CH 116

Translated by Dust Bunny

Edited by Crooked 

“This actually fully confirms our original theory,” Li Yan said in a deep voice, thinking over the causes and effects of the situation. A pretty young girl ducked into the elevator ahead of him.

“Let’s go back, ba, and tell everyone what we learned.”

“Okay,” Li Yan replied, hesitating momentarily before nodding in agreement with Fu Yiran’s request. The reason he wanted to go to the 8th floor was because he wanted to find the waiter Gu Ran was talking about to ask about room 8002. Now that he had the answer, he didn’t want to take any more risks.

He pressed the number three and the elevator started going down. He looked over at the dark haired person and bit his lip gently. No matter how many times he looked, he still felt that this person was very good looking. 

Fu Yiran noticed Li Yan’s gaze and glanced over, suddenly looking curious and asking, “Li Ge, I heard you talking about your prop yesterday. I don’t know much about it. Could you explain it to me in detail now?”

Hearing this, Li Yan nodded slightly, “Sure.”

“Not every world has props. There are relatively few worlds that do. In some worlds, the NPCs will directly tell you that there are props in the world, and can give them to you as rewards, but there are also hidden props. Generally speaking, there is a certain probability of being able to obtain a prop. These props all have certain supernatural properties.”

“But, including mine, I’ve only seen two props with my own eyes.”

“One is my phone, and the other is the death substitute puppet.”

Fu Yiran looked at him with downcast eyes shiny enough it seemed as though water could overflow from them and asked in surprise, “I understand the use of the prop in your hands, but what’s the use of the death substitute puppet, ah?”

He answered Fu Yiran’s question, saying, “The name of the death substitute puppet already explains what it does. It can replace someone who died in a mission world one time. In terms of the real world, it could be thought of as resurrection armor in a game.”

“So it’s like this, ya…” 

Hearing Fu Yiran’s slightly weak tone, Li Yan was a little surprised. When he first learned of the puppet’s existence he was excited into a frenzy. It wasn’t just him, when the whole team learned that the puppet could be rewarded, everyone’s expression nearly turned crazed!

Any mistake you made in the mission world could be fatal. The possibility of having insurance was enough to drive everyone on the team crazy.

At the other end—

“I can’t find him,” Gu Xizhou said, raising his eyebrows. 

Si Yu was also at a bit of a loss and said, “Forget it, let’s go back first, and ask if anyone else has found him.”

Gu Xizhou shook his head with a frown. Taking a folded piece of paper from his pocket,  he said, “Just use this, ba. I still haven’t tried the prop out like you said.”

“The missing person poster?” Si Yu raised his eyebrows slightly and said in a low voice, “That’s okay, ba. I don’t think that this mission world is that difficult. We can pretty much just focus on the tour guide.”

Gu Xizhou smiled and said, “I just want to try it.” 

“Eh…it’s up to you, ba,” Si Yu said, smiling indulgently.

After finding a waiter to ask for a pen, Gu Xizhou relied on his memory to write down the other person’s work ID number and a description of his appearance, fixing the range to the hotel and the area outside the hotel. After filling this in, there was no change on the paper.

“Is it useless?” Gu Xizhou said, furrowing his brow.

Si Yu smiled and said to the lady at the front desk, “Do you have any tape?” 

“We do,” the lady at the front desk said with a small smile and handed what Si Yu wanted over to him. “Here you go, sir.”

Gu Xizhou looked at Si Yu strangely, “What are you doing?”

“Teaching you how to use the missing person poster correctly.” Si Yu took the missing person poster from Gu Xizhou’s hand with a smile and stuck it to a pillar in the hotel with the tape. He had just put up the missing person poster, when,

Ding Ding Ding— 

The telephone at the front desk suddenly rang.

The waitress at the front desk answered the phone and said to Gu Xizhou, “Sir, it’s for you.”

Gu Xizhou: “For me?”

“Yes, it’s for you, please answer it.” 

Could it be their teammates?

Gu Xizhou took the telephone. Before he could ask, he heard an old, sinister voice on the other end of the phone say dully, “He’s dead.”

“Du——”

Right after it said this sentence, there came the sound of a dial tone as the call was dropped. Gu Xizhou was in a daze, staring blankly at the phone. 

In a low voice, Si Yu asked, “What did the person on the phone say?”

“It said: he’s dead,” Gu Xizhou repeated.

Si Yu: “Oh.”

Xe Wlhtbe kjr rqffmtifrr jr tf ibbxfv ja atf wlrrlcu qfgrbc qbrafg bc atf qliijg, gjlrlcu tlr fsfygbkr, jcv mbwqijlcfv, “Ktlr atlcu tjr ab ub bc atf kjii lc bgvfg ab kbgx… atja’r rb raeqlv, yj.” 

“Yo mbegrf atf wlrrlcu qfgrbc qbrafg bcis kbgxr bcmf qbrafv,” Vl Te rjlv klatbea wemt atbeuta. “Vlcmf atf kjlafg lr jigfjvs vfjv, ifa’r ub gluta yjmx, yj. Pa’r jiwbra vlccfg alwf.”

Hearing Si Yu, Gu Xizhou nodded, “Sounds good, let’s go, ba. Let’s go tell them that he’s dead.”

The two of them were on the first floor, and when they took the elevator back to the third floor, they found that their teammates had unexpectedly already returned. Among them was Fang Zhi. When he saw Gu Xizhou and Si Yu, he immediately came over, saying, “Gu Ge, just wait, we’ve already figured out what happened in that room!”

“Are you sure?” Gu Xizhou was stunned. He and Si Yu looked at each other feeling very confused. Just now they had used the single-use prop to determine that the NPC waiter was already dead. 

“Yes, ah. Xiao Ran’s luck is pretty good. We couldn’t find it, so she did. She already asked about the accident in that room. An old man froze to death in there…”

After listening to everyone all rushing to explain what happened in room 8002 all at once, Gu Xizhou’s eyes fell on Fu Yiran, who met his gaze with a rather bashful smile.

“Well, let’s go to dinner first, ba, and then we can continue to talk about it afterward.” Li Yan continued, “Let’s look again this evening and see if we can find some useful clues. It’s best if we leave this place as soon as possible. Two of our teammates have already died, and I don’t want there to be an accident tonight.”

“Okay!” 

While everyone else rushed like crazy towards the dining room, Gu Xizhou and Si Yu hung back. Fang Zhi automatically slowed down to follow Gu Xizhou.

“Is what he said true or false?” Gu Xizhou was a little uncertain. When he’d used the missing person poster just now, ‘it’ had clearly told him over the phone that the waiter was already dead. Whether what Fu Yiran said was true or not, he still had to wonder.

Si Yu lowered his voice slightly and said, “I feel like what he said should be true.”

Hearing Si Yu, Gu Xizhou furrowed his brow, “But how did he know?” 

Si Yu shook his head with a shrug, saying, “I don’t know, ask him.”

Unable to make heads or tails of what Gu Xizhou and Si Yu were talking about, a stupefied expression was written all over Fang Zhi’s face.

At dinner—

“Everyone should be a little more careful from now on. There should be at least two people to a group. Don’t go alone. Yesterday Gu Xizhou and Tang Jiajia were alone and had an accident,” Li Yan said in a low voice, “Oh right…there’s one other thing I wanted to talk about. Today when I met Xiao Ran, I was originally going to take the elevator to the 8th floor, only there seemed to be something wrong with the elevator, and it wouldn’t go to the 8th floor.” 

“What problem?” Gu Xizhou asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

“It just wouldn’t go up. No matter how many times I pressed the button for the 8th floor, it wouldn’t go up. I don’t know if it’s broken or what,” Li Yan said, dumbfounded. “After we eat, let’s go look again, ba. Anyway, there are two elevators in this hotel, even if one of them is broken, there’s another one.”

After eating dinner, everyone went to the elevator, and pressed the button for the 8th floor.

“Ding—” 

On the 7th floor, the elevator abruptly stopped and didn’t go up. Li Yan furrowed his brows and said, “Strange, this elevator is broken…it only went up to the 7th floor?”

“Li Ge, are you sure you didn’t remember the elevator wrong? And the bad one is actually this one, ba? We could go across the hall and try the elevator on the other side?” Tang Xiaoshi said warmly.

“I’m sure that the elevator across the hall is the one that’s broken.” Li Yan glanced at Fu Yiran as if seeking approval and said, “Xiao Ran, did we really run into each other on the fourth floor?”

Fu Yiran nodded in agreement, and said, “Yes, I also remember it being the 4th floor.” 

Everyone crashed through the corridor to the right elevator. Shen Bo pressed the button and the elevator quickly rose from the first floor.

Li Yan watched the numbers displayed by the elevator carefully, worried that he’d remembered it wrong, but it was strange that the elevator that had only reached the 4th floor before would now reach the 7th.

Shen Bo smiled and said, “Li Yan, did you remember wrong? You don’t think the elevator is going to come up?”

“This…” Li Yan shook his head and looked at the arriving elevator strangely. After everyone was in, Li Yan pressed the number 8. 

The elevator door closed for only three seconds—

“Ding—”

The elevator door opened again on the 7th floor.

Shen Bo pressed the button two more times, but the same thing happened. 

“You see, I encountered something just like this. When I was on the 4th floor I also ran into this kind of problem. The elevator suddenly broke down and wouldn’t go up!” Li Yan said.

“Strange… Couldn’t you go up this morning?” Everyone was also confused. They had planned to go up together to check out the situation, but because they couldn’t get up to the 8th floor, they finally had to give up and go back to their rooms for the time being.

Gu Xizhou and the others discussed the things that needed their attention. Because of the incident yesterday, Shen Bo was unwilling to stay in Li Yan’s room and Li Yan didn’t want to room alone, so the two of them simply went to Gu Xizhou’s room and sat down.

That night they tried countless times, but the elevator would never go past the 7th floor. 

Li Yan glanced down at the time. By now it was already past yesterday’s time. He could receive calls from his future self again, but he hadn’t received a call yet. An unstoppable feeling of panic rose in his heart.

If he didn’t get a call from tomorrow, it could mean that tomorrow’s him might already be dead, or that he’d run into some situation that delayed the call. If he wasn’t dead, he would call himself no matter what. But now it was already past three forty-five in the morning, exceeding his own rule of calling before three.

Li Yan laid on the floor with a lingering sense of fear. He tossed and turned, but he didn’t dare voice his fears. He was more willing to believe that someone would call him if he waited just a little bit longer. Right… just a little bit longer, a little longer…

Li Yan couldn’t sleep. Finally, he sat up, his heart feeling extremely tormented. Finally, he got up, grabbed a cigarette, and opened the door to outside, squatting on the ground to smoke. 

Gu Xizhou and Si Yu slept in the bed. That evening, he did indeed feel a little tired, but for now he couldn’t sleep. He still had some doubts about Fu Yiran’s information. He had to find a ghost to make sure.

Gu Xizhou laid down for a while. After hearing the sound of Si Yu’s even breathing, he looked at Li Yan crouching by the door waiting for the phone and Shen Bo tossing and turning on the floor, shaking his head slightly.

Going into the bathroom, Gu Xizhou turned off the light and sat by himself for a while, staring blankly. Suddenly, he silently undid his collar, revealing his collarbone, well defined pecs, and faintly visible abdominal muscles.

For a while, he tried his best…to be seductive. 

But after a long time the female lust ghost still didn’t appear.

Where was the promised pervert? Tainted heart and charming insides?

He’d already divulged so much! Did he have to take off his pants, ba?

Gu Xizhou felt a little frustrated and was about to give up when he watched as a hand with red nail polish grabbed him by the collar and gently dragged him backwards. Gu Xizhou grabbed the wrist behind his back, turning to see the female lust ghost’s startled expression. 

“Hello, ah!” Gu Xizhou said with a light smile.

Female lust ghost: “He-hello.”

Gu Xizhou: “Did it feel good when you groped me last time?”

“It felt very good,” the female lust ghost replied earnestly. 

Gu Xizhou: “……”

Ten minutes later, the female ghost stuck out its tongue, gagging as its neck was grabbed. Its nose was blue, and its face was swollen, its originally beautiful face all deformed.

It sobbed in a very small voice, wiping the blood flowing from its eyes with its hand. “Wuwuwu, you’re more or less correct. 8002 is the room my Yeye died in. He was frozen alive, but that’s just what that damn bastard told the public. In fact, you should have guessed it was that bastard that killed my Yeye.”

As it turned out, the tour guide had fallen for the female lust ghost, and the two quickly fell madly in love. The tour guide himself had a family. After getting together with the female lust ghost, he cast aside his wife and proposed to the female lust ghost. However, the female lust ghost’s grandfather objected on the grounds that his character was bad… One day the old man accidentally found out that the female lust ghost was still sneaking around with the tour guide and suffered a paralyzing stroke in rage. 

This time, between the tour guide and her grandfather, the female lust ghost chose her own grandfather, giving up her feelings for the tour guide. But before long, the female lust ghost’s grandfather was frozen to death, and the tour guide asked if they could get together again. The female lust ghost thought that her grandfather was dead, so she chose her own true love…

But she increasingly felt that her grandfather’s death was strange. Everyday she felt strange. Later she simply suspected the tour guide. During an argument, the tour guide actually admitted to killing her grandfather before strangling her.

This scene was inadvertently caught on camera by the people in the tour group.

When Gu Xizhou heard the female lust ghost’s story, he felt that it really was a fool…it rushed to throw its life away, taking its grandfather’s head with it. But sending the head wasn’t enough. Several people inadvertently saw this scene while heading up the mountain and sent their heads too. 

Think carefully, this person cast aside his wife for a new flame. Did you really think he wouldn’t abandon you for someone else?

A lovesick brain was truly hopeless!

According to the information provided by the female lust ghost, what Fu Yiran said was true.

It was weird that Fu Yiran wasn’t lying, but how did he know? That waiter NPC was definitely already dead. 

Gu Xizhou furrowed his brow slightly and seemed to be thinking of something before he asked, “Did you put that chair there yesterday?”

The female ghost: “ It wasn’t me.”

Seeing Gu Xizhou open his mouth to ask something else, the female ghost quickly added, “I didn’t close the door! I didn’t do it!”

“It wasn’t you? Then who was it?” Gu Xizhou raised his eyebrows. 

The female ghost shook her head: “After I scared that girl to the 8th floor, I just…en…”

“You just what?”

The female ghost was a little shy and said to her fingers in embarrassment, “I was following you and went into the room with you. I saw that you were very cold, and I tried very hard to keep you warm by holding you, but you were getting colder and colder and eventually you became colder than me.”

Gu Xizhou was speechless, “…” Unbelievable, this female ghost still loves him, ah… 

Love brain…it’s still a love brain even in death. It’s hopeless.

You couldn’t kill anyone with this IQ, right?

Gu Xizhou was a little speechless. This female ghost even went so far as to lay with him in bed yesterday. The heart of a lust ghost was unchanging!

It winked at him flirtatiously, blood flowing from its eyes, and Gu Xizhou felt that it was a pain in the ass. This female ghost was dead as she still wanted to seduce him. It really wasn’t clear-headed and deserved a beating! 

Gu Xizhou asked: “Do you realize how horrifying it looks to be bleeding while making eyes at someone, ah?!”

The female ghost was stunned and wiped the blood off her face. Holding her face in her hands, she stared at him with big eyes and pouted, feeling extremely wronged, “I’ve wiped all the blood from my face!”

Gu Xizhou: “Eh…en, it’s gone.”

The female ghost heard him and winked at Gu Xizhou with a charming glance. 

Gu Xizhou silently covered his own eyes. It was too hard on the eyes!

“Okay, okay, stop winking. We can’t get up to the 8th floor anymore, do you know why?”

The female ghost cocked her head, and said to Gu Xizhou, “Yi? You don’t know? That pretty woman in your group took the 8th floor number sign.”

Gu Xizhou raised his eyebrows slightly and asked, “Floor number sign?” 

The female ghost nodded and said, “When I was following you, I saw the 8th floor number sign in her hands.”

“Wait a second, if you were following me, how did you see Fu Yiran holding the 8th floor number sign?”

The female ghost looked at Gu Xizhou and whispered, “When I was following you, I saw her sneaking after you. When you were on the fourth floor she took the 4th floor number sign and switched it with the 8th floor one.”

“So when the 4th floor number sign is switched with the 8th, the 4th floor becomes the 8th floor, so when Li Yan said he wanted to go to the 8th floor, the elevator stopped on the 4th floor and wouldn’t go up,” Gu Xizhou furrowed his brows, feeling puzzled. 

The female ghost nodded like a chicken pecking grain and said naively, “That’s right, ah, I think she already knows how to kill that bastard! I’ve suffered for so long!”

Gu Xizhou: “???” How are you suffering?

Seeing Gu Xizhou’s expression, she hastily said, “Don’t worry about it, I’m just suffering and can’t see you anymore!”

Fine by me, you don’t have to love me. Gu Xizhou just didn’t know what to say to this silly little love-addled ghost. 

The ghosts in this world certainly had a lot of personality. There was a silly little female lust ghost, and a cute little idiot snowman. Fang Zhi’s task worlds were so much happier.

Gu Xizhou thought it over. Fu Yiran certainly wasn’t following him unintentionally; it was on purpose. Then, when he was on the 4th floor and he went in to search a room unsuspectingly, would Fu Yiran shut the door behind him and lock him inside?

Gu Xizhou thought it over for a very long time. There shouldn’t be so much enmity between him and Fu Yiran, right? 

Would Fu Yiran go so far?

He did expose Fu Yiran as a dalao in women’s clothing, but no, to be precise, although he said that the other was a dalao in women’s clothing, no one besides Si Yu and Fang Zhi believed him. What he said didn’t matter!

Not only that, but in the first mission world, he seemed pretty normal. After Si Yu had pointed it out, Fu Yiran had generously admitted that he was a man.

The female ghost watched Gu Xizhou for a while before she grabbed his hand and said tenderly, “Death is not the final destination, so I’m…” 

Before the female ghost finished her sentence, the door was suddenly pushed open. Gu Xizhou whipped around to be met with dark eyes. Si Yu looked at him faintly, before shifting his gaze back, his brow slightly pinched.

Gu Xizhou felt a little uneasy. Wait…how was he supposed to explain this?! Him and the female ghost were in one room together!

Should he grab for Si Yu’s hand, and turn around afraid, pretending to be especially terrified and helpless, ah?

“You were in the bathroom for so long, I was beginning to think something had happened to you…” Si Yu’s helpless voice betrayed a hint of worry. 

Hearing him, Gu Xizhou turned around and found that the female ghost had already vanished!

“You…you don’t see anything strange?” Gu Xizhou asked cautiously.

Si Yu looked at him sideways, “What strange thing?”

Gu Xizhou saw his vacant expression and quickly shook his head, “It’s nothing…” 

“By the way, I know why the elevator keeps stopping on the 7th floor,” Si Yu said mildly, “It’s because the 7th floor is now the 8th.”

Gu Xizhou, “…” President Si, couldn’t you have thought of that sooner? I just beat up a ghost! I just interrogated it! Your time reward has already been deducted because of me!

Meanwhile, outside in the snow, a female ghost who’s last sentence had just been interrupted was crouched on the ground drawing a circle.

Pa Ta. 

Pa Ta.

Red blood fell onto the snow.

Wuwuwu…I’m so angry, I’ll draw a circle to curse you!

While the female ghost was in the midst of feeling wronged, it didn’t realize that there was another little snowman next to it. The little snowman took off its scarf and handed it to the female ghost to wipe the blood flowing from her eyes. 

In the room—

“Ding Ding Ding—”

“Ding Ding Ding—”

The PHS in Li Yan’s bag finally rang, and he let out a long sigh of relief, answering the phone automatically. He heard his future self say gravely, “Tell Gu Ran that the floor number sign is now on the 7th floor. Let him violently throw the tour guide into room 8002 and the door will open so you can leave!” 

“Let him throw an NPC violently? Won’t that be a problem?” Li Yan asked incredulously.

“No, I left that way. You left the mission world quickly. Although there was no problem at the time, I still feel a little uneasy.”