Chapter 146
Chapter 146
After spending some time in the living room, the players decided not to move the paintings and dolls for now. If anyone found them too disturbing, they could cover the paintings with bedsheets.
Back in the room, Qiudong didn’t let Cheng Miao lift a finger. He tore down the bed canopy and neatly covered the three or four paintings in the room.
By the time Cheng Miao finished washing up in the washroom, one entire wall had been covered perfectly.
After extinguishing the candle, Cheng Miao looked at Qiudong lying on the bed beside the window. “Did you see a moon outside just now?”
“No.” Qiudong’s cool, clear voice came through the darkness and reassured Cheng Miao considerably. “Sleep. Strange environments are common inside instances. There’s no need to worry.”
A faint, cool fragrance clung to Qiudong. Breathing it in, Cheng Miao gradually drifted into dreams.
After washing up and getting ready for bed, He Xin and Ge Hui climbed into the same bed. This instance looked far too eerie. She had no intention of sleeping alone.
Ge Hui covered the paintings and turned the dolls around. Seeing that his girlfriend was still frightened, he comforted her. “We already checked them. There’s nothing wrong with their materials. Don’t worry.”
Holding the blanket, He Xin looked slightly neurotic. “I still think something is wrong, but I can’t say what.”
Ge Hui climbed into bed, patted his lover’s shoulder, and blew out the candle. He Xin sat for a while before lying down as well.
Before long, Ge Hui began snoring softly. He Xin couldn’t sleep. Her mind was filled with the long-necked woman in the painting.
Drip. Drip.
Perhaps Ge Hui hadn’t fully turned off the faucet after using it. The washroom was filled with the constant sound of dripping water, pushing He Xin’s already taut nerves closer to collapse.
Eventually, He Xin couldn’t bear it. She didn’t dare enter the washroom to turn off the water, while Ge Hui was exhausted, and she couldn’t bring herself to wake him over her own sensitivity.
She quietly climbed out of bed, moved to the bed beside the window, and pulled the sheet over her head.
The sound did grow quieter. Just as He Xin drifted toward sleep, she suddenly heard movement from the other bed.
She turned over and saw Ge Hui rub his eyes, get up, and enter the washroom.
Why had he gotten up?
He Xin was about to follow and check when Ge Hui emerged again and returned to bed.
She listened quietly for a while. Sure enough, the dripping had stopped.
It seemed the noise had disturbed Ge Hui too. Now that it was gone, sleeping beside her boyfriend would be safer.
He Xin returned to Ge Hui’s bed and settled against his shoulder. Just as she was about to fall asleep, she heard him mumble drowsily.
“Didn’t I turn off the faucet like you asked? Still can’t sleep?”
“I can sleep, I can. I was only turning over.” He Xin was happy to see how considerate her boyfriend was and reassured him softly.
Only after Ge Hui began snoring again did He Xin belatedly realize something. When had she ever asked him to get up and turn off the faucet?!
Fear surged through her, jolting away every trace of sleepiness.
Her limbs went rigid. She stared at the white wall through the darkness until her eyes ached before daring to blink.
Nothing seemed to be happening.
Could Ge Hui have been disturbed by the noise and dreamed that she had asked him?
That had to be it.
He Xin released a breath. She was only scaring herself.
She moved her stiff limbs and turned over.
She suddenly found herself staring into a pair of bloodred eyes.
A long-haired woman crouched beside their bed in the darkness, staring motionlessly through the strands covering her face. Her black lips split into a terrifying smile.
Rumble! A clap of thunder woke Cheng Miao. She immediately sat up and lit the oil lamp.
Qiudong had already sat up in the bed across from hers. Their eyes met. Something had happened.
Only after Cheng Miao left the room did she see that lightning had struck He Xin and Ge Hui’s room, setting it ablaze.
Xiao Yan and Brother Lü carried water out of their room and threw basin after basin onto the fire, but every splash evaporated instantly.
The flames were so hot that even getting close was unbearable.
Cheng Miao stopped the two men while they were still rushing around. “There’s no saving them.”
Xiao Yan wiped the sweat from his forehead and set down the basin without a word.
She was right. With the room burning like that, the people inside had to be long dead.
Unfortunately, they had no way of knowing whether the two had knocked over a candle themselves or violated some taboo. The fire had destroyed everything in the room, leaving them nothing to examine.
A ruthless glint flashed through Cheng Miao’s eyes. She turned and ran for the third floor.
Qiudong followed close behind without the slightest hesitation, as though he already knew what she was thinking.
Some of the remaining players wanted to see what was happening, while others were worried about Cheng Miao. In twos and threes, they all made their way up to the third floor.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Cheng Miao pounded on Kojima and Yuko’s door. The fire was enormous, and two people had died. There was no justification for not waking the owners now.
But even after her hand began to ache from knocking, there was no sound from inside.
Cheng Miao’s heart sank. Qiudong pulled her aside and slammed a heavy kick into the door.
Everyone stared. They had never met a player this brazen before.
Gu Jian bent down beside him, looking back and forth between the door and Qiudong’s foot with an exaggerated expression. “Wow, handsome, does your foot hurt?”
Qiudong ignored him. His eyes remained on the subtle shifts in Cheng Miao’s expression. “The door won’t open.”
No one else had noticed, but Cheng Miao knew Qiudong had used eighty percent of his strength. If even that could not break it down, then the door truly could not be opened.
“Hey, hurry back down! The fire’s out!” Xiao Wen and Xiao Qing had not followed the others upstairs. Their room was next to Ge Hui and He Xin’s, so they had stayed nearby in case the flames spread.
Cheng Miao’s expression sharpened. She rushed back to the second floor and found that the fire really was gone.
That was strange. A blaze that large should have burned the door away long ago.
Yet Ge Hui and He Xin’s door was now tightly shut, as though nothing had ever happened.
Ruling out the possibility that every player had shared the same hallucination, Cheng Miao stepped forward and tried the handle.
It opened!
Cheng Miao did not act rashly. Frowning, she released the handle and told the others, “The door is unlocked.”
No one moved. They all knew there might be clues inside, but every one of them was a veteran of the instances and had encountered all kinds of strange taboos. No one knew what might happen if they opened the door and entered without permission.
Everyone was on edge, and no one wanted to gamble with their life.
Cheng Miao had not expected anyone else to volunteer. She steeled herself, raised a hand, and opened the door.
Only her teammates followed her in, along with the two men who seemed to have no fear of death, Jiang Chen and Gu Jian.
Cheng Miao’s group had left the door open when they entered. Gu Fan and Peng Sheng were still craning their necks to peer inside when Gu Jian, the last to enter, slyly pulled it shut.
“If you aren’t interested, don’t stand around outside.”
That one remark nearly made the players outside keel over in fury.
Gu Jian closed the door, plunging the room into total darkness. Then a small light flared to life. Jiang Chen was holding up an oil lamp as he said with a smile, “If you’re coming in, you have to be prepared not to touch anything in the room. Without proper lighting, you’d be taking a risk for nothing.”
Cheng Miao nodded, taking the lesson to heart. By the light of Jiang Chen’s lamp, the group finally saw the room clearly, and Cheng Miao heard Lin Zhu suck in a sharp breath.