Chapter 126 The Singer, Oh, the Singer 58

"She had a friend named Xia Suhe. I went to ask her at the time, but I probably didn't think of this layer, so the questions I asked weren't very critical."

"At that time, Xia Suhe still gave me a little clue."

What did Xia Suhe say back then?

"Actually... I've always felt that the murderer isn't necessarily Hou Pan, otherwise Zheng Zheng couldn't have kept wandering around the residential complex... Zheng Zheng knew where Hou Pan's home was."

"If it was really Hou Pan who killed her, why didn't she go directly to kill Hou Pan, instead of wandering around the residential complex?"

"I believe that the one who killed her is someone in the residential complex."

Why did Hu Zhengzheng keep wandering around the residential complex? Why did she keep singing? Why was the first thing she did after becoming a supernatural entity to slaughter the original residents of the residential complex?

Don't forget, the original residents are not players; the original residents are the "NPCs" in the game.

Hu Zhengzheng is the instance BOSS; NPCs are equivalent to employees under her jurisdiction.

Which company's new chairman, upon taking office, would first lay off two-thirds of the company's employees, and then, without hiring new ones, just happily watch their own performance plummet?

Not to mention that those residents violated the rules; under normal circumstances, the consequences for instance NPCs violating rules are not as severe as they are for players.

NPCs and the supernatural instance are on the same side; the instance is much more patient with its own people. In many cases, the NPCs themselves are the bait provided by the instance. If a player replicates what an NPC has done, it is very easy to violate the rules and then be corrupted.

There is no such thing as self-destruction.

Unless the chairman is seeking revenge—a personal vendetta.

Then, applying this to Hu Zhengzheng...

"Hu Zhengzheng is seeking revenge. Every single one of the residents she killed was a murderer."

"Ignoring her pleas for help, being indifferent to her pain, and deliberately twisting the harm she suffered—this is also killing her, not to mention that some residents were tempted by Hou Pan to hide him in their homes."

"The residents, just like Hou Pan, are all murderers."

It's just a difference between stabbing directly and cutting flesh with a dull knife.

"Hu Zhengzheng must have called for help when she died, but those residents, perhaps afraid of causing trouble and thinking it's better to avoid extra complications, did not respond to her pleas for help."

Hu Zhengzheng singing over and over again at the time of her death was merely replicating her calling for help over and over again when she died.

The condition for an S-rank clearance is to find The Perpetrator and eliminate him.

Everyone in Xieyou Alley should like the Songstress's singing.

This rule is actually: kill all the residents who watched coldly and did not respond when Hu Zhengzheng called for help.

Only those who responded to Hu Zhengzheng's pleas for help can survive.

Zhang Minxian opened her mouth, and it took her a long while to organize her words: "...Isn't this, a bit too extreme?"

Extreme?

Perhaps.

After all, ignoring others' pain and disasters is not strictly considered any moral defect. After all, as the old saying goes, sweep the snow from your own doorstep, don't concern yourself with the frost on your neighbor's roof.

What does your pain have to do with me? It's not me who's suffering anyway, and meddling might ruin my current stable life.

Thinking about it this way, those bystanders among the residents don't seem to be wrong either.

But what about Hu Zhengzheng herself? She desperately called for help over and over again when she was being murdered, yet received no response—can't she resent those people?

"Hu Zhengzheng is already dead; she is now a supernatural entity. The thoughts of a supernatural entity cannot be judged by common sense, not to mention that this matter itself... is not very difficult to understand."

The supermarket door was opened.

Several people stood at the entrance.

Cheng Shengtian, who looked exhausted and vigilant, Zhang Zhendong, a team member following behind him, and the Black-skinned Sugarcane known as "Jie Yu" in the stairwell.

The eyes of several people fell on Lin Xiangjun.

The actions just now were truly a bit messy; Lin Xiangjun was covered in quite a bit of blood, and at this moment, she looked somewhat terrifying.

"Sister Lin, you are..."

Did you come back after establishing friendly diplomatic relations with a chainsaw-wielding clown from abroad?

Lin Xiangjun understood the hesitation in their eyes, but she didn't care and casually wiped her face with her sleeve: "Quite a big lineup. Do you need to group up just to come find me to trade clues now?"

Where are there any clues to trade?

They were just passing by on the upper floor and heard the faint screams coming from inside the supermarket, so they came down to see what happened.

If there were no clues, it wouldn't be a loss; after all, it was just the effort of going downstairs to take a look, but if there was some new discovery, that would be pure profit.

The few of them were waiting at the door with the mentality of "since we're already here," "take a look before leaving," and "it doesn't hurt anyway."

Who would have known that this sister was actually slaughtering inside the supermarket.

Look at this sister's appearance, her face splattered with blood, her eyes as fierce as someone who had been slaughtering pigs for eighteen years; and look at that unknown pink five-pointed star object behind her, and the bloody, mangled piece of meat she was holding in her hand—isn't that the Supermarket Owner who had been sitting behind the counter playing games?

Zhang Zhendong not only had keen observation skills but was also quite thick-skinned.

He quickly realized that Lin Xiangjun must have discovered some important clue and wanted to verify it from the Supermarket Owner's mouth, which was why she acted this way.

Simply put, it was Lin Xiangjun conducting a forced interrogation.

And this Supermarket Owner probably didn't tell the truth, or didn't reveal all the intelligence, otherwise, according to this sister's methods, after asking for information, she would definitely have sent him off to paradise with a single slash; would she still be able to specifically use a prop to pack up and take the Supermarket Owner with her?

He smiled slightly obsequiously, rubbing his hands together as he stepped forward: "Sister Lin, we mainly heard that the commotion here was too loud. Isn't it because we were afraid you might encounter some danger, so we wanted to come up and lend a hand? How is it? If there's anything you need our help with, just say the word."

The words sounded nice.

But to put it bluntly, they were just here to freeload.

Cheng Shengtian swallowed her saliva.

Her current state was very bad; the corruption had already exceeded the mild level and was just a step away from crossing the threshold of moderate.

But the will to survive still supported her actions.

She couldn't help but take a step forward. Even though she was a rather thin girl, she actually squeezed Zhang Zhendong aside. Her voice was eager, and her expression carried some fanaticism:

"Sister Lin, do you know how to clear the instance?"

Although it was a question, her tone was certain; clearly, she had already concluded that Lin Xiangjun knew how to clear the instance.

"Sister Lin, what exactly do we need to do to clear the instance now? You tell us, and we will help you complete the clearance conditions together, okay?"

Zhang Zhendong hadn't reacted when he was squeezed to the side by Cheng Shengtian, and after hearing what Cheng Shengtian said, he was even more frightened, his eyes widening.

Are you crazy?

Don't you have any idea what kind of temper and methods Sister Lin has?

The last person who begged for things so confidently doesn't even know where their corpse is rotting.