Card Room

Chapter 5 - Lucky Draw

The plot card was equivalent to reproducing the plot from a god’s perspective. It should be the reward for the players who found all the clues to ‘perfectly clearing the instance.’ This plot was so immersive that Zou Xiaomei’s screams still echoed in the air.

Xiao Lou might like detective reasoning novels but he still felt cold at seeing such a cruel murder scene.

Zou Xiaomei and He Yongqiang were indeed wrong but weren’t Zhao Sen’s means too abnormal?

Digging out his cousin’s heart, killing his wife and taking away his cousin’s body... moreover, he deliberately left He Yongqiang’s fingerprint on the fruit knife and his blood on the deceased’s body. Wasn’t this planting blame?’

If this story had a follow-up then Zou Xiaomei’s body would be discovered. The police would find the weapon when investigating the scene and the fruit knife had He Yongqiang’s fingerprints. He Yongqiang’s blood would also be found on the deceased. The most suspected person would naturally become He Yongqiang!

However, He Yongqiang was already dead and it was unknown how Zhao Sen disposed of his body.

If there was no evidence of death, the case would become a pending one.

Zhao Sen might’ve forged evidence that he was on the business trip. In this way, Zou Xiaomei died from an accident and he could get 2 million yuan compensation from the insurance company.

This Zhao Sen’s psychological distortion and deep thoughts gave him goosebumps.

Xiao Lou stabilized his violent heartbeat and called out, “System elf?”

This time, it wasn’t the cold male mechanical voice but a gentle female voice that greeted him. An adult woman in a long red dress with a graceful body and curly hair to her waist suddenly appeared in front of him.

The beauty looked at him with a smile. “Hello, Xiao Lou. I am the keeper of Hearts. You can ask me any questions you have.”

Keeper of Hearts?

Xiao Lou stared at the 2-K Hearts arranged on the wall and couldn’t help wondering, “Why is there no A of Hearts on the card wall?”

The beauty in red smiled. “I am the A of Hearts.”

“Can you explain?”

“Of course.” The voice of the beauty was very kind. “You should know that a deck of cards has a total of 54 cards. In this card word, A of Hearts, A of Diamonds, A of Spades and A of Clubs are the gatekeepers of the four types of secret rooms. The other cards contain different secret rooms and small worlds and you need to challenge them.”

Xiao Lou nodded. “Since the A of Hearts is the keeper and I started from 2 of Hearts, the most difficult one should be the K?? There are also double kings above the K, which is what the system told me before... the final SS-grade secret room?”

The beautiful woman looked at him with admiration. “That’s right.”

Xiao Lou didn’t know much about playing cards but he knew that J stood for Jack (servant), Q for Queen (queen), and K for King (king). A was for Ace (supreme) and there were the coloured joker and black and white joker. They were often called the kings and was what he referred to when he mentioned two kings. Some areas called them the big ghost and small ghost.

In this card world, the A was the gatekeeper and 2 to K were all types of secret rooms. The difficulty was from D to C, B, A and S. The four types of K should be the most difficult S-grade secret rooms. Then the final ones were the SS-grade secret rooms where the kings sat.

The 2 of Hearts room that he just passed was the simplest D-grade room.

As a single-person secret room, it threw people directly into a room with a body and there were only 30 minutes to crack the murder case. Most people would be scared to death by the female body on the bed. Even if they were courageous enough to calm down and look for clues, in the end, more than 90% of people couldn’t solve the mobile phone password. They only guessed the murderer and the probability of a perfect clearance was less than 1%.

No wonder his pass rating was greater than 99% of the challengers.

A D-grade secret room already had this difficulty. He could imagine how terrible the rooms afterwards were.

Xiao Lou slightly frowned and continued to ask, “The plot card can only be obtained with a perfect clearance? If the clues weren’t all collected, for example, the final solution can’t be opened. However, the murderer is correct and it is also an instance clearance, so the reward will change and be less?”

A of Hearts nodded. “Yes, collecting 50% of the clues allows you to pick the murderer and this is correctly counted as clearing the Hearts secret room. It is only when the clues collection is 100% that it is regarded as a perfect clearance and you can get the plot card as well as a chance to draw additional prizes. With the plot card, your understanding of this secret room will be more comprehensive. If you happen to meet the characters of the secret room again, this plot card might help you.”

In the plot of the 2 of Hearts room, Zou Xiaomei and He Yongqiang were killed. Liu Wei, the female friend, never appeared. There was another person, Zhao Sen, the murder who took away his cousin’s body in the suitcase. It was possible to encounter this perverted murderer in the future?

Thinking of Zhao Sen’s last smile to the camera, Xiao Lou couldn’t help his scalp feeling numb. He took a deep breath to calm himself down before asking, “Where are the rewards?”

A of Hearts spoke very softly. “You can find your card bag in your pocket.”

Xiao Lou placed his hands in his pockets and found a small card bag that could be found in real life.

The black card pack was only half the size of his palm and the surface had the words ‘Card Room’ written on them. This card back was like a folded book page. Once opened, the card pack showed a dozen card slots.

At this time, the first three grids contained the cards he had just obtained.

[Plot Card: Rose Funeral]

Rarity: S

Description: Obtained after perfectly clearing the 2 of Hearts secret room, Rose Funeral. Less than 1% of people can get a plot card. The plot card is very rare, so keep it well. You can play it at any time and enjoy the wonderful clip of Dr. Zhao Sen killing both people.

[Tool Card: Fruit Knife]

Rarity: C

Description: The murder weapon that killed Zou Xiaomei. It is 20cm long and 5cm wide. It is extremely sharp. A fixed reward for clearing the 2 of Hearts secret room, it can be held in one hand. The fruit knife from a rotten street isn’t expensive.

Note: This knife belongs to you and you can use it for whatever you want. You can kill people with it if you are bold enough.

Number of times available: 10/10.

[Tool Card: Rose Perfume]

Rarity: C

Description: A birthday present Liu Wei gave Zou Xiaomei. After opening it, the strong scent of roses can be smelt.

Note: When necessary, you can spray it on your body and attract all targets within 30 metres to smell you, making you die more simply.

Remaining capacity: 100ml.

Xiao Lou, “...”

Xiao Lou’s expression gradually stiffened as he looked at the description on the cards.

He opened a D-grade difficulty room and was directly transferred to the scene of a murder. He finally passed the instance only for the reward cards to ridicule him. What did it mean by die more simply? This Card World was full of malice everywhere.

He was a forensic scientist and it was unbearable to go through such a scene. What about the average person?

What would happen if all the people who died unexpectedly were forcibly dragged into the Card World? What if those under the age of 18, timid girls or slow old people entered 2 of Hearts and suddenly saw a bed with a corpse. How would they react? Wouldn’t they be frightened?

Could they clear the instance within 30 minutes? If they failed and were thrown into the punishment room, wouldn’t they die in an even worse manner?

Thinking up to here, Xiao Lou looked at the beauty in red in front of him and whispered, “How many challengers are in this Card World? How high is the survival rate of challengers who failed to pass an instance and entered a nightmare room?”

A of Hearts replied, “The number of players in the Card World is currently more than 80 million and it is increasing every minute. The survival rate of the punishment room after failing an instance is less than 1%. Thus, try not to fail. The nightmare is definitely something you don’t want to experience.”

She paused before smiling. “You are the calmest human I have ever seen. Most people who come out of the Hearts room are shivering with fear. You weren’t repelled by the body and could calmly sweep the phone over the face of the body.”

Xiao Lou, “...”

It seemed that all his actions in the secret room were monitored by the keeper.

For a forensics professional like him, forget a corpse. Even if the difficulty of the Hearts room was upgraded to a serial murder case, he wouldn’t be afraid when placed in a morgue.

Still, just because he wasn’t afraid didn’t mean he liked it.

He was a normal person, not a pervert. He didn’t want to see it every day.

Xiao Lou frowned and continued to calmly ask, “I remember the system elf telling me that clearing the SS-grade room will allow me to return to the human world. Then how many people have cleared it?”

A of Hearts shrugged with regret. “No one has succeeded in clearing the instance.”

This answer made Xiao Lou feel very surprised. There were more than 80 million challengers, among which must be masters of reasoning. Yet no one had reached the end. This wasn’t normal. Either the world was deliberately difficult to humans and didn’t want to let humans succeed in returning or the difficulty of the later rooms were too terrible and the reasoning master couldn’t solve the puzzle.

If it was the former then asking was no use. A of Hearts couldn’t tell him, ‘we are deliberately making it hard for you.’ If it was the latter, perhaps there was hope. No matter how difficult the secret rooms, as long as they weren’t unsolvable then there would always be a way to get an answer.

Xiao Lou thought of a question. “Are the deceased and murderer in the secret room human beings from Earth like me, or are they high intelligence creatures... made by you?”

A of Hearts smiled. “This question is beyond the scope of my answers. What do you think?”

There was a bold speculation in Xiao Lou’s heart. The cold system elf had told him, “You can’t see me but I can see you.” It could see all the humans that entered the world, which meant it should have a high status in this world.

The red beauty in front of him called herself A of Hearts. She was only responsible for the Hearts level and other levels had different people responsible for them.

Perhaps this world could be understood as a massive multiplayer online game.

Challengers were humans who died accidentally and were forced into the Card World. The people in the secret rooms such as Zou Xiaomei and Zhao Sen, the A of Hearts who wasn’t in the secret room and the system elf whose image had never been seen but whose voice was heard didn’t need to clear the instances. They were the original inhabitants of the Card World, similar to NPCs in a game.

However, unlike other games, the NPCs in this world were much more powerful than the players.

After a player failed to break through, they could kill the player. They had feelings, IQ, would kill and be fierce. If an abnormal killer like Zhao Sen was encountered in other secret rooms, it was possible for him to dig out the player’s heart without saying a word.

Other games were playing games but this was saving their lives!

A of Hearts didn’t answer his question, indicating that he just asked the core rules of the world. The vivid ‘humans’ in the secret rooms were essentially different from humans like him.

Xiao Lou temporarily suppressed the thoughts in his mind and changed the topic. “Do I have a chance to draw another card?”

There was a mention that a perfect clearance gave an extra lucky draw and this reward would be settled when returning to the personal space. This place should be his personal space. There was a thick white fog, a huge card wall and the corresponding level keeper.

Sure enough, A of Hearts smiled. “Yes, you perfectly cleared the room and can get the S-grade rare card with a drop rate of 0.01%. Please draw a card and try your luck.”

The next moment, a golden treasure chest appeared in front of him.

This was probably the best news that Xiao Lou had heard since coming to the strange Card World.

The fixed rewards ‘Fruit Knife’ and ‘Rose Perfume’ were both C-grade cards and their uses were limited. The fruit knife had a limit number of uses while the capacity of the rose perfume was only 100ml. He hoped that the bonus S-grade card would be relatively strong equipment that would help in the spades survival room.

Unfortunately, from small to large, he had only won five dollars from lottery tickets. His luck with a draw wasn’t very good.

Xiao Lou stepped forward and reached into the treasure chest.

There were many cards in the treasure chest. The new cards felt good to touch and the materials used should be very advanced. Xiao Lou tried it and found that he could only grab one card at a time. If he grabbed more than one, the other cards would automatically fall back into the treasure chest.

He wasn’t greedy and casually drew out a card.

[Congratulations on obtaining the S-grade rare card ‘Summoning Card: Tao Yuanming.’]

Xiao Lou, “???”

Shouldn’t he get a knife that cut a person in an instant or a ranged gun?

What the hell was Tao Yuanming?

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