Chapter 39
Chapter 39
Yu Lingling could not sleep, so she decided to finish packing for their trip to the neighboring city. In the morning, she ordered herself a tableful of takeout. After eating, she sat on her suitcase and stared at the Four Dolls, who had resumed their online classes inside the Princess Dollhouse.
Her brother did not return that morning. No matter how Yu Lingling looked at the scenery outside, she found it irritating.
By noon, her brother still had not returned. Even the people passing by outside had become an eyesore to Yu Lingling.
Inside the Princess Dollhouse, the Four Dolls trembled, not daring to move. They exchanged glances, then all began studying in earnest.
The Four Dolls even summoned the Ghost Infants and the female ghosts. A whole crowd of supernatural creatures squeezed together to watch online elementary school lessons.
Surprisingly, the female ghost with the gaping wound in her abdomen could not only read, but even teach these illiterate little creatures.
Yu Lingling paced restlessly around the apartment before finally going into Yu Huan’s room to pack for him as well.
By sunset, two suitcases stood side by side beside the shoe cabinet at the front door.
One was pink and covered in cat stickers and rhinestones. The other was the same design in dark green, with nothing stuck to it.
Everything was ready. As soon as her brother returned, they could leave.
Yu Lingling never called Yu Huan while he was working. Even if she needed something, she would only send him a message. Although she had never known what her brother did for work, she had always instinctively felt that she must not disturb him at times like that. Crouching by the front door, she took out her phone and sent him a message.
But even after Yu Lingling finished dinner, her brother had not come back. He had not even replied.
Unhappy, Yu Lingling dug out a pile of bright, colorful stickers and began plastering them all over her brother’s suitcase.
She had realized long ago that her brother was a clean freak and disliked anything too flashy.
Yet even after Yu Lingling had covered the suitcase’s wheels in rhinestones, she still had not received a reply from him.
Her sense of foreboding grew stronger by the minute. She could also feel energy fluctuations resembling those of a Horror Game Instance growing more intense. She immediately went back to her room to change, packed a backpack, and stuffed the princess doll inside as she passed it.
At that moment, the arrival of the Horror Game Grand Slaughter Instance had cut off all signals. Not even the special phones used by Yu Huan and the others could connect.
The entire area seemed to have been isolated from the world and turned into a separate space.
Information about the Grand Slaughter Instance had already been released. It was the Point-Defense Type they had least wanted to encounter.
Everyone selected to enter the instance had arrived. Some were government-affiliated Full-fledged Players, while others had refused to join the authorities. Apart from a handful of B-rank Players with special abilities, everyone present was A-rank or even S-rank.
S-rank Full-fledged Players were elite figures whom others looked up to within Horror Game Instances. They were proud people by nature, yet every face was solemn and grave at that moment.
Once the instance opened, they entered in their previously arranged formation.
Yu Huan was last in line. Directly ahead of him was Chen Zhan, the middle-aged man who had fallen out with the Special Department over the deaths of his captain and teammates and vowed revenge against those responsible.
In the crowd, the young woman and the short-tempered young man clenched their teeth, struggling to hold back their tears.
Chen Zhan did not look at them again. Just before entering, he turned his back to them and raised a hand in farewell.
Yu Huan, however, turned around and suddenly said, “Lingling really isn’t all that smart, and she’s a little slow to catch on to certain things. If she does something later that you can’t accept or understand, please try to cut her some slack. After all, she’s just a silly kid.”
Yu Huan did not wait for an answer. After saying his piece, he entered the Grand Slaughter Instance.
Yu Lingling opened her front door, preparing to use an excuse her brother would accept to persuade the neighbors to drive her there. But the instant she closed the door behind her, she froze and abruptly began looking around.
Her brother’s aura had vanished. How could it be gone? Had he entered a Horror Game Instance?
Yu Lingling’s heart raced. With no thought for anything else, she immediately knocked on the neighbors’ door.
It was already ten at night. The knocking rang out with piercing clarity through the old apartment building.
No one in the apartment was asleep. All three of them stood in the living room, staring at the front door with conflicted expressions. They had been ordered to take good care of Yu Lingling, but they had also been told not to let her approach any area where a Horror Game Instance had manifested.
Yu Lingling was clearly out of patience.
A pitch-black anomaly resembling an infant squeezed inside.
The instant they saw it, the expressions of everyone in the apartment changed drastically. Despite living so close to Yu Lingling, they had never realized that she had already come into contact with a Horror Game Instance. Their people constantly monitored the livestreams from the newbie zones, yet they had never once spotted Yu Lingling.
An old man with white hair slowly sighed. “Yu Huan really did keep her hidden well.”
Yu Huan worked with the Special Department, but he did not trust the Special Department. He had gone to painstaking lengths to shield Yu Lingling from them. But now…
The little anomaly corroded the lock, and the front door was pushed open from outside.
Yu Lingling stood in the doorway, looking at the three fully dressed people inside. She neither exchanged pleasantries nor showed the slightest guilt over damaging someone else’s home. Instead, she went straight to her demand. “Take me to my brother.”
The old man looked at Yu Lingling. “Your brother doesn’t want you getting involved in this.”
Four anomalies appeared beside Yu Lingling, dressed in different outfits and radiating sinister auras.
Unlike the pitch-black little anomaly from before, whose features could not even be made out, these four also had the forms of children, but their faces were exquisite. Within a Horror Game Instance, each of them would have been at least a boss-level existence.
The three people’s expressions grew even graver. They had encountered people with the status of Full-fledged Player who could command anomalies before, but never anyone like Yu Lingling.
The four little children stared at them, then suddenly split into wide grins. Their faces still held the innocence unique to children, but the murderous intent and excitement in their eyes could no longer be concealed.
The old man sighed. “All right.”
The young woman Yu Lingling had always called “Big Sis” turned to the old man. “Captain.”
The old man issued an order without hesitation. “Get the car ready. Contact the people over there and have them prepare to receive us.”
The young man who had been standing silently beside them stopped his companion from arguing further. “Cheng Yu, we can’t stop her.”
In the end, all four of them set out together. As for the ruined door, no one bothered with it.
Once in the car, Yu Lingling merely stared out the window in silence.
The old man sat beside her. “Your brother protected you very well. He always hoped you could grow up healthy and live a peaceful life.”
Mockery appeared on Yu Lingling’s face, without a trace of the obedient politeness she had shown before. “Weren’t you the ones who destroyed the peaceful life my brother and I had?”
After Yu Huan and Yu Lingling moved into that run-down residential complex, Cheng Yu and the others had moved in right after them. Yu Lingling had been quiet and withdrawn at first, but later, she and Cheng Yu had gotten along very well.
Whenever they met, Yu Lingling would beam and call her “Big Sis.” She would also take Cheng Yu’s words to heart. Sometimes, when Yu Huan picked her up from school, she would even bring Cheng Yu milk tea.
Looking at Yu Lingling now, Cheng Yu found it hard to accept. “Lingling, we never meant you any harm.”
“You were only monitoring me because you wanted me to become an obedient, law-abiding person.” Yu Lingling’s voice dripped with mockery. “You approached me with ulterior motives from the very beginning, so what right do you have to feel hurt now?”
Cheng Yu twisted around in shock to stare at Yu Lingling. “Y-You knew? From the very beginning?”
Yu Lingling finally looked away from the window. The streetlights on either side of the road receded one after another, their light spilling intermittently into the car and casting shifting shadows across her face.
Light and darkness alternated over Yu Lingling until her entire figure seemed indistinct. “You’re no different from those researchers in the underground lab. Hypocritical and sanctimonious, always preaching about rules and boundaries. You cloak yourselves in noble ideals while doing things that can never withstand the light of day.”
Not only Cheng Yu, but even the young man driving changed expression.
The old man closed his eyes in sorrow.
Cheng Yu hurried to defend herself. “That’s not true. We did it for your own good. We wanted you to become a good child. Isn’t that what your brother wanted too?”