Chapter Sixty: Weeping Before Marriage (30)

When Suman took the camera to check it, the older man spoke again, “Young lady, I… didn’t you want to see the bride’s photo earlier?”

Suman looked up.

He pointed at the camera in her hand. “I just happened to flip through it, and I saw a photo of the bride in there.”

Shuyi?

Suman immediately started searching through the camera.

Her gaze fixed on a particular photo—it was an image of a news article.

A news report from fifty years ago.

“Wealthy heiress Huang Meilun disappears in the countryside; family offers a large reward.” Beneath it was a photo of Huang Meilun herself.

A yellow dress, graceful features—even from the photo, one could tell she was poised and well-educated.

Lin Qi had been right from the beginning; this truly was news from fifty years ago.

“Huang Meilun... she’s my sister!” Meihuan appeared behind her, staring intently at the photo. “She was really outstanding.”

But Suman hesitated and asked the older man, “Are you sure this is the bride?”

She was certain that Shuyi and Huang Meilun had distinctly different appearances, though both were beautiful.

Had she misunderstood everything from the start? The resemblance between Huang Meilun and the wandering woman she’d seen was at least sixty percent.

“It’s definitely her, no mistake!” the man insisted, though after he spoke, he seemed to realize something was amiss. Still, he remained adamant he hadn’t misidentified her.

Suman’s mind was in turmoil; all the clues she’d organized were now a tangled mess.

To make everything make sense, there was only one explanation: Huang Meilun was Shuyi, and Shuyi was Huang Meilun.

But she wasn’t from the village, so there was no reason she shouldn’t be able to distinguish Shuyi’s face—the two women simply looked different to her.

Just as she was racking her brain, her gaze swept past the door and suddenly she caught sight of Huang Meilun, standing outside.

But this time, Huang Meilun’s figure was extremely blurry, almost as if she was about to vanish. Her face no longer wore its gentle smile; instead, she looked anxious.

Suman’s eyes glanced over the people in the room—no one else saw her.

It seemed only Suman could see her.

“Save him… save him…” Huang Meilun struggled to speak, gesturing and trying to communicate as though learning to talk.

And at that moment, Suman received the last task in the book.

[Task 3: Accept the NPC’s plea and fulfill her wish.
Note: Regardless of whether the task is completed, there is a one-day time limit. After one day, the game ends. The player will not be punished, but the final reward will be allocated based on the progress made.]

This task was actually connected to Huang Meilun; Suman had thought the final task would involve Miaosheng.

Huang Meilun was still trying to speak, but her figure was fading rapidly, her expression growing more desperate.

Suman ignored the presence of others and asked, “Who should I save?”

“Miao… Miaosheng.”

Barely managing to utter Miaosheng’s name, Huang Meilun’s image flickered, panic etched on her face, and then she vanished.

Suman frowned. Miaosheng again.

When all impossibilities are eliminated, whatever remains—however improbable—must be the truth. Suman was beginning to believe it: perhaps Huang Meilun really was Shuyi! She hadn’t died!

But since she never explained anything, how was Suman supposed to save anyone?

And what about Miaosheng? What had happened to him?

Suman found these people endlessly troublesome.

Moreover, if Shuyi was still alive, and Miaosheng was still pursuing resurrection techniques, what exactly would he bring back?

They were certainly presenting her with a challenge. She genuinely wished she could throw up her hands and let these troublemakers perish.

Carrying the camera, she returned to Lin Qi’s room and began drawing a spirit-summoning array in silence.

Sun Li stood guard at her side, keeping watch both against outsiders and against anything strange she might summon.

Drawing the array was easy for her; she placed the camera’s identity card onto it, then dripped a drop of blood and watched the array closely.

First, she could distinctly feel her mental energy being drawn away—a good omen. But as white smoke began to swirl over the array, Suman felt a growing sense of unease.

When she’d summoned Zhou Bin before, the scene had been just like this. Sure enough, within the smoke a small shadow emerged. As the white mist dispersed, what appeared on the array was Lin Qi’s head!

Who knew if Lin Qi in this state could still act as the array’s anchor?

“I… I… huh?” Lin Qi’s eyes flashed with confusion. “What happened? Why am I here again? Where is this?”

Clearly, the soul-capturing spell no longer affected him; he was fully lucid.

“Oh, right, my camera! I need to tell you, I saw that wealthy heiress from fifty years ago!”

“The photo is in my camera! It’s her, the yellow dress—even though she doesn’t look as good as she did in the photo now, I know it’s her!” His emotions ran high, and only after the excitement faded did he realize he was nothing but a head.

He fell silent, struggling to grasp his current state.

Suman paused for a moment, then asked abruptly, “You’re a player, aren’t you?”

Lin Qi’s eyes flickered. “I… I don’t know, what do you mean by player?”

Alright, she already had her answer.

This confirmed her fleeting suspicion: only players could see Huang Meilun.

She didn’t dwell on the player question. Instead, she asked, “You were with the village chief earlier, right? Do you know what happened over there?”

She recalled Huang Mei’s earlier words and asked, “Did a lot of people die over there?”

“You know about that too?” Lin Qi was shocked. Just a moment ago, he’d witnessed a bloodbath there. He shivered. “Let me tell you, the village chief is a villain! He’s murdering people!”

“All villagers—none of them knew what was happening, and he stabbed them in the back.”

He’d been tied to a strange pillar at the time, blood crawling up his body. He was terrified, and suddenly his vision shifted, landing him here with Suman.

“Did you see Miaosheng?” Suman was most concerned about this.

Given Huang Meilun’s plea, Miaosheng’s situation couldn’t be good. She wondered if perhaps Miaosheng and the village chief had already begun to clash.

“Him? No, I only saw the village chief, madly killing people.” Lin Qi sounded regretful. “If I had my camera, I’d have gotten some first-hand evidence.”

Suman ignored him, kicked his head aside, and went back to drawing on the floor—this time with even greater care, hoping to avoid another Lin Qi-like mishap.

This time, she intended to summon Huang Meilun herself; she preferred to ask her questions directly.

But she didn’t have anything belonging to Huang Meilun. After thinking it over, she took out the fifty-year-old photo and placed it on the array.

She wasn’t sure if it would work, but even if it didn’t, it would still summon something related to Lin Qi—perhaps even his body.

She activated the array again, her mental energy draining, a sign that the first step had succeeded. The array filled with thick smoke. Suman grew excited—this time was different, the mist was vast; at least it wouldn’t just be a head.