Chapter 18
Chapter 18
After realizing this, Yu Lingling licked her lips. The Teddy Bear Doll she had been holding all this time was already stowed away.
By the time she climbed from the second floor to the third, the clicking of high heels, the child’s footsteps, the two elderly people’s steps, the burly man’s tread, and the sound of someone’s legs scraping along the ground had all disappeared.
Unlike Sister A and the others, Yu Lingling had no advance information about the Horror Game. However, judging by their choice of floors, she could tell that they had chosen floors with relatively few elderly people and children.
If floors with special numbers had to be avoided, that meant residents with special circumstances were likely more dangerous as well. It was best to steer clear of them.
Knocking came from the second floor. It started out rhythmic, but gradually grew almost frenzied. It could no longer be called knocking. It sounded more like someone was trying to tear the door down.
The pounding was so loud, mixed with inhuman roars, that Yu Lingling could no longer distinguish any footsteps. She set down what she was carrying and stood silently in the middle of the room, gripping her dagger.
On the other side of the screen, the viewers watching through Yu Lingling’s perspective tensed up as well.
“Standing there, won’t she be spotted the moment something comes in?”
“Why doesn’t she press herself against the wall in the blind spot behind the door?”
“When did she figure out this building was alive?”
No one knew when Yu Lingling had discovered it. Thinking back carefully to the battle on the fourth floor, she had never made a move herself. The Four Dolls had done all the fighting. Yet not once had Yu Lingling stood against a wall.
Yu Lingling thought she heard a door open on the third floor, followed by what sounded like a disappointed sigh. There was no pounding on a door, so it seemed Brother B had not chosen an empty room either.
A sound came from the fourth floor that was both familiar to Yu Lingling and somehow different.
It was the sound of wheelchair wheels rolling over the ground – the same sound that passed outside her room every day.
But it was different from the wheelchair her brother usually used.
This wheelchair sounded older and more battered, and it was propelled by someone pushing the wheels with their hands.
Whoever was in it had rough hands. Each time they gripped the hand rims and pushed, the friction was clearly audible. As the wheelchair traveled down the dilapidated concrete corridor, it squeaked and creaked.
The concrete floor was uneven. Whenever the wheels passed over a crack, they made a faint bump. The sound was barely audible, yet at that moment, each bump struck Yu Lingling’s heart like a drumbeat.
Yu Lingling quieted her breathing. Not only had she not seen anyone in a wheelchair enter the building, but she had not heard a wheelchair coming upstairs either. Could someone have carried it up?
She quickly rejected that guess. Footsteps sounded different when someone was carrying something.
Could it be the person she had determined was unable to use their legs and moved by dragging themselves forward with their arms? But Yu Lingling had not heard a wheelchair earlier.
It probably was not that person. Judging by the sounds from the wheelchair, its occupant was unusually light – so light that they almost seemed incomplete. The person who dragged themselves along with their arms had been heavier and had a larger build.
Yu Lingling raised the hand holding her dagger slightly, positioning it so she could strike at any moment.
The wheelchair drew closer and closer, but to Yu Lingling’s surprise, it stopped right beside her.
A door was pushed open. The wheelchair entered the room, the light switched on, and the door closed again.
Yu Lingling frowned slightly.
The Four Dolls turned to look at Yu Lingling, silently awaiting her orders in the darkness.
Curiosity might have killed the cat, and the resident next door did not seem hostile, but Yu Lingling could not tolerate an unknown presence living right beside her.
Downstairs, something smashed into a pile of clutter. Objects collapsed with a crash, followed by roars, screams, and an explosion.
Amid the noise, Yu Lingling gripped her dagger and walked toward the door. She opened it, and the Four Dolls followed close beside her.
The corridor lights were still a murky yellow. Yu Lingling glanced toward the stairwell leading to the third floor. There seemed to be a single shoe in the shadows.
From what had happened in the Auspicious Village instance and with the family in the Westernmost Unit, Yu Lingling had confirmed that the native inhabitants of these game instances had conflicts with one another too. They were simply bound by certain rules.
In fact, Yu Lingling didn’t think the people in the Horror Game were any different from people in the real world.
In reality, many things were still hidden behind a veneer of decency. Here, they were magnified without limit.
Yu Lingling walked toward the room next door. Light spilled through the crack beneath the door, giving off an eerie sort of warmth. She raised a hand and knocked.
There was no sound from inside.
Yu Lingling knocked several more times.
Two dolls gathered around her while the other two hung upside down from the door, waiting for the occupant to open it.
The viewers watching through the Livestream Room couldn’t make sense of what Yu Lingling was doing.
“Does she have a death wish?”
“She has a skill. She can’t possibly be this stupid, right?”
The sound of a wheelchair moving came from inside, and the door opened.
Behind it was a Wheelchair-Bound Boy seated in a basic wheelchair. He wore a blue-and-white school uniform made from stiff, uncomfortable fabric and looked slightly older than Yu Lingling. His lifeless eyes stared fixedly at her.
Yu Lingling arched an eyebrow. “Hello, classmate. I’ve come to join you. Perhaps we could-”
Before she could finish, Yu Lingling suddenly felt a powerful tug, and her entire body vanished.
When she reappeared, she was already inside the bathroom. She had yet to regain her balance when she lashed out with her dagger, forcing back Sister A, who had been about to attack her.
Meanwhile, Brother Knife, who should have been hiding in the bathroom with Sister A, had swapped into the space directly in front of the Wheelchair-Bound Boy.
Brother Knife possessed a Position-Swap Item. At first, he had hesitated over whether to bind it to Sister A or Yu Lingling. After deciding to cooperate with Sister A and choose the second floor together, he had taken advantage of the climb upstairs to bind the item to Yu Lingling.
A newcomer like Yu Lingling would never have noticed. If the second floor turned out to be safe, then no harm would be done. But if they encountered a life-threatening danger they couldn’t handle, he could swap places with Yu Lingling, giving himself another escape route.
However, when he later discovered that Yu Lingling hadn’t chosen an empty room, Brother Knife had been rather displeased. He hadn’t wanted to take the risk, but the second floor offered nothing but certain death. He had no other choice.
Brother Knife and Sister A had hidden in the bathroom. Using an item in Sister A’s possession, they had barely managed to keep all the anomalies on the second floor outside. Brother Knife had told Sister A in advance that the moment Yu Lingling swapped in, she was to shove Yu Lingling straight out.
According to the rules they had deduced, as long as one person died, everyone else would be safe for the rest of the night.
Brother Knife activated the Position-Swap Item. The instant Sister A saw Yu Lingling, she flung the door open with one hand and reached out with the other to shove her.
Whether Yu Lingling was innocent meant nothing to them. All that mattered was their own survival.
What neither Brother Knife nor Sister A had expected was that after the swap, Brother Knife would come face-to-face with the Wheelchair-Bound Boy – the Teenage Anomaly.
Yu Lingling’s dagger slashed Sister A’s arm. Before Sister A could reach for another item, the Four Dolls seized each of her limbs, hoisted her into the air, and hurled her straight at the second-floor anomalies charging through the doorway.
After forcing Sister A back and having the Four Dolls throw her out, Yu Lingling advanced instead of retreating. She charged out while the second-floor residents were busy devouring Sister A.
The bathroom’s narrow entrance and cramped interior would actually have made it a good place for Yu Lingling and the Four Dolls to clear out the threats. However, Yu Lingling could sense an icy gaze fixed on her from somewhere inside the bathroom. Whatever it belonged to was even more dangerous than the residents crowding the doorway.
Sister A’s screams and the thick stench of blood filled the tiny bathroom. Accompanied by the Four Dolls, Yu Lingling used her dagger to carve open a path by brute force.