. He opened the backpack and Yan Jiyun hopped in smoothly. They made a great team.

While they descended, the two players from downstairs bumped into Liang Yu. Since Yan Jiyun assumed Liang Yu would avoid them, he didn’t warn him. But Liang Yu didn’t intend to hide.

Seeing the all-black clothing, mask, and hat, they instantly suspected he was a player. Coupled with the system announcement, it was an easy conclusion to reach.

“So there you are, No. 29! Finally caught you!”

Liang Yu pointed at himself, “No.29?” Then remembering the number on Oreo’s collar, he nodded disdainfully, “Yes, I am No. 29. Got a problem?”

If anyone could be this cocky in this instance, it would be No. 29!

The two players confirmed he was the elusive No. 29!

“No. 29, hand over the stone or else—”

“Or what?” Liang Yu’s gaze darkened. They wanted to steal from him.

Before they could finish their threat, Liang Yu didn’t give them the chance. He suddenly swung his right leg at their faces with lightning speed!