Standing at the entrance to the Nuo Opera Garden, Zi Jin confronted the book boy.

“So, just how much do you know about this Instance? Or rather, who exactly are you?”

The three female players all wore strange expressions.

The book boy had indeed retrieved the 【Executioner】’s corpse and brought them out of the Nuo Opera Garden. The price had been his White Dragon robe, left behind forever on the side that represented the Yin World.

But this feat only made them more suspicious.

Possessing such a method meant he never actually needed the 【Divine Persona Mask】 the troupe master had given Wu Wang to enter the garden. This place couldn’t hold him at all.

Furthermore, there was his profound knowledge of opera and his professional skill during the Nuo Dance.

To say he had merely researched the Instance was a massive understatement. It was as if he had read a complete walkthrough beforehand.

This forced them to question not just his identity, but also his true intentions.

Faced with their doubts, the book boy simply smiled sweetly.

“Who am I? That question comes at a different price. Why don’t we first discuss the story those masked ghosts told?”

The three women exchanged glances.

If he wasn’t willing to talk, they couldn’t exactly force him.

But under these circumstances, could his words even be trusted?

Seeing them hesitate, the book boy shrugged helplessly.

“Come on. If I wanted to harm you, why would I have rescued you? Wouldn’t it have been better to just leave you in the Nuo Opera Garden as Scapegoats with Pending Death?”

He had a good point.

Yet something still felt strange.

Finally, Zi Jin sighed.

“What information do you need from us in exchange?”

Her current lack of information was dire. To be honest, she had never experienced such a bizarre Instance.

It was already the evening of the second day, yet she hadn’t managed to uncover a single new clue since arriving. To make matters worse, she had even lost her only Instance item, the hairpin.

Zi Jin desperately needed clues to decide her next move.

“Simple,” the book boy said playfully. “I want to know what it is you’ve hidden.”

As soon as he spoke, the expressions of the other three women turned grave.

How did he know they had hidden something?

As if reading their minds, the book boy explained nonchalantly.

“In this Instance, every character did something shady before we arrived. For example, I’m a fugitive wanted by the imperial court, hiding out in this Opera God’s Righteous Garden to survive.”

“The troupe master knows my identity. He holds it over my head and can report me at any time, which he uses to threaten me into doing things for him.”

“My character’s Side Quest is to get rid of the troupe master, so this secret can be buried forever.”

He looked at them expectantly.

“What about you? You must have some secrets, right?”

His words stunned them.

He just revealed his own secret so casually?

Zi Jin truly couldn’t understand what the book boy was planning.

To put it bluntly, having a secret like that was a death sentence waiting to happen. If someone reported his fugitive status to the Prince, he would almost certainly meet a bitter end.

If he hadn’t told them himself, they might never have found out.

Wasn’t he afraid of death?

After a moment of contemplation, Zi Jin relented. She shook her head helplessly.

“Since you’ve put it all on the table, I’ll be direct as well. I’m the old troupe master’s illegitimate daughter, and I came back to seize the position of troupe master of the Opera God’s Righteous Garden. My character’s Side Quest… is also to kill the troupe master. The thing I’ve hidden is a proof of identity, to be used to inherit the Garden.”

Hearing her words, Qiao Biluo frowned in confusion.

“Wait, you have to kill the troupe master too?”

“Too?” A flash of astonishment passed through Xiaoxiao’s eyes.

Qiao Biluo nodded and explained, “Because my character’s Side Quest is also to kill the troupe master. I was sent by another Yi Garden to bring down the Opera God’s Righteous Garden. As a child, I came here on my family’s orders to secretly learn their skills. I was supposed to return home after I finished my training.”

“But a few days ago, I received a message from my family, telling me to kill the troupe master and then escape. The thing I’ve hidden is an Identity Card from the other Yi Garden.”

At this, everyone turned their gazes to Xiaoxiao.

She lowered her head and sighed.

“I also have to kill the troupe master… My character and Pending Death’s character, Bai Sha, are half-siblings. Not long ago, I overheard a secret conversation between an old servant and the troupe master and learned that he plans to use Bai Sha’s life and mine for some kind of ritual.”

“To protect myself, I decided to make the first move and kill him. The thing I’ve hidden is… a cursed Marionette.”

She was lying.

Xiaoxiao hadn’t mentioned the helmet. She hadn’t revealed her true identity, either. The story about being Bai Sha’s sibling was, of course, a complete fabrication.

She wasn’t worried about being exposed. After all, Pending Death wasn’t here.

Even if he escaped later and the others went to him for confirmation, Xiaoxiao had a feeling that bastard would choose to help her cover it up. He’d do it just for the fun of watching the show, eager to see what kind of chaos she could stir up.

As for the cursed Marionette, she didn’t have to worry about any holes in that story. She really had one. She had secretly taken a cursed puppet from the Puppet Garden last night.

Of course, the most important point right now was something else entirely.

Everyone’s side quest was to kill the troupe master.

This shocking revelation made them subconsciously overlook any potential problems with the identity Xiaoxiao had just described.

Snap!

The book boy snapped his fingers.

“I see. In that case, I’ll tell you the story the masked ghosts told first. Then you’ll know where the problem lies.”

With that, a large number of white paper sheets slid out from his sleeve again. The sheets began to fold themselves frantically.

A moment later, they had formed four paper figures with distinct appearances. The remaining paper had also enclosed a familiar small courtyard. In the courtyard was a papercraft well, clearly the place they had just escaped from.

The paper figures also had clear features. One wore a military uniform and held a large saber, another had a yellowish body and wore a long robe. A third wore a hairpin, and the last had a black and white Big Painted Face.

The yellowish paper figure held the Big Painted Face figure and slowly walked toward the well.

Under the gaze of the military-uniformed figure, it threw the other into the well.

All of this was witnessed by the hairpin-wearing figure, who was hiding on the courtyard roof.

The moment the Big Painted Face figure fell into the well, the hairpin figure’s entire body turned bright red.

The yellowish paper figure seemed to see something terrifying. It leaned over the well, waving frantically at the one in the military uniform.

His curiosity piqued, the uniformed figure walked over.

But when he reached the well’s edge, the yellowish paper figure suddenly shoved him in from behind.

The book boy even thoughtfully created the effect of paper water droplets splashing from the well’s opening, proving the figure had indeed fallen to the bottom.

The yellowish paper figure seemed to feel it had accomplished some great feat and began dancing wildly by the well.

But in its ecstasy, it slipped and tumbled toward the opening.

At the last critical moment, it managed to grab the edge of the well, stopping its fall.

However, the well’s edge was constantly damp and covered in fine moss. In the book boy’s origami version, this was represented by a ring of light green. The yellowish paper figure couldn’t pull itself up.

Just then, the red hairpin figure came down from the roof. It stood by the well and extended a hand toward the struggling figure below.

Zi Jin and the others thought she was going to pull him up.

Instead, the hairpin figure, with deliberate slowness, pried open the fingers that the yellowish paper figure was using to cling to the edge of the well.

One by one.

Plop.

It too fell into the well.

Now, the only one left in the courtyard was the red hairpin figure.

She squatted by the well, her thoughts unknown.

Before long, she abruptly stood up, took the hairpin from her head, and threw it to the bottom of the well.

At that exact moment, the red color on her body faded away. Black and white patterns began to grow across her form, finally coalescing into a strange yet familiar Big Painted Face.

The scene froze, and the paper figures moved no more.

Zi Jin and the others stared at the book boy with horrified expressions, muttering their thoughts aloud.

“The yellow paper figure is the old troupe master? The military-uniformed one is the Prince? The hairpin figure is Lou Yu?”

“Then the Big Painted Face figure is the current troupe master?”

The three of them hadn’t seen the memory Wu Wang had witnessed. They didn’t know the troupe master was formerly named Yu Ji or that he was Lou Yu’s childhood friend.

Even so, they could still identify the characters in the papercraft story and understand the terrifying problem it presented.

If this story was true, the troupe master was the first person thrown into the well. When the old troupe master carried him over, he was already completely still.

He was likely just a corpse being dumped. His death was probably linked to the old troupe master and the Prince.

Immediately after, the Prince also fell into the well and died.

If that was the case, then who was the current troupe master in the Opera God’s Righteous Garden?

And who was that imposing Jiangshi Prince the players had seen?

Most importantly, why was Lou Yu, the last one alive, nowhere to be found in the present day, while the troupe master and the Prince, who should have been dead, were here?

“See the problem? Lou Yu never disappeared, and the hairpin was also thrown into the well.”

The book boy smiled.

“But here, everything is the opposite. So, I suspect the most critical problem with this Instance is this.”

He paused for effect.

“We’re already in the Yin World!”

His words hit them like a physical blow. Everyone’s expression changed drastically.

Zi Jin quickly asked, “Then what about the Yin World in the Nuo Opera Garden? What was that?”

The book boy explained unhurriedly, “That is also a part of the Yin World. Or rather, that is the true Yin World.”

“The Opera God’s Righteous Garden we’re in is enveloped by some kind of power, which prevents us from realizing we’re in the Yin World. You can think of it as everyone having a filter applied to them.”

“You know those red-and-blue anaglyph 3D glasses, right? The principle is similar. Our senses are filtered, so we can only perceive the parts that are similar to the Yang World.”

“And the ghosts we saw in the Nuo Opera Garden were what we saw when that filter was stripped away, allowing us to see the environment we’re truly in.”

“And a friendly reminder. Based on my judgment, we can last four and a half days at most.”

At this, the pupils of Zi Jin and the others shrank abruptly.

They recalled their Main Quest, the very thing Wu Wang had been so desperate to understand.

【Survive in the Opera God’s Righteous Garden for 5 days】

That’s right. This was a survival-type Instance.

The difficulty of this type of Instance was generally higher than those that required completing certain objectives. After all, the Spirit Calamity Game had determined that players would need to use all their strength just to survive, let alone accomplish any other tasks.

Before entering the Nuo Opera Garden, they all felt that surviving for five days didn’t seem as difficult as they had imagined.

But now, the book boy’s words made them instantly understand where the true difficulty of this Instance lay.

This was the Opera God’s Righteous Garden of the Yin World!

They couldn’t possibly last for five days.

Since the players entered the Instance just after midnight, today was actually the first full day. If they hadn’t noticed this problem, they would completely become members of the Yin World by noon on the fifth day at the latest.

The entire party would be wiped out.

It seemed like a survival mission, but in reality, it contained a hidden condition.

They had to find a way back to the Opera God’s Righteous Garden of the Yang World!

“The troupe master… The key to the problem lies with the troupe master,” Zi Jin said abruptly, looking at the book boy. “He knows about the Nuo Opera Garden’s problem, so he most likely knows about the existence of the Yin World. If we want to escape, we’ll need his help!”

“The troupe master absolutely cannot die! The Side Quest is a trap!”

When she said this, a trace of confusion flashed across both Qiao Biluo’s and Xiaoxiao’s faces. What did she mean, the Side Quest is a trap? Can a quest be wrong?

Seeing their expressions, the book boy couldn’t help but smile.

“Perfectionism is inadvisable. This is just a Side Quest, which means it was optional from the very beginning. The Spirit Calamity Game never told you that a Side Quest wouldn’t affect the Main Quest.”

This explanation made things click for Xiaoxiao.

So this kind of Instance existed? An Instance where the side quest and the main quest were contradictory.

At the same time, she felt a wave of cold fear.

Indeed, most players, herself included, would try their best to complete side quests while working on the main one. The higher the completion rate, the richer the final rewards, with a chance of triggering a hidden reward.

She never expected that this very impulse could lead directly to failing the Instance.

This kind of trap was truly impossible to guard against. It was a good thing she’d never encountered an Instance like this before, or she probably would have been doomed.

“Not only do we need the troupe master’s help, we also need to find a way to deal with the masked ghosts.”

The book boy pointed at the Nuo Opera Garden behind him.

“That well is also key. The troupe master and the Prince are both outside. I suspect the Person in the Well is the old troupe master, the one who should be in the Yin World, but whom we’ve never seen.”

“Only he can explain why he killed the troupe master and pushed the Prince into the well.”

Speaking of this, he couldn’t help but think of Wu Wang, who had been driven mad by the Person in the Well’s bewitching whispers.

Was that guy really dead?

And with that 【Wang】’s Vertical Pupil mark in the Nuo Opera Garden, how were they supposed to get the old troupe master out from under its influence to question him?

This Instance was truly a nightmare in every sense of the word.

Meanwhile, Wu Wang, who had fallen into the well, was experiencing something familiar.

Just like in the Dilapidated Opera Building, he was witnessing a memory from a first-person perspective.

The scene unfolding before his eyes made him exclaim in spite of himself.

“Holy shit! So white! So big!”