“I… I really didn’t know something like this would happen…”
Inside a brightly lit room, a girl with long black hair sat across a table, her entire body trembling uncontrollably.
Her head was bowed as her eyes darted around frantically, as if she were afraid of seeing something — or perhaps, as if she were waiting to see something.
Sitting in front of her was a fully armed member of the Association.
The equipment he wore was essentially the same as what Li Meng had seen outside the Villa yesterday, though the insignia on his shoulder straps differed slightly.
“Miss, when you reported to us that your friends were planning to play the ‘Four Corners Game,’ we should have warned you. We told you to never try it and to never be curious. Why did you go ahead with it anyway? And why didn’t you notify us immediately?”
“I don’t know… I don’t know! That game… the game was like it had some kind of attraction…”
The girl’s speech grew faster, her voice rising with agitation.
It was unclear whether it was from fear or something else entirely.
“At first… I didn’t want to do it at first either, but… do you know that feeling? That… intense sense of curiosity… that curiosity of wanting to witness that thing with your own eyes…”
The girl suddenly looked up, staring at the armed personnel with an absolutely abnormal gaze.
The corners of her mouth twitched uncontrollably, and for a fleeting moment, she even flashed a smile.
Why was she smiling?
Even the girl herself seemed surprised.
In the next second after that smile appeared, terror reclaimed her face.
She immediately lowered her head, her hands clutching her pants tightly.
“Sigh…”
The man across the table let out a helpless sigh.
“Captain, Miss Li Meng is here.”
“Miss Li Meng? Good, I understand. You all keep an eye on her.”
“Understood!”
Upon exiting the room, the armed officer came face-to-face with Li Meng and her group.
Li Meng — he knew her well.
She was the rising star of the World’s Shadow and the youngest Youxun.
With such achievements, it was hard not to know who she was.
He had also heard a bit about the three girls following behind her.
They were a recently emerging team, called… Silver Butterfly, was it?
However, he had never heard of the girl with light brown hair.
Furthermore… having dealt with Specters for so long, he could faintly sense something about her even without instruments.
She had a… special temperament.
But since she was brought by Miss Li Meng, there shouldn’t be any problems.
After a brief exchange of information with Li Meng, the captain cleared the way.
He remained outside to stand guard, allowing Li Meng and the others to enter and continue the conversation with the girl.
However, after entering the house, the group did not immediately go into the interrogation room.
The space was small, and crowding everyone inside would be too cramped — besides, it might put too much pressure on the girl.
Furthermore, the girl’s current mental state did not seem very good.
“So… what information do we have now?”
Qiu Qiqian asked, resting a hand on her hip while her golden eyes glanced at the person in the interrogation room.
“First, the time they played the Four Corners Game was around 7:00 PM the night before last.”
“The night before last?”
Yao Xueyue felt a headache coming on.
“So… this person didn’t even notify the Youxun that night, but waited until today?”
“According to what the Youxun just said, she was the only one who escaped that night. She spent the entire following day huddled at home in fear. It wasn’t until today, when she couldn’t take it anymore, that she went to notify the people at the Youxun Sentry Post.”
“Really…”
Yao Xueyue rubbed her temples, feeling slightly speechless.
If you called this girl stupid, she at least knew to escape; but if you called her smart, she didn’t know to run to the nearest Youxun Sentry Post immediately.
Even if it was far, couldn’t she have called or sent a message?
“So… why did they insist on playing this Four Corners Game? Was it purely for the thrill?”
Qiu Qiqian thought about how monsters in most horror movies were summoned by the protagonists’ death-seeking behavior and naturally assumed these people were the same.
“That… actually, it isn’t… at least not entirely…”
Mo Ling, who had been silent, spoke up.
She looked at the girl inside with a sympathetic gaze.
“Once someone learns the method to summon a Ritual-type Specter, the Specter uses an invisible force to induce them, leading them step by step to prepare the ritual requirements. This is something ordinary people cannot resist.”
“Is that so? Then shouldn’t these rituals be banned across the entire internet?”
“Indeed, the Association has deleted everything related to summoning Specters from the web. But… long before the Association started deleting them, many people already knew about certain Specter rituals. Some were even widely spread, and the Four Corners Game is one of them.”
“I see…”
Qiu Qiqian murmured, stroking her chin.
“So, what rank is the Specter summoned this time?”
Isana asked, her voice still carrying that faint trace of deathly stillness.
“Based on the time elapsed and the residual Nether Breath at the scene, it should be Chimei-rank. It shouldn’t be too difficult to deal with.”
“The problem is… how to find the people who were taken away.”
“I think… naturally, it’s also through… the Four Corners Game.”
At this point, Li Meng specifically scanned everyone present.
“Speaking of which, you all should know about the Four Corners Game, right?”
Li Meng asked suddenly, because next, they would need to use this method to summon that Specter and then use it to reach the Inner World.
The others nodded one after another.
Even Qiu Qiqian had heard of this ghostly game in her original world.
The Four Corners Game…
It was almost the simplest type of all Specter summoning rituals, so much so that it was called a “game.”
The conditions for this ritual were extremely simple: four people and a pitch-black room.
According to the rules of the “game,” the four people stand in the respective corners.
Once the game begins, they walk toward the next person’s position in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction.
This way, after completing one full rotation, someone will surely find that one position is empty.
According to the rules, that person needs to cough to indicate that the spot is vacant, and then pass through that spot to walk to the next position.
Based on the intended mechanism of this game, after a few rounds, the expected coughing sound will… disappear.
At the same time, that position that was supposed to be empty will mysteriously have an extra “person.”
Of course, in Qiu Qiqian’s original world, this situation usually just meant someone forgot to cough, or someone simply walked across the diagonal to the empty spot to pretend to be a ghost.
But… in this world, this method truly could summon that Specter.
“Mhm. In that case… we’ll find a similarly dark room later. But before that, I still need to talk to that girl…”
“With her current state… are you sure you still want to ask?”
Qiu Qiqian pointed at the girl inside.
Seeing her constant trembling, it felt like she could break down at any moment.
“But… we need to know exactly how those people disappeared. Did they resist, comply, or… did they keep the game going?”
Isana asked the crucial question.
Everyone present knew that the longer they delayed, the more dangerous it would be for those people.
“Honestly… fine, let this young lady do it.”
Yao Xueyue sighed helplessly and nodded to the others before opening the door and walking into the interrogation room.
Perhaps due to the intense fear and guilt, the girl practically jumped when she heard the door open again.
“I… I really didn’t mean to… I didn’t think… I…”
Just as the girl was descending into incoherent rambling from fear, Yao Xueyue suddenly crouched down and gently hugged her.
“It’s okay. Everything is okay now.”
Yao Xueyue spoke in a soft voice, unlike her usual self, whispering into the girl’s ear.
Her words were like warm hands lifting a frozen heart.
“It wasn’t your fault. You did well enough… They will all come back. Don’t be afraid, we are here.”
“Does she… have a split personality?”
Qiu Qiqian, watching the gentle Yao Xueyue from outside the interrogation room, couldn’t help but compare her to the Yao Xueyue who had been shouting loud enough to shake the heavens at noon.
“Hehe… people have two sides~ it’s quite normal. Just like… Little Qian~”
Li Meng suddenly looked at Qiu Qiqian and smiled sweetly, causing Qiu Qiqian’s heart to skip a beat.
She quickly turned her head away with a flushed face.
“I… what two sides do I have? Honestly.”
“Even though you’re a… you’re always exceptionally attentive at certain moments~ Also, the breakfast you made this morning was very delicious.”
“That’s only because your fridge was full of nothing but instant food… seriously…”
***
After about one minute, the girl gradually calmed down.
Yao Xueyue was then able to ask her how the other three people had disappeared.
The girl took a long breath, as if she had made a firm decision.
“They… they kept the Four Corners Game going… even though they sensed something was wrong by the fifth round, but… they had said before that if we encountered a fifth person, we just had to keep playing to send it away.”
“I just kept playing that Four Corners Game… in the end, I don’t even know how many rounds we played. I just felt… like I wasn’t myself anymore, and they… anyway, I escaped. I didn’t keep playing… I… I abandoned them.”
“I see… so that’s why you feel guilty?”
Yao Xueyue listened to her statement seriously while looking toward the glass, likely hoping to get some help from Li Meng’s side.
“Usually, in the Four Corners Game, after encountering a Specter, continuing for a few more rounds can indeed send it away. But…”
Mo Ling suddenly paused, then looked at the people around her, especially Li Meng.
She took a deep breath before continuing:
“But… those were rules from a long time ago. In the modern Four Corners Game, once the Specter appears, it… cannot be sent away.”
“It seems it really wasn’t your fault,”
Yao Xueyue continued to comfort the girl after hearing this.
“If you hadn’t run out, perhaps… we wouldn’t have been able to discover the anomaly so quickly.”
“Thank you…”
“You’re welcome.”
Having gathered the information, Yao Xueyue rose from her seat and walked toward the door.
Outside the door, a ray of light from the setting sun shone through the glass, landing perfectly on Yao Xueyue’s silver hair and making it shimmer.
“We will bring your friends back. Don’t worry.”