The master and madam sat inside the car with their heads resting on their thighs. Through Bai Yan’s careful surveillance, the headless bodies had lifted their deathly pale hands and were slowly inching towards their necks.
How could this be?
When did An Qing and Lu Tianyi disappear?
For how long have these headless bodies been sitting at the back of the car?
These series of urgent questions made Bai Yan’s heart feel numb. He abruptly stepped on the brakes and the sudden halt made Su Xiaoqian dizzy, her whole body moving leaning forward from the strong force.
“Bai Yan, why didn’t you warn me that you would be stepping on the brakes?”
“Look at the backseats, are the people sitting behind us still people?”
The car still hadn’t fully stopped, but Bai Yan got off the car by recklessly jumping out.
“What happened back there? When did An Qing and Lu Tianyi disappear?” Su Xiaoqian finally reached his side and asked while gasping for air, “Those two ghosts, when did they get in the car?”
“I don’t know either. Anyway, as soon as I saw them, I stepped on the brakes.” Bai Yan shook his head from not knowing. As he and Su Xiaoqian slowly walked along the road, they talked about what had taken place inside the car, “The villa’s faceless ghost had the ability to manipulate memories and control dead bodies. Today is the last day of the game. The game’s forum said that as time passes by, the game’s restrictions on the ghosts were weaker, making the ghosts become bigger threats than ever before.”
“That too.” Su Xiaoqian accidentally stepped into a big puddle and walked through the rain with great difficulty, “The master and the madam had already recalled their tragic deaths. Now, we have to deal with three ghosts instead of one. Without a doubt, it won’t be easy– Wait a minute, there’s someone ahead.”
Bai Yan slowly raised his head and followed the direction where Su Xiaoqian was pointing to. At the distant curb, there awaited a normal-looking man with an umbrella, standing beside an illuminating streetlight near a tree.
Behind the tree was a bus sign. This person was standing in the middle of the pouring rain just to wait for a bus.
The street lamp’s white light playfully mixed with the tree’s lush green leaves, giving the still person an inexplicable layer of a sickly green color, making him look horrifying.
Seeing this quiet and peaceful scene, Su Xiaoqian hesitantly asked, “Bai Yan, should we go over there and ask for directions? I feel that the rain wouldn’t be stopping any time soon. We’re unfamiliar with this place, so we can ask that person and find a place to take shelter from the rain.”
“Okay.” Bai Yan meekly replied. In truth, he couldn’t clearly see the person she was talking about, being so far away. He could only discern the person’s outline and that he carried an umbrella to take cover from the rain. After a few strong gusts of wind, the person seemed normal.
Of course, there was also a chance that his eyesight was extremely poor. So much so, that he saw an illusion in the middle of the downpour.
“Okay. Let’s go there, but if ever he is a ghost, what do we do in this dead of night? Thinking about it, it’s very suspicious.”
Su Xiaoqian had read dozens of forum posts. She knew that the game’s setting was huge. Apart from the ghosts, the NPC’s lives in the game’s world were no different from that of a regular person’s.
She now understood the shady circumstances. Even though it was originally her idea to ask the person for directions, given the incident with the two ghosts in the car earlier, she still felt terrified, “Thinking about it more, it does seem suspicious. How about we don’t go there anymore.”
“If he’s really a ghost, even if we don’t go over there, he still won’t let us go easily.” Bai Yan said as he wiped away the splashes of water on his face, his head slightly throbbing, “Let’s go and assess the situation first. If there are any problems, it would be best for us to take it on now.”
“En, I agree.”
The two reached a unanimous decision and slowly walked towards the street lamp’s direction.
When they were halfway through their destination, the person moved and mysteriously walked behind the tree. As they walked closer, they only saw half of the person’s umbrella under the tree’s leaves.
With the bus sign being too far and the two people’s sluggish pace, the two almost reached the sign after a long time.
They were only a dozen steps away when a powerful gust of wind suddenly overturned the stranger’s umbrella.
The person strongly clung to his umbrella, but both of them already saw the large chilly raindrops land on the bare and headless neck, making their hearts turn cold.
That man had no head.
No head.
Taking a closer look, aren’t the clothes he was wearing similar to what the master usually wears?
“F*ck! These ghosts never go away.”
Su Xiaoqian cursed under her breath. This time, she learned from experience. In a split second, she turned her head and ran towards the opposite direction, leaving Bai Yan behind.
Su Xiaoqian ran wild like the wind until she found herself in an intersection and saw a pasty-white body standing at the sidewalk. The road was outrightly blocked by the madam.
She quickly turned around and saw the master holding a broken umbrella, standing behind her on the road, getting closer and closer.
“Bai Yan, where should we go?” She anxiously screamed aloud but discovered that Bai Yan was foolishly standing on the same spot while tearing off his name tag with all his might.
“Go right.” Bai Yan said in a low voice that only the two of them could hear.
Amid the noisy drops of rain, Su Xiaoqian couldn’t understand what Bai Yan had said, but she could still see Bai Yan’s movements and knew where to go.
Before her brain could think of something else, Su Xiaoqian’s body started to follow suit. She immediately ripped off her name tag, throwing it away to her left, and began sprinting towards her right.
They both ran for a long time, desperately escaping their deaths. But after running for so long, they slowed down their steps, and at this moment, their surroundings were completely devoid of any signs of humans.
Possibly because of their name tags being thrown away, the headless corpses didn’t overtake them, giving them enough time to catch their breaths.
“I can’t. I can’t take it anymore. I would die from exhaustion if this continues.” Su Xiaoqian said as she gasped for air. She started to tremble as she complained, “I’m freezing. I’m about to die in the pouring rain. Bai Yan, how long till we can get out of this broken game?”
“There’s still four and a half hours left.”
Bai Yan quickly fished out his phone from his pant pockets and looked at the time. Because of the app’s upgrade, the phone was thankfully waterproof and shockproof, leaving no traces of damage from the rain.
After a few hours of drenching themselves in the cold rain, Su Xiaoqian was not the only one who couldn’t endure it anymore, so couldn’t Bai Yan.
Before Su Xiaoqian could utter a word, Bai Yan started ceaselessly coughing, but he didn’t look better than the freezing and trembling Su Xiaoqian.
In the shower, the foundation that had originally masked his skin color was washed away long ago. Bai Yan’s face was hideously pale but was accompanied by a morbid pink flush in his cheeks. Fortunately, Su Xiaoqian was too muddle-headed from changing directions that she hardly noticed his skin, even more so with Bai Yan’s fading hair color.
“This won’t do. We need to quickly find a nice warm place to hide from the rain. If we faint in this game, it might automatically lead to a dead end.” Even though Su Xiaoqian wanted to curl herself up into a ball, she still had to force herself to have the determination to live and move forward.
The harsh rain in the middle of the night finally weakened a little, but the intense raindrops hammering down on their bodies made their steps harder to make.
This place’s drainage system wasn’t effective since the ground was fully covered with large and small puddles. At this moment, the two people didn’t have the energy to avoid them one by one. Each big step resulted in a big splash of water when walking in the bumpy road. They were slowly walking towards the building ahead.
After being on the run for so long, the two people have completely exhausted their strengths. Compared to the street lamp’s sickly green glow, the hotel’s warm and gentle light made their heart’s relieved. Its lights could make anyone trust the hotel at first glance.
“I’m going to die. I’m really going to die. Even if that place is a devil’s den, I still want to go in and escape the rain,” Su Xiaoqian howled as she swore to God. “Bai Yan, let’s go in and take a look.”
“Are we just going in there like this?”
Su Qian stared at Bai Yan’s bloody clothes, causing her to be speechless for a while. The heavy rain easily washed away the fresh blood on his face, but it made the bloodstains on his white shirt even worse. If they walked in there like this, they would definitely be kicked out since the people inside might think that they were a pair of wedlock murderers.
Particularly, it was Bai Yan’s miserable face that was filled with blisters that made him look terrible. Although he looked attractive and intelligent from the start, he looked at his reflection using the table knife he got from his pocket and felt that even if he claimed to be a good person, no one would believe him.
“Otherwise, how about you take off your clothes?” Su Xiaoqian suggested hesitantly, feeling that it would be cruel to lead someone to take off their clothes in this downpour.
Moreover, when Bai Yan stabbed the older son with a knife, she was standing at the side and was accidentally sprayed with blood too.
The app was interestingly specific to her uniform. The maid’s uniform didn’t have a coat, so if she took off her clothes, then she would be naked.
Should they just let their appearance be and directly go in?
Bai Yan didn’t wait for Su Xiaoqian to think of something and simply uttered a sentence, “We have money.”
Yeah right, they haven’t received their salaries from the madam because they ran away. How would they have this world’s money to pay for a room?
Although it wasn’t impossible to stay in the hotel for shelter, if two barely clothed individuals stepped inside in the middle of the night, it would look like they were basket cases.
Furthermore, if the headless ghosts followed them, they would be trapped inside the room, which was extremely troublesome, and this small hotel, it was more common for only one person to take the night shift.
Su Xiaoqian suddenly thought of a bold idea.