Their eyes met. Both men: "…"
Jiang Sui's fingers curled slightly before he withdrew his hand as though nothing had happened. Lu Jin also pushed himself up from the floor without expression.
No one saw that at the same moment Jiang Sui placed his hand on Lu Jin's waist, a thin metal chip slipped against Lu Jin's side and concealed a tracking device inside the pocket of his pajamas.
After standing, Lu Jin's expression turned several degrees colder. His gaze swept across the living room. The place was in ruins. Five people against more than a hundred dead souls was, by any reasonable measure, a death sentence.
Xu Moyang and Fang Yuan had been protected the entire time, so the two of them were still in decent condition. Jiang Heng was far more miserable. He had regained a little awareness only to open his eyes to a mountain and sea of ghosts, and he nearly wished he could faint again on the spot.
The wooden door emitted a piercing groan. Its center had already caved inward, clearly unable to withstand the force of the dead souls outside. It was about to collapse.
A second later, with a thunderous crash, the door was crushed apart exactly as expected!
Everyone's expression froze.
The ghosts that had slipped into the living room were already difficult enough to handle. There were still so many more outside…
At that critical moment, Lu Jin suddenly moved behind Granny Huang.
Before she could react, he kicked hard into the back of her calf. With a heavy thud, she dropped to her knees. Her kneecaps struck the marble floor hard enough to make her bones ache.
"Apologize," Lu Jin said coldly.
Granny Huang gritted her teeth. "I won't!"
"Then I'll kill you."
Granny Huang suddenly laughed. In the bleak night, the sound was especially chilling.
"NPCs inside an instance can't truly die. Even if we're killed, we'll revive when the instance resets. You can't scare me with that."
Lu Jin suddenly reached out and gripped the back of her neck. "Are you sure?"
In that instant, Granny Huang no longer saw an inexperienced young player before her. She saw the Reaper who had taken her away after her death and escorted her to the hells to repay her karmic sins!
He was actually a Reaper!
Jiang Heng gave Lu Jin a weary sideways glance. After being tormented by the BOSS, his mind was unstable enough that he no longer cared what he said.
"Threatening her is useless. She kept a secret for this many years, which means she's stubborn to the bone. You think she'll apologize just because you tell her to?"
Before he finished speaking, Granny Huang suddenly turned toward the front entrance. Facing more than a hundred dead souls, she immediately slammed her forehead against the ground.
"I'm sorry!"
Perhaps afraid one apology would not be enough, she kowtowed several times in a row. Blood appeared on her forehead as she shouted, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry…"
Jiang Heng: "…?"
The furious dead souls outside actually stiffened after seeing Granny Huang bow. The thick, black-water-like resentment surrounding them also faded slightly.
Seeing that it worked, Jiang Sui copied the method. A metal sheet struck the back of Huang Youquan's calf, forcing him to drop to his knees and offer the dead souls an equally grand bow!
Then Liao Qingqing, the manager, the chef… Lu Jin and Jiang Sui dragged every NPC forward. An absurd scene suddenly unfolded in the guesthouse courtyard: every NPC was kneeling before the dead, bowing and apologizing!
Each apology repaid a portion of their karmic debt.
The resentment that had nowhere to go seemed to find an outlet at last, and some clarity gradually returned to the dead souls.
To make sure everyone could hear the apologies, Lu Jin even used the metal rod to whip the NPCs.
"Louder. Haven't you eaten?"
NPCs: …T^T
The ridiculous row of apologizing NPCs in the courtyard stood in stark contrast to the bewildered dead souls watching them.
Even stranger, although the instance time was clearly two in the morning, a faint glow appeared over the distant mountains. Sunlight spilled across the guesthouse roof, and as the dead souls looked toward it, their bodies slowly began to dissolve.
Jiang Sui looked up. "It's dawn."
The disappearance of the dead souls was only the beginning. One after another, the NPCs kneeling on the ground also faded into the air.
Jiang Heng stared in speechless shock. "We cleared it?"
Wasn't the task supposed to last three hours?
[Ding——!]
[Granny Huang and the NPCs actually apologized! This should have been completely impossible!]
[Hidden Ending Triggered: The Dead Souls' Forgiveness!]
[Because the NPCs apologized and reduced part of the dead souls' resentment, Escape from the Guesthouse has been invalidated. The final task has ended early!]
[The wronged souls thank the players for their help! An additional reward of 5,000 Points will be granted!]
The players: "!!!"
The final task had ended early?
That meant they had cleared the instance?
Everyone was overwhelmed with joy. Xu Moyang and Fang Yuan hugged each other and nearly burst into tears.
Lu Jin, however, said nothing.
Granny Huang had said that NPCs could not truly die. As long as the game reset, they would revive.
They existed in an endless cycle. It was imprisonment, but also a kind of immortality.
Then what if…
Lu Jin took out his phone and, before Huang Youquan disappeared completely, snapped a photograph.
A moment later, every NPC vanished.
Lu Jin looked down at his phone. Huang Youquan had returned to the prison inside it and was already cursing loudly from behind the invisible walls.
With all the NPCs gone and the dead souls dispersed, only five players remained inside the guesthouse.
"Something's wrong!"
Jiang Heng looked around in confusion. "After clearing an instance, shouldn't the Points be calculated? Why hasn't it started?"
*
At the same time, the game's System backend had descended into chaos. The "Points Calculation" screen that should have appeared became stuck halfway, filling with garbled code:
[Clear River Guesthouse instance cleared. Resetting instance…]
[…zzzt…]
[Unable to detect BOSS.]
[…zzzt…]
[BOSS missing. Instance reset failed.]
[…zzzt…]
[Clear River… instance data lost…]
[…zzzt…]
[Unable to detect any instance data. Unknown C-rank instance automatically sealed.]
The message was immediately synchronized to the players' forum. Minutes earlier, people had still been discussing strategies and survival techniques. Then a System announcement suddenly rolled across the global channel——
[Notice: Player […] has caused irreversible damage to C-rank instance […]. This instance has been permanently sealed.]
It looked like an ordinary notification, yet it sent shockwaves through the entire player community.
The moment it appeared, someone created a thread: [Original Post: What just happened? An instance was sealed? That's actually possible?!]
[This is the first time I've ever seen a sealed instance! So instances really can be sealed?]
[Apparently. The System announced it itself.]
[But it's just one sealed instance. Why is everyone so shocked?]
[The person above clearly doesn't understand. Instances loop and reset. Even if the NPCs die, they come back. But now an instance has actually been sealed!]
[The important part is this: if an instance can be sealed, does that mean the entire game can be shut down too? If the game closes, all of us could finally be free!]
Once someone explained it that way, the players became wildly excited.
Shutting down the game! That would mean no longer being forced into instances or compelled to survive around murderous NPCs!
[So who is […]? What exactly did they do? Does the game seriously not even know their name?]
[Damn, it can't even display the name? I don't understand it, but that makes them sound terrifyingly impressive!]
[Did they kill the BOSS? Or demolish the entire instance?]
The players argued noisily for a long time without reaching a conclusion. Then a familiar username suddenly appeared:
[Shi Tiantian: Killing the BOSS doesn't work~]
Shi Tiantian! One of the top ten players by Points!
The thread instantly exploded. The replies beneath her comment were full of worship: [Let me bask in the expert's aura!][Expert, let me cling to you!][Please take me into an instance with you next time~]
Shi Tiantian did not respond, apparently waiting for an answer herself. Before long, another top-ranked account appeared:
[Gong Qingxue: Destroying the instance doesn't work either. Even if you kill the BOSS and reduce the entire place to ruins, the instance still resets normally.]
Gong Qingxue was the number-one player in the Points rankings. If an ordinary person claimed they had killed a BOSS and demolished an instance, most people would not believe them. If Gong Qingxue said it, however, she had almost certainly done it herself.
[Han Si: Then what exactly did Blank do?]
Another top-ten expert joined the discussion.
Perhaps because typing […] every time was inconvenient, the players began calling the mysterious unnamed player "Blank."
The thread filled with high-ranking player IDs until ordinary users became dizzy. They had expected to watch the excitement from the sidelines, only to discover that the game's strongest players were even more curious than they were!
Han Si even created a bounty post, offering 10,000 Points in exchange for Blank sharing the "secret method for sealing instances."
Unfortunately, no matter how long they waited, Blank never responded.
Eventually, the players speculated that sealing the instance had probably been accidental. Perhaps Blank had not expected it either and needed some time to process what had happened before appearing on the forum.
Then a new player suddenly asked: [Why was the sealed instance C-rank? Aren't the strongest players already clearing A-rank instances? If Blank was clearing a C-rank… could Blank be a newcomer?]
The instant this appeared, the thread went silent.
Then everyone burst into laughter.
[Impossible. What newcomer could seal an instance? Most newcomers are lucky just to survive one!]
[And a newcomer's first instance wouldn't normally be C-rank. Usually it's D or E. If it was C-rank, it was probably a merged instance with veteran players leading them.]
[If a newcomer entered a C-rank instance on their first try and sealed it too, how ridiculous would they have to be? Even the top-ten players can't do that!]
…
*
The forum was erupting with discussion, and countless trending threads had appeared, but the person at the center of it knew absolutely nothing.
Several minutes later, the System finally recovered and began announcing a long list of Points calculations. Although the basic reward was divided evenly, extra Points were awarded according to individual contribution, so each player's total was different.
Lu Jin glanced at it once. It was too complicated, and he could not be bothered reading it.
After the calculation finally ended, the System issued its final notification:
[Congratulations! You have cleared the Clear River Guesthouse instance!]
[The buses that will return players are on their way. Please wait patiently~]
At last, the instance truly came to an end.
Jiang Heng desperately wanted to leave this cursed place, but before the bus arrived, he suddenly felt several cold gazes on his back.
He turned around stiffly and found Lu Jin and the others staring at him.
Everyone already knew that he and Xie Zhi had hidden the evidence. Earlier, they had been too busy dealing with the dead souls to settle the matter, but that did not mean they had forgotten.
Jiang Heng swallowed hard.
Murder was illegal in modern society, but this was an instance. Nobody had ever explicitly stated the rule, yet players seemed to share an unspoken understanding that deaths inside the game would not be carried back into the real world as criminal accusations.
Besides, he and Xie Zhi had targeted the newcomers first.
Jiang Heng's face darkened as he looked at the others, trembling. "What do you want?"
Everyone's gaze shifted toward Lu Jin.
The other players had not been directly harmed by the hidden evidence. Lu Jin alone had been punished because Task Two failed.
Lu Jin walked leisurely toward Jiang Heng.
Jiang Heng immediately shrank back.
Lu Jin might have been labeled the lowest-ranked danger-zone player, but what part of him looked weak? Moments earlier, he had smashed one ghost after another with a metal rod, every movement smooth and decisive. Even veteran experts could not fight that well!
Compared with Lu Jin, Jiang Heng himself looked far more like the weakest player!
He held his breath and did not dare move.
Lu Jin suddenly reached out. Before his hand even touched Jiang Heng, Jiang Heng immediately dropped to his knees!
"I'm sorry!"
What was dignity compared with staying alive?
Lu Jin: "…"
He had learned remarkably quickly from the NPCs. Unfortunately, Lu Jin was not an evil ghost consumed by resentment.
Lu Jin still extended his hand. But his long, clearly jointed fingers did not snap Jiang Heng's neck. He merely flicked the man once on the forehead.
Then he turned and walked away.
Jiang Heng covered his forehead, utterly confused.
That was it?
Lu Jin was letting him go that easily?
When Lu Jin returned, Jiang Sui blinked. "You're actually that forgiving?"
Jiang Heng had tried to get him killed! By comparison, Jiang Sui had merely followed Lu Jin once, yet Lu Jin had repeatedly targeted him and still had not given him a pleasant look.
How was that fair?!
Lu Jin did not even raise his eyelids. "Because you deserve to be hit."
Jiang Sui: "…"
Lu Jin glanced back toward Jiang Heng, who was still touching his forehead in bewilderment.
Lu Jin lowered his eyes.
Let Jiang Heng go? Impossible.
The Netherworld governed reincarnation, and Reapers were forbidden from harming living humans. Lu Jin therefore could not kill Jiang Heng.
But Reapers had other small ways to punish humans. That flick to the forehead, for example, meant that from this day onward, whenever Jiang Heng entertained malicious thoughts, he would fall into endless hells every night in his dreams.
The darker his intentions became, the more terribly he would burn in those dreams.
That was Lu Jin's punishment.
…
Before long, the buses arrived to collect the players.
Unlike the bus that had brought them into the instance, the return buses were divided by region. Each player would take a different one.
The first bus to arrive was headed for Ice City. When it approached, Fang Yuan said goodbye to Lu Jin and the others.
"Brother Sui, Brother Lu, Moyang, hopefully we'll meet again someday!"
Lu Jin and Jiang Sui nodded. Xu Moyang waved enthusiastically and shouted at full volume, "Brother Yuan! Take care of yourself! I hope we really do meet again!"
Fang Yuan answered. The doors behind him slid open automatically, and he turned to board.
The instant he lifted his foot, he froze.
In the driver's seat, an enormous Siberian tiger wore a driver's cap and sprawled over the steering wheel, one hind leg crossed casually over the other.
Seeing Fang Yuan, it opened its enormous mouth and barked in a heavy northeastern accent, "What're you doing? You've been dawdling forever! You getting on or not? Everyone on this bus is waiting for you!"
