Chapter 6: Death Has A Photographer

“Yu Ziyu, male, twenty years old, freelance photographer.”

At this point, the voice paused briefly before continuing.

“He publishes under the alias ‘Ziye.’

His debut work, After Falling Asleep, won multiple prestigious domestic and international awards in one sweep.

His whereabouts are mysterious, his appearance undisclosed to the public, and his behavior solitary and eccentric.”

The debut work titled After Falling Asleep was a complete reconstruction of a hospital ward scene.

According to reports, the patient photographed in the image did indeed pass away that very night.

It was, without question, a piece of death photography.

Photographers operating on the fringes like this seemed particularly fond of capturing death’s breath through their lenses.

All of Ziye’s works revolved around ghost stories, death gods, and destruction.

“Does he have psychological issues?”

“Most likely.

We found records showing he sees a psychiatrist once a week, with detailed prescription logs.”

However, the content of those sessions was encrypted.

Only the psychiatrist and Yu Ziyu himself would know what was discussed.

Naturally, if those conversations could be accessed by investigators, the service would hardly justify its exorbitant cost.

Click.

The spinning pen abruptly stopped.

The ballpoint pen was clenched tightly.

At the same time, the chair finally turned around, revealing Lou Chen’s furrowed face.

His black hair was slightly disheveled, lending him a somewhat decadent air.

Yet when he sensed the other party’s gaze, he brushed the hair away from his eyes, his expression easing into calm.

In his hand was a ballpoint pen.

The other hand held a sketchbook with yellowed edges.

The pen cap was left open—he had just been sketching moments ago.

“It’s him.”

“What do you mean…?”

Lou Chen did not smile.

His long fingers tapped lightly against the tabletop, then brushed across the face in the photograph.

His tone was unusually steady as he said, “‘Jealousy’ is looking for someone.

That person should be him.”

His gaze fell on the photo lying on the desk.

He stared at that exquisitely beautiful face, momentarily lost in thought.

The photograph was clearly taken in secret.

Yu Ziyu was walking straight ahead, his figure slightly blurred.

He wore a pure black coat that reached his ankles, like a mantle of raven feathers.

The exposed sliver of ankle was porcelain-white, nearly translucent, carrying a sickly mono no aware beauty, as though it might wither in the next instant.

Xiao He followed his gaze.

After just one look, it felt as though he had been sucked into a vortex, utterly unable to pull himself away.

“Good-looking?”

Lou Chen’s tone was unreadable.

“It really is… good-looking.”

Xiao He couldn’t tear his eyes away, his voice tinged with envy.

“I think he’s better-looking than most celebrities.

Someone who looks like this—he isn’t human, is he?”

Because of that sentence, the air fell into an odd silence.

Lou Chen twirled his pen and said, “You’re fired.”

“Why?!”

Xiao He jolted back to his senses.

“The mission is too dangerous.

We don’t need disabled people.”

Lou Chen lifted his eyelids lazily.

“Disabled?”

Lou Chen pointed at his own eyes and laughed teasingly.

“Just now, your eyeballs fell out.”

“……”

Hearing this, Xiao He glanced at the photo again and said awkwardly, “Don’t be like that, Captain.

I was just expressing an opinion.”

There was a hint of ingratiation in his words.

He knew his captain was usually easy to talk to.

Unless a bottom line was crossed, Lou Chen rarely got angry and treated his team very well.

“Why do you think Yu Ziyu was targeted?”

Lou Chen asked.

Xiao He racked his brain but came up empty.

In the end, he could only give up dejectedly.

“…I don’t know.

But I do know they always have a reason.

They don’t attack humans at random.”

“I hope you can be a bit more serious.”

Lou Chen looked away, sparing him, and said lightly,

“You know what ‘Jealousy’ represents.

So why would it seek out Yu Ziyu?

And why would it appear here?

And also… has the seventh-floor boss, Pride, already emerged?”

Xiao He froze.

The seventh-floor boss—

Would Pride appear as well?

Everyone in this department knew exactly what kind of hellish bloodbath “Inferno Park” was.

Yet at the same time, it functioned like a protective umbrella, isolating the most terrifying monsters.

Now that the entire system had collapsed, this was absolutely not good news.

Hearing that name, Xiao He sucked in a sharp breath.

“Why would this happen…?”

“Do you remember a certain theory?”

Lou Chen said.

“That Inferno Park is entirely the territory of the seventh-floor boss.

Take Bluebeard or Bloody Mary’s Crimson Castle, for example.

All other bosses and monsters are merely his servants, like knights guarding their lord.

They trap players with bloody instances and levels, preventing anyone from disturbing his peace.”

Lou Chen’s voice was relaxed, as though he were telling a fairy tale.

His fingers interlaced atop the desk.

“……”

“Living in the tower isn’t just the princess.”

He joked lightly, though his words were anything but.

“There’s also the Demon King.

Perhaps that’s why supernatural phenomena have been occurring so frequently lately…

They’ve found a patron.”

That sentence plunged the office into silence.

Lou Chen’s gaze returned to the photograph.

He stared at Yu Ziyu’s face, once again drifting into a daze.

“Captain.”

After a moment, Xiao He asked hesitantly,

“I’ve always wanted to ask—do you remember what the seventh-floor boss looked like?”

This question had plagued him for a long time.

He himself had once been a player in the park.

Fortunately, he had been inexplicably teleported out while still on the first floor.

Lou Chen, however, was different from everyone else.

He was the first—and only—final player to clear all levels.

That meant he must have seen the most mysterious seventh-floor boss.

While still in Inferno Park, Xiao He had heard countless rumors about Pride.

Neither the terror of fellow players nor the monsters’ reverent praise could fill in that blank silhouette.

It was said that Pride could move freely between all floors, like a roaming bug.

Any player who encountered him was doomed to die.

Some said he had platinum-blond hair and eyes burning with hellish green flames.

At his side always slithered a pure white venomous snake, its eyes ignited with the same phosphorescent green as its master’s, hissing with a forked tongue as it glided faithfully beside him.

But those were only rumors.

No one had ever seen his true appearance.

They died before hearing the sound of his long coat rustling in the wind.

That description always made Xiao He think of dark clouds blotting out the moon, or tides retreating into darkness—ominous imagery.

That kind of fear was abstract and intangible, yet utterly suffocating.

They had trespassed into his domain.

A price was inevitable.

Because reality was not a fairy tale.

“…Of course I remember.”

Xiao He jolted in shock.

He hadn’t expected his captain to answer.

Lou Chen’s gaze slowly sank into darkness.

His voice turned cold.

“How could I forget?

If I ever get the chance, I’ll kill it with my own hands.”

He rarely spoke with such naked disgust.

Though his tone was calm, it made listeners instinctively recoil.

Xiao He shuddered.

He had heard that the captain once had a fixed partner in the game.

Yet only Lou Chen had come out alive.

That meant the other person had stayed behind—politely speaking.

More likely, that partner had died.

And now it seemed inseparable from the seventh-floor boss.

This partner was mysterious, almost as if fabricated.

No one else remembered such a person existing.

Even Lou Chen himself couldn’t give a clear description.

But no one thought the captain had made him up.

They believed it was another trick of the seventh-floor boss.

Realizing he had said the wrong thing, Xiao He chose silence.

Fortunately, Lou Chen soon recovered his usual composed expression.

He resumed spinning his pen.

“Our great photographer is in a very dangerous position right now.”

Xiao He hurriedly said, “I heard he’s become a suspect.

Captain, the case hasn’t been transferred to us yet.”

“I don’t know why the two officers handling the investigation went straight home.

They clearly called and said they’d bring the files before seven.

I’ll go to the police department and retrieve the case files myself.

Don’t worry, Captain.

I’ll personally protect and monitor him.

Nothing will go wrong.”

I just hope Jealousy isn’t too troublesome, he thought dryly.

After all, he had never dealt with a monster of this level.

“You go investigate that case and try to bring the victim back,” Lou Chen said instead.

“What?”

Xiao He froze.

“But Yu Ziyu—”

Although the case was publicly announced as a homicide, when the police arrived, the boy’s body was never found.

Lou Chen suspected the victim was still alive, though he had no idea where the flesh monster had taken him.

That meant tracking was necessary, and the longer it dragged on, the more dangerous it became.

It was worth mentioning that in Inferno Park, each floor had a different boss.

They cruelly took players’ lives.

In the lightless darkness and oppressive atmosphere, symptoms similar to Stockholm Syndrome gradually spread.

Some players even developed fanatical worship toward the bosses.

They slaughtered other players to please the monsters.

Most regained clarity after leaving the game.

But others chose to continue sinking into madness, calling themselves the monsters’ faithful believers—even though the bosses likely wouldn’t spare them a glance.

Now that there was news of Jealousy’s appearance, those followers were probably resuming their inhuman, perverse acts.

Since the victim had vanished alive, it was almost certainly connected to them.

“I’ll handle Yu Ziyu.”

“But—”

Xiao He was about to speak, but Lou Chen waved his hand, signaling him to act.

Lou Chen rarely changed his decisions.

With no other option, Xiao He hesitated briefly before pushing the door open and leaving.

The door closed.

The office fell back into silence.

Lou Chen set aside the sketchbook.

A breeze slipped in through the half-open window, rustling the pages.

His fingers rested on the roughly sketched outline drawn in ballpoint pen—

A figure so blurred it was impossible to identify.

Only the eyes were clear.

Just as Xiao He suspected, Lou Chen had completely forgotten everything about the companion who once cleared the levels with him.

It was as though something had erased that person from his memory.

The only thing he remembered was the final image—those eyes, suddenly turned cold.

But he was absolutely certain of one thing.

A voice deep inside him insisted that the missing memory was tied to the seventh-floor boss.

He guessed that it had taken his memory.

And killed his companion.

Lou Chen frowned.

He couldn’t understand why a strange feeling kept rising in his chest.

Nor could he explain why his gaze kept drifting back to the documents on the desk.

After a pause, he gave in to that inner urge and looked once more at Yu Ziyu’s photograph.

Suddenly—

A bizarre impulse seized his fingers.

He picked up the sketchbook and the photograph, overlapping the two pairs of eyes.

“……”

After a long while, Lou Chen lowered his hand and let out a self-mocking smile.

They did resemble each other.

But in truth… they didn’t match.

Both had rare, pitch-black eyes.

Yet Yu Ziyu’s gaze was colder, more merciless.

When he looked at others, it felt almost like looking down from above.

A bone-deep disdain and mockery seemed to evaporate from his overly refined, arrogant features.

Everything about him was dark and heavy, like a frigid, silent grotesque play—razor-sharp with aggression.

That deceased companion, by contrast, had seemed lazier.

More languid.

More listless…

Lou Chen set the sketchbook down and pinched the bridge of his nose.

What was he thinking?

How could he have believed, even for a moment, that they were the same person?