Chapter 21: Underworld Player Chapter 28

As the speaker pulsed to the energetic rhythm of the line-dancing music, Late Night Kitty grit her teeth against the weirdly conflicting emotions that were triggered inside her, and together with Bai Zhi, went over the kitchen with a fine-tooth comb.

The power of a good BGM is undeniable. As everybody knows, just like the key to defeating Jackie Chan is to take him on somewhere with no props (and not to wear anything he can grab, like a shirt or tie), the key to defeating Master Wong Fei-hung is not to hone one's martial arts prowess, but simply to turn his amp off*.

As loud as the music was, however, it was drowned out by the cascading rain and sporadic crashes of resounding thunder and blinding-white lightning.

Thus, the two people on the other team had no clue what was happening in the kitchen, beyond perhaps suddenly recalling a familiar, upbeat earworm.

Between Bai Zhi and Late Night Kitty, the two made short work of the modestly-sized kitchen as they conducted their search using the powerful flashlights. They found nothing of note, other than the head in the fridge, but it was enough to cause one of them to develop a fascination with the mysterious contents of the pot on the stove.

To Bai Zhi's great regret, Late Night Kitty promptly dragged him away from the accursed object. If she hadn't, Bai Zhi might have been tempted enough to scoop out a spoonful of that reddish-black substance and give it a thorough... examination.

As he left the room, Bai Zhi cast a thoughtful look at the black, dozen or so planks nailed willy-nilly across the windows. The windows are boarded up... Could it be to prevent leakage?

With each throb of the BGM's driving beat, Late Night Kitty gradually stopped being a dead weight, raising her flashlight and actively helping search for clues despite her jittery hands.

The efficiency of two pairs of hands over one was massive, and after doing a clean sweep of the kitchen, Bai Zhi and Late Night Kitty went on to systematically scour the main bedroom and a bathroom.

Even under the light, everything in the house looked grey. Judging by the thick layer of dust blanketing every surface and the heavy cobwebs in every corner, it looked like nobody had been in this villa for a very long time.

Just like in the kitchen, the windows in the other rooms had been boarded over with black planks, and when they entered the bathroom, they found the mirror completely covered by a strange black gunk that seemed to absorb the illumination of the flashlights in an unsettling way.

A certain Kitty once more ducked behind her unflappable partner.

Eventually, they finished searching the four locations they were responsible for and returned to the living room.

The ratty, stained couches were still in their place, and the candle on the coffee table still held on to its flickering flame, but the snacks on the table had been scattered on the ground at some point. The front door, once tightly shut, now yawned open and the shrieking wind surged freely in, spitting rain everywhere.

Let there be light.

As he stared at the snacks scattered all around where the couches were, Bai Zhi realized that things were not as simple as they seemed, and his eyes sank deep into his face as his brows ground together like tectonic plates.

———

Bai Zhi closed the door, moved to the couches, and cast a critical eye around the room.

The floor was littered with trash of various description, which now included the snacks previously arranged on the coffee table. The rain coming in from the broken window had combined with the dust and grime in the house to form dark, unsightly stains interspersed among inky puddles on the sodden floor.

In the center of the room stood the circle of couches, surrounding a damaged coffee table graced with a solitary candle burnt down to half the usual height, firmly ensconced in a candlestick.

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The curtains were mostly in a pile on the floor, save some stubborn scraps that clung to the railing, and big splotches could be seen where some ugly, dark-red substance had seeped into the fabric. Over the windows in this room, too, someone had nailed crisscrossing patches of wooden planks.

In such a dark and gloomy environment, made even darker and gloomier by the torrential rain outside, Bai Zhi stood next to the couches, his hands clasped behind his back as he looked, really looked, at each and every feature in the drab living room.

"...so, if the door is open, but no tracks were left on the grimy floor, it must have been the wind."

Bai Zhi muttered to himself, describing everything captured by his eagle-eyed gaze as he turned his attention from the door to the couch and coffee table.

"The ground next to the couches shows faint signs that they were moved, while those marks on the coffee table are clearly fingerprints. There are two sets of footprints, other than mine, around the couches, one made by a heavier person, the other by a lighter one with an unsteady gait—a woman, injured. Precisely why they could not do so much as close the damn door.”

Squatting down, Bai Zhi narrowed his eyes as he peered closely at the ground, aided, however feebly, by the light of the candle. He continued, "The scattered snacks, clearly a human hand at work. Knocked over by Temperance and Mustachio in a moment of panic, as they were threatened within an inch of their lives... The truth of the matter is clear as day...!"

A streak of lightning sundered the heavens and flooded the room with light. Bai Zhi wore a grave expression as he straightened up.

"Unlike Kitty and I, they did not make smooth progress, but encountered some crisis, and even got hurt in the process. Judging by the depth of the tracks they left, the injured party: Temperance Gentleheart, most likely. Thus, it was Mustachio who, in a valiant attempt to protect her, grabbed for something on the table in the living room and sent the snacks flying by accident..."

As he spoke, Bai Zhi swelled with pride like a great detective cracking a tough case. Finally, he turned to the two people who had been sitting across from him, looking at him like he was insane, and asked, "Well? I've deduced correctly, haven't I?"

He was greeted by dead silence from the two of them.

...Is this guy for real?!

Late Night Kitty, who, by now, had a good grasp on the personality of this Player known as [ Black&White ], merely turned away in mute resignation.

It was true, however—something bad had happened. Mustachio and Temperance had conducted their search of the guest bedroom and the storeroom with no incident, but when they searched the bathroom, Temperance had been attacked.

Black markings had surfaced on her neck, as if there were a pair of invisible hands trying to choke her. If Mustachio had not reacted quickly and yanked her out of the room, Temperance Gentleheart's Newbie Run may have ended there and then.

After a panicked moment spent gathering their wits, the two of them had returned to the living room to tend to the injury. The marks on Temperance's neck did not seem to worsen after she left the bathroom, but they looked quite concerning all the same.

It was in this vulnerable state, as they were assessing the damage, that they were joined by Late Night Kitty, who walked in with the portable speaker still blasting upbeat, festive music.

As for the Player known as [ Black&White ], without giving the shocked duo a second to recover, he had launched into a dramatic display of deduction, as if he were a real detective on a case...

Mustachio and Temperance were dazed and dumbfounded, respectively.

*Wong Fei-hung was a Chinese martial artist, physician, and folk hero who became the subject of numerous martial arts films and television series. Key fight scenes in those shows are often punctuated by the song 男儿当自强 (A Man Should Better Himself) playing in the background, giving rise to the meme that the BGM is the source of Wong Fei-hung's strength and it comes from an amp he always carries with him.

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