Iris 22

Mu Qin and Xu Fu arrived at the church's main doors. They had meant to enter through the back, but quickly discovered that someone had blocked those doors as well. Discarded tables, chairs, and cabinets from inside the church had been piled against them. Mu Qin and Xu Fu gave the doors a gentle push, but they were jammed solid and did not budge.

With no other choice, they circled around from the back and returned to the church's front entrance. They found that it was not fully closed, but left slightly ajar, a thin, dim glow spilling through the gap.

Mu Qin stepped forward first. Standing to one side, he raised his right hand and gently pushed the door open. The heavy wooden door groaned as it moved, like the long moan of some decrepit creature. In the quiet, the sound was especially conspicuous.

But neither Mu Qin nor Xu Fu had the presence of mind to worry about something as trivial as making noise. Once they had opened the door, they peered inside. The church looked much as it had when they left: the candle chandelier had been smashed down and lay in pieces on the floor. Cheng Guoxu's body was beside it, slumped against the leg of a chair, utterly motionless... thoroughly dead.

The two exchanged a glance. Mu Qin was the first to move, entering the church at an unhurried pace. He strolled over to Cheng Guoxu's body and looked down at him.

Cheng Guoxu's eyes were shut. Blood covered him from head to toe, and he was riddled with wounds, lying there limp and slack. He had been dead for quite some time. The blood on and beneath him had begun to thicken and congeal. He gave off the smell of blood and decay: the smell of death.

As Mu Qin looked down at Cheng Guoxu's corpse, Xu Fu drifted to his side without realizing it and looked as well. He even spat contemptuously at Cheng Guoxu. "He got off too easily. I should've tortured him properly, tortured him to death."

Mu Qin replied, "The more you talk, the more I think you're the killer."

"The game's 'killer' is nothing but an identity the system forces on you." Xu Fu gave a cold laugh. "I've said it before: every player who enters this game is a sinner. There are murderers, rapists, drug dealers, human traffickers, robbers, thieves... every kind of scum. The ones I met in my last game were all bastards like that. Every single one of them would be despised by the public and condemned by society if they got out. They all deserve to die!"

Mu Qin gave Xu Fu a cold look. "So you killed them all and survived to the end."

Mu Qin's words made Xu Fu's pupils contract. He could not help narrowing his eyes as he glanced sideways at Mu Qin. "What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing." Mu Qin spoke seriously. "I was only thinking: you said before that you've only been through two games, this one included. So in the previous game, as a newcomer... how exactly did you manage to survive to the end alone?"

Xu Fu laughed. "You don't think I have what it takes to survive to the end?"

"Of course you do." A cold smile touched Mu Qin's lips. "As long as you're the killer, you have what it takes to survive to the end."

"Don't be ridiculous." Xu Fu spread his hands helplessly. "How badly do you want me to be the killer?"

Mu Qin did not continue the conversation. He stepped around Cheng Guoxu's body at his feet and headed for the stairwell leading to the second floor. There, he found the ladder they had failed to locate in the storage room of that wooden cabin. It had already been propped across the break in the staircase, clearly used by someone to get up to the second floor.

The second floor looked utterly dim, without a trace of light, completely shrouded in darkness.

Xu Fu saw the ladder too and turned to Mu Qin, lowering his voice. "Do you think there's any point in going up to the second floor? I'd bet it's already been turned inside out."

"That's what I think too." Mu Qin raised his head, looking at the break in the stairs and staring into the shadows on the second floor. "The killer has probably already taken the item we're looking for."

"Taken it?" Xu Fu was puzzled. He pulled out the Fool Card that belonged to Mu Qin, raised it toward the second floor, and saw that its face was still glowing.

So Xu Fu said, "No, that's not right! It looks like he didn't take the item. The card is still lit..."

"Of course he's already taken it." Mu Qin emphasized the point. He looked up at the shadows draped over the broken staircase. "He's standing upstairs with the item in hand, watching us."

There was something sinister in Mu Qin's tone, and Xu Fu jumped, a shiver running through his body. He lowered the tarot card and followed Mu Qin's gaze to the break in the stairs leading to the second floor. The church was so dark that he could see nothing but blackness... Yet even though he could not make anything out, Xu Fu truly felt that someone was standing in the shadows above the break. A cold, gloomy gaze stretched down from above and fell upon Mu Qin and Xu Fu.

Xu Fu was startled for a moment, but quickly calmed down. Then he made an extremely bold move. He suddenly charged forward, reached the stairwell in a few strides, and pulled down the ladder braced across the break. Under his forceful tug, it crashed to the floor with a thunderous bang.

"Just as you thought, that guy is still on the second floor." After knocking the ladder down, Xu Fu backed away a few steps and returned to Mu Qin's side. "Now that the ladder's down, let's see how he gets down!"

The killer standing upstairs seemed to let out a faint, hoarse laugh after hearing Xu Fu's words, a laugh tinged with contempt. Then he moved. Mu Qin saw him apparently take a step forward, one corner of his shoe appearing at the edge of the broken staircase.

Mu Qin immediately realized something. He grabbed Xu Fu's arm beside him. "Run!"

Though Xu Fu had not yet understood what Mu Qin meant, his body had already begun to act on instinct. He spun around at once and ran for the church doors.

At the same time, the killer standing on the break in the stairs leapt down from above, jumping straight toward Mu Qin and Xu Fu. As he sprang, he was like a black crow spreading its wings beneath the cover of shadow, radiating an evil, suffocating aura. He was terrifying, yet possessed an inexplicable allure.

Mu Qin should have run with Xu Fu, but he paused where he stood. Unable to help himself, he watched the killer's figure descend from above and land steadily on the ground before him. The other man folded away his huge black wings, yet bared his fangs and claws at Mu Qin. Like some monster, he grinned savagely at him.

It was as though Mu Qin had been intimidated into standing stiffly in place, unable to move, face-to-face with the terrifying killer.

Nor did the killer attack Mu Qin immediately. He slowly straightened up and extended a hand toward Mu Qin, as if he wanted to touch Mu Qin's cheek with his fingers.

By then, Xu Fu had run several steps before realizing Mu Qin had not followed. He could not help turning back and calling Mu Qin's name. Startled back to himself, Mu Qin immediately took a step back, turned, and ran out of the church after Xu Fu, leaving the killer standing where he was, his right hand still raised in the pose of reaching for Mu Qin.

The killer did not remain still for long. He knew he needed to act. Now was the best time to hunt.

His earlier feigned death had been to separate himself from the group, creating an opportunity to act alone and establish an alibi. Later, when he encountered Mu Qin, he had induced Mu Qin to use his Fool Card. While Mu Qin used it, the killer saw the card's face light up when it was pointed toward the church, and knew that the item the human side was seeking was inside. So after Mu Qin left, the killer went to the church's second floor and got the exit gate key first. It had been sitting on a desk in one of the offices upstairs.

As long as he had the key, the killer could ensure that the human side would not escape easily. The humans had to find a way to injure or restrain the killer, take the key from him, and only then could they open the exit gate.

If they could not take back the key, could not open the gate, and could not defeat the ghost, then everyone on the human side would be wiped out here.

This was not Zhou Yue's first time playing the "ghost." He had been cycling through this game for a long time. His experience was far too extensive. He knew what to do, how to drive these people into a dead end.

Yet most of the time, these newcomers did not even know they had already been driven into a corner.

When the killer pursued them out of the church, he found that both Xu Fu and Mu Qin had vanished. The air still carried the damp, grassy scent of earth after rain, mixed with other traces. The killer briefly examined the marks on the ground... Wherever a living thing passed, it always left clues behind: footprints in the soil, bent blades of grass. Even if the traces were faint, they posed no problem for Zhou Yue, who possessed Hunter's Intuition.

Thus, Zhou Yue quickly determined the direction Mu Qin and Xu Fu had gone. But he was in no hurry to chase them, because he could tell that they had deliberately run before him to draw his attention.

They wanted his attention in order to lure him elsewhere.

Why lure him elsewhere?

Zhou Yue turned and looked back at the church. He had already taken the key from it, so there was no need to search it any further. The nearest building to the church was the apartment building. The apartment building was Zhou Yue's spawn point; he had woken up in a room on the fourth floor. He had already searched the whole place thoroughly, and there was nothing inside.

Apart from Mu Qin and Xu Fu, Cheng Guoxu, dead in the church, and the woman Mu Qin had mentioned, Han Li, who had temporarily lost her ability to move due to a fever, there should be one more person.

Mu Qin and Xu Fu had deliberately come to draw the killer's attention so that the remaining person could act alone.

Once Zhou Yue realized this, he licked his lips and abandoned the pursuit of Mu Qin and Xu Fu. Instead, he turned around and decided to circle the apartment building and church. That last person had to be nearby. Zhou Yue would find him soon enough.

At the same time, Mu Qin and Xu Fu had run some distance and crouched beneath a tree. They looked back toward the church for a while. Xu Fu said, "He didn't follow us."

Mu Qin could not help frowning. "He realized we were trying to lure his attention. He won't fall for it again. Next, he'll definitely go look for Qiu Zijia."

"What do we do?" Xu Fu asked anxiously.

"There's no other way." Mu Qin sighed, finding the situation difficult. "We go back and draw him off again. With us interfering beside him, even if he doesn't want to take the bait, we'll still lead him away."

Xu Fu could only concede. "All right. We need to move quickly, or Qiu Zijia will be in real danger."