(All, Should, Die!)

Edited by Silver Wind 

While Shen Dongqing sipped on his Wahaha AD calcium milk, he swerved his head back: “Where is the main control room?”

The Train Attendant said powerlessly, “It’s at the frontmost section…”

She finally understood; the game was clearly incapable of getting rid of them, which was why it carted them off to this train to torment them!

She had to send these two plague gods away as soon as possible! 

Shen Dongqing responded with a resplendent smile, and he was extremely respectful. “Thank you!”

The pair did not linger around, heading for the next train carriage instead.

Chequered Skirt took a furtive glimpse at the Train Attendant who was gritting her teeth, before she followed them quietly.

For being able to anger the NPCs in the game copy to this extent, perhaps it was apt to say that they truly deserved to be called Big Bosses?

In the fifth carriage, the group of artificial and slow-witted people were still seated, but the people who had died violent deaths had been exchanged for another two, namely the old married couple.

The elder had died along the aisle, his face flat on the ground and in the centre of the aisle. From the black blood trickling out from his mouth, it could be discerned that he had died from poison.

Whereas his wife was still sitting on her seat and she looked like she was sleeping peacefully as her head drooped downwards, but a sharp dining knife was sticking out from her chest, and the resulting fresh blood had drenched the majority of her shirt.

The married couple had passed away at the same time; they could not be considered as lonely. 

Shen Dongqing did not have any interest in the reason for the sudden double deaths, hence he simply stepped over the elder’s corpse.

Because those players were afraid of the two corpses reanimating, they essentially cut across the train carriage while having their eyes shut, and it was more than likely that they did not do any searching at all.

The victim of the sixth train carriage was the mother carrying an infant. Her head was pressed into the curve of the basin as her black hair floated in the water, swaying slowly.

The faucet above her was not closed, and it was still running with water. 

The infant that the mother used to be carrying was arbitrarily placed above the basin, its small body chilled to the point where it was green and blue.

The players found the scene slightly hard to bear, and one male player took off their outer jacket to cover the infant’s body, while making sure to cover her small face as well.

As they continued moving forward, the victim in the seventh carriage was that young gentleman. Since he was strangled to death with his own belt, his face was flushed red and his tongue was protruding out. His corpse was leaning against the glass door powerlessly, and he fell down immediately once the door was opened.

Jumping in shock, Shen Dongqing subconsciously raised his leg and sent the corpse flying with a kick. 

The other players cried out in surprise as well.

Fortunately, there were no other homicides in the following train carriages because the other travellers were all dead, and even the victims were gone.

The last train carriage was the main control room which had been sealed shut with a thin steel door. The sign “Unauthorised Persons Not Permitted” was hanging on the door, and for the sake of preventing other travellers from entering by mistake, the door was also locked.

However, this could not make Shen Dongqing falter; just as he was about to roll up his sleeves and use violence to open the door, a hand stretched over to him from behind. 

Helplessly, Zhou Wenyan said: “We have keys.”

Shen Dongqing scratched his head: “Oh…”

An audible click. 

The shaft of the key rotated and the door proceeded to open slowly.

Undeniably, it was the main control room and it enabled them to control the entire train, but there were too many installations inside. There were rows of buttons covering the entire dashboard, but they could not tell which one would allow them to stop the train.

Since Shen Dongqing could not puzzle out which one it was, he simply chose to use a stupid method— just try each and every one of them, they would eventually get it correct either way, though blindly.

He stepped forward. After a moment of hesitation, he slapped one of the red buttons. 

DI DI DI—

The entire dashboard flashed red, and the screen promptly displayed the words “Insufficient Authority”.

Shen Dongqing proceeded to try the other buttons, but no matter what he pressed, the train did not have any intention to stop. As he listened to the warnings blaring beside his ears, he barely controlled the strength his hands were exerting and he directly pulled out the dashboard’s handle.

Shen Dongqing: …… 

The other players: ……

Shen Dongqing put his hand behind his back, pretending that it was none of business.

Zhou Wenyan chuckled, “It doesn’t concern you.”

Shen Dongqing nodded his head furiously, “It wasn’t built firmly!” He threw the dismantled handle to the side. 

Zhou Wenyan placed his fingers on the edge of the dashboard, feeling the icy cold temperature of the surface.

They found the main control room, but the train operator who was supposed to be in front of the dashboard was gone.

The malfunction that appeared in this game would never be this simple.

Even if they could operate the dashboard, that would not work either; after all, they could not continue staying here just for the sake of driving the train. 

Zhou Wenyan used his index finger to knock on the dashboard lightly. “We still have to go back and solve the mystery.”

The deaths experienced by the train full of dead people was definitely not that simple.

* * *

Hence, the group doubled back to the third train carriage. 

All the travellers here were whole; they had their arms and legs, and they were breathing.

Zhou Wenyan went to look at the first traveller that they found dead first.

The white-skirted lady was sitting in the corner, her eyes rimmed red. Tears streamed down her face nonstop as she kept saying, “How did it become like this? Why doesn’t he like me?”

Even with her incessant mutterings, she practically revolved around those two lines. 

Shen Dongqing sat beside the white-skirted lady openly, looking left and right.

Towards this, the white-skirted lady did not show a reaction at all. Instead, she was like a recorder, and the tone and inflection of her voice did not change at all.

Itbe Qfcsjc rloafv atgbeut atf ieuujuf bc abq.

Ktfgf kjr cba j iba bo ieuujuf lc atf ieuujuf mbwqjgawfca. Ufgtjqr yfmjerf atf ktlaf-rxlgafv ijvs kjr bcis ublcu obg j rtbga aglq, rtf vlv cba yglcu jcs ieuujuf. 

Vtfc Gbcudlcu ibbxfv jgbecv, vlrmbnfglcu j tjcvyju yfrlvf atf ktlaf-rxlgafv ijvs’r rfja, jcv pevulcu ogbw atf bqfclcu bo atf yju, la rffwfv ab mbcajlc delaf j ofk atlcur. Qtlif lucbglcu atf tewjc gfmbgvfg, tf gfjmtfv bnfg ab ugjy atf tjcvyju.

Before opening it, Shen Dongqing hesitated a little. After all, it was not appropriate to peek into the personal belongings of others, but his thoughts were quick to change when he realised that she was already dead, and ghosts did not have any privacy rights.

Having thought it through, he pulled her bag open.

There were a lot of items inside her bag, but most of it was a messy assortment of cosmetic products. 

Shen Dongqing shook the bag, dumping the contents on the small table attached to the seat in front of him. Subsequently, he took out the cosmetic products before he started looking at the other items, which was nothing more than a handphone and some arbitrary items.

Shen Dongqing took out the small plastic bag that was previously inside the handbag, which had the words ‘XX Hospital’ on top. Then, he proceeded to take out the items inside the plastic bag, only to realise that there were some checklists and a health report.

The words on the health report were slightly warped. Shen Dongqing squinted at it, but to his surprise, he did not understand the written contents at all.

Zhou Wenyan extracted one of the checklists, saying: “She’s pregnant, roughly seven weeks in.” 

Shen Dongqing made an “oh” before he put down the health report and took out the phone.

The phone’s screen brightened, showing that he had to input the password.

Shen Dongqing made two random guesses, but they were incorrect, and it was displaying that he had very few attempts left. Hence, he raised his head and asked for external aid: “Do you know how to unlock it?”

Zhou Wenyan: “No.” 

The other players shook their heads as well.

They were all ordinary people; how could they possibly know how to? And even if they knew how to, they could not display those skills without any tools.

Despite that, Chequered Skirt offered a suggestion: “There should be a fingerprint lock, it’s just…” no one would dare to touch that white-skirted lady. When all was said and done, it was not long ago that she clambered up and took a player’s life.

Shen Dongqing did not have those apprehensions at all; he raised the white-skited lady’s wrist and started to press it against the phone. After trying her fingers one by one, he finally unlocked the phone with her thumb. 

However, because there was no signal on the train, the various mobile applications that he tried to open did not respond at all.

Zhou Wenyan took the phone. Instead of opening the applications that required a wireless network, he opened the text messages in the mailbox.

Generally speaking, most of the text messages inside the text message mailbox of contemporary people were usually trash text messages, but the white-skirted lady’s mailbox was extremely clean. All of the text messages had been deleted by her, leaving only the messages that her “Darling” sent her.

Zhou Wenyan skimmed through it briefly. 

It was highly likely that they were lovers in a long-distance relationship, and because the man had to run around to various parts of the country due to his work while the woman stayed in her home city, the pair relied on text messages to convey sweet and flirtatious words.

The last message was from the lady to the male party.

“Darling, when are you coming back, I miss you.

“I saw you at a shopping mall yesterday, why didn’t you come and find me? Were you found out by your family? 

“I really want to be together with you openly.

“Darling, when are you coming back? I have a surprise for you.”

The surprise that the white-skirted lady was referring to was her pregnancy.

Which begged the question: why did she die inside the toilet cubicle? From what they could perceive thus far, apart from the travellers, there were no supernatural elements on this train. Hence, if they ruled out the possibility of the white-skirted lady committing suicide, then only he could have killed her. 

All of the travellers on the train were suspects.

Zhou Wenyan glanced at that bear child.

The bear child did not realise the strange atmosphere in the train at all as he continued to run around without cares while issuing noises that could make people fall apart.

His luggage was very minimal, meaning  there was only a small carry-on bag. It was hanging on the seat  beside the mother carrying her infant. They were one family. 

Zhou Wenyan flipped through the belongings of the mother and child.

Because they were bringing along an infant who could not walk yet, the mother’s bag was filled with baby products, and there were no important pieces of information.

The baby who was presently wailing out loud was quite young, and it was highly likely that it was not even one year old.

The mother patted the baby’s back gently as she murmured in a low voice: “Be good, don’t cry, you’ll be able to see your father soon, your father is working, baby don’t cry…” 

The bear child’s bag was on the next seat. There were a few books stuffed inside, and one of them was a journal.

Shen Dongqing flipped open the diary and started reading it in a serious manner.

From the notebook, it could be discerned that the bear child’s father was working abroad, and he scarcely returned home, which meant that his mother had to work hard to raise two children.

On the last page of the journal, the bear child wrote in a shaky handwriting— ‘Mommy is going to bring me to see Daddy! I like Daddy, he gives me presents every time!’ 

When this journal was combined with the vulnerability of a mother bringing along two children, it did not seem like she would clash with other people.

The other players pitched in and helped them search the luggage of the other travellers.

The elderly couple were on vacation and they had been married for thirty-five years, which could be considered a loving relationship. For the sake of preventing any accidents from happening on their travels, both of them invested a large sum of money into life insurance for each other, and the beneficiary was the other party.

But judging from the elder’s phone records, they discovered that they were not as loving as they seemed on the surface. His old wife was having an extramarital affair with a young man online, and it was highly likely that she wanted to get rid of her husband in order to obtain that sizable life insurance. 

Meanwhile, the young gentleman was on a business trip. He brought along a travelling suitcase which was filled with clothes. He was the most normal traveller.

However, his phone was packed to the brim with children’s photographs and videos, and it could be inferred that he was a paedophile. Moreover, his work was not clean either, he was a scammer who threw out nets to cheat people of their money.

After they rummaged through the belongings that the travellers brought with them, the gathered and obtained clues were placed with them.

Chequered Skirt deduced, “That boy might have been killed by that young gentleman, since he’s a paedophile, and while he was doing something to the boy, he lost control and killed the boy because he was met with strong resistance.” 

Another player said: “It’s highly probable that the elderly couple had ulterior motives, and both of them wanted the sizable life insurance that they had respectively. Since both of them had the same thoughts, the old woman poisoned him, while the elder stabbed her with a dining knife, resulting in a double sudden death.”

Shen Dongqing cupped his chin with both hands. “What about the rest?”

The players had a brief discussion before they stated, “Maybe the young gentleman was caught in the act by the mother, and the mother wanted to report it to the police, but she was pressed into the basin by the young gentleman.”

There was another person who voiced their doubt: “But how did the white-skirted lady die?” 

“There’s the train attendant too.”

“It looks like the young gentleman has the best physique; how did he get strangled to death? It’s not possible for the others to do it.”

One of the players replied: “I feel like it isn’t necessary to speak logic with the game…”

Another player was quick to refute: “But it doesn’t matter if they killed each other simultaneously or if he was murdered, there should be a survivor remaining. None of these travellers looked like they committed suicide.” 

After the game’s unnatural tint was taken off, what remained was the suspenseful mystery.

Shen Dongqing felt his head getting dizzy from all the thinking. Leaning against Zhou Wenyan’s body, he said weakly: “I don’t want to guess anymore.”

Zhou Wenyan massaged his head in a comforting manner.

The players continued to push out deductions, but the clues in the game were akin to a ball of messy wool yarn, which made it very difficult to find a breakthrough. 

“These travellers are strangers who came together by chance, what is their motivation to kill?”

“We can still infer that the elderly couple was doing it for their sizable life insurance, but what about the others? There’s no clear explanation.”

Shen Dongqing hated solving mysteries the most; he preferred using a simple and crudely violent method to clear the game more.

When Zhou Wenyan turned his head and saw his expression which conveyed that he had nothing to live for, he could not help but laugh softly. He felt for another big white rabbit candy and slipped it into his mouth. 

Shen Dongqing bit down on the milk candy in his mouth audibly, restored back to full health. He raised another suggestion: “We just need to look for their corpses and we’ll know how they died!”

The players exchanged looks.

That was a good idea, but…

Those corpses were capable of reanimating! Touching them was equivalent to courting their deaths. 

Uncoincidentally, Shen Dongqing liked courting death the most.

He ran to the second train carriage first, rushing to greet the corpse inside.

The deceased in the second train carriage was the Train Attendant. Since she had a comparatively larger psychological shadow, she was cowering underneath the seat, and to the surprise of no one, she did not dare to come out.

Rolling up his sleeves, Shen Dongqing personally “invited” her out. 

With tears brimming in her eyes, the Train Attendant was dragged out of her warm old nest, and she lay on the ground motionlessly as if she was playing dead.

She was originally a delicately pretty and young beauty, but after being beaten up time and time again, her face was beyond recognition with the fresh blood and footprints marring her, and she looked a little pitiful.

Shen Dongqing knelt down beside the Train Attendant as he interrogated her patiently: “How did you die?”

The Train Attendant’s countenance distorted slightly. 

Could you please walk the normal route? This is a mystery-solving copy, not a question and answer!

Shen Dongqing held his lower jaw with both hands. “She’s not answering, what should we do?”

The other players remained silent, trying not to choke: ……

You might be asking the ghost directly, but how could the ghost say it out loud? 

Why did this Big Boss manage to look reliable at times, while also having instances where he was like… a sweet and naïve young woman?

Chequered Skirt scrutinised her carefully before she suddenly commented: “She’s holding onto something in her hand.”

Shen Dongqing pried open the Train Attendant’s fingers, but there was nothing there.

Chequered Skirt said, “The other hand.” 

Shen Dongqing looked at the other hand.

Uh… There was nothing?

It was only then that he remembered that his actions had been overly heavy when they were passing through the second carriage prior to this, and he had directly snapped off her arm.

The Train Attendant was truly plagued with misfortunes; never mind the fact that her face had been ruined, and she was stuffed under a chair when she was alive, she could not even rest peacefully after she died. 

She was in genuine misery.

Picking up the arm on the floor, Shen Dongqing pried it open, only to see a piece of white cloth in her grasp, and judging from the texture, it should have come from a skirt.

The players’ first reaction was: “White skirt!”

Among all the travellers, she was the only person wearing white clothing. 

White-skirted Lady killed the Train Attendant and proceeded to ruin her face before stuffing her under the chair.

One of the questions had been solved.

It was just that they were confronted with the next question again, how did the White-skirted Lady die then?

The players rushed towards the next train carriage without stopping to rest. 

The White-skirted Lady was still lying on the ground, and most of her skirt had been stained red with fresh blood.

Chequered Skirt restrained her fear and went forward to check. She realised that there were no obvious wounds on the White-skirted Lady; the fresh blood was only flowing out from the lower half of her body without any signs of stopping, which diffused the partitioned-off area with a bloody smell.

Having a guess in her heart, Chequered Skirt walked into the toilet cubicle to take a look. Inside the wastepaper basket, she discovered a few similar pharmaceutical packages, and she picked up one of them to examine it.

“She ingested abortion drugs.” 

Maybe the White-skirted Lady ate too much and the effects of the drugs were too strong, which was why she died inside the toilet cubicle.

The players exchanged looks.

Was this suicide?

* * * 

Next up was the small boy who had been shoved into the luggage compartment.

Zhou Wenyan went over to carry him down.

As he was carrying him down, the small boy’s limbs twitched once and he opened his mouth, wanting to bite down.

Sharp-eyed and deft-handed, Shen Dongqing immediately shoved the empty AD calcium milk bottle into his mouth. 

Small Boy: “Wuu…”

Shen Dongqing ignored the struggling Small Boy, hauling him up and swinging him around, which incidentally allowed him to see the handprints on his neck.

He was strangled to death.

The handprints on the Small Boy’s neck was particularly easy to recognise. Shen Dongqing held onto him as he brought him to every traveller for comparison, and it happened to match up to the young gentleman’s hand. 

It was quite similar to their previous speculation, wherein the young gentleman killed the Small Boy.

The other elderly couple mutually killed each other.

The Mother had drowned to death because someone had forced her head into the basin. People would always struggle desperately prior to death, and the person who was capable of holding her there the entire time was probably only the Young Gentleman.

How did the Young Gentleman die then? 

The players thought about it before remarking: “Could it be that the dead people turned into ghosts and demanded for his life? After all, the Small Boy was strangled to death by the Young Gentleman, it’s not impossible that he came back to strangle his murderer to death.”

Another player even said: “But even if we solved the mystery of ‘who killed who’, it doesn’t help us find our train tickets at all.”

Having received that particular reminder, the players came back to their senses. For them, the most important thing was to find their train ticket, not solve the mystery and find the murderer.

They did not know when the Train Attendant would appear, and when that time came around, anyone who did not have a train ticket would be her target. 

The players were anxious and restless.

Someone suggested: “Maybe we should look for the train tickets first.”

Chequered Skirt: “Where are we supposed to look? We’ve searched the entire place, and I keep getting the sense that solving the mystery will help us find our train tickets.”

The player was doubtful. “Didn’t we already solve it? Where are the train tickets?” 

Chequered Skirt: “There’s a person whose cause of death we’re still unaware of, no?”

Zhou Wenyan muttered to himself irresolutely, “Someone is missing.”

The players: “Who?”

Wasn’t everyone here? Not a single person was missing, all of them had died sudden deaths. 

Zhou Wenyan: “The train operator.”

Since there was a train attendant on the train, there had to be a train operator, and it was precisely because the train operator was gone that a malfunction appeared on the train, since the train had no way of stopping at the train stops.

The main theme of this train was murder. It was impossible for supernatural phenomena to appear. The Young Gentleman could only have died in the missing person’s hands. Moreover, it was only possible for a matured man to strangle the Young Gentleman to death.

The players faltered: “…But we’ve never seen the Train Operator.” 

Whether he was dead or alive, they had never seen him.

Zhou Wenyan swept his eyes across the Mother carrying the infant and the White-skirted Lady who was weeping with a lowered head. He pointed towards the Mother: “Her husband is the Train Operator.”

The game would never give inexplicable clues, all of the given items would have its use by the end.

It was written in the bear child’s journal that his father rarely returned home because he was abroad all year round, but he would bring back different presents every time he returned home. Since that was the case, his father must be making a round trip around every part of the country, and the person who bore the highest possibility was the Train Operator. 

“Afterwards, the Train Operator had an extramarital affair with her.”

Zhou Wenyan pointed at the White-skirted Lady.

The White-skirted Lady’s boyfriend also worked abroad throughout the year. Concurrently, the text messages she sent mentioned that she wanted to be together with him openly, and even asked if he was found out by his family.

Most normal boyfriends and girlfriends who were dating would never say such things, unless the man was already married and had a family. 

From the given evidence, the Train Operator was a person who was fickle in love affairs to an extreme degree, and it was even possible that he had another affair with the Train Attendant.

Which would explain why the White-skirted Lady killed the Train Attendant, and then mutilated her face.

“The third party and official family sitting together in the train carriage, wouldn’t the probability of that be exceedingly low?” whispered a player.

Zhou Wenyan said in an extremely irresponsible manner: “It’s a blind guess.” 

There were connections between the travellers and the staff on this train, it was not possible that only the Train Operator was separated from the web of connections.

Shen Dongqing felt a little dizzy after listening to his words. “Where could the Train Operator be?”

Zhou Wenyan: “Every train carriage had a dead person, except for the first train carriage.”

The players had been deposited in the first train carriage, but in such an environment, it was hard for them to pay attention to the clues in their surroundings. In fact, it was highly likely that the Train Operator was hiding there. 

* * *

“Move!”

The group returned to the first train carriage.

Compared to the train carriages which either had the artificial and mentally-deficient people or the corpses, the first carriage looked especially clean and safe. 

However, when the players thought of how someone was hiding inside, they felt their hearts chill.

They split up and started searching.

The train carriage was scarce with items, and the places that could hide a person was practically non-existent. The player checked under every chair, but they did not manage to find the Train Operator’s shadow.

“Nothing.” 

“He’s not here either.”

“Did we guess wrongly?”

Zhou Wenyan leaned against the chair, his fingertips brushing across his lips like he was deep in thought.

There was no way his guess was wrong. 

The Train Operator definitely existed on this train. The reason why the train lost control must be because the Train Operator had escaped his calamity when he was supposed to die. He had to be hiding on the train, and the first train carriage bore the highest possibility.

As for why he could not be found…

Dong—

The first carriage’s door was knocked on. 

“Who!” The players looked towards the door reflexively.

Separated by a glass door, they could see a slender figure standing outside.

The door slowly opened and the Train Attendant’s scarlet red lips raised up. “Dear guests, it is time to check your tickets. Please take out your tickets, oh right, the purchase of late tickets is currently unavailable, people without train tickets… All, Have, To, Die!”