Zuo Lin'an did a quick inspection and found that the corpse was in decent condition.
It was fortunate that when he bought it, he had specifically chosen a corpse that had died recently and had been well-preserved by another specter's aura.
After purchasing it, he had continued to preserve it carefully using his own specter aura.
Therefore, this corpse would easily pass as a dungeon NPC who had only been dead for a few days.
On the other side of the room, Xu Youyou was gesturing with his hands over his own corpse, carefully measuring his cuts.
“Should I start with the arms?”
“Or the legs?”
He didn't hesitate for long. After all, his own method of execution began with the arms.
Hearing the sharp crack of breaking bones and the wet sound of tearing flesh behind him, Zuo Lin'an didn't pause his own movements.
Within a few minutes, both of them finished their work.
Although Zuo Lin'an had started first, Xu Youyou ended up being faster.
After all, his method of execution was much simpler.
Zuo Lin'an looked at the chaotic pile of severed limbs on the floor and frowned slightly.
“Since my persona is a psychopathic serial killer, I should have some sort of twisted artistic sense. Like arranging and displaying these body parts in a way that only I can comprehend.”
“Leaving them scattered all over the place like this doesn't really fit the character persona.”
Xu Youyou blinked. “Then how do you want to arrange them?”
Zuo Lin'an lowered his head in thought, but quickly gave up.
“I'm not an actual psychopath. How am I supposed to know?”
He pulled out his phone.
“Let me look it up. Give me a second.”
Soon, Zuo Lin'an found a wealth of morbid ideas on the forums, complete with detailed descriptions and pictures.
The two huddled together to browse through them.
Xu Youyou muttered, “Soaking them all in formalin?”
Zuo Lin'an shook his head.
“We'd need specialized preservation containers. Too much trouble.”
More importantly, it would cost a lot of money and require proper preservation techniques.
You couldn't just dump a corpse in and call it a day.
Xu Youyou pointed to another picture.
“How about this?”
Zuo Lin'an's eyes lit up as he saw the image.
“This is nice.”
The scene in the picture was quite simple.
Set in a gloomy, dimly lit room, there was only a wooden rack and a wooden table. The rack stood in the background, while the table was placed in the foreground.
Both looked filthy, exuding an air of ancient decay.
A perfectly flayed human skin hung from the wooden rack, while a complete set of human bones was arranged on the table in a bizarre, incomprehensible pattern.
It looked somewhat like a sinister sacrificial ritual.
Zuo Lin'an prepared a wooden rack and a wooden table according to the image, and then arranged his materials accordingly.
The leftover flesh and blood were casually tossed into a plastic bucket nearby, which he covered with a wooden board.
Next, Xu Youyou pointed to his own dismembered corpse.
“What about mine, then?”
Zuo Lin'an thought for a moment and continued scrolling through his phone.
“How about this one?”
Xu Youyou glanced at it. The corpse in this picture was also dismembered, but unlike his, the cuts were clean, made with a knife.
The severed limbs were arranged in a bizarre, inexplicable fashion.
Still, a lack of sense was exactly what they were going for.
Xu Youyou made his decision on the spot.
“This works. Let's go with this.”
A few minutes later, the two left the underground secret room and sealed the entrance.
Xu Youyou muttered as they walked.
“Why don't we just change your background story? Instead of a psychopathic serial killer, you're trying to perform a ritual to summon an evil god. What do you think?”
Zuo Lin'an shook his head.
“The application for this run has already been approved. We can save the evil god summoning for next time.”
Only then did Xu Youyou remember that the dungeon details were already locked in.
“Fair enough.”
Zuo Lin'an walked out of the old residence and stood on the mountaintop terrace, gazing into the distance.
“Once the dungeon starts, let me know if any of the players catch your eye. If possible, I'll keep them alive and hand them over to you to use as puppets.”
“Right now, you only have Xuan Jiu. Your puppet count is still a bit low.”
Xu Youyou didn't object.
“Sounds good.”
Previously, he hadn't cared much about getting more puppets, since he was only running a One-Star dungeon.
But things were different now.
“Even if we don't like any of them, we can still keep a few depending on how things go. We can put them up for sale in the system's mall to exchange for Contribution points.”
A few days later, everything was fully prepared.
There were only fifteen minutes left before the dungeon opened.
Zuo Lin'an led Xu Youyou into the old residence, followed by Feng Xingyun and Xuan Jiu.
“Brother An, I'll stay in your brother's room.”
Zuo Lin'an nodded. “Alright. Staying there will also allow you to keep an eye on the Withered Leaf specter item in the vase and guard the entrance to the underground secret room.”
Once Xu Youyou was settled, Zuo Lin'an returned to his own room.
Meanwhile, Feng Xingyun took Xuan Jiu to settle down in the adjacent courtyard.
A few minutes later, the lights inside the old residence gradually flickered out.
A dead silence fell over the estate.
Time ticked by, second by second.
The two specter bodies had already concealed themselves in the withered woods surrounding the old residence.
They were waiting for the players to spawn so they could pick off an easy target first.
Just then, Zuo Lin'an's work phone vibrated with a new notification.
He kept the work phone on his specter body, so when he checked the message, Xu Youyou leaned over to look as well.
【Notification: Due to the steadily increasing player count, Two-Star difficulty dungeons will now begin to allocate newbie players proportionally. All dungeon bosses, please take note.】
Zuo Lin'an blinked in surprise after reading the notice.
Newbie players?
Xu Youyou scratched his head.
“Though some newbies can be a real pain to deal with, this should be good news. With the overall difficulty lowered, we can set the player limit to the maximum of twenty every time we apply for a dungeon.”
“If we're lucky and manage to keep a few more of them here, we can sell them for a decent amount of Contribution points.”
“And if we happen to run into a ghost player, we can even act as supports and help them take down more players.”
That way, the number of unsolvable specters would increase.
At five points each, it would add up to a hefty sum!
Zuo Lin'an nodded in agreement.
“That makes sense.”
The players they faced before had been so absurdly strong that he hadn't dared to let them stay until the very end, fearing he might suffer an unexpected defeat.
Zuo Lin'an put away his phone.
“Once the dungeon starts, I won't make a move right away. Let's observe the situation first.”
They had three days anyway, so there was no need to rush.
A few minutes later.
Time was up.
The dungeon opened.
Twenty players spawned on the mountaintop where the old residence stood.
However, they were scattered across the dark, freezing withered forest. The furthest one had spawned all the way down near the pavilion halfway up the mountain.
Zuo Lin'an observed the players through his God's-eye view.
Ten of them were clearly newbie players.
The moment they spawned, they showed signs of sheer terror.
They ran aimlessly, looking around frantically and even screaming at the top of their lungs, desperate to find anyone else.
The remaining ten were highly alert, moving cautiously and scanning their surroundings with experienced eyes.
It was obvious at a glance that they were veteran players.
Suddenly, Xu Youyou paused.
“Wait, why is there a weasel?”
Rate on N.U.
