chapter 26
The Third Floor was a spacious, empty room. Aside from the Elevator that had brought them down, there were no doors or windows-only a ceiling just high enough for Nuo Nuo to poke her head through.
Nuo Nuo was placing models on the ground one by one.
A row of Swings, Slides extending downward from four sides, Seesaws, and the largest of all, a Carousel.
With each model she set down, the strange smile at the corner of her mouth grew wider.
“There are four facilities to play with in the Park. Nuo Nuo isn’t stingy-since there are so many guests today, let’s open them all!”
At some point, thick white fog began to fill the room.
With his vision obscured, Lu Li could only vaguely make out the outlines of the four models.
The four models seemed to be getting closer and closer.
Lu Li glanced down at the floor beneath his feet-there was no change.
That meant the models weren’t moving closer; rather, they were growing larger the moment they touched the ground.
Faint music began to play in the mist.
The Carousel became the brightest spot in the room, a string of small lights illuminating its top as the facility began to spin and operate.
The models transformed into lifelike facilities, and the ground beneath them turned into rough, uneven concrete.
Nuo Nuo was recreating the scene from the Park.
If not for the fact that the walls could still be seen in the distance on all sides, and the ceiling above was pressed down by a face so squeezed that its flesh nearly covered its features, Lu Li might have believed he was truly outdoors.
The scene was perfectly set. Nuo Nuo extended a warm invitation, urging them on.
“Please, come in quickly.”
Faced with such a bizarre scene, not a single Player dared to step forward.
Luo Jia Bai narrowed his eyes, trying hard to see what changes had occurred to the four facilities in the fog. Suddenly, he spotted several dark figures sitting atop some of the horses on the Carousel.
He rubbed his eyes vigorously and looked again, only to find that the number of these shadows was increasing.
The Swings began to sway, the Seesaws rocked up and down, and the entrance to the Slide was blocked by something.
“There are people on the facilities?”
Lu Li replied unhurriedly, “Not people-Dolls, broken ones.”
The thick fog began to dissipate, gradually revealing the true scene.
Where the models had once been clean and pristine, now they were crowded with the dark figures Luo Jia Bai had seen-countless Dolls, blackened and rotting.
Some hung upside down from the Seesaws, some bodies so limp and decayed they wrapped around the Swings like ropes, while others had their upper halves jammed directly into the horns of the Carousel.
Every Doll’s Wristband was stained with filth.
The four facilities stood tall and brand new, rising from the ground, their paint bright and vivid. These Dolls clung to the beautiful structures like parasites, dripping foul, rotting liquid onto the floor below.
Jian Yingying’s voice trembled, “Players again? So many of them died?”
Lu Li was counting. “There are about forty or fifty Players on each facility. Altogether, less than two hundred-far fewer than the pile of Mutilated Corpses on the previous floor.”
The number of Players able to reach the Third Floor had dropped sharply.
Who knew what the scene on the Second Floor had been like.
From the moment she entered, Zhu Yue’s face had looked terrible. Despite repeatedly applying medicine, the wound on her severed arm refused to heal.
“Hold on a little longer-Brother Qi is just a little short of enough Points.”
Qiao Ren kept handing her blood vials. She numbly drank from the glass bottles, the cold, foul-tasting medicine mixing with the stench of rotting Player corpses in the Park. Zhu Yue couldn’t help but retch. “Ugh-”
Fresh red blood began to seep through the bandages on her severed arm.
Nuo Nuo’s smile vanished instantly.
She pressed her nose in, sniffing Zhu Yue up and down.
“Your scent is wrong.” Nuo Nuo’s nostrils flared with anger. “You’re starting to rot. You’re not perfect anymore!”
Zhu Yue panicked and backed away, pressing fresh bandages to her severed arm, trembling. “No! I’m not!”
Lu Li looked thoughtfully at the three people standing together.
Only then did he realize that the atmosphere between them was somewhat strange.
Qi Mingda, who used to stand up for Zhu Yue, had acted as if he couldn’t see Zhu Yue since they left the Elevator, and now, because Zhu Yue’s injury had attracted Nuo Nuo’s attention and caused extra trouble, his face was full of annoyance.
Qi Mingda’s gaze lingered on Zhu Yue out of the corner of his eye.
It was as if he was waiting for something.
“I don’t believe it!” Nuo Nuo’s voice rose. She reached her hand in, trying to grab Zhu Yue.
“I want to bring you over and take a closer look.”
Seeing Nuo Nuo’s hand, Zhu Yue instinctively started to twitch.
Her face was streaked with tears from fear, and she looked to Qi Mingda for help, her voice hoarse, “Brother Qi, help me one more time, I still have some Points left, five thousand Points, my last five thousand! I’ll give them to you!”
Qi Mingda squinted with satisfaction, licking his yellow teeth, “If you’d said you had five thousand earlier, wouldn’t things be easier now? We’re all in the same group, of course we should help each other.”
“Brother Qi and I really care about you! Are you trying to play tricks on us?” Qiao Ren accused her, spitting as he spoke, “Didn’t you say in the Elevator this morning that you only had five hundred Points? You just gave five hundred, that’s not even enough for Brother Qi to pick his teeth! Hurry up and transfer the Points!”
Zhu Yue forced a smile and quickly tapped her Wristband against Qi Mingda’s. “Brother Qi, I’ve already transferred them, take a look.”
Nuo Nuo’s large hand was already in front of Zhu Yue, but Qi Mingda leisurely finished checking his account and stepped forward. “Nuo Nuo.”
Nuo Nuo paused, her gaze landing on Qi Mingda.
She recognized him as a guest with the second most Key Items.
When a guest with many Items wants to speak, it’s worth listening to.
“Do you have something to say?” Nuo Nuo paused strangely, “Guest.”
Lu Li heard Luo Jia Bai stifling a laugh and quietly asked, “What is it?”
Luo Jia Bai pinched his nose, laughing, “Nuo Nuo’s sense of aesthetics is actually pretty normal. Do you remember she called you ‘handsome guest’? Just now, she seemed to want to call Qi Mingda that too, but looking at his face, she couldn’t say the word ‘handsome’.”
Lu Li laughed along.
Unaware that people were whispering behind his back, Qi Mingda only felt that he was now the most capable man in the room, and looked directly at Nuo Nuo.
“She doesn’t smell. You must have smelled wrong-there are so many broken Dolls here, all the smells are mixed together. Why don’t you sniff again?”
“Really?” Nuo Nuo withdrew her hand in confusion, pressed her nose against the facility and sniffed hard, frowning, “It really does smell worse here.”
Seeing that Nuo Nuo had been fooled, Qi Mingda showed a smug smile.
He turned to the lifeless Zhu Yue and lectured, “I told you this morning, I made a deal with the Evil Spirit and can exchange for a second Life-Saving Item at half price-just need ten thousand more Points. Now with your five thousand, it’s still not quite enough. Wait until my Live Stream Room gets more popular, I’ll definitely help you get it.”
Zhu Yue nodded weakly, “Thank you, Brother Qi.”
Nuo Nuo wiped her nose, moved away from the ceiling, and continued.
“All the Park’s facilities are open now. The Clown and I keep feeling like there’s another pair of eyes watching us.”
“Something that doesn’t belong in the Park has snuck in. Hurry and find it!”
“Eyes?” Luo Jia Bai picked up on the key word in Nuo Nuo’s statement. He looked around at the Player corpses on the facilities. “Could something be hiding among these Corpses?”
Nuo Nuo added the game’s time limit and punishment:
“I can only play with the Clown in the Early Morning. When the School’s bell rings for class, I have to go to School.”
“If you can’t find it before I go to School, the Park’s gates will be locked. You’ll have to stay in the Park forever.”