So stubborn.
It seems this thing won't tell the truth without a little force.
The second after this guest froze in a daze, Cheng Shuili’s long blade was already pressed against his shoulder.
She wore a half-smile, but the threat in her voice was exceptionally thick. “If you don’t tell the truth, I’m not entirely sure where this blade might end up.”
Her voice was airy, yet it made the impostor’s entire body stiffen.
The cold edge of the blade pressed tightly against his neck, the threat of death so palpable.
His originally hollow eyes were instantly filled with fear, and his body began to tremble involuntarily.
In truth, regardless of whether he spoke or not, both Cheng Shuili and Hao Hao could already tell something was wrong.
Those attendants were all like robots; how could they have such definitive emotions?
And besides, if he were an attendant, he would have attacked by now, wouldn't he?
The fact was that not only would he not take the initiative to attack, but he was also quite terrified of Cheng Shuili taking action.
“I—I’ll talk!” He gasped rapidly. Although he was thoroughly frightened, he still didn’t dare to speak loudly: “She is a guest! You are all guests! We are all in the same faction; you can’t kill me, you can’t kill me!”
Hao Hao heard the answer and finally let out a sigh of relief, then glared at him angrily: “You lied to me!”
Cheng Shuili had originally thought Hao Hao was just saying something casually, and she had been thinking to herself that this person’s mentality was quite good to be able to say such things at a time like this. Glancing out of the corner of her eye, however, she saw that an axe had appeared in Hao Hao’s hand at some point, and her gaze toward the guest looked as if she were about to study anatomy.
Cheng Shuili: “...”
Being able to reach the top of the sub-region and enter the top five hundred in the grand region, she was truly no simple character.
“Put the axe away.” Cheng Shuili said flatly, “It’s not time to fight yet.”
Hao Hao put away the axe reluctantly, but her eyes still glared fiercely at the impostor: “Why did you lie to us?”
The impostor slumped on the ground, his face pale: “Be—because being an attendant is safer! Attendants won’t become the main course of the feast, and they won’t be prioritized during the dance. I just wanted to survive...”
Cheng Shuili’s blade tip didn’t pull back; instead, it moved an inch closer: “What use are you?”
“U—use?” The guest seemed to have never heard such words, and said as if it were a matter of course: “We are all in the same faction; what good would it do you to kill me? Our goals are the same! Even if I can’t bring you any use, you can’t kill me!”
What Cheng Shuili hated most were people like this who thought they were safe and secure, refusing to answer questions properly and instead spouting nonsense!
Her eyes turned cold, and the blade pressed down slightly. A thin line of blood immediately seeped from the impostor’s neck.
“I asked what you, these guests who chose to disguise yourselves as attendants, know that is concrete and useful regarding overthrowing the feast or escaping Nightmare Island.” Her voice was like quenched ice, “If you dodge the question again, I don’t mind having one less useless ally.”
The intense pain and cold murderous intent brought the impostor to his senses instantly. He realized that this woman in front of him would really take action and didn’t care at all about the camaraderie of being in the “same faction.”
“I have it! It’s useful! I’m useful!” He answered almost with a scream, his speed so fast it was as if he were about to bite his tongue: “We know some of the attendants’ patrol patterns, and we know how to leave this island!”
He panted, not daring to withhold anything else: “The attendants mentioned that to leave the island safely, you can only use the island-core passage. Besides needing to hold an attendant mark, you must… must pass through the entire passage at a specific time, which is when the feast segment switches and the mist is at its most turbulent. That window is very short, maybe only a few dozen seconds!”
As his words fell, his pupils suddenly dilated, and he seemed completely stunned.
He twisted his neck stiffly, his lips trembling, and it took a long while before he could speak: “The voice… the voice was too loud. It’s over. It’s over.”
Almost the moment his voice fell, the guests around them, who had been eating mechanically, all paused in unison.
“Click… click…”
The tooth-aching sound of bones shifting came from all directions.
Those monsters in gorgeous gowns with hollow or twisted faces, like rusted marionettes, slowly and jerkily turned their heads in an extremely unnatural posture.
Dozens of hollow, pitch-black eyes, or eyes flashing with scarlet light, focused squarely on the location of Cheng Shuili and her group!
Cold malice surged like a tangible tide, instantly submerging this tiny corner.
The air seemed to freeze.
“Hee… discovered… dead for sure…”
The impostor’s face was ashen, his body shaking like a sieve, and he closed his eyes in despair.
Hao Hao gasped, subconsciously gripping the axe in her hand, her back against Cheng Shuili, scanning the surroundings vigilantly.
Cheng Shuili’s gaze was cold, her hand holding Night Hunt steady as a rock.
“Rules.” She whispered a reminder to Hao Hao, her voice still calm, “Keep smiling, pick up your tableware.”
Hao Hao shivered, immediately forcing the corners of her mouth to pull into a smile uglier than crying, while her other empty hand grabbed a silver fork from the table.
Cheng Shuili did the same, a perfunctory yet rule-compliant curve hanging on her face, her table knife spinning flexibly at her fingertips.
But this time, simply “following the rules” seemed to have lost its effect.
Those disturbed guests didn’t look away after confirming the players were following the rules as they had before.
They continued to stare fixedly at this side, the standard, eerie smiles on their faces seemingly widening, carrying a playful and cruel cat-and-mouse sensation.
They began to move.
Slowly, like a tide, they stood up from their respective seats and surrounded Cheng Shuili’s group.
Footsteps rubbed against the floor, making a rustling sound, mixed with the clicking of joints, appearing exceptionally clear and terrifying in the dead-silent banquet hall.
All the players noticed the situation here, but in the face of such an eerie scene, no one dared to step forward directly.
“They’re coming over.” Hao Hao lowered her voice: “Big boss, what… should we do now?”
Cheng Shuili’s gaze scanned the approaching monster group sharply, her voice low: “The rules absolutely haven’t changed. It’s us who triggered a higher-level disharmonious factor. That impostor’s voice was too loud just now; they know he leaked core secrets. The previous rule priority must have been overwritten.”
“And…” Cheng Shuili glanced at the impostor who was too scared to stand up, “They probably aren’t here for us.”
Before she finished speaking, the approaching monsters seemed to confirm her judgment.
Their target was extremely clear: it was the impostor who had slumped to the ground and leaked the secrets!
Several pale, bloated hands, or hands covered in eerie patterns, reached toward the impostor in unison like piranhas that had smelled blood!
“No! Don’t! Save me!!”
The impostor let out a shrill scream, crawling backward on his hands and feet, trying to hide behind Cheng Shuili.
Cheng Shuili’s expression was indifferent. She pulled Hao Hao back to the side, precisely avoiding his grasp, and completely exposed him to the monsters’ claws.
“Ah!!!”
Accompanied by a tooth-aching tearing sound and a scream so brief it could almost be ignored, the impostor was instantly submerged by the swarming monsters. The sounds of flesh being torn and bones being broken were clearly audible, and warm blood even splattered to the feet of Cheng Shuili and Hao Hao, who were only a few steps away.
Hao Hao’s face turned white, and she turned her head away, forcing herself to endure the discomfort.
Cheng Shuili, however, remained unmoved. She even took advantage of the precious gap while the monsters’ attention was completely drawn to “punishing the leaker” to scan the entire scene quickly.
Almost all the guests were here, but there were still a few strange guests sitting at the tables.
Cheng Shuili guessed that those people should also be impostors.
The cruel punishment ended quickly. These attendants seemed to be responsible only for punishment and not for cleaning up the aftermath.
The impostor who had deceived Hao Hao had turned into a blurry pile of flesh, lying in ruins on the gorgeous carpet, forming an extremely stark contrast with the surrounding exquisite banquet arrangements.
The monsters that had finished their “punishment” had even more satisfied, exaggerated smiles on their faces.
They straightened up slowly, turned their heads back stiffly, and their hollow gazes swept over Cheng Shuili and Hao Hao.
This time, there was no previous locking-on or malice in those gazes; instead, it was as if they were… confirming whether they were “behaving themselves.”
Cheng Shuili maintained that perfunctory smile on her face, the table knife in her hand still keeping a subtle balance at her fingertips, as if that bloody scene just now had nothing to do with her.
Hao Hao also forced a smile, though her fingers gripping the silver fork were white from excessive force.
The monsters’ gazes lingered on them for a few seconds, as if judging whether these two bystanders constituted a new disharmonious factor.
Finally, as if they had received some kind of instruction, they slowly moved back to their original seats with stiff steps, like a receding tide, picked up their knives and forks again, and continued their never-ending mechanical eating.
The commotion here was too loud, and almost all the players noticed the situation.
Although the voices of Cheng Shuili and her companion were soft, there wasn’t much movement in the venue, so almost everyone knew what had happened just now, except for the players who had gone far away to look for clues.
Those who could participate in the full-server dungeon were all elites, so naturally, some soon realized that the ones still sitting at the tables were impostors just like the guest who had interacted with Cheng Shuili and Hao Hao!
For the sake of information, these players took action quickly.
The Panshi team reacted the fastest. They weren’t far away to begin with, so taking advantage of the moment the monsters’ attention shifted, they approached the other few “impostors” who were still sitting in their seats but clearly uneasy, in pairs and silently.
The Kyle team was a step slower, but they also locked onto targets immediately.
But the situation that emerged was completely different from Cheng Shuili’s. The moment the members of the Panshi team started talking to the impostors, those so-called “impostors” acted like real attendants and attacked the players who were asking questions.
The impostor Kyle faced was even more bizarre: he still had that standard smile on his face, but his arm suddenly stretched out like rubber, his five fingers forming claws and grabbing at Kyle’s face, his fingertips flashing with ghostly green poison!
“Fuck! These guys are attendants in disguise! We got it wrong!”
Kyle was both shocked and angry, rolling to the side in a disheveled manner to avoid the attack. The ground where he had been standing was corroded into a few small pits by the poisonous claws.
The Panshi team was also mired in a bitter fight. The strength these impostors displayed was truly extraordinary, and every move was aimed at the players’ lives.
It looked just like…
Real attendants?
Cheng Shuili narrowed her eyes. She had also felt for a second that these guests weren’t impostors, but looking at their way of attacking, they were still quite different from those attendants.
In other words, they should indeed be guests, but a different kind of guest who was better at disguising.
Cheng Shuili felt intuitively that something was wrong, and in her heart, she put a question mark after this statement.
Guests… were there really two types of real ones?
Or was it that Cheng Shuili was just that lucky, or Hao Hao was just that lucky, that asking any random attendant for their identity could lead to such a special, key character?
That would be too strange.
A flash of insight suddenly crossed Cheng Shuili’s mind. She stared at a real attendant for a while and finally confirmed her guess.
“Big boss, why did they suddenly attack?”
Hao Hao put down her knife and fork and looked up to ask Cheng Shuili.
The question was asked quite subtly.
She didn’t question whether these guests were impostors, but directly asked why they attacked.
Hao Hao was also a smart person.
But Cheng Shuili was clearly even smarter: “Because they know they can’t beat me.”
“What?” Hao Hao was stunned, not quite understanding.
Cheng Shuili’s gaze swept over the guests who had resumed mechanical eating and then landed on the impostors fighting fiercely with Panshi, Kyle, and the others, her voice calm and without waves: “The dungeon clearly wouldn’t set up two difficulty levels of guests, so the problem must lie with the players. What is something I have done, but they haven’t?”
Hao Hao understood instantly and gasped: “Big boss, you killed an attendant.”
“Exactly.” Cheng Shuili nodded, “These impostors were also present at the time and knew this clearly, so they didn’t dare to attack us, only daring to pick on the soft persimmons.”
Her eyes were cold: “They don’t not attack guests; they just don’t dare to attack me. In essence, they are also monsters, just in the same faction as us.”
Hao Hao didn’t ask any more questions. She looked at the food on the table and suddenly said: “Big boss, do you think that paper scrap you got after killing the attendant might be the attendant mark?”
Cheng Shuili paused. She really hadn’t thought about this question.
But with Hao Hao putting it that way…
It really was possible.
Before, she had only treated it as a clue item dropped after killing an attendant, but looking at it carefully now, the material of the paper scrap was special, cool to the touch, and that smiley face mark on it also looked at a glance like a marker for something!
Cheng Shuili spoke slowly: “Perhaps it really is, but we need to find a way to verify it.”
“How to verify?” Hao Hao was clearly a bit confused.
Cheng Shuili smiled and said as a matter of course: “Of course, go ask someone who knows.”
Someone who knows?
Those… attendants?!
Rate on N.U.
