chapter 125
The sound from overhead quickly disappeared, and the nightmare dreamscape went back to normal.
The viewer count in Lu Li’s Live Stream Room shot up in an instant:
[This Live Stream Room is really popping, dropping in for a look. He’s already cleared 2 Bug Instances!? And the current Instance Points are stacking and settling again?! Aaah, I’m gonna give it a try too! Rewarding Spirit Money *5000.]
[Rewarding Spirit Money *10000. The new Ghost Friends are still screaming, but I’m already used to it. It’s just Double Points, right? I’ve already made… Wait, what! It just exploded into triple?! What the hell! Aaahhh!]
[Rewarding Spirit Money *15000. I’m not investing in anything else this year, I’m only investing in the Streamer. Isn’t this way better than buying Ghost Market stocks? Guaranteed profit, no loss! …Wait, are my eyes on backwards today? Any Ghost Friend here with good eyesight, help me check-did a Lord Evil God’s account just enter the room and trigger a special effect, or did I see wrong?]
“Strongly associated Item.” Luo Jia Bai bent down and picked up the Grass Ball as well. “This should count as one, right? We still need to find two more.”
The mouth pinched in the girl’s fingers twisted left and right, slipping out of her hand.
The mouth hopped onto the table, then bounced around in circles, searching for that delicious Grass Ball from just now.
The girl stood up, walked to the table, pressed down on the restless mouth, then lightly-almost like trying to scare it-patted it. “Not listening, running all over, shedding so much fur.”
Her voice was very soft.
The Players were starting not to hear her clearly; they had to get very close just to barely make out her words.
“The room doesn’t seem as dark as before.” Luo Jia Bai climbed up onto the table. “Come look! She grabbed a big handful of rabbit fur.”
The others followed him up.
Lu Li looked around the room, then squatted on the tabletop and ran his fingers over the threads covering it. “It’s not that the room got brighter-the layer of silk over everything has gotten a lot thinner.”
The girl sat in front of the table. She actually tore open the layer of silk covering it.
That sheet of silk had clearly been unbreakable just moments ago.
Now, in her hands, it was as thin as a cicada’s wing.
The moment she actively tore it herself,
everything became easy.
On the tabletop, a bunch of things were neatly arranged: several white bottles and a thick stack of booklets.
Through the lenses, Lu Li read the words on them:
The bottles were labeled Paroxetine, Sertraline.
The booklets were medical records.
She really was ill. She wasn’t faking it.
The girl reached out, took several pen-like needles from among them, and focused entirely on stabbing them into the rabbit fur in her hand.
Standing on the table, Lu Li watched. Though she was still sunk in the shadow of the cocoon, those previously unfocused eyes began to light up bit by bit along with the movement of her hands.
Once the girl finished…
Would the thing in her hands become the second strongly associated Item?
“Open the door!”
“Bang, bang-!”
The door to the room rang with violent blows. The person outside started with impatient knocking, which gradually turned into hysterical pounding.
“What good stuff did Grandma buy you? Why won’t you give it to me! I saw you take several bottles-isn’t that candy Grandma bought?”
“And Dad and Mom came home once this month and took you out for a whole day, but they wouldn’t take me! Where did you go? You secretly went to the amusement park without me!”
“I do really well at School too! Those girl classmates are so petty, they bring pretty toys but won’t let me touch them; I just take them to have a look and they go tattle to the teacher, so stingy!”
Lu Li looked toward the door that showed no sign of stopping.
The door lock shook and rattled with each blow, then was knocked clean off.
Where the lock had been became a dark, eerie hole.
From that hole leading outside the room, Sun Hai and the other two scrambled in one after another. They were all drenched in sweat. Sun Hai, completely uninjured, crawled in at the front; Xia Le had one leg broken.
Yan Xuan’s clothes were soaked with blood. Her stomach had been ripped open in a long gash, and with her violent movements, more and more blood poured out. She staggered after Sun Hai and the one‑leg‑hopping Xia Le, while pouring ordinary Medicine Items into her mouth nonstop.
“Wait for me! I can’t move anymore…”
Sun Hai turned his head and looked out through the hole, his face twisting in fear. He grabbed the other two and jumped down. “He’s coming!”
The next second, thick, stubby fingers belonging to a boy thrust through the broken hole-followed by a flesh-colored arm like rotting mud.
The Arm stretched out endlessly, reaching one or two meters into the room and still not stopping.
The Fat Boy’s hand began to wreak havoc the moment it entered the room.
Anything it touched, it grabbed at curiously, then violently hurled aside. Through the door came his shrill laughter, so sharp it was impossible to tell if it was male or female.
He seemed to think destruction was the most fun thing in the world.
Gasping for breath, Sun Hai located Lu Li and the others, then charged straight toward them.
The fur on Luo Jia Bai’s ears all stood on end. “What the hell, is Sun Hai sick or something?! He’s dragging the Monster over to us! He’s doing it on purpose!”
Lu Li looked at the girl, who was still stabbing away at the rabbit fur.
She seemed completely deaf to her brother’s racket, all her attention locked on what she was doing with her hands.
Lu Li turned, watching Sun Hai and the other two draw closer. “We can’t let them get near.”
He had to let the girl finish what she was stabbing together.
They couldn’t interrupt halfway.
He opened the Item Shop as he got ready to jump down from the table when a sudden whistle of air cut past his ear, like a feather slicing through the sky.
His shoulder was gently pushed.
Fenny said, “I’ve been insanely busy lately, I can only slack off for five minutes. I’m leaving right after this. Help me look after her.”
Lu Li sat back on the table and watched as Fenny flapped his wings, skimming over the three players’ heads. The floor beneath their feet instantly turned into a slick sheet of ice.
Their feet shot out from under them and they went sliding, direction skewing uncontrollably as they slipped back toward the Fat Boy’s reaching hand.
Luo Jia Bai exclaimed in astonishment, “Why did it suddenly freeze over?”
Gu Yu Chu frowned. “Does this have something to do with the cocoons in the Instance?”
Only Mirella, band in hand, looked in the direction Fenny had flown.
Fenny had used illusions.
His power was extremely restricted inside this Instance, but when it came to targeting other Players, it still had its uses.
–
The Fat Boy’s hand swept around the room, picking up plenty of rabbit fur in the process. He shouted, “You’re treating a rabbit I didn’t want like some kind of treasure? I thought it would’ve died long ago after I threw it away that day!”
“It’s the same kind of rabbit, so how come the one you raised turned out so good? Now it’s as cute as the ones in videos online! I’m taking it back to play with. I don’t want anything else, I just want the rabbit!”
“I’m your little brother, and I’m the only boy in the family! Grandma said the house, the car, the savings, all of it will be mine one day. If I take a fancy to something of yours, that’s your good fortune. Hand it over, now!”
The Fat Boy opened his palm. Sharp, rotating teeth rolled under his flesh, able to shred anything they caught. He was reaching straight for Sun Hai and the other two Players.
With only one leg, Xia Le moved awkwardly, dragging Yan Xuan along. Suddenly, someone shoved him hard in the back.
He looked back and saw Sun Hai borrowing that force to slide back along the ice, returning to their original trajectory toward Lu Li and the others.
While he and Yan Xuan were sent careening toward the Fat Boy’s open hand.
The Fat Boy’s hand hovered above their heads, fumbling to tell which of the two clinging together was the rabbit.
The smile at the corner of Xia Le’s mouth finally collapsed. He glanced at the cat ears on Yan Xuan’s head, then reached up and touched the rabbit ears on his own.
He opened his Wristband in a blur.
In the Appearance category, the cat and dog options were so popular they were sold out. The rabbit still had stock. Xia Le selected the rabbit and used Double Points to apply it to Yan Xuan, forcibly interrupting the cat-ear Appearance currently in effect.
When Yan Xuan’s ears finished changing, a new line slowly appeared beneath the cat icon in the Shop: remaining exchange quantity: 1.
Without hesitation, Xia Le exchanged it. Double Points applied to himself.
“What are you doing!” Realizing what Xia Le was up to, Yan Xuan wrapped both arms and legs around him, clinging for dear life. “You want me to die in your place!? How come you stop playing the good guy now, at a time like this!”
Xia Le’s white clothes were smeared with Yan Xuan’s blood, his face splattered with it as well.
“No.” Xia Le looked at her coldly, summoned a knife from the Shop, and chopped through her forearms. Then he shoved her toward the Fat Boy’s hand. “If I want to live, then you have to die.”
Amid her unwilling screams, the Fat Boy grabbed her and yanked her up through the hole. The spinning teeth drilled into Yan Xuan’s skull, spraying brain matter all over the floor.
What dropped to the ground in the room at the same time…
Was Yan Xuan’s Evil Spirit Bracelet, now turned white.
–
Fenny had only just landed back on Mirella’s shoulder for a few seconds before he tore open a slit in space and slipped through.
Slack-off time really was that short.
Fenny was in such a hurry to get back to work that he didn’t see Mirella behind him, her hand half-raised in the air, reaching for him and stopping midway.
“He’s not pretending he didn’t see,” Lu Li said. “He’s busy. Maybe you two can talk more tonight?”
Mirella said, “Okay. I’ll try tonight.”
Luo Jia Bai’s shout cut them off. “She’s done!”
The clump of rabbit fur in the girl’s hands had somehow taken shape under her relentless stabbing.
She had made a Felt Rabbit.
She hadn’t managed any fine details even after working so long. It was just three balls-a body, a head, and a tail-but you could just barely tell it was meant to be a rabbit.
“This is the second Item.”
“Now we still need…” Lu Li inferred the third strongly linked Item. “Limbs. The Felt Rabbit doesn’t have legs.”
“Bang, bang.”
“Her brother’s trying to steal something again?” Luo Jia Bai stared warily at the door, muttering under his breath, “If I had the power, I’d twist that brat’s head right off!”
Lu Li lay on the table, listening carefully.
“The sound’s coming from inside the drawer.”