Chapter 9

Chapter 9

It’s working!

Qiao Yu curled his lips into a smirk and raised his arms to clap out a beat: “I love how you face despair, refusing to shed a tear; I love your tattered clothes…”

“Will you go? Are you worthy?”

Qiao Yu paused. Immediately, Hou Yuanyuan sprang up, her face full of passion: “That ragged cape!”

Qiao Yu: “Will you fight? Stand up!”

Hou Yuanyuan: “With the humblest dream~”

Qiao Yu clapped while maintaining a ‘kindly’ smile. Hou Yuanyuan sang as she approached him, creating an incredibly bizarre scene. The expressions of the other streamers shifted from bewilderment to pleasant surprise. Just then, a shout came from upstairs: “Yuanyuan, time for dinner!”

Hou Yuanyuan’s footsteps faltered. She hurriedly looked up and craned her neck to answer Li Xiaoqin: “Coming, Mom! I’m on my way back.”

With that, she gave Qiao Yu a lingering, reluctant look before pattering back upstairs.

Wulong Tea couldn’t help but feel a bit deflated and confused. “We were so close… Hey, why did she actually respond to you?”

Qiao Yu shrugged.

Why else? Just take a stroll through any primary school and you’ll understand.

Of course, if “Lonely Warrior” hadn’t worked, Qiao Yu still had “Ni Zhan” in his back pocket. There was bound to be a song the kid couldn’t resist!

At that moment, Suit Man stuffed the milk candy back into his pocket and checked his watch. “It’s already 6:30 PM. We should head back to our rooms sooner rather than later.”

The safe time for this Instance was from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM, which meant they only had half an hour of safety left.

Hearing this, everyone abandoned their previous dejection. As if facing a formidable enemy, they hurriedly retreated to their respective rooms.

Heaven only knew what would happen in the Instance after seven o’clock, but based on the rule-related clue Qiao Yu had found earlier… perhaps the rooms were safe?

He didn’t know what the others were thinking, but as Qiao Yu reached his door, he suddenly realized he had forgotten to ask the Landlord for a bottle opener.

Standing at the door, Qiao Yu turned the can upside down and slapped the bottom, then flipped it back and tried to twist the lid. It wouldn’t budge. He decisively turned around and headed back downstairs.

Who told this body to be as weak as a plucked chicken, lacking even the strength to truss a fowl?

Time was tight. Qiao Yu didn’t care if the stairs might collapse; he thudded down to the first-floor shop. However, the shop was empty. The Landlord had left the door open but was nowhere to be found.

Qiao Yu waited for two minutes. Seeing that the Landlord wasn’t coming back anytime soon, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

He lunged toward the counter, rummaged through the shelf for daily necessities, and successfully grabbed a bottle opener. Stuffing it into his pocket, he looked at the potentially broken security camera in the corner and declared: “Just for the record, Landlord Uncle, I’m not buying this, I’m borrowing it! I’ll return it to you tomorrow morning. Mwah!”

-He’s too much.

-He’s too much +1

-He’s too much +2

-He’s so extra, I love it~

-Can the person above please shut up??

At 6:58 PM, Qiao Yu successfully made it back to the fourth floor. Before he could even relax, he ran straight into the Landlord walking from the far end of the hallway.

“Haven’t eaten yet?”

Landlord Uncle was beaming. Qiao Yu gave a perfunctory grunt and looked away guiltily. “Uh, Uncle… if there’s nothing else, I’ll head back now!”

Landlord Uncle waved his hand dismissively. “Go on, go on.”

As if receiving a royal pardon, Qiao Yu took off running.

Fortunately, he managed to burst into his room and bolt the door before 7:00 PM.

Only then did Qiao Yu have a moment to breathe. He took out the opener, pried the can open, and started eating. “Who said canned yellow peaches are useless? After eating this, my back doesn’t ache, my legs don’t hurt, and even my heart has stopped beating. It’s simply too useful!”
The viewers in the Live Stream Room had reached a new understanding of Qiao Yu’s shamelessness.

-Little beauty, stealing is bad…

Qiao Yu was unfazed. “Who said I’m stealing? I’m just borrowing it. Didn’t I say I’d return it tomorrow morning? It’s not food or drink; it’s not like using it once is going to break it. And… who are you calling ‘little beauty’? I’m a 1.8-meter-tall hunk, can’t you tell?”

-Can’t tell.

Qiao Yu: “…You can definitely tell.”

-Really can’t tell!

-We’re gonna call you that anyway. Little beauty, little beauty, little beauty…

Watching the screen fill with “little beauty,” Qiao Yu’s ears turned slightly red. He snapped in embarrassment, “Are you guys seriously doing this?”

-Fine, fine, fine, it’s all my fault. I’m wrong, okay?

Why did that sound so familiar?

Copycats should be struck by lightning, you know!

Qiao Yu scooped out a large chunk of yellow peach and stuffed it into his mouth, spitefully chewing the fruit into mush.

**

The young man wearing black-rimmed glasses ran back to his room and sat on the edge of the bed, shaken. He waited for the unknown horror that would come after nightfall.

-Whew~ That’s the scent of fear. Smells delicious~.

-Is Li Xiaoqin actually going to do it? Why hasn’t she made a move yet?

-Sigh, I’m so jealous of Li Xiaoqin. I wonder when it’ll be my turn.

Perhaps because this streamer, Chenxi, didn’t look at the comments, the viewers became increasingly unscrupulous. They shamelessly savored the streamers’ fear, waiting for the banquet of slaughter to begin.

Time ticked away second by second. The entire apartment building seemed to fall into a dead silence, a stillness so profound it was unnerving. After an unknown amount of time, a loud pounding echoed through the poorly soundproofed door.

“Open the damn door, you bitch!”

A drunken shout rang out in the hallway. Everyone knew it was Li Xiaoqin’s husband.

Chenxi’s hand pressed against the doorknob. He cautiously checked the time first and saw it was already 10:15 PM.

He quickly let go of the handle, leaned down toward the peephole, and carefully observed the movement in the hallway.

He lived in Room 4009, so he could just barely see half of the husband’s body. The man was leaning against the door, pounding incessantly, without the slightest concern for disturbing the neighbors.

A moment later, the sound of a door opening rang out. Li Xiaoqin was greeted by a heavy punch. Slurring his words, the man barked, “Are you deaf? It took you forever to open the door!”

Ignoring her aching shoulder, Li Xiaoqin scrambled up to stop him. “The child is asleep. Keep your voice down.”

“Are you crazy? What child? You can’t even fucking give birth…”

The closing door cut off the rest of the conversation. Just before it shut, Chenxi thought he heard the husband mention the word “adoption.”

Was Hou Yuanyuan not their biological daughter, but a child Li Xiaoqin had adopted?

So, was the reason Li Xiaoqin suffered domestic abuse because she was infertile?

Countless questions flashed through his mind, only to be cut short when the voice-activated lights in the hallway flickered out. Chenxi quickly pulled his eye away from the peephole, not daring to look a second longer.

But soon, a piercing sound of things being smashed came from Room 4004. Chenxi pressed against the peephole again, straining his eyes to see at an angle, but Room 4004 had fallen silent, and no one opened the door.

Before he knew it, it was already 10:30 PM. He glanced at his phone, thinking that since he couldn’t hear any more useful information anyway, it would be more practical to just take a quick shower and go to bed.

Having made up his mind, he hurried into the bathroom.

In the next second, the tightly shut door of Room 4004 slowly creaked open, leaving a narrow crack…