By the time Su Man led Bai Youwei and the others up to the third floor, the man in the torture chamber had stirred awake.

He found himself looking up at a group of women and showed not the slightest surprise. He introduced himself as the manor’s gardener.

— Hua Jiang had been imprisoned here by the Duke on account of his handsome face. Whenever the Duke wished to test a new bride, he would release Hua Jiang; and if any bride so much as made the faintest contact with him, the Duke’s fury would be ignited and she would be slain without mercy.

The women all understood, upon hearing this, that he was an NPC within the game.

Though it was rather uncommon for a game to feature an NPC who arrived with his own built-in backstory…

Perhaps because they had all suffered under the Duke’s tyranny — kindred souls adrift in the same misfortune — Hua Jiang’s attitude toward them was warm and approachable. He told them:

“The Duke will only kill a bride who has broken his rules. As long as you don’t break them, you won’t be in danger.”

“How do we avoid breaking them?” Zhu Shu asked. “Last night at dinner, he killed one of us.”

Hua Jiang said, “You must not remove the bridal gown that marks your identity. You must not refuse to dine with the Duke. You must not speak to any man other than the Duke… As long as you don’t provoke him, the Duke will not harm you.”

“But we’ve already violated his rules…” Cheng Qian said, her voice trembling. “We entered the locked room. We… we also spoke to a man who wasn’t the Duke…”

As she spoke, she looked at the blood-soaked torture devices around the room. Her courage collapsed, and she instinctively stepped back — and stumbled into something behind her. It caught the back of her hand, and she cried out in pain and fright!

The Witch’s Chair — an ancient instrument of torture, fitted with nails along its back and armrests. Whoever sat in it would be steadily pierced all over. Countless innocent women had been condemned as witches and executed upon it during the medieval period.

Cheng Qian had only nicked the back of her hand, but her nerves were on the verge of breaking!

Clutching her hand, she cried out in terror, “I can’t stay here anymore! I want to go back to my room!”

“It’s just a scratch! Not a severed hand or a broken leg! Can you not calm down?!” Hu Ya snapped at her. “If you keep making noise, you’ll bring Bluebeard right to us!”

Cheng Qian’s pupils shot wide — as though paralyzed by fear — her back hunching, her eyes darting in wild, frantic glances to the left and then to the right, terrified that Bluebeard might lunge from some corner at any moment!

Su Man had always found this girl — who used to flaunt herself in front of Li Li — deeply irritating. But now, watching her come apart like this, she felt a complicated, heavy feeling settle over her.

Bai Youwei had surveyed every torture device in the room. She turned to Hua Jiang and asked, “Do you know a way out of here?”

Hua Jiang blinked and replied, “To leave this place, you must find a key.”

“A key?” Bai Youwei’s eyes narrowed slightly. “The Inspector told us that to leave, we had to become the last bride. It never mentioned any key.”

Hua Jiang shook his head. “I don’t know anything about the last bride. All I know is that to leave this place, you need a key to the gate outside. The Duke has hidden it somewhere in this manor.”

Bai Youwei furrowed her brow and regarded him in silence.

The Inspector told them to become the last bride. The NPC was telling them to find a key. Was the Inspector playing word games — or was the NPC lying?

Zhu Shu said quietly beside her, “The NPC’s information may be limited. It’s perfectly possible that it doesn’t know about the Inspector’s clue. I think looking for the key is worth a try.”

Bai Youwei thought for a moment, then said deliberately, as a test, “Shouldn’t we kill the Duke to get out of here?”

“Kill the Duke?” Hua Jiang’s voice shot up immediately. “That’s impossible! No matter how badly the Duke is wounded, he recovers almost instantly. No one can truly harm him! You should find the key as quickly as you can — once the sun goes down, it will be too late!”

—