Chapter 35: Truth

In an instant, the man’s waist bent over like a shrimp!

Although Zhou You had never trained in any martial arts, he was still young and fit. Moreover, the punch had landed on the most vulnerable part of the human body, the abdomen. On top of that, the other man had been terrified and never expected any resistance at all!

His face instantly changed from red to purple. As his throat convulsed, a stream of stomach acid poured out.

But Zhou You gave him no time to recover.

He directly knocked him to the ground, grabbed a length of plastic cord from the nearby desk, twisted the man’s arms behind his back, pinned his wrists down, and skillfully tied a dead knot.

Only then did he grab the man’s collar, haul him upright, and smile.

“Long time no see, boss. How have you been lately?”

The subdued man coughed violently several times before raising his head and looking at Zhou You through blurry eyes.

“You’re... that new patrol worker? Wait, wait, don’t kill me! I wasn’t the one who killed you, really! Believe me!”

Why is this guy still insisting I’m dead?

Zhou You looked up at the clock and saw that he still had more than ten minutes to have a little heart-to-heart talk with the Security Captain.

So he simply pulled over a chair, sat down in front of him, and said,

“Relax, relax. I’m not going to kill you. There are just a few things I’d like to ask. Mind answering them for me?”

The man nodded frantically.

“Then first.” Thanks to the effects of Basic Acting, Zhou You’s expression was currently extremely friendly. “You’ve kept saying that I’m dead. What exactly do you mean by that?”

The Security Captain looked at Zhou You and cautiously replied,

“Well... if I tell the truth, please don’t get angry. I found your corpse by the riverside before, and the way you died was extremely strange. Then at night you suddenly appeared here again. That obviously means you came back as a ghost! Really, I wasn’t the one who killed you. Please let me go!”

Zhou You clicked his tongue.

“Then since you say my corpse looked strange, exactly how strange did it look?”

Unexpectedly, the man glanced at him timidly before tremblingly answering,

“It looked exactly like you do right now.”

Exactly like I do right now?

Zhou You froze.

Then he suddenly remembered something.

He had never seen a mirror in this scenario.

Likewise, he had never once seen his own appearance.

So what exactly did he look like now?

Looking around, Zhou You found nothing he could use as a reflection. Even the windows in this damned place were pitch-black.

Fortunately, that didn’t pose much of a challenge.

He yanked the Security Captain to his feet and turned the man’s eyes toward himself.

Within those terror-filled pupils, Zhou You finally saw his own face.

It was a bluish-gray visage devoid of all the color of the living.

Part of the top of his skull was missing, exposing the shriveled gray matter within.

“No wonder my head’s been feeling chilly lately. Turns out a chunk of my skull is gone...”

Zhou You fell silent for a moment.

Then he suddenly laughed.

Shaking his head, he looked toward a corner of the room.

“Monk, you’ve been standing there watching for quite a while now. Got anything to say?”

After a long pause, a gaunt figure emerged from the shadows.

“Benefactor, this poor monk greets you.”

Seeing the monk’s hesitant expression, Zhou You smiled naturally.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’ll only ask one thing. Is what he’s saying true? Am I really dead?”

The old monk gazed at Zhou You pitifully for a while before finally speaking in a low voice.

“From what this poor monk can see, benefactor, you are indeed dead. However, due to the influence of the night, you have not died completely. At present, you merely exist in a state that is neither fully ghost nor fully human, barely able to move about.”

Not the slightest trace of sorrow appeared on Zhou You’s face.

Instead, he laughed again.

“Then here’s the problem. When you saw me during the day, you didn’t react strangely at all. You even wanted me to deliver a message. Under normal circumstances, you’d never entrust the lives of an entire city to a ghost. So I should still have been alive at that point, right?”

“Indeed. During the daytime, benefactor was unquestionably alive. However, after entering the night this time, this poor monk discovered...”

The old monk hesitated several times but failed to complete a sentence.

So Zhou You finished it for him.

“You discovered that the daytime and nighttime timelines don’t match up at all, right?”

The monk’s words stopped abruptly.

His expression became one of utter disbelief.

Yet Zhou You merely continued smiling.

“In fact, I should’ve noticed from the newspaper long ago. I just never thought in that direction.”

“Before meeting you, I helped a sanitation worker. That wasn’t anything special. Helping others is a good thing. But that same night, there was suddenly news about improvements throughout the entire sanitation system. And that’s where the problem lies.”

The corner of his mouth curled upward with unmistakable mockery.

“Under normal circumstances, restructuring an entire system could never be accomplished in such a short time. A few hours isn’t even enough for newspaper layout and printing, let alone producing a finished edition.”

“And yet I did it in the afternoon, and it appeared in the news that very night.”

“So there must be a time gap between day and night. They may be separated by several days. That’s why you saw me alive during the day, but by nighttime I’d already been murdered.”

Having reached his conclusion, Zhou You looked up and smiled.

“Am I right, Monk?”

The old monk simply lowered his head in silence.

His actions spoke for themselves.

Then Zhou You turned toward the bound Security Captain.

“As for you, what exactly should I do with you?”

Seeing this, the man began struggling frantically.

“No, no! I didn’t kill you! Your death had nothing to do with me! The ghosts did it! Please spare me! Really, please spare me!”

“But you were one of the masterminds, weren’t you?”

The Security Captain’s voice abruptly stopped.

Tears and snot still covered his face, but now his eyes were filled with terror.

So Zhou You continued.

“I remember every word from Liu Shang’s diary. He wrote that he had ‘the security company under him hire an ignorant fool every day as a sacrifice.’ A man like him would never handle that personally. Someone had to carry it out. And the fear hidden in your eyes on the first day wasn’t fake.”

“So the person specifically responsible for hiring these ‘fools’ was you. Am I right, dear Captain?”

The man looked at Zhou You as if he were staring at a complete stranger.

Then he suddenly cried out,

“No, no! I was forced into it too! I owed an enormous gambling debt and couldn’t repay it. Boss Liu personally came to threaten me. I had no choice! Besides, retribution already hit me recently. I lost every bit of the payment I received. Please spare me! Spare me! Don’t kill me!”

So that huge pile of money I found belonged to you.

Instantly feeling completely justified, Zhou You looked up at the clock before speaking.

“Relax. I already told you that I won’t kill you. I’m a man of my word. If I say I won’t kill you, I won’t.”

With that, Zhou You stood up and gently placed the man onto a chair.

At that moment, the television switched on automatically.

The pale figure appeared once more.

Meanwhile, blood had already begun seeping across the floor.

“So, Captain, please just sit there quietly.”

“Dear player, you have uncovered the underlying worldview of this scenario.”

“Scenario completion has greatly increased.”

“You have obtained the purple consumable item: Bloodstained Document.”

“Effect: By establishing a contract with this document, you will not be harmed by monsters for three minutes. (Ineffective if the monster’s strength greatly exceeds your own.)”

It will give you everything you desire, but you must pay the price. Fortunately, someone has already paid it for you this time.