Chapter 72

When everyone appeared in the mirror.

The mist in the bathroom dissipated.

The Players’ bodies were only one-fifth the size of the NPCs.

With the naked eye, they saw Mr. Qiao lying in the bathtub, the Maids’ hands reaching in from outside the tub, properly and gently tapping Mr. Qiao’s shoulders.

In reality, the water was murky.

Looking back at the mirror, the Maids in the reflection were all lying in the bathtub, their actions over-the-top, while Mr. Qiao’s hands reciprocated, holding the Maids close on both sides.

In the mirror, the water was pitch black.

The certificates and medals on the wall turned into coins that fell one by one.

In every commemorative photo, Mr. Qiao’s face was twisted and hateful, his hands fiercely choking Mrs. Qiao’s neck.

In the bathtub, golden viscous fluid constantly oozed from Mr. Qiao’s body, flowing out along with the water.

As the water surged near, Luo Jia Bai abruptly pulled his hand back. In less than half a second, his bandages were dissolved and a large patch of his skin was rotting. “This water is corrosive!”

Luo Jia Bai bared his teeth in pain, raising his arm high away from the water surface.

Mr. Qiao’s body twitched in the bathtub, stirring up a huge splash of water again.

Drenched from head to toe, Luo Jia Bai closed his eyes, bracing for the burning, corrosive pain to run from top to bottom-but no pain came for a long time.

His soaked clothes fluttered as a breeze blew by, and he sneezed. “What’s going on? Why is some water corrosive and some perfectly normal?”

Lu Li grabbed the back of Luo Jia Bai’s neck and yanked him out of another wave. “The water itself isn’t dangerous. The real danger is the golden liquid coming from Mr. Qiao’s body.”

“Where’s the golden liquid?”

“Look through the mirror,” Lu Li had been glancing back, “You can’t see it directly with your eyes.”

The wave Luo Jia Bai just dodged splashed onto Mirella. She gasped softly, her cloth band at the back of her head partially dissolved, then washed away by the rapid current.

Mirella reached out too slowly and failed to grab the band.

Her tightly closed eyelids trembled as she fumbled along the edge of the bathtub tiles, losing her composure and, for the first time, truly panicked:

“Where is it…”

“No… Don’t do this… Where did you go?”

She was forced to open her eyes, saw Mr. Qiao and the Maids, frowned deeply as if seeing something utterly disgusting, and couldn’t help but start retching uncontrollably.

She closed her eyes again, but could only search blindly nearby.

A vicious cycle.

In the blink of an eye, the band had already been swept over to Mr. Qiao’s side by the current.

“I thought she wore the band because she had an eye injury, or maybe there was an ugly scar there, so she used it to cover up,” Luo Jia Bai whispered to Lu Li, “But I just saw, she seems able to open her eyes.”

The Maids clustered around Mr. Qiao, their actions growing increasingly wild, the waves in the bathtub rising and crashing more frequently and violently.

Luo Jia Bai watched as the white band floated farther away, then glanced at Mirella, feeling a pang of sympathy. “The band must be something very important.”

Searching like Mirella was now,

She would never find it.

Watching the girl’s anxious back,

Luo Jia Bai was momentarily dazed; for a split second, he almost mistook her for his own sister, who had already died in the Zombie tide.

He had once tried to understand Mirella through Lu Li’s way of observing people.

She wasn’t a bad person.

She was just too reclusive, never opening up to others or asking for help.

Sadly, he couldn’t help this time either.

“The mirror shows the truth. Use it as a guide to avoid the golden liquid,” Lu Li quickly instructed. As the Maid closest to them raised her hand again, he made his move.

“Where are you going!” Luo Jia Bai grasped at nothing and muttered, “With water this turbulent, I can barely take a few steps. How can you swim through so smoothly?”

Lu Li leaned forward, following the current, riding the waves toward the band.

A Maid’s hand fell into the water, about to pin the band down and sink it to the bottom.

Lu Li took a breath and dove briefly under.

He managed to fish it up.

He dodged the Maid’s descending hand and swam back.

The band floated on the surface.

Its front was white, but flipped over, the back was densely embroidered with complex magic circles.

They resembled the magic circles Bosi had helped him experiment with during death trials.

But on the narrow strip of cloth, the circles overlapped layer after layer, impossible to count how many there were.

It looked like it was meant for sealing.

–

Mirella was caught in unprecedented panic.

She had noticed from the start that the difficulty level of this Instance was extremely high, and every time she communicated with the creatures inside,

Aside from getting crucial information, these beings would sigh and warn her: “Run while you still can.”

Now, even the band she used to cover her eyes was gone.

That should have been impossible.

She only had one.

What would she do from now on?

Pointlessly feeling along the slippery wall, Mirella’s shoulder was suddenly seared with burning pain. She was yanked sharply to the side.

She swallowed a couple mouthfuls of water and tasted blood at her lips, reflexively swallowing.

“You’ve been corroded by the golden water. Drink my blood-you’ll recover instantly.”

Someone said this.

Her palm was pried open and someone put something into it.

“Put it on.”

The aura of the magic circles returned.

It was her band.

Mirella opened her eyes in disbelief.

Luo Jia Bai held up his still-bleeding hand and asked, “Are you okay?”
Seeing Mirella’s eyes up close, Luo Jia Bai didn’t know how to hide his surprise. He could only awkwardly avert his gaze and urge her, “Lu Li helped you get your things back-put them on quickly.”

Mirella’s eyes were shaped like a human’s, but her eyelashes were pure white, and her pupils were white, rectangular-slit pupils.

Suddenly seeing someone with pupils like that felt a little jarring, but after thinking for a moment, Luo Jia Bai realized it seemed familiar.

If he remembered correctly, among animals, sheep also have rectangular-slit pupils?

“Thank you,” Mirella said softly. She realized that with her eyes uncovered, the nausea she usually felt when looking directly at people was very mild with these two. She even noticed something in Lu Li she had never seen before.

Holding the cloth band, she quietly said the name, “Lu Li.”

“You’re really strange. Why are you so clean? I see only you. There’s none of that disgusting, overwhelming human desire… and there’s a snake lying on you.”

“Where’s the snake?” Luo Jia Bai didn’t understand, but he thought Mirella sounded a bit mystical. He was somewhat superstitious and believed in the occult, so he pointed at himself, “What about me? What do I look like to you?”

Mirella retied her cloth band. “You have the desire of a Holy Mother.”

Luo Jia Bai’s expectant smile faded.

“Look again. I’m a man-give you a chance to correct yourself.”

Mirella corrected herself, “You have the desire of a Holy Father.”

She reminded Luo Jia Bai, “Try to reduce your urge to help others.”

“So should I not have helped you just now?”

Mirella sincerely corrected him again, “Thank you for earlier. You can start reducing your urge to help from next time.”

She touched Luo Jia Bai’s forehead with a cold finger. “God will bless you.”

Mirella moved her finger to Lu Li, but stopped there, looking puzzled.

The vertical pupil on Lu Li’s snake-shaped Evil Spirit Bracelet glowed faintly.

Mirella explained, “It’s not that I don’t want to bless you-but this snake won’t let me touch you.”

–

In the Underworld, the palaces of the ten Evil Gods had been turned upside down.

A few of them stood together, whispering.

“What does this mean? What exactly is the King looking for?”

“I heard he wants a vase that won’t break.”

“Where are there flowers in the Underworld?”

“Shh. If the King says he wants to put flowers in it, then there must be flowers. It’s none of your business where they’ll come from.”

“My diamonds were taken and then returned. The King said I have too many diamonds, so it’s not unique enough for a vase.”

“My spirit stones were also returned. The King said they’re not classy enough for a vase-they’re ugly.”

“Such high standards.”

“Don’t talk-the King is calling me.” One Evil God answered the call, finished respectfully, and then said in surprise, “He doesn’t need a vase now.”

“The King sounded really angry.”

The Evil God who answered the call was nervous. “His flower is missing!”

–

In the bathroom, the water level kept rising.

Feng Shan led his teammates in through the door, exchanging countless items just to reach the surface.

They were drenched, exhausted from fighting wave after wave.

When they looked up, bedraggled, they saw Lu Li, Luo Jia Bai, and Mirella standing at an entrance they’d never seen before.

Feng Shan asked, unwilling to accept it, “Why did you start from there? Why is your starting point higher than ours?”

Lu Li shrugged. “Maybe because we didn’t go to the hall to look for fake Coral.”

Several players glanced at Feng Shan, their eyes tinged with blame.

Yu Ying suddenly called out excitedly, “I see the exit! It’s behind Mr. Qiao’s head, at the highest point on the opposite wall! If we swim over, we should be able to clear the instance!”

The location of the exit appeared.

The water level was rising rapidly.

Song Changrong touched the water and told Feng Shan, “If the exit gets submerged, we might not be able to clear it. We need to hurry and get over there.”

With a splash, a male player from Feng Shan’s team dove in first, swimming desperately toward the exit.

Feng Shan exchanged for a bottle of expensive fatigue-relief potion and chugged it. Regaining his strength, he clenched his fists and jumped into the water as well.

Lu Li checked the mirror to confirm their direction.

“The exit really is there.”

Luo Jia Bai finally felt safe enough to get in the water. Like Lu Li, he swam backward so he could see the gold water in the mirror and dodge in time.

He quietly shared the trick with Mirella, then raised his hand in confusion. “Isn’t this the White Flower I left in the Game Night room?”

“I didn’t take it with me when I left.”

Lu Li realized his own White Flower had also returned to his hand.

His first reaction on seeing the White Flower was to open his Evil Spirit Bracelet and send Bosi a message:

– The flower seems to be a secondary item, and it’s in my hand now. If you find yours missing, don’t worry, I’ll bring it back tonight.

Maybe the signal in the instance was bad.

The chat box spun for a long time without sending.

Lu Li put away the Evil Spirit Bracelet and looked at the mirror. Between the black water and the gold water, a special card had appeared, its sharp corner poking out above the water as it floated. Covered in a waterproof film, it drifted to a maid’s hand, was slapped away, and slowly sank beneath the water.

Lu Li narrowed his eyes, confirmed the exact location, and headed straight for the card.