Dinner was delivered to their room by the servants of the manor.
As there were many of them, the dinner filled an entire table, quite lavish. Though the taste couldn't compare to that of a restaurant, it was still quite good.
Tao Jianchun, Liu Zhuang, and Chen Sisi ate ravenously, completely disregarding their manners.
Chen Sisi even took a moment to say to Gu Wanyin and the others, "You should eat more too. Missions where you can eat good food and dishes are rare. Once we finish the mission and reach the transfer station, the food will be even more unpalatable. Take advantage of this opportunity."
Gu Wanyin nodded in agreement. She had heard about how bad the food was at the transfer station when she previously ran a supermarket in the horror world.
The table full of dishes was devoured by the eight people like a whirlwind. Just as everyone was patting their stomachs in satisfaction, footsteps were heard outside.
These footsteps were light and quick; the person coming seemed to be in a good mood.
Everyone immediately became alert. Turning to look, they saw a young man enter.
This man wasn't tall, probably not even 1.7 meters, but he was quite handsome with a friendly smile.
"Everyone, I'm terribly sorry. I was too busy today and neglected you all!" the man said. "Thank you all for coming from afar to attend my wedding. I'm truly honored."
It seemed that this was the second young master of the household.
"He's not quite what I expected," Gu Han whispered in Gu Wanyin's ear.
Gu Wanyin nodded.
"The wedding will begin in two days. During these two days, you'll be staying at the manor. If you need anything, just tell the servants. In a moment, I'll have the butler take you to the courtyard prepared for you. There are four rooms there; you can allocate them as you wish. However..."
Usually, this was when NPCs would start saying something important, so everyone perked up to listen.
"For the next few nights, we'll be busy preparing for the wedding. The manor will be in a bit of chaos, so if you don't have any business, please don't leave your rooms at night, okay?"
This was essentially telling them not to go out at night.
But why would wedding preparations be done at night?
It was undeniably eerie.
After saying this, the second young master left. Soon after, the butler came over, smiling, and invited everyone to rest in their guest rooms.
The guest rooms were all in one courtyard, four in total, each quite spacious.
The two men shared a room. Gu Wanyin and her four companions naturally didn't want to separate, and Chen Sisi didn't want to share with anyone else, so she got a room to herself.
With five people in one room, they obviously couldn't all fit on the bed, but at this point, they weren't concerned about such things. Those who could fit on the bed did so, while the others made do with bedrolls on the floor.
After all, they were already in a horror mission, and it was dark. They really couldn't fall asleep right away.
After chatting for a while about the mission, just as they were finally getting drowsy, they suddenly heard a commotion outside.
There was laughter, the sound of running and jumping, and the voice of an old matron scolding young maids.
These sounds appeared so suddenly that they startled everyone awake.
"What's going on outside?" Dong Yue instinctively wrapped her blanket tighter around herself.
"Seems like the servants have started preparing for the wedding," said Bai Shuwen. "They really are preparing in the middle of the night."
"I wonder what it looks like out there," Gu Han said.
"We can't go out," Gu Wanyin said with her eyes closed. "The second young master is probably an important NPC in this mission. Since he said we can't go out, no matter what happens, we definitely can't—"
Before Gu Wanyin could finish speaking, suddenly their room door was violently knocked upon.
The five of them: "..."
"Come out and play!" A coquettish female voice called out. "Don't sleep! Get up quickly, I've prepared lots of delicious snacks. Let's eat and play together!"
Although it sounded normal, even tempting, it was the middle of the night, and considering what the second young master had said earlier... it was eerie no matter how you looked at it.
"Should... should we answer?" Zhuang Xiaoxia squeezed out these few words from her throat.
"No," Gu Wanyin said quietly. "Don't respond. Pretend we didn't hear anything."
So they all remained silent, but the woman outside didn't give up. Instead, she knocked even more vigorously, her voice gradually becoming frenzied: "Come out! Come out! Don't hide in there silently, I know you're inside!"
Gu Wanyin: "..."
Come on, this was supposed to be a horror atmosphere, could they not make it comedic?
After a while, probably because no one had responded or come out, the woman outside finally gave up. She sighed softly and left.
"Such an obvious trap, surely the other three wouldn't fall for it?" Gu Han muttered.
"They wouldn't. Who would risk their life in a horror mission?"
However, they never imagined that someone actually would.
Because of this incident, they only managed to doze off when the sky was just beginning to lighten.
They only left their room when it was fully light outside.
And then they saw that someone had died.
Liu Zhuang was dead in the courtyard, and his death was horrifying. Only his head remained intact; his body had been chopped into minced meat.
This shocking scene caused Gu Han to retch several times.
The other four, although they had experienced the apocalypse and killed zombies before, also found it hard to bear.
At this moment, the doors of the other two rooms also opened, and Chen Sisi and Tao Jianchun came out.
Seeing this scene, Tao Jianchun's legs went weak and he sat right down on the ground. Chen Sisi managed to keep her composure, though her face was also quite pale.
"What on earth happened? How did Liu Zhuang die?" Chen Sisi turned to ask Tao Jianchun. "Weren't you two staying together last night?"
"Y-yes," Tao Jianchun stammered. "But last night someone came knocking, saying we should come out to play and eat snacks. Liu Zhuang insisted on going out..."
Chen Sisi was a bit angry: "Couldn't you have stopped him? The second young master said we couldn't go out at night. Was he looking to die? In a mission of this difficulty, losing someone on the first night is just throwing lives away!"
"I did try to stop him!" Tao Jianchun immediately said. "But he insisted it would be fine. What could I do? If he was determined to get himself killed, was I supposed to die with him? It's not like we were anything to each other!"
Chen Sisi: "..."
It did seem to make sense, in a way.
"Let's stop arguing," Bai Shuwen mediated. "What's done is done. Arguing won't change anything. At a time like this, we need to stick together and find a way to complete the mission. Let's make sure no one else dies from now on."
Hearing this, the two quieted down. Dong Yue asked softly, "What about the body... What should we do? Just leave it here?"
As soon as she finished speaking, suddenly several maids ran in. They quickly cleaned up all the minced meat on the ground, then one of them picked up Liu Zhuang's head and left like the wind.
Everyone: "..."
Right after, the butler walked in, followed by several servants carrying food boxes.
Despite one person being missing, the butler acted as if he hadn't noticed, smiling as he asked, "Good morning, everyone. Did you sleep well last night?"
