CH 23

“No… it’s not like this, it can’t be, that thing came out during the day yesterday!”

If such a rule was true, there was no need to think too much about the conclusion–someone amongst them had to die!

“Lei Ge, Ah Wei, you can’t just ignore me! We came here together!” Just then, a soft and aggrieved voice sounded. Xiao Yu’s eyes were full of tears, and she suddenly burst into sobs.

Yuanyuan heard that delicate voice, and subconsciously looked at Lei Ge and the other man she had shared a room with. Then, she found that the two of them had quietly stepped back, and stood with that loose woman, Xiao Yu.

Ah Wei moved his gaze away from Yuanyuan and said humbly: “That, Yuanyuan… we were living with Xiao Yu from the very beginning, so…”

At the start, when they were deciding where to sleep, it was Lei Ge who rearranged the rooms, but emotionally, they would still choose Xiao Yu. In fact, they didn’t tell the truth on the first day. The two of them, along with Xiao Yu and Dong Chao, had already known each other from previous worlds. This time, they had actually come together!

Now, when they had to make a choice, they would abandon the new girl without hesitation and choose to stick to Xiao Yu, who they had partnered up with multiple times, instead of a newcomer. 

“You… how can you do this? What, what am I going to do? What am I going to do?”

“No… not like this…”

The room suddenly exploded with the sound of a woman sobbing. Gu Xizhou turned to look at this newcomer whose emotions had entirely collapsed. She met gazes with Lei Ge and the rest, and appeared to fall into a pit of desperation. “No, you can’t do this to me! No, I won’t, I don’t want to die–”

“Don’t leave me alone, don’t make me sleep alone, I’m begging you… I can do anything, I’m begging you…”

Xiao Yu looked at the girl, and stood behind the two men, tightly grasping the corner of their shirts. “Yuanyuan, sorry, but I originally came here with Lei Ge and the rest. Don’t… blame me.”

“At any rate, this is just what they guessed, it might not be true…”

Seeing the girl’s bitter eyes, Xiao Yu lowered her head, as if she was being bullied, and was full of grievances. “I don’t want it to be like this either, don’t hate me.”

After she said this, a male voice suddenly shouted: “Put the knife down, what are you trying to do?!”

Gu Xizhou saw a fruit knife directly pierce into Ah Wei’s heart, and the girl helplessly looked at her bloody hands, saying: “I… I didn’t want to kill you, I just wanted… it was her, she pushed you!”

Yuanyuan anxiously explained, explained… Suddenly, she looked at the remaining people, and a fiery spark ignited in her eyes. “Lei Ge… we only have six people left, six people… no one has to sleep alone!”

Lei Ge’s body shook faintly and he stepped back, but the girl kept advancing closer. “The three of us can sleep in one room…”

“Qf vbc’a tjnf ab vlf,” atf ulgi rjlv. “Qf mjc vfolclafis ifjnf tfgf, jii atja’r ifoa lr akb vjsr!”

Ofl Xf rtbbx tlr tfjv, jcv ecmbcrmlberis rkjiibkfv j ofk wbeatoeir bo rjilnj. Lf qblcafv ja atf ulgi’r yjmx. 

Behind the woman, the dead Ah Wei crawled on the ground like an “arthropod,” its neck continued to stretch and grow until it looked like the monster they saw yesterday. Its head resembled a snake and circled around the woman’s neck to face her, and its split mouth revealed a smile. Its mouth suddenly opened, turning into a big bloody hole, about to bite down. 

Xe Wlhtbe kjcafv ab wbnf, yea atfgf kjr j obgmf atja cjlifv tlw lc qijmf, wjxlcu tlw ecjyif ab wbnf. Pc atja agjcmf, Xe Wlhtbe tfjgv atf rbecv bo j mtjlc rilvlcu.

After the monster that used to be Ah Wei ate the woman, its body immediately returned to that of a normal human being, but it was already dead to the point of no return. 

“Dead, dead…” Lei Ge was shaking all over. This was not the first time he encountered this situation. When he first entered the mission world, there was a newcomer who didn’t believe the old player’s words, and killed him to protect himself. In the end, he was taken away by the person who was killed. 

Not killing in the mission world, he had always abided by that rule.

Right after the monster disappeared, Gu Xizhou realised the restraint on him had instantly disappeared, and so did the strength holding him back.

“There was a strange sound just now,” Gu Xizhou said. 

Si Yu glanced back at him. “What sound?”

“When the man killed that girl just now, I think I heard the sound of a chain.” Gu Xizhou looked at the male corpse on the ground suspiciously. 

“I didn’t hear it.”

“Neither did I…”

“You must have heard wrongly,” Si Yu said lightly. 

Seeing that no one else seemed to hear it, even Xiao Fang, Gu Xizhou’s brow wrinkled slightly. In the past world, when he saw the memory of the female ghost committing suicide, he had also heard the sound of the chain…

“Now… now, what do we do?” Xiao Yu swallowed and pulled at Lei Ge. She pointed at the corpse on the ground. Now, they only had five people. Those three always acted together. As she thought of the rule, her entire body trembled in fear.

She cursed: “Damn, that woman wanted to kill us all!”

Hearing this, Lei Ge looked at the ground, saw Ah Wei’s corpse, and his face paled. “What else can we do? We just have to sleep with two people in a room. If we really have to die, this cannot be escaped.”

“She wanted to die, why did she have to drag us down with her, ahhhhh–”

Fang Zhi saw the woman collapse and start to scream loudly. His Adam’s Apple bobbed, and he suddenly looked at Gu Xizhou and Si Yu. He opened his mouth, but before he could make a sound, he was interrupted. 

The corner of Si Yu’s mouth raised, and he said flatly: “Don’t say anything about helping them. First, the rules we guessed might not be correct. Second, you think that you can play the saviour here, but can you save everyone?”

“Save the ones you know you can save, but for those you clearly know that you cannot, then don’t even bother about it.”

“And… don’t think this world is making you unduly miserable. We were all destined for death for the beginning. Without this world, we would have already been dead.”

Si Yu added quietly: “Everyone who enters this world is someone who was going to die. Do you remember what I said on the first day? To survive here is just fighting with heaven for our lives.”

Fang Zhi’s throat was blocked by Si Yu’s words. The words in his head that he wanted to say were all stuck in his throat, but Si Yu was right. If he wasn’t able to escape from this world… in the real world, he would be knocked dead by that woman in the car…

The face of his sister who was still studying in college slowly appeared in his mind. He could not die!

Gu Xizhou patted him on the shoulder. Not having three people in the room might not be a death condition, because in the past, for those who didn’t sleep with three people in a room, they didn’t all immediately die. It was different from shattering a mirror. 

When the mirror broke, he didn’t feel anything strange around him, but the man who broke the mirror was instantly torn apart in front of his eyes. This impenetrable and unexplained death condition was more frightening than ghosts or monsters. 

At night, the five of them returned to their own rooms. Lei Ge looked at them with a bitter smile, looking a little helpless. 

After the trio returned to their room, there instantly was some movement upstairs. 

“This damn girl, acting like she’s dead all day, who is she acting for? Am I not good to all of you? If not for me, can you live in such a villa and pass the days like this?” The host cursed furiously upstairs. 

“Husband, don’t be angry. Later, I’ll go over to persuade her. She’s always been obedient since childhood, but the death of that child must have hit her too hard.”

Upon saying this, the woman opened the door to leave. Soon, Gu Xizhou and the others didn’t hear any other voices, but the words previously said made them a little clueless. 

Gu Xizhou recalled the past few days and turned to Si Yu: “You said that Lin Meng’s paintings were a kind of hint. Is it possible that the paintings she painted before were also a kind of hint?”

Hearing this, Si Yu pondered for a moment before saying: “It’s possible.”

“Do you remember the first paintings we saw?”

Si Yu nodded, and Fang Zhi sitting next to him tried to recall–the first picture was Lin Meng’s self-portrait, the second picture was Lin Meng and her father, the third picture was Lin Meng’s sister and her father, and the last one was a family portrait. 

“I remember that in the paintings, other than Lin Meng and her younger sister’s white skin, the other four family members’ skins were as dark as those who were dead,” Si Yu said. “But the expressions on the people in the paintings were all light smiles. No one was angry, and no one was terrified.”

Gu Xizhou nodded: “Yes, this distinction must have some special meaning.”

Both of them were quietly thinking, when Fang Zhi suddenly raised a hand. Under Gu Xizhou’s gaze, he whispered: “I, I have an idea.”

Si Yu was slightly surprised, and gestured for him to continue. “Say it.”

“Dark complexion and a frightened face means death. A fair complexion and an angry face means being alive. Then, the dark complexions with smiling faces of the host family… Does it mean that they’re already dead in Lin Meng’s eyes, but they haven’t actually died in real life?” After Fang Zhi finished, he hesitantly looked at the other two, waiting for their response. 

“That’s possible!”

Gu Xizhou nodded. “This explanation is very reasonable. Like this, Lin Meng must actually hate her family and hope that they will die.”

“But why?”

Si Yu and Fang Zhi shook their heads at the same time.

Lin Meng’s family circumstances was obviously very good. The family immigrated to the United States, and came back this time to visit relatives. In this time that they stayed here, they could tell that Lin Meng’s life wasn’t restricted in any way. It could also be seen from the type of clothes she wore that this family had been richly supporting this daughter.

“Is it because of the dead baby?” Fang Zhi asked. 

Gu Xizhou shook his head. “No, the paintings were done before we came, and the baby wasn’t dead at that time.”

Fang Zhi rubbed his forehead. Being a policeman meant he could still find clues on the case, but in this world, he felt like his eyes were always covered. If not for Gu Ge and Si Yu being pulled in at the same time as him, he would have long died.

At night, Gu Xizhou slept until midnight. Suddenly, there was the sound of someone urgently knocking on the door. 

“Open up! Open up! Quickly, open the door!” Lei Ge knocked anxiously on the door. Today, he went to bed with an incredibly uneasy feeling. When he woke up in the middle of the night, he was the only one left in the room that was supposed to have two people!

Xiao Yu had disappeared!

He thought of Xiao Yu’s vicious gaze at night, and had a bad feeling in his heart.