chapter 27

“Tick tock, tick tock.”

The sound of the second hand moving echoed in the quiet room.

All four walls were bare, and no clock could be seen.

Lu Li asked Nuo Nuo, “How much time is left before class starts?”

Nuo Nuo was momentarily stunned. Her face left the ceiling and tilted to the right, as if glancing at a clock, then replied, “It’s seven thirty now. There’s half an hour left before class begins.”

Nuo Nuo always squeezed her face into the gaps, carefully observing every move the Players made.

It was rare for the ceiling to have a moment where the outside could be seen.

Lu Li followed the direction Nuo Nuo turned her head, looking out from the ceiling as well.

Outside, there was indeed a much larger space.

For them, Nuo Nuo was a giant, but in that space, she was normal-sized.

Lu Li exchanged for an Item with a timing function, first setting the remaining time to thirty minutes.

Then he started the timer.

“Only half an hour left?” Jian Yingying exclaimed softly. “There are hundreds of Player Corpses here. With so little time, how can we possibly search them all?”

“It’s you who can’t finish, not us,” Qi Mingda sneered. He looked down on Jian Yingying, who always switched sides at the last minute. In the previous round, she clung to him for dear life, but now, seeing Lu Li show a bit of skill, she was scrambling to curry favor with him.

How ridiculous.

“You tried to team up with Lu Li, but he didn’t want you, did he?”

The greasy flesh on Qi Mingda’s face bunched together as he reached out to touch Jian Yingying’s shoulder. “If you had resolutely chosen me just now, we’d have four people-each could check one device.”

Qiao Ren loudly claimed credit, “Brother Qi, the Evil Spirit Ability I exchanged lets me see farther and clearer. I’ll check two devices! There’s enough time!”

“Good,” Qi Mingda said. “I like people who get things done efficiently.”

He glanced at Jian Yingying, his meaning clear.

“The fewer burdens in the team, the better.”

Exposed, Jian Yingying’s face turned pale and green by turns. She bit her lip hard and didn’t dare make a sound until Qi Mingda’s group left.

–

“The smell of these Corpses is awful. Some are so rotten their facial features are gone,” Luo Jia Bai complained, forcing himself to focus on observing these terrifying Dolls.

Closest to Lu Li and Luo Jia Bai were the Slide and the Swing.

They stood between the two devices.

Seeing Qiao Ren already struggling to squeeze into the Slide, Luo Jia Bai turned to choose the Swing.

Because the Swing was two or three times larger than a normal one, the row of Swings could seat over forty Dolls the same size as the Players.

The Swings moved automatically without wind, their height and amplitude constant.

At first glance, there was nothing unusual.

The Dolls crowded together, striking exaggerated poses, each pressed tightly against the Swing, as if desperate to merge with it.

It was as if they saw the Swing as a lifeline, clinging to it for dear life.

Luo Jia Bai examined them one by one. “Nuo Nuo said earlier that there was a pair of eyes that didn’t belong here. Maybe that thing’s eyes are different from the other Dolls.”

“All the Dolls have their eyes closed,” Lu Li said. “How can we get them to open their eyes?”

“I have an idea.” Luo Jia Bai had also exchanged for the cheapest Wooden Stick Item.

To be safe, he imitated Lu Li, first breaking the Wooden Stick, then, from a meter away, poked one Doll’s face with the tip.

The Doll that was touched reacted as if a switch had been flipped, instantly waking up.

Its broken hands suddenly reached out, gripping the Wooden Stick tightly. Its mouth opened wide, and sharp, fish-like teeth bit down hard on the Wooden Stick.
“Creak, creak”

Wood shavings kept falling, and the Wooden Stick was quickly gnawed down to about half its length, which was astonishingly fast.

“Ah-!” A shrill scream came from near the Seesaw. Lu Li turned and saw Zhu Yue, who had only touched the facility, and several Dolls jumped down from the left side of the board that had touched the ground.

Using both hands and feet, their soft, boneless bodies tightly wrapped around Zhu Yue’s head and neck. Their mouths stretched all the way to the back of their heads, and their long, thin teeth bit into the top of Zhu Yue’s head.

Zhu Yue howled in pain, blood streaming down her face from her scalp. She desperately waved her hands toward Qi Mingda. “Help me, let go! Qi Mingda! I gave you so many Points, you promised you’d help me!”

She tried to pry the monster-like Dolls off her head, but only got a handful of blood. Her voice broke. “Don’t forget my Evil Spirit Ability!”

“What a piece of trash!” Qi Mingda, threatened by her words, cursed and left the Carousel to help.

Luo Jia Bai was startled by the scream and shuddered, tossing the Wooden Stick aside and patting his chest in lingering fear. “Good thing I didn’t touch it directly just now.”

Lu Li tilted his head. “Even Team Members in the same group treat each other like enemies, suspicious and deceiving one another.”

“That’s how Players survive in the Necromancer Game.” Luo Jia Bai took out over a dozen new Wooden Sticks and piled them on the ground, giving a self-mocking smile. “Even outside the game, it’s hard for people to trust each other. Whoever chooses to trust is the most foolish.”

Lu Li stood by to help hand over the Wooden Sticks. The two worked efficiently, and in five minutes, they had thoroughly checked all the Dolls on the Swing.

“They’re all the same.” Luo Jia Bai brushed wood shavings from his hands, stood up, and exhaled. “The ones with visible eyes all have black pupils. The special one isn’t here.”

Besides focusing on the eyes, they compared every other part of the Dolls’ bodies, but still made no progress.

“We need to check the next facility.”

Lu Li glanced at the timer. “Fifteen minutes left.”

“Damn it,” Luo Jia Bai cursed. “There’s no way we’ll make it in time.”

He glanced to the side, a bit gloating. “But Qi Mingda and his group don’t seem to have any clues either. They were just talking tough about surpassing you, but now their brains aren’t working.”

Lu Li looked over and saw Qiao Ren shoving the blood-soaked Zhu Yue.

Zhu Yue swayed unsteadily, tripped, and suddenly fell flat on the ground.

Luo Jia Bai had already walked to the Slide and shouted loudly to Lu Li, “Come over here!”

But Lu Li looked down at the spot where Zhu Yue had fallen, confirming it wasn’t an illusion: the ground was actually shaking. He exclaimed in surprise, “The ground is splitting apart.”

More precisely, the ground was cracking.

Centered around the four facilities, it slowly split into four sections.

At first, it was just a small crack.

Then the crack grew wider and wider, bits of rubble tumbling down, but there was no sound of them hitting the bottom.

Inside the gap was a cold, pitch-black darkness.

A scar-like crack snaked between the Swing and the Slide. Before the crack turned into a deep chasm, Lu Li took a big step and crossed over to the Slide side.

“The ground is getting smaller and smaller.” Jian Yingying hesitated for a moment as she looked at the four separated sections, but still chose to stand on the same one as Lu Li.

The crack widened rapidly, and finally, light shone to the bottom. Jian Yingying’s voice trembled as she spoke.

“It’s sand underneath again.”