Game of Deception Chapter 168: Loop

"Soone's here?"

Hearing the lodious piano music, that thought popped into Ming Po's mind.

But he quickly dismissed the idea.

The music hadn't just started playing the mont he opened the door.

The piece was already a third of the way through, yet he had heard absolutely nothing while standing outside.

But when he pulled the door open, the music flowed out as if soone had hit play.

The lody brought Ming Po a sense of tranquility.

He stepped forward slowly, entering lody Manor.

A thick, soft carpet covered the floor starting right from the entryway. Walking on it produced almost no sound, like treading on cotton.

Ming Po didn't dare imagine just how filthy the carpet must be, given the thick layer of dust accumulated in the house. A single heavy stomp would probably kick up a visible cloud of gri.

Perhaps opening the door had disturbed the air.

A chill, tinged with a faint musty odor, washed over his face the mont he stepped inside. Even more cold air crept up his pant legs.

The temperature was four or five degrees lower than out in the forest.

With every breath, white mist puffed rhythmically from Ming Po's mouth.

Ming Po frowned slightly, waving a hand gently through the air. Sunlight streaming in from the doorway illuminated the floating dust motes, scattering as he swatted at them.

But imdiately after, Ming Po noticed sothing wrong—

The dust seed anchored in space. He swatted it away, only for it to snap right back to its original position the mont he withdrew his hand.

Ming Po stopped in his tracks, held his breath, and stood at the entrance to observe closely.

Once the air currents stirred up by his long trench coat settled completely, Ming Po saw it clearly: the dust wasn't floating randomly in the air at all. It was frozen in the void.

It was as if soone had pressed pause on ti itself in this place.

"Interesting..."

The corners of Ming Po's mouth curled up slightly as he walked further into the house.

His only complaint was his lack of a flashlight.

Even though he hadn't actually brought one, wasn't his background identity in this ga a Detective? Why would a Detective go anywhere without a flashlight? Shouldn't he have been able to find a spare in the car?

Surprisingly, however, the house had power.

Ming Po reached out and flipped the light switch in the entryway.

The lights flickered erratically twice before slowly brightening. It took nearly half a second to transition from a dim glow to full illumination.

Was this due to aging wiring? Or sothing else?

Ming Po didn't dwell on it and simply continued forward.

The path leading to the second floor was blocked by wooden crates. It wasn't impossible to move them aside, but it seed it didn't want him going up there just yet.

So, Ming Po followed the guidance and headed for the other rooms.

Or rather, there were no other rooms he could access.

The doors to every room in the house were shut tight.

Ming Po originally intended to just kick them open, but the mont his hand touched a doorknob, a line of text materialized:

[Cannot be opened]

Ming Po paused for a mont, then without hesitation, delivered three consecutive kicks to the door.

He wasn't going to just play along.

Dull thuds echoed like muffled thunder.

Yet, despite the three heavy kicks, the flimsy old wooden door didn't react in the slightest.

Ming Po reached out and touched it again, and another line of text appeared:

[It feels anchored to the space itself, entirely unmoving]

"Alright, alright..."

Ming Po was out of options here.

It seed that although the power of the Detective Title was weakened, it hadn't disappeared completely.

He could still "see" certain crucial details.

Or rather, only being able to see prompts for "crucial things" might actually be considered an optimization.

Conversely, since he couldn't kick these doors down, didn't that prove his ability to forcefully breach doors in the "Horror Broadcast" ga was simply part of that ga's specific rules?

This thought made Ming Po feel more confident.

It ant attempting to use brute force to break a puzzle wouldn't be penalized by the Ga of Deception!

Because when violence truly wasn't allowed, you simply couldn't execute it at all.

Ming Po walked forward along the only available path.

He passed through a corridor lined with portraits and entered the main hall.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

Ming Po muttered, "This isn't going to turn into Layers of Fear or P.T., is it?"

The piano music continued to play lodiously, and Ming Po still made no sound as he walked.

He flipped the light switch on in every new area he entered.

He took in the sights of the main hall.

Right in the center of the hall sat an antique grand piano.

On the wall directly facing the piano hung a frad group photograph, the glass cracked in three places. Beneath the photograph was a small reception table bearing an exquisite porcelain tea set and a strange ornant, flanked by two rocking chairs.

A thick layer of dust coated the table and the tea set.

Yet the ornant alone was pristine, as if soone wiped and polished it every single day.

It was a Daruma-thed Russian nesting doll.

Ming Po picked it up, but no information popped up.

He didn't mind, simply opening the nesting doll with genuine interest.

The outermost layer was a red Daruma. Opening it revealed a white Daruma, and inside that was another red one. After opening layer after layer, inside a white Daruma about the size of an egg, he found a ruby ring.

It was a gold ring, set with a ruby of about five carats.

"Whoa."

Ming Po marveled, "Rich folks."

He had already realized this, of course—after all, this manor was massive. Because a portion of it was built into the mountain, its true size couldn't be discerned from the outside.

But a five-carat ruby...

If it was an unheated natural gemstone, the price of the gem alone would far exceed the gold setting.

Ming Po pinched the ring, and the power of the Detective finally manifested.

[They once made a vow of love]

It didn't pop up with the ring's na, nor did it display a label like "Ruby Ring". Instead, it directly provided deeper information.

Ming Po looked up at the torn group photograph hanging above the table.

The glass covering it had shattered, failing to protect the picture within. The largest crack ran from the twelve o'clock position down to the five o'clock position, and the photo in that section had been completely torn away.

In the remaining portion, on the far left stood a man in a kimono wearing round glasses, looking to be in his thirties.

He was dressed in a black and white montsuki haori hakama.

This was attire Japanese people only wore for formal occasions—such as weddings, or funerals.

To his left was a woman, also in a kimono. But roughly a third of the photo had been torn off diagonally, leaving only her folded hands visible. Everything above her hands was gone, obscuring her face and specific clothing.

Standing between them, however, was a little girl in a dress.

She wasn't wearing a kimono, but a typical Western-style dress. The pure white skirt had lace trim, making it look like a blooming flower.

She held a golden trophy in her hands, the corners of her mouth turned up in what seed to be a smile.

But because the photograph's glass had cracked in three places, the shallowest crack happened to cut right across the girl's head, obscuring her eyes.

Along one of the three fractures in the glass, a thin, dried, dark brown streak was clearly visible.

It wasn't dust, but blood. Blood that had seeped in from the outside.

Ming Po narrowed his eyes, his pupils faintly glowing with an amber hue.

In his mind, he began to visualize: what kind of posture, what kind of situation, would cause blood to seep so deeply into this spot, yet in such a small amount?

The bloodstain was right against the bottom edge of the fra, exactly where the little girl's shoes were positioned.

Soone must have touched the broken glass and cut their finger. But this spot was at the very bottom of the photograph.

Because Ming Po was tall, he even had to crouch down to see the blood clearly. He gestured to asure the angle.

He realized that even for a very short person, touching the bottom edge of the fra in this posture would be difficult. The wrist would have to be turned awkwardly outward.

If soone simply brushed against it and cut their finger, the blood wouldn't have soaked in so deeply. Furthermore, blood should flow downward, but the seeped line of blood looked like a red sock creeping up the little girl's leg. This ant the blood had flowed upward.

Could the fra have been hung upside down?

No.

Ming Po imdiately realized the truth.

The fra had fallen and shattered. Then, soone had tried to pick it up, but failing to realize it was broken, pressed their hand against the shattered glass, causing blood to seep inside. Because they had been holding the fra upside down, the blood flowed upward due to gravity once it got in.

Ming Po casually pocketed the ring.

He turned and walked toward the piano opposite the table.

"A Steinway..."

Ming Po murmured, "To be expected, I suppose."

The expensive piano had long been gnawed away by ti; the white keys were blackened, the black keys yellowed. It looked as though it had been soaked in water and then air-dried, taking on the jaundiced hue of an old photograph.

Noticing sothing, Ming Po crouched down.

There was a strange crack on the side of the piano, as if it had been hacked by an axe. Ming Po reached in and dug around, pulling out a clump of dry, thread-like hair.

Human hair?

Ming Po frowned slightly.

He didn't know much about forensics, so he couldn't be sure if these were black threads, human hair, or the fur of so animal. He only felt that it was incredibly thin, soft, and unbelievably brittle.

Though there was no prompt, Ming Po still pulled the "hair" out, wrapped it around the ring, and stuffed it into his pocket.

Having done all this, Ming Po sat down at the piano.

He closed his eyes, listening to the lody.

Following his instincts, Ming Po tried pressing a key.

Perhaps he needed to synchronize the piano's notes with the music he was hearing?

Based on his "puzzle ga experience", Ming Po felt the piano music constantly playing in his ears had to be related to this physical piano.

But when Ming Po struck the first key, a harsh, dissonant sound rang out.

Clang.

An ugly noise echoed.

In that instant, the piano music in his ears abruptly vanished.

Ming Po remained unmoved.

He slowly played along with the sheet music in his mory, but even this incredibly expensive piano couldn't produce a pleasing sound.

The piano hadn't been tuned in years, and its pitch was appallingly off.

But when Ming Po's finger pressed down on the middle C key...

His vision suddenly went black.

The bench beneath him seed to vanish, and Ming Po fell backward, caught completely off guard.

Fortunately, the carpet was soft enough that he wasn't hurt in the slightest.

But when he scrambled back to his feet, he realized he was no longer in the main hall.

He had appeared at the entrance of lody Manor, and the front door, which he clearly hadn't shut, was now closed behind him.

The lodious piano music began to play once more.

Everything had looped back to the beginning.