Chapter 31: Order Cards (6)
The Newlywed Couple Massacre was set in the mid-to-late twentieth century.
The detective Su Qiong was to play was a classic British-style detective from European literature.
The costume prepared for him by the theater was modeled after the most widely recognized detective outfits from film, television, and animation, with nearly one hundred percent accuracy.
There was an earthy-brown plaid cape and a deerstalker hat matching the outfit’s style.
To complement Su Qiong’s appearance, a fluffy pom-pom had been attached to the top of the hat.
The upper half consisted of three layers: a shirt, a small waistcoat, and a jacket.
The trousers had been slightly modified into an adorable pair of suspender shorts, matched with lace-up leather boots that reached below the knees. The cuteness level was off the charts.
Unfortunately, Su Qiong had never worn suspenders, much less little leather boots. He could only swing his two bare legs and loudly call for help.
He had assumed that Yu Qimiao, who always spoiled him, would come in.
Instead, the changing-room door opened and closed, and ERROR walked inside.
He saw Su Qiong wearing nothing but a shirt. The buttons had not been fastened properly, leaving the collar slightly open and revealing his elegant collarbones. Like a doll waiting to be dressed, he sat helplessly beside the scattered clothing, swinging his calves out of boredom. Every inch of exposed skin was flawless.
Unable to endure it, ERROR cursed something under his breath.
Who had Su Qiong intended to call inside?
He was already bound to ERROR as his lover. Looking like this, who else had he planned to let see him?
Did he possess even the slightest sense of shame?
Su Qiong visibly froze for several seconds upon seeing ERROR.
With his noble appearance, ERROR did not look like someone who would help another person dress.
“Where’s Yu Qimiao?” Su Qiong asked softly.
“So it really was him?!” ERROR narrowed his flaxen eyes upon hearing the name.
—Yu Qimiao, was it?
I’ll remember that.
“Huh?” Su Qiong blinked and earnestly explained, “Because I helped him put on clothes before.”
According to a code’s logic, it was perfectly reasonable for Yu Qimiao to help dress him in return.
“…”
After understanding Su Qiong’s thought process, ERROR suddenly lost the energy to argue with the marshmallow.
Time was limited. ERROR strode over, picked up the suspender shorts lying nearby, and grasped Su Qiong’s slender ankle, narrow enough to fit easily in one hand.
“Lift your leg.”
Like an obedient BJD doll, Su Qiong raised his leg.
Five minutes later, Su Qiong emerged from the changing room.
“Wow, Little Pastry is adorable,” Lu Shufan exclaimed.
“It suits you,” Yu Qimiao said.
“Really?” Su Qiong pinched the hem of his clothes. Dizzied by the endless praise, he said happily, “When we leave the instance, I’m taking this outfit with me and putting it in my wardrobe.”
Su Qiong’s wardrobe was completely empty, without a single proper outfit.
In the world of IF, NPCs who wanted new clothes had to exchange KPI for them.
The more elaborate and beautiful an outfit was, the more KPI it cost. For example, Apple’s sparkling little cloak required an astonishing five thousand KPI!
Su Qiong’s KPI balance was pitifully low, and he still needed to preserve it to maintain the beginner zone. He could only stare longingly at the beautiful clothes on the exchange list that he could not afford.
It was rare for the system to prepare an outfit for him.
He would take anything he could get for free.
The system: “…”
Scheming freeloader!
“Su Qiong, where’s ERROR?”
“He entered the changing room with you. Why hasn’t he come out?”
Su Qiong turned toward the changing room and casually answered, “He’s changing into his own costume.”
The moment he finished speaking, the changing-room door opened again.
When everyone saw the man who emerged, even more exclamations sounded around them.
“Who the hell are you, handsome bastard?!” Shi Yuntian asked in disbelief.
Moi and Qiyi hid their faces behind the script and whispered excitedly, “He’s so handsome! Even more handsome than a celebrity!”
Possessing normal aesthetic standards, Su Qiong stared at him several extra times.
Ever since they met ERROR, the expert had always worn an ordinary white T-shirt and sweatpants, dressing like a runaway university heartthrob.
The detective assistant’s costume prepared by the system was a fitted navy suit complete with a brooch and cuff links.
After changing, ERROR had deliberately swept back his slightly disheveled fringe. His handsome face instantly lost its youthful air, radiating mature sensuality and temptation from within.
Far too dangerous.
If ERROR had not been their teammate, it would have been reasonable to suspect that he was an NPC arranged by the system to bewitch people and specifically lure weak-willed perverts.
“Unfair!” Lu Shufan protested loudly. “ERROR’s clothes look expensive at a glance. Why is my costume so careless?”
“Your character roles are different. Try to accept it,” Yu Qimiao comforted him. “If you wore the same suit and didn’t look as good as he does, the situation would be even more awkward.”
Lu Shufan: Thanks, but that was not comforting at all.
“Actually, ERROR’s outfit isn’t the most elaborate one.” Moi looked toward the costumes remaining in the dressing room.
“The bride’s phoenix coronet and ceremonial robes are beautiful,” Qiyi added.
Yu Qimiao’s entire body stiffened.
Lu Shufan shot upright as though rising from his deathbed and pushed Yu Qimiao toward the changing room.
“It doesn’t matter if my costume is ugly, as long as Yuyu’s is beautiful. Hurry and put it on~”
“Do your best, our designated cross-dresser.”
“Don’t give me such a bizarre designation.” Yu Qimiao sighed helplessly, picked up the outfit, and walked away with the tragic air of a warrior marching into a bitter wind.
As the sole female lead of the entire play, the bride naturally possessed the most exquisite costume.
The bright-red bridal robes were embroidered in the Suzhou style, the phoenix coronet was inlaid with pearls and jade, and there was even a dazzling bridal sedan chair. Anyone could tell that a wealthy family was marrying off its daughter.
Yu Qimiao changed into the elaborate bridal outfit and walked out, but his face was filled with deep thought.
“Yuyu, women’s clothing really suits you.”
“We’ll leave all future cross-dressing opportunities to you.”
His teammates teased him twice, but Yu Qimiao never responded.
Su Qiong approached him. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m thinking about what the bride experienced between her wedding night and her death three days later.” Yu Qimiao pulled the neckline down slightly, showing them the innermost layer. “Look.”
From the outside, nothing appeared wrong with Yu Qimiao’s bridal robes.
However, the white undergarment beneath them was covered in blood.
Some stains were vivid red, while others were dark red or even crusted over. They had clearly not all been made on the same day.
“Assuming the same person killed both the groom and the bride, they may have killed the groom first and tortured the bride for an entire three days.”
“The killer hated the bride more.” Su Qiong picked up the prop pipe, looking every bit like a detective. “Based on that premise, among the four suspects, the neighbor is the least likely because he hated the bride and groom equally.”
“The story hasn’t unfolded yet. Don’t reach a conclusion too soon.” ERROR steadied himself against the nearby table and tapped the edge with one bent finger.
Su Qiong noticed that his nails were neatly trimmed. Even such a simple tapping motion resembled the playing of a musical composition.
Clothes truly made the man.
Ever since ERROR changed outfits, Su Qiong’s gaze kept drifting toward him unconsciously.
“However, based on the current clues, we can eliminate at least one suspect.” ERROR’s gaze swept around before landing on Shi Yuntian. “Assuming dead people cannot commit crimes.”
“Only Boss Shi can be eliminated? Could Yuyu also be the killer?”
Su Qiong nodded. “Yes, he could.”
“Indeed.” Yu Qimiao adjusted his clothes. “I might be a masochist suffering from delusions. Perhaps I killed my husband on our wedding night, tortured myself for three days out of guilt, and then died tragically.”
“Case solved! That would also explain why the bride lost her memory!”
“If we submit that answer to the NPC, can we clear the challenge?”
“No,” Su Qiong suddenly said.
He held out his hand and showed everyone the prompt he had just triggered.
[System: Ending Four deduced—The Mantis Bride.]
[Hint: This is not the true ending. Please collect more clues and continue investigating.]
“There are multiple endings?”
“Then let’s suspect every single person!”
“That won’t work. Without a reason, we can’t trigger an ending.”
“Ugh. We can only finish performing the first act and gradually unlock the rest of the story.”
After everyone changed into their costumes, they sat together and discussed the script.
Just as they began making progress, rhythmic knocking sounded outside.
The door opened, and a man in a tailcoat and smiling mask poked his head inside.
“It is your turn to perform. Please proceed to the stage.” Although the man’s voice sounded cheerful, his tone contained an indescribable eeriness.
A stood first and strode out of the compartment.
As he passed the man, he heard him remind them, “Please maintain a smile.”
A thought for several seconds and pulled his lips into a smile containing no amusement whatsoever.
It was even more frightening than his expressionless face.
“Hiss.”
His companions inhaled sharply.
“Our A is much scarier than the NPC.”
They followed the tailcoated man to the center of the theater.
The audience seats were completely filled. Every spectator wore a smiling mask and had a scoring board placed beside them.
A blackboard stood near the side of the stage, displaying the previous group’s score.
Their average was 5.5, far below the required eight points.
The players who had performed before them had already vanished, leaving only destroyed props and a chaotic mess that offered a glimpse of the tragedy that had occurred.
Several stagehands quickly ran up from both sides and efficiently cleaned the stage.
Once everything was cleared away, an announcer wearing a long robe appeared, holding a small blackboard.
Written across it was:
The Newlywed Couple Massacre will begin shortly.
The audience applauded perfunctorily.
The waiting players exchanged glances and prepared themselves to go onstage.
An Order Card appeared before them.
[No new orders will be triggered during the performance.]
The instant ERROR read it, he looked toward Su Qiong.
“It has to become a True Order.” Su Qiong did not attempt to determine whether the card was originally true or false.
That did not matter.
Right now, Su Qiong had to make it a True Order.
During the performance, they already needed to follow the existing orders, act out the play, and deduce the murderer.
That was exhausting enough.
If new orders were triggered randomly during the performance, the instance’s difficulty would inevitably rise.
“All right,” A replied indifferently.
The performance began.
With the sound of a stage clapper, the stage transformed instantly.
The judges wearing smiling masks seemed to disappear.
They had truly returned to the mid-to-late twentieth century, beneath a gloomy sky and within a suffocating atmosphere.
The mourning hall was dimly lit. Two portraits were enshrined beside white candles.
Detective Su Qiong held his pipe and led his assistant, ERROR, into the mourning hall. There, they saw the spirits of Yu Qimiao and Shi Yuntian float out of their coffins.
Su Qiong: “…”
Had this become another realistic instance?
“Wah, wah, wah! Yuyu, you died so miserably!” Lu Shufan knelt before the mourning hall and pretended to cry.
The system’s script dictated only the general direction of the plot. It placed no restrictions on the characters’ personalities or dialogue.
The moment Lu Shufan finished crying, an Order Card appeared on the coffin lid.
[Actors may improvise their dialogue freely.]
Seeing the new card, Su Qiong immediately turned toward ERROR.
ERROR seemed to understand him without words. He found the card stating that no new orders would appear during the performance and forcibly initiated an Order War.
In the blink of an eye, the card’s back turned silver, and the card on the coffin vanished.
“Expert ERROR is reliable.”
“Now we can act without worrying.”
With the interference removed, Su Qiong first examined the remarkably realistic mourning hall.
It had been directly converted from the newlyweds’ bridal chamber. White funeral couplets covered red wedding couplets, while the wedding photograph remained behind the memorial portraits.
Two coffins stood at the center of the hall.
Moi, playing the groom’s mother, stood toward the front and returned the bows of guests who came to pay their respects.
Lu Shufan and Qiyi knelt before the bride’s and groom’s coffins respectively, refusing to leave for a long time.
The widowed neighbor secretly peered into the mourning hall upon hearing the wailing, looking delighted by the couple’s misfortune.
Those were the actors’ initial positions when the curtain rose.
Holding his detective’s notebook, Su Qiong walked into the center of the mourning hall and professionally confirmed everyone’s relationship to the deceased.
“After discussing it with my assistant, I believe this was a premeditated crime.” Su Qiong circled the coffins, puffed twice on his pipe, and exhaled an imaginary ring of smoke. “ERROR, explain it to them.”
“Yes.” Playing the detective’s assistant, ERROR bowed slightly in cooperation and presented their suspicions. “Detective Su Qiong believes the coffins fit far too perfectly. They must have been prepared in advance.”
“Detective, I have been wrongfully accused.” Moi stepped forward and explained according to her character card. “The coffin used by my daughter-in-law was one I had prepared for myself. I am advanced in years and may not have long to live. Is it strange that I prepared my coffin in advance?”
Lu Shufan continued, “The coffin Shi Yuntian is lying in was borrowed from me by Old Madam Moi. After Yuyu broke up with me, I suffered every day and considered ending my life. That’s why I prepared a coffin. Wah, wah, wah…”
Watching him cry dramatically, the others secretly despised him.
Stop getting so immersed, idiot.
Su Qiong said, “Even if the coffins were prepared in advance, what about everything else in the mourning hall? The funeral couplets could have been written at short notice, but the memorial portraits couldn’t possibly have been taken beforehand.”
“I heard the portraits appeared suddenly,” Qiyi said.
“The groom and bride were both in their early twenties and physically healthy,” ERROR added. “Unless someone knew they would die, who would prepare their memorial portraits in advance?”
“Therefore, this was a premeditated crime!” Su Qiong concluded.
[System: Deduction accepted. Case progress: 5%.]
Upon hearing the number five percent, ERROR inexplicably recalled the 0.02 percent intimacy displayed when he and Su Qiong formed their bond.
His emotions became complicated.
According to the script, the next scene would revisit the events before the bride and groom died.
Su Qiong and ERROR had not appeared during that period, so they retreated into a corner and watched silently.
The wedding was grand and magnificent.
Bride Yu Qimiao stepped out of the sedan chair, was supported across a brazier, and escorted into the wedding hall to bow to heaven and earth with Shi Yuntian.
“Do we really have to bow?” Shi Yuntian muttered. “I’ve never been married before. Having a man as my first marriage partner makes me feel like I’m losing out.”
“Shut up,” Yu Qimiao said impatiently.
He had it worse.
A powerful business tycoon’s first marriage partner was a man, and he even had to wear the bridal robes.
“Yuyu, Boss Shi, keep smiling!” Lu Shufan reminded them while holding back his laughter and gloating openly.
The wedding flashback primarily existed to emphasize the suspects’ motives.
During the bustling wedding banquet, several people hid among the guests, each secretly plotting something.
Qiyi switched the bride’s wine.
Lu Shufan sneaked into the bridal chamber and crawled beneath the bed.
Neighbor A dug a tunnel and released a snake into the bridal chamber.
Moi hid a dagger beneath the bride’s pillow.
Su Qiong watched in alarm and timidly asked ERROR, “Is this what people call a cast of complete villains?”
ERROR remained unconcerned. “This is nothing. Child’s play.”
“Have you noticed anything?”
“Only Qiyi—the possessive junior who secretly loved the groom—never entered the bridal chamber. Every other suspect acted inside it. The newlyweds are highly likely to have died there.”
“That’s true. But if we analyze their methods carefully, every one of them is full of flaws.”
“A flawed method cannot eliminate a suspect. Next, we need to confirm their alibis.”
The alibis belonged to the second act.
Before beginning it, they first had to receive a score from the review panel.
To be honest, Su Qiong had become so absorbed in the performance that he nearly forgot about the judges.
Fortunately, they had performed every part of the script. The panel found no faults and awarded them a high average score of 9.2.
The second act opened smoothly, but the players being tormented by the script felt that something was wrong everywhere.
The panel’s excessively high score triggered their collective persecution complexes.
After all, the previous group had received only an average of 5.5.
The instance could not be this simple. There had to be a trap.
“Be careful.”
“Okay.”
In the second act, Detective Su Qiong and ERROR formally began investigating.
Su Qiong opened his detective’s notebook and questioned each suspect about their alibi, receiving a collection of answers no ordinary person could understand.
First came Moi, the groom’s mother.
“Where were you on the wedding night, at the time the groom died?”
“I was at a temple,” Moi answered. “By allowing a daughter-in-law who would invite disaster into my home, I committed a grave sin and urgently needed to atone before the Bodhisattva.”
“Can anyone prove that?”
“If the Bodhisattva manifests, naturally it can testify for me.”
“In other words, you have no alibi.” Su Qiong wrote it down and continued, “Where were you last night, at the time the bride died?”
Moi smiled strangely and said in a sinister voice, “The Bodhisattva manifested, so I went to fulfill my vow.”
Su Qiong’s pen paused.
The implications became terrifying the more he considered them.
Her son had died first, and Moi had gone to fulfill a vow to the Bodhisattva.
What exactly had she wished for?
Was it connected to the case?
Next came the two people kneeling before the mourning hall.
Before the bride was officially confirmed dead, she had remained missing. Lu Shufan waited for her at the mourning hall every day.
After losing her beloved senior, Qiyi had lain beside his coffin and never left from that day onward.
The crucial period was the groom’s wedding-night death.
“Where were you on the wedding night? What were you doing?”
“I spent the wedding night alone with Shi Yuntian,” Qiyi calmly answered.
Su Qiong was completely confused and pressed her to clarify. “Explain that more clearly.”
Qiyi removed a doll sewn from yellow cloth from her sleeve.
The name “Shi Yuntian” was written across it. A drop of blood stained its chest, where a long, thin needle had been inserted.
“This is Shi Yuntian’s sympathetic doll. Anything I do to it can be felt by Shi Yuntian. So I put on bridal clothing and took Yu Qimiao’s place in consummating the marriage with him.”
ERROR accepted the doll and rummaged through its back, causing a lock of hair to fall out.
“It’s probably some kind of strange sorcery. We don’t know whether it works.”
“Oh.” Su Qiong nodded and turned toward Lu Shufan.
“I have proof that I was present,” Lu Shufan said. “I was under their bed.”
Su Qiong could no longer tolerate him.
“You’re definitely the murderer!”
[System: Ending Seven reached through deduction—Someone Beneath the Bed.]
[This is not the final ending. Please collect more clues and continue your investigation.]
Lu Shufan honestly confessed, “No. Before they entered the study, I had already passed out.”
Combined with the system prompt, Lu Shufan, who had hidden beneath the bed, probably had not acted.
At least, not at that time.
Only A remained.
He claimed he had stayed at home the entire time, but no one could prove it.
The second act ended there.
After the review panel scored it, the third act began.
Their average during the intermission remained extremely high at 9.3, making them increasingly uneasy.
Was this the old routine of giving them high scores at the beginning, then awarding zero in the end—offering hope before driving them into despair?
The moment Su Qiong formed that thought, another card appeared.
[The review panel’s scoring is absolutely fair.]
“A False Order?” Su Qiong tentatively judged.
As expected, the card turned over, revealing a color they had never seen before—
Gold.
True Order Cards had silver backs.
False Order Cards used gold, the color commonly considered more prestigious.
Was there some connection?
Furthermore, since “the scoring is fair” was a False Order, in what way was the scoring unfair?
Did the judges particularly favor certain groups, or did their standards change between earlier and later performances?
Su Qiong could not reach a precise conclusion, so he temporarily set it aside and focused on organizing the clues within the script.
Honestly, during the first two acts, Su Qiong had believed The Newlywed Couple Massacre was a fairly conventional mystery.
Only when the third act began did he realize he had been far too naive.
In the third act, the ghosts of Shi Yuntian and Yu Qimiao appeared.
They could not perceive each other and had to act separately, each observing the suspects who might have harmed them.
After a long series of observations and deductions, Yu Qimiao and Detective Su Qiong realized in horror—
The deceased was not the bride at all!
Qiyi’s sympathetic doll truly worked and could control the original person’s actions.
However, the black hair inside the doll did not belong to Shi Yuntian.
It belonged to the original bride.
She had controlled the bride into leaving the bridal chamber, then taken her place and consummated the marriage with Shi Yuntian.
Unexpectedly, she became the true bride’s substitute victim.
Meanwhile, the actual bride assumed Qiyi’s identity and remained in the mourning hall, giving herself an airtight alibi.
“I didn’t expect you to expose me.” Qiyi dramatically swept back her hair. “That’s right. I am the real bride. On the day of the wedding, I accidentally discovered a secret, so I decided to use Qiyi to escape the marriage.”
“What secret?”
Qiyi looked toward Moi and raised her chin. “Old Madam, are you certain you want me to reveal it?”
“Wait.” Moi stood with the support of her cane and spoke in an aged voice. “Allow me to prepare and tell everyone personally. Please wait in the main hall.”
“What kind of secret requires such ceremony?”
Everyone was confused but impressed, so they followed the instruction and went to the main hall.
They waited for a long time.
Instead of Moi revealing the truth, they heard a scream.
Following the sound, they ran into Qiyi’s room and saw Moi and Qiyi lying hand in hand within a pool of blood.
“You’ve been written out?”
Moi nodded slightly.
“Then what was the secret?”
Qiyi turned her face and answered breathlessly, “The script didn’t say.”
“…”
[System: Ending Five reached—The Secret That Could Not Be Spoken.]
The two people who knew the secret died simultaneously.
The clue was severed, but the case became increasingly complicated.
“Although we don’t know how many endings exist in total, we haven’t triggered any of the first four.”
“Perhaps the truth is hidden among those four endings.”
“This is so difficult.” Shi Yuntian scratched his hair. “It itches. I feel like my brain is about to grow.”
“Give up, Boss Shi. It won’t grow.”
Moi and Qiyi left no ghosts behind.
Only six players remained onstage as the fourth act began.
As the plot progressed, everyone numbly discovered that not only was the bride not the bride—
The groom was not the groom either.
The person who died on the wedding night was the ex-boyfriend who had originally hidden beneath the bed, only to be knocked unconscious by the groom, dressed in ceremonial clothing, and forced to take his place!
No wonder the coffin fit him so perfectly.
It had practically been made to measure.
The real groom escaped the bridal chamber.
Instead of assuming Lu Shufan’s identity, he completely left the mysterious and eerie residence, adopted a different identity, and returned as an observer to investigate the case more deeply.
“That’s right. The true groom is Mr. ERROR, who followed the detective back to the crime scene!”
ERROR smiled without speaking.
He had long suspected that the system would never arrange two detectives who were entirely uninvolved.
He simply had not expected that after all the twists and turns, he would become the groom.
It truly was…
Wait.
ERROR looked toward Su Qiong, and a certain conjecture gradually took shape in his mind.
“Since you are the groom, you possess sufficient motive to commit the crime. Perhaps you accidentally killed Shi Yuntian.” Su Qiong pushed him into the group of suspects. “I unilaterally declare you highly suspicious.”
[System: Ending Two reached—The Substitute Victim.]
“Ending Two. In that case, Ending One may be the truth.”
Three acts remained.
The review panel continued awarding high scores, and the performance developed with unexpected smoothness.
Yet Su Qiong remained deeply troubled.
Something did not feel that simple.
As expected, the third-to-last act introduced another reversal, overturning every character’s identity.
They had to play their new roles while remembering their previous ones, nearly exhausting their brains.
By the final act, Su Qiong had triggered seven endings.
Only Ending One had never appeared.
“Ending One may be the true conclusion.”
“I think so too. Also, the review panel’s scores have remained high. Even if we score poorly in the final act, we should still clear this stage.”
“Can it really go that smoothly?”
Of course…
Not.
At the end of the final act, Su Qiong combined every clue they had collected and announced, “There is no true murderer among you.”
“What?”
“Every one of you is a villain,” Su Qiong explained. “Therefore, the final outcome was collectively caused by all of you.”
“According to your logic, every one of us is the murderer,” A reminded him.
Yet Su Qiong maintained his original position and insisted that none of them was the murderer.
After speaking, his eyes flicked upward, as though he had seen something.
The others noticed the movement but did not know what kind of prompt Su Qiong had triggered.
The review panel still awarded them a high score.
The play ended perfectly.
The NPC told them that once they selected their cards, they could leave Smile Theater and proceed to the next instance.
No one moved.
“Did we really clear it?”
“Since when does IF have such an easy instance? I don’t believe it.”
“You passed.” Su Qiong’s voice softened slightly as he urged them to leave quickly. “Hurry. There are six more instances after this.”
The others remained doubtful and slowly began selecting cards.
ERROR stared at Su Qiong for a while before suddenly saying, “Any one of us could be the true murderer.”
Su Qiong looked at him and asked in disbelief, “Can you see my prompt?”
ERROR did not answer and continued, “According to the rules, the murderer must be punished—in other words, die onstage. If the detective fails to identify the murderer…”
ERROR stared intently at him and asked,
“What price must the detective pay, Su Qiong?”
