# Chapter 363: The True Instance Holder
"Oh? You still have two minutes left." He Pu listened to You Qiwen's answer, looking bored.
"Two minutes probably won't be enough," Xu Huo said. "I could sum it up in a sentence or two, but that wouldn't be much fun. You specially prepared this concert to entertain yourself, right? I also think clearing the instance so simply wouldn't be interesting. How about we have a good chat? Maybe if we talk well, I could even help you with a small favor."
He Pu's gaze swept over Mr. Dong before he said, "I'll give you this time. But if the result doesn't satisfy me, I'll turn you into a puppet while you're still alive."
Xu Huo didn't mind the threat. He turned to Mr. Dong and said, "Please clear out the tea room and bring some food. None of us ate much earlier."
"Just vegetarian food will do."
He Pu nodded to Mr. Dong. "Fulfill your duties as butler."
Mr. Dong left without a word.
Just as He Pu was about to leave, Fray suddenly spoke up. "Since we're going to chat, let's all come out and talk together. What's the point of missing one person?"
He took out the contract from before and pointed to the signatures on it.
From this distance, the players could clearly see that the signatures of the dead Fang Min and the missing Li Chao had disappeared, but the signature of the equally missing Yu Shuai was still there.
"Almost forgot about him." He Pu turned back, his baton tapping lightly against the wall. Ripples spread rapidly through the room, and with a sharp, piercing sound, a heavy object crashed from the stage area. Everyone turned to see Yu Shuai kneeling on the ground, wiping blood from his mouth.
"You're not dead...!" Liu Zhengping blurted out, but before he could finish, all the players except Fray received notification of the first task's completion.
"Stay calm!" You Qiwen spoke first to draw everyone's attention, then cast a complicated look at Xu Huo. "It's nothing special for a player to have one or two life-saving tricks."
The other players tacitly kept quiet, but Xu Huo gloated to Yu Shuai, "You're really unlucky."
Yu Shuai had new wounds on top of old ones, but he refused to back down. "What are you so happy about? I still haven't found the corpse."
"I don't think you will. Let's go downstairs together." Xu Huo turned and walked away.
The tea room was on the first floor. By the time the players came downstairs, snacks and tea were already laid out. None of the other servants seemed to have heard the commotion upstairs—not a single one appeared. Mr. Dong stood in his usual corner like an invisible man. What secretly relieved You Qiwen and the others was that He Pu hadn't released Hu Shan; otherwise, all their previous efforts would have been wasted.
Even though they might not be a match for He Pu, one less strong enemy was still one less.
Besides, if Xu Huo was right about the truth, they wouldn't need to fight at all.
"Are you really confident?" The Chen brothers, who had been guarding the mirror, couldn't help asking.
Xu Huo didn't answer the question. Instead, he sat down across from He Pu and began to lay out his conjectured truth.
"First of all, You Qiwen guessed part of the truth—you really aren't He Pu."
"Judging from the living traces in this castle, the He Pu from five years ago was devoted to art and obsessed with medicine—a genuine scholar. From the written records he left behind, this person was open-minded and very humble, not someone vain or fond of showing off."
"But you're different." He raised his eyes to look at the man across from him. "Narcissistic, arrogant, love to show off—food, clothing, and all those fine things in the upstairs room, you want to display them all for people to see."
"Also, although you claim to love music, you don't even have the most basic appreciation for it. You can't play a single instrument. The real He Pu had a baron title and social connections. Just wearing a fake skin wouldn't fool anyone, so pretending to be sick was your only option. Simply put, you're an empty, low-quality impostor with very little technical skill."
Listening to Xu Huo curse someone was quite satisfying, but seeing He Pu's face darken, Yu Shuai couldn't help saying, "Can you talk without adding so much personal commentary?"
"Having fun." Xu Huo's three words silenced everyone. He took a sip of tea and continued, "So someone like you, I think it's impossible that you're the holder of the Rose Castle instance."
"He's not the instance boss?" You Qiwen was stunned. "If he's not, then who is?"
"Mr. Dong," Xu Huo gave the answer. "Although on the surface, the castle's owner should be the instance holder, this He Pu in front of us isn't the real one—he's a latecomer. So it's not strange that Mr. Dong, who was here earlier, became the instance master."
"That's not right," Fray interjected. "The Rose Castle instance only started five years ago. That can't be used as evidence. You're just guessing blindly."
"It doesn't hold up from cause to effect, but it's easy to understand when reasoning backward from the result," Xu Huo said. "Because Mr. Dong is the instance holder, He Pu could freely make all the guests and corpses in the castle disappear without leaving any way for players to survive. This violates the rules of the game instance."
"But not all players follow instance rules. If he was determined to do it without caring about consequences, that could barely count as a reason. Unfortunately, that reason doesn't hold."
"Why doesn't it hold?" Liu Zhengping asked instinctively.
"Because of time," You Qiwen said. "The Rose Castle instance has been around for five years. It's near the 011 District Game Government Base, and it's a fixed-location instance. The game couldn't possibly not manage the instance holder. An instance boss can exploit game loopholes to kill people, but they can't completely disregard the rules the game gives."
"Since you say I'm neither the castle's owner nor the instance holder, and I'm impersonating He Pu, where did the original He Pu go?" He Pu spoke up at this point. "If I killed him, why would Mr. Dong still obey me?"
The other players had the same question. When You Qiwen exposed He Pu as a fake earlier, Mr. Dong hadn't been surprised at all, clearly already aware of it. Yet he could still coexist peacefully with the fake He Pu, whether out of shared interests or simply not caring about the real He Pu's life or death.
"The real He Pu should already be dead. Whether you killed him or not is hard to say," Xu Huo said. "But making Mr. Dong not lay a hand on you isn't difficult. You could use He Pu's life or death, or his corpse, as leverage."
"Let's say everything you said is correct. Is this the truth?" He Pu lowered his head slightly, but his eyes moved upward, looking directly at Xu Huo from a lower angle. "You're just repeating what others have said."
"Before the concert started, I thought finding out that you're not the real He Pu would be enough. But the game didn't accept that truth, so it probably wants to know something else." Xu Huo crossed his hands, his right index finger tapping lightly on his left hand. "Besides the fact that you're not the instance holder, the other thing should be your identity."