Chapter 75: Old House in the Deep Mountains
Translated by Karai of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Addis
Su Mo had to first assist ClearWind and check on Watermelon’s situation. In the deep night, the Illumination Scroll proved very useful for guiding their way. Su Mo and ClearWind quickly reached the designated location, and after twenty minutes of arduous trekking, Watermelon arrived at the vicinity of the mansion. All the mountain demons were kept at bay outside the barrier.
The five members of the nighttime group successfully regrouped, and Yu Zhen’s group managed to knock on the mansion’s door.
An old man, leaning on a cane and with cloudy eyes, answered the door. Seeing Yu Zhen and the others, he asked where they came from and why they were there. Yu Zhen and his group had to lie, claiming to be lost travelers seeking shelter in the mountains.
The old man didn’t seem suspicious. After a few more questions, he let them in and even invited them to drink tea in the main hall.
The daytime group successfully entered the mansion, while the nighttime group rested at the mansion’s gate, waiting for updates from their daytime teammates. Since entering the Autumn Realm, they hadn’t encountered any bosses. It seemed likely that passing through this realm required completing a specific task rather than defeating a boss.
“This place is too ridiculous,” Watermelon said, collapsing to the ground. “What now? Should we enter this haunted mansion in front of us?”
“I’m logging off to have dinner. I’ll be back later,” Su Mo said, assessing the situation and confirming there was no immediate danger. “You guys stay here. If you encounter an emergency, just enter the mansion.”
Bitter Melon added, “It’s also time for a break. I’m logging off for dinner too.”
Hearing this, the online addicts Watermelon and Yellow Peach were dumbfounded, “Are you leaving just the three of us here?”
“It’s very safe here now. The monsters outside can’t get in, and you shouldn’t enter the mansion either,” Su Mo said, looking at them strangely. “It’s best to have at least one person online to prevent the team from disbanding due to inactivity. Bitter Melon and I will come back after dinner to relieve you.”
“By the way, keep an eye on your surroundings during this time. Let me know if anything comes up.”
Yellow Peach said, “Boss… It’s not about eating or not.”
Watermelon added, “The problem is that it’s just the three of us.”
Su Mo glanced around, seeing nothing else. “Is there a problem?”
ClearWind nonchalantly said, “No problem, bro. Go have your meal.”
Watermelon was speechless. “…!” Momo and Bitter Melon quickly logged off.
Yellow Peach, feeling a bit tempted, said, “Then I’ll…”
Watermelon cut him off, “You can’t.”
Yellow Peach whimpered, “Eep!”
The three members of the night group stood at the door, staring at the red lanterns hanging above. With nowhere to go for the time being, they eventually chose to sit on the steps at the entrance, backs against the door, gazing into the forest where countless pairs of tree demon eyes stared back at them.
ClearWind, feeling a bit bored, looked at the two brothers sitting on either side of him and asked, “How about we play a round of ‘Fight the Landlord’?”
Being in the forest didn’t feel that eerie, but sitting in front of this spooky mansion made them uneasy.
Yellow Peach said, “It’s so creepy now that they’re gone.”
Watermelon tried to muster some courage, “The atmosphere is too realistic. Never mind, let’s play cards.”
Just then, they suddenly heard the sound of the old mansion door opening behind them, which instantly gave them goosebumps. ClearWind was about to set up the card table, but froze at the sound.
ClearWind raised his head at the noise, glancing towards the door out of the corner of his eye. The door seemed to still be closed. “Was that my imagination? I thought I heard the door opening.”
Yellow Peach was quite certain, “It was an illusion. Let’s play cards.”
Watermelon added, “That was just the sound of the wind. The wind in these mountains is really strong.”
The daytime group seemed to have entered a new plot point, and the voice channel suddenly fell silent, leaving only the sounds of the three of them playing cards and chatting.
Amid their lively chatter, the mansion door behind them opened slightly, and a ghostly blue eye peered out, seemingly watching them.
***
Su Mo logged back in later. When he came online, his three teammates were huddled near the mansion entrance, with Bitter Melon standing beside them talking. The team voice channel was quite lively, indicating that the daytime group had made significant progress.
“After we followed the old man inside, we had ZenSlasher sneak around the courtyard to check other places. Guess what? There wasn’t even a boss; the entire courtyard was only inhabited by the old man,” Apple continued. “He agreed to let us stay overnight but insisted that we must not leave our rooms at night. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
Yu Zhen summarized their experience: the courtyard housed only an elderly man, there were no task prompts, no anomalies during the day, no tree ghosts appearing at night, no boss, and nothing else of note. He tried talking to the old man and gleaned two details:
- The old man was the owner of the courtyard, with children who had been away for many years, leaving him to live alone.
- The old man typically went out in the morning to hunt and fish in the forest, spent the afternoons gardening in the courtyard, and stayed indoors at night.
“ZenSlasher mapped out the courtyard after her exploration and has sent the layout to you via friend mail,” Yu Zhen explained concisely.
“The layout is simple: there are four courtyards to the east, south, west, and north. The entrance leads to the southern main hall, which is where the old man entertains guests. The eastern courtyard is the old man’s residence, the western courtyard is for guests, and the northern courtyard contains a few buildings, including a shrine,” Su Mo observed the layout map, feeling an eerie sensation. He paused briefly, “Are there any task clues?”
“There’s a small one. We went to the kitchen,” Yu Zhen said. “The old man lives alone, but there was an unusually large amount of food prepared for lunch. We’re planning to check the study next. It’s currently afternoon, and the old man is gardening in the eastern courtyard.”
“We haven’t made any further progress on our end; you might need to find the clues,” Yu Zhen added. “We noticed that we couldn’t use lightfoot when we entered the courtyard, so be careful.”
Su Mo looked around and then frowned slightly.
It seemed that to complete this task, they needed to first enter the courtyard. “We don’t have any invisibility items, so this task is up to you, Watermelon.”
Watermelon replied, “… There won’t be any weird things in there, right?”
Su Mo answered, “There will be.”
Watermelon was speechless.
“Get ready.” Su Mo had already walked to the courtyard door. Before knocking, he tried to push it open and was surprised to find it wasn’t locked. As soon as he pushed it open, a prompt suddenly appeared.
[Legend has it that deep within the mountains, there is a secluded courtyard hiding untold secrets… until one day, someone knocked on its door in the dead of night.] [The courtyard door has opened, triggering the special challenge task of the Autumn Realm: Kill the Elder (Night)] [Congratulations, players, on arriving at the mountain courtyard in the Autumn Realm. The failure condition for this stage is the total annihilation of all night players. The Autumn Realm has no special restrictions, but please proceed with caution.]
Everyone was speechless. Damn, after all that searching, the task was to simply push the door open.
“It must be a special dual-line task,” Yu Zhen realized immediately upon seeing the task. “It splits into day and night; during the day, we likely need to do something to support you at night. The day group assists, and the night group kills. You all need to go inside.” As soon as he pushed the door open, the entire courtyard came into view for Su Mo. The first thing he noticed was the light source that had been guiding them. However, upon pushing open the door, he found that the room was empty. The main hall was immediately visible upon entry, lit by four candles. There was no one present, but on either side of the hall, small tables were set with tea cups, totaling six with the host’s cup included.
Five tea cups, just enough for a team.
Once everyone entered, the door behind them slammed shut.
“What happened?” “Did the door just shut by itself?” “Are we locked in?”
Su Mo observed for a while and suddenly felt his vision growing darker. Realizing what was happening, he shouted, “Don’t look at the candles! Everyone close your eyes!”
The others quickly averted their gaze at his shout.
“What’s going on?” “Don’t scare me, man.”
Su Mo’s vision went completely dark, and his personal status showed a condition [Blindness], lasting for 30 minutes. Because he had stared at the candles for too long, he fell into darkness.
“I’m blinded,” Su Mo said simply. “Everything in this courtyard is strange. Don’t look at the candles.”
Upon hearing Su Mo’s voice, Yu Zhen on the other side instantly realized the seriousness of the situation. “How many people are blinded?”
Upon Su Mo’s shout, Watermelon and the others quickly averted their gaze, still able to see.
“We’re all fine, just big bro can’t see,” ClearWind said.
Just upon entering the house, the commander went blind, making the situation increasingly difficult. They stood facing the door, completely unwilling to turn around.
“Get rid of the candles,” Watermelon suggested.
“How do we destroy the candles? They seem like non-attackable units. We can’t lock on without looking,” Yellow Peach replied.
ClearWind drew his sword and stood ready. “Should I go and demonstrate blind slashing to everyone?”
“Don’t move. The rule says think carefully before acting,” Su Mo thought quickly. “Watermelon, I’ll temporarily hand command over to you. We’re going to the kitchen.”
“How do we get there?” asked Watermelon.
“That means walking with eyes closed,” Watermelon said. “Feel the walls. Big bro leads, Yellow Peach takes the rear.”
“Why am I taking the rear?” Yellow Peach asked.
Watermelon sighed, “Front shield, rear healer. Isn’t this basic positioning?”
Su Mo couldn’t help but speak up, “…Just stay with your back to the light, no need to close your eyes.”
“Watermelon and ClearWind lead the way, Yellow Peach in the middle,” Su Mo’s cane tapped the ground and turned into a crutch. “Bitter melon, we’ll go last, take it slow, no rush.”
“Slowly, slowly,” Bitter melon quickly walked up beside Su Mo, holding his other hand. “Come, let me guide you.”
Watermelon: “…”
As long as they kept their backs to the light, they could move sideways safely without facing the light directly.
The kitchen was located in the west courtyard. They walked along the side path and then through a small door to the west courtyard.
“This house is really big, a mansion.”
“These villas in the mountains are really something else.”
“I think I can hear the sound of flowing water.”
The group moved purposefully to the west courtyard. Two corridors extended, and they immediately saw a very large lake. Seeing a lake within the mansion was rare, let alone such a large one.
“ZenSlasher, is this the little lake you marked?” ClearWind checked the blueprint to confirm he hadn’t misread.
ZenSlasher replied, “It doesn’t matter, as long as we know it’s a lake.”
The route to the kitchen wasn’t difficult. They briefly admired the lake and soon arrived at the kitchen. The kitchen and woodshed were in the same small courtyard, which wasn’t large. There were miscellaneous items piled up in the corners, and a dead tree stood at the courtyard entrance.
Once inside, they pushed open the kitchen door and were immediately hit by a face full of dust.
Su Mo frowned. “Is there a lot of dust?”
“Yeah, it’s all dusty,” Yellow Peach inspected the surroundings, noticing even cobwebs. “Is this really a kitchen?”
The kitchen was completely different from what they had seen during the day.
Something was wrong. According to Su Mo’s original understanding, they should have been in the same day with both day and night phases, but it now seemed not to be the case. It appeared to be two separate scenarios. Moreover, elimination meant death, indicating that the nighttime environment could be extremely dangerous, dangerously close to eliminating them.
“Watermelon, try to go around and see if there’s our target elder in this mansion,” Su Mo instructed, “This place probably isn’t a continuation of their daytime scenario, but rather another independent setting. And it’s likely not a puzzle-solving dungeon, but a limited-time challenge-type dungeon… The main system is deceiving us.”
As he finished speaking, a voice suddenly came from the courtyard outside the kitchen.
ClearWind rushed out to assess the situation, only to see the dead tree in the courtyard suddenly come to life, its branches extending straight towards him and forcefully pushing him inside.
“Damn it, there’s an ambush outside!!” ClearWind hurried back and slammed the door shut.
Yellow Peach realized, “Are we lured in here to be killed?”
Su Mo finally understood what was wrong. This dungeon wasn’t the puzzle-solving task they thought it was; it was a 5-player challenge. The inability to use light skills and the blindness debuff upon entry, along with potential other debuffs within the mansion, hinted at a more dangerous situation.
The mission was described as a challenge, but the misleading mission prompts and the scene seemed to indicate that they needed to solve puzzles to complete the assassination task. So they went straight to solve the puzzles. During the day, they mentioned problems in the kitchen, so he subconsciously headed there. In reality, the kitchen was just a trap to lure them in and set up an ambush.
“Is the old man still tending to flowers in the east courtyard?” Su Mo asked.
ZenSlasher, who had been invisibly following the old man, immediately responded, “Yes… He’s started moving.”
Alternatively, they might consider various destinations to visit, such as the guest residence in the west courtyard, which should still hold other tricks. The more places they visit, the greater the risk of death. Their task was actually very simple: find the old man and kill him.
“I’ll go.” Bitter Melon grabbed his knife and stepped out, only to be heavily struck and swept back inside by the branches of the withered tree.
Watermelon’s foot, moving towards the outside, hesitated and pulled back.
Yellow Peach withdrew his healing hands. “Can we get out?”
At that moment, the spider web on the ceiling suddenly fell down, enveloping everyone directly below in a debuff [Slowed], followed by rustling sounds from outside.
It seemed they were surrounded by something.
