CH 48.2

Lin Jue, “Although the number of tasks triggered during the day is not as high as at night, there are clues that still have to be found. The NPCs have given us time, so let’s all explore in groups.”

He wasn’t too polite and directly named a few people, “You, you, and you, group up with me.”

This you, you and you, referred to Emil, Bai Lixin, and Xia Chi.

“I have the highest rank, and these two have the lowest rank, so I guess no one would want them. They will follow me.”

The other players had little objection. Lin Jue taking the initiative to ask for these two was something that everyone was happy to see.

The teams were quickly formed. Since there were only 20 people so far, they were divided into four groups.

Lin Jue, “It’s 10 a.m. and lunch is at noon, so everyone should come back to the apple orchard before noon. Alright, split up and go explore.”

After speaking a bunch of words, Lin Jue’s raised eyebrows fell, and he looked a little disheveled.

After all, anyone would be tired after staying up all night and dealing with ghosts.

Xia Chi shrank behind Bai Lixin and gave Lin Jue a grateful look, “Thank you. I didn’t expect you to be a good person.”

As if he had heard some kind of joke, Lin Jue grinned and snorted.

After the other teams had walked away, Lin Jue leaned against a tree trunk and yawned lazily, “I’m a bit sleepy, Emil. You take them to explore; I need to sleep.”

With that, he lay down on the grass, flexibly retracting his dagger into his sleeve and putting his arm over his eyes.

Xia Chi: “……”

Was it too late to take back the good guy card?!

Riding boots were thrown onto the grass, and Lin Jue’s nasally voice came from his cuffs, already sounding sleepy, “Protect them.”

Emil coldly glanced at Bai Lixin and Xia Chi and reluctantly returned, “Okay, got it.”

Having received Emil’s reply, Lin Jue rolled over again and completely ignored them.

Xia Chi: “……”

Not only did he lose his fighting power, but he also had Emil, a narrow minded opponent along the way.

He’d rather explore with his brother.

Bai Lixin looked at Xia Chi’s changing expression and suggested, “How about staying here as well? I’ll go around outside by myself.”

Xia Chi: “?!!!”

How could that work? How can I let my brother head into danger by himself?

Xia Chi immediately followed Bai Lixin, who had already taken two steps out, “After thinking about it, I’d rather come with you, brother. I can protect you if you encounter any danger.”

They only had 2 hours to go and come back, so they could only explore a distance within a 1 hour range.

The three were going to explore the outer circle of the apple orchard, a direction that happened just behind the bedroom. Bai Lixin wanted to take this opportunity to see the place in its entirety.

Although he hadn’t communicated with Emil, Emil obviously had the same idea, and the three of them, forced together by Lin Jue, just silently moved forward along the way.

The apple orchard was huge and the heavy hangings from its branches swayed.

As Xia Chi walked forward, an apple that had vented the branch in front of him suddenly touched his forehead.

The round, full apples had tiny specks on them, and this variety of apples was much tastier than the apples with dry skin.

He casually picked two and handed one to Bai Lixin: “Brother, this apple looks quite good. Try it and see if it tastes good.”

Bai Lixin took the apple.

Just when Xia Chi was about to bite into it, Bai Lixin’s voice fell into his ears, “It’s better not to eat. Have you forgotten that rose garden in [the Blood Clan] copy?”

Xia Chi’s open mouth stiffened, “……”

Of course he didn’t forget!

The delicate roses.

Emil turned back with a sneer, sweeping a contemptuous glance at Xia Chi, “How dare you eat anything from the escape game, can you really survive when you’re this stupid?”

Xia Chi closed his mouth and looked at the apple in his hand awkwardly.

The apple was still the same full and round red apple. How pleasing and tempting it looked earlier, and how much it drove him away now.

He swallowed hard, hurriedly threw the apple under a tree trunk, and snatched the apple out of Bai Lixin’s hand and threw it aside, “Brother, don’t eat it either!”

Bai Lixin was eager to dig into the orchard to see if there were any corpses underneath, but there were more important things to do now. He would take a look later.

At the edge of the apple orchard was a circular wall, and with a nimble squeeze of his fingers in the air, Emil conjured up a few playing cards out of thin air.

He flicked his fingers, and a few playing cards flew out and plunged horizontally into the wall.

Emil jumped and quickly stepped over the playing cards one by one, jumping easily onto the wall.

The wall was a piece of cake for Bai Lixin, but he was more worried about whether Xia Chi would be able to get over it.

Unexpectedly, Xia Chi, who usually looked dazed, rushed up with a sudden acceleration. He stepped on the wall and nimbly climbed over it in three or two leaps.

I didn’t realize that Xia Chi was hiding deep.

Xia Chi went up and lay down on top of the wall. He dropped his arms immediately, a stance similar to a special forces soldier pulling his teammates after crossing an obstacle, “Brother, I’ll pull you. You jump up.”

Bai Lixin stepped on the wall and jumped up with a force under his feet, grabbing Xia Chi’s palm with one hand.

Then he was dragged up by a force, and with that force, he easily crossed the wall.

Beyond the wall was the sea.

There was no road beyond the apple orchard, and the wall was built right on the edge of a cliff face. From here, the view was of an endless sea.

Xia Chi steadied himself on the wall at his feet, saying, “Brother, this is really an island, so how on earth did those cars drive in? Could there be an underground tunnel here? Or did they drive the cars over to the boat? Or were the cars kept on the island and just used as a means of getting around the island.”

Xia Chi made several guesses before finally pausing, “Brother, do those guests live on the island too?”

Emil looked at Xia Chi out of the corner of his eye.

The Red Apple House was built on the cliffside of the island.

The salty sea breeze blew in, and wrapped in it were a few imperceptible fishy smells.

This smell could not be noticed in the apple orchard. They were surrounded by apples, and all they could smell was the sweet scent of apples. The rich sweetness of the fragrance even covered up the smell of this sea breeze.

It was like this when they arrived at the apple orchard yesterday. The place smelled so fragrant that they didn’t even think it was an island.

It was only after crossing the apple orchard that they broke away from the fruity smell of apples and noticed the smell that was clearly not right.

Xia Chi covered his nose, “Brother, what is this smell? It’s like the smell of dead fish and shrimps drying on the beach.”

Bai Lixin’s eyes sharpened, “It’s similar to that, but it’s not dead fish and shrimp, it’s the stench of a dead body.”

Xia Chi’s body stiffened and he stumbled, nearly falling off the wall.

If it wasn’t for Bai Lixin and Emil, who were quick and grabbed him by the shoulder, he would have fallen.

Emil’s voice was cold, “Calm down, it’s just a corpse, and it can’t move. If you’re scared, go down.”

As he spoke, all three of them looked stunned for a second.

Xia Chi, “I just got a system alert, how about you guys?”

Bai Lixin, “Me too.”

Emil, “I got it too.”

[Ding! Congratulations player for triggering a task X1, please find the source of the smell.]

Xia Chi, “Find the source of the corpse odor, is that your task too?”

Bai Lixin and Emil nodded in unison.

No matter how reluctant, Xia Chi braved up in order to complete the mission.

Bai Lixin tilted his head slightly, the tip of his nose sniffing around.

In the air was a smell like that of an age-old pile of rotting corpses.

It was impossible to ignore the explosive smell, even with the strong sea breeze.

And it was a smell that didn’t seem to be coming from far away, but more like it was lingering around them.

Bai Lixin’s eyes slowly fell to the wall he was stepping on…

He placed his hand on the wall, and after a few seconds, he brought it up to the tip of his nose.

A stronger corpse stench spread from his fingertips to the tip of his nose.

Bai Lixin, “The odour is coming from the wall.”

Xia Chi’s pupils contracted. Despite his fear, he held onto the wall firmly, not letting himself fall from above.

Emil’s voice was calm, “I’ve noticed that too, I’m afraid there are bodies buried in this wall.”

He paused, “We can’t dig, so let’s first tell Lin Jue about this and see how he handles it.”

In the minds of the three, a system alert rang out in unison.

[Congratulations for finding the source of the smell. The total number of points for this task is 3000. Since three players completed the task together, the points will be evenly distributed, each person receives 1,000 points, and there are 188,000 points remaining in the point pool.]

Lin Jue obtained 3000 points. The three of them obtained 3000 points. It seemed that there were other players who had completed some tasks as well.

There was less than an hour left, and they still had to turn back.

Without further delay, the three immediately jumped down from the wall and hurriedly moved in the direction they had come from.

They had walked for more than ten minutes when Bai Lixin stopped in his tracks.

Xia Chi, “What’s wrong, brother? Why did you stop?”

Bai Lixin pursed his lips and pointed to a corner, “Were those the two apples you threw earlier?”

Xia Chi followed Bai Lixin’s finger and saw two apples next to each other, he said uncertainty, “Yes, what’s wrong?”

Bai Lixin, “I already saw them three minutes ago.”

With a single sentence, the atmosphere around them suddenly became solemn.

Emil, “Are you sure?”

Bai Lixin, “I’m used to looking around when I walk, and I’m sure that we are trapped here.”

Xia Chi’s scalp suddenly tingled, as if a million tiny ants were gnawing at his hair, and a cool breeze poured down from the top of his head.

In the distance was a wall made of corpses, and there was the possibility of a pile of corpses under his feet.

Xia Chi stiffened and looked around.

The apple trees that had looked so pleasing to the eye a moment ago now looked like monsters with teeth and claws, and each red apple was a tooth stained with blood.

In the mountain of corpses, the monster opened its bloody mouth and attacked them.

Xia Chi felt a little dizzy.

The sun shone down from overhead, falling on the gaps in the leaves and creating a patchwork of light on the grass.

Emil took a card out of his backpack.

Xia Chi stood against a tree, and seeing the card in Emil’s hand, he asked weakly, “What is that?”

Emil, “A tracking prop.”

Xia Chi, “Tracking who?”

Emil, “Lin Jue.”

The apple tree swayed a little, and there was a “swish” sound around it. Bai Lixin glanced at the prop card in Emil’s hand, “Tracking Lin Jue?”

A hint of embarrassment appeared on Emil’s face, but he quickly returned to normal, “Even if we are in the same guild, we don’t necessarily have the same heart. Although Lin Jue is the vice president of our guild, there are too many variables about him. You don’t have to harm others, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t guard against them.”

“I put the tracking prop on Lin Jue when we entered the copy, so this card can take us to him. If Lin Jue is still sleeping in the same place, we can follow this prop card to find him and get out of here.”

Emil activated the prop card.

With a flash of light, the prop card slowly turned into a ball of white light, which then turned into a butterfly that began to flutter around Emil.

The butterfly flapped its wings and flew off in one direction.

Surprise flashed in Emil’s eyes, “Let’s follow it.”

Bai Lixin and Xia Chi looked at each other and immediately followed Emil.

Only twenty minutes remained.

After following the butterfly for a few minutes, the butterfly, which had been flying forward, suddenly stopped in its tracks.

It hovered in the air for a moment, and then surprisingly turned around and flew in a diagonal direction to the rear.

Emil hesitated for a moment, but gritted his teeth and chose to trust the prop and follow the butterfly.

The butterfly flew for a few more minutes and then stopped again.

But this time, it was like a headless fly. It spun in place for a while before it flew off in one direction again, as if it had found its purpose.

Emil gave up.

The butterfly was flying around, and it couldn’t be because Lin Jue was running around.

They were in the center, and no matter how powerful Lin Jue was, he wouldn’t run this far for a short time.

The prop must be the one with the problem.

The apple orchard that had suddenly turned into a maze had not only disrupted their sense of direction, it had also interfered with the prop’s ability.

Was this what an S-rank copy was like?

A simple magnetic field had broken the system-issued prop.

He looked around in a daze, and he realized something even more frightening.

They had lost their original bearings because they were following that butterfly around.

Without the two apples under the tree, they didn’t even know where they were now.

An enormous invisible pressure suddenly squeezed down, and although he was above the 200th floor, this was his first encounter with an S-rank copy.

He was too conceited, thinking that this one was no big deal since he had easily cleared so many copies before.

But it was only the first day of daylight, and he had run into this trouble.

Overhead, the sun was getting brighter and brighter.

Just when Emil was at his wits’ end, a slightly low and impatient voice came from not far away, “What are you still doing there?”

Emil abruptly looked up and saw Lin Jue, whom he had just been tracking, in front of him!

He looked at Lin Jue, meeting the other party’s eyes, and suddenly shivered.

The Lin Jue was now a few degrees scarier than before.

In the past, Lin Jue just gave off a heavy aggressive aura. Although he was very strong, he was very impatient and was the kind of person who would lose his temper at the slightest provocation, so everyone tried not to provoke him.

When he was in a good mood, he could be the most powerful comrade, but when he was in a bad mood, he could even sell people out.

There was once a teammate who angered Lin Jue and was directly beaten up.

He was eccentric and variable.

Only people within their ranks knew about such things, so as soon as he saw Lin Jue, he used a prop card on him first.

But this Lin Jue before him was not that impulsive energy, but a more dangerous aura.

That aura was icy and cold, as if a ghost was hiding in the shadows and looking at him.

Emil even thought that there was a dark mass behind Lin Jue that was barking maniacally.

Lin Jue’s eyes, which were devoid of warmth, passed over Emil and landed on Bai Lixin.