chapter 111

There were two sheets of paper.

The corners were torn and ragged, the texture rough, as if they’d been handled countless times.

Both pages had been soaked through with tears and were stuck tightly together.

The top one was a flyer for the world of happiness.

Lu Li carefully separated the page underneath and found that it was a Diary, written across different dates:

[?? Diary]

[Today a human brought me food. Is he a good person? I’d been hungry for days and couldn’t help going over to eat. He tied up my mouth and squeezed my neck with all his strength. Did I do something wrong? I never bit him. I’m scared of humans.]

[The nest I share with Mom is right across from an apartment building. On the Third Floor lives a family that has a clean, pretty little dog. At night when the lights turn on, they come home and play with the dog on the balcony. I watch them every day and secretly spy on their happiness. If only I were smaller, as small as that dog-would humans like me then?]

[Mom is pregnant again. I don’t know which stray dog did it. They can never control their own bodies. Will I be like that when I grow up? There was a big rainstorm today. When she took me across the street, she ran too slowly and got hit by a car. I cried all the way home and found our nest washed away by the water. A person stood next to me, holding an umbrella over me. Is she a good person? Does she want to take me away?

I followed her the whole time. She took me to shelter under a roof where I could stay out of the rain, then left. She didn’t take me with her.]

[Today a stray cat from the next street over excitedly told me someone was handing out flyers for the world of happiness. In the world of happiness, no humans will hurt us. All you have to do is have a checkup. If you fail the checkup, they still give you food and water, and you never have to spend every day terrified ever again. If you pass the checkup, you can receive a Crown of Happiness and have your wish come true.]

[I finally managed to snatch a flyer, and I got in! Can I get a Crown of Happiness? I have a wish-if only it could come true.]

[I didn’t pass the checkup. Haha, I already guessed I wouldn’t. Because I always run away and dig through trash, my legs are too thick, and my body has so many wounds. How could I possibly pass a checkup? If I could pass, my wish would have come true long ago…]

The flyer itself had also been soaked and puffed up, then dried into wrinkles.

The front was covered in the same familiar slogan.

Lu Li flipped the flyer over and saw that on the back, a line had been written in crooked handwriting, erased and rewritten many times:

[Don’t wander anymore. I want to be adopted by a human.]

His Wristband vibrated with a chime:

[Key Item exploration progress: +1]

Luo Jia Bai had also finished reading the two sheets. His expression complicated, he looked down below. All he could see was a vast sea of Black Mist, and countless eyes within the fog.

He couldn’t tell which one belonged to the Monster Dog.

“So they were stray dogs and stray cats.”

–

At the end of the Pillar was a wide platform.

Lu Li and Luo Jia Bai were the last to climb up.

Seeing that everyone had safely reached the new platform, he noticed that among the four Players opposite them, one man’s gaze was dark, carrying a faint, unwilling resentment.

After putting away his Climbing Item, Lu Li reached out and felt along the joint where the Pillar met the platform.

There was a ring of something here with a pungent smell, the same unpleasant odor as the Pillar.

It was viscous, transparent, and already set.

Glue?

Someone suddenly slapped him on the shoulder. Lu Li straightened up and found himself face-to-face with Mirella, whose expression-for once-was tinged with anger.
Luo Jia Bai asked her, genuinely worried, “What happened to you?”

Mirella said, “Someone just messed with Luo Jia Bai’s rope. They pulled the grappling hook out and tossed it down.”

“This Instance doesn’t even cap the clear count, and he’s already in such a rush to show his malice, loves playing these dirty little tricks…” The band over Mirella’s eyes was no longer spotlessly white in the Black Mist. She said evenly, “Good thing I know a few underhanded tricks myself.”

Luo Jia Bai: !?

Someone actually tried to kill him!

If Mirella hadn’t seen it, he wouldn’t have known at all and would’ve just assumed he’d failed to grab the rope properly when he threw it.

The damp Black Mist here was just too thick. In this kind of darkness, it really was hard to spot any small movements.

Lu Li’s gaze went cold. “Who was it?”

Mirella looked toward the four Players chatting and laughing not far away. “The tall, skinny one.”

“Got it. I’ll remember him,” Lu Li said.

The captain was called Sun Hai, and the one who’d come over smiling to say hello earlier was Xia Le. The remaining two were a man and a woman. The man was the tall, skinny one.

“What underhanded trick are you going to use?” Luo Jia Bai watched the two of them finish plotting right in front of him, head turning back and forth as he asked, “And what are you remembering?”

“I’m still alive and kicking. Don’t be impulsive yet. In an Instance, your own safety comes first… You have to protect yourselves. If you get hurt, you have to tell me.”

A thunderous roar, like an enormous snore, suddenly sounded ahead.

The Black Mist recoiled in an instant, sweeping backward. The scene around them warped and spun, and when it snapped back into place, it was suddenly bright-and strangely familiar.

They were standing in a vast space.

Huge humans kept walking past them. A few were wearing white lab coats, a few were in nurse uniforms, pushing carts along. Other humans in all sorts of everyday clothes rushed in carrying ventilated crates.

The sudden brightness stabbed at their eyes. Luo Jia Bai raised a hand to shield his face as he looked around. “Looks kind of like a hospital. How did we end up here?”

A doctor in a white coat suddenly crouched down in front of them.

He grabbed Lu Li’s right hand, muttering to himself:

“Where’s your Wristband? Let me see your name. Which ward did you run out of?”

“No Wristbands? They’re not patients!” The smile instantly vanished from the doctor’s face. He shoved Lu Li away and looked sternly at the group of Players. “Where are the nurses? Security? How could you let so many tiny, filthy strays run in here?!

“This is an animal hospital! They’re all carrying high-risk pathogens. If they infect the animals that have already been cured, we’re finished! Hurry up and catch them and throw them out!”

The scene exploded into chaos.

Humans ran toward them, trying to grab them. The security guards who rushed in were even carrying electric batons.

The Players immediately fell back. “An animal hospital? Didn’t we climb up from the Pillar in Exile Land? And now we’re in an animal hospital?”

“The light’s all wrong. I can’t even see their faces clearly. This feels more like a fragment of someone’s memory.”

All their Wristbands vibrated once. After a notification flashed, a terrifying new countdown interface appeared:

[The Nightmare Awakening Countdown has begun]

[Within 5 hours, please locate the Nightmare Holder and wake them. If you fail to complete this before the timer ends, all Players will die together with the Nightmare Holder]