Chapter 78 - Escaping from Burial Grounds (IX)
Editor: Kitty
Specter was stupefied by Luo Jian’s question for a moment as if it was incomprehensible, but then he seemingly understood. Shortly after, Specter replied, “Of course you can.”
The dense fog seemed to be dissipating.
It seemed that Luo Jian had recovered the memories from his childhood that had slowly disappeared. Until now, Luo Jian could not remember what exactly the person had said in the past. Even if he asked Specter, who was in front of him now, he was afraid that he still wouldn’t remember it himself.
However, Luo Jian recalled the other party’s mannerisms when he talked, and they were completely the same as what he was doing now.
Specter floated over and held out a hand. His warm palm pressed on Luo Jian’s head.
Luo Jian obediently lowered his head to allow him to make a mess out of his hair. Inwardly, he felt slightly and strangely aggrieved yet satisfied. These feelings made it so that he could not help but ask his paternal cousin, “That…… Brother, you saved me just now, didn’t you?”
“En?” Specter thought for a bit. “I’m afraid I’m not the one who saved you. I just found you.”
“Found me?”
“Yes, you were lying there, and after that I moved you here.”
Luo Jian was surprised: “When you found me, where was I lying?”
Specter tilted his head: “Are you going there? It might be dangerous there now.”
The man who saved him was not his cousin. Realizing this, Luo Jian’s head was full of doubts. If Specter did not save him, then the bandage wrapped on his neck…… Luo Jian then pointed to the bandage wrapped around his neck with his finger: “This was also not done by you either?”
“I thought you bound it yourself.” Specter sized up Luo Jian and said, “Do you need to change clothes? You look like a mess.”
Luo Jian was still wearing those ragged ancient garbs, and there were large patches of blood stained on it. At first glance, one would think that Luo Jian was seriously injured, but in fact, the biggest discomfort Luo Jian now felt was a little dizziness, most likely due to blood loss.
Specter casually tossed out a set of clothing, and it appeared identical to the clothes he wore now. Specter said, “My clothes…… They may be a little big, but they’re better than the ones you’re wearing now……”
Shortly after, Specter frowned: “Why are you wearing ancient garbs? Are you going to replace your ident.i.ty?”
At this time, Luo Jian felt that the clothes on his body were inconvenient and troublesome, and because of the huge number of blood stains, the clothes felt thick and sticky. Therefore, he took the clothes from Specter’s hands and planned to change into them. After he heard Specter’s words, he was puzzled about the new term he suddenly heard and asked, “Ident.i.ty replacementk2026;k2026; What is that?”
Specter also seemed to feel strange: “You don’t know about that?”
“I don’t know.” Luo Jian shook his head: “These garbs…… Someone else changed it for me.”
Luo Jian could not say that it was a stalker who changed his clothes for him, but to his surprise, Specter quickly guessed something and said, “Didn’t you get this garb from some coffin?”
Coffin? Luo Jian’s face turned red immediately. He remembered that he had been in the coffin with some stalker. This kind of topic was like a plot from Arabian Nights, and given its R18 nature, Luo Jian felt shameful talking about it. After stuttering and faltering in his speech for half a day, not a single helpful statement was spoken. However, Specter was obviously impatient. He stretched out his hand to mess up the hair on Luo Jian’s head and said, “Okay, let me tell you a piece of interesting information I’ve heard. This is related to the problem of ident.i.ty replacement in the secret chambers.”
Luo Jian squatted in front of his brother in a docile manner and began to listen carefully. Specter raised his eyebrows and started his long-winded speech.
“About ident.i.ty replacement…… Well, let’s start with something simple and easy to understand. First of all, you should know that there are terrifying stalkers in the secret chambers. The newbie guide should have told you that.” Specter started the conversation: “How much do you know about stalkers?”
“Well……” Luo Jian tilted his head as he thought: “I was told that they were the strongest players in the secret chamber. If they failed or died for various reasons, the secret chamber would revive them and turn them into stalkers who have no self-awareness and only know how to kill.”
“Basically, there are no problems with your definition, but I’d like to add something more.” Specter was worthy of being an experienced old player; he relayed information to Luo Jian that he had never heard previously. He said, “The secret chamber does not only turn players into stalkers but also other things.”
“Other things?” Luo Jian had an ignorant look.
Specter raised a finger and said seriously, “The monsters you meet in the secret chamber, the resurrected corpses, ghosts…… or all kinds of creatures that will attack you were previously all like you. They may have just been an ordinary player.”
“What the h.e.l.l did you say?!” Luo Jian was immediately frightened. He unconsciously remembered the monstrous creature he encountered when he was going around in circles previously, which may have been a woman when she was alive.
“Those…… monsters…” Luo Jian’s speech became incoherent. He had not experienced many secret chambers, but he had already met many strange creatures and even took the lives of one or two of them.
“The secret chamber turns the players into these monsters when they fail or die in a secret chamber. Their endings are particularly depressing because they are different from the stalkers. They can’t shuttle in between secret chambers at will and can’t infinitely resurrect. They can only stay in a certain s.p.a.ce set for them by the secret chamber, waiting to be killed by some new players.
“You can think of these poor monsters as those fixed-point monsters that would be refreshed in the game. They can only constantly stay in one place. They experience the process of being killed, refreshed, killed, and refreshed repeatedly.”
Specter’s tone was a little strange, as if he had thought of something uncomfortable. He frowned and continued, “In fact, not even many old players know about this. It’s mainly because I’ve been in the secret chamber for too long and have met many different things in many different chambers that I gradually realized this.”
Luo Jian’s mood was very complicated. He raised his head up and glanced at his family’s brother and asked, “If I also died in a secret chamber, would this be my fate?”
Specter raised his head and gave Luo Jian a glance. He shook his head: “You are too weak right now. I’m afraid the secret chamber would be too lazy to turn you into something else. If you die, it would probably be a real death.”
Luo Jian said angrily, “Then it would be better to really die! It’s too cruel to be unable to rest in peace even after death!”
“Such a place like this would naturally be cruel.” When Specter said this, his face was expressionless. He lowered his head, and his face was barely visible under the black hood: “The secret chamber will not lose the chance to make use of every single player. This place intends to practice or experiment with living human beings. Although it is cruel, it is not like the secret chamber does not give every player a chance.”
“A chance?”
“I’m referring to the ident.i.ty replacement I mentioned previously,” Specter explained, “If the dead players are made into stalkers by the secret chamber, there’s a one-in-ten-thousand chance that they retain a certain level of sanity and awareness. These self-aware stalkers use this method in order to get rid of the supervisory control of the secret chamber.”
Hearing Specter’s speech, Luo Jian suddenly felt his heart palpitate. For some reason, he felt a little worried, but Specter didn’t realize what Luo Jian was feeling. He continued, “You should have heard that the stalkers can replace some NPCs in the secret chamber, and they can have many ident.i.ties such as a murderer, victim…… In the case of this tomb, they can also be the owner or funeral accompaniment…… or somebody else.
“Similarly, not only the stalker can replace his ident.i.ty, but players can also do so. The secret chamber will sometimes set an ident.i.ty for you when you enter a secret chamber.”
Specter’s words reminded Luo Jian of what happened in the “Flowers In The River And The Moon’s Reflection In The Lake” secret chamber previously. At that time, the secret chamber had really set an ident.i.ty for Luo Jian as the 35th student who had gone missing. He was also known as the second personality of the female student.
“In general, the ident.i.ty that the secret chamber forcefully sets for you cannot be changed. Of course, if the secret chamber doesn’t set any ident.i.ty for you at the beginning, then in theory, you have the opportunity to take the ident.i.ty of some NPCs in the secret chamber and replace them!”
Luo Jian thought that the theory of ident.i.ty replacement seemed easy, but doing it was not so simple. He asked, “Must we trigger certain conditions first to do so?”
Specter smiled: “Yes, if you want to replace the ident.i.ty of a NPC! Then first, you have to make sure that the NPC is a ‘replaceable NPC’! Of course, the secret chamber will not give any hints. This basically relies on the player’s deductions because in some secret chambers, you must rely on ident.i.ty replacement in order to escape.”
“Once you have determined that the ident.i.ty of the NPC is replaceable, then after that, you need to get the props, clothes, accessories, or some other symbolic things from them by the NPC’s own free will. This means that they have given their ident.i.ty to you, changing you from a player to an NPC in the secret chamber! When you get this ident.i.ty, you will have some special rights! If you can obtain the ident.i.ty of the owner of the tomb, you may have some special rights to command some of the creatures in this tomb like funeral accompaniments or control the activation of certain mechanisms.”
After hearing Specter speak such a long string of words, Luo Jian vaguely understood a lot of the doubts he had earlier. He squinted his eyes and rubbed his chin as he fell into thought: “That means that in this way, I can obtain certain conveniences in the secret chamber through ident.i.ty replacement, and sometimes it can directly become the key to allow me escape from the secret chamber, right?”
“That’s right. You’re smart,” Specter praised him.
Luo Jian was slightly nervous as he felt the jade pendant on his neck. He had some new conjectures in his mind, so he raised his head and asked his cousin. This was the first time that he took the initiative to expose his questions related to the stalker. He asked, “Brother…… I would like to ask if there is such a possibility? If a stalker enters the secret chamber and replaces the ident.i.ty of a certain NPC, but after that, he actively gives the ident.i.ty to another player, can it also be regarded as a successful ident.i.ty replacement?”
Luo Jian’s words made Specter squint his eyes. He stared at Luo Jian for a while and smiled: “Well, if there is such a thing, then you have successfully replaced the ident.i.ty of an NPC in this tomb.”
Specter’s words seemingly made Luo Jian a little happy. He laughed. This made him recall that time when the stalker refused to let go of him in the coffin. Was this the reason why the stalker changed his clothes?
But Luo Jian was not happy for long because Specter cruelly interrupted him when he was recalling that memory. He had a seemingly imposing expression on his face. He stared at Luo Jian, and his voice was very low: “That stalker, did he take your things?”
Specter’s sudden question stupefied Luo Jian, who hesitated for a while and nodded.
“What did he take away?”
“Er……” Luo Jian blushed: “Clothes and some sort of things like that…… It was all taken away.”
“What about your weapon?!” Specter’s voice grew louder, and he stared at Luo Jian with wide eyes. It seemed that he was furious, which made Luo Jian feel at a loss. He stammered and said, “It was also…… swapped.”
Specter stopped talking and merely looked at Luo Jian. It seemed that he was speechless. He stared at Luo Jian helplessly and scolded, “You are so stupid! As I said before, if a certain stalker remains sane, their best choice to get rid of the supervisory control of the secret chamber is to replace the ident.i.ty of a player!
“For all players, the best form of identification is their weapons. If their weapons are replaced, they will have to give up their ident.i.ty to a stalker! After that, as long as he took all your items and changed into your clothes, he will be identified as you by the secret chamber, and his status will be successfully changed from a stalker to a player again!”
Specter’s words were like a sharp warning to him. Luo Jian could not squeeze out any words at that moment and could only remain in standing in his position on the spot in a daze. All of this surprised him. Luo Jian had also wondered why the stalker had deliberately gotten closer to him and whether he had some obscure purpose, but Luo Jian had always trusted Xing Yan. After all, towards this man…… Luo Jian could not help but admit that he had some feelings for him.
But now, Luo Jian was only able to stand on the spot with a pale face. His heart was full of anxiety, and this made him feel extremely fearful.
“What would happen to me if my ident.i.ty was robbed from me?”
“Ident.i.ty replacement would also exchange your ident.i.ties. If he gives you his weapon, you will replace him to become a stalker.”
T/N:
Fleur: I feel that if this is true, the MLs of this story (XY and DL) are very different from the regular MLs. Although it could be said that they have some feelings for their shous, the actions they carry out are quite self-driven.
Kitty: That was quite the plot twist? I did not see that coming at all! I feel bad for LJ, but XY’s (possible) ulterior motive makes this all so much more interesting!
Fleur: Yeah! ikr, but I hope XY doesn’t betray LJ