Chapter 165
Chapter 165
Following the line forward, the two of them soon made their way inside.
There weren’t many unoccupied passages left. Di Li swept her gaze around and chose one at random.
Passage 44-a route most visitors would never choose.
Ji Feichen reached out as he watched his wife disappear into the passage, an inexplicable chill running down his back.
This was just a Maze. Even if she wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, she should be fine… right?
After thinking for a moment, Ji Feichen chose another passage and entered.
He had only taken a few steps when the background music reached his ears, and realization struck him.
Holy crap! Why was this place horror-themed too?!
His scalp tingled.
Ji Feichen took several deep, ragged breaths before forcing himself to continue forward.
Meanwhile, Di Li was cheerfully making her way down another passage.
Her thought process had always been a little different from everyone else’s. Even after walking for a full minute, she still hadn’t noticed anything unusual.
Soon, Di Li encountered her first problem.
Under the dim light, a woman stood with her back to her, long hair draped over a white dress.
Wasn’t each passage only supposed to admit one person at a time?
An NPC?
Di Li gave it a little thought, then quickly gave up.
Thinking was exhausting!
“Excuse me, do you have a quest for me?”
The motionless figure slowly turned around.
Her chest cavity had been hollowed out, and her face was covered in countless knife wounds.
Wow, the makeup was incredible!
She couldn’t even tell how they’d done it!
Maybe she’d be able to see if she got closer?
With that thought, Di Li hurried over to the female ghost.
She reached out and touched the ghost’s mangled face.
Her hand passed straight through it.
Huh?
It went through?
Then… this wasn’t a person!
Di Li’s thoughts screeched to a halt. A chill shot from the soles of her feet straight to the top of her head.
The projection in her glasses slowly reached out with both hands, grabbing for her.
Run!
Di Li’s thought process might have been unusual, but she wasn’t actually stupid.
The moment she realized something was wrong, she turned and sprinted down the passage.
As she barreled forward in a panic, she accidentally triggered some mechanism. A narrow passage opened in the wall.
Di Li was too busy fleeing to worry about anything else. She dove straight inside.
The entrance slowly closed behind her. Di Li let out a sigh of relief, slowed down, and continued forward.
At first, the passage was so narrow that only one person could squeeze through. After another few dozen steps, it suddenly opened up.
Di Li emerged from the cramped passage and found a staircase leading downward.
A sign stood at the top of the stairs.
[Netherworld Hotel]
Di Li looked back at the passage, but she had no way to retreat now.
“Honey, where are you? I’m scared!”
The unusual structure caused her voice to echo through the space, even though she’d barely spoken above a whisper.
The atmosphere grew even eerier.
Di Li dragged her stiff legs down the stairs, one cautious step at a time.
The staircase wasn’t long, and she soon reached the bottom.
The place looked like a hotel from over a decade ago. Rooms stood directly across from one another, each door bearing a number plate.
At some point, the background music had disappeared. It was as if she were the only person left in the entire world.
Di Li could clearly hear her own heartbeat.
Creeeak.
One of the doors along the corridor slowly opened, and a stooped figure emerged, leaning on a cane.
“It’s not safe outside. Come in, and we’ll talk.”
When Di Li saw that it was an old man, a wave of overwhelming joy struck her.
A person!
A living person!
Before she could take a step, another door opened.
A plump, middle-aged man leaned against the doorway.
“The one who went in there last month? Nothing but bones left now. You want to get yourself killed?”
“Don’t listen to his nonsense. You’re the one who killed that young woman last month, aren’t you?”
Di Li stopped in her tracks, her gaze shifting between the two men.
This was clearly a multiple-choice question.
And if she chose wrong, there was no telling what horrors awaited her!
The old man studied the fat man for a moment before turning back to her with a kindly expression.
“Young lady, hurry inside! It’s dangerous out there!”
The fat man sneered. “If you want to die, go ahead. I sure won’t save you.”
Di Li was still hesitating when a voice suddenly rang in her ears.
“Yin Soldiers on patrol! Stand aside! Stand aside!”
Both the fat man and the old man looked terrified.
“Hurry! Once they get here, it’ll be too late!”
Di Li looked between them once more before ultimately choosing to trust the fat man.
After all, in a place like this, a younger man seemed more reliable than an old one.
The moment she stepped into the room, the fat man slammed the door shut.
Di Li’s gaze instantly froze on the floor.
Bones!
There were bones everywhere!
The nearest one even had scraps of flesh clinging to it that had yet to be gnawed clean.
At that moment, the fat man revealed his true form.
Fangs sprouted from his mouth, and thick fur rapidly spread across his entire face.
One after another, the spirits of people who had died gruesome deaths appeared throughout the room.
Already pushed to her limit, Di Li took one look, squeezed her eyes shut, and collapsed to the floor.
Passage 44 was rarely chosen by tourists because of the superstition surrounding its number.
It contained over thirty different mechanisms, but every route eventually led here.
In truth, it didn’t matter whether Di Li chose the old man or the fat man. The outcome would have been the same.
The old man’s room was simply a little more terrifying.
There was only one way to clear the passage: sprint to the end of the corridor before the Yin Soldiers arrived.
An open room waited there. Shoving a corpse’s eyeballs back into their sockets would unlock the way forward.
The doctor emerged from a crack in the wall, pushing a cart almost completely loaded with tourists.
He made his way to the fat man’s room and clicked his tongue at the toy bones scattered everywhere.
The animatronic puppet was leaning against the wall, plugged into an outlet to recharge as it waited for its next victim.
The doctor slipped a Suxiao Jiuxin Wan into Di Li’s mouth.
He took a careful look at the young woman, then glanced at the man on the cart.
“A couple united by adversity?”
He remembered this woman well: the one who had wanted to eat at her own husband’s funeral feast.
He hadn’t expected them to be in this state the next time they met.
After dragging Di Li onto the cart, he returned to the Morgue through the Employee Passage.
Twenty minutes later, Ji Feichen was lying on a wooden plank bed once again.
Unlike last time, however, his wife was now lying beside him.
Time passed, and Ji Feichen opened his eyes as sunlight shone down on him.
The scene before him was all too familiar. The Morgue was filled with rows of neatly arranged tourists.
“Da Li?”
Ji Feichen softly called to his unconscious wife.
When she showed no response whatsoever, he let out a long sigh.
He had no idea what his wife had experienced in the passage.
But when he recalled what he himself had gone through, he doubted either of them would recover anytime soon.
His legs were still weak, so Ji Feichen took out his phone to distract himself and opened the video posted by the TV station.
It showed the simple Sudoku mechanism in the Underground Maze, the thirty-meter-tall Drop Tower, and the Destiny Ejection Chair that had only popped up once.
Ji Feichen had been about to expose the truth, but after seeing nothing but glowing praise in the comments, he silently typed a new line instead.
[The rides are incredibly comfortable and the number one choice for stress relief. You’ll seriously regret it if you don’t come!]