CH 141

This handprint also seems to be something that was written about in the Raven's book.

It looked like the whole row of horror novels on the bookcase was like a prize pack from the ravens for the readers, and you never knew what kind of spook you would draw.

However, there is nothing written in Raven's book about how to break or escape these ghosts or monsters.

His books are mainly about how the characters, teased by ghosts and monsters, reveal their human weaknesses and ugliness, and die tragically in a futile struggle and mutual reckoning.

It's like the teacher who allows you to take an open-book test but loses if you can find the answers.

Mr. Crow can be as cruel as the cold winter when it comes to his avid readers.

Before Xiao Lan could consider whether to warn Long Shiren, the man's figure disappeared abruptly into thin air.

There was no sign of an attack, no sound, the man was erased from the picture as if by an invisible rubber.

It was as if he had never existed at all.

Xiao Lan glanced at the book in her hands, but the grid on the cover did not increase.

I don't know if the man didn't die, he just got switched to another dimension once again.

Or was Xiao Lan's previous guess wrong and the method of increasing the grid was not actually the death of the player?

Unable to come up with a solution for the moment, Xiao Lan put the book away and continued his search for clues in the Ming Yue Pavilion.

--

The Ming Yue Pavilion is still as quiet as a silent, restrained gentleman in the Republic of China, except for the fact that the people have all disappeared, there is no difference from before.

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As is customary, Xiao Lan went to check the gate.

Unsurprisingly, this time too, the gate no longer opens and it becomes a closed place, just like any of the buildings that served as the game scenario before it.

Xiao Lan advances through the corridors, occasionally opening some of the room doors to have a look.

And yet it did not encounter anything in particular.

Suddenly, Xiao Lan's footsteps stopped.

His eyes glanced imperceptibly in a direction slightly to the rear.

A footprint, unknowingly, appeared on the ground a short distance away without a sound.

Then came another one.

The two footprints are not far apart and both appear to be Little Xiao's, the size of a child.

It was as if an invisible child was standing there barefoot, gazing at him in silence.

When Xiao Lan did not move, the two footprints paused for a moment and then moved as slowly as if they were walking.

Little by little, they move closer to Xiao Lan, as if a predator has set its sights on its target.

Unlike the black handprints that appear on Long Shiren's back, this pair of footprints are blood-red and seem to be more aggressive.

Xiao Lan was in a bad way, so he took off.

He didn't want to deal with this kind of guy who didn't know his own body at all. It was a pain in the ass to figure out where to attack.

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Not even in front of children.

Kids without shoes are not cute at all.

However, as he moved, the blood-red footprints became faster and faster.

The two footprints followed close behind him, looking as if they had bitten the bullet and would never give up.

But Xiao Lan's six months of training have not been in vain.

Whenever the footprints were about to approach him, he was always able to dodge out of the way in an instant so that the bloody footprints could not catch up.

His figure fluttered, changing direction as quickly as a ghost in the corridor, and in a few breaths he was at the other end of the corridor.

Just as he was about to leave this corridor.

Suddenly, a number of bloody footprints appeared out of nowhere directly in front of Xiao Lan.

These footprints rushed straight towards him in a kind of encircling stance.

Xiao Lan turns his head to look behind him.

There were many more footprints there at some point too.

The dense footprints, which almost pave the ground in red, are a sight to behold.

It's amazing that there's more than one of these damn things!

The road is now blocked in front and behind, and Xiao Lan is deep in a sea of red that seems to be swallowing him up.

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Xiao Lan leapt up onto the wall and stomped hard, using the force to adjust his body movements.

Then, [Bones of Dalet] switched to whip form.

Xiao Lan threw a whip around the chandelier at the top of the corridor, which was of good quality and did not strike under such rough treatment, and with the inertia of forward motion, Xiao Lan was able to break away from the footprints.

Thank you to Ming Yue Pavilion for the quality of its construction.

Thank you Mr. Crow.

Xiao Lan landed firmly on the ground and stood beyond this corridor.

He glanced back as the red footprints came swiftly after him, only to stop in the confines of the corridor exit, where they kept piling up one on top of the other in a seemingly agitated manner.

But, not a single footprint was able to step out of this corridor.

This is the limit that the raven gives them; in his writing, whatever you are, you must follow the logic he sets in motion.

Xiao Lan stopped, smiled and waved at the footprints, "No need to see them off, go back to your homework, kids."

The Footprints: "......"

Come on in if you dare! Let you experience the wrath of a schoolboy!

--

Having disengaged from the corridor, Xiao Lan moves on.

Once again he felt the book Ming Yue Pavilion glowing.

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He took the book out of his pocket, and sure enough, just like last time, the cover was faintly shimmering.

This time also new elements appear in the book: the

[The sad and helpless struggler slumbers]

[In the soft waves of the years]

[He is with the time]

The poem is literary looking, but from the content of this one, it looks like someone has died again.

Unlike before, however, this time the grid on the cover did not light up immediately after the content appeared.

As if struggling, it flickered for a while before gradually coming to a halt.

The pattern on the final cover still lights up again for one frame.

Two of the 13 spaces are now lit up.

"Will it be the players who die?" Xiao Lan said softly, looking at the book.

At this point, as if by telepathy, Luo's contact arrived.

[Sir, see what's new in the book?

[Well, what have you got?

Xiao Lan understood that Luo would contact him at this time because he had a new lead.

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Sure enough, Luo's reply came swiftly.

[I happened to be not far from the living room, and after the book appeared, a corpse appeared in the living room seat clock]

[From the clothing, the odds are that this is a player who is hanging upside down and impaled on a pendulum]

"In the soft waves of the years, he was with the time" sounds beautiful, but the end result is very bloody.

This is very much in keeping with Raven's usual style of being keen on the beauty of gore and expressing this to the fullest in the novel.

[I suspect that the spaces here overlap, so watch out for people appearing out of nowhere] Luo added.

Xiao Lan thought of the sudden disappearance of Long Shiren, which he and Luo briefly described.

Then conclude.

[In that case, it might be possible that he really did go into another dimension rather than die]

The key element, then, in making the cover artwork light up, or at least one of them, is the death of the player.

This is not really good news.

The two men briefly exchanged information about each other's recent history.

This mode of communication by text reminds Xiao Lan of the time when they first met.

At that time he was just a confused newcomer and Luo was just a dark shadow hiding in an envelope.

A dish and a weakness, but one that makes you feel incredibly nostalgic.

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--

Suddenly, a room that was clearly different from the surrounding area appeared ahead.

Xiao Lan is certain that he and Luo had not seen this door at all when they were wandering around the Ming Yue Pavilion yesterday.

It is a door that appears out of thin air.

Of the rows of almost identical room doors, only this one is red, and that red is even so vivid as to be a little blinding.

But the most unusual feature is that the door is engraved with the exact same design as on the cover of the Ming Yue Pavilion.

The implication of attracting players to the site speaks for itself.

It was as if Xiao Lan was proclaiming -

"Sir, come in and play~"

Much the same as a trap with food in the middle of the main road appearing in plain sight.

Yet the player cannot let such clues go, and if he wants to pass the level, it is in all likelihood necessary to go in and explore such obviously abnormal places.

One really has to get in there to have some fun.

Xiao Lan took a deep breath, but reached out and pushed the door open.

Almost at the same time as the door closed, Xiao Lan received a system alert.

"You've got the attention of the ravens."

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The tip doesn't say anything about the reason for the attention.

But Xiao Lan guessed that it must have something to do with this room, perhaps -

At this very moment, it is not certain that the raven is gazing at the place from somewhere with a pen in its hand.

Xiao Lan, who pushed his way in, caught his attention.

Want to quit?

No, I'm afraid not. The ravens had noticed him and running away might backfire.

Add to that the fact that there was no escaping this obviously questionable room, and there was no escaping the need to come in and explore it no matter what.

Xiao Lan's original wariness was raised a notch.

He began to take a closer look at the room.

Behind the door is a blinding red.

From the ceiling, to the walls, to the floor, all of them are dominated by bright red, so much so that you can't help but feel restless.

As if in response to his feelings, the book began to glow again.

As the pattern lights up, the surroundings clearly look calm, but something seems to have quietly changed.

Xiao Lan, however, felt a sense of danger lingering in her mind.

It was as if the scythe of death was already resting on his neck and he was just thinking about when to reap his life.

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He looked to what appeared.

[The white bird that flew over my heart has fallen]

[The thorns weave his dream]

[The Crimson Heaven is opening its doors]

At the words "thorns" and "scarlet heaven", Xiao Lan's eyes changed and the feeling that something bad was happening to him became even stronger.

I'm afraid that this time the person written about in the book - it's him.

The pattern on the cover of the book flickered as if waiting for his reaction.

Xiao Lan even felt the urge to just quit for a moment.

But he forced himself to calm down; now he was in the midst of a death crisis, any impulse would be fatal, and the dangers of the Advent world were never solved by running away.

Xiao Lan walks cautiously around the room, taking every step carefully, wary of the risk of death and seeing if he can find the slightest clue in the process.

The room is heavily decorated with thorns.

A crown ornament made of thorns, a man entangled in thorns, a bird struggling to exhaustion from thorns ......

Each piece is exquisitely crafted, yet carries a few hints of ominousness.

The ornaments, mostly black, stand out against the bright red background, the two colours confronting each other as if there was no room for any other colour in this space.

It was clear that no danger was visible to the naked eye, but the sense of danger was growing stronger and stronger.

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Even each step seems to hover at the edge of the abyss of death.

Xiao Lan's eyes sweep around, but his eyes are telling him that it is safe.

It was as if these eyes were blinded by something unknown and could not see the real threat.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes straight away.

The blinding red disappears after closing the eyes.

The sense of crisis previously confused by the clamour of the horizon becomes clear.

Xiao Lan is acutely aware of the sense of crisis that surrounds him.

However, their distribution is not uniform, with some being more intense and others more faint.

And the strongest sense of crisis was behind him now, leading to the door of the room.

Had he chosen to head straight for the door of the room at that moment, he would undoubtedly have run straight into a death trap.

Xiao Lan adjusts the rhythm of his breathing, completely emptying his mind of distractions and following his premonition of a crisis.

It was the first time he had done so, and moving forward by feel was like gambling with his life, but now his most powerful weapon was his crisis warning.

With the feeling, Xiao Lan moves forward step by step.

The route ahead twists and turns, surrounded by a sense of eerie crisis.

It was as if he was navigating through a maze.

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After a few minutes, or perhaps a century, Xiao Lan felt the chilling sense of crisis finally fade away.

Exhaling softly, Xiao Lan opened his eyes.

What appeared in his field of vision was the same room as before, but the difference was the floor.

What had been a neat floor now appears to be mostly empty.

Apart from the curving path that Xiao Lan had walked down, the rest of the room was a deep, dark pit, that was clearly deeper than the room should have been.

He looked in and could vaguely see sharp black spikes of unknown material in the deep pit.

Those black spines glowed with an eerie red light, and they just didn't look like ordinary items.

If one were to fall from such a height and land hard on these spikes. It would be difficult to survive even for an advanced player's physique. Perhaps Xiao Lan would last a little longer than a player of average physique, but it would be nothing more than a painful ordeal.

Xiao Lan gently wiped the fine sweat from his forehead: "Thorns wove his dream ...... This dream is a terrible one."

Having jumped repeatedly across the edge of death, Xiao Lan had a good idea of the power of the senior field.

The raven had already put him in deep danger of death without even striking out himself.

It's a terrible feeling to be a character in someone else's book, to be completely manipulated in life and death.

At this point, the flashing of the book cover pattern stops and the pattern does not light up for a third frame.

Xiao Lan flipped through the book and found that what had originally related to her had been crossed out to read.

[White bird reopens its wings]

[Return to freedom]

It seems that this death crisis is well and truly behind us.

Xiao Lan now turns his attention to himself.

In front of him is a fine vintage table with a seal in a velvet box on the top.

The seal is exquisite, intricately engraved with European floral motifs, and is resting obliquely in the box.

Xiao Lan observes the seal, his eyes going to the side with the iconography.

Then on it, we find the exact same design as the cover of the Ming Yue Pavilion.

Sensing no danger, he tried to pick up the seal.

Just as soon as the seal was touched, the cover of the book lit up again, this time without flashing, but directly for two frames in a row.

The entire cover is now lit up for a total of four frames.

Xiao Lan's eyes lit up, this should be another way to get through.

But ...... where the level of danger is also high.

Perhaps it would be easier for some players to brutalise a target who is also a player.

The author has something to say.

"This feeling of being a character in someone else's pen, of being completely manipulated in life and death, can be really bad."

As I write this, I always feel like I'll be collectively beaten up by my own characters ......

Maybe only Master Zhang and Tie Hanhan won't beat me up.

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