Xievian felt speechless. The system now resembled a hungry man who had just seen food. It even raised its volume.
Just as he was about to ignore it, it suddenly dinged again.
[Location Acquired: Abandoned Mausoleum
Danger Level: F
Mission 1: Find where the woman is buried inside the mausoleum. (COMPLETED)
Mission 2: Uncover the hidden history of the mausoleum.
Mission 3: Stop the hauntings.
Mission 4: Survive.
Additional Condition: You need to livestream the mausoleum during nighttime, when the sun has set and the moon is up.
Time Limit: 24 hours.
Failure to complete the task: Death.
...
System Mission:
Mission 1: Acquire Energy Points.]
Once again, Xievian was speechless. Yes, the alert was helpful, indicating that the woman in question was this one. But why did Xievian feel as though the system was reminding him of the system mission? Isn't he the system administrator? Why is his system so greedy for Energy Points?
Well, okay, let's just say it's a bit greedy.
Damn! The voices inside his head made it hard to string together any coherent thoughts. This system reminder helped him refocus a little.
Speaking of voices, he could now hear what it was saying.
"Let me in, I'll give you everything you want."
"Power, wealth, beauty, and love."
"Oh, poor abandoned child. I can give you everything you desire."
He ignored it. He couldn't understand why people in stories felt tempted by such promises. There's no such thing as a free lunch in the world. There's no way the voice could offer that much without some price.
He ignored the system and the voice, carefully avoiding the stone that seemed to seal something. He pulled out the visible strips of paper from the girl's hand.
He didn't even glance at the chat anymore. His brain was now processing at a limited capacity, and he needed to conserve energy. His focus was now entirely on the note. But still, as a good host, he read its contents.
[I am the eldest Emi. I love my sisters.
I was old enough to remember our biological parents before they died.
Our father once had a successful business, but it went bankrupt, and our mother was a gentle violin teacher.
Based on what I remember, before our father went bankrupt, he was already a terrible human being. He kept cheating on our mother, and at the same time, he was a very jealous husband.
When his company went bankrupt, he became addicted to gambling, alcohol, and drugs. He would beat me, Lily, and our mother. Although he was brutal, he knew that my little sisters were still too young to stand the beating, so all his punches went to mother and us two siblings.
Lily had it worse. Our jealous father always thought Lily wasn't his child but one our mother had from an affair.
The capricious Lily, at that time, was still a little child. Her screams of pain, our mother's begging, me trying to pull Lily away—those were real nightmares.
It reached a point where our mother felt that Lily was somewhat repulsive. Because father would see Lily, scream at mother, then beat her while yelling that Lily wasn't his child.
Our mother loved Lily, but the beatings conditioned her body to flinch at the slightest sight of Lily.
Then Sally arrived. At that time, our father seemed to have regained a bit of sanity. He still drank, gambled, and used drugs, but he stopped beating us—more specifically, our mother.
Our mother treated the child in her belly as a talisman—gentleness, care, and motherhood. The old her seemed to come back whenever she caressed her tummy.
I looked at Lily.
I knew she hated it. She hated our youngest sibling.
The day Sally was born, everything seemed to come to light. Our father doted on her because she had his eyes and hair. Our father thought of Sally as his little princess and his mini-me. Our mother, hopeful for the future, doted on Sally even more.
Just as things were turning for the better, our father was killed. It seemed to be over money. His body was dumped in an abandoned construction site.
Our mother, who was solely devoted to our father, lost hope. Two weeks after his death, I saw her body dangling from our window.
She committed suicide and abandoned us.]
From the note, it seemed Lily's hatred for Sally had been rooted since she was young.
Then Xievian felt his head spin, accompanied by a loud boom of hallucinations.
Xievian felt weak all of a sudden. He sat down, his stomach clenched, and he vomited something.
It looked red. It was blood, alright.
He clutched his stomach, realizing that he had been so busy a while ago that he had forgotten he seemed to have suffered some kind of internal injury from the ghost's attack.
It was already a miracle he hadn't suddenly dropped dead.
Goodness, why was there no healing item in the system's mall? Sure enough, this was a sketchy system, he thought angrily.
The chat also seemed very concerned about his condition.
Chat
Sisi: Host, are you okay?
AnnoyingOrangeislove: That smash was brutal. Even if that was just part of the host script, the fact that the back camera shattered means it was definitely strong.
Cold7: Don't die, host.
Sisi: Shh, don't say anything ominous.
Lilith: You can stop if you're at your limit, host.
(More chats.)
Xievian looked at the last chat and smiled bitterly. He was wearing a mask, and the blood dripping from his jaw looked horrible. Fortunately, it was a bit dark, and the camera wasn't angled at his face, or else they'd probably call an ambulance right now.
His views had now reached 900,000. After subtracting everything he had purchased, he now had a total of 81 days to live. That was roughly two to three months. But he would probably spend them here, as there seemed to be something going on at the mausoleum.
It was quiet, as if the system was giving Xievian some buffer time, or maybe it was just biding its time, wreaking chaos.