Zuo Lin'an had clearly already come up with an excuse for Xu Youyou's concerns.
“Under normal circumstances, of course not. But this is a specter dungeon; anything happening here is perfectly reasonable.”
Xu Youyou stared at him blankly for a few moments.
He felt like something was off, but he couldn't find a way to refute it.
“Fine.”
“But you definitely haven't finished explaining the plotline, right? The dungeon's storyline has to be related to the gold hairpin specter item, and it also needs to involve the twin brothers and the younger brother's disappearance.”
“Also, where do you plan to put the path of survival?”
Zuo Lin'an waved his hand. “What's the rush? I'm not finished yet.”
“And what I'm about to say next is the key point. It's also the storyline players will need to uncover.”
He paused briefly before continuing.
“My younger brother and I are twins. We are each other's only remaining family in the world, and the most important person to one another.”
“As the older brother, I care deeply about him and have always put him first.”
“Therefore, in the final stages of his life, I decisively quit my job and brought him back to our ancestral home.”
“And as the younger brother, he naturally saw his older brother as his closest kin. He didn't want his brother to ruin his own future over his illness, so he constantly lived in self-blame and guilt.”
“The younger brother always wanted to die sooner so his older brother could be freed from his troubles.”
“It was just that, before this, he had never been able to make up his mind.”
“But this time, because his older brother quit his job for him, he finally resolved to seek death.”
“Yet, right after he made this decision, he discovered a secret passage in his bedroom that led straight to an underground secret room, where he found a gold hairpin left behind a hundred years ago.”
When he reached this point, Bai Yuan suddenly added a comment.
“Normal ordinary people, or NPCs, don't know about the existence of specter items, nor can they view their special effects.”
Zuo Lin'an nodded, about to continue, but suddenly felt something was amiss.
He looked at Bai Yuan with a hint of suspicion.
“Why are you today...”
Why did Bai Yuan seem exceptionally knowledgeable today?
Before Bai Yuan could say anything, Song Yangxia, who was sitting next to him, suddenly burst out laughing.
“Hahaha!!”
“I knew it! I knew you'd definitely notice.”
Bai Yuan's eyes widened. As if facing a formidable enemy, he scrambled to cover Song Yangxia's mouth, but he was a step too late.
Song Yangxia said with a grin.
“When we got Youyou's message earlier saying we were going to celebrate you becoming a Two-Star dungeon boss, he specifically went to ask Brother Bai a lot of questions before we set off.”
“We only set off after he memorized all of Brother Bai's answers. Otherwise, the two of us would have definitely arrived here before you got back.”
Bai Yuan was incredulous.
“Holy crap! You traitor, is that something you should be saying out loud?”
He had originally planned to come over and act like a big shot.
Who would have thought it would last this short of a time?
He had already been exposed by Song Yangxia.
“We're done! I'm cutting ties with you!”
Song Yangxia chuckled mischievously, not caring in the slightest, and continued to tease Bai Yuan.
The two of them bantered and play-fought, clearly sharing a very close relationship.
Seeing Bai Yuan's flushed face and tightly clenched fists, Zuo Lin'an hurriedly continued speaking to prevent a conflict from breaking out.
“Alright, alright, let's continue.”
“The gold hairpin the younger brother found in the underground secret room is the gold hairpin specter item for this dungeon.”
“But he didn't know what was going on with the hairpin. He only felt it was ice-cold to the touch and stained with blood that couldn't be wiped away.”
“Normally, he would have definitely shown it to his older brother. But now, with his heart set on dying, he didn't think too much of it. He only felt that this secret room was an excellent spot.”
“He just needed to die here quietly, and he wouldn't cause any more trouble for his older brother.”
“And so, he sealed the entrance to the secret room and ultimately committed suicide inside.”
As Zuo Lin'an continued his narration, Bai Yuan and Song Yangxia stopped their play-fighting.
“Because the younger brother couldn't let go of his obsession, he turned into a specter after death. Furthermore, due to the gold hairpin, he accidentally triggered the specter item's special effect, ultimately binding himself to his older brother.”
Xu Youyou asked, “But doesn't binding require the other party's consent?”
Zuo Lin'an thought for a moment and offered an explanation.
“The binding happened to take place at night.”
“At the time, the older brother was fast asleep. Sensing a vague, mystical request for binding that somehow felt related to his younger brother, he agreed directly.”
“By the time he woke up, he had already forgotten about it. When he went to look for his younger brother, he realized the boy was gone.”
Bai Yuan frowned.
“Isn't this a bit too simple?”
“There's a secret passage in the younger brother's room leading to the underground secret room. Since the players' main quest is 【Find the Brother】, they will definitely search his room frantically for clues.”
“I doubt the secret room will remain hidden for very long.”
Zuo Lin'an nodded in agreement.
“Right now, I'm just setting up a rough storyline framework.”
“We will definitely have to make major revisions later. If you feel anything is off, just bring it up directly, and we can refine it bit by bit.”
“As for the issue of the secret room's entrance being easily discovered...”
“How about we change the location of the entrance?”
Xu Youyou suggested, “How about moving the entrance to a withered well?”
Song Yangxia quickly shook his head.
“A withered well? That's too cliché. In so many novels, movies, and TV shows, the entrance to a secret room is at the bottom of a well. It'll be way too easy to guess.”
An Mu suddenly offered a suggestion.
“We can still have the secret room and the gold hairpin, but he doesn't necessarily have to die inside the secret room.”
“Since the house was passed down from a hundred years ago, its architectural style must be close to ancient designs. Besides, your dungeon is full of mountains, so the house could be built on a mountain.”
“As for the younger brother, he could have jumped off a cliff to his death. You can just buy a random corpse with a similar build to yours and hide it in a crevice on the cliff.”
“How about that?”
“Finding a corpse hidden in a cliff crevice will be much harder.”
Zuo Lin'an gave her a thumbs-up.
“Not bad. Let's settle on this for now. We can make more changes later if needed.”
Bai Yuan suddenly brought up another point.
“There's still one major problem.”
Zuo Lin'an blanked for a second, then quickly realized what he meant.
“I know. It's about the connection between the specter rules and the dungeon's main quest storyline.”
“Since there's a storyline, the specter rules must have some connection to it.”
Xu Youyou frowned.
“Then how are your two rules going to connect to a plot like this?”
Zuo Lin'an lowered his head in thought. This was indeed a bit complicated.
At this moment, Feng Xingyun, who had been acting as background noise the entire time, suddenly spoke up.
“Young Master, I actually have an unrefined idea.”
Everyone turned to look at him.
“Let's hear it, then.”
Facing so many pairs of eyes, Feng Xingyun didn't show the slightest hint of nervousness.
“Since the premise is that they are twin brothers who share an extremely close relationship...”
“The older brother would definitely care deeply about his younger brother and watch over him constantly. However, as the younger brother, he wouldn't want to drag his older brother down and would always tell him to leave and do his own thing.”
“As the older brother, you couldn't win the argument against him, so you could only pretend to leave. In reality, though, you would secretly check on your brother's condition every hour to make sure he was safe and sound.”
“This way, your Death Rule can be tied directly to the storyline.”
Rate on N.U.
