Chapter 50
Chapter 50
But no answer came, even after a long wait.
Xiao Huai’s heartbeat abruptly turned erratic and frantic, blood roaring in his ears.
“Lu Yuanshi?” he called tentatively. Still, there was no reply.
When had his footsteps become the only ones on the stairs?
Stay calm.
Panic was the greatest danger when trapped in a ghostly loop. Xiao Huai was not easily unnerved, but that did not mean he never felt fear.
If the alternative was both of them dying here, one person escaping alive would be enough.
Xiao Huai gripped his flashlight. A veil of mist filled the stairwell, severely limiting the beam’s reach.
A candle flame would be extinguished by the damp air almost at once.
A materialist might never believe a ghostly loop could exist, but supernatural incidents were commonplace in a horror game.
When caught in such a loop, someone who panicked and blundered around like a headless fly might, with extraordinary luck, stumble upon an exit.
Most players, however, would only exhaust themselves for nothing and ultimately die trapped inside.
The System Shop might keep Xiao Huai from starving or dying of thirst for a while, but there was no accounting for the game’s rules.
Would he be erased if he could not return? Everything remained unknown.
Xiao Huai bought a rope approximately thirty-three feet long from the System Shop.
One floor was about ten feet high, so the rope represented roughly three floors. If the stairwell had an end, perhaps he would hear it strike the ground.
He went to the railing and dropped the rope over the side.
Something whistled past his ear. He jerked his head up, pupils widening slightly.
A rope had fallen from above and was continuing downward.
Xiao Huai immediately understood. He began counting: one second, two seconds, three…
The rope fell past his head again.
It continued looping, each cycle taking close to three seconds.
This was a simple high school physics problem. The time was three seconds, the initial velocity was zero, and assuming ideal conditions…
If gravity alone acted upon an object in free fall, the formula yielded a distance of approximately one hundred and forty-eight feet.
Every time the rope traveled that distance, the cycle began again.
Delight stirred in Xiao Huai. This proved the stairwell was not endless.
If he found the point where the loop reset, he might discover a new clue.
In the suffocating darkness, the flashlight in his hand provided the only light, its dim white beam flickering feebly.
Xiao Huai slowly descended, silently counting every step.
When his count approached forty-five, he stopped. His peripheral vision swept instinctively across his surroundings, then caught on something.
His gaze froze.
The air seemed to turn into an icehouse, cold creeping up his spine like ivy.
A deathly pale infant’s face was pressed tightly against his left shoulder. Two perfectly round, pupil-less white eyes stared at him, grinning with delight.
Until that moment, Xiao Huai had not felt anything on his back.
But the closer he came to the loop’s reset point, the more clearly the little creature emerged.
So this was the being that had created the loop…
Had it deliberately trapped him here alone?
Xiao Huai took a deep breath inwardly. It had been a long time since he last checked his stream.
The gods watching on the Gods’ Livestream were probably all waiting for him to fail.
Trying to act naturally, he continued slowly downward and opened the Gods’ Livestream interface.
The gods watching his channel immediately received a notification that the streamer had enabled comments. Messages began flooding in.
Many were lewd, but some contained crucial information.
Xiao Huai did not know what kind of creature clung to him, but the gods might.
He skimmed only a few useful comments.
It had a specific name: the Wraith Child.
A Wraith Child liked to burrow into a human’s memories and watch them like a film. It would trap the person in an isolated space until it had viewed every memory.
Most people whose memories a Wraith Child finished viewing either went mad or died almost immediately.
Unfortunately for this one, Xiao Huai had no past memories of his own. What could it possibly watch?
The Wraith Child had therefore revealed its true form and now intended to devour him.
An idea occurred to Xiao Huai. He raised the flashlight slightly. As the beam flared, amusement flashed deep within his bright, dark red eyes.
His casual, languid voice echoed through the stairwell.
“Children shouldn’t interrupt adults while they’re playing games.”
The instant the words fell, flames tore through the darkness. Tongues of fire surged upward beside Xiao Huai, and a young girl’s sweet laughter drifted around him.
The Wraith Child’s pupils contracted as it sensed danger. It sprang toward the wall, but Xiao Huai seized one of its legs in a crushing grip.
“Why run? Your game has only just begun.”
“Hee-hee! Big Brother, long time no see.”
Hanako’s voice came from behind him. She stood there in a pure white dress.
Xiao Huai raised the black teddy bear doll in his hand. It began crumbling slowly into dust.
“Yes. Long time no see, Hanako.”
Only a few days had passed since he last saw her, yet Hanako had visibly grown taller. It almost gave him the impression that she was still growing.
Of course, there was no telling whether that impression was merely an illusion.
A monster of the Wraith Child’s level was insignificant before Hanako. But Xiao Huai had another reason for using the black teddy bear doll.
The Wraith Child bared sharp fangs and tried to bite Xiao Huai’s wrist. He slammed it hard against the ground.
The instant it landed, Hanako planted one foot upon it.
Xiao Huai said, “Hanako, you have more ways of torturing people… Ahem. More ways of playing games than I do. See if you can coax some useful information out of this little thing.”
Hanako blinked. Her lips curved into a radiant smile that looked eerie and terrifying against her pale face.
“Hanako understands what Big Brother means.” She looked down at the Wraith Child beneath her foot and smiled strangely. “Let’s play hide-and-seek together!”
A lightless black hole opened beneath the creature. Hanako and the Wraith Child fell into it together.
After they vanished, Xiao Huai leaned alone against the wall and slowly closed his eyes.
He did not know why being separated from Lu Yuanshi had made him panic at once.
The darkness. The damp walls…
His body found all of it hauntingly familiar.
The scar on his left wrist had begun to sting and itch the moment he realized he was alone.
It was as though something had brushed against a black box buried in the deepest recesses of his mind.
No matter how insistently he told himself to remain calm, his heart continued to pound, the fear seeping into his bones like a slow-acting poison.