Volume 7: Days of Stargazing at the Inn
Soul Harbor Inn
What? Are they clones?
Simon Peter really was uncanny.
The post attracted a lot of attention. The thread grew longer and longer1; there were doubts, and there were agreements. Clearly, it had caught most people’s attention.
Many people inside shared the experiences of “my friend, my brother, my teammate.” They all had one thing in common: after using the Simon Peter card, they died in the next instance or the one after that, becoming puppets of the card.
Of course, there was no shortage of comments like, 【Unneeded cards can be donated to those in need】, 【None of you use it, give the card to me! I can take it! I’m not afraid!】, or 【Is the OP trying to cause mass panic to buy cards at a low price?】, 【Is the OP engaging in entrapment2?】.
Shen Maomao scrolled down a bit more and suddenly came across a brand-new reply—
【Shang Zhou3: Simon Peter is indeed problematic. Use with caution.】
The forum page lagged4 for a moment, then Lou Jingmo’s phone started dingdonging wildly as reply notifications chimed one after another. Countless people rushed to this non-anonymous reply to “take a group photo as a memento5,” having long forgotten the thread’s original topic completely and thoroughly.
Shen Maomao was also a little surprised. She had long heard of6 this Shang Zhou’s great name. They had even gone through the third instance together. Although the instance had bugged out because the Dashen7 cleared the map too quickly, his strength was definitely plain for all to see.
She handed the phone back to Lou Jingmo and said, “Lou-jie, the Dashen showed up and proved your conclusion!”
Lou Jingmo took the phone, glanced at it, and said thoughtfully, “Daring to reply to me with his main account… It seems his team has probably already figured out some clues.”
Shen Maomao: “?”
Lou Jingmo: “You don’t need to worry about that much. Just don’t use this card, and that’ll be the end of it. With me around, you won’t need to.”
Truly worthy of being Lou-jie, so very mighty and domineering.
The next day was the day of Shen Wenwu’s8 cremation. The Shen family got up early, tidied up, and prepared to go to the funeral home.
Lou Jingmo naturally went with the Shen family. Mother Shen initially didn’t want her to go, afraid she might be tainted by “bad luck9,” but then she thought about her relationship with her own daughter, and also remembered that the other girl had also given a gift of condolence money, so she called her along.
Her family arrived relatively early and was responsible for communicating with the funeral home staff. Shen Wenyu’s10 parents, who were Shen Maomao’s Second Paternal Uncle and Second Paternal Aunt, were responsible for picking up Eldest Paternal Uncle and Eldest Paternal Aunt from the hospital.
The Shen family didn’t have many relatives in the main lineage; there were only these three brothers in total, each with one child. Shen Maomao was a girl, so now only Shen Wenyu was left as the sole male heir11.
At seven in the morning, everyone who was supposed to come had arrived. Shen Maomao saw her Eldest Paternal Aunt looking left and right in the hall, as if searching for something, and couldn’t help but ask, “Eldest Paternal Aunt, what are you looking for?”
Eldest Paternal Aunt replied, “What about that child, Fang Tian? Why didn’t she come today?”
The card was gone; she probably wouldn’t come again.
But she couldn’t say that. Shen Maomao made an excuse for Fang Tian, “She probably couldn’t bear to see cousin like this, so she didn’t come…”
Eldest Paternal Aunt wiped away a tear. “Forget it… if she’s not coming, she’s not coming, ba…”
Shen Wenwu’s cold body was sent into the cremation furnace, eventually becoming a small urn, which Eldest Paternal Aunt carried to the cemetery.
The old couple, white-haired parents burying their black-haired son, had old tears streaming down their faces, crying uncontrollably.
After the funeral ended, the disrupted rhythm of the Shen family’s life returned to the right track. Father Shen and Mother Shen continued to run their family restaurant, while Shen Maomao took Lou Jingmo sightseeing around the various scenic spots in S City.
After idling away some time at home, Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo were about to return to their Nancheng base camp.
After all, a certain Golden Retriever was waiting there eagerly. His next instance was already set for June 10th, two days from now.
Shen Maomao used these two days to revise her thesis at light speed. Lou Jingmo also submitted her latest manuscript to her editor. With everything prepared, the three of them sat on the sofa in Lou Jingmo’s house, waiting for the time to come.
At half-past two in the afternoon, Shen Maomao’s vision blurred for an instant. When she opened her eyes again, she was standing on a small path paved with bluestone pebbles12.
The sun shone brightly overhead, so dazzling it made it hard to open one’s eyes. It was the hottest time of day. She wiped her forehead and found herself drenched in sweat.
She was wearing a pure white short-sleeved shirt, a digital watch displaying Arabic numerals on her wrist, and a peaked cap13 on her head, which shielded her eyes from most of the sunlight.
She also carried a large bag on her back. The bag was heavy, seemingly packed with many things. An orange water bottle hung from the front strap of the backpack; its cord had a clip14, allowing it to be detached with a light press.
Shen Maomao pulled off the water bottle and pretended to take a sip of water.
Besides her, there were other people on this path dressed the same way. There were men and women, old and young, about a dozen or so people in total. Their destination was clearly the compound at the end of the road.
The group walked forward slowly and tiredly. Shen Maomao spotted Lou Jingmo, who had altered her appearance15, in the crowd and quickly sped up to walk beside her. Lou Jingmo glanced at her but didn’t speak.
After walking for a while, they finally arrived in front of the small compound. Peeking through the willow leaves, they realized it was an inn opened in such a desolate wilderness16.
Six large metal characters were affixed to the wall of the inn’s ground floor—Soul Harbor Inn17. A circle of small colored lights was embedded on the characters, which would probably light up at night. Besides the colored lights and the sign, the wall was also covered with dense Boston ivy18. The ivy was a mix of red and green—green as jadeite19, red as flame—looking very spectacular, yet also somewhat strange.
Shen Maomao linked arms with Lou Jingmo and whispered to her, “Lou-jie… doesn’t Boston ivy only turn red in autumn?”
But this sun, these willow trees—none of it looked like something you’d see in autumn.
Lou Jingmo replied in a low voice, “Let’s observe first and then see. Where’s Golden Retriever?”
Shen Maomao glanced back and only then realized they were actually on a mountain peak. Below the mountain was lush and verdant, and no road could be seen at all. The people behind them all had their heads down, wearing yellow peaked caps, making it impossible to tell who was who for a moment.
She said, “Can’t find him for now. Let’s follow them inside first, ba.”
In front of the inn’s main entrance was a patch of concrete, on which several parking spaces had been painted with white paint. However, there wasn’t a single car on them now.
The sense of strangeness in Shen Maomao’s heart grew stronger.
This mountain road had eighteen bends20; as far as she could see, there was only this bluestone path under their feet and no other routes.
The path was uneven and full of potholes, only wide enough for two people to pass side by side. On both sides were trees towering into the clouds, looking like they were hundreds of years old—in short, she saw no way for a car to drive up.
So what was the point of painting parking spaces?
Strange, too strange.
She thought to herself that this instance might be completely different from the previous one; it was the kind of situation she feared the most.
When they reached the inn’s entrance, the woman leading the way at the very front stopped, waved a small triangular red flag21, and said to them, “Alright, la! We’ve arrived at the final destination of our trip! Starting today, we will stay here for seven days. On the morning of the seventh day, we will gather here and prepare to go down the mountain together.”
This woman should be the NPC responsible for guiding them in this instance. She was a bit plump, looked to be under thirty, and when she smiled, her eyes narrowed into slits, making her look very amiable.
“Wait for me a moment, I’ll go negotiate with the people inside.” After speaking, the woman walked into the building, leaving a group of players outside.
Shen Maomao counted. Including their group of three, there were a total of eleven people in this instance, with ages ranging roughly from 17 to 40.
The youngest-looking one was Golden Retriever. The remaining few looked quite mature; some were in their twenties, and some in their thirties. Most of them were lone wolves. Only Shen Maomao’s group of three and two other people clearly looked like teammates, standing together respectively.
No one said much. They were all sizing up the others, their thoughts unknown. Shen Maomao, however, tilted her head up and began to observe the building.
The Soul Harbor Inn had three floors in total. The first floor had huge, transparent floor-to-ceiling windows. From her angle, she could easily see some round tables and chairs inside, with lace tablecloths on them. It looked like it should be the dining hall.
The second and third floors both had normal small windows. Air conditioner outdoor units hung under the windowsills. These looked like they should be guest rooms.
Golden Retriever whispered, “The environment is pretty good; they even provided air conditioning.”
Beside him, Lou Jingmo said faintly, “Not just air conditioning; this time, they even provided mobile phones.”
Shen Maomao was taken aback, quickly searched her pockets, couldn’t find it after fumbling for a while, then swung her backpack from her back to her front, and actually found a brand-new mobile phone.
Golden Retriever also found his phone. The two of them put their phones side by side and saw that their phones were exactly the same.
This sameness wasn’t just in brand and appearance. When they both lit up their screens, they discovered that the lock screens, home screens, types of applications, and their arrangement were also identical.
Looking at it this way, Shen Maomao suddenly thought of something else—the equipment of everyone in this tour group seemed to be the same. Regardless of gender, they all wore white short-sleeved shirts, black pants, yellow peaked caps, and carried the same style of travel bag on their backs, with the same style of water bottle hanging on the bags.
What? Were they clones??
The signal indicator in the top left corner of the phone was an “×”, glaringly telling them “no signal here.”
Thinking about it, it made sense. Deep in these mountain gullies22, you wouldn’t find a signal tower within a ten-li23 radius; it would be strange if there was signal.
Besides having no signal, the phone only had two offline games24: one was Snake25, and the other was Tetris26, making Shen Maomao somewhat doubt if this phone was even a smartphone.
After a while, the woman came out of the house. “Alright, la, I’ve finished discussing with them. Because of limited funds, I only booked six rooms, on the far left of the third floor. So, we’ll need to have two people per room. You can find your own roommates; those who can’t find one can just wait for me to assign them.”
Looking at it this way, including the NPC, there were twelve people in total—exactly six men and six women. There wouldn’t be any mixed-gender living arrangements, and one woman would end up rooming with this NPC.
The author has something to say:
New instance, charge, ya27!
Also, let me explain why Lou-jie is the shorter one on the cover. It’s because Lou-jie was shorter than Maomao when they were little, and only grew taller when she got older. In the group chat, there are two pictures, one with a tall Lou-jie and one with a short Lou-jie. You can freely choose the height; it’s very user-friendly.
Also—have you all gotten used to typing Luanluan28!!!
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