Chapter 56

What a Coincidence

"Mr. Xu, welcome to my humble estate."

Master Chen came out at something close to a trot, his smile carrying a visible edge of flattery that nobody could have missed. The players who had spent a full day being ground down by the estate's rules stared at the sight of him.

The old feudalist had a second face after all.

From morning until now, every arriving guest had been received by the head steward alone. Master Chen hadn't shown himself once.

This was the first time any of them had seen him greet a guest personally, with this much ceremony.

"Master Chen." Xu Chenzhu gave a slight incline of his head. "Sorry to impose."

"Having you here is an honor for our household." Master Chen, in his sixties and dressed in a traditional tang-style jacket, was a figure of considerable mystique to the players — yet in front of Xu Chenzhu, he seemed somehow diminished. "I heard there was a small incident on the Wangyue. I hope it hasn't dampened Mr. Xu's appetite for relaxation."

"This must be Mr. Chao." Master Chen raised a hand in greeting. "My son came home yesterday and spoke of nothing but how remarkable Mr. Chao was. Seeing him today — he truly is a person of exceptional quality."

"You flatter me, Master Chen." Chao Musheng shook his hand. The skin was a little loose with age.

His face, though, had been well looked after — a man in his late sixties who could have passed for fifty.

"Don't be modest, Mr. Chao."

Chao Musheng glanced at the servants standing nearby in their period-style uniforms. The man had a fondness for antiquity — not just in his speech, with its half-classical cadence, but apparently his household staff were required to perform it alongside him.

He released Master Chen's hand with a polite smile.

"Mr. Xu, Mr. Chao — you only returned from sea yesterday. You must still be tired." Master Chen noticed Xu Chenzhu had stopped speaking and was looking toward the entrance. He reacted immediately. "I've arranged accommodations for both of you. Please allow me to show you to your rooms."

Master Chen insisted on leading them personally, dismissing all the servants.

Tiger, standing to one side, watched with quiet anguish. Xiao Chao still hadn't spotted him. He needed to get to that leg—

The estate was large. Chao Musheng rode the grounds cart and looked at the scenery.

Not quite a painting every three steps or a view every five, but genuinely beautiful — enough to justify the confidence behind Master Chen's invitation to Xu Chenzhu.

Master Chen narrated the landscape attentively as they moved through it. The cart finally stopped before a moon gate, beyond which lay a handsome courtyard: decorative rockery, a lotus pond, covered walkways, and artificial equipment that had been arranged to produce the sound of rain on banana leaves.

"Mr. Xu, Mr. Chao — is there anything about the arrangements that doesn't meet with your approval?" Master Chen's smile became a little more careful as Xu Chenzhu's bodyguards went in ahead to check the space.

A man of Xu Chenzhu's standing choosing to set foot in the Chen estate at all was already an immense honor.

"Acceptable." Xu Chenzhu turned to look at Chao Musheng. "Zhaozhao?"

Master Chen's eyes shifted, quietly following Xu Chenzhu's gaze to settle on Chao Musheng.

"It's a beautiful courtyard." Chao Musheng smiled. "Thank you for your trouble, Master Chen."

"Not at all — so long as you're both comfortable." Master Chen exhaled.

The main building in the courtyard had two floors. Chao Musheng's room was next to Xu Chenzhu's. After seeing Master Chen off, he lay down on the bed.

He wasn't sure if it was the days at sea, but he'd slept badly last night — spending the whole night in a dream opening blind boxes.

The boxes had been full of tiny objects: a castle, a village cottage, a department store, a little train...

After dozens of boxes, a black spherical thing had suddenly appeared, round and covered all over in tendrils, and launched itself at him. He'd run, it had chased, and eventually he'd run out of strength and had to fight it.

It had looked like a virus. He'd battled it until he woke up. Final score: roughly three to seven.

It had stomped on his left foot three times. He'd ripped off seven of its tendrils.

When he got up this morning, the back of his left foot still ached. He had reasonable suspicions that he'd knocked it against something during the struggle.

The room was cool — naturally so, with no need for the air conditioning. Chao Musheng had barely been lying down three minutes before he was asleep.

This time he didn't dream. When he woke, the sun had already moved westward.

He changed and stepped outside, and found Secretary Liu walking past his door at exactly that moment. "Brother Liu?"

"Finally awake?" Secretary Liu checked the time. "I had the Chen estate servants bring food to your room. The police are coming in twenty minutes to go over the Wangyue incident."

The Wangyue case was complicated, with many people involved. And Chao Musheng had personally subdued the captain, which made him an important witness. The police had been asking questions all morning — Secretary Liu had spent most of it at the station handling it.

"Thank you, Brother Liu — you're the best Brother Liu in the world." Chao Musheng pressed a hand to his stomach. He was, in fact, quite hungry.

The words had barely left his mouth when the door next to his opened and Xu Chenzhu came out.

Secretary Liu moved quickly. "It was the boss who was worried you hadn't rested properly and might be hungry — he's the one who arranged everything!"

Nothing to do with me. All the boss's doing.

Don't thank me. Please, in fact, don't.

"Thank you, Mr. Xu." Chao Musheng turned to him with a smile that reached all the way up. "Have you eaten lunch?"

"Not much at noon." Xu Chenzhu came to stand beside him. "We'll eat together in a bit."

"Good." Chao Musheng nodded. "Food always tastes better with company."

*

Curly Hair had just finished helping in the kitchen when the head steward came in, eyes moving assessingly over the servants. He pointed at Curly Hair, then at a few others. "You, and those three — come with me. We're taking a meal to a guest."

Five men, five women. All selected on appearance. Tiger, lacking the required standard of attractiveness, was not among them.

"Steward, who's important enough to be staying at Chen Garden and missing the midday gathering — eating at this hour instead?" The question came from the steward's niece, the only servant in the group willing to ask.

"Mr. Xu, from Kunlun." The steward gave her a warning look. "All of you had better be on your best behavior. Don't embarrass this household in front of Mr. Xu or his associate."

"Mr. Xu is the master's honored guest — a figure so far above you that you couldn't reach his ankles on your tiptoes. If it weren't for your good fortune in working here, you'd probably never get within sight of him your entire lives."

Curly Hair: "..."

Mr. Xu's associate is her Xiao Chao. You'd have a heart attack if you knew.

"Don't think about currying favor with the powerful, either. Do your jobs and keep your heads down. If you create problems, no one can protect you."

Curly Hair looked at the floor, raising an eyebrow.

The steward could say what he liked. Whether the police would accept the same logic was another matter.

This is a classical-style garden estate. It's not a jurisdiction-free wilderness.

She thought about the more pressing issue: how to explain to Xiao Chao why she was now a servant at Chen Garden.

It was genuinely strange. Every exploration instance she'd entered had been set in Xiao Chao's world, and Xiao Chao appeared in every one of them.

When they'd first arrived at the estate, she'd mapped out all the relevant relationships and concluded with confidence: absolutely no way Xiao Chao shows up in this one.

She had not anticipated that he would arrive as a guest.

She couldn't decide whether the Main God was targeting Xiao Chao's vicinity to squeeze resources out of him, or whether Xiao Chao was somehow following the instances around and wrecking them.

Not one had succeeded so far, but the Main God seemed only to grow more determined with every failure — fixated on this world, locked in a struggle with it.

Whether people or gods, no one could escape the ancient curse of wanting most what they couldn't have.

The steward led the servants to the main building. Curly Hair watched his upright spine bend several degrees the moment they came within sight of the entrance.

"Mr. Xu, Mr. Chao — pardon the interruption." The steward walked in to find Mr. Xu seated in a carved wooden chair reading, and Mr. Chao reclining on the daybed with his phone. He gestured for the servants to begin setting out the dishes.

"Thank you, that's very kind." Chao Musheng sat up, his gaze passing over Curly Hair.

Curly Hair lowered her head further.

"Not at all." The steward hadn't expected Mr. Chao to be this pleasant, and was somewhat caught off guard. "Sir, is there anything else you'd like?"

"Actually — after dinner I'd like to walk around the grounds a bit. Would it be possible to have someone stay to show me the way?"

"Of course." The steward looked back at the ten servants behind him. "Mr. Chao — whoever catches your eye."

"Her." Chao Musheng indicated the girl with short curly hair. "She looks remarkably like a good friend of mine. I feel at ease with her already."

The other servants cut their eyes at Curly Hair sideways.

The luck on this one.

"Of course, Mr. Chao." The steward glanced at Curly Hair, smiled broadly, and led the others out.

If Mr. Chao wanted to walk the grounds with one of the Chen estate servants, that meant the scenery had made an impression. The master would be very pleased when he heard.

"Xiao Chao." The moment the steward was gone, Curly Hair looked at Chao Musheng with a transparently guilty smile.

Xu Chenzhu settled into the seat beside Chao Musheng and ladled him a bowl of soup. "Have something warm first."

Chao Musheng glanced at Curly Hair with an expression that was somewhere between a smile and not one, and lowered his head to drink.

"Xiao Chao." Curly Hair helpfully placed two sets of food in his bowl. "I wasn't planning to come to Chen Garden as a servant. I'm helping a friend."

Kunlun employee, then ocean liner server, now private household servant. In Xiao Chao's eyes she had probably been steadily downgrading herself.

Chao Musheng put down his spoon. "If I'd known you were coming here, I would have brought you along yesterday."

Yesterday?

She'd come back to the infinite space with Tiger and the others, spent five days there, and then entered the new instance — and in that time, only one day had passed in Xiao Chao's world.

From the Kunlun instance to the Wangyue, the gap had been about ten days. Between the Wangyue and Chen Garden, just one.

Actually not even that — she and Tiger had entered at noon yesterday, and if the ship hadn't docked early, the Chen Garden instance would have opened almost the moment the Wangyue one ended.

Seamless.

The Main God seemed desperate to clear an exploration instance in this world — but however urgent it was, it didn't seem capable of running more than one at a time.

From the urgency, you could infer something: maybe it wasn't that the Main God chose not to open more instances here simultaneously. Maybe it couldn't.

Perhaps even this current instance had been opened by squeezing through some narrow gap.

"Have you eaten?" Chao Musheng looked at Curly Hair's hands. "Stop picking at it — you'll put a hole in your skirt hem."

Curly Hair folded her fidgeting fingers into her palm. "I already had the staff meal, Xiao Chao."

Xu Chenzhu placed a piece of boned fish into Chao Musheng's bowl. His chopstick tip caught the edge of the dish Curly Hair had served and sent it rolling off the rim onto the table.

Curly Hair, who had already not known where to put herself, now had to confront the fact that she was visible in entirely the wrong way.

"My apologies." Xu Chenzhu wiped the table clean with a napkin and added a replacement piece to Chao Musheng's bowl. "I knocked it."

Curly Hair: "..."

Yes. Deliberately knocked it. Accidentally on purpose.

Wait, why did the word deliberately come in there?

"It's nothing." Chao Musheng, mindful of Xu Chenzhu's presence, managed not to say the sentence that had been forming: do you have something against Kunlun specifically?

He genuinely couldn't work out the logic. Curly Hair had real ability — she had a lot of room to grow at Kunlun. What was she doing as a servant in Chen Garden? A free trial of the classical estate experience?

"Brother Liu said the police were coming — why aren't they here yet?" He was still thinking about the Wangyue, and returned the gesture automatically, serving food into Xu Chenzhu's bowl.

"They should be arriving soon." Xu Chenzhu took the food Chao Musheng had served and ate it, his expression soft enough to pour.

*

The police had, in fact, already arrived at the Chen estate gates — they were simply waiting for the doorman to inform the household.

Officer Cheng and his two colleagues stood outside, rendered briefly speechless by the scale of the place.

"Cheng-ge, I paid for a tour of a classical garden last year that was smaller than this private one." One officer looked back at the department car they'd arrived in. What kind of life did wealthy people live?

"Officers, we've confirmed your appointment with Mr. Liu — please follow me." A young man in servant's uniform came out, bowing slightly, and led them through the gates.

The garden was thick with trees. The moment they came through the entrance, Officer Cheng felt a cool shift in the air.

Cicadas called. A broad-shouldered gardener was cutting branches in one of the flower beds, working with deliberate strokes, clippings scattered across the ground.

Officer Cheng watched the man's technique.

This gardener was... not very skilled.

Running an estate this large, and hiring this kind of staff. Even wealthy people made compromises when they could.

"He came to us recently." The young guide spoke, redirecting Officer Cheng's attention. "The head steward saw he was strong and put him to work as the head gardener's assistant."

"Ah — right." Officer Cheng smiled.

He understood. Cheap labor.

"The master is kind-hearted — he doesn't like to see young people without work." The young man smiled, and led them further in. "The guest quarters are on the east side — this way, please."

He walked at an easy, unhurried pace, noting the sights along the way, mentioning the family and their guests only briefly in passing.

The walk took nearly half an hour before he stopped before an elegant, secluded courtyard. "Please wait a moment."

Officer Cheng observed. The courtyard was self-contained, with two bodyguards posted at the door — dressed in white suits entirely unlike the servants' traditional uniform.

The young man spoke quietly to one of them, and a man in a dark blue suit appeared.

He had pleasant features, a mild and courteous smile, and seemed considerably more approachable than the gate staff. "Officer Cheng — I apologize, I should have come out to meet you myself. Something came up at the last moment. Please follow me."

"Secretary Liu, good afternoon." Officer Cheng had spoken with this Secretary Liu that morning. Measured, precise, and sharp. "Are Mr. Xu and Mr. Chao both inside?"

"Yes — the boss and Xiao Chao are eating at the moment." Secretary Liu led the three of them through a covered walkway, over a stone bridge, along a path of blue flagstones, and into the main building.

The young man in the servant's uniform followed silently behind the group of four, quietly counting the bodyguards positioned around the courtyard.

In an old-style garden estate instance like this one, the supernatural was usually a given.

But it was his first time ever seeing police appear in this type of instance.

Deeply strange. Like a dog suddenly picking up a cigarette and asking to borrow your lighter.

"This way please, sir." A bodyguard at the main building entrance stepped in front of him. "No additional staff needed inside."

"Understood."

The young man glanced quickly into the room. Two men at the table. The one in the main seat was older. The one beside him was younger, showing only half his face in profile — but half was enough to tell: extremely good-looking.

What drew his attention more was the Chen estate servant standing at the table's edge, head bowed, face obscured. He couldn't tell whether she was a player or a local.

Not wanting to attract the bodyguard's suspicion, he didn't linger. He turned and walked away.

Passing the flower beds, the big man was still trimming. He bent down, picked up a fallen crepe myrtle bloom, and spoke quietly. "You can stop."

"Hm?" Tiger put down the shears, wiped his forehead, and pointed at himself. "Talking to me?"

"Is there anyone else here?" The young man noticed the phone buzzing in the big man's pocket. "What's playing on there?"

"Oh, this?" Tiger held the phone out. A middle-aged man on the screen was demonstrating pruning technique.

" First snip here! "

" And here. "

After several cuts, the rose in the video had been reduced to a single main stem.

"That's a winter pruning method for roses." The young man was quiet for two seconds. "It's summer. Those are crepe myrtle and trumpet vines."

"What?" The honest, guileless expression on Tiger's face gave way to shock. He shoved the phone at the young man, turned to survey the scattered branches across the ground, bent down and began stuffing them into the flower beds, apparently attempting to hide the evidence.

The young man: "..."

Fine. He didn't work with idiots.

After Tiger had finished hiding every last clipping with his face pointed at the ground, the young man returned the phone and walked away.

"Wait, wait!" Tiger grabbed him back one-handed with considerable force. "You seem smart. Can't you give me a hand?"

The young man's expression was blank. "What's your ranking?"

Tiger gave a good-natured grin. "Two thousand and something."

"Mine is 49." The young man touched Tiger's wrist lightly. Tiger's grip released against his will.

He gave Tiger one look, said nothing further, and left.

Tiger felt as though everything had been said anyway — in some language that included several very rude words.

After he'd disappeared, Tiger frowned.

A top-fifty player in this instance. The difficulty here must be exceptional.

He needed to find Curly Hair. And he needed to get to Xiao Chao as soon as possible.

The player ranked 49 was... You Jiu, wasn't it?

Legendarily good at disguise. Known chiefly for one quality: a deep contempt for stupidity.

*

"Mr. Xu, Mr. Chao." Officer Cheng shook hands with Chao Musheng. "Thank you both for cooperating with our work. I'm sorry for interrupting your meal."

"My fault for sleeping through normal meal times." Chao Musheng invited the three of them to sit and have tea. "You don't mind if I keep eating while we talk?"

"Please do." Officer Cheng positioned Chao Musheng as his primary contact. He adjusted the recorder on his person. "I want to assure both of you: you're assisting an investigation as witnesses. We won't activate any recording equipment without your explicit permission."

The case involved numerous people, but Chao Musheng was simply a concerned citizen who had intervened — from both a human and legal standpoint, this was a routine statement.

"Cooperating with the police is a citizen's obligation." Chao Musheng sped up and cleared his bowl in a few efficient mouthfuls. "How is the captain?"

Officer Cheng hesitated briefly. "His mental state is unstable at present. He's still under medical observation."

"Unstable?" Chao Musheng accepted the napkin Xu Chenzhu handed him and cleaned the corner of his mouth. "The Wangyue didn't sink — that hit him that hard?"

"Since the moment he was brought under control, he has been repeating the same phrase."

"What phrase?" Chao Musheng was curious. Not cursing him, hopefully.

"Ghosts. There are ghosts."

"Hss." A chill ran up Chao Musheng's back. He turned — the air conditioning vent was pointing directly at him.

A jacket settled over his shoulders.

"Thank you, Mr. Xu." Chao Musheng pulled the lapel around and dragged his chair sideways toward Xu Chenzhu. Smaller draft over here.

Officer Cheng observed this exchange. The rough calluses on his palm moved across the surface of his notebook.

The way Chao Musheng's employer behaved toward him had clearly moved well outside any ordinary professional relationship.

Curly Hair watched the two chairs draw together until their shoulders were nearly touching, and quietly looked elsewhere.

"I only restrained him — I didn't do anything to his brain." Chao Musheng made sure this was on the record. "Right, Mr. Xu?"

"Correct." Xu Chenzhu said. "I was present throughout."

"We have no doubts about Mr. Chao." Officer Cheng said. "The cruise company has handed over all publicly accessible security footage. Mr. Chao's conduct is clearly documented."

As for the footage of Chao Musheng and Song Cheng — that was a civil matter. If the Song family chose not to pursue it, the police had no reason to raise it either.

Especially not once they'd learned the full story.

Not surprising that Chao Musheng had hit hard. Song Cheng's behavior had been despicable.

"For intervening to stop the captain's crimes and assisting in the rescue of hostages, we'll be filing paperwork for a commendation on your behalf." Officer Cheng smiled. "Our primary purpose today is to clarify some specifics of the incident."

Chao Musheng looked slightly uncomfortable. "I wasn't the only one involved."

Oh no.

Curly Hair had already worked out what was coming.

"There was a member of the ship's staff on the scene as well — he contributed significantly." Chao Musheng said. "If he hadn't been the first to realize something was wrong with the captain, the two hostages would very likely have come to serious harm."

Officer Cheng's expression flickered. Another staff member present?

Yes — now that it was mentioned... there had been someone.

If Chao Musheng hadn't brought it up, Officer Cheng and his colleagues would have completely failed to recall that someone was standing beside Chao Musheng in the footage of the captain being subdued.

How was a gap like that even possible?

Officer Cheng broke into a quiet, bewildered sweat. He glanced back at his two colleagues and saw the same shock and confusion reflected in their faces.

The footage showed the captain chasing this same staff member through an entire corridor with a knife. How had they all overlooked something that significant?

Surely the case hadn't actually attracted any... supernatural involvement.

No. They were committed materialists.

A captain attempting to take passengers down with him. Song Cheng, illegally confining and deliberately injuring civilians. Wealthy passengers abusing staff. Commercial spies who'd boarded the ship covertly. Individuals of undetermined nationality and no documented background.

The Wangyue had been a complete mess.

Officer Cheng made a deliberate effort to collect himself. Perhaps the case was simply too complex, with too many parties involved — perhaps that explained the oversight.

If that ship had actually sunk with all those billionaires aboard, it would have been global news. Domestic economic turbulence. Ordinary people losing jobs and livelihoods by the thousands.

A conspiracy. This had all the hallmarks of a coordinated attack on the national economy by hostile forces.

"The captain's mental state is too compromised for questioning at present. His cabin contained several banned substances — he seems to have been very careful, there's no purchase trail on his phone, so they came through other channels." Officer Cheng asked: "We suspect the captain had accomplices on board, but for reasons we can't determine, those individuals ultimately chose not to carry out the revenge. Do you have any information about that?"

The record of wealthy guests abusing staff — documented in the Wangyue case files — made for genuinely disturbing reading.

"I'm sorry — I wouldn't know about that." Chao Musheng shook his head. "Every member of staff I encountered was very decent."

"The staff we've spoken to all said the same about you." Officer Cheng asked a few more specific questions, then closed his notebook. "Mr. Chao, Mr. Xu — thank you for your time. We have other matters to attend to. We'll leave you to it."

"I'll walk you out." Chao Musheng stood. "I just finished eating — a walk will help with digestion."

Officer Cheng glanced at Xu Chenzhu, who had spoken barely a handful of words throughout. "Thank you, Mr. Chao."

Curly Hair hurried to follow Chao Musheng out. She was not going to stay alone with Mr. Xu. She simply wasn't.

"Wait." Xu Chenzhu called out before they reached the door, his gaze passing briefly over Curly Hair. "Zhaozhao — I'll come with you."

Officer Cheng took another look at this mysterious Mr. Xu, who was younger than he'd expected, and found himself struck by something odd about the way the two men moved around each other.

As a police officer, he was attuned to the dynamics between people. Something about this one was unusual.

*

On the way back, they passed the flower beds again. The big man who'd been cutting branches earlier was now clearing the debris from the ground.

Something nagged at Officer Cheng. He hadn't thought anything of it on the way in, but now the more he looked, the more familiar the face seemed.

"Cheng-ge — doesn't he look like the staff member from the security footage? The one the captain was chasing?"

Officer Cheng's mind went abruptly clear.

Yes. This was the one.

He'd specifically looked at this person when they'd first walked through the gates. How had it not connected until now?

Deeply odd.

And the incident was only yesterday. He'd already found new work?

Tiger looked up at the three police officers' combined focused attention. "...Yes?"

"Xiao Hu?" Chao Musheng looked at Tiger, then back at Curly Hair, and smiled. "What a coincidence — he came to help a friend too?"

That's why a figure at the gate this morning had looked familiar. It had been Xiao Hu.

Curly Hair nodded, her expression holding firm through sheer willpower.

Helping her. Wasn't that helping a friend?