Buddhist player

...This should have been a perfect plan.

According to Bai Chen's reasoning, the path to clearing this dungeon should be quite clear.

A town shrouded in fog, a series of strange and unusual events, a missing lord, apathetic townspeople... From any perspective, this should be a typical puzzle-solving and exploration game.

Following the normal dungeon clearing process, they had to deal with the strange occurrences in the town while searching for the root cause of all the oddities.

As for the person most familiar with this town, there is no doubt that it is the lord who founded this town. As long as they can find him, although it may not be enough to directly pass the level, it can at least give them a big step forward on the way to pass the level.

As for the final outcome, it's mostly that some lord secretly colludes with some evil force, such as believing in a cult, secretly holding dark rituals to attempt sacrifices, and all the strange things are caused by the lord. In the end, they will stop the lord's evil conspiracy and help the town's residents dispel the fog that shrouds the town all year round.

When everything settled down, the townspeople who had been hiding underground finally emerged from their houses. The long-awaited sunlight shone on their faces, and perhaps even glistening tears streamed down their cheeks.

At that moment, as if by telepathy, without any prior notice, everyone would choose to step out of their rooms at the same time, and then, without prior arrangement, look up at the sky... That's how it always ends in movies.

Justice has once again triumphed over evil. Congratulations!

Bai Chen felt that this was very sacred.

Unfortunately, the story's script seemed to be somewhat different from what he had imagined.

"Is this the archives?"

Looking at the room in front of him, Bai Chen raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, we've been here once before."

Standing guard at the door, Qingyi nodded.

"I arrived yesterday. Sister Dao and the others had already explored this town for three days. Although the town's layout is disrupted and reorganized every day at midnight, the facilities inside the buildings remain unchanged. Sister Dao has hand-drawn a detailed map of the lord's manor..."

At this point, Qingyi paused.

"We had actually searched the town for any trace of the missing lord before, but we had no clue what he looked like because we had no idea what he looked like."

"Why didn't you ask the residents?"

While flipping through the various files on the bookshelf and in the drawers, Bai Chen casually replied.

"I asked, but the answers were quite strange. Everyone described the lord's appearance differently. Some were tall, some were short, some were fat, some were thin, some were male, some were female... Some people swore that the lord of this town was a wise old man with white hair, while others swore that the lord of this town was a very beautiful woman, and some even said that the lord here was a three or four-year-old child..."

Recalling these events, Qingyi's expression still seemed somewhat unpleasant.

"Everything about the lord of this town is a complete mystery. To be honest, I doubt that even if we burned the lord's mansion to the ground, we might not be able to force him out."

"It's all about human effort. Let's try this method first, and if it doesn't work, we'll try the next one."

Bai Chen put the file back on the bookshelf and shrugged.

"At worst, we'll use our ultimate weapon."

"A special move...?"

"Yes, the lord is definitely still in this town, there's no doubt about that, he's just hiding. Once we figure that out, the rest will be much easier."

Bai Chen remained calm as he continued flipping through the files.

"If burning down the lord's mansion doesn't work, then our next step is to burn the entire town to the ground, leaving them nowhere to hide. If they still manage to hold out at that point, then we'll target the townspeople."

"How do I find it?"

Unable to resist, Qingyi asked.

"Although there are few people in the town now, there are still nearly a thousand. If that lord is determined to hide, it won't be an easy task to find him among a thousand people without any information about him, will it?"

"Then beat them all up."

"???"

"No, the other side might be very resilient... How about this, we'll make a slight change, number these town residents, and then set up a lottery machine. Whoever's number the machine draws, we'll kill the resident corresponding to that number immediately. If everything goes smoothly, we might only need to kill a few dozen people to force the other side out."

"??????"

"Hmm... there are still loopholes. If they are determined to escape, they will be difficult to manage. We need to drug them all first, then tie them all up and bind them to the torture devices. Whoever is drawn will be immediately killed by activating the torture devices... Okay, that would be much fairer."

After pondering for a while, Bai Chen nodded with satisfaction.

"It's all about luck when you draw the winning number. Once you draw it, you'll act immediately. I don't believe that guy can resist."

Qing Dynasty ritual: "..."

She had initially thought it was a bit too cruel for the other party to propose burning down the lord's manor right away, but now it seemed that the other party was deliberately holding back...

—Subconsciously, she moved away from the other person.

Her little action naturally didn't escape Bai Chen's notice. He glanced in her direction, pursed his lips, and continued searching the files on his own.

He refused to believe that there wasn't a single file in all of them related to that lord.

There's still some time before nightfall, and when that time comes, he will personally light a grand bonfire for this mist-shrouded town.

"...Hmm? This is...a photo?"

Bai Chen raised an eyebrow as he looked at the open drawer in front of him.

He had been looking through things before, and they were all kinds of files or documents. He thought that was all there was to it, but he never expected that there would be a photo in this blacked-out drawer.

(...Wait a minute? Since they said they did a quick search of the archives beforehand, there's no way they could have missed such an obviously placed photo...)

Bai Chen frowned slightly, reached out and picked up the photo. When he turned the photo over and saw the details clearly, his expression immediately turned quite ugly.

"What's wrong?"

Suddenly, Qing Shiyi's voice rang out behind him.

"It's nothing."

Bai Chen quickly put the photo into his backpack and casually glanced back at the girl behind him.

"By the way, could you please tell me again in detail what happened before I arrived?"