Wen Shichun’s gaze lowered slightly, his long, curled lashes trembling faintly under the light.
The room full of B-rank players was still processing the latest information when their eyes inadvertently drifted toward the white-haired beauty standing by the desk.
Humans are drawn to beauty.
And there was no denying it—the man before them was breathtakingly beautiful.
They couldn’t help but steal a few more glances.
A feast for the eyes.
...
Great.
The weight of their stares finally forced Wen Shichun to look up.
While the players were momentarily dazed, only the system knew its host had just been thinking about something… less than pure again.
Clearing his throat, Wen Shichun spoke, “This mansion is still maintained under normal use. The trustee of the estate’s fund manages it according to the original owner’s will.”
“Theoretically, the place is vacant most of the time.”
“Lin Zhe, a lone-wolf sophomore in college, would have almost no way of knowing about this place.”
“The entire mountain is the former owner’s private land—extremely secluded.”
Meanwhile, he silently conversed with the system: [Can’t you tone this skill down a little?]
The players were acting stranger and stranger.
Those subtle shifts in their expressions—
Was there really no way to turn off this card’s effect? It seemed to be affecting teamwork.
Suddenly called out, the system paused before inhaling sharply. Then, with a cold, mechanical tone, it replied, [Maybe it’s not entirely the skill’s fault.]
Feeling that wasn’t enough, it added, [Next time you enter a dungeon, maybe wear a ghost mask.] Or paint your face like a clown.
That ought to work.
Wen Shichun: [?]
If it couldn’t be helped, why was this aloof system suddenly getting sarcastic?
When the communion with the system ended, Wen Shichun had also finished speaking.
After listening to the clues provided by the E-rank player, the other players in the room quickly pieced things together.
"Lin Zhe was brought here by someone—and that person is most likely the killer," Chang Zhao said, sounding almost cheerful, as if a fog had lifted. But then...
"Who brought him here?"
The pool of suspects had widened again, including anyone who knew about this mansion, even the maintenance staff.
"The bureau is investigating everyone connected to this house," Wen Shichun said. "I also reported the claw marks under the bed. They’ll look into whether there were any missing persons cases here in the past thirty years."
"...The bureau is going to give us more info later?" Chang Zhao asked cautiously, though something about this felt inexplicably off.
Then everyone watched as the beautiful man nodded and added, "If you have any questions, you can call them."
Wen Shichun pointed at the landline phone on the desk, which he had just put down.
The study fell silent for a moment.
He Yi didn’t know what the others were thinking.
But in his mind, he was utterly baffled.
When he had checked that phone earlier, there hadn’t even been a dial tone. He’d even inspected the cord.
It was plugged in, perfectly intact—but the receiver was completely silent. It was just a prop in the dungeon setting, like so many others he’d seen before. And they all had one thing in common: players couldn’t use them.
How many times had players run into this kind of situation? Just when they thought they had a lead, they’d pick up a prop only to find it useless.
What rotten luck!
And that investigation bureau…
What were the odds? The moment this E-rank mentioned it, the bureau just happened to reach out.
He Yi couldn’t figure out what was going wrong here.
But his instincts screamed that something wasn’t right.
Even though they had more clues now, his sense of danger had doubled.
They needed to get out of this dungeon—fast.
Thinking this, his gaze toward E-rank turned predatory again.
"However," Wen Shichun carefully tapped the landline on the table, ignoring the stare from the psychologically disturbed patient, "the killer is still nearby. We need to keep an eye on this communication device and make sure it isn’t destroyed."
After Wen Shichun finished speaking, Chang Zhao nodded in complete agreement.
He Yi cut in impatiently, "Honestly, these clues don’t matter. It doesn’t even matter who the killer is. As long as we catch them, we’ll clear the level."
"The mission progress has changed." Shen Jing suddenly interjected, her tone shifting as she stared at her task panel. "It’s now at 15%."
After her words, several people looked surprised. They checked their own panels and, just as Shen Jing had said, the main mission progress had quietly reached 15%.
Some gazes grew complicated.
He Yi was speechless again: "..."
A single phone call that fell into their laps was enough to push the progress bar by a tenth?
He had already noticed the mission progress increase by 5% when E-rank mentioned the scratches under the bed.
...
Since when were dungeon tasks this easy?
If they answered a few more calls, wouldn’t they just be handed free progress rewards?
He Yi’s eyes settled on Wen Shichun.
Recalling how methodical the other had been with his questioning.
It almost seemed like he’d done similar interrogations countless times before.
If another player in their team, Chang Zhao, had been the one to answer that call, who knew if he would’ve gotten any useful information?
Back then, it seemed like no one else had been calm enough—except for this E-rank.
Who would’ve thought to just straight-up ask the bureau for help?
And yet… this E-rank actually managed to get answers out of them.
After checking the progress bar, Xun Yi spoke up: "Protect the phone."
Then he paused.
Free progress like this was something any player would welcome—they weren’t stupid. But it suddenly occurred to him—
"The snow outside is heavy. If the manor gets cut off from the outside world, this phone will be our only means of contact. There’s a ninety percent chance the killer will disable it."
Though the last call gave the players a taste of progress, the game wasn’t likely to keep handing them advantages so easily. They had to be careful.
The remaining ten percent chance was that the killer simply didn’t care about the phone’s existence.
When Xun Yi reached this point, his gaze met He Yi’s.
A single look was enough for them to understand each other’s thoughts.
They’d better hope it wasn’t the latter scenario.
But if it was the slightly better first possibility, protecting the phone would likely mean confronting the killer directly.
What worried Xun Yi was whether they could actually catch the killer if they showed up.
So far, they hadn’t even caught a glimpse of them.
They still had no idea what abilities this dungeon’s boss had.
"By the way, the manor’s owner died in an explosion—in his own studio in the city center. The scene was almost completely obliterated, and the cause of the blast is still unknown."
There were plenty of unanswered questions, but the person on the phone had only mentioned it briefly.
Wen Shichun had saved this detail for last, hoping the more experienced players might have some insights.
After all, B-rank players had more dungeon experience.
Was it possible…
The beautiful figure standing by the desk pressed his lips together.
Was it possible that after the explosion, the manor’s owner had become something… beyond the ordinary?
And this dungeon’s name was <The Invisible Lover>.
Even without much gaming experience, it was clear the game wouldn’t use a random, meaningless title.
Could Lin Zhe have come here because of a relationship issue?
Invisible…
Did it mean literal invisibility, or was it a metaphor?
Intuition told him that the name of this dungeon would be the key to uncovering the truth.
"We just heard the bell and were worried something might have happened to you, so we didn’t finish checking the first floor," Xun Yi spoke up, completely missing Wen Shichun’s concern. "But—there’s food in the kitchen."
"It looks like the killer has been living here."
"Really?" Wen Shichun froze for a moment.
Hearing Xun Yi’s report, he actually felt relieved.
Something that eats food.
That made things much easier.
No one understood the true meaning behind the white-haired young man’s rhetorical question.
Except for his system.
The system, as if it had a physical form, could almost feel its host’s relaxation.
But soon, it noticed the host tensing up again!
Sure enough, the next second, Wen Shichun spoke up:
"Is there a chance Lin Zhe isn’t dead?"
"Maybe the killer hid him somewhere."
"Those supplies could be for him."
After Wen Shichun finished speaking, even the older woman, Bo Ya, who rarely participated in discussions, glanced at him.
"You’ve got quite the imagination," He Yi shot a look at the E-rank. "But what does it matter? We’re here to catch the killer, not rescue hostages."
He didn’t care about completion rates anyway.
Wen Shichun’s eyelids twitched slightly.
It mattered a lot.
"We’ve been in this dungeon for two hours now," Yue Cheng suddenly spoke up, his gaze openly fixed on Wen Shichun. "Since there’s food in the kitchen, why don’t we grab something to eat first, Brother?"
"While we’re at it, you can finish checking the first floor," Yue Cheng added, turning to Xun Yi.
Xun Yi frowned. "Have you checked the third floor? And what about this phone?"
After Xun Yi spoke, Yue Cheng’s expression faltered for a second, as if he couldn’t comprehend the question at all—his eyebrows shot up in disbelief.
“Why are you asking me? Shouldn’t you adults be the ones making these decisions?”
Xun Yi: “…”
He nearly blurted out the name of a certain plant* at this guy. (T/N: Xun Yi was about to call Yue Cheng a green tea, which suggests that he's faking his innocence or that he's manipulative.)
But Yue Cheng went on anyway: “Well, if you really want my opinion…”
The young man looked troubled, his gaze shifting to the landline phone. He pointed at the cord connected to it.
“Just unplug the phone line and take the whole thing with you. Problem solved.”
“Plug it back in when you need to use it.”
“I doubt anyone’s gonna call us tonight anyway.”
“But if you leave it connected and it rings in the middle of the night…”
“That’d be terrifying.”
Then, as if seeking approval, he turned to Wen Shichun: “Right, Brother?”
Wen Shichun looked at him silently.
Internally, he agreed.
Makes sense.
Meanwhile, Xun Yi, caught off guard by the suggestion and the rapid-fire reasoning that followed: “…”
“No way.” Yue Cheng stared at Xun Yi, disbelief written all over his face—an expression that somehow matched his innocent demeanor perfectly, though to others, it felt like a double whammy. “You weren’t actually planning to have someone guard the phone, were you?”
Xun Yi: “…”
That had been the idea.
“That won’t work.” Yue Cheng shook his head and continued, “Way too dangerous. They’d probably run straight into the killer trying to sabotage it.”
Then, slipping into lecture mode: “Until the killer shows themselves, everyone should play it safe. Stick together. As for the phone—just carry it around. There’s safety in numbers. Even if the killer wants to snatch it, they’d think twice. Right?”
Xun Yi was speechless.
Damn it.
This guy from District 4 was weird as hell, but after that long-winded speech…
It kinda made sense.
But it was his mistake.
He’d been so caught up in the premise that the Investigation Bureau had called him first that he hadn’t even considered such a simple solution.
But taking the phone away—
That was only a temporary fix.
For now, it was fine since everyone was gathered together.
But when night came, who would dare carry that phone back to their bedroom?
Xun Yi glanced at Yue Cheng, but the man’s attention had already shifted back to the E-rank.
Yue Cheng walked up to Wen Shichun. “Brother, let’s go downstairs and get something to eat.”
This time, the white-haired man actually responded—though it was just a simple, “Okay.”
But Yue Cheng’s joy was unmistakable. As he passed Xun Yi, he even remembered to remind him, “Don’t forget the phone—and the cord.”
So very thoughtful.
He nearly started humming a tune.
But their happy meal trip hadn’t even made it two steps before the study’s lights went out.
Everyone was plunged into darkness—
Amidst the sounds of frantic scrambling.
The moment the light vanished, Wen Shichun turned around.
From memory, he grabbed the desk lamp with its metal base and decorative column.
The motion was seamless.
In the darkness,
His ice-blue eyes remained utterly calm.
As the study fell into silence, the man standing by the desk held his breath, listening intently to his surroundings.
Whoever turned off the lights—he’d smash their head open.
Didn’t matter what it was.
