Chapter 39
Chapter 39
Xiao Huai met Lu Yuanshi’s gaze. The customary frost was absent from his eyes; he seemed to be considering the question in earnest.
His slightly upturned eyes traced an exquisite contour. Then, as though something had suddenly occurred to him, he smiled.
That smile was like a bud opening after the rain, like a fleeting instant stretched into eternity.
His lips parted. “Guess.”
That single word came without explanation or any desire to say more. Yet Lu Yuanshi stared at him for a long time.
At that moment, a fit of violent coughing came from the floor. Everyone looked down.
Clarity had returned to Aunt Wang’s eyes. She raised her head in a daze, looked around in confusion, and muttered, “Why am I here?”
Old Mo’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Damn, Xiao Huai, you’re a prophet! You called it! Aunt Wang is back to normal.”
He started toward her to help her up, but Tang Weiqi stopped him.
“Don’t! Have you forgotten that she was contaminated? Aren’t you afraid of being infected?”
“Wrong,” Xiao Huai said. “The concern isn’t that we might become infected. It’s that we’ve been infected all along and could turn into monsters at any moment.”
“What?!” Old Mo stared at him in shock. “Why would you say that?”
“Do you remember why you fell asleep on the train?” Xiao Huai asked.
The question made the others frown and lapse into thought.
Old Mo said, “I was already asleep when I entered the game. What’s strange about that?”
“That’s exactly what’s strange.”
Ivy Girls’ School was the only instance Xiao Huai could remember, but he distinctly recalled that the system addressed every player before a game began.
“There was no welcome announcement,” Xiao Huai said calmly. “Did any of you hear the system welcome us to the gods’ horror game? Did you ever hear it announce *Diamond Magnate*?”
Nor had it proclaimed, “The Gods’ Livestream: Entertainment Above All.”
“You’re right. I thought it was weird too,” Old Mo said. “When I first woke up on that train, I wondered if I’d entered the wrong instance. I thought I’d ended up in some endless-train game. It wasn’t until they told us to find the diamond that I realized I was probably in the right one.”
Understanding dawned on Tang Weiqi, bringing with it an ever-deepening chill. “Are you saying we were already inside the instance, but were forced unconscious when we logged in and transferred onto the train?”
“More or less.” Xiao Huai continued, “And that’s not all. Doesn’t everything that happened between waking up and arriving here feel familiar?”
“Familiar how?” Old Mo asked.
“Quarantine transport,” Xiao Huai answered.
They had been the train’s only passengers. From beginning to end, they had come into contact with no one else.
“Then what about Jack and Rose?” Uncle Li was old, but he understood Xiao Huai’s point.
“Didn’t you see that someone came specifically to collect them?” Xiao Huai replied.
The more Old Mo thought about it, the more cheated he felt, and he unleashed a string of curses. “This is supposed to be second-floor difficulty? What kind of bullshit is this? We have to design diamonds while stopping ourselves from becoming monsters and getting trapped in this instance forever?”
Even Tang Weiqi, who rarely complained, looked grim. He turned to Xiao Huai with something almost pleading in his eyes.
“Xiao Huai, you seem very good at horror games. Can’t you tell us anything else? For example, where did you get that bag of black rough diamonds?”
“I can tell you,” Xiao Huai replied softly. “But you still haven’t answered my earlier question.”
Live as a monster, or die as a good person.
One meant life; the other, death.
More precisely, one meant a life worse than death, while the other meant dying outright.
Tang Weiqi hesitated. He truly could not understand why Xiao Huai cared so much about this question. In the end, he gritted his teeth and said, “Die as a good person.”
Xiao Huai seemed to smile, though he made no sound.
“I see.” He headed for the door. “Follow me.”
Aunt Wang’s condition remained unstable, so after Tang Weiqi reassured her, she agreed to wait where she was.
Xiao Huai went straight into the studio marked with the picture of a red house, the one assigned to him and Lu Yuanshi.
It stood at the far end of the hallway, well separated from the other studios, and was considerably larger than either of them.
The moment they opened the door, everyone held their breath.
The studio reeked.
It was not the smell of blood, but the putrid stench of corpses after the refrigeration failed in a morgue, mingled with the foul odors of feces and urine.
“Ugh! What the hell is that? It reeks to high heaven!”
The stench was so foul that it wrung a northern drawl out of a southerner like Old Mo. Uncle Li held his breath until his face turned crimson.
Unbothered, Xiao Huai led them to the very back of the studio. A roughly six-and-a-half-foot-tall oil painting hung there, depicting a vast expanse of stars.
Beneath the starry sky, two figures seemed to sit side by side.
With everyone watching, Xiao Huai stamped hard on a floor tile. A soft rustling sounded, and a seam opened down the middle of the painting. Hidden within the dark night of the painted sky, it would have been nearly impossible to spot without close inspection.
Xiao Huai slid the two halves of the painting apart, revealing an iron door. The lock hanging from it had already been broken.
Disbelief was written across Old Mo’s face. “How… How did you discover a secret room here?”
And he knew how to pick locks too?!
Xiao Huai saw nothing remarkable about it. “Didn’t any of you hear the wind? Besides, the dimensions were wrong.”
Viewed from outside, the studio should have extended much farther. The discrepancy meant there had to be another room hidden within it.
Then there was Victoria’s reaction earlier.
Xiao Huai had made an educated guess that the red-house studio might conceal a new clue.
“Incredible. You’re a master.” Old Mo could not resist giving him a thumbs-up.
Xiao Huai did not think it was anything worth celebrating. He pushed open the iron door, revealing a tunnel so deep its destination could not be seen.
Nothing but darkness lay ahead. Not a glimmer of light penetrated it.
Old Mo took a flashlight from his system inventory. The others followed suit, producing lights of their own.
“Xiao Huai, are you sure it’s safe in there?” Tang Weiqi asked.
“If it isn’t, will you refuse to enter?” Xiao Huai countered.
Tang Weiqi did not answer, but the answer was obvious.
The clues lay ahead. Even if there truly was danger, he would not turn back here.
Besides, this second-floor instance held far too many mysteries. Its difficulty was entirely out of proportion to its level.
The small number of players was one concern. Worse, they might already have been infected with something that could turn them into monsters at any moment.
They could not help bitterly regretting their choice of the *Diamond Magnate* instance.
The deeper they went, the slicker the ground became, while the stench assaulting their noses intensified exponentially.
Uncle Li complained that, at his age, the fumes were about to rob him of his sense of smell for good.
Old Mo walked at the front. His flashlight seemed to catch something, and his voice instantly filled with excitement. “There’s something there! There really is!”
But the instant the words left his mouth, Xiao Huai’s pupils contracted.
No!