An Unexpected Incident

Getting to see your people survive was the ideal outcome, no matter what method you had to use to ensure it—at least, that was the case for Lin Qiushi.

After that, they were all doomed to a sleepless night. The number of Hakobito inside the house had once again increased, and they still had no idea how they were meant to escape. To put the Hako Onna to rest, the easiest method was to use the Doll Mary on Hako Onna's bones, the Doll Mary being Hako Onna's favorite stuffed doll from back when she was alive. But the item that Xiao Mei had opened up the night before was one of Hako Onna's power cards, named "My Doll Mary," and though the names both included Doll Mary, the two items had completely opposite uses.

My Doll Mary was a power card that, in the game, made it so that the player with the Doll Mary item could not transfer its ownership to anyone else. Plus, the doll would keep crying and making noise, so the player would have to stack the noise discs twice. If the noise discs fell and made a sound, the Hako Onna could make a move. This power increased the speed of Hako Onna's movements and the frequency of her power usage.

If the player in possession of the Doll Mary was killed, then the items they possessed would too be buried. Players would lose that method of escaping from the mansion, and the difficulty of the game would once again increase.

Lin Qiushi had a faint guess as to why Ruan Nanzhu had told Sun Yuanzhou what he did. Ruan Nanzhu seemed to be using false intel to confirm some facts.

The next morning, there was obvious exhaustion on everybody's faces. The incident last night had clearly affected them.

Bright and early, Lin Qiushi had selected two chests inside their room and given them a listen. He'd confirmed there were no odd sounds inside before letting Ruan Nanzhu open one.

The chest was totally empty. Though there was no power card, there was also no item—a fairly fruitless effort.

Lin Qiushi gave the second chest to Liang Miye. Today was his turn to not eat and go hungry, and tomorrow would be Liang Miye's.

For two days and three nights, all Ruan Nanzhu had had to eat was a bowl of instant noodles. Though he hadn't said anything, he must be hungry. In the dining room, he also didn't speak much to the people around, just quietly sat and put food in his mouth.

Today was the third day in which those who did not open chests could not eat food. Most people had already crumbled under that intrusive, suffocating sense of starvation. They'd chosen chests to open and were vigorously chowing down at the sides of the dining table.

After eating his fill, Ruan Nanzhu set down what was in his hand and said, "Xiao Mei opened up a power card yesterday."

His gaze swept once around the table, but did not see Xiao Mei. Losing her lover had likely been a major shock to her; she hadn't even wanted to come to breakfast.

"What's the card?" Xuan Zihui asked.

"My Doll Mary," Ruan Nanzhu said. "It's a very important power card. Before I talk about it, I want to ask—has anybody here found a stuffed doll?"

Everyone in the group shook their heads, indicating that they had not seen this doll.

"Alright, then let me continue," Ruan Nanzhu said. "After the doll is found, if the Hako Onna uses this power, then the person in possession of the doll might need to open two chests the next day in order to eat. Of course, this is only my guess, and this power could be interpreted in some other way. Regardless, it won't be a good thing."

Inside the doors, things only ever got more difficult. There was nothing to make the game simpler.

"So what's the doll for?" someone asked.

"It can help the Hako Onna pass on," Ruan Nanzhu said. "It's a very important item for escape."

At this, the group quieted down. All their expressions were quite complicated as they gauged the danger factor of this possibility. Risk and benefit always came as a matched pair, and if they wanted to get out of here, they were compelled to weather some risks.

"Did anybody else open up any items?" Ruan Nanzhu asked. "I can interpret them for you."

But everybody shook their heads. Only a young woman carefully revealed that she'd found a passcode digit.

"So if we find one more digit, we can guess at the remainder of the passcode," Ruan Nanzhu said.

"You'll still try to guess the passcode?" Xuan Zihui seemed thoroughly unhappy with Ruan Nanzhu. If it weren't for all the information Ruan Nanzhu knew, she really might have repudiated him out in the open already. But it wasn't like her attitude right now was good, either—the tone she spoke in was chilly: "As if you don't know what happened to the people that tried it already?"

"Guessing the passcode depends on the situation," Ruan Nanzhu replied levelly. "Of course nothing good came out of trying to force it."

At least, within the scope of the tabletop's rules, guessing the passcode was absolutely allowed, given that you'd gotten your hands on a few digits first. And of course, if you were lucky enough to immediately guess the entire passcode without any help at all, then really, just go ahead and toss the entire rulebook out the window.

Breakfast ended just like that. Because the results of opening the chests had already come out, the day looked like it would be a peaceful one.

Ruan Nanzhu took a lap around the house, stopping in the end in the foyer.

"By the time I got here, there were already a lot of people," he said.

"Hm?" Lin Qiushi looked on in mild doubt.

"At least eight," Ruan Nanzhu said. "If we were playing a game, then the rulebook must have been placed somewhere obvious. The person who got the rulebook must be someone who came in first…"

He continued, "it's not Wei Xiude. He came in with a bunch of newbies. If he'd seen the rulebook, it'd be hard to hide it from that many people. The person who hid the rulebook then must be one of the solo players, or one of the duos."

He straightened up.

"So here's the question: why would they hide the rulebook?"

"Maybe they want us dead?" Liang Miye said. "If we didn't know the rules and just randomly opened the chests…"

"No, even if we did randomly open the chests, there would only be one death, max. No one would be stupid enough to keep opening them after something happens," Ruan Nanzhu said. "But what comes after would be troublesome, because we wouldn't know how the items and the powers worked."

In the middle of his analysis, there came a wail from upstairs. But that wail belonged to Wei Xiude, someone to whom nothing should've happened.

"What in the world? Did he open the wrong chest?" Liang Miye was bewildered.

"Don't know," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Come on, let's go see."

They rushed upstairs and found a group of people already gathered. As for the yelling, it was coming from inside a chest—Wei Xiude had been dragged in!

If you'd opened a box the day before, then not only could you eat three meals that day, but you could also eat breakfast the next morning. So what Wei Xiude must have done was open a chest for the sake of lunch, and the accident happened then.

But Wei Xiude should still have Xiao Ji's stethoscope. Why did such a thing happen?

Lin Qiushi looked up and saw, to his surprise, Xiao Ji and Xiao Mei standing together. Xiao Mei's expression was still grim, but Xiao Ji looked all sorts of giddy.

"What happened here?" Sun Yuanzhou had come too.

"I heard wrong," Xiao Ji said. "The item made a mistake!"

That stethoscope was still hanging around his neck.

Nobody believed him. There was no way game items would make a mistake, only humans would do that. But Xiao Mei began to laugh.

"Isn't this a good thing?" she said. "Someone like Wei Xiude is dead…Everyone ought to be happy."

"That's right," Xiao Ji said lazily. "He tricked us in here and got so many people killed. He doesn't get to live, he deserved to die."

Lin Qiushi didn't know how Xiao Mei convinced Xiao Ji to do it, but her persuasion had clearly been successful. Xiao Ji had chosen Xiao Mei, and thrown Wei Xiude under the bus.

The bad guy got what was coming to him. This should've made everyone happy, but accompanied by Wei Xiude's horrible cries, Lin Qiushi couldn't manage so much as a smile—the number of Hakobito had once again increased.

Sun Yuanzhou's thought process was evidently similar to Lin Qiushi's, his gaze dark as all hell. Lin Qiushi thought he was going to say something, but he didn't end up talking at all, turning around and making to leave.

"That's right," Ruan Nanzhu suddenly said. "Was it a Hakobito or the Hako Onna in this chest?"

"It's the Hako Onna." Xiao Mei seemed to have a favorable impression of Ruan Nanzhu, and answered him readily. "I saw her."

Before, Xiao Mei might have been scared by the Hako Onna's appearance. But after experiencing the death of her lover, she'd settled down a lot, to the point where she could calmly face her worst fear.

"Oh," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Then everyone should come along to the dining room. I have something to tell you all."

Hearing this, everybody looked on with suspicion, and they all headed for the dining room.

Once everybody arrived, Ruan Nanzhu took a seat at the table. The first words out of his mouth were: "I've got the Doll Mary."

"What? The Doll Mary?" someone asked in shock.

"Yes, the Doll Mary," Ruan Nanzhu said. "It's currently hidden in my room. Once someone finds the bones, we can all get out of here."

When he announced this, he wore an expression of excitement, like they were at the breakthrough point of winning the game.

"Even though the bones will be hard to find, this is already the quickest method."

Chattering discussion broke out among the crowd.

"Thank god, we can get out of here…"

"But a lot of danger comes with this doll. Plus, the My Doll Mary power card had already been opened, so I'm wondering if I should put it back where I found it…" Ruan Nanzhu said.

"Don't, what if the Hako Onna destroys it?" someone spoke up from the crowd. "If you don't want it you can give it to me. I'm not scared."

When Lin Qiushi heard this, he looked over at the person who spoke. It was a young woman with very little presence. Though she was one of the veterans, she wasn't very talkative, to the point where Lin Qiushi didn't even recall her name.

"Alright," Ruan Nanzhu said. "I'll just have to keep it with me. Everybody please keep opening the chests. The sooner we find the bones, the sooner we can get out."

It was easy for him to say. Out of about two hundred boxes, well over a hundred were currently left. Even one out of a hundred were difficult odds to bet on.

After announcing this critical information, Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi left the dining room.

At this point, Liang Miye too had guessed what Ruan Nanzhu wanted to do. She started, "you suspect…"

"Sh." Ruan Nanzhu put a hand to his lips, gesturing for Liang Miye to keep quiet.

Liang Miye nodded her understanding.

After the three left the dining room, they returned to their room and waited inside.

Roughly two hours later, what they waited for came: the Hako Onna once again let out a crying wail, this time from a bedroom on the second floor. The person inside that room stumbled out in a panic.

After crying, the Hako Onna could use a power. But by dinnertime, not a single group member had gone missing. Everybody inside the mansion was still alive.

"She used a power?" the group began discussing around the table. "Why didn't anything happen?"

Currently, the Hako Onna only had three powers: False Answers, Open This, and My Doll Mary. The first two powers had already been used. Lin Qiushi asked everybody present if, before they got here, they'd been attacked by False Answers.

Everybody answered in the negative.

So, after eliminating the incorrect options, only one answer was left—Hako Onna had used the power My Doll Mary.

However, because the Doll Mary item had not been discovered, the power was immediately annulled and returned to the card pile.

As the crowd discussed this matter, Ruan Nanzhu kept his head down, fiddling with the spoon in his hand. Sun Yuanzhou's gaze kept finding him. And though Sun Yuanzhou managed to keep his mouth shut, someone in the group couldn't, asking aloud: "Zhu Meng, didn't you say you had the Doll Mary? How come Hako Onna's power didn't work on your doll?"

"Because I lied to you." Ruan Nanzhu's laughter was, at first, low, but it gradually grew louder and louder. He put his chin in his hand, subarctic gaze sweeping over the crowd. "If I didn't lie to you, how else would the Hako Onna have used her power?"

The people watching him froze.

"What do you mean?" There were still smart people among them though—with a single question Sun Yuanzhou identified the meaning hidden in Ruan Nanzhu's words. "You mean the Hako Onna's hidden among us??"

"I don't know," Ruan Nanzhu said coolly. "I don't know if it's the Hako Onna herself or someone working with her. All I know is there is a person among us who's informing on us to the Hako Onna—the Hakobito can't communicate with the Hako Onna, after all. Once we'd confirmed that the Hako Onna's on the second floor, I made this announcement in the kitchen. Two hours later, the Hako Onna used her power. Say, why do you think she was in such a rush? Is she scared that I'll hand the Doll Mary off to somebody else?"

"How could that be? What good is it to that person?!" Someone stood up, smacking a hand onto the table with force. "If we're all dead, what good would that…"

Halfway through speaking, he stopped, because the benefit was really too obvious.

If that person was the Hako Onna herself, then great. If they were working with the Hako Onna, then the benefits were truly countless.

Because once everybody else was dead, the rule of the doors would come into effect. However they wanted to leave this place would be easy.

As for how to kill all your teammates without them knowing, that was an art form in and of itself. The person hidden among them, then, was working toward this outcome.

All the veterans had figured out this point, and the way they looked at the people around them became meaner, crueler. Among the newbies, some understood, but some did not, clearly not following this new development.

"If my guess is correct, then that person should've been the first to arrive," Ruan Nanzhu said. "They've at least hidden the rulebook. If I hadn't actually played this game before, then all of us would've just been sitting ducks."

"You've got a good point, but there's still a giant hole in your logic." Xuan Zihui opened her mouth to once again speak against Ruan Nanzhu. "The premise that has to precede all this is that the information you've given us is accurate. If the Doll Mary or the power card are all just your inventions, then this situation isn't something that actually exists."

Ruan Nanzhu's lips curved up.

"What good is it to me to have made all this up? To make things so difficult?"

"Like you said, to get out of here alone," Xuan Zihui argued, standing up. "Ever since we got here, it's been you providing the details. You said you've played the tabletop before, but what are the chances—a small indie game like this, and you just happen to be the only one who's played it?!"

"Whatever else you want to say, go ahead and get it all out."

Faced with Xuan Zihui's aggressive goading, Ruan Nanzhu looked detached, like he was watching a child throwing a tantrum.

"If anyone's hiding the rulebook, I think it's you," Xuan Zihui said. "Something that's eighty percent true and twenty percent a lie is good enough to fool everyone. What do you think about that, Miss Zhu Meng?"

From Xuan Zihui's perspective alone, what she was saying indeed made a lot of sense. Since coming into this door, Ruan Nanzhu had taken on a leadership role—it was reasonable for others to suspect that he was the one who'd hidden the rulebook.

But unfortunately for her, Ruan Nanzhu came prepared.

Slowly, he drew a slip of paper from his pocket and set it on the table. He tapped it with a finger and said, "your answer."

Xuan Zihui took the paper, and the moment she read it her expression drastically changed.

That was a slip of paper that belonged to the door, and written on it were the two words, "Hako Onna." As such, the reason why Ruan Nanzhu knew the rules inside this door got a thorough explanation—he was in possession of the door's hint, and he was the strongest and most capable among all the veterans.

The Xuan Zihui who saw the hint slip deflated like a popped balloon, all of her presence flattening. She sighed, sat down, and didn't try discrediting Ruan Nanzhu again.

It was a young woman next to her who whispered, "can't that slip be faked?"

"Faked?" Xuan Zihui looked at her with obvious doubt. "How could you fake that? That paper has a special texture. Even if you were faking it it had to be made outside the door, and how could you know the situation inside before coming in?"

The girl laughed awkwardly, "I'm only asking."

Ruan Nanzhu held out a hand.

"Any other questions?"

The group all shook their heads. The way they were looking at him now was completely different.

"Since there are no more questions, then let's leave it at that," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Watch your backs. There's a mole among us, after all. Any questions and concerns can be brought to me in private, and I guarantee I won't tell the Hako Onna."

As he spoke, he shot Xuan Zihui a look that wasn't quite a smile. Xuan Zihui went pale, trying and failing to say something in return.

"Then should information sharing still be public after this?" Sun Yuanzhou asked the question plaguing everybody's minds. If there was a mole or even the Hako Onna herself among them, then wasn't all the public intel working to her benefit?[1]

Ruan Nanzhu said, "how about this? Any information that can help us get out of here, we'll trade around in private, but any powers and ways to kill the Hako Onna we find, we'll make public."

"How do we trade intel in private?" Sun Yuanzhou frowned. "We still don't know who that person is."

"If you trust me, you can tell me and let me pass it around. If you don't…" Ruan Nanzhu said. "If you don't, then there's nothing I can do about that."

Sun Yuanzhou said, "I trust you."

The moment Ruan Nanzhu had taken out that hint slip, he was a shoo-in for the principal leader of the group. He was the only one who knew the rules, after all—oh, and perhaps also his two less talkative companions.

But if anything were to happened to Ruan Nanzhu, then they truly would become sitting ducks[2]. However the Hako Onna wanted to torment them they would have no method of fighting back.

After a little more discussion, the group finally dispersed.

When Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi got to the door, however, Xiao Mei passed them by and quietly spoke a word of thanks.

Ruan Nanzhu replied, "you're welcome."

"What did you tell her?" Liang Miye was truly curious what Ruan Nanzhu could have said to bring the dead-looking Xiao Mei from last night all the way back to life.

"I just told her that you could kill inside the door," Ruan Nanzhu said. "As long as you used the right methods."

Lin Qiushi blinked, but then remembered something: "You mean Wei Xiude had been telling newbies this whole time that you can't kill inside the doors?"

He was a bit surprised by himself after he said this as well; really, you couldn't kill inside the doors—it was just that the words "in person" ought to be tacked on after "kill."

It really was a sort of skill to kill someone within the premise of the rules.

"Xiao Ji's no fool," Ruan Nanzhu said, walking and talking. "Though he's reckless, his intellect's not an issue. There must've been some other reason he hadn't moved on Wei Xiude."

"What reason?" Liang Miye asked.

"That I don't know," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Maybe it's a limitation from outside the door. Since Xiao Mei was able to hook up with Xiao Ji, then she must have solved Xiao Ji's problem for him."

Problem resolved, Xiao Ji had ruthlessly turned the target on Wei Xiude. His method couldn't be more simple. He only had to lie about one piece of information.

Wei Xiude had mistakenly believed that the chest was safe, and happily opened it. The result…was self-evident.

"You can't get revenge for that?" Lin Qiushi frowned.

"Mh," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Xiao Ji didn't personally do the deed."

Though Wei Xiude got the karma he was owed, their situation was becoming increasingly difficult. There were four Hakobito now, and they hadn't found the mole. Presently, the Hako Onna had all the advantage.

But there was no rushing this game either. At least they hadn't opened up any powers that would give Hako Onna the complete upper hand.

This line of reasoning, however, was shattered that very evening. A starved-out newbie opened up a new chest, and found inside a power card named "I'm Behind You."

When that newbie came to Ruan Nanzhu, Ruan Nanzhu held that card in his hand and sank into silence. This card was the Hako Onna's strongest power. Once it was used, every human inside the same room as the Hako Onna would die.

Author's Note:

I'm hungry. Steamed bun time _(:3∠)_