There's definitely something wrong with this murder mystery game

"Gurgle gurgle..."

Xu Shuo picked up the teapot from the ancestral hall table, rinsed his mouth with the tea, and finally managed to flush away that nauseating taste.

His expression was somewhat strange.

It was mainly because the experience was too personally felt.

Whether it was the physical touch and struggle or the feelings and emotions conveyed from that body, they had shockingly become real to him, who had just been trapped inside.

It was a very odd sensation.

Although Xu Shuo knew humans had seven emotions and six desires, experiencing joy, anger, sorrow, fear, terror, and despair under specific circumstances, he found it hard to truly empathize.

Because Xu Shuo couldn't remember how long it had been since he had last felt such emotions—perhaps he never had, or maybe he had but had forgotten.

That's why he found it to be such a peculiar feeling.

When emotions burst forth from somewhere within the body and filled the brain's neurons, at that moment, it felt like dopamine was being secreted quite actively.

Of course, the excited one definitely wasn't the bride.

The fear and despair of that girl were the deepest he had ever seen.

The scene was frozen.

A girl with eyes full of despair was nailed inside a coffin.

Sewing her mouth shut was to prevent her from speaking out her grievances; nailing her body was to keep her wronged spirit from causing further trouble.

Everyone knew she was wronged.

But no one cared.

In the end, those people with expressionless faces locked her up with that corpse.

After the coffin lid was closed, the only things engulfed by the boundless darkness along with the girl were the rotting cadaver and the heavy stench of blood.

She would die in such darkness.

"Why is it not nice to look at?"

The bride standing to one side suddenly spoke again.

Xu Shuo came back to his senses, looked at the bride, who appeared entirely different from the desperate, struggling girl in the coffin. She stood with her hands folded in front of her, her posture dignified and luxurious, exuding a calm elegance.

The wedding hall was a pale wash of happiness unlike any joyful color, with white muslin curtains hanging from the beams fluttering gently, making the bride's blood-red wedding dress look even more dazzling.

Xu Shuo glanced at her red bridal veil and suddenly became curious, wondering what kind of expression lay beneath it.

But he wasn't going to do something that might decrease her favorability right now.

After some thought, Xu Shuo cautiously answered, "Interesting as it is, upon further thought, it's quite tedious."

"Tedious?"

The bride ended her question on a raised note, seemed to chuckle a few times with her hand against her mouth, and then nodded, saying, "You're right, it is kind of dull."

The sound of her voice faded away.

The scenery around them changed once again.

They were back in that quiet alley.

The bride in front of him was still holding that piece of Osmanthus Cake in her grip, her red fingertips gently caressing the pastry before pinching off a small corner and bringing it under her red veil.

The veil over the bride's mouth rose and fell slightly as if she were chewing.

Xu Shuo felt a bit regretful upon seeing this; he thought she would have to burn these worldly goods before consuming them, but it seemed she could eat them directly?

He wanted to take the opportunity to ask her where her grave was, as he would go and burn offerings.

The bride, holding her piece of Osmanthus Cake, said, "Hurry back and sleep, kid. Don't always go wandering around at night."

After speaking, the bride turned and vanished.

Xu Shuo paused: "You don't want the rest of the Osmanthus Cake?"

As his voice dropped, he immediately felt some movement in the plate; looking down, he saw that eight of the nine remaining pieces of Osmanthus Cake had vanished in an instant.

The bride had kindly left him one piece.

And the four Paper Men carrying the paper sedan on the ground also disappeared along with the bride, leaving only the white osmanthus flowers still fluttering in the air and the intermittent, echoing singing from the village.

Xu Shuo pinched the last piece of Osmanthus Cake, eating it as he looked up at the sky.

His pitch-black pupils moved slightly, and the osmanthus flowers in the air vanished, along with the singing, leaving only the silent and eerily quiet village as a real presence.

Xu Shuo then looked towards the houses at the foot of West Mountain.

Inside the houses, not a single villager was asleep.

They had ferocious, frightening faces with bloodshot eyes, looking more like Evil Ghosts than mysterious brides, staring motionlessly at the doorway with dead eyes.

They all knew what was happening outside.

But no one dared to go out.

...

Xu Shuo walked on the quiet village path.

The first contact with the bride had yielded relatively good information; the only regret was that she ate the Osmanthus Cake without giving any props.

Of course, he hadn't come solely for props.

He remembered that this script required not just acting to earn performance points; it was necessary to uncover the story of Osmanthus Village.

Now he had already unearthed half of it.

What slightly surprised Xu Shuo was that the bride seemed to have her own consciousness and thoughts; he didn't feel a programmed performance from her.

This was quite interesting.

When the director extracted this script, he must have dealt with the anomalous elements here. If the bride was extracted into the script after being eradicated, then she's just a dry program.

But if the bride's outcome was similar to that of the Little Ghost in the "Green-skin Train," then she definitely possessed self-awareness within.

Xu Shuo pondered thoughtfully, a new idea forming in his mind.

Suddenly, he halted his footsteps.

He turned his head toward the direction of North Mountain.

...

...

After nightfall, the village wasn't truly deserted.