Rules of Horror: Survival Begins in the Haunted Harem - Chapter 50

Su Ye turned to Xie Nuange in surprise.

“I didn’t expect you to be so well-read.”

It was neither flattery nor exaggeration.

After the rules-horror stories descended, schools had become the most useless places in the world.

They might even trigger a rules-horror scenario.

Books were even worse. Anything that could be burned for warmth had long since gone into the fire.

People would rather gather wherever a scenario was unfolding and watch it to gain experience than sit quietly and read.

“My brother told me that story.”

At the mention of Xie Chaoyang, Xie Nuange’s expression softened. “He’s very smart and knows all kinds of things. Ever since I was little, he took me with him into one scenario after another.”

Su Ye had never heard Xie Nuange speak about her private life before. For a moment, she was taken aback.

“Go look for clues.”

Xie Nuange turned to her. “If Ye Wan and the others are right, and cooperation can get us through this, we’ll enter tomorrow.”

Su Ye looked surprised, but nodded all the same.

Xie Nuange did not sit idle. She still had one last crucial question for the eunuch.

“Sir…”

She had barely begun when the eunuch cut her off with a smile. “Your Ladyship may hear only one story a day.”

Xie Nuange: …Careless!

Then she would have to get Su Ye to ask.

She found Su Ye and told her to ask the eunuch whether the deity had personally planted this tree.

“What kind of question is that?”

Su Ye frowned. “I already told you. The mural clearly showed that the deity planted the seed with its own hands.”

But Xie Nuange insisted, so Su Ye had no choice but to question the eunuch.

Xie Nuange continued examining the tree.

What was the answer?

She ran a hand over the tree. Nothing. She offered incense, but that had little effect. She touched the stone tablet, yet her Faith Points barely fell.

She sat on the stairs and looked at the tree behind her.

Its roots rose slightly, bulging through the ground.

She touched the soil, scooped up a small handful, and sniffed it. It smelled like ordinary dirt.

Xie Nuange sighed and casually scattered it back onto the ground.

[Faith Rankings (Ten Groups Total)]

[Sixth Place: Xie Nuange (70)…]

How?

Xie Nuange shot to her feet and stared at the tree in disbelief.

Because she had picked up a handful of dirt?

Or because she had scattered it?

She hurriedly scooped up more soil and packed it around the roots, but her Faith Points did not change again.

“I asked him.”

Su Ye returned to find Xie Nuange staring blankly at the tree, both hands filthy with dirt.

“You sent me to ask a question while you stayed here playing with mud?”

She approached with naked disgust. “The eunuch said the same thing. The deity planted the tree.”

Xie Nuange nodded.

This time, the main hall’s doors did not take nearly as long to open.

Everyone turned toward the sound.

Their eyes widened. Even Zhao Ning took several steps forward.

“How could…”

“That’s impossible!”

“Wasn’t it a fight?”

Xie Nuange hurried toward the entrance.

Two figures emerged through the doors.

At the same moment, the system announcement sounded.

[Congratulations to Chosen Players Ye Wan and Zhang San for passing the deity’s test in Stage Two.]

[The deity will protect its believers.]

Ye Wan and Zhang San had both survived.

When Ye Wan saw Xie Nuange, she tried to tell her the scenario’s clues.

Yet whenever she opened her mouth, something erased her voice. She could not communicate any crucial clue.

She knew they had managed to clear the scenario only because of the clue Xie Nuange had whispered into her ear at the last moment.

The eunuch continued to draw out every syllable. “The deity will protect its believers!”

“Sacrifice,” Ye Wan whispered as she followed the eunuch outside. “Obsession…”

She tried to say more, but no sound would come. All she could do was walk on and raise her face toward the sky.

“Bird droppings. Qingming…”

Xie Nuange listened to Ye Wan’s hints, her brows tightly drawn.

Obsession. Again?

The fact that Ye Wan and Zhang San had both survived and cleared the stage gave everyone a powerful dose of confidence.

Some palace maids had already surrendered their ghost items. Now that cooperation was possible, they naturally wanted to cooperate.

Xie Nuange remained where she was, turning Ye Wan’s few words over and over in her mind.

Sacrifice. Obsession. Bird droppings. Qingming.

Bird droppings…

She suddenly remembered the mural of the owl pecking the man’s eyes out.

Owl. Bird. Bird droppings.

So the man had still died. Had the birds simply brought something back?

But the eunuch had also said the deity brought the seed home…

No!

What the eunuch had said was that the tree grew after the deity returned…

If the deity died, how could it return?

And why had Great Qian adopted the deity’s family crest as its national emblem only after the tree matured, even though the deity was dead?

Suppose, however boldly, that the seed had returned in bird droppings.

What did that have to do with the deity?

What if the man who died in the mural was the one who had truly found the seed?

He died on the road, and the seed never made it back to his homeland.

Then what was the statue in the main hall—the thing whose legs had become the legs of palace candidates?

A false god.

An impostor that had usurped another’s place.

Was that why it rejected the Banyan Tree so fiercely? Because the tree was a trace left behind by the true god?

The true god had died, but the tree lived.

The false god occupied the main hall and enjoyed incense and worship, yet it hated this tree because the tree reminded everyone who had truly brought the seed home.

A turtledove occupying a magpie’s nest…

Could this god be the magpie?

Xie Nuange suddenly felt as though she had untangled part of the mystery, yet something was still missing.

Obsession…

Was it the Banyan Tree’s obsession?

Or something else?

Xie Nuange looked at the eunuch in front of the main hall.

Could this eunuch, like Jiang Fan, be another minor boss in disguise?

Skill activated—Datafication.

[Target: Chief Eunuch of Yinghua Hall.]

[Name: None.]

[Identity: Managing Eunuch of Yinghua Hall.]

[Skills: None.]

[Ghost Items: None.]

[Note: An ordinary eunuch who conscientiously performs his duties.]

An ordinary eunuch?

Xie Nuange stared.

He was no minor boss. He had no special skill and no ghost item. He was simply an utterly ordinary NPC.

By the time Su Ye returned, Xie Nuange was already sitting inside their room.

“What’s wrong?”

Su Ye shut the door and looked at her pale face.

“Nothing.”

Xie Nuange waved a hand. “We should enter as early as we can.”

“You know how to clear it?”

“I have a theory.”

Xie Nuange did not make an absolute claim. “Want to exchange clues tomorrow morning? We can cooperate.”

Su Ye fell silent for a moment, then nodded. “We’ll wait until tomorrow.”

“If we aren’t chosen tomorrow, we’ll find a way to raise our Faith Points until we meet the condition for entering the hall.”

Xie Nuange murmured assent and said nothing more.

She slept deeply that night.

In the darkness, the voice came again.

“…bring back… at any cost…”

The words came in broken fragments, too indistinct to make out.

Xie Nuange frowned in her sleep and tried to listen, but her consciousness was too heavy. It felt as though something was dragging her down.

The voice gradually receded.

The next morning, a scorching heat in her palm woke her.

Her eyes flew open. She sat up.

At some point, a small wooden token had appeared in her palm.

Xie Nuange’s pupils contracted.

She turned toward Su Ye.

Su Ye was also awake, sitting on the beauty couch and staring down at an identical wooden token in her own palm.