Chapter 303: Rejoicing Fate 24

Chapter 303: Rejoicing Fate 24

In Room 014, the light was dim, and the candle flickered.

Qin Fei had been away from the room for an entire morning, yet the candles inside should have long since burned out; now, they remained as new as ever.

The other players from Black Feather had already replaced their candles two to three times, but only in Qin Fei's room did the candles seem to never burn out.

The source of contamination had visited again.

Qin Fei silently stared at the candle for a few seconds before stepping up to the ancient painting hanging on the wall.

The flickering candlelight cast shadows on the painting, and the hand of the bride in the painting seemed to move once more, brushing through her hair.

The young man standing in front of the painting showed no reaction, taking out the Reversal Mirror.

...

Suddenly, the candle's flame went out, plunging the room into complete silence.

Qin Fei could not even hear his own breathing or heartbeat.

It felt as if he were enveloped in a sponge, with all sounds absorbed entirely.

In the live stream chat, viewers' complaints piled up.

"What's going on? Why is the screen black again?"

"The signal for this Guild competition seems to be frequently unstable. @System @Admin, fix it!"

"Wait, don't you find it strange that only this player's stream always has issues, while others don't?"

"This doesn't look like a signal issue. The previous disconnections showed static. Has something happened to the broadcaster?"

Qin Fei glanced at the chat and turned off the interface.

At this moment, his perspective aligned perfectly with that of the viewers, seeing nothing but emptiness.

Not only that, Qin Fei couldn't move at all.

His body seemed disconnected from his consciousness, and he could not sense his existence, with only his thoughts floating in the darkness.

"Pfft—"

A faint sound echoed, and the candle flame ignited, illuminating one corner of the room.

A sound usually too weak to catch was now crystal clear in the extreme silence.

Qin Fei immediately looked in that direction.

Under the firelight, a corner of a dark brown table appeared.

That table corner looked familiar.

Although the guest rooms all seemed similar at first glance, Qin Fei recognized this as Room 014 where he had stayed for two days by the position of the altar table.

No change in position?

No.

This ancient painting depicted the scene of Room 014 at that time.

Another candle lit up, followed by a third and fourth.

The room brightened, and Qin Fei fully saw the scene inside.

This was indeed Room 014, with all the furniture in the same positions, but it didn't look exactly the same as outside the painting.

The setup in this room resembled a true bridal chamber, with red silk draped over the bed frame and red bedding. The wooden furniture looked newer, as if untouched by time.

Beside the bed, at the dressing table, sat a person.

Dressed in red, facing away from Qin Fei.

Qin Fei couldn't see the face, but the back view became increasingly familiar, sending chills down his spine.

That was...

The person turned around.

Qin Fei saw his own face.

Instinctively, he wanted to blink but found himself unable to do so, so he gave up and continued staring like a camera.

The live stream had images again, no longer pitch black, and the viewers became excited once more.

"What's happening? Is this still Room 014?"

"Did anything happen just now? It just got dark and then bright again?"

"Are you blind? This place clearly looks different."

"This must be the world within the painting."

"Where's the broadcaster? Where's my wife? Where did my big wife go?"

...?

Qin Fei stared at the rapidly scrolling text, sensing something amiss.

The live stream audience seemed unable to see Qin Fei sitting in front of the dressing table.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have said such things.

Qin Fei's gaze slightly narrowed.

After so many instances, he had already noticed that whenever the audience couldn't see the live content, it was usually due to the influence of a pollutant source.

So now,

either a pollutant source was present,

or everything he was seeing was something the pollutant source wanted him to see but not the audience.

Qin Fei had a clear guess: perhaps what he would see next were some scenes from three years ago, when he had experienced them in a scenario?

Qin Fei at the desk began speaking, while the real Qin Fei, just like last night in his dream, watched himself from a third-person perspective.

That Qin Fei sat on the chair, facing an empty space, yet spoke incessantly.

"Wen Yian, is this the fifth wedding item? It seems to be... the fifth one, right?"

"There's only one more left, and we'll have all our items."

"We have half a day left. I wonder if we can make it in time."

"It's already... just the two of us."

When he said this, his voice noticeably dropped.

Qin Fei noticed that while speaking, that Qin Fei kept making subtle movements.

Turning his head, tilting his face, reaching out as if grabbing something and then letting go.

As if there was another person standing beside him.

An invisible person.

Was it the pollutant source?

At that time, it should not have been a pollutant source but Wen Yian, himself.

Qin Fei became interested. Was he really that talkative three years ago?

Qin Fei searched through his memories. Whether inside or outside the rule world, he had never been someone who liked to chatter.

Back then, his interaction with the pollutant source was actually like this.

It felt both novel and interesting.

From these words of his own, Qin Fei could gather quite a bit of information.

It was evident that the situation in this scenario three years ago was vastly different from now.

Firstly, the difficulty level of the scenario back then was higher.

The combined strength of players entering this scenario three years ago should have been stronger than now, yet almost everyone had perished before collecting all the wedding items, leaving only two survivors.

Secondly,

there are currently two ghost grooms in the scenario, each with different stances.

Three years ago, there was only one ghost groom, aligned with the players.

The character card Butterfly obtained did not seem to exist in the old version of the scenario.

What was the deal with the additional groom? Was it a new setting added to the scenario?

Qin Fei couldn't figure it out and continued to stare intently at the scene.

Watching oneself while awake was a rather awkward experience. The young man frowned slightly, listening quietly to his own voice.

"Did you find any traces of the sixth painting in the inner world?"

"It's a bit tricky... we don't even know what the sixth painting looks like."

"We wasted too much time earlier. If we had discovered the secret of the banyan tree sooner, we could have obtained those three paintings in the inner world earlier, without waiting until night."

"After getting this painting, return to the outer world first; the inner world is too dangerous."

Qin Fei by the dressing table held a comb, speaking while gently brushing his hair.

If one looked closely, his actions appeared normal but were actually somewhat off—more like his hand was being held by someone else.

This scene was indeed unsettling, but Qin Fei felt no fear, instead becoming increasingly engrossed.

The scenario three years ago also had an outer and inner world?

It sounded like the distinction between the outer and inner worlds back then was based on the transition between day and night.

The Tulou during the day was the outer world, and at night, it entered the inner world.

Meanwhile, the banyan tree in the courtyard served as another connection between the outer and inner worlds.

Players could freely enter and exit the inner world through the banyan tree during the day.

This setting must have changed now because this morning, Qin Fei climbed the banyan tree and thoroughly examined it, finding no trace of the outer and inner worlds.

Listening to his own voice, Qin Fei felt a slight, continuous throbbing pain in his temples.

Some images were gradually taking shape in his blank mind.

The voice coming from beside the dressing table was like a brush.

To be precise, it was more like a broom, sweeping away the dust that had settled on Qin Fei's memories.

The more he listened, the more he recalled.

The conversation over there was intermittent and not entirely coherent, but Qin Fei remembered even more.

His earlier guess was correct; the scenario set three years ago was indeed vastly different from now.

Players who entered Tulou discovered, less than two hours after the scenario began and when the first night fell, that this scenario had an outer and inner world.

In the inner world of Tulou, there was no light at all, and paper figures were everywhere. Only by hiding in their rooms or carrying lanterns could they escape disaster.

The players did not leave their rooms on the first night, but as time passed, they realized that to complete the scenario, they had to explore the inner world of Tulou.

Most of the scrolls containing auspicious objects were in the inner world.

Moreover, the player with the groom's identity had even more connections with the inner world.

Back then, the roles of the bride and groom were decided by the players themselves. As the president and vice president of Black Feather, Qin Fei and Wen Yian took the roles of the bride and groom without any dispute.

Several tasks in the scrolls required dual lines to complete, such as the auspicious banquet where toasts were made in the courtyard, and the current dressing scene before them.

Dual lines meant that the bride and groom must enter the scroll together.

But simply entering the scroll together was not enough.

If both the bride and groom entered the ancient scroll from the outer world, the groom would only become an insignificant character in the painting.

With a key character missing, the plot task could not progress, and the system would directly prompt the players about the missing element, then forcibly eject everyone from the side quest.

Progress towards clearing the scenario stalled.

Until Qin Fei back then proposed a conjecture:

Since the content of the ancient scroll was the bride recalling her deceased lover, perhaps the groom needed to appear in the painting as "already dead."

The players waited for a long time until night fell, and everyone entered the painting again.

Entering the painting from the inner world, Wen Yian successfully obtained the identity of the ghost groom within the painting.

However, this meant that all the side quests could only be advanced after nightfall.

This was absolutely too late.

Fortunately, the players discovered the secret of the banyan tree the next day, and Wen Yian repeatedly entered the inner world alone, thus leveling the progress of the scenario.

Qin Fei wanted to recall more, but his memory stopped here.

What happened to Qin Fei and Wen Yian after they left this scroll remained unknown to him.

Yet, this was precisely what he most wanted to know.