The "Survival on the Train" game has bugs, it's really laggy!

Chapter 96 Banquet Hall

The pages were yellowed and the writing was somewhat blurry.

For most people, reading such ancient books would be incredibly difficult, but Su Yuan was different.

His abnormal perception meant he didn't need to identify each word individually.

The moment his fingers touched the pages, a stream of information automatically flooded into his mind. The author's thoughts, observations, and experiences while writing all passed through his mind in a manner similar to a 3D holographic projection.

This feeling is as if you were there, and it also reflects the author's thoughts and ideas.

If Su Yuan used this ability to read online novels, it might be even more enjoyable.

At first, the art style was fairly normal.

A man who calls himself a "bard" describes the shock he felt when he first stepped into "Terra".

Towering white spires reaching into the clouds, magical airships traversing the sky, and streets bustling with intelligent races in all sorts of strange costumes...

The bustling scene filled Su Yuan with longing.

But as he watched, Su Yuan's expression gradually became strange.

This art style is getting weirder and weirder.

Large sections of the book are devoted to describing indescribable places in Terra.

From the decorating style to the services offered, and even the characteristics of "technicians" from different ethnic groups, it was written in great detail and with great explicitness.

What about the lightness of the elves, the wildness of the orcs, and the... uh, sturdiness of the dwarves?

The author even thoughtfully included a detailed map in the corner of the book, marking which alley on which street hides the most cost-effective "gentle haven".

However, Su Yuan was not interested in this, and if he really wanted to go, who knows how much time would have passed, and things might have changed by then.

Just as Su Yuan thought the book was useless and was about to throw it back,

Until he turned to the last few pages.

The author's writing style is no longer frivolous and playful, but filled with fear and awe.

"That day, rivers of blood flowed."

"The Moulin Rouge, my favorite place, the place with the strongest liquor and the gentlest girls, has become a hell."

"A girl, a girl who was beaten half to death by the madam yesterday and was kneeling on the ground begging me to give her an extra copper coin, she's gone mad."

"In her eyes burned a flame that did not belong to humankind, and within her body surged a terrifying power that I could not comprehend."

"She killed everyone there, whether it was the madam who oppressed her, the customers who came for pleasure, or even the sisters who were usually on good terms with her, she didn't spare a single one."

"Later, I heard that she was taken away by a group of mysterious people dressed in black robes."

"They say she was chosen by 'heretics,' food of 'God.'"

Upon seeing this, Su Yuan's heart skipped a beat.

Heresy? Food?

He immediately thought of Chen Jia, the girl who was forced to swallow an eyeball and participate in a bloody battle royale in "Plague City".

He also remembered what the money-gathering spirit had mentioned to him before, those cruel and insane "sequence" advancement rituals.

Su Yuanqiang suppressed the shock in his heart and continued reading.

Everyone thought it was just an accident, a massacre caused by a madman.

"But I know, no, that's not it."

"I've overheard snippets of secrets at the dinner tables of those big shots."

"This seemingly glamorous city, its rulers, those high and mighty agents of the gods, they... are condoning, even deliberately creating, this 'madness'!"

"They need 'food,' a special kind of 'food' that contains immense life energy and the essence of the soul!"

"And this kind of food can only be born under the most desperate, painful, and twisted conditions!"

"They might even deliberately sow seeds that seem like hope."

"But that's not hope at all! It's a trap! It's bait they use to mark 'potential stocks' so they can 'harvest' them later!"

"Once you obtain it, your soul will be branded with an indelible mark, and no matter where you flee to, you will never escape their gaze!"

"When you grow to be 'plump' enough, they will descend and devour you and everything you have!"

The book ends abruptly here.

Su Yuan wasn't too surprised to see this, because he already understood.

There aren't that many traditions in this world.

Do not view gods through human eyes, because they may have eternal life and do not need to reproduce. Most likely, from the beginning, their purpose in doing all this was simply to obtain food.

As for that girl, she must have been chosen by God to become a Sequencer under some kind of despair.

There are many Sequencers in this world, and they are just larger ants. They either wait to be harvested or hunted by other Sequencers, or they are used as food by higher beings.

……

"But who cares?"

Su Yuan quickly adjusted his mindset.

You want to take advantage of me?

It also depends on whether you have good teeth!

Just then.

"Our benefactor! We've found him! We've found him!"

The money-guarding spirit's excited, distorted voice came from behind a huge bookshelf.

Su Yuan followed the sound and saw the Treasure Guardian Spirit carrying two bronze chests. He now had three bronze chests, one silver chest, and eleven wooden chests.

If you make the most of your harvest today, you're 100% guaranteed to get a golden treasure chest.

"Where is the next place?"

"The next place, which is also the last place, is the banquet hall."

"But similarly, that place... is also the most dangerous spot in the entire castle, where the aura of monsters is strongest!"

Without the slightest hesitation, and without even lifting an eyelid, Su Yuan turned around and walked towards the library exit.

What a joke! The treasure chest is practically handed to us; how can we not take it?

As for danger?

What he fears least now is danger.

After passing through a long corridor filled with all sorts of eerie oil paintings, a huge double door, even more magnificent and ornate than the library's main entrance, appeared before them.

It was a gilded gate, carved with countless black swans dancing gracefully. Their postures were elegant and noble, but their eyes, inlaid with obsidian, exuded an indescribable eeriness and coldness.

Before Su Yuan even reached the door, he heard a melodious waltz, as if it came from another world.

The music was beautiful and melodious, but it carried a hollow echo, like a broken cassette tape playing on repeat.

Besides the music, Su Yuan also heard the sounds of men and women talking and laughing, the clinking of wine glasses, and... the teeth-grinding scraping sound of knives and forks cutting food.

Behind the door, it seemed as if a grand and lively banquet was being held.

"My sir... this... what's inside..."

The money-guarding spirit hid behind Su Yuan, its voice trembling.

It could sense the intense, almost tangible, resentment and death emanating from behind the door.

The feeling was as if the door led to another world, a world belonging to the dead.

Su Yuan ignored it; he simply stood quietly at the door, closed his eyes, and listened intently.

His abnormal perception allowed him to hear more "sounds" that ordinary people could not hear.

He heard a woman's laughter, full of happiness and anticipation.

"Darling, look, isn't this wedding dress beautiful? I designed it myself, and it's embroidered with 1,314 black swans."

He heard another man's gentle and affectionate response.

"Beautiful, so beautiful, my Odette, you are the most beautiful bride in the world."

Then, the scene changes.

The wedding bells rang.

The melodious waltz music echoed in the magnificent banquet hall.

Countless elegantly dressed guests raised their glasses in celebration, offering their sincerest blessings to the newlyweds standing in the center of the hall.

The bride, wearing a gorgeous wedding dress embroidered with black swans, beamed with happiness as she took the groom's hand, ready to receive the priest's blessing.

However, at that moment...

An uninvited guest barged in.

She was a beautiful, gentle-looking blonde girl wearing an equally gorgeous court dress.

It was Audrey.

She is Odette's sister, the one with a black swan perched on her shoulder in the portrait.

"Sister! Don't marry him! He's a liar! He doesn't love you at all! All he loves is our family's wealth and status!"

"His actions were also orchestrated by him; we were all deceived!"

Audrey rushed to the bride and shouted at the top of her lungs.

She produced a letter, a letter from the groom to one of his lovers, filled with explicit love words and dirty deals.

Odette recognized the handwriting on it.

The banquet hall erupted in an uproar.

All the guests watched this sudden farce with amusement and anticipation.

The groom's face instantly turned extremely ugly.

The bride, Odette, stared blankly at the letter, at the familiar handwriting, her face draining of color little by little.

She looked up in disbelief at the man beside her who had just been whispering sweet nothings to her. His eyes, which had been full of love, were now filled with nothing but shock and despair.

Why...?

She asked those three words, her voice trembling.

The man fell silent.

His silence was the best answer.

Odette smiled.

The laughter was mournful and desperate, like the lament of a wounded nightingale in the middle of the night.

Odette then suddenly reached out and grabbed the man's neck, but the man was not to be outdone, and they both fell from the second floor during the struggle.

Finally, the man struggled to his feet, but Odette fell headfirst, breaking her neck and dying a twisted death.

……

The illusion ends here.

However, Su Yuan seemed to notice a detail: Audrey in the corner had a slight upturn at the corner of her mouth.

Is it just an illusion?

This seems somewhat suspicious.

Su Yuan suddenly opened his eyes, his expression becoming extremely serious.

He finally understood.

I now understand the origin of the Black Swan Queen.

I also understand why there is such deep resentment in this castle.

On her wedding day, she was betrayed by the person she loved most, and in front of all the guests, she chose the most tragic way to end her life.

Her resentment was so profound that she dragged everyone who witnessed her tragedy down with her into hell.

This castle was her hell.

And that never-ending banquet was her most vicious curse upon everyone.

"So that's how it is."

Su Yuan took a deep breath, no longer hesitated, reached out and pushed the door open heavily.

"Squeak—"

The door hinges turned, making a heavy sound.

Behind the door was a huge banquet hall, even more luxurious and spacious than the previous hall.

The melodious waltz music instantly enveloped them.

Inside the banquet hall, hundreds of "guests" dressed in magnificent aristocratic gowns were dancing the waltz in pairs on the dance floor.

Their movements were perfectly synchronized and meticulous, as if they had rehearsed hundreds of times.

But their faces were expressionless, their eyes were vacant, and their skin was withered, like a group of puppets controlled by invisible threads.

And in the very center of the banquet hall, beneath that enormous crystal chandelier.

The body of a woman dressed in a black wedding dress hangs there silently.

A white silk ribbon had left a deep mark on her neck.

Her feet were half a foot off the ground, and with the airflow coming in from the doorway, they slowly spun in mid-air.

Her face, which should have been beautiful, turned bluish-purple from suffocation, and her eyes were wide open, filled with endless resentment and unwillingness.

All the "guests" danced around the hanging corpse, as if performing some kind of eerie, never-ending sacrificial ritual.

Su Yuan seemed to have guessed something; dungeon crawling had probably existed for many years and had attracted many outsiders.

Those who break the rules are turned into various pieces of furniture, plates, and even food, while those who successfully pass all the rules come here and become guests.

If nothing unexpected happens, this dungeon should be the one with the highest mortality rate among the two-star dungeons. The only solution is to avoid entering the castle.

Perhaps there's some special way to get rid of the invitation and deal with the butler.

So why is she here mourning? Didn't she fall to her death?

Perhaps there were some things that happened in between that she didn't know about, and how did she turn to the dark side and cause all of this?

Su Yuan thought back carefully.

He could sense Odette's feelings at the time. In fact, her extreme behavior was not entirely due to anger at the betrayal or the deception.

She grew up under the watchful eyes of others and was extremely concerned about their opinions.

More often than not, it stems from a dislike for these banquet guests, or perhaps these guests are merely spectators.

From a young age, she cared deeply about the opinions of outsiders, so she designed these rituals to discipline the audience.

"My patron...that...that corpse..."

The guardian spirit's voice was trembling uncontrollably.

It could clearly sense that the source of all the resentment in the entire banquet hall was the corpse hanging in mid-air, dressed in a black wedding dress!

The true form of the Black Swan Queen!

right here!

Just as Su Yuan and the Wealthy Spirit stepped into the banquet hall...

The melodious waltz music came to an abrupt end.

All the "guests" who were dancing suddenly froze.

Then, they all turned their heads in unison.

Hundreds of empty, eye-less eye sockets stared in unison at the two uninvited guests at the door.

The entire banquet hall fell into a deathly silence.

Only the bride's corpse, hanging in mid-air, continued to slowly rotate.

suddenly!

"Snap!"

A crisp sound, like a neck being snapped, rang out.