Zhang Yuanqing, Zhai Cai, and Tian Xia Gui Hu, who had already examined the body, began rummaging through boxes and drawers in search of valuable clues, while Sun Miaomiao and Zhao Chenghuang continued observing the body, trying to uncover clues overlooked by their teammates. Tian Xia Gui Hu opened the wardrobe, tossing out one elaborate gown after another and carefully removing silver coins stored in wooden boxes, closely examining each piece of jewelry. Zhai Cai searched the bed, inspecting and lightly sniffing at each item. The less skilled at delicate tasks, Red Chicken Brother, stood by the bed, watching the single-charge knight squinting and glancing here and there, occasionally sniffing curiously and asking, "What are you doing?" Zhai Cai looked up at him and said, "I'm looking for evidence that the giant-footed creature committed the murder." "What?" Red Chicken Brother was taken aback. "The giant-footed creature likes to plunder women and devour human organs. Now that I've found evidence of organ consumption, I need to find a second one." Zhai Cai explained. "You didn't think of this when you examined the body," Red Chicken Brother thought, finding his reasoning sound "I am a honest knight, and that might offend Lady Yar Lans, though she has already been dead!" Speaking this, Zhai Cai plucked a long strand of hair from the pillow. "It seems Lady Yar Lans did not suffer any other injuries." Red Chicken Brother, not understanding, asked, "Why?" "Because the bed hasn't been changed, and there are no signs of struggle around the body. Our Mr. Dong has already analyzed this—the victim was consumed while unconscious." Zhai Cai continued to explain with great enthusiasm, displaying the demeanor of someone who always wants to be seen as the expert. Typically, such people enjoy showing off in public. Red Chicken Brother suddenly understood, looked crestfallen, and sighed in frustration, "Poor thing! So I'm not the killer—now that's a problem." "I haven't said your suspicion is completely cleared," Zhai Cai smiled. "You may have the bloodline of the Great Footed Monster, but you're just a hybrid. Perhaps Monroe doesn't like women at all—he might simply enjoy eating their insides." Red Chicken Brother felt as though he were being scolded, yet found himself unable to respond. At that moment, Zhang Yuanqing's voice drew everyone's attention: "Come over and take a look—there's a set of notes here." Red Chicken, Zhai Cai by the bed, Sun Miaomiao and Zhao Chenghuang by the window, and Tianxia Guihuo who was searching through the wardrobe, all set down what they were doing and gathered around Zhang Yuanqing's desk. The desk was neat, with a bottle of carbon ink, a quill pen, and several rolls of linen and cotton-based paper—originally tied together with ropes—now carefully unbound by Zhang Yuanqing. —There were no books in this era! The team members surged around Zhang Yuanqing, gathering to watch his simple, makeshift books. The letters on the paper were rather messy: "Dong is a man full of charm. I found emotional comfort and physical pleasure in him. I had intended to keep him and make him the master of the castle, but he has developed a strong curiosity about the Lances family's taboos—this very curiosity would destroy my family. With no choice, I had to drive him away..." Red Chicken asked humbly, "What does it say there?" Zhai Cai chuckled, "It says 'physical pleasure' and 'emotional comfort'!" Zhao Chenghuang said solemnly, "Dong, the character of Mume, is the lover of the castle's master." He translated the content of the paper to Red Chicken. "So you are the murderer, then—driven by your desire to attain the Lances family's taboos, you killed the master of the castle," Red Chicken suddenly realized. Yet no one paid any attention to him. Zhang Yuanqing set down the papers he was holding and took up another one, presenting it to the group. "Every night at dusk, I hear cat calls coming from beneath the castle. They're growing more frequent. Good heavens, what shall I do? Our family has lost its magic. Oh God, I pray to you—save my family!" Zhang Yuanqing said, "Only the information on these two sheets is valuable. The rest can be ignored—they're merely the castle's ledger records for accounts and revenues." Zhai Cai stroked his chin. "Let me piece together the narrative, combining what Qu Meng previously revealed about the characters. Ah—our ancestors of the Lans family were skilled in magic, and they sealed 'her' deep beneath the castle. There was a family taboo, and recently, the seal has begun to weaken. Every night, Yá Lans hears cat calls. Those cat calls must be the sign of 'her' awakening." The magical lineage of the Lances family has come to an end, so Ya Lance has no choice but to turn to her longtime lover, Dong the Magician, although Dong had once coveted the forbidden seal buried deep beneath the castle. "I didn't expect it to be a romantic relationship," Zhang Yuanqing said to Sun Miaomiao, "You're so young, aren't you?" Sun Miaomiao: "Get out of here!" Zhao Chenghuang furrowed his brows: "With the current castle lord slain, does that mean the 'she' beneath the castle has now emerged? In that case, the murderer of the castle lord should be 'she' herself." "If that's the case, then we need to find out 'she'’s name and recite it together to proceed." Zhang Yuanqing said: "Then let's follow the plot and explore beneath the castle—see what lies there. After all, none of our skills or inventory have been sealed, so even if we encounter monsters, we still have a fighting chance." "Ah well, Guan Ya was killed off by the plot—now she's just a box. The investigation will have to fall on us." His proposal was well received by his teammates. They left the chateau owner's room, descended the stone stairs to the ground floor, and then proceeded to the end of the left corridor, where they found a wooden door wrapped in iron. The lock on the iron door had been pried open. Zhang Yuanqing gently pushed the door, and it creaked open, revealing a dim interior with granite steps extending into darkness. A damp, slightly decaying air flowed into his nostrils. "I'll send a spirit to scout the way," Sun Miaomiao said. After receiving nods from her teammates, she summoned a transcendent-level spirit servant dressed in a soiled linen dress, guiding it to drift into the basement. After about ten minutes, Sun Miaomiao whispered, "There's no danger below—it's indeed a sealed sanctuary." Hearing this, Hong Ji Ge pushed through the crowd, lifted a basketball-sized ball of fire in his palm, and stepped first down the stone stairs into the basement. The flame burned steadily, casting an orange glow that shimmered gently across the stone walls, like ripples in water. The footsteps of the group echoed through the quiet basement, covering the stone stairs in under three minutes and reaching the ancient castle's basement. For years, no one had set foot here—the corners were draped with cobwebs, and the stone tiles scattered across the floor bore irregular streaks of mud, formed as dust accumulated and then absorbed moisture from the air. The basement was vast; the basketball-sized flame could not illuminate it fully. Brother Hong lifted both hands, gathering a flame sphere with a diameter of one meter, and only then did the entire space come alive with light. The space was open and spacious, with a stone sarcophagus at its center, resting upon a circular arrangement composed of countless interlocking hexagonal patterns. At this moment, the lid of the sarcophagus had been lifted and lay横 across the floor beside it. Runes of Luon? Zhang Yuanqing immediately recognized the circular arrangement as strikingly similar to the one described by the Red Bishop in the "Thrilling Cruise" quest—it clearly shared the same origin. Zhai Cai, gazing at the circular formation beneath the glow of the fire, furrowed his brow. "Black magic—this is a variant of the Runes! I understand now. The Lans family is a lineage of witches. Black magic originates from the Runes. Compared to the pure Runes magic, Black magic is more insidious and cruel. Moreover, because it's less authentic, practitioners must be women. That's why so many female witch families emerged during the Middle Ages." Sun Miao Miao pointed to the stone sarcophagus. "There's something inside the coffin." As the group gathered closer, they turned their gaze to the sarcophagus under the firelight and saw a cat, its skin stripped away, its fresh, vivid flesh stark and alarming, its amber eyes wide open—terrifying. "A cat?" Red Chicken Brother asked, puzzled. "Guan Ya mentioned this in her notes—she said she hears cats calling every day. Is this the very one? But how did it die?" He had already forgotten the name of the castle's owner; foreign names just didn't stick in his memory. The others could only stare, unable to answer, and turned their attention to the single-line knight from the Church Zhai Cai scanned the room, flipped the lid over, and in the flickering light, he saw on the front surface of the coffin blood-scribbled, twisted, and strange incantations. The single-branch knight immediately looked enlightened, saying, "The cat has been sacrificed." He pointed to the incantations on the front of the lid. "This is a sacrifice magic used to summon or revive malevolent beings. In black magic, cats symbolize the night, and blood—a material rich in negative energy—is particularly valuable to female sorcerers practicing black magic. Cats serve both as remedies and as excellent vessels for black magic. In the Middle Ages, female sorcerers often kept cats at home, as a ready resource." "So, 'she' has indeed emerged," Zhang Yuanqing nodded. "The one sealed within the coffin must also have been a sorceress with a grudge against the Lans family." As soon as the words were spoken, a notification sounded in everyone's ears: 【The secret of the Lances family's taboo has been successfully unveiled. You have now drawn "her" attention. Every thirty minutes, she activates a skill that turns the castle into night. During the night, she randomly kills one of the members. Find the murderer within three hours.】 【Note 1: Skills and items cannot be used during nighttime hours.】 【Note 2: Under her influence, the validity period of points is invalidated. You may choose to use points or forgo them.】 "I knew it wouldn't be that simple..." a thousand stampeding horses of grass and mud raced through Zhang Yuanqing's mind. "More and more fascinating! More and more fascinating!"翟菜's mind buzzed with a thousand "fucks." The difficulty has skyrocketed! "Thirty minutes—we still have thirty minutes!" Tianxia Guihuo spoke swiftly, "Our current clues aren't enough. We must act quickly." "There's only thirty minutes left," Zhang Yuanqing shook his head. "Do you remember the rules we saw when we entered? The scroll lasts only three hours. Guan Ya has passed away, and we now have six of us. With a night shift every thirty minutes, one person will die each time—exactly one per shift. That means, from the moment we entered the scroll, time begins to count. Only ten minutes remain!" Zhao Chenghuang's face tightened—Night Traveler is especially sensitive to time. Since they assumed their roles, they've already been inside the scroll for twenty minutes. Red Chicken Brother immediately grew anxious: "What are we going to do? We haven't even identified the killer yet! Ten minutes simply isn't enough. After all, it's clear that combat-based quests are the best. Let's take a chance—let's all chant my name together!" "What's there to be anxious about?" Zhang Yuanqing grew even calmer as the difficulty of the quest increased. "One person dies every thirty minutes—six of us means we can endure five such losses. As long as the final person successfully solves the case, we'll all survive." His calm tone and composed demeanor inspired everyone around him. "But we haven't even figured out the direction of our investigation yet," Sun Miaomiao frowned. Zhang Yuanqing said, "The directional cues have already indicated the path—we know that points are crucial to this case. The external rules suggest using points early, and the audio cue reinforces that point once again." "How exactly should we use the points?" Sun Miaomiao asked. "Actually, I don't know!" Zhang Yuanqing stepped toward the stone steps and said, "Let's go back upstairs." This time, they didn't walk up the stairs—they leapt directly to the stairwell entrance and returned to the castle. Without stopping, they reached the second floor, where they didn't enter Ya Lans' room. Instead, they moved in unison, each heading off to search other rooms. There were about seven or eight rooms on the second floor. Red Chicken kicked at the door of the first room on the left side of the staircase—unexpectedly, it wouldn't budge. The simple wooden door hung with a rusted iron lock, appearing fragile at first glance but actually proving remarkably strong. Holding the bronze lock, Red Chicken waited a few seconds and then noticed a pop-up item information screen. "Master Dong, this is your room—you'll need points to unlock it." The team surged forward, gathering around the simple wooden door. Zhang Yuanqing grasped the bronze lock and read the item details: 【Name: Ordinary Door Lock】 【Type: Metal Craft】 【Function: Anti-theft】 【Description: The door lock of Master Dong's room, enchanted so that it must be opened personally by the owner.】 【Note: To unlock this lock, 10 points are required.]