Chapter 55: Them

This won’t do. She needed to pull the leg out!

From far away, countless showerheads continued to spit water out. Ye Shangyu knew that if she didn’t unclog the drain hole, the water level would slowly reach the ceiling and would ultimately result in everyone inside the bathroom to drown.

Ye Shangyu used her hand to take a steady hold of the leg, using her strength to haul. However, the leg was thoroughly jammed into the hole, so she could only do her best to pull the leg out.

It was regretful that she couldn’t exert her full strength under the water!

Realizing this, Ye Shangyu gave up and moved around. She then crouched on the ground to tear off the hairs that were wrapped around her ankle. After that, she walked underwater to the drain’s side and once again pulled on the leg.

After tugging once, twice, and over a dozen times, she finally pulled out that miserable leg out of the hole.

The leg was squeezed so tightly by the drain to the point of deformation, the leg molding into the shape of the drainpipe. One touch was all it took for someone to know that this wasn’t a normal person’s leg.

At this moment, Ye Shangyu didn’t care whether this was a dead person’s leg or a ghost’s leg. She threw away the wretched leg and quickly went up the water to breathe.

Some were even dragged down by the hair and ghosts on their arms and legs, basically preventing them to stay afloat.

If this continued, they would suffer more and more casualties.

Ye Shangyu was 100% unconcerned by the deaths in this game, but she was also inside the bathroom right now. If the bathroom was filled with water, not a single one of them would survive.

“I-Impossible.. There must be something else in the drain!”

It was pulled out. The leg she pulled out was floating by Ye Shangyu’s side. The obstacle was too much. Ye Shangyu threw the leg that was submerged in water very far away and had once again dive underwater.

She swam to the drain area with ease, and just as she had suspected, there was another dismembered limb stuck inside the drain’s circular opening. Ye Shangyu took hold of it, this time it was an arm!

‘Sure enough, there’s more!’

Ye Shangyu clenched her teeth and used her hands to yank it out, ‘I want to see how many of these are stuck inside the drain!’

The arm was much slimmer than the leg, so she didn’t exhaust too much strength this time and was able to get the arm out, throwing it far away like the leg.

On the water’s surface, the drifting arm lightly brushed against a random girl’s barely floating head.

Even if there wasn’t any light, the girl was still able to tell that this was a hand. As a result, she let out a panicked scream once more as she used her leg to kick on the door, hoping for someone outside to hear her call for help.

“Help! It’s haunted! Someone died inside!”

“Can’t you hear me? Help! Someone help me now!”

The girls didn’t understand why, even with their incessant screams for help, that the people outside were slow to do anything.

The only people that could hear their voices were only the people inside the bathroom, and right now, Ye Shangyu was still underwater, fully concentrating on the limbs stuck in the drain, so she was unable to answer the girls’ pleas.

‘Two… Three… A total of five arms!’

Ye Shangyu counted these in her heart, still holding her breath as she pulled away from the severed limbs while gnashing her teeth.

Soon, two minutes had passed, and her breath-holding made her face cherry-red, her head starting to feel dizzy. But, she didn’t dare go up to breathe then return.

The water level rising was far too swift. This back and forth would just waste precious time. If she resurfaced to catch her breath, there may not be another opportunity like this later.

Besides, staying in this cold water made her body rigid all over, causing her movements to get slower with each passing second. If she didn’t completely pull them all out right now, she wouldn’t be able to swim up and then dive down again!

Ye Shangyu pushed herself to overcome her situation, doing her all to unclog the seemingly growing severed limbs from the hole as if she were pulling radishes out of the ground.

After throwing away up to seven arms and eight legs, the drain finally stopped sprouting an endless stream of radish-like limbs.

Ye Shangyu felt a small whirlpool forming by the base of her feet as the streams of water began to seep into the growing vortex. All the severed limbs were gone and won’t come out again. She swam up, her head quickly emerging from the water.

At this moment, the water had already risen to the ceiling. Ye Shangyu did all she could to raise her head, only managing to expose her nose out in the air.

Ye Shangyu greedily breathed in the stale air, quickly giving her burning lungs some breath of relief.

She listened closely, her surroundings were already devoid of screams and crying.

Only sounds of splashing water could be heard nearby as if the remaining survivors were struggling to stay afloat.

The rising rate of the water was particularly quick and was also particularly unnatural.

However, the rate of water subsiding was quite slow.

Ye Shangyu was floating on the water for quite some time before she finally felt the floor.

The bathroom was still dark right now, so she didn’t let her guard down.

As the water continued to drain, it gradually transitioned from her knees to her ankles, washing everything clean. All of the water had gone down the drain, causing Ye Shangyu to feel slightly relieved.

…

‘Whoosh’

The lights turned on.

Suddenly regaining her vision from the darkness, Ye Shangyu’s eyes were strained.

She stood in her original place, waiting for two full minutes to pass to make sure everything was safe, and when she saw that there wasn’t anything around her anymore, she heaved a sigh of relief as if a heavy weight was lifted off of her shoulders.

Finally, it was all over.

Ye Shangyu immediately lowered her head to look at the floor tiles, and on top of the floor tiles laid her phone.

With the app’s upgrades, this phone was waterproof as well as shockproof, so it could never be broken.

As for the other one, it was already completely ruined by the water.

Ye Shangyu cautiously picked up her phone, and just in case, she resisted opening it inside the bathroom.

She then raised her eyes and looked around. The drain resumed its calm state, only a light stream of water was flowing towards the floor drain, but it was almost out.

By the door, dozens of women’s bodies piled on top of each other, effectively blocking the door.

From not too far away, there also laid several girls’ bodies. Only one was able to keep a weak state of consciousness, her back leaning against the wall for support as she feebly panted for air. Her mouth appeared to mutter calls for help, but her voice did not come through.

Only one ghost story for the player had brought about numerous deaths.

Despite Ye Shangyu’s having speculations from the start and upon seeing such a horrible sight, she couldn’t help but feel like a fox grieving for the dead rabbit(1).

“Hey, are you still alive?” Ye Shangyu gaped her mouth as she panted, exerting herself to utter these words.

Not caring about the barely conscious girl, Ye Shangyu was now by the door in front of the pile of bodies, looking for Chai Xiaohe while pushing away the people she didn’t know.

Ye Shangyu stretched out a hand to her nose. Chai Xiaohe had already stopped breathing, and her heart had also stopped beating.

She sighed in disappointment, feeling sorry for this girl.

However, her sympathy was only to this extent and nothing more.

Chai Xiaohe was already dead, sympathizing with her was useless.

Ye Shangyu moved Chai Xiaohe’s dead body to the side, continuing to move the corpses of the other girls and clearing the doorway.

While she was dragging the bodies, Ye Shangyu discovered that some were still alive, so she moved them by the wall, prompting them to lean against the wall to spit the water out.

After a long while, Ye Shangyu felt that her head was somewhat heavy.

She subconsciously touched her head but found a pale set of dismembered hands attached to her hair. The fingers were still slightly trembling as if they still wanted to continue ‘washing her hair.’

“You’re so tenacious.”

She chuckled lightly, feeling amused despite what she’d been through.

After staying in the water for a long time, her entire body had started to wrinkle.

Ye Shangyu used her hands to pull off the dismembered hands, but the fingers of the ghostly hands were glued tightly to her hair. No matter how hard she tried, they wouldn’t come off.

Ye Shangyu thought about it and picked up the shampoo bottle, shower gel bottle, and dirty wet towel she left on the bathroom floor, finding a vacant shower head as well.

With a splash, the steaming-hot water sprayed out of the nozzle.

“The cold water has a problem. Hot water should be good.”

Ye Shangyu hurriedly stepped under the pouring water and let out a comfortable sound.

Swimming in freezing water in the middle of winter, a robust young man couldn’t handle it, even more so her, who sat in front of the computer all year round, working as an IT dog.

Ye Shangyu positioned herself to let the hot water run through her head. As the hot water landed, the stubborn ghostly hands on her head were as though they were boiled shrimp, turning scalding red.

Soon, the cooked-red hands slowly fell off of her hair, motionlessly dropping down to the floor.

Upon seeing this, Ye Shangyu used the nozzle to dampen the girls that were still alive, making the ghostly limbs still stuck to their body also fall off.

After her ghost story had finished, Ye Shangyu’s heart eased up a lot.

No other player could beat her profound understanding of the app.

The app’s purpose wasn’t to kill the players, rather, it wanted for players to clear through the levels earlier.

So after her ghost story was done, she could enjoy her safety for quite some time, and there was no need to feel anxious.

When her body wasn’t that cold anymore, Ye Shangyu turned around to face the door and effortlessly opened it.

Her opening the door acted as a trigger, because when the door was open, all of the dead girls on the floor had started to slowly crawl towards the drain.

“What are they doing?”

Ye Shangyu frowned as she saw this. The already dead Chai Xiaohe was the nearest to the drain, so she was the very first to crawl to it.

As soon as she reached the drain, a ghostly hand extended from the hole, dragging Chai Xiaohe to go in.

A massive human head squeezed into the narrow opening.

Then, Chai Xiaohe’s legs also went in until the tips of her toes had disappeared into the drain hole.

A whole person was dragged into the drain, but the drain didn’t clog up because Ye Shangyu saw that the used water was still flowing down the hole.

“This is…”

Ye Shangyu blankly stared at the dead girls from all directions crawling to the drain, entering it one by one.

Soon, the dismembered hands that fell to the ground also followed the flow of the groove to the drain, hiding away underground to God knows where.

Ye Shangyu knew that this matter still had not concluded.

Her ghost story was already done, but for the students in this school, the wretched nightmare would continue.

The corpses of these women had hidden away below this bathroom and could appear at any given time.

Next time, the limbs and bodies that will clog up the drain might be theirs.

Ye Shangyu sighed, her heart not feeling remorse.

Because, even if she weren’t there, this day was inevitable.

Looking at the empty bathroom, Ye Shangyu felt particularly lonely. Not less than an hour ago, this place was bustling with people and was full of women laughing and chatting.

Now, besides the survivors, the others were submerged into the ice-cold sewer, or their limbs could be tangled up and could never have peace.

“There’s still 6 levels… I don’t have that much time.”

Ye Shangyu gave the bathroom one more look, her heart full of worry for the future.

She didn’t know if she could do it, but she needed to.

In the end, she gazed at the towel Chai Xiaohe left behind and left the bathroom without looking back.

Ye Shangyu’s towel was already filthy, so she took another person’s towel in the changing room and used it instead of her own.

In any case, those girls won’t have the chance to use these anymore, so using anyone’s would all be the same.

She quickly patted her body dry and hurriedly put some clothes on, draping on her overcoat and leaving the bathroom with damp hair.

When she passed the stairs and returned to the ground floor, Ye Shangyu took out her phone and gave Bai Yan a call, setting a meet up in the nearby beverage shop.

After the phone call, Ye Shangyu took her time, hugging herself as she shivered.

Her face was as white as snow, and the strong cold wind outside chilled her until her face turned blue.

The bone-chilling wind was bitingly cold as it blew on her scalp. Subsequently, thin sheets of white goose feathers floated down, landing on her scattered black hair and making her crow-colored hair mottled with white.

Ye Shangyu raised her head facing the wind and realized that it was snowing outside.

T/N: I’ve already picked the winners and have sent them the next 4 chapters of YMLM and HA last night! Please check your emails/inboxes to see if you won. Note that only the winners will be receiving an email/message about this.