Chapter 187: Backward Room

Zhao Zijing said in a low voice: "This disappearance case has been strange from start to finish. First, Mercury Alloy had good personal ties with several small guilds—if they'd run into trouble, they could've easily sought help."

Second, Mercury Alloy Guild, though small, had all essential components: besides the leader, the remaining nine members each had their own strengths and could handle most emergencies through coordination."

It's hard to imagine what they encountered that killed them all, with not a single one escaping."

To uncover the truth, the Global Supernatural Alliance and several other major guilds once sent expert teams to attempt search and rescue operations for a while—eventually giving up."

Zhao Zijing paused. Mercury Alloy Guild had one Lv30 and nine Lv20+ transcenders—this configuration shouldn't have vanished so inexplicably."

In any other situation, she would've stayed as far away as possible and refused to get involved—but now, trapped in the Mist Lock, there was nowhere to flee."

They could only press forward despite the difficulty."

She took a deep breath and controlled the drone to adjust its lens."

On the metal plaque beside the corpse, elegant French script read: "He rests here."

On its reverse side, crooked, illegible Chinese characters were carved: "Will this time succeed?"

The two inscriptions were utterly unrelated, leaving no logical connection."

Additionally, the skeleton clutched a recording device the size of a power bank."

Many players habitually carry GoPro cameras and voice recorders to document everything encountered during script missions, allowing them to review and identify gaps after returning to the real world."

"Bring that recorder over."

Li Cheng said to Zhao Zijing: "If the recorder isn't damaged, its data might help us understand what happened to Mercury Alloy and what occurred here."

The drone extended two delicate mechanical arms, carefully extracting the recorder from the skeleton's arms, then flew back with it."

"This is the latest flagship recorder released by European Heavy Industries a year and a half ago."

With his sharp eyes, Li Cheng instantly recognized the model: "Market claims it can withstand extreme heat, freezing cold, high humidity, toxic gases, underwater conditions. Solar-charged. Features facial recognition unlock."

After pressing the power button, a two-finger-wide screen in the center lit up, showing it was powered on—but required facial unlock."

Zhao Zijing immediately pulled out her tablet, searched the GOC database for photos of all Mercury Alloy members, and displayed them one by one before the recorder."

No reaction—it still couldn't unlock. Clearly, this recorder used advanced facial recognition software that couldn't be fooled by static photos."

"Hmm."

Li Cheng pondered briefly, then decisively pulled out paper, pencil, flesh-toned modeling clay, and a full set of makeup tools, and told Zhao Zijing to control the drone to fly back and take several more photos of the skeleton."

Zhao Zijing complied without hesitation, then asked unconsciously: "What are you doing?"

"Making a face."

Li Cheng casually spun his pencil, then precisely sketched the skeleton's facial contours on paper, adding layer upon layer of muscle."

Facial features and soft tissues of the head attach to specific parts of the skull; except for the cheeks, soft tissue thickness elsewhere remains relatively constant and doesn't change much."

Other areas like the nasal bridge, eye sockets, and forehead generally don't accumulate fat."

In other words, what people call "fat or thin" on a face mainly refers to how much cheek flesh there is."

Based on this, one can reverse-engineer the deceased's gender, age, ethnicity, and most importantly, their appearance from the skull's contours."

Moments later, Li Cheng had largely reconstructed the skeleton's facial features. Comparing it with Zhao Zijing's database photos, he identified the deceased's codename as 【Bismuth Yellow】, a 22-year-old French male Lv25 Fire Support transcender at the time of disappearance."

With a clear photo now available, Li Cheng smeared flesh-toned clay onto his face, then applied foundation, false eyelashes, eyeshadow powder, brushes, and other makeup tools, finally donning a wig."

Combined with his worm-gene ability to control facial muscles, the final result was nearly indistinguishable from the photo."

"WTF."

Midnight Howl was repeatedly stunned: "Where the hell did you learn this?"

"Are you asking about makeup skills, or facial reconstruction?"

Li Cheng replied casually: "Makeup skills I learned from beauty channels online; facial reconstruction I learned from a 1950s Soviet monograph called 'Principles of Facial Reconstruction from Skulls.'"

The author, Soviet anthropologist M. M. Gerasimov, was a pioneer in applying cranial reconstruction to forensic science."

By the way, he has no familial relation to Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces."

Gerasimov is a common Russian surname, isn't it? Was that necessary to mention?"

Midnight Howl's expression twisted. With his reclusive nature, he felt that staying near Master Pi Fu might awaken his inner critic."

This half-Indian kid didn't know that even without facial reconstruction, Li Cheng could simply suck the remaining bone marrow from the skeleton, extract its DNA, and use his worm-gene ability to recreate the dead man's face."

Li Cheng mentioned Gerasimov not only because he'd just fallen from a hot air balloon and wanted to reference Prigozhin's plane crash joke, but also"

because he wasn't hungry yet and didn't want to suck bone marrow."

Li Cheng suppressed his scattered thoughts, pressed his face close to the recorder's small lens—and with a "beep," facial recognition unlocked successfully, allowing access to past recordings."

He immediately pressed the button, skipped to the earliest recording, and played the one from last September."

"Hello, this is 【Bismuth Yellow】."

A slightly resonant young French male voice came from the recorder. Everyone perked up and listened closely."

"A month ago, our guild used a special item to collectively enter the script world and successfully killed a powerful Norse witch, completing the mission."

But before she died, the witch placed a curse on all of us."

Bismuth Yellow's voice was filled with exhaustion and bitterness: "For the past month, every member of the guild has been losing hair, urinating blood, suffering insomnia, and experiencing organ failure."

No medical technique can detect it; gene inhibitors can only suppress it temporarily."

According to GOC, the Norse witch sacrificed her two unborn children to cast the 'Corpse-Web Death Curse' upon us."

It's a vile curse targeting both soul and body, approaching the level of causality."

No matter how we rebuild our bodies or pursue mechanical ascension, we cannot escape the curse—we will still steadily march toward death."

The only entity in this killing ground that might possibly lift this curse is the Evil Science Alliance, the only group that has ventured furthest into the realm of the soul."

Our leader, Silver, carried a substantial gift to visit the leader of the Evil Science Alliance."

He received a reply: he couldn't lift the curse either—but he could provide us with a map—a map to the legendary hidden chamber, the 【Backward Room】."