Chapter 33: To Get Caught in Desperate Times

Li Ming’s speculation made everyone shudder from fear, particularly Yi Zihan since her face exuded a sickly green color. Her ‘calm’ composure wasn’t convincing as she said, “May I ask, how many resurrection coins do you still have left?”

“I still have three coins left. I lost the others when I encountered the ghost baby and the old grandmother.” In turn, Bai Yan asked Li Ming, “How about you?”

“I have four left.” Li Ming played with his pen and said, “I was lucky that I didn’t see the dog or the ghost baby. I only saw a man with a head fully soaked in blood, it must be the rapist. The coin I used up was because of the grandmother. Two nights ago, I was helping her chop some meat and fill the stuffing. When it was my first time chopping the meat, she felt that my hands and legs weren’t comfortable, so she didn’t find any trouble cutting them off.”

Li Ming’s words made Bai Yan feel some sympathy towards him. Being cut up by the knife the old granny carried around with her truly hurt. After listening to the two explain their deaths, Yi Zihan’s face couldn’t help but change for the worse, making her look more unsightly.

Only worrying about the unevenness of their coins, even if everyone received five resurrection coins each, the other two still had more than half of theirs left. Compared to them, the single resurrection coin that Yi Zihan had on her seemed pathetic.

Especially Li Ming, he still had four coins left.

Yi Zihan fixed her gaze towards Li Ming while her heart instantly flashed feelings of melancholy. It was such a pity that the currency issued by the app, which was the coins, couldn’t be snatched away by other players. If this weren’t the case, if the situation needed it, she would give it a go.

No one knew of Yi Zihan’s dark thoughts. Her face revealed anxiety as she asked, “Since from now on there will be a lot of deaths, what do you guys think we should do?”

“Although Li Ming is a high school freshman, I am not.” Li Ming didn’t even raise his head and continued, “In the real world, I am a third-year high school student, and next year, I’ll be taking my college entrance exams. I want to use every bit of time I have to study and practice for them.” 

“You have a great attitude, but so far, the highest level that players have entered was Level 10. Aren’t you afraid that you’d die before reaching the 10th level?” Bai Yan said aggressively, “No matter how much studying you do now, you won’t survive until your entrance exams.”

Bai Yan bestowed these words unto Li Ming and silently walked away, leaving behind a sullen Li Ming, his mood to study almost disappearing.

Staring at Bai Yan’s leaving figure, Li Ming violently shook his head and readjusted his mentality, continuing to immerse himself in his studies.

His previous teammates also told him this, but he has to walk his own path. Just in case he survived the game, his final defeat would be his entrance exams, which would affect his entire life and he wouldn’t know what to do.

He knew what he was doing and won’t lose sight of the situation nor lose his life. He also knew that he had to collect the right clues, and when it’s time to flee for his life, he will surely do it without any hesitation. And for the rest of the time, he would just sit idly and do his practice questions.

Back at 302, as usual, Bai Yan cleaned the room, putting everything in order, and prepared dinner while waiting for Wu Jingang to return.

At 8:30 PM, Wu Jingang took tired strides on his way home and wolfed down his meal like he did the past two days.

When they were about to sleep, Bai Yan suddenly said, “Jingang, can you sleep in the other room tonight?”

“Yanyan, are you still scared?” Wu Jingang felt somewhat upset, “I already told you that we should go to the psychiatrist. For the whole day, you have been staying on guard, and every night, you can’t get a good night’s sleep. We can’t delay it any longer. Tomorrow, I’ll surely take a leave of absence to accompany you to the doctor. What if you get worse while I’m not around?”

“Jingang, I’m not sick at all. “ Bai Yan gently patted his shoulders, “Please trust me this time. Go sleep in the other room. When you become awake as you sleepwalk into my bedroom, that would explain your weird movements while you sleep. I’m not lying, so can you believe me just this once?”

“Fine, Yanyan.” Wu Jingang replied in an aggravated manner, “I’ll sleep somewhere else tonight, but you need to come with me to the doctor tomorrow. I’m extremely worried about you.”

After reaching an agreement with Wu Jingang, Bai Yan watched as Wu Jingang carried his comforter and left the room, quickly whipping out his phone and taking a video in secret.

With the two pieces of evidence he had, it was already enough proof that the house was haunted. Unfortunately, Wu Jingang didn’t see the ghost baby yesternight, or else he could’ve convinced Wu Jingang to move out tonight. 

At midnight, Bai Yan didn’t sleep a wink, but instead, he remained vigilant.

According to the progression of events, last night, Wu Jingang’s neck became long and distorted and had already pressed his face against Bai Yan’s. Then, tonight, there was a possibility that he would go even further, like directly ripping his face off and making a move on him regardless.

Bai Yan breathed lightly and pretended that he had long been asleep. At around midnight, sounds of faint footsteps could be heard on the floor. He figured that a person was entering the room, sitting beside the headboard, and slowly bending down, their faces getting closer and closer.

Because he was prepared, Bai Yan’s breaths were still steady and weren’t thrown into chaos, letting this man do what he wanted.

Soon, a strange puff of odor had been released in front of his face. Bai Yan sensed that the time had come, readying his voice to wake up Wu Jingang. But unexpectedly, before he could open his eyes, the ghost possessing Wu Jingang raised his hand and used it to choke his neck.

He had miscalculated.

Bai Yan deduced that the ghost would move against him, but he didn’t consider the possibility that the app wouldn’t trigger a selection.

Sensing that Wu Jingang’s hand was exerting more and more force, Bai Yan’s hands tried to undo his fingers, desperately trying to get away from the death grip. So, he used his knee to ruthlessly ram the man’s frailest part a couple of times. In just a few seconds, Wu Jingang suddenly woke up, covering his genitals with his hands and wailing from the pain.

“Ahh!!! Yanyan, why did you hit me?!”

Wu Jingang was clenching his crotch in agony and curled up below the bed. The pain was too much that the blue veins on his face popped out as tears of suffering fell from his eyes.

This part of a man was extremely delicate. Even a weak woman can make an eight-foot man roll over in pain. Not to mention that Baiyan was not herself anymore, and the man who had hit him was a grown man without any empathy towards him.

After having been hit a couple of times, Wu Jingang felt that his eggs were about to break. Even though he loved his wife dearly, being inexplicably kneed in that place, he couldn’t help raise his anger to a certain degree.

Wu Jingang was suffering in pain. It took him a while for his eggs to settle down. He wanted to incite his rage against Bai Yan, but as he lifted his head, he had discovered Bai Yan covering his neck while holding up his cell phone using the other hand, “Look, this is a video of you sleepwalking into this room just a moment ago. You tried to strangle me with your bare hands. See how horrible you look and how much you look like that guy!”

“I’m not lying to you! This house is haunted!”

Wu Jingang was stunned into silence. He clenched his jaw while suffering through the pain, covering his groin with a hand and taking the phone with the other. He watched the video with disbelief.

In the video recording, he was indeed unconscious when he walked towards his wife, and after exposing such a sinister expression, he firmly placed his hand on her neck, as if wanting to choke her to death.

Moreover, his face morphed into something else, changing into an incredible likeness to Liu Xiaotian, who died from a head injury not too long ago. Could it be as his wife had said? Was this place haunted?

Seeing that Wu Jingang had calmed down and had somewhat believed him, Bai Yan struck while the iron was hot and started to mix in his selfish desires, “Jingang, listen to me. I went out today and met up with some neighbors. I found out that their houses were also tormented by ghosts. The boy next door definitely said that his grandmother had died, but during evenings, she would go home and wrap some dumplings. The meat chopping noises from yesterday evening were coming from their house. Furthermore, Yi Zihan from upstairs, her child fell and died not long ago. But today, she confided in me with a pale face that her dead daughter had come back to look for her. And, the worst thing was that our house isn’t the problem, it’s the whole building that’s haunted by ghosts.”

After listening to Bai Yan’s accounts, Wu Jingang felt chills in his back. He couldn’t believe that there were ghosts in this world.

However, the video as well as Bai Yan’s red-printed neck were ironclad proof, so he couldn’t help but believe the claims.

Wu Jingang stared blankly at the video for a long time before he dryly said, “If the whole building is haunted, where should we live from now on?”

Wu Jingang felt distressed over this house, and if it weren’t for the unsuitable situation, Bai Yan would’ve been laughing at his pain-filled expression.

But after all, Wu Jingang didn’t experience what he had said, so he probably thought that he was just mindlessly sleepwalking with a scary expression on his face. 

“Move out. We need to move out now.”

Wu Jingang was at a loss for words, but Bai Yan stood his ground, “There’s no time to lose. We’re moving out now, so let’s sleep at a hotel for the night. That ghost becomes more and more frightening. Two days ago, it was just staring at me from a distance. Today, it strangled my neck with its hands. I’m afraid that if I stay here any longer, the ghost will surely choke me to death. Jingang, if you don’t want me to die, come and escape this building with me tonight.”

Bai Yan’s words were so emotional, even leading him to be moved to tears. Staring at his red and mangled neck, Wu Jingang’s guilt arose and his fear lingered, however, he still hesitated, “Yanyan, let’s sleep somewhere else tomorrow night. It’s far too late at the moment. You also said that this building had ghosts. It’s dark out, so they might come out. I’m afraid it’s too dangerous.”

What Wu Jingang had said wasn’t unreasonable, but Bai Yan suddenly remembered the girl’s pet dog. She was already being closely watched by the dog’s ghost and could die at any moment. If he didn’t prepare ahead for a rainy day, come tomorrow, they may encounter five ghosts. One ghost could kill a player, and with five ghosts, even 10 resurrection coins won’t be enough.

“No. Jingang, I can’t wait anymore.” Bai Yan was still in the middle of talking, but before he could completely convince Wu Jingang, he heard a strange thud from the glass window.

Bai Yan glanced at Wu Jingang and saw him have his mouth agape while his eyes were filled with shock.

Bai Yan slowly turned his head around and saw a pair of red shoes hanging from the window

The tips of the red shoes shook in the air, occasionally nudging the glass and creating a dull bumping sound. From the naked eye, the shoes were visibly sliding down at constant speed and soon, a woman’s pair of ankles began to show.

These shoes seemed to be extremely familiar to Bai Yan. These were the exact shoes he saw during the day when Yi Zihan was wearing them.

As the red shoes continued sliding down, it finally reached the center of the window, revealing a pair of bloodied pale legs.

The miserable-looking thighs were still inching downwards, and deep in Bai Yan’s heart, he knew something bad was going to happen and would encounter something horrifying when the woman’s corpse had come into full view.

Bai Yan didn’t want to sit still and wait for death, so he immediately hit the absentminded Wu Jingang and promptly decided, “It’s haunted. Let’s not daydream, we need to get moving now!”

“Oh, okay.”

Wu Jingang obediently nodded at once, and during his shocked state, he completely neglected his wife’s big personality change. He set his heart in preparing to obey his wife’s orders, which right now, were escaping this haunted building. Yet, as he dashed to the door, he mumbled in fear, “No, we can’t leave.”

“What’s wrong?”

Bai Yan stared with concern at the stammering Wu Jingang, who was having difficulty in getting his words out, so Bai Yan pushed him away from the peephole and took a look at it himself.

With just a glance, his heart sank. The motion-activated lights were on, making the outside look bright and clear, but standing in front of the door was a girl carrying a dog. The dog’s mouth contained a severed hand while the girl’s body as well as her mouth was entirely drenched in blood.

Sensing Bai Yan’s gaze through the peephole, the girl stood on tiptoe and drew nearer, pressing her eye against the small hole.

“Hehehe… Uncle… Aunty… I have spotted you. Open the door quickly.”

“Open the door for me.”

The girl’s complexion was colored purple and her stomach was replaced by a large hole, clearly evident that she had already died.

Seeing this morbid scene, Bai Yan’s face changed greatly. Although he wasn’t afraid of the ghost girl, he had anticipated a more terrible situation.

The hand that was carried in the dog’s mouth was a man’s hand, signifying that besides the girl, this building had new ghosts showing up.

Were the residents upstairs still alive?

Wu Jingang was a large man, but even his legs were cowardly shaking from such a ghoulish scene.

However, when he saw his wife standing still as if she were scared, he did his best to quell his heart and said in his most stable voice as possible, “Yanyan, the window. We can use the second room’s window to get out.”

The doorway and the master bedroom’s window were guarded by ghosts, so they naturally couldn’t escape there. Going through them would be like sending them to death.

Hearing what he said, Bai Yan and Wu Jingang rushed to the second bedroom, but when they arrived, they found out that the room’s window was also muddied with blood. The ghost baby. The ghost baby was lying on its stomach on the glass, facing them with a nasty grin on its face.

All the roads were blocked. Bai Yan finally learned what desperation truly was.

In this desperate situation, the phone’s vibration came late. Wu Jingang’s face was frozen still, and Bai Yan seemed to have woken up from his trance. He looked down to check his phone, but what entered his sight were four choices that undoubtedly led straight to Hell.

[Today, you surprisingly met up with your neighbors in a nearby cafe. After chatting with your neighbors, you finally realized that this building has a problem. When night fell, you have successfully convinced your husband that you two should escape this haunted building. However, during your escape, you both found out that all of your paths are blocked by ghosts.]

[In the face of desperate times, you decide to:]

[A. Open the door and force yourselves through the ghost girl and the ghost dog.]

[B. Before Yi Zihan’s corpse falls completely, break through the master bedroom’s window.]

[C. Escape through the second bedroom’s window, which is being blocked by the ghost baby.]

[D. Do nothing and hide under the bed in the master bedroom. You just close your eyes and patiently wait for dawn to arrive.]