Chapter Eighteen: Rose Manor (Seventeen): The Destiny of Death

"Lin Chen, are you inside? Ye is dead, but I’ve found a vital clue. Let’s meet up—please, open the door..."

On the second floor of the ancient manor, in Room 2, Lin Chen curled up on the bed. Listening to the woman’s voice outside, he tightened his grip on the room key.

The voice was muffled and distorted by the door panel and a tremor that sounded like pure terror, but he could still identify it: it was Zou Yan.

Lin Chen didn't know Zou Yan well; he only remembered her as a psychologist who had spoken a few words about unity, always maintaining a calm, gentle demeanor that made one feel at ease. To see her lose composure like this was a first.

Lin Chen instinctively climbed off the bed, walked to the door, and gripped the cold handle.

A second before he could turn it, he hesitated. A memory surfaced unbidden.

An hour ago, when Qi Si left, he had placed the room key in Lin Chen’s hand with an uncharacteristically solemn expression: "We are all adults, but I still want to give you one piece of advice: do not open the door for anyone but me."

At the time, Lin Chen hadn't understood, asking, "Why?"

Qi Si had smiled coldly: "In this zero-sum game, aside from me—your partner in interest—you cannot trust anyone. Your hands are your own, of course you can open the door, but then I will only regret having trusted the wrong person and dying alongside you."

The memory was so vivid that Lin Chen stepped back the moment it returned, staring at the door with wariness.

Outside, Zou Yan’s voice suddenly turned frantic: "Lin Chen, please, save me! ...It’s here! I’m going to die!"

The fear and despair in her tone were genuine, not feigned. Lin Chen felt a shiver run down his spine. Even if the other players were untrustworthy, they were merely suspects, not proven villains. What if Qi Si’s suspicion was wrong? If he didn't open the door, Zou Yan might actually die.

Yet, whether to open the door involved not just his own safety, but Qi Si’s as well...

Sweat beaded on Lin Chen’s forehead. He hesitated, his grip on the key tightening until it dug into his skin.

...

On the third floor, Qi Si stepped out of the room filled with skulls and suddenly heard the sound of rain.

The manor’s corridors had no windows; the thick, ancient stone walls isolated the world outside. Without visual confirmation, his sense of hearing faded into the silence, and the sound he had heard a moment ago felt like an illusion.

Yet, Qi Si felt it was indeed time for rain. After all, in third-rate dramas, when a tragic plot reaches its climax, there is always a heavy downpour to set the mood, isn't there?

The first room had been thoroughly explored; lingering would yield no more clues. Qi Si walked to room "2," pulled out a thin wire, and picked the lock just as he had before.

A ragged doll lay in the corner, dressed in red with braided hair, its mouth opening and closing as it sang a haunting nursery rhyme:

"She's here, she's here, she's in the pouring rain..."
"Don't look at me, don't look at me, I'm in the wardrobe..."

Qi Si paused at the threshold and looked at Chang Xu: "There seems to be something in there. Should we go in?"

Chang Xu’s gaze was deep: "Since we're already here..."

"Then I’ll leave the trouble to you, Brother Chang!" Qi Si stepped aside, clearing the doorway.

Chang Xu: "..."

He strode into the room, grabbed the doll from the corner, opened the window, and tossed it out.

The world went quiet for a moment. Qi Si waited two seconds, confirming that his pathfinding tool hadn't met with disaster, before sauntering into the room.

A massive floor-to-ceiling window occupied almost the entire wall. The gray-purple sky reflected into the room, casting a hazy gloom over the floor and walls. Through the cobweb-covered glass, one could see threads of rain weaving together, intertwining with the spiderwebs in an inseparable tangle.

Qi Si sighed: "That doll might have held an important clue. It’s a pity you threw it away like that."

Was this reaping the benefits while still complaining? Chang Xu remained silent, having no intention of playing along.

A one-man show was boring. Qi Si lost interest and abandoned the thought of teasing him further. He scanned the room’s layout, and, satisfied there was nothing else to explore, walked straight to the wardrobe by the window, saying awkwardly, "There's quite a bit of dust on this wardrobe..."

Chang Xu glanced at him, stepped forward voluntarily to pull open the doors, and picked up a yellowed, aged photograph from the dusty corner.

The composition of the photo was sloppy. Nine people sat rigidly around a long table laden with food, all facing the camera with stiff postures. Four of the faces were clear, while the other five were blurred.

Qi Si leaned in to distinguish them. Among the four clear faces, one was a familiar one: Shen Ming!

Of the remaining three, he had seen one before—it was the first victim Chang Xu had dug up from the dirt pit in the garden.

A hypothesis sprouted in his heart, only to be verified the next second.

Chang Xu’s long, slender finger pointed to the three unfamiliar faces: "The bodies of these three are all in the garden. I dug them up myself."

Qi Si stared at the person sitting closest to the head of the table and analyzed softly: "After a player dies, their face appears in the photo. There are five empty seats, exactly matching the five players. It seems this instance never intended for any players to leave alive... Tell me, is it possible that the time loop began the moment the instance started? Three days per round, three people die each time, and we are in the second round."

"Impossible," Chang Xu shook his head. "I wouldn't have left places with such obvious, vital clues—like the garden and this third floor—for the second round."

Qi Si sneered: "Perhaps we explored them in the first round too, but failed to break the cycle. So, everything reset."

The implication behind his words carried a bone-chilling coldness.

Exploring over and over, failing over and over, losing all memories, and being thrown back into the cycle.

The reincarnation repeated itself, fellow players died one by one, the people around them grew fewer, and the hope of breaking the cycle dimmed...

Living in despair without knowing it, struggling with the false hope of survival, only to be silently devoured by this eerie manor and turned into fertilizer for the roses...

Thoughts spread like vines in his mind. Before Qi Si’s eyes, a blood-red hue, as rich as the rainy season, began to bleed out. His breath hitched at the tragic beauty of the imagery.

Ignoring the filth, he took the photo from Chang Xu’s hand.

The front of the black-and-white photo began to bleed ink as if submerged in water, the once-clear image blurring into nothingness within seconds.

Red letters written in blood seeped through from the back, now congealed:

[We will all die.]

...

Later, much later, the girl had her wish to live with her sister, until the arrival of that man.

The girl couldn't understand why a stranger who had suddenly intruded into their lives could divide her sister’s attention. The man wasn't even handsome—far inferior to both her and her sister. Why did her sister love him so recklessly, and not her?

The girl spread rumors that the manor was bankrupt and in debt, leading the man’s father to learn of it and forbid their marriage. She tampered with the clock, causing the man to leave alone, unable to take her sister with him.

The girl watched as her sister, who shared her own face, wept day after day. She couldn't understand why she was so sorrowful. She watched in vain as that beautiful face lost its luster, blooming and wilting with the seasons just like the roses in the garden, as if she were seeing her own death.

Beside her sister’s corpse, the girl was filled with extreme terror, leaving her no choice but to climb to the attic once more and pray to God.

God said: "She is ill and will die. Only the heart of her beloved can bring her back to life."

Though she didn't want to admit it, the girl knew exactly who her sister’s beloved was.

She dressed before the mirror, her brows like ink, her lips curved in a smile, painting herself stroke by stroke until she wore her sister’s every expression. She hugged the mirror as if hugging a ghost brought back to life, realizing her fear had been a mistake—she had thought the one who died was herself.

She couldn't tell the difference, so both had to live. When the man returned to the manor, she stood by the door wearing her sister’s red dress.

She smiled like her sister, spoke softly like her sister, and invited the man to dance. As they embraced tightly, she leaned into his arms and plunged the hidden dagger into his chest.

The rain poured down, washing away the blood of her sin. The girl dug up her sister’s grave and placed the heart that had lost its warmth inside.

Her sister’s corpse in the coffin opened its eyes, but it was a monster parasitized by roses. It would never call her name again, never look at her with sorrowful eyes; with every passing moment, it aged, rotted, and withered.

She was terrified and went to plead with God.

God sighed: "I told you, destruction is easy, but repair is troublesome. The authority of time and space does not belong to me; I had to borrow it from a detestable fellow."

The girl didn't understand the complexities; she only begged for God’s mercy.

The merciful God finally intercepted three days of time for her, allowing her and her sister to linger in the endless cycle.

She watched as her sister repeated the process of decay in the infinite three-day loop. Though the situation didn't worsen, the face had long since rotted away.

She discovered with horror that she couldn't accept her sister’s ugliness. Every time she saw that face of exposed bone, she feared it was herself, afraid that one day she would become the same.

She felt sick, wanted to vomit, and even began to regret the sacrifices she had made to possess her sister.

She asked God if her sister could be restored to beauty.

God opened his scarlet eyes, his smile bloodthirsty: "The guests who come to the manor, let their flesh and blood nourish the roses, and everything will be as you wish."