When the murder mystery session ended, Cute Rabbit found herself back in her “personal space.”

It was an enclosed room, the far wall covered floor to ceiling with murder mystery posters, like standing inside a movie theater lobby. Each poster corresponded to a script — tap one and a background summary popped up, along with a price tag.

The Fortune Inn, the beginner script she’d just finished, now read “Owned” beneath its poster, with a small “Replay” button in the corner.

She tapped it, and the wall in front of her dissolved into a holographic projection screen, replaying her entire run through The Fortune Inn from start to finish.

The replay system let players review their own performance, find the gaps in their reasoning — like going over a graded exam after the fact.

She watched it at double speed.

The verdict on why she’d gotten voted out came quickly: beyond the obvious — being the victim’s blood relative — she’d simply drawn too much attention to herself. Talkative players got scrutinized hard unless they could back it up with airtight logic and actually control the room. She hadn’t managed either.

Next time, she thought, play it quieter. Read the room first, then decide what to do.

Having been eliminated mid-session, her current point total sat at only 5. Every intermediate-tier script on the wall showed as locked.

Unlocking intermediate content required 10 points, and replaying a finished script earned nothing further. Her only option was to grind another beginner script — Red Maple Villa.

Based on what she’d just experienced, even a losing run earned a 5-point consolation prize.

She selected Red Maple Villa without hesitation.

This script also called for six players. The moment she confirmed, the system began matchmaking — under ten seconds before it had paired her with a full table.

Six avatars populated the lobby.

SYSTEM: Please draw your character assignment.

She gave the familiar bamboo tube a shake, and a single slip slid out, printed with her role for this round.

— Your name is Qiuyue, age 26.

Both your parents died when you were six. A relative sold you into the Ye household, where you became a maid serving the family’s third daughter, Ye Nichang.

Ten years ago, on the night the entire Ye family was massacred at Red Maple Villa, your young mistress sent you into town to buy rouge — and that errand was the only reason you survived. You took the name Yue Xiaolan and used the money your mistress had once given you to open a rouge shop in town.

You currently operate that shop under the name Madam Yue.

Cute Rabbit blinked at the screen. “Two identities? That’s a pretty layered setup.”

She skimmed the rest of the briefing and tapped “Continue.”

SYSTEM: Script beginning shortly. Waiting for remaining players.

SYSTEM: Countdown — 10, 9…

When it hit zero, the world flickered. Cute Rabbit found herself standing before a strange, sprawling estate.

A plaque over the gate read, in heavy carved characters: Red Maple Villa.

SYSTEM: Please request lodging at Red Maple Villa.

She knocked.

A moment later, an old woman answered. White hair, and across one side of her face, a wide scar — burn-scarred, by the look of it, twisted and unsettling.

Cute Rabbit flinched at the sight of it before she could stop herself.

The old woman’s eyes, though, were warm. She smiled. “What brings you here, girl?”

“Good evening. I was passing through — could I trouble you for a room tonight?”

“Of course. Plenty of empty rooms here.” The smile didn’t waver. “Though I should mention — there was a death here, ten years back. The place gets a bit haunted after dark. If you’re not afraid, come right in.”

Through the gate, Cute Rabbit could see the estate’s maple trees, leaves blazing red. Haunted? She nearly laughed. She’d cleared every achievement Ghost Realm had to offer.

She took a steadying breath and followed the old woman inside.

A handful of other travelers arrived not long after, one by one, seeking the same shelter.

Cute Rabbit hung back quietly, taking in her surroundings.

The estate was enormous — clearly built by serious money. The courtyard was thick with maple trees, and autumn had turned every leaf crimson; they rustled and drifted down in the wind, blanketing the ground in red.

The estate was laid out as two connected rectangular courtyard-houses — front and rear — joined by a covered walkway. The front courtyard handled guests: a spacious main hall, a study, a dining area. The rear courtyard was the living quarters — bedrooms lining the east, south, and north sides, with the kitchen and woodshed to the west.

The rear courtyard was much larger than the front, with an artificial pond at its center, crossed by a stone bridge and overlooked by a small pavilion. No one had tended it in years — the water had gone murky and thick with green weed.

After surveying the layout, the group gathered in the main hall.

Eight people had sought shelter that night — four men, four women. The matchmaking had only pulled six players in, which meant two of these were NPCs.

While she was still puzzling that out, a bearded middle-aged man in an ornate purple robe spoke up first. “Quite the coincidence, this many of us seeking shelter here tonight. Allow me — Boss Yu, of the Qingzhou trading house.”

The woman beside him, hair pinned up, somewhere in her thirties, spoke with quiet composure. “Surname Liu. I run a bun shop in town.”

Next to her, a heavyset man dripping in gold jewelry and jade pendants smiled broadly. “Owner of the Mantang Spring restaurant. Surname Chen.”

A lean, hard-faced man spoke next, his voice rough. “Chief Escort Xu, of the Fuwei Security Bureau.”

A pale, delicate-looking young woman spoke last among the newcomers. “Lin Zhirou. Passing through on my way to find my brother in town.”

Cute Rabbit gave her own introduction. “Madam Yue. I run a rouge shop.”

A young couple spoke up together. “We’re husband and wife — I’m Zhou Sheng, and this is my wife, Zhao Chunhua. We’re headed to town for fabric supplies, just passing through for the night.”

As everyone finished introducing themselves, the wrongness of the situation started to nag at Cute Rabbit.

Aside from the couple buying fabric and the young woman visiting her brother, the rest of the group was a security bureau chief, a restaurant owner, a bun shop owner, and herself, a rouge shop owner.

What on earth would draw all of these specific people to the same remote estate, on the same night?

They all looked reasonably well-off, and they’d all converged on a remote, reportedly haunted villa just as night fell. It didn’t add up.

Cute Rabbit held back and watched.

Zhou Sheng and Zhao Chunhua leaned together, talking quietly between themselves. Lin Zhirou seemed to be the youngest and most timid of the group, pale and silent, eyes down.

The others wore a mix of expressions — some composed, some uneasy, one with a sheen of cold sweat on his brow that hadn’t gone away.

A massacre ten years ago. A haunted house. The pieces sitting on the table already had Cute Rabbit’s nerves on edge.

What’s the actual story here? She remembered the poster’s horror rating — four stars out of however many.

Into the awkward silence, the old woman returned carrying a tray of tea. “Forgive an old woman’s poor hospitality — my legs aren’t what they used to be.”

Zhou Sheng spoke up. “Grandmother, are you the mistress of this estate?”

She blinked, turning toward him. “Oh, no, young master. I only look after the grounds for the master and his lady.”

“There’s no one else here but you,” Zhou Sheng pressed. “Where are they — the master and his lady?”

The old woman went quiet for a moment, then sighed. “The master, the lady, the young master, the young miss… all gone. Ten years now.”

Zhou Sheng’s breath caught. “All— all of them?”

She nodded, almost cheerful about it. “Mm. Ten years empty, and with the talk going around outside, no one’s come near the place in ages. Lively tonight, though — so many of you, all at once.”

She paused, considering. “Funny thing, now that I think on it — today’s the very anniversary. Ten years to the day since the master and his family passed.”

The room went still.

The anniversary. On this exact night. That was a coincidence that didn’t feel like a coincidence.

It had the unmistakable shape of someone gathering a group of people here as an offering to the dead.

Zhao Chunhua spoke quickly. “Grandmother, it’s getting late. We should settle in for the night. Could you show us to our rooms?”

“The chambers in the rear courtyard are all empty. Take whichever you like.”

The group rose and followed her back.

Night had fully fallen, a thin crescent moon hanging overhead, its pale light only deepening the estate’s isolated, eerie atmosphere.

A gust of cold wind swept through, and somewhere a door banged open with a sharp creak.

The sudden noise in the silence made everyone jump. Lin Zhirou went white and darted instinctively behind Cute Rabbit.

Cute Rabbit glanced back at her, unsure whether the fear was genuine or performance.

After last session’s lesson, she’d already decided: trust no one here.

Rooms were claimed one by one. The three eastern chambers went to Chief Escort Xu, Boss Liu of the bun shop, and Lin Zhirou. The two northern rooms went to restaurant owner Chen and trading-house Boss Yu. The southern rooms went to Madam Yue — Cute Rabbit — and the married couple, Zhou Sheng and Zhao Chunhua, who took separate rooms without anyone batting an eye. It was a game, after all — players weren’t about to share a bed.

Once everyone was settled, the estate fell silent again.

Cute Rabbit searched her own room carefully and found nothing of note before climbing into bed.

SYSTEM: Night has fallen. Please sleep.

She closed her eyes, and within a minute, consciousness slipped away.

Holographic tech ran on full sensory immersion — cutting off consciousness felt exactly like falling asleep, though physically the body never actually slept. The brain simply stopped receiving input.

Some unknown stretch of time later, a violent wind kicked up outside.

It howled and rattled the windows in their frames, the whole room seeming to shudder with it. The noise jolted Cute Rabbit awake. Through the window, the maple trees thrashed wildly in the wind, branches clawing at the dark like something out of a nightmare.

She told herself, firmly, that her nerves could handle a little atmosphere. She was no stranger to Ghost Realm‘s scares.

Bracing herself, she crossed to the window to shut it—

And in that instant, a pale shape drifted past, trailing long black hair.

The moment she reached the latch, she found herself face to face with the ghostly white figure — close enough to see its bloodless face.

Cute Rabbit: “Holy—!“

Christ alive, did it have to do that in the dead of night?

---

For one full second, her heart genuinely stopped.

Even as an opening-week Ghost Realm player with every achievement cleared, coming face to face with a ghost at this hour still rattled her badly.

The ghosts in Ghost Realm had never looked like this. Nie Xiaoqian, Gongsun Jiuniang — those models had been almost beautiful. This thing was something else entirely. A face caked in chalk-white powder, a twisted smile frozen at the corner of its mouth.

Hair dragging the ground, white robes streaming, drifting silently past a second-floor window in the middle of the night. A weaker player could’ve genuinely gotten sick from the shock.

Cute Rabbit forced her pulse down with a long breath and bolted out the door after it.

By the time she got outside, the figure was gone — vanished without a trace, and the strange wind had died as suddenly as it had come. The whole estate sat in dead silence, undisturbed, as if nothing had happened at all.

So — what had that been? Who was behind it?

Mystified, she went back to her room and lay back down.

The next morning, she came down to the front courtyard, where the old woman had laid out breakfast. The group gathered around the table.

A while into the meal, someone spoke up. “Aren’t we missing someone?”

It was Zhou Sheng — the most proactive player at the table, the same one who’d pressed the old woman with questions the night before.

Everyone exchanged glances. Counting heads confirmed it — only seven at the table.

Eight, the night before. Who was missing?

Cute Rabbit ran back through her memory and placed it almost immediately — Boss Chen, the heavyset restaurant owner, wasn’t there.

The others reached the same conclusion. “Boss Chen never came down.”

Zhou Sheng was instantly on alert. “We should go check on him.”

Breakfast forgotten, the whole group headed back to the rear courtyard, to Boss Chen’s room.

He’d taken one of the northern chambers — next door to trading-house Boss Yu.

Boss Yu knocked. “Boss Chen? Are you awake?”

No answer.

He pushed harder, only to find the door locked from the inside.

A bad feeling settled over Cute Rabbit. “Let’s just break it down.”

Zhou Sheng, the youngest there, didn’t hesitate — one solid kick and the latch snapped clean in two. The door swung open, and the scene inside hit everyone at once.

The heavyset Boss Chen hung from a roof beam, a length of white cloth knotted around his neck. Suicide by hanging.

Lin Zhirou screamed.

She clearly hadn’t been prepared for a sight that visceral — she nearly went down on the spot.

Zhou Sheng swore under his breath, then snapped into focus. “Don’t touch anything — preserve the scene. Nobody goes in. The killer has to be one of us.”

Zhao Chunhua jumped in beside him. “He’s right. It was just the group of us here last night. Whether this was suicide or murder — every one of us is a suspect now.”

Boss Liu spoke up. “Check the note on the table.”

No one moved. No one wanted to be the one to go in.

She raised an eyebrow. “Fine. I’ll go.”

Calm and unhurried, she stepped into the room, retrieved the note from the desk, and read it aloud to the group.

“I, Chen Dafu, once worked as a cook here at Red Maple Villa. The night the Ye family was slaughtered ten years ago, I did nothing to help them. I fled, and in the chaos, I emptied the master’s strongbox and used that money to open the Mantang Spring restaurant.”

“Business has only grown since. But the guilt has never left me. Every night, I dream of the master and his lady, come to collect what’s owed.”

“I betrayed his trust. I have come here tonight to pay for it.”

Silence settled over the group.

Zhou Sheng scratched his head. “That reads like a suicide note. He came back here specifically to end it — atonement?”

Boss Liu’s voice cut through the moment. “He didn’t hang himself. He was strangled, then strung up afterward.”

Every head turned toward her.

She walked closer to the body, pointing to the marks on the dead man’s neck. “With genuine self-hanging, the body’s full weight pulls down through the rope — the bruising runs diagonally up toward the back of the ears. The face is usually pale, tongue protruding.”

“Strangulation is different. The killer’s usually behind the victim, and the marks run horizontal, straight around the throat. The face typically goes a dark purple-red.”

Everyone looked back up at the body. The face was unmistakably purple, the bruising around the neck running level and horizontal — exactly what she’d just described.

Cute Rabbit looked at her. “How do you know all this, Boss Liu?”

“My husband’s a coroner,” she said simply. “Picked up a few things.”

Cute Rabbit nodded, then turned to the pale middle-aged man beside her. “Boss Yu, your room was right next to his. Did you hear anything last night?”

Boss Yu’s face went white. “There was a storm in the middle of the night — wind came up suddenly and blew my window open. I got up to close it, and—”

“And?”

His face stayed pale. “I— I think I saw something. A pale shape, drifting past outside.”

“I saw it too,” Cute Rabbit said.

She turned to the young couple. “What about you two?”

They exchanged a look. Zhou Sheng shook his head. “I slept through the night, didn’t notice anything like that. But when I woke up the window was open — figured the wind did it.”

Zhao Chunhua, pale, said in a shaking voice, “I was just about to get up and close the window when something flickered past. Scared me half to death — I pulled the blanket over my head and didn’t dare look.”

The old woman, silent until now, gave a soft, eerie laugh. “The master and his lady must be lonely, down there in the dark. Came looking for some old friends to keep them company.”

A chill ran through the room.

Red Maple Villa had a longstanding reputation for hauntings — but Cute Rabbit wasn’t buying “ghosts did it” as an actual explanation.

Someone here was playing dress-up. The only question was who.

She studied the room carefully.

Boss Liu looked the calmest by far — composed enough to walk through a forensic analysis without flinching. But her hair, neatly pinned the night before, had come loose in places this morning, strands escaping without explanation.

Boss Yu, draped in gold and jade, was clearly wealthy — and clearly rattled, sweat beading steadily on his forehead. Guilt, or just nerves?

Chief Escort Xu’s face had gone hard and serious, a blade cradled in his arms, saying nothing.

Lin Zhirou hadn’t stopped trembling.

Zhou Sheng and Zhao Chunhua had the unmistakable energy of players — curious, scanning the room, eyes flicking away the instant they met Cute Rabbit’s gaze, then drifting to study someone else.

As for the old woman — endlessly cryptic, clearly an NPC. Unless she was the killer herself.

Cute Rabbit offered: “Should we send for the authorities? Bring in Lord Di to investigate?”

The old woman smiled. “A case of a vengeful spirit collecting its due isn’t Lord Di’s jurisdiction.”

Zhou Sheng blurted, “Then whose is it?”

“The King of Hell’s.”

Silence.

Zhou Sheng turned on his heel. “I’m going to find Lord Di myself.”

He marched to the front gate and shoved — hard. It didn’t budge. “What the hell? Grandmother, did you lock this?”

“Not me,” she said, perfectly innocent.

The group was one beat away from strangling her themselves.

This old woman was clearly the script’s built-in NPC — and the rule was obvious: once you entered Red Maple Villa, you didn’t leave until the killer was found.

Zhou Sheng gave up and rejoined the group. “Fine. If we can’t leave, let’s actually work this out — who’s most likely behind it?”

Lin Zhirou looked close to tears. “I don’t know anything, I was asleep all night… Grandmother, please, can’t you just let me go? I don’t want to stay here.”

The old woman didn’t answer. She just kept smiling at her.

Cute Rabbit chalked it up to nerves — a timid player, genuinely scared.

The woman playing Boss Liu, sharp as ever, spoke up. “Going by the note Boss Chen left — he used to be the estate’s cook. The night the family died, he ran with their money and used it to build his restaurant fortune.”

Cute Rabbit looked around the table. “So the killer is likely someone connected to the Ye family. Someone settling an old score.”

The theory landed solidly with the group.

If Boss Chen hadn’t killed himself, the note was a forgery — staged by an old acquaintance of the Ye family, here for revenge, dressing the murder up as suicide. Which meant last night’s ghost probably wasn’t a ghost at all. Someone had been wearing a costume.

Boss Liu asked, “Does anyone here actually know anyone connected to the Ye family?”

SYSTEM: Conceal your identity. Do not let others discover your connection to the Ye family.

Cute Rabbit froze at the prompt.

If the system had flagged this for her, it had almost certainly flagged the same thing for everyone else at the table.

Which meant the entire group, in all likelihood, had some buried connection to Red Maple Villa.

The dead man had been the family’s cook. What were the rest of them, really?

She kept her expression perfectly neutral. “I don’t know any Ye family.”

The denials came fast from everyone else.

“Never even heard of the people who lived here.”

“I’m not even from around here, first time I’ve ever set foot in Qingshan Town.”

“First time at Red Maple Villa for me too.”

“Don’t know the Ye family. Never heard about any massacre.”

Every single person at the table was lying.

At this rate, there’d be no finding the killer at all.

SYSTEM: Evidence search now available. Identify the most likely suspect.

The moment that notice appeared, Zhou Sheng spoke up. “Should we all search together? See what we can dig up?”

Heads nodded around the table.

Cute Rabbit added, “To be safe — let’s stay together and go room by room. No one should be alone with the evidence.”

The group agreed and started with the dead man’s room.

The cloth he’d been hanged with was unusual — clean, fine white fabric. It struck Cute Rabbit immediately: the ghost from the night before had worn the same material.

The suicide note’s handwriting was a mess, almost frantic — which, conveniently, made it nearly impossible to match against anyone’s actual writing.

Stranger still: the door and windows had both been locked from inside, and there was no sign of a hidden mechanism or passage anywhere in the room. So how had the killer gotten in and out?

They moved on to the other rooms.

In Boss Yu’s belongings, next door, they found a stash of gold and silver jewelry. Odd, for a grown man traveling alone to be carrying that much in women’s jewelry.

He looked uncomfortable. “For my wife,” he explained.

Cute Rabbit asked, “What’s her name?”

He hesitated — actually hesitated — before answering. “Xu— Xu Fang.”

A strange thing, to need a beat to remember your own wife’s name. Maybe there wasn’t a wife at all.

In Zhou Sheng and Zhao Chunhua’s belongings, they found children’s toys. The couple explained they were gifts for their son back home.

Boss Liu’s room turned up nothing of note. Neither did Cute Rabbit’s — just a change of clothes and some silver.

Chief Escort Xu’s room held a small locked, sealed chest, which he claimed was an escort job — silver he’d been hired to deliver to Qingshan Town. He flatly refused to let anyone open it.

In Lin Zhirou’s room, they found a white garment.

Every eye in the room turned to her at once.

She scrambled to explain. “That’s just an old robe of mine — it tore by the river on my way here, so I packed it away.”

Boss Yu’s brow furrowed. “Doesn’t that look a lot like what the ghost was wearing last night?”

Zhao Chunhua jumped in. “Now that you mention it — the white shape that drifted past my window was wearing exactly that kind of fabric!”

Suspicion converged on Lin Zhirou all at once.

That fast? Cute Rabbit thought. Something about how quickly this was resolving itself didn’t sit right.

She kept quiet, turning it over. This felt too easy.