novelraw Chapter 131: The Unpardonably Wicked Lord Luo
Chapter 131: The Unpardonably Wicked Lord Luo
[First-Grade Illusory Realm: Yellow Fox Maiden]
[Entry Restrictions: None]
[Maximum Participants: 1]
[Current Participants: 1]
[Background: A reportedly haunted inn.]
[Trial Rule 1: You may not disclose the contents of this illusory realm to other participants.]
[Trial Rule 2: You may not re-enter once you have left.]
[Additional Notes: Spend one night at the inn and uncover the truth behind the haunting.]
[Creator: Wei Dongping]
So this was what a beginner's map looked like. A beginner's map gave you the mission objective written out in plain text, just in case you couldn't figure it out on your own.Following Master Qin's directions, Li Qiuchen came to the inn, booked a room, settled down to sit quietly inside, and before long had slipped smoothly into the illusory realm.
Day instantly became night, and he found himself transported from inside the inn to right outside its entrance.
The night was utterly still. The empty street held not a single sound.
Before him stood the inn, its exterior looking worn and dilapidated. Two paper lanterns hung at the door, red as blood, swaying gently in the night breeze, their light dim and wavering.
The inn was haunted. Find the ghost. That was the whole quest, as simple as that.
The main purpose of this illusory realm was to give first-timers a sense of how these things worked, and to familiarize them with the rules of the trial.
Right, and I am a first-timer. Officially.
Li Qiuchen thought Master Qin had made a fair point. As far as anyone knew, this was his first time entering an illusory realm trial. He would follow the flow, score whatever he scored, and there was no need to push for a first-class rating. Plenty of chances for that later.
It was obvious, when you thought about it. What sort of reward could a beginner orientation level possibly offer?
So for the moment he was in no hurry at all, leisurely taking in the couplet posted on either side of the inn's entrance.
Night rain holds travelers, dreaming at the third watch; old books trade for wine, a half-cup of autumn.
Rather literary. Just a bit out of place pasted on an inn doorway. Trying too hard.
Reading those lines alone, you could already picture the owner: a failed scholar, too bookish for his own good.
Having finished reading the couplet, Li Qiuchen strolled inside at a leisurely pace.
As he had suspected, the inside was a different world entirely.
The exterior looked weathered and run-down, but the interior was meticulously clean. Landscape paintings covered all four walls, with poems inscribed beside them by various hands.
Behind the counter crouched a proprietor who looked every bit as gnarled as an old piece of ginger root, idly flicking an abacus with the air of a man with nothing to do.
When Li Qiuchen walked in, the old man looked up with barely any energy and asked, "Passing through for a meal, or staying the night?"
Three in the morning and what meal would I be having? Do you think you're running a street stall here?
Li Qiuchen walked up and said he'd be staying.
"Only one room left. Not particularly clean."
"That's fine."
"Ten taels."
"..."
A slight ripple passed through Li Qiuchen's composure.
Did your chamber pot come studded with gemstones? Ten taels for one night?
The old proprietor seemed to read his confusion, and added, "The lodging itself is only twenty copper. The rest is the book fee."
"Book fee?"
"The room that's left is the owner's study. The owner gave specific instructions that guests staying in that room are to be charged a book fee."
"What if I don't read them?"
"Who's to say whether you read them or not? The fee applies either way."
"What about skipping the study? Could I make do in the main hall for the night?"
The old proprietor split into a grin, revealing a mouthful of yellowed, rotten teeth. The smile was uncommonly unsettling.
"Certainly you could. Though the night air is cool, and our guest ought to take care of his health."
That was a barefaced threat if he'd ever heard one.
Li Qiuchen set ten taels on the counter. The old proprietor reached out to take it, and found a hand pressing firmly down on his.
"Sir..."
Li Qiuchen smiled mildly. His fingers shifted, and another ten taels appeared beside the first.
The old proprietor flicked an inconspicuous glance at the extra silver. The unsettling grin softened ever so slightly.
"Is there anything else our guest requires? The inn has hot water and food..."
Li Qiuchen shook his head. Another small movement of his fingers, and a third ten taels joined the others on the counter.
A subtle shift passed through the old proprietor's demeanor.
"The books the owner left behind are nothing particularly serious, to be honest. Mostly strange tales and popular fiction. There are a few fine pieces among them, though. The best ones the owner kept on the top shelf..."
Li Qiuchen lifted his hand, nodded, and smiled. "My thanks for the guidance."
Money could make even a ghost turn a millstone.
Having personally taken part in building an illusory realm, he understood perfectly well that the NPCs within one, the important plot characters like this man, didn't simply recite fixed lines. Some retained a degree of genuine awareness, and some were even played by real people directly.
That was where the exploration score came in.
Follow the script docilely and you would never earn a high score.
Li Qiuchen wasn't aiming for a high score. He was simply experimenting for the sake of it.
Led by the old proprietor, he entered the room, and found it indeed remarkably refined.
Beyond the bed it contained a writing desk and a bookshelf, with brush, ink, paper, and inkstone all neatly arranged.
The bookshelf was packed full of thread-bound volumes.
Even with all these extra amenities, that hardly justified a ten-tael charge.
What did an overnight session at an internet café cost? And you're charging me ten taels for a look at a few books?
So Li Qiuchen was fairly certain something he hadn't yet discovered was hidden here.
He picked up a book at random. The cover read five characters: The Tale of Lady Liu.
Li Qiuchen lit the oil lamp, sat down at the writing desk, and opened the book.
It is told that in the Hanzuo years, a dating system unique to the northern frontier which according to the Records of State Affairs corresponded to roughly the eight hundred and fiftieth year of the national calendar, the first time the northern cold tide receded. As the cold tide withdrew and the earth thawed, Chu settlers pushed northward in great numbers.
At that time the northern frontier was ten thousand li of swampland. Cold pythons prowled the marshes, creatures of enormous size, a hundred zhang in length, capable of swallowing an elephant whole. Many villages were attacked, their entire populations consumed. Then a swordsman surnamed Liu went alone into the great marsh, battled a cold python for seven days and seven nights, and at last slew the great demon, bringing peace to the region.
The local county magistrate, recognizing his talent, gave him his only daughter in marriage and appointed him county constable.
It seemed the cold python's menace had ended there. But no one could have anticipated that as the cold python died, it laid a curse upon Swordsman Liu, swearing to extinguish his bloodline entirely.
Though Swordsman Liu and his wife were deeply devoted to one another, ten years of marriage produced no children, and his wife grew increasingly anxious and troubled.
Having no heir was, after all, a serious matter in those times.
So she took it upon herself to arrange a concubine for Swordsman Liu.
A few months later the concubine became pregnant, but when the child was born it proved to be a half-human, half-demon girl. Her skin was snow-white all over, half her body covered in scales, and even her eyes were the narrow vertical slits of a serpent.
Swordsman Liu carried his daughter to every healer he could find, all without result. At last he sought out a fortune-teller who knew the heavens above and the earth below, and from him learned the truth concealed within this mystery.
It emerged that when the cold python died, its resentment surged so powerfully that not only had it cursed Swordsman Liu to end his line, it had also reincarnated as a human woman, none other than the very concubine now living in his household.
If I can't beat you in a straight fight, I'll just change the battlefield...
"Hm?"
Li Qiuchen had been growing slightly drowsy, but at this passage he jolted upright in an instant.
You had to admit... that was something.
Wait. He couldn't keep reading.
He set down the book and stood up, gathering his thoughts.
What exactly had he come here to do?
This was an illusory realm trial, wasn't it? What was he doing sitting here?
Li Qiuchen, Li Qiuchen. He couldn't let himself sink into idle indulgence like this. Even if he was just going through the motions, he couldn't treat it as a joke.
This was absolutely a trap. A trap designed to devour your time.
He patted his face briskly to shake himself alert, and began examining the other volumes on the shelf.
Just as the old proprietor had said, this owner's collection held nothing particularly respectable.
Folk customs, strange phenomena, tales from the rural wilds. That sort of thing.
And all of them ancient texts not found on the open market.
That wasn't so strange. Great Chu had stood for eight thousand years now, and except for the truly classic masterworks, popular fiction simply couldn't survive that span of time. The market had turned over countless times.
After skimming through a few volumes, Li Qiuchen suddenly grasped the hidden logic behind the collection.
These books... could they be the scripts for the illusory realm trials?
It was a perfectly reasonable guess.
Illusory realm trials generally recreated events from the past, but not every past event lent itself to being adapted into an illusory realm.
Take Senior Brothers Wang and Du, who had once set out with complete confidence to build an illusory realm. Resources, manpower, none of it was lacking. Then when it came to actually doing it, both of them discovered they had no idea how to write a script. They agonized for three days over a single line of dialogue.
Most things looked easy from the outside and showed their difficulty only to those who understood them from within.
It was like a restaurant diner, who could tell you whether a dish tasted good or not, but would struggle to pinpoint exactly why it didn't. Was it a different cook today? Were the ingredients different from before? Had some step in the process been skipped?
Illusory realm trials were the same.
A person who passed a trial with a first-class rating wasn't necessarily capable of building an equivalent trial themselves.
The key was always having a suitable script.
And the books on this shelf, as far as Li Qiuchen could see, were almost all capable of forming the basis of an illusory realm. They had plot, buildup, surprise, and reversal.
Just reading the contents alone was already enough to set the imagination running and stir a shift in one's state of mind.
The question wasn't whether they could be used. The question was why you wouldn't use them.
Especially since this was placed inside the first illusory realm that inner hall disciples would ever experience. There had to be a deliberate intention behind it.
In Li Qiuchen's view, this was a hidden benefit left specifically for newcomers. Even if the books weren't actual trial content, they were at least supplementary study material, pointing toward a defined range.
Which meant the question now was...
His gaze traveled up to the top shelf.
That was the intelligence he had paid an extra twenty taels to obtain.
Could he realistically read through all of it in a single night?
Li Qiuchen quietly produced the eye drops he had prepared himself, gave his eyes a quiet rub.
A thousand days tending the eyes, and one moment of calling them to service.
He reached up and took down the first book from the left, which turned out to bear the title: Records of the Peach Blossom Spring, Volume One.
Wonderful. A multi-volume series, at that.
He opened to the first page. In the preface, someone had inscribed a single line in red cinnabar.
"Lord Luo is unpardonably wicked. Lord Chen's talent and art know no equal."
Li Qiuchen stared at it.
Haven't I heard something like this before somewhere?
How did that go again?
Lord Luo blessed and protected, Lord He a good man whose life is safe and sound?
What did that mean?
No context whatsoever.
Still, it was plain to see that it was saturated with the resentment of senior students who had come before him.
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