Chapter 9: The Instance NPC
“You must hand over the money today!” “Otherwise, not a single person in Gangan Village will get away with this!”
There were clearly far more debt collectors in the village today than yesterday. A gang of tall, muscular men carrying wooden clubs and steel pipes marched through the dirt roads. They were vicious. If a villager couldn’t pay, they immediately resorted to violence.
Several indebted villagers truly had no money left. After being brutally beaten over the head, they broke down sobbing in the dirt.
“Money, money, money! Money is all you people care about!” “If our money didn’t just disappear, we would’ve paid off that lousy debt ages ago!” “There’s nothing left for me to live for anyway! Go ahead and hit me! You might as well beat me to death!”
There’s an old saying: those willing to beat others fear those willing to kill, and killers fear those with absolutely nothing to lose.
The burly debt collectors had heard the horrifying rumors surrounding Gangan Village. Afraid that pushing the cannibalistic villagers too far might result in them leaving the village in body bags, the men grit their teeth, spat out a few more threats, and left cursing.
The shameless villagers who had just been wailing on the ground instantly rolled to their feet, dusting themselves off as if nothing had happened. They casually strolled over to Granny Li’s cave.
“Hey, Village Chief,” one of them said shamelessly. “We finished the pig you slaughtered before the New Year. Go get us some more food.”
The moment he heard the word “pig,” Lu Shufan instinctively grabbed his stomach, crouched in the corner, and began retching painfully. Help. A dead memory has suddenly returned to attack me.
Granny Li looked completely accustomed to the request. “Alright. I’ll go back to my parents’ house at noon and bring back some meat and vegetables.”
Yu Qimiao patted Lu Shufan’s back in sympathy and quietly turned to Su Qiong. “What are we doing today?”
They had already uncovered the horrific secrets of Gangan Village. They could only investigate the Yin-Yang River at night, and the bus to the city wouldn’t return until tomorrow. They essentially had nothing to do all day.
Su Qiong tapped his black bracelet. “Perhaps I’m being overly suspicious, but we only have two days left, and there is still one major threat we have no clues about.”
“What is it?”
“The instance NPC,” Su Qiong answered softly.
Yu Qimiao frowned. “Is the boss monster really that important right now?”
“Extremely important,” Su Qiong nodded. “Do you remember the system notification when we entered? It said there was more than one way to clear the game.”
Shi Yuntian cracked his knuckles. “Right. That’s why I wanted to test if killing every other player and NPC in the village would count as a win.”
“It wouldn’t,” Su Qiong said patiently. “According to the system’s rules, there are basically three ways to clear a puzzle level. First: raise the instance NPC’s affection toward you. Second: complete a hidden quest and earn the instance NPC’s acknowledgment. Third: defeat the instance NPC in combat.”
Lu Shufan wiped his mouth, looking pale. “That’s a pretty standard definition for a video game.”
“I learned that from the main server’s records,” Su Qiong continued. “But the biggest difference between IF and other games is that its NPCs have true self-awareness, and we are divided into red-name and white-name factions.”
“So what?” Shi Yuntian asked.
Su Qiong tilted his puffy head. “So… I have absolutely no clues about who the boss is.”
Because Su Qiong was only a Level 0 NPC, the system gave him almost zero information. However, Su Qiong was incredibly logical. He was great at piecing together limited clues to point the players in the right direction.
But the instance NPC was the one total blank spot. He didn’t even know where to start looking.
“That’s totally normal,” Lu Shufan waved a hand dismissively. “Villainous bosses always hide themselves well. Based on my experience with puzzle games, the boss will definitely pop out at the very end of the level for a dramatic final fight.”
Su Qiong shook his head firmly. “He won’t appear voluntarily.”
Three giant question marks practically materialized over the players’ heads.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m still alive,” Su Qiong answered seriously.
He explained, “White-name NPCs and red-name NPCs are natural enemies. In any normal game instance, the red-name boss will actively seek out the white-name guide NPC and try to kill them on the very first day.”
Su Qiong paused, raising a white, puffy hand to his featureless face.
“Have I ever mentioned that I don’t have eyes?”
“What?!” Three bewildered faces stared at him.
They had spent four days with the little marshmallow, and somehow, none of them had noticed he was completely blind.
“I don’t have a physical body, so obviously I don’t have eyes,” Su Qiong said, as if this were perfectly logical.
“…” They honestly couldn’t argue with that.
“I don’t see normally. I directly sense players and NPCs through the fluctuations of their biological and digital signatures. Your goodwill and malice are extremely obvious to me.” Su Qiong paused. “Since we got here, I’ve sensed a ton of hostility from the other players… but absolutely none from any NPC.”
Shi Yuntian guiltily rubbed his nose and pretended to look at the ceiling, remembering how he had tried to slice the marshmallow in half on day one.
“The instance NPC hasn’t even tried to kill me.” Su Qiong concluded, “Therefore, he is hiding intentionally and won’t reveal himself.”
Yu Qimiao suddenly understood. “So we have no choice but to hunt him down ourselves?”
“Mm. I suspect the boss is hiding somewhere among the villagers. Since we have free time today, the three of you should split up and observe everyone. See if you can spot anyone acting differently.”
Just as Su Qiong finished his sentence, Granny Li’s gentle voice called out from the entrance.
“I’m taking my granddaughter back to my parents’ home to collect some things. Who is willing to lend an old woman a hand?”
The Orphan Alliance exchanged a quick look. Shi Yuntian slowly raised his hand.
“I’ll go. I’m strong.”
In reality, during their silent eye-contact conversation just a second ago, his two teammates had firmly told him: You go. You don’t have a brain for puzzles anyway, so you won’t be useful investigating the village.
Unable to express his rage at being called stupid with their eyes, Shi Yuntian grumpily followed Granny Li out of Gangan Village. He dragged Su Qiong along with him, hoping that entering a new map area might trigger a system hint.
“I married a man from a nearby village. My parents’ home is only a few miles away,” Granny Li chatted warmly. “Ah, here we are. It’s that tiled house up ahead.”
Following her pointing finger, Su Qiong saw a massive, conspicuous three-story brick villa towering over the surrounding single-story shacks.
“Wow, your family’s rich!” Shi Yuntian blurted out bluntly.
“That isn’t my home,” Granny Li corrected him softly. “It’s my parents’ home.”
“Is there a difference?”
Li Ting, the introverted teenage granddaughter, finally spoke up, her voice gloomy. “Grandmother says that once a woman marries out of her family, she no longer has a home.”
“Huh?” Shi Yuntian looked completely baffled.
Granny Li untied an iron key from her waist and inserted it into the front door. She twisted it forcefully three or four times before the heavy lock finally clicked open.
The villa was even more massive inside than it looked from the street. There was a lush, thriving vegetable garden in the courtyard—clearly where the vegetables they had been eating all week came from.
Granny Li left Li Ting outside to pick vegetables, then led her two helpers toward the backyard.
There were two ways to get to the back: walk straight through the luxurious house, or walk around the muddy side path.
Granny Li chose to walk around the side.
Su Qiong floated after her, sensing something was very strange, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was.
“Something’s wrong,” Shi Yuntian muttered quietly. Amazingly, the brainless Berserker was actually analyzing the situation. “It’s way too quiet here.”
He was right. Su Qiong couldn’t hear a single human voice inside the massive house. But that wasn’t what was bothering the little NPC.
“Also,” Shi Yuntian continued, “she hasn’t been home in a while, but she didn’t even go inside to say hi to her family.”
That was it! The piece of code, who understood very little about human relationships, finally realized what felt so off. Granny Li hadn’t just skipped greeting her family—she had deliberately avoided walking through the house entirely.
“We should…” Su Qiong started to suggest testing the waters.
But before he could even finish the sentence, Shi Yuntian yelled out, “Hey, Village Chief! Where’s the rest of your family?!”
Su Qiong: …You truly have zero subtlety.
Granny Li didn’t look back. She walked straight into the backyard and replied casually, “They’ve gone on a long journey.”
“You don’t have a phone,” Shi Yuntian pressed. “How do you know they went away?”
“Every time I come here, they’ve gone on a long journey.”
“You—” Shi Yuntian was about to interrogate her further, but Su Qiong quickly whipped a bandage over his mouth, signaling him to shut up. Some game NPCs were highly volatile and would instantly enter a berserk state if questioned too aggressively.
Granny Li unlocked the heavy wooden door to the pigsty. She drove out two plump, incredibly well-fed pigs.
“Several new mouths arrived in the village recently. We’ll bring back two pigs today.”
Seeing the squealing, very obviously animal pigs, Shi Yuntian’s eyes lit up with more joy than if he had just met his own ancestors.
“Village Chief! So the meat we ate the other day really was pork, and not—”
Terrified the idiot was about to say “human flesh,” Su Qiong violently clamped his bandages over Shi Yuntian’s mouth again.
In that moment, Su Qiong missed Lu Shufan immensely. Sometimes, the gap in communication skills between two human beings was even wider than the gap between a human and a piece of code.
“Of course it was pork. What else could it possibly be?” Granny Li gave Shi Yuntian a deeply puzzled look. “All the grain, pork, and vegetables eaten in Gangan Village are brought over from my parents’ home.”
Desperate to smooth things over, Su Qiong quickly chimed in with his sweet voice. “I see. You truly are a wonderful village chief, taking care of everyone like that.”
Because his player was too stupid to live, Su Qiong had no choice but to work overtime doing damage control.
“Ah, I’m only a woman. How could I be worthy of serving as village chief?” Granny Li sighed heavily. “The original village chief was my husband.”
“Your husband is now…?” Su Qiong asked gently, imitating human empathy to see how far he could push.
“He died early. He passed away on the third day after I married into the village.”
The third day?!
No wonder Granny Li was the only woman who had managed to survive marrying into Gangan Village!
When Su Qiong crossed the Yin-Yang River, he had heard the ghostly women crying about how they thought marrying a husband meant they would finally have someone to rely on. And what happened? The men they trusted butchered them.
Meanwhile, the one woman who had absolutely no one to rely on was the only one who survived.
How incredibly ironic. Utterly, tragically ironic.
“If that’s true, why did you stay in Gangan Village?” Shi Yuntian asked, pulling the bandages off his mouth. Judging by her age, Granny Li must have lived in that hellhole for at least thirty years. Compared to Gangan Village’s barren rocks and decaying caves, her childhood home was a literal mansion.
Was a husband who had only existed in her life for three days really worth sacrificing thirty years of her life?
“If I didn’t stay in Gangan Village, where else could I go?” Granny Li’s voice was completely numb, long resigned to her bitter fate. “Tingting and I belong to Gangan Village now. Where we come from, a daughter no longer has a home from the day she marries out.”
“Bullshit! What kind of backward, feudal garbage is that?!” Shi Yuntian snapped gruffly. “In the world where I live, women can study and work! They can become corporate bosses, celebrities, or presidents! They can support an entire family all by themselves!”
“He’s right,” Su Qiong added softly. “Marriage is merely an optional attachment to a woman’s identity. It does not define her.”
Hearing their words, Granny Li froze. Her aged, cloudy eyes flickered, and a faint, desperate light appeared within them.
“Really?” she whispered. “Is there truly such a wonderful place in this world?”
Shi Yuntian opened his mouth to say more, but he forcibly swallowed the words. Granny Li was just an NPC. She could never leave this game instance. No matter how beautifully he described the real world, he could never take her there to see it for herself.
While Shi Yuntian stood there lost in miserable thought, Su Qiong poked him in the arm.
“We just discovered a new clue and triggered two system notifications.”
Shi Yuntian blinked. “What notifications?”
Su Qiong held up his black bracelet.
[System Notification: This instance is an Existence-Type instance. Its primary storyline has been adapted from a true story.]
[System Notification: Instance NPC affection +0.5 / 100]
