CH 49.2

Although the exact composition of the medicine was not known, it was expected to act as a sedative, and the effect was very strong.

Just after taking the medicine, the players began to feel dizzy. They couldn’t be bothered to go to their rooms, so they just found a room nearby and lied down in it.

The beds were all the same anyway, and they didn’t have any extra luggage, so it didn’t make any difference to them which bed they took.

When Xia Chi and Emil finally lay down in a room, only Bai Lixin and Lin Jue were left in the corridor, along with the smiling priest.

The priest, “You two are perfect. They will not wake up from this sleep until tomorrow morning. According to the plan, you two will continue to listen to music in the afternoon. It is a performance by the famous Mr. Sam.”

The priest took out his pocket watch, “It is now 1pm. I will come and call you at 3pm.”

The priest led them to the only empty room and urged, “Well, get in.”

Bai Lixin: “……”

This development was a bit complicated.

While Bai Lixin was still hesitating at the door, Lin Jue walked straight in with his long legs, chose the bed by the window and lay down on it.

He was so tall that the single bed was one size too small underneath him.

Because he was wearing shoes, he didn’t lie all the way down on it, but his calves were hanging out with his shoes, and his arms were up on his head.

He lay back lazily, and his eyes met Bai Lixin’s, who was standing at the doorway.

Bai Lixin: “……”

Why does it feel like a sheep entering a tiger’s den? My feet feel excessively heavy ah.

“Get in.” The priest gave Bai Lixin a push from behind.

As if he had completed his final task, the priest closed the door of the room the moment Bai Lixin entered.

As they looked at each other, Bai Lixin felt that he looked like a lamb being targeted by a cheetah in the other’s eyes.

As he had come, so be it.

Bai Lixin simply did not look at Lin Jue and placed his ear on the door frame, listening to the movement outside through the door of the room.

“You want to go out again to look for clues?” Lin Jue’s voice came from behind, and it was very close to him.

Bai Lixin turned around and found that Lin Jue had come behind him at some point.

His throat rolled uncontrollably.

His senses had always been very strong and he could detect even the slightest movement of the wind, but Lin Jue had come behind him just now and didn’t even notice.

If it wasn’t for Lin Jue’s voice, he would have thought that the other party was still in bed.

The sound of the priest’s footsteps grew further and further away, and finally disappeared completely.

Lin Jue’s extremely aggressive gaze stared at him, and a hint of madness flashed in his eyes.

Bai Lixin was surprised for just a moment before he quickly calmed down.

Although it was very subtle, he sensed a hint of familiarity in Lin Jue’s body.

In Lin Jue’s glazed pupils, all he could see was his pure white figure, “Don’t you want to go out?”

Lin Jue smiled and took two steps back to sit on the edge of the bed, “How about we go out together later?”

Bai Lixin, “Okay, where do you plan to go?”

Lin Jue, “Back to the confinement cell, do you want to join me?”

Bai Lixin, “Yes.”

Lin Jue chuckled lightly as he stared at the beautiful young man standing in front of him. His sword eyebrows went up and he smiled. He looked like an unsheathed sword covered in the chill of sword light and shadows.

The man’s thin lips curled up, and his eyes sharpened, making Bai Lixin feel a cold sweat on his back.

—

Thirty minutes later, Bai Lixin followed Lin Jue through the long corridor and down the somewhat aged wooden staircase to the basement.

They did not see any NPCs during the entire time.

The priests and nuns were all gone.

It was as if they were the only ones left in the huge Red Apple House.

Was there a scene beyond what was visible to the naked eye that they were unaware of?

The underground passage was very dark, and a long corridor had several small doors on either side of it.

The doors were rusty, with some bloodstains, and they looked old.

The Red Apple House was far less glamorous and peaceful than it appeared to be.

What was the identity and purpose of those guests?

And why were they isolated on this island?

Where had the priests and nuns suddenly disappeared to?

And where did the bodies piled up in the walls come from?

What was the identity of the ghost at night? Since she claimed to be “mother”, did she have anything to do with this Red Apple House or not?

And there was the Night Walk of a Hundred Ghosts. What dangerous things will happen in a few days’ time?

As time progressed, more and more doubts and questions popped up in Bai Lixin’s mind.

Each piece was crucial; there were many questions, yet they were interlinked in a way that made them seem to be just one question.

If only they could find a small clue to one of them, they might be able to follow the trail and uncover the truth about the Red Apple House, and thus, find a way to deal with the Night Walk of the Hundred Ghosts.

Just the phrase “Night Walk of the Hundred Ghost” didn’t sound like a good thing.

As Bai Lixin pondered this, the man in front of him stopped in his tracks.

Bai Lixin paused after him and followed Lin Jue’s gaze to the small rusty iron door.

The original green-coloured iron door had turned red-orange and the iron on its surface had peeled off and rusted beyond recognition.

There was a lock on the iron door, and the lock also carried very obvious rust stains.

Bai Lixin, “This is the confinement cell that you stayed in yesterday?”

Lin Jue, “Yes.”

Lin Jue walked over to the confinement cell, turned the lock with his fingers, and the lock snapped.

He casually threw the lock away and, with a loud “creak”, the iron door was pushed open.

Bai Lixin followed Lin Jue inside.

The confinement cell was small, only about a dozen square meters. There was a very small bed next to the wall, with a very old quilt on it. The quilt had bloodstains, but these bloodstains had blackened over the years.

In front of the small iron bed was a small square table, on which there were mottled slashes on the tabletop and some other handwriting.

The room was dimly lit, and Bai Lixin took the flashlight out of his backpack.

He turned on the lowest setting, and the light from the torch just shone on Lin Jue’s back.

His eyes fell on Lin Jue’s back, and Bai Lixin’s fingers holding the flashlight stiffened slightly.

It looked like a dark shadow had shifted behind Lin Jue at the very moment when the flashlight shone over.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Jue turned his head back, as if sensing Bai Lixin’s stare.

He turned the flashlight in a different direction and the light landed on the table, “Nothing, I’m just impressed by how handsome you are.”

“Heh.” A low chuckle from the man emanated from the cramped confinement cell, “Really? You have good eyes.”

Bai Lixin: “……”

I’m just saying it casually. Don’t take it too seriously.

The flashlight shone on the table, and Bai Lixin finally saw the marks on the table.

He wondered how many people had been confined in this cold and narrow confinement cell. The wooden table had a trail of marks—some were very shallow, and some were stained with black blood stains.

The marks were not made with a sharp blade, but more like they had been made with fingernails.

The table was originally black in color, but the black paint had been scraped off by the nails, and the countless nail marks crisscrossed the table, showing the despair and madness of the people who made them.

The flashlight slowly moved down from the table and came to the legs of the table.

The legs of the table were also covered in these marks, and just as he was about to stand up to look around for clues, the light from the flashlight inadvertently shone onto the back of the table top.

A single word, scraped out with blood and nails, immediately came into view.

Bai Lixin’s pupils shrank slightly.

–”Help me!”

–”It’s horrible.”

–”Hell, this is hell!”

–”Devils! They are all devils!”

One by one, blood-stained words of despair came to Bai Lixin’s eyes without warning.

He could read these words.

But the words in this copy, including those on painted apples on the house, were not recognizable.

What did this mean?

Bai Lixin’s face sank like a stone in water as he slowly stood up and easily flipped the table over.

Bai Lixin squatted down and shone his flashlight on the back of the table, scrutinizing the messages on it.

These were the cries of former players. They must have suffered a lot in that he could even feel the pain and despair in their words.

If the copy restarted every time, then all these players must have been cared for at the start, just like they are currently.

How did it go from paradise to being locked in the confinement cell?

He continued to shine the flashlight over it, and found some phrases amidst those words of despair.

Unlike those words that were scraped out with fingernails, these were written with a pen.

One sentence said that the time game was a bit old, but the rest was covered with thick knife marks, and Bai Lixin was only able to make out a small part of the writing.

“…… It’s all a sham …… captivity …… is …… we have to listen …… can’t be trusted …… don’t eat …… is here to save …… run ……Day 4 ……”

The keywords in the message were almost all covered.

It is all a sham? Was it a way of saying that all the comfort in the Red Apple House was a sham?

Bai Lixin looked for a long time but could only make out those few words.

The only useful clue in this passage was the word “Day 4”.

The fourth day.

Could it be a turning point?

So they needed to be alert to what was going to happen on the fourth day?

Bai Lixin was so focused on the table in front of him that he had forgotten about Lin Jue behind him.

In a place that Bai Lixin could not see, Lin Jue looked at Bai Lixin with a smile on his face. His originally normal eyes turned completely black.

On the wall behind Lin Jue, a ferocious black shadow was reflected on the drab wall. The black shadow was like a beast, with hollow eyes and sharp fangs and teeth.

The moment Bai Lixin turned his head, the black shadow retracted as far as it could, and Lin Jue’s eyes returned to normal.

“Come over here and take a look at this.” Bai Lixin looked back at Lin Jue, “Can you see any more clues?”

Lin Jue walked over to Bai Lixin, bending his left leg in a half crouch and read carefully, “…… It’s all a sham …… captivity …… is …… we have to listen …… can’t be trusted …… don’t eat …… is here to save …… run ……Day 4 ……”

His bony fingers landed on the words ‘day 4’ and he said, “So we have to pay attention on day four.”

Bai Lixin, “I thought so too. What else do you see?”

Lin Jue, “This should be left by previous players. The handwriting is too faint, and there are too many in a copy, so I don’t want to speculate too much. *Soldiers come to block, water covers the earth. We’ll see what happens on the fourth day.”

“It’s all a sham must be a reference to those priests and the Red Apple House, right? Do we need to establish that it is a sham? Did they really think there would be a Garden of Eden inside the copy? Even if there is, it must exist for the sake of a greater conspiracy.”

Bai Lixin changed the subject, “What did you come here to find?”

Lin Jue, “Actually, I received another task aside from that 3000 points overnight task.”

He stood up, his riding boots making a crunching sound on the concrete floor.

“There was a ghost in this room last night, a little kid. He asked me to help him find his mother.”

Find his mother?

The ghost mother’s harsh voice from yesterday suddenly came to his mind.

“And then what happened?”

Lin Jue, “Then I picked it up. I couldn’t make any big noise at night, so I came to look for clues during the day. Lend me your flashlight.”

Instead of immediately handing the flashlight to Lin Jue, Bai Lixin asked rhetorically, “You’re such a mature veteran player, don’t you know how to carry a lighting prop in your backpack?”

It didn’t make sense.

Lin Jue’s boots paused and he turned to look at Bai Lixin, “What? You suspect me?”

Bai Lixin, “Well no, it’s just a reasonable query.”

Lin Jue pulled out a small dagger from his sleeve, “If I really wanted to do something to you, or was a bad guy, this life of yours would have been lost seven or eight times already. It’s true that I don’t have any lighting props because other prop cards have filled up my backpack. Is that explanation satisfactory to you?”

Bai Lixin was silent, only taking a deep look at Lin Jue before handing the other party the torch, “This is the only flashlight I have. Remember to return it after use. I’m stingy.”

Lin Jue laughed.

The knuckles of his bony fingers accidentally touched Bai Lixin’s fingers, and Bai Lixin was stunned by the other party’s excessively cold body temperature.

Lin Jue picked up the torch and the light fell on the blood-stained, mottled wall.

While lighting it up, he wondered if he was bored, and that’s why he explained, “That little ghost said that the clue to his mother was on the wall, so come and help me look for it too.”

Bai Lixin came forward and searched the wall by the light of the flashlight, asking as he searched, “What kind of clue is it?”

Lin Jue, “I don’t know, that brat was bullied quite badly and was beaten away before he could say two words.”

Bai Lixin’s eyes were on the wall as he asked, “What do they look like?”

The flashlight moved from top to bottom, and Lin Jue spoke lightly. His tone was very casual, as if the topic he was talking about wasn’t scary ghosts but dolls, “Some were missing arms, some had broken legs. They looked human and were trapped in the confinement cell for some reason. They seemed unable to get out, so they were just spinning around in the confinement cell.”

Bai Lixin, “Is it possible that they were victims who died in the confinement cell? So they could only wander around in the cell?”

Lin Jue, “It’s also possible.”

The sliding of the light stopped, and Lin Jue’s deep, dark eyes looked at Bai Lixin, “Why are you asking this?”

Bai Lixin was silent for two seconds, “Trying to find clues to see if I can help free them.”

The light suddenly stopped as waves flickered in Lin Jue’s pitch-black eyes. Where Bai Lixin could not see, blackness rapidly filled the eyes with the pupil as the center, and in an instant, the eyes had turned all black.

But the moment Bai Lixin raised his head, the full blackness immediately faded away, and when Bai Lixin looked over, the eyes had regained the sharp falcon look.

Lin Jue snorted, “You can’t even take care of yourself, and you still have the energy to care about other people… ghosts? Don’t make big talk.”

Bai Lixin only chuckled as he gestured back to the mottled table.

Although his face had a faint, gentle smile, the young man’s eyes were already covered with frost, and his voice was very cold, “I, as a person, have never followed the rules. The more the system does not let me do, the more I have to do. The more this copy tries to imprison the ghosts, the more I have to get them out!”

As he spoke, the light from the flashlight fell on his eyes. In the dim room, the young man’s eyes were like the bright stars in the sky, shining brightly and illuminating the thick darkness of the night.

At that moment, Lin Jue stared blankly at the young man.