Chapter 99
Xi Jiangyuan sat up, quietly scanning his teammates before reassuring them: “I’m fine. I just saw something I shouldn’t have—happens sometimes. I only need a bit of rest.”
The dream had its price—backlash. This wasn’t the first time he’d faced it.
He looked at each teammate, silently counting them.
Lu Chuan, Edith, Shen Li, Starry Shasha, Vivian, Messiah…
They were all here.
Xi Jiangyuan let out a breath of relief.
Ten entered the dungeon, ten must leave.
“By the way, did anyone hear anything just now?” he asked.
“No.”
“Didn’t hear anything.”
“What did you hear, Captain?”
They weren’t fools. His expression gave them clues.
“Captain, did you hear whistling? You were sweating buckets.” Lu Chuan kindly handed him a bottle of water, twisting the cap before passing it over.
Xi Jiangyuan took a few sips and steadied himself.
“Yes. In the dream, I heard whistling.” He nodded. “Since this dungeon is called Whistle, hearing it can’t mean anything good. Everyone, check carefully if anything feels off with yourselves or the environment. Be vigilant. What happens in dreams doesn’t always happen in reality, but it’s possible.”
His face was grim, but he still pushed through to warn them.
The others began reporting their findings.
Messiah spoke first:
“The morgue’s corpse count doesn’t match. Seven days ago, there were far more bodies than normal. But when we asked a nurse, she didn’t notice anything unusual. Normally, even if nothing special happened that day, suddenly having so many corpses would’ve overwhelmed them. There’s no way they’d so easily claim they don’t remember. Of course, it might not be exactly seven days—it could be eight or nine, since there’s usually some delay between death and transfer to the morgue.”
Edith agreed: “And we saw many empty rooms in the wards and dorms. That shouldn’t be the case. This is the only hospital in town—even if serious patients go to the county hospital, there still shouldn’t be so few people. We suspect something happened before to cause this, but the details need further investigation. That’s why Messiah and I will keep focusing on the hospital.”
“You’re right. That lead is worth pursuing.” Xi Jiangyuan nodded.
“Shasha and I found nothing unusual.” Shen Li shook his head. “Tomorrow we’ll switch locations.”
“I didn’t find anything with Lu Chuan either, in the temple,” Lilus said—
Only for Lu Chuan to cut him off.
“Of course we did! Don’t say nonsense.” He quickly corrected. “Captain, don’t listen to him—I’m telling you, the golden Buddha statues in the temple were wrong.”
Lilus nearly laughed out of anger. “What could be wrong? Weren’t you just scraping gold dust off the statue with a knife?”
The moment he said that, everyone looked at Lu Chuan differently.
“Well, Lu Chuan,” Shen Li coughed awkwardly, “I know you like money, but a gentleman should obtain it the right way. Scraping gold off a Buddha statue is… a bit much.” Oddly enough, hearing about Lu Chuan’s antics actually put him more at ease—but that didn’t mean he approved.
“Maybe Lu Chuan noticed something was off with the statue,” Messiah tried to defend him.
“Lu Chuan, you really seem different lately. Are you sure you’re alright?” Vivian frowned. “I don’t remember you caring about money this much before.”
“Nonsense. I’ve always loved money.” Lu Chuan shot back without hesitation, then turned to Xi Jiangyuan to report his discovery.
“I scraped off a thick layer of gold dust with my knife. When I rubbed it between my fingers, it was pure gold.” Lu Chuan said seriously. “That’s the problem.”
“How so?” Xi Jiangyuan, seeing Lu Chuan’s grave expression, straightened up and prepared to listen.
“Normally, Buddha statues only get a light coating of gold dust. Worshippers are too far away to notice the thickness anyway. If the gold layer is too thick, people like me might start scraping it. And this is just a small town with limited resources. For a statue here to have such a heavy layer of real gold—that’s strange.” Lu Chuan explained carefully. “Unless the townspeople are unusually devout, or something happened that forced them to keep re-gilding the statue. If we check the records of when and why the statue was regilded, we might find something.”
Put that way, it did sound reasonable.
Xi Jiangyuan thought for a moment and nodded in agreement.
“Any other findings?” he asked, forcing himself to stay focused despite looking pale.
The others gave brief reports, but all noticed his condition.
“Captain, you should rest. It’s only the first day—whatever else, we can discuss tomorrow.”
“Yeah, get some sleep.”
Realizing he was worrying them, Xi Jiangyuan relented. “Alright, I’ll rest.”
The group helped him back to his room, shared a few more findings, and then returned to their own.
“Looks like the Captain really was shaken by that dream. This dungeon’s no joke.” Lilus sighed. Since he shared a room with Lu Chuan, he spoke more freely.
But Lu Chuan seemed deep in thought.
“What are you thinking?” Lilus grew wary. “I’m warning you now, I’m not going with you if you plan on sneaking back to scrape more gold dust.”
“No, that’s not it. I was wondering… did we really not hear the whistle?” Lu Chuan replied. “Remember when I handed the Captain a bottle of water?”
“I remember. What about it?” Lilus blinked. “It was just a water bottle. Don’t tell me you want him to reimburse you.”
“…I like money, I’m not stingy,” Lu Chuan rolled his eyes. “I just suddenly remembered something odd. My hand was steady, but the water was shaking.”
He grabbed another bottle from the table.
It sat perfectly still in his hand—the water inside barely moved.
“See? Normally, it wouldn’t shake. We’re players—our control over strength is way better than ordinary people.” Lu Chuan looked Lilus in the eye. “If it wasn’t me making it shake, then what caused it? Only sound.”
“There must’ve been some sound so strong it made the bottle tremble violently. It only stopped after a while.” Lu Chuan reasoned. “Either the sound was beyond our hearing range, like ultrasound… or we actually did hear it, but the game erased our memory of it. I think it’s the latter. The dungeon wouldn’t require us to notice something we can’t perceive.”
The condition to clear the dungeon was to hear the tenth whistle. If they couldn’t hear it at all, that would be impossible. But if they heard it and forgot—then it was different.
If they could hear it, they could prepare. Even if they forgot, they could still leave themselves reminders.
Lilus fell silent, then nodded. “So, when you touched the water bottle, did you use your ability?”
With Lu Chuan’s power, he could’ve checked if the bottle really had been shaking three minutes ago.
“…No.” Lu Chuan admitted helplessly. “I don’t know why, but I always forget to use my ability, like it doesn’t even occur to me. Every time something happens, I can’t think of it right away.”
“If you put it like that… maybe it really is some kind of side effect.” Lilus grew serious. “You used to rely on your ability all the time. Now you keep forgetting. But maybe forgetting is a blessing. Just now, the Captain almost couldn’t wake up from merely hearing the whistle in a dream. If you had checked the bottle and heard it again through your ability, what would’ve happened to you?”
Lu Chuan fell silent.
If that was true… he didn’t want to imagine the consequences.
“We should report this to the Captain. Even if it’s just speculation, we need to consider every angle.” Lilus said firmly.
“Alright.”
They wasted no time, knocking on Xi Jiangyuan’s door and explaining their findings.
He listened carefully.
“You two have really matured.” Xi Jiangyuan said with relief. “Your reasoning makes sense. And Lilus, you’re right to worry. From now on, Lu Chuan, unless I tell you otherwise, don’t use your ability in this dungeon, understood?”
Remembering the hand he saw in his dream, Xi Jiangyuan still felt shaken. “Your power is invaluable. If it draws attention this early, it could be a huge loss for us. Do you understand?”
Lu Chuan nodded. “I understand. Unless you order it, I won’t use my ability.”
“Good.” Xi Jiangyuan finally eased.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to get everyone out safely.” He encouraged them again. “It’s late—rest well. Tomorrow, we’ll need our strength to investigate further.”
“Yes, Captain.”
As Lu Chuan and Lilus were about to leave, they saw a teammate carrying his luggage up.
“Chen Shi? Why are you here at the Captain’s room?” Lu Chuan asked curiously.
Chen Shi was a newer member of the team, added after they’d lost some players in the last dungeon. Quiet, honest, with solid basics and strong initiative—he fit the group well.
“I’m moving in with the Captain. No point wasting a double room alone. And if he dreams again, someone needs to wake him.” Chen Shi smiled.
There were only ten of them. The Captain had a single, Starry Shasha and Vivian too since they were girls. The other seven shared doubles—except Chen Shi, who had been left alone. He didn’t mind, but if the Captain needed him, moving made sense.
Lilus nodded. “Keep a close watch. If the Captain dreams again, wake him up immediately—any way you can.”
“Of course.” Chen Shi grinned.
Lu Chuan scratched his head. Something about this felt a little off, but he couldn’t figure out what.
—
The next morning.
Aside from Xi Jiangyuan, everyone else had slept well.
They bought breakfast from a street stall near the guesthouse and ate together before deciding on their next destinations.
“I’ll check the school.” Vivian volunteered first. “I think it’s a high-risk area—we should look.”
Xi Jiangyuan agreed. “The school is definitely one of the dungeon’s danger zones. It’s important to investigate.”
“We’ll head to the cemetery.” Shen Li spoke up. “This town has a burial mound—huge, full of graves. We should examine it. We’ve got protective charms, so if anything happens, we’ll retreat quickly.”
Compared to the school, the cemetery was pure danger.
Since Shen Li had offered, Xi Jiangyuan could only urge caution.
If they didn’t explore the dangerous areas early, they’d face even worse later.
Each group shared their plans. When it was Lu Chuan and Lilus’ turn, his suggestion stunned everyone.
“I want to check out the bank.” Lu Chuan said. “This town has only one bank. I think it’s worth a look.”
“…The bank? What’s there to see in a bank?” Xi Jiangyuan frowned. A paranormal dungeon connected to a bank? It didn’t seem to fit.
“As the only bank in town, it must have all kinds of account records, transaction records, and so on. As for the gilding of the Buddha statue, I believe the bank is more likely to retain documents than the temple. And compared to places like hospitals or schools, the bank’s written and electronic records should be more complete.” Lu Chuan had his own reasoning. “I’ll just go take a look, Captain, you don’t need to worry.”
Well, that really wasn’t anything to worry about.
Of all the places everyone had said they planned to investigate, the bank was the least dangerous, the least worth worrying about.
“Alright then, but be careful,” Xi Jiangyuan said, more out of formality.
Lilus was utterly embarrassed.
He really wanted to change partners, he truly did.
Lu Chuan, however, stuck to his plan and dragged Lilus along to the bank for a proper check.
There weren’t many tellers on duty today, but there were quite a few people queuing for service. Lilus took a number and stayed with Lu Chuan as they wandered around the bank.
“Excuse me, I’d like to ask—if I open an account here, do you offer any gifts?”
Lilus turned around and found Lu Chuan already chatting with the branch manager about opening an account. “Do you give away those rice, flour, and cooking oil over there?”
“That depends—you’d need to buy insurance or precious metals to get those,” the lobby manager said with a smile. “If you apply for a credit card, we can give you something too. Do you think you might need one?”
“Of course I do,” Lu Chuan replied with a grin. “But in our little town, there aren’t many chances to use credit cards.”
“That’s true.” The lobby manager, not too busy at the moment, was happy to keep chatting. “But with so many business targets, we have no choice. On weekends, we even have to go out to the marketplace to recruit customers to open accounts. For example, nearly all the vendors at the market in front have accounts with us now.”
“Then your performance goals must be just about done.” Lu Chuan smiled knowingly. “I used to work at a bank too, so I understand how tough it is for you. That market was packed when I came yesterday—it was shoulder to shoulder with people.”
“We’ve opened plenty of accounts, but the number of people who actually activated them is below average.” The manager sighed when he heard Lu Chuan was a fellow banker. “Normally, after opening, people will activate and use the card. Of course, some only open an account for the gift and then put the card aside, but this time, it’s strange—the activation numbers are far lower than normal. We even helped many of them activate at the time, so all they had to do was use it. Still, the usage is much lower than expected.”
After chatting a little longer, Lu Chuan caught Lilus’s eye and signaled for them to leave.
“What did you find?” Lilus knew from Lu Chuan’s look that he hadn’t come away empty-handed.
“I think the population of this town doesn’t add up,” Lu Chuan said bluntly.
“What do you mean?” Lilus’s first instinct wasn’t doubt, but to listen.
“In a lot of ways.” Lu Chuan took a deep breath. “We weren’t born here, so of course we can’t tell exactly how many people live here. But social order—society itself—doesn’t lie.”
The foundation of society is people. Different numbers of people require different systems and infrastructure.
And now, the town’s population and scale didn’t match what they were seeing.
“In the hospital, the wards and dorms are mostly empty. That means there aren’t many seriously ill patients—and also not many doctors or nurses. But if the hospital never had many people to begin with, why build so many dorms?” Lu Chuan raised one finger.
“Messiah said the number of corpses in the morgue was wrong too. That matches what we saw at the hospital earlier. Because there was once a sudden surge of bodies, the inpatient wards ended up empty.” Lu Chuan explained. “But thanks to some mysterious force, everyone at the hospital has forgotten this.”
“And then there’s the gold leaf on the Buddha statue. If you put it another way—it means the last group of people who gilded the statue died, and the next group forgot about it. So what did they do? They gilded it again. Layer upon layer, the gold naturally became thick.”
A chill crept over Lilus. “And the bank?”
“Because the number of people who opened accounts doesn’t match the number who activated them. In other words, some of those people died, but the bank staff don’t remember it, so they can’t understand why the numbers don’t match!” Lilus quickly caught on.
“Exactly.” Lu Chuan nodded. “This is an S-rank horror dungeon—supernatural events are bound to happen. But even if a supernatural force erases part of reality, it can’t erase the entire social system. A drop in population affects everything. To erase all those traces, it would take an even stronger set of rules.”
A dungeon wouldn’t be designed with an unsolvable trap—not at this stage.
“When did you first notice something was off?” Lilus asked. Judging by Lu Chuan’s demeanor, he had already suspected this earlier, and the bank was just to confirm it.
“Last night after we got back to our rooms.” Lu Chuan answered. “Remember when we first arrived in town and I bought slippers?”
“Of course I remember. Didn’t you buy a pair for everyone? They were awful—cheap and smelly—no one wanted them. You couldn’t even give them away,” Lilus replied immediately.
He wouldn’t wear them even if it killed him—he’d rather buy disposable ones.
“How many pairs did I buy?” Lu Chuan asked.
“Let me think… ten pairs, right? One for each of us.” Lilus froze.
“But I bought eleven pairs.” Lu Chuan looked at him steadily. “I counted several times. Ten yuan for three pairs—why would I buy eleven pairs?”
“…Maybe, maybe you asked the vendor to throw in an extra one since you paid thirty yuan…” Lilus trailed off, his excuse sounding weak even to himself.
“If I don’t need it, I’d never take extra. I’d bargain instead. Thirty yuan for nine pairs—I’d haggle for ten, sure. But eleven? That’s not me.” Lu Chuan’s tone was firm. “I only take advantage of a deal if I can use it. I’d never take something useless.”
“So you mean… we actually came in as eleven people.” Lilus forced out the words. “One of us is missing.”
Author’s Note:
Lu Chuan: I would never buy extra—no matter how cheap!
