N-M Chapter 157 Bug Question
Chapter 157 Bug Question
Chapter 157 Bug Question
Li Jiuhe hadn't expected that they would have to play hide-and-seek in reverse.
This time, it was his turn to hide, and the eerie little boy came looking for him.
Actually, it's just a game of hide-and-seek, but the most important thing is the outcome. If you are found by the other party within the time limit, the result will be terrible, and you will end up being skinned alive.
He initially thought of playing hide-and-seek with the little boy because the boy said he would answer his questions.
Because Li Jiuhe suspected that the boy's death was related to the Lin family, he even suspected that the boy might be the child of someone in the Lin family.
However, according to the rules of the game, it is clear that one can only continue questioning the boy when the boy cannot find him, or when the child finds him hiding again.
It seems that once this game of hide-and-seek starts, there's no way to quit halfway through.
Li Jiuhe guessed that it would take at least one round, with both sides hiding once, before it might end.
The little boy didn't give Li Jiuhe any time, because he was already facing the corner of the wall, blindfolded himself, and started the countdown.
"Ten-Nine-Eight-Seven"
Once the countdown ends, he will immediately begin searching for Li Jiuhe.
"Since you're going to do this, then don't blame me for starting to exploit bugs." Li Jiuhe didn't hide, but muttered to himself.
He then initiated a task reset.
He had already set a time anchor the moment he met the little boy on the stairs.
Although he was currently in the "domain" of the haunted house, and the mission description reminded him that his mission abilities would be restricted here, he tried to sense it and found that other abilities might be affected, but resetting the mission was not a problem.
Because this is considered one of his basic abilities, similar to Luo Shuo's tracking ability.
He quickly returned to the moment when he had just met the little boy on the stairs.
Li Jiuhe quickly glanced at his mission reset points and found that 2 points had been consumed instantly.
It seems that although I can reset the task, just like when I encountered that little devil playing card before, I will need to consume more reset points to complete it successfully.
Fortunately, his reset points have been almost fully restored, with nearly 40 points remaining. Even if each reset costs 2 points, he can reset nearly 20 times.
His next move was swift and decisive; within the allotted time and in the same place, he found the little boy disguised as Lin Shouye hiding on the bed.
Li Jiuhe asked his second question.
However, in the little boy's eyes, this was still the first problem.
"Who killed you?"
The little boy was taken aback, remained silent for two seconds, and then said, "Lin Jianmin."
Li Jiuhe was surprised. He had previously thought that the murderer might be Lin Shouye, Lin Jianguo, or even Lin Jianguo's son Lin Siyuan, but he never expected it to be Lin Shouye's second son, the seemingly inconspicuous Lin Jianmin.
So, is this child Lin Jianmin's son? Don't they only have this one son?
Although Li Jiuhe suspected that the child was very likely to be, he still needed a definite answer, not just a guess.
Besides, there are enough reset points now.
Task reset.
"Are you the child of Lin Jianmin and his wife?"
The little boy was taken aback again, clearly not expecting his first question to be this, and then replied, "Yes."
The task has been reset again.
Why did Lin Jianmin want to kill you?
The little boy once again perfectly demonstrated how to express surprise with a smile, replying, "I don't know."
Does "I don't know" count as an answer?
"This is your second question. If you want me to answer it, you'll have to hide so I can't find you."
Li Jiuhe discovered that the little boy's answering mechanism was very strict; he could not mix two questions into one inquiry, nor could he guide the little boy to answer a second time.
Furthermore, Li Jiuhe noticed that the little boy couldn't remember much before he died, and he didn't understand the affairs between adults, so it was unlikely that he would answer more of the questions that concerned him.
After the mission reset again, he paused for a moment, then asked, "How did Lin Jianmin kill you?"
"He knocked me unconscious, and after my skin bled, he put me in a large vat filled with hot water. I could feel my blood flowing very fast, and then the water in the vat turned red, and I died."
"A blood curse?"
After listening to the little boy's description, two words suddenly popped into Li Jiuhe's mind.
He has discovered that the little boy seems to know only what concerns him personally, and nothing else.
Li Jiuhe did not continue resetting the task, because the information he could get from the little boy was pretty much all he could get.
This would normally require playing hide-and-seek with the other party many times and winning every single time to obtain.
Now, however, he used his abilities to exploit the bug, and after playing hide-and-seek once, he managed to extract most of the information from the little boy.
However, this round of hide-and-seek was not over yet; he still needed to cooperate with the little boy to hide and wait for the boy to come and find him.
Only then can it be considered a normal game of hide-and-seek.
Otherwise, if he quit halfway through, the little boy would most likely take action. This should be the operating mechanism of the haunted house scene, and Li Jiuhe really didn't need to reset it again to verify it.
The little boy, who still thought he had only answered one question from Li Jiuhe, had now turned to face the corner of the wall, blindfolded himself, and started counting down.
Without further thought, Li Jiuhe immediately opened the door and left Lin Shouye's bedroom.
He quickly scanned the first floor; it was too spacious and there weren't many places to hide.
Without pausing, Li Jiuhe immediately climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Because he was in a hurry, his leather shoes soon made a sound. He immediately took off his shoes, picked them up with his hands, and quickly ran up to the second floor.
Then I climbed up to the third floor, then to the end of the corridor, and through the passageway to the rooftop.
This is the rooftop garden, surrounded by some flowers and plants, but not many. The night sky above is deep, and you can't see the moon or stars.
Li Jiuhe quickly squatted down to the side of a flower bed, so that his body was perfectly hidden by the flower bed.
While he was hiding, he kept hearing the little boy's countdown, which he could hear clearly no matter how far away he was. But just as he climbed to the third floor, the countdown ended, and the little boy's voice rang out: "Hehe, are you hidden yet? I'm going to start looking for you."
According to Li Jiuhe's deduction, he was hiding on the top floor. If the little boy searched for him floor by floor and did not miss any possible hiding places, five minutes would definitely be up.
Even giving the other party ten minutes might not be enough.
However, Li Jiuhe was also a little worried, because the little guy obviously couldn't be understood from an ordinary person's perspective; he might have some special methods for finding people.
He glanced down at his feet, which were only wearing socks. Now that he was outside, the ground was dirty, so he quickly put his leather shoes back on.
Just then, the scene of Lin Siyuan and Lin Siyu coming to find him suddenly flashed into his mind.
They all went up to the third floor without shoes, without prior arrangement.
So is this a coincidence, or can the sound or trace be eliminated by not wearing shoes?
Did these two people have played hide-and-seek with the little boy before and already have some experience?
Just then, the glass door on the top floor, which could only be locked from the inside, was suddenly pushed open, and the little boy, covered in bruises, quickly ran onto the rooftop.
He barely searched, but went straight to the back of the flower bed where Li Jiuhe was hiding. It felt like he had a GPS navigator strapped to him. The next second, that terrifying smiling face appeared in front of Li Jiuhe.
Because Li Jiuhe was squatting, he was exactly at the same height as the little boy. The two stared at each other, motionless.
Li Jiuhe was certain that less than a minute had passed since the start of this round of hide-and-seek.
So this guy didn't search on other floors at all, but went straight to the top floor after the countdown ended, which means he did have automatic location tracking enabled.
"Hehe, I found you! Peel off your skin and give it to me!" The little boy grabbed Li Jiuhe's shoulder.
A sharp pain shot through him, and Li Jiuhe immediately activated the mission reset.
The scene shifts back to the moment when they met the little boy on the stairs.
However, this time, after the little boy went downstairs to hide and told Li Jiuhe that they could start searching, he did not go downstairs immediately.
Instead, he set a five-minute timer, went to Lin Siyu's room on the second floor, and gently knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" Lin Siyu woke up with a start and asked from inside the room.
"I am Detective Li," Li Jiuhe said quickly. "You don't need to open the door. Just tell me how to make sure the little boy can't find me."
Now he suspects that no matter where he hides, the little boy can find him in a minute.
After all, the other party is a ghost with special hide-and-seek abilities, and based on that alone, he can't possibly outsmart the other party.
However, Li Jiuhe also found a breakthrough: Lin Siyuan and Lin Siyu, the two siblings, should have played hide-and-seek before, which could be determined from their behavior of not wearing shoes to hide their voices.
And the fact that they were all unharmed suggests that they must have come up with a method for playing hide-and-seek.
But so far he doesn't quite trust Lin Siyuan, after all, the black ant swarm just found shoes in this young man's bedroom that had the same scent as the slippers found at the scene of Zhou Wenhui's hanging.
This suggests that Zhou Wenhui's death was most likely related to him, rather than, as he claimed, that Zhou Wenhui hanged herself after an argument with her husband.
Lin Siyu got out of bed and quickly went to the door.
She was cautious; instead of opening the door, she asked, "Are you playing hide-and-seek with the little boy?"
"Yes." Li Jiuhe nodded. "I need to investigate the case, so I definitely need to understand all the details."
Lin Siyu paused for a moment before saying, "As long as you can hear his voice, he can find you—"
Li Jiuhe suddenly realized that, according to Lin Siyu, the little boy seemed to be telling him that the countdown was over, but in fact he was locating him through his voice.
As long as he can hear him speak, he can inversely determine his location.
So no matter where he hid, the other party could always find him accurately.
"You—you mustn't hurt him—" Lin Siyu said again.
"Why?" Li Jiuhe was taken aback, instinctively sensing that there was more to the story.
Otherwise, why didn't anyone tell him about such an important hide-and-seek mechanism before?
Just after he asked that question, the door to Lin Siyuan's room next door suddenly opened, and Lin Siyuan, still sleepy-eyed and wearing pajamas, poked his head out.
"Detective Li, what are you doing?" He was clearly woken up.
"It's okay, just close the door and don't open it for anyone." Li Jiuhe didn't answer, but turned and walked downstairs.
Five minutes passed quickly; he needed to find the little boy within that time.
However, after arriving on the first floor, he did not immediately enter Lin Shouye's bedroom. Instead, he took advantage of the remaining time to search around the study and quickly found a pair of headphones that no one knew who had used them.
These earphones are rechargeable, have a great feel to them, and are quite heavy in the hand, so the sound quality should be pretty good.
After turning it on, Li Jiuhe found that the battery was still half full. He put it on his head, and the moment the instrumental music started playing, he felt as if he was surrounded by music and completely isolated from the outside world.
I took off the headphones and couldn't hear anything; the noise isolation of these headphones is excellent.
He didn't turn off the headphones, but just put them around his neck, noticing that there was less than a minute left.
He immediately left the study and went into Lin Shouye's bedroom.
Instead of pretending to search, he simply pulled back the covers and said, "I found you."
Lin Shouye quickly transformed back into the appearance of a little boy, a chilling smile on his face, and said, "Now that you've found me, you can ask me a question: 'Is there anything you need me to know?'" Li Jiuhe asked.
The child shook his head: "No."
He wanted to see if the other party would give an answer beyond his expectations by using this free-form questioning method, like Zhou Wenhui who hanged herself and took the initiative to show him a pair of slippers, but it seems that hasn't happened yet.
So the little boy died without any guile; he had already extracted all the information the little boy knew from the previous encounters.
After answering the question, the little boy turned around, walked to the corner, and began a ten-second countdown.
Li Jiuhe immediately left the bedroom, quickly took off his leather shoes, and climbed upstairs with them in his arms.
At the same time, he put on the headphones around his neck, and soothing instrumental music started playing, isolating him from all external sounds, including the countdown that he could still hear.
He didn't need to think about when the countdown would end; he just silently kept track of the number in his mind, then went up to the third floor and entered the rooftop again.
I squatted down next to the flower bed, took out my phone, and set a five-minute search time.
At that moment, I put on my headphones, ignored everyone, and just listened to music without making a sound.
A minute passed quickly.
Li Jiuhe secretly glanced at the glass door to the rooftop not far away.
There was no movement.
If the little boy can't locate himself, he'll have to search up the stairs floor by floor, and he definitely won't be able to finish searching in five minutes.
Moreover, when I set the five-minute timer, at least twenty seconds had already passed since the game of hide-and-seek officially started, and now even more time had passed.
Two minutes passed, and the little boy still hadn't appeared.
At this point, Li Jiuhe could roughly conclude that his method of wearing headphones was indeed effective, and had completely blocked the other party's tracking and location.
However, he still didn't move, or even stand up, and just remained squatting behind the flower bed.
Soon the phone timer showed that five minutes had passed.
Just to be on the safe side, Li Jiuhe waited another half minute before standing up from behind the flower bed, opening the glass door to the rooftop, and walking down.
Even at this moment, he was still wearing headphones that were playing music.
Just as I arrived on the third floor, I saw a small figure appear at the top of the stairs; it was a little boy covered in bruises.
It's clear that the little boy has only just found his way to the third floor.
However, at least six minutes have already passed.
Li Jiuhe took off his headphones and said to the little boy, "Sorry, you've gone over time."
The little boy still had that creepy smile; it was clear that he was a trustworthy kid who wouldn't renege on his debts.
He nodded and said, "Alright, you won another round. Ask me anything."
Li Jiuhe remained silent for the moment, only staring at the little guy with the terrifying smile on his face.
After a moment, he bent down and smiled, asking each word carefully, "Do you want revenge?"
N NNN NN
Ma Li, who had been hiding in the house and dared not come out, also heard people walking in the third-floor corridor just now.
She thought it was a ghost, so she didn't open the door to look. But when she heard voices coming from inside, which seemed to be Li Jiuhe, she became bolder and slowly opened the door a crack.
Through the crack, one could see Bo Jiuhe with his back to the altar, bent over, seemingly talking to a child.
Before long, Bo Jiuhe straightened up, and his conversation with the little boy was coming to an end.
The little boy tilted his head back and asked him, "Are you sure you only want to play one round of hide-and-seek and not continue? If you win, you can ask more questions. But if you lose—"
"I'm done playing," Li Jiuhe said gently. "You should prepare for the next round and remember my question."
The little boy nodded quickly, turned around and headed towards the stairwell, disappearing from sight in no time.
Bo Jiuhe then turned around and went back to his room.
Ma Li opened the door and asked, "That guy—the one covered in bruises—"
Before she could finish speaking, Bo Jiuhe nodded: "Yes, that's the child playing hide-and-seek."
"You were playing hide-and-seek with him?"
"Um."
"Nothing happened?"
"No." Bo Jiuhe shook her head and asked her, "Did you find anything else with your black ant colony?"
"That's all, except that it's confirmed that the slippers are related to Lin Siyuan." Ma Li shrugged.
Bo Jiuhe glanced at the sky outside the window: "It's almost dawn. It's the darkest time before sunrise. Let's take this opportunity to go out together."
"Where to?" Ma Li was clearly still very nervous.
As long as it wasn't fully light, she felt an instinctive fear of the villa.
Bo Jiuhe pointed to the house in the backyard against the wall: "There. If things go smoothly, I think we'll be able to break this haunted house scene soon."
"Does it have to be broken at night? Can't it be broken during the day?" Ma Li asked fearfully.
"Yes." Bo Jiuhe nodded. "Now we can be basically certain that the ghosts we saw were all deceased members of the Lin family. The person who hanged herself was Lin Jianguo's wife, Zhou Qiaohui. That little ghost was Lin Jianmin and his wife's second son. Then there was the woman combing her hair, who is most likely Lin Shouye's deceased wife. It seems that almost everyone alive in this family has something wrong with them."
"Since there were problems, why did they call the police to send us?" Ma Li wondered.
Bo Jiuhe paused for a moment, then spoke: "I don't know. The plot hasn't been explained clearly, but there seem to be two possibilities. One is Lin Siyu, and the other is one of the gardener, the cook, or the maid."
"I'm inclined to kill Lin Siyu. That girl is not bad, and she might even be the gardener." Then Ma Li wrinkled her nose. "But I hate the cook. He smells of blood. I also hate the maid because the way she looks at the cook is more affectionate than when I looked at you."
"Is it really that complicated?" Bo Jiuhe asked in surprise.
However, upon closer reflection, my observations are certainly not as accurate as those of this queen ant, so the truth is most likely as described.
The cook was acting strangely. Moreover, Lin Shouye wasn't in his bedroom in the early hours of the morning; instead, he went to the row of rooms with the cooks and maids, and no one knew what he was doing.
"What kind of look did you have when you looked at me back then?" he asked curiously.
Ma Li said casually, "It's just that when you see a handsome guy, you naturally feel close to him! The maid's eyes were practically drooling over the chef, didn't you notice? The worst part is that the chef isn't handsome at all."
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