Chapter 28

Chapter 28

After leaving the room, Yu Lingling returned to the West Unit on the First Floor and tossed a Thimble at Chen Xiaofeng, who had been reduced to a mound of fat.

The mouth on Chen Xiaofeng’s body swallowed the Thimble whole.

Yu Lingling had also found this Thimble on the fourth floor. Its item description read: A sewing tool lost by a tailor. Extremely hard and capable of blocking all needle-type attacks. Unfortunately, it is rather small, so whether it successfully blocks an attack is entirely up to luck.

Since the description claimed the Thimble was extremely hard, Yu Lingling hoped it would hold out for a little longer.

Once she was done, Yu Lingling left the door half-closed and returned to the room where the resident had been tied up.

Before long, hurried footsteps sounded outside, accompanied by the wet sound of saliva being swallowed.

The door was shoved open and slammed into the wall with a bang. Yu Lingling could have sworn the wall shook.

Shrieks no human could produce rang out, mingled with sticky, grating chewing and beastlike roars. Yet those sounds were like a cafeteria bell, stirring every resident in the building into action. They quickened their pace, terrified there would be nothing left if they arrived late.

Yu Lingling crouched by the door, listening to the footsteps.

Behind her, the Four Dolls crouched and slurped back their drool. Held back by her control, they couldn’t join the feast. Their pitch-black pupils flicked toward Yu Lingling’s neck from time to time.

Yu Lingling grew tired of crouching and shifted into a different position.

The Four Dolls immediately stopped looking at her and turned their gazes toward the bound anomaly instead.

Yu Lingling pinched the teddy bear’s ear and murmured, “So cute.”

Once she was certain the footsteps outside had stopped, Yu Lingling rose and pushed the door open. As she walked out, she reminded them, “Don’t make it too messy.”

Yu Lingling closed the door behind her. She even stepped aside to make room for a resident with limited mobility, waiting until he had passed before heading upstairs.

When she passed the second floor, Yu Lingling glanced toward the bathroom again. She was still rather curious about the thing hiding inside, but just as she was about to turn toward it, she abruptly stopped. She tugged at the teddy bear’s ear in displeasure, then finally put on her hat.

“Fine, fine. I know.”

Yu Lingling continued upstairs.

As though he had expected her to come, Xiao Yi was already waiting in the corridor.

Yu Lingling looked at the empty space where his legs should have been. “In your current body, you can only move around the fourth floor.”

Xiao Yi grunted in acknowledgment. “I can’t reach the unit at the very end.”

This anomalous body was incredibly powerful, but it came with many restrictions. Not only was it unable to leave the fourth floor, but it also couldn’t approach the Westernmost Unit.

Yu Lingling had already read Xiao Yi’s reply. All it said was that the teenager wasn’t the instance Core.

Xiao Yi looked at Yu Lingling and said bluntly, “I need to see the remains of this body’s parents.”

Xiao Yi had initially believed the Teenage Anomaly’s lingering obsession was revenge. Yet his enemy was already dead, and Xiao Yi hadn’t sensed that the obsession had been resolved.

After reading the newspaper article, Xiao Yi had realized the Teenage Anomaly had been very close to his family. He wondered if the teenager’s wish was simply to see his parents one last time.

Unfortunately, Xiao Yi’s range of movement was limited, so he needed a teammate. Before Yu Lingling had an anomaly deliver a message to him, Xiao Yi had been wavering between her and Brother B.

Yu Lingling suddenly smiled. “Then you’ve come to the right person.”

After a moment’s thought, Xiao Yi understood what she meant. “You know where they are.”

Yu Lingling handed him the notebook bound in yellow cowhide. “His father was buried in the flower bed. Brother B has already gone looking for him, so you’ll be able to see him soon.”

Xiao Yi flipped through what Chen Xiaofeng had written. “Some of this is wrong.”
After hearing him out, Yu Lingling ran through everything she had seen in her mind. “That wasn’t his uncle; it was his father, and the West Unit on the Fourth Floor was originally the murdered boy’s home.”

She remembered what Brother Knife had said: They wanted his family’s apartment.

If that was the case, then all the inexplicable parts of Chen Xiaofeng’s diary made sense.

They were family, which was why the man had given Chen Xiaofeng meat to eat. It was also why Chen Xiaofeng had remained alive even after discovering the boy’s existence, and why the scrawny old man had helped dispose of the bodies.

Xiao Yi glanced at Yu Lingling in mild surprise. “Right. As for why Chen Xiaofeng called him ‘Uncle,’ it’s because he was unregistered. He stole the boy’s father’s identity.”

It seemed that the circumstances inside a Horror Game Instance differed from what had happened in reality.

No wonder the woman in the apron had been able to produce a key. No wonder Yu Lingling had sensed something was wrong the moment she first saw those two people.

Even covered in wounds from being beaten, the woman in the apron had carried herself completely differently from Chen Xiaofeng’s father. They had never seemed like a family.

Yu Lingling recalled the first time she saw the woman. She had been pressed against the window.

At the time, Yu Lingling had wondered what she was looking at. Thinking back now, the window faced the flower bed directly. She had been watching her real family.

Everything the woman in the apron had done after Yu Lingling dealt with Chen Xiaofeng’s father also made sense now. She had gnawed on his head at the end because both her husband and son had been eaten.

At first, Yu Lingling had assumed that when Chen Xiaofeng wrote that the meat no longer tasted good and had turned stinky, he meant the boy’s flesh had begun to rot after his death.

Now, however, that clearly wasn’t the case. Given how much a grown man and an eight- or nine-year-old boy could eat, they would have finished the first boy’s body long ago.

The bad-tasting meat Chen Xiaofeng mentioned later had come from the boy’s father. But why had he said it smelled rotten?

When Brother Knife said that not a single person in this building was innocent, he meant the neighbors had realized the boy’s father’s identity had been stolen. They had even known that the boy’s mother was being coerced, yet not one of them had stepped forward to help the family.

After Xiao Yi took over the anomalous entity’s body, the memories he inherited were incomplete. However, coming into contact with certain key objects could trigger fragments of those memories. “Chen Xiaofeng’s father used the father and son as leverage to force Chen Xiaofeng’s mother to cooperate. Based on my estimate, the boy’s father was killed right in front of him.”

Yu Lingling found that understandable. “He eliminated the most likely threat first.”

After carefully working through the timeline, Yu Lingling finally understood why Chen Xiaofeng had described the meat as rotten. “He actually dug up someone he’d buried and ate him?”

Her expression strange, Yu Lingling tugged at the little bear’s ear. Even she found that difficult to stomach.

The very thought made Xiao Yi’s stomach churn. “But then what about the missing-person notices that kept appearing in the newspapers afterward?”

Yu Lingling answered offhandedly, as though she wasn’t giving it much thought. “Maybe it was a mother’s obsession. She believed her son was still alive.”

Xiao Yi fell silent. “Is that why the Teenage Anomaly can’t approach the West Unit? Because he ultimately died in his own home?”

Yu Lingling pulled down her hat, letting its wide, fluffy brim hide her eyes and brows. “Who knows? We might as well ask her ourselves.”

Xiao Yi looked at Yu Lingling. “The anomalous entity in that apartment isn’t her.”

Xiao Yi had heard everything that happened when Brother B and the others were there. He had also seen it through Brother Knife’s shadow. No wonder Yu Lingling had said he’d found the right person.

After a brief silence, Xiao Yi asked, “Is she on the second floor?”