Chapter 43: The Rope

“Wenwen! Help me, please. There’s a hand on my shoulder!”

Wang Ziwen immediately looked over and saw the ghost’s hand resting on the mortified Xu Xiaojing’s shoulder, alarming her as well.

The deathly pale broken fingers shifted slightly, while its sharp fingernails were poking the delicate skin. It was clear that there was no way that these were just machines.

Towards the ghost’s hand, Wang Ziwen showed fear in her heart, but she couldn’t just drop her friend like she a hot potato that she didn’t care for.

Wang Ziwen saw Xu Xiaojing’s nearly fainting demeanor and toughened herself up, slowly reaching out and grabbing the broken hand’s wrist, forcefully yanking it away!

For a moment, the rotten and bloody flesh on the broken hand’s wrist stained her hand with blood. The broken hand’s fingernails were initially digging into Xu Xiaojing’s skin, so Wang Ziwen had to expend more energy than usual before being able to get it off of Xu Xiaojing’s shoulder.

Her hand reluctantly grasped the ghost’s broken hand, making Wang Ziwen feel sick to the pit of her stomach. Her arm swung with great force, throwing away the ghost’s hand to the skeleton’s direction!

‘Pa-ta.’ The half-up skeletal body fell to the ground. Wang Ziwen took advantage of this distraction and firmly said, “Xiaojing! Let’s move! We need to hurry and leave this place!”

It was a human head that still had not yet been appeased.

The human head slowly opened its eyes, appearing to have extremely dilated pupils. Its mouth drew back its corners into a wide unearthly grin. Its stitches were arched into a terrifying curve, taking up almost half of its almost deformed face.

The human head inconveniently blocked the only way out of the haunted house and suddenly stopped moving.

Seeing a real living human head in front of her, Xu Xiaojing let out a weak whimper again, while Wang Ziwen cautiously distanced themselves from the human head, taking three steps back before stopping. On the other hand, Bai Yan and Su Yize had grave looks on their faces when they first saw the human head. Neither of them wanted to risk their lives by rashly charging forward.

“What do we do? Do we still advance?”

Wang Ziwen eyed the human head and specifically paid close attention to it. She couldn’t help but tightly clench Xu Xiaojing’s hand, “There’s a weird head in the middle of our path. Should we just turn back?”

“The haunted house’s entrance basically doesn’t have a door. So if we go back, we might as well end up dead.” Bai Yan said, “When the time comes where we have to turn back, ghosts will surely appear from behind, and we’d have nowhere to run. It would be better to fight it and rush forward to get out of this place!”

If there were no NPCs in the situation, Bai Yan wouldn’t have acted this crude. Su Yize seemed to be someone who valued life and wasn’t someone who would have his opinion swayed easily, so there was no way that he’d let Bai Yan use the NPCs as scapegoats. However, the fearless Wang Ziwen was with them, so Bai Yan had plans to test her luck.

The ghost’s hand that wasn’t currently on Xu Xiaojing’s body didn’t bring her much harm just now. Xu Xiaojing’s skin wasn’t even scratched, it was just lightly bruised.

So compared to getting his entire body ruthlessly chopped up by the old granny, the broken hand placed on Xu Xiaojing’s shoulder was nothing much. It couldn’t even be compared to the ghost baby and the family of three, who died from getting bitten by their dead dog.

The potentially dangerous broken hand gave Bai Yan a clue, leading him to think that the gory head would be harmless as well. But, he didn’t have any resurrection coins with him this round, so this life was all he had. As a result, he could only manipulate the NPC to do his bidding and test out his theory.

“Let’s move along! I’ll try it out first.” Wang Ziwen turned her head around to face Xu Xiaojing and said in a worried tone, “Be careful when passing by it. You should pay attention and don’t step on it!”

“Okay.”

Xu Xiaojing just silently nodded her head. When Wang Ziwen took a tentative step forward, much to their surprise, the head had also begun to roll after she moved, barreling straight at her.

“F*ck! It’s not over yet! Get away from me!” Wang Ziwen cursed at the head, being unable to avoid it, but her heart hardened in a flash, resulting in her fiercely kicking the human head with her foot and sending it flying towards the wall.

The human head stuck to the wall like glue. And in an instant, the wall gradually extended a pair of ghostly white hands, pulling the human head into the wall, slowly but surely. And in the end, only the face’s cheeks were faintly protruding on the surface of the wall.

Soon, the round cheeks rapidly turned black, assimilating to the color of the wall and leaving a particular pattern on it.

Bai Yan examined the wall, only to discover that the pitch-black wall actually had countless embellishing patterns on it.

Wang Ziwen silently watched with shock as the human head absorbed into the wall. She never considered that there would be ghosts on the wall too!

Needless to say, Xu Xiaojing was so traumatized that she couldn’t risk walking alongside her friend anymore. Xu Xiaojing cowered as she strolled forward, terrified that she herself would be dragged into these dangerous walls.

After the human head had disappeared, the group used up two full minutes to venture on the remaining path. Bai Yan looked at the time and saw that they only used a total of eight minutes on this round, which beat their last attempt by three minutes.

“Wenwen! Let’s get out of here!”

Xu Xiaojing’s throat inadvertently gulped as she stared at the pitch-black exit. The haunted house’s only exit appeared as a black abyss since there were no traces of light beyond it. If they went out through here, will they truly return to the shopping mall’s building safe and sound?

Seeing that Xu Xiaojing was extremely hesitant and was just plain slow to leave, Wang Ziwen firmly said, “I’ll go out first. I’ll be holding your hand, so don’t loosen your grip. We’ll be fine.”

“En.” Xu Xiaojing summoned all her courage, and when Wang Ziwen passed through the exit, she also did the same.

In front of the door, Bai Yan stood still and turned his head to ask Su Yize’s thoughts, “What do you think?”

“I don’t believe that this level is that simple.” Su Yize answered, “The tour guide cryptically disappeared, so she must not be a regular person. Apart from her, not a single NPC has died yet, so there must certainly be a more terrible situation waiting us in a while.”

Bai Yan nodded his head in agreement and went through the exit without saying another word. Su Yize followed him closely behind because he was scared to be left all alone in this strange haunted house.

“Wenwen, are you there?”

“Wenwen where did you go?”

“Where is everyone? Don’t tease me! I’m absolutely terrified!”

Xu Xiaojing was standing in front of the dusky entrance of the haunted house, trembling from fear.

She timidly looked around her dark surroundings, but no one else was around.  Besides her, Wang Ziwen and the other two guys she didn’t know all that well had entirely disappeared without a trace as if she was the only person left.

“Why… Why am I the only one left here? Didn’t everyone go out?”

Xu Xiaojing bit her lip nervously as her vision had suddenly turned fuzzy.

Compared to the fear she felt the last two times in the haunted house, this time, she felt completely naked from despair!

Numerous dreadful thoughts immediately popped out in her mind. The thought of everyone but her escaping and being left in the haunted house alone made her believe that she was done for. Misery and anxiety fully consumed her heart, making her unable to breathe properly!

“Wenwen! Wang Ziwen! Wang Ziwen! Can you hear me? Where the hell are you?”

Xu Xiaojing used the loudest voice she had mustered her entire life to call for her friend, but her voice only echoed throughout the absolutely empty haunted house. Out of nowhere, the music that played in the haunted house had suddenly come to a halt.

Hearing her hopeless voice encircle the empty haunted house, Xu Xiaojing’s complexion changed into a pale white color. She discovered for the first time that the absolute silence she was experiencing right now was far more intimidating than the scary loud music that played before!

“No one’s here! They must have left already!”

She shakingly fished out a napkin, blowing her nose on it, and sadly wiped away her streaming tears with the back of her hand. Now that she was all alone, her angst made her legs soft like jelly, but she knew that there was no one there she could depend on.

“They’re all not here, so I can only rely on myself.” Xu Xiaojing recalled Wang Ziwen’s words and gave herself a pep talk, “I will get out of here. I will surely get out of here.”

“I don’t want to die yet!”

Seeing the darkness up ahead, Xu Xiaojing’s heartbeat sped up drastically. She grinded her teeth as she used all of her will power to bravely march forward. But after walking not more than ten steps, she was shocked to find that the originally pitch-black wall had started to squirm uncontrollably. They furiously turned into disgusting lumps of flesh, and these lumps of flesh were scattered with smashed up arms, legs, and heads.

This haunted house had already completely transformed into a real haunted house!

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Xu Xiaojing lost her mind from the petrifying sight and let out a sharp scream. Her eyes produced a violent whirlwind of tears, but deep in her heart, she knew that she had no other choice but to move forward.

Tears flowed down her cheeks as she madly dashed ahead, forcing herself to not look at the walls that would surely make her stop dead in her tracks.

For a moment, the inside of the haunted house was pervaded with the sounds of the wriggling lumps of flesh, hurried footsteps, and Xu Xiaojing’s strong and heavy breaths!

During Xu Xiaojing’s desperate pursuit for life, she shortly wound up at the center of the haunted house, running until there was only half of the path left and could finally be free from this wretched place.

“Da. Da. Da.”

An abrupt set of footsteps could be heard from far away.

Xu Xiaojing’s eyes had once again flashed with horrification, while her feet couldn’t help but send a little tremble at every step.

She stared at the sharp corner in the far off distance, expecting for a sinister ghoul to appear from it at any moment.

However, when she saw the heads sticking out of the corner, a sliver of hope quickly appeared in Xu Xiaojing’s eyes. The person coming over was none other than Wang Ziwen.

“Wenwen, where did you go? I was looking for you everywhere, but I couldn’t find you! I was so scared!”

Contrary to how one might react when seeing a familiar-looking person, Xu Xiaojing’s eyes watered even more. Wang Ziwen walked towards her and was also as anxious as she was, “Xiaojing, where have you been just now? We’ve been looking for you for quite some time now. How did you end up at the entrance of the haunted house?”

“I, I don’t know.”

Xu Xiaojing could faintly sense that there was something wrong with the situation, but she didn’t give it too much thought since Wang Ziwen had immediately interrupted her suspicions.

“Xiaojing, when you weren’t here, we found a way out. Come with me. This time, we’ll definitely escape this place!”

“Okay, I’ll go with you.” Xu Xiaojing quickly nodded her head in agreement.

Wang Ziwen saw Xu Xiaojing’s response, and a quaint smile immediately showed on her lips. She tugged on Xu Xiaojing’s hand, turned themselves around, and brought her on the way back to the entrance.

Seeing where Wang Ziwen was headed, Xu Xiaojing instantly voiced out her concern, saying, “Wenwen, why are we going back? There’s no door there, right?”

“Earlier, the guy saw wrong. There’s a door at the entrance, and that door is actually the exit. I got out and saw it for myself that he was wrong.”

“Oh! It was like that all along.” Xu Xiaojing had come to a sudden realization and quickly knitted her brows, “Also, the grip on my hand is too much. It hurts when you pull on me.”

“Then, I’ll be gentler.”

After saying this, Xu Xiaojing meekly let out a sob and didn’t utter a single word. It may have been them being too focused on their journey that Wang Ziwen didn’t try to comfort her even once. The two people didn’t converse as they walked towards the entrance.

In front of the entrance, it was nothing like Xu Xiaojing had imagined, where there was a large welcoming door that was wide open.

They were only a few steps away when she saw a familiar chair, blocking the entrance, and on top of the chair was a hangman’s noose, slightly swaying in the air.

“Wenwen, this!”

Xu Xiaojing horrifyingly turned her head around, but Wang Ziwen, who was pulling on her hand, released a smirk and coldly said, “What are you waiting for?”

“Wha-what is this?”

Xu Xiaojing was finally aware that there was something wrong, so she used all of her might to try to break free from Wang Ziwen’s hand. However, Wang Ziwen’s hand seemed to be like clamps, tenaciously holding onto her and letting all her efforts go down the drain.

“What is this? Who do you think I am?”

Wang Ziwen released a creepy smile that could make anyone’s hairs stand on end and finally revealed her true colors.

Xu Xiaojing’s eyes widened from shock. The Wang Ziwen before her was clearly the female ghost she saw at the door earlier.

In an instant, Xu Xiaojing understood everything.

The female ghost sneered as she watched the vulnerable Xu Xiaojing, standing motionlessly behind her.

At this time, the female ghost had already released the hand it was pulling, making Xu Xiaojing’s face turn anemic.

Xu Xiaojing wanted to run away, she wanted to flee, but her legs wouldn’t listen to her.

She helplessly watched herself walk to the direction of the chair, stand on it, and bow her head to let her neck go in the noose!

When!

The chair fell to the ground.

The hanging noose stretched from the sudden weight until it couldn’t anymore. All that was left was a pair of toes wobbling slightly above the ground.

The haunted house had once again reinstated its quiet and eerie atmosphere.