Chapter 23
Chapter 23
The Meat Blob slid off Ning Shuo’s lap with a whoosh. Since it was still bound by the hair tie, it had to roll its way out.
The stagnant atmosphere in the room seemed to come alive again. Ning Shuo stepped out and saw that Ning Wang and the others had returned.
He was slightly startled and immediately checked the time.
…An hour had already passed.
From the moment he entered the room until now, it had felt like less than ten minutes.
Ning Shuo instinctively looked at Wanzi.
She looked like a perfectly normal five- or six-year-old girl. Aside from her appetite for human flesh, there was nothing unusual about her. It was impossible to connect her to that Meat Blob covered in pulsating blood vessels.
Ning Wang stepped forward and asked in a low voice, “Why is your hair down?”
Ning Shuo pursed his lips. “I think I discovered something incredible.”
Leaving the matter of Wanzi for later, Ning Shuo asked, “Did you find out anything?”
Ning Wang shook his head. “The NPCs’ houses aren’t very close to each other. We went to the nearest one, Xiao Zheng’s place, but before we could say much, they said they were going to bed.”
It was currently ten o’clock. According to Ning Wang, it couldn’t have been later than nine-thirty when they were there.
Ning Wang continued, “What’s even stranger is that after Xiao Zheng and his family said they were sleeping, we went to Xiao Hong’s house. Along the way, we noticed that everyone in town was turning off their lights.”
“And when you got to Xiao Hong’s house, you found she was already asleep?” Ning Shuo asked.
Ning Wang nodded. “They didn’t even open the door.”
While going to bed early was uncommon, it wasn’t necessarily bizarre. What was bizarre was that the entire town seemed to go to sleep around nine-thirty, as if they had all agreed on it.
Since the others hadn’t found any other anomalies, Ning Shuo looked at Wanzi and asked, as if the earlier episode in the room had never happened, “Wanzi, do you know where our rooms are?”
Wanzi stared at him. Two seconds later, she turned around and said in a crisp voice, “Dear guests, follow me.”
Ning Shuo breathed a sigh of relief.
As long as they weren’t sleeping in the room where the Dreamweaver performed hypnosis, it was fine.
Even if he couldn’t die, it was still terrifying to open his eyes and see something hanging from the ceiling fan or the ceiling itself.
There were three guest rooms. Wanzi said, “Two guests per room. It can be fewer, but never more.”
When asked why, Wanzi replied, “Three cannot a drama make, or from the dream you’ll never wake.”
Without waiting for further questions, Wanzi ran off.
In the end, Ning Shuo shared a room with his brother, Ying Jian stayed with An Sheng, and Shen Xiao was paired with Sui Chunsheng.
Ning Wang asked, “I feel like that little girl’s attitude has improved a lot. Did you give her the hair tie?”
Recalling how Wanzi had clung to his leg, Ning Shuo couldn’t help but chuckle. “If I hadn’t, she would have taken my life instead.”
Ning Wang muttered, “She likes that hair tie that much? Then why did she even bother playing Rock-Paper-Scissors with me?”
Ning Shuo replied, “Do you really think your luck is good enough to win? She probably let you win on purpose because she was satisfied after taking those two bites of your flesh.”
The guest room only had one bed, but fortunately, it was large. After washing up, the two of them lay down.
Ning Shuo still felt that something was off.
He woke up halfway through the night as it suddenly occurred to him: they were supposed to be insomniacs.
While it seemed their insomnia had been cured on the surface, that was only under the Dreamweaver’s hypnosis.
Realizing this, Ning Shuo’s eyes snapped open mid-sleep, only to lock onto an eye staring down from the ceiling.
The eye was bloodshot. Ning Shuo stiffened his neck, pretending not to see it. He acted as if he were frustrated and kicked Ning Wang awake. “Stop faking it! Why are you pretending to sleep when you clearly can’t?!”
Ning Wang looked bleary-eyed. Ning Shuo snapped the light on, the sudden brightness making Ning Wang wince. Forcing down his own drowsiness, Ning Shuo cursed, “I thought that Dreamweaver was supposed to be capable, but it turns out it could only make us sleep for one session!”
He cursed a few more times until Ning Wang poked his hand. “Alright, it’s gone.”
Ning Shuo looked up. The eye on the ceiling had indeed vanished.
Ning Wang got out of bed and walked to the door.
He listened intently for a moment and said, “There’s someone outside the door.”
Ning Shuo frowned and thought for a moment. Standing on the bed, he pointed toward the door and said seriously, “Brother Ning, open the door and take out all the enemies outside!”
Ning Wang, burdened with this heavy responsibility: “…”
They exchanged a look and reached the same conclusion: wake up the people in the other two rooms.
Ning Wang opened the door and saw a little girl in red with a resentful expression.
Wanzi’s eyes were full of grievance. Once she confirmed they were all awake, she turned around and left.
Ning Wang: “…?”
He looked toward the other two rooms and saw light leaking through the cracks in the doors.
…
At one in the morning, the six Players sat in the brightly lit guest room for another meeting.
Sui Chunsheng said, “I thought since we just slept all afternoon, none of you would be able to sleep.”
Ying Jian replied, “Based on the Townspeople’s bedtime, we assumed everyone had to sleep.”
An Sheng added, “I couldn’t sleep. I was lying there waiting to get drowsy when I happened to see that eye.”
Shen Xiao said, “It’s a good thing Chunsheng didn’t fall asleep; he was able to wake me up.”
Everyone looked at Shen Xiao in unison. “You actually managed to sleep?”
Shen Xiao looked confused. “Isn’t it normal for young people to stay up until 1:00 AM? The longest I’ve ever slept was a full day and night.”
Ning Shuo said sheepishly, “I fell asleep too. I’m not in the best health, so I tend to be quite lethargic.”
Finally, everyone looked at Ning Wang.
Ning Wang was silent for a moment before saying, “My brother’s sleeping… is quite contagious.”
Ning Shuo: “…You really couldn’t come up with a better excuse, could you?”
Ning Shuo shared the information about Wanzi, including her attachment to that hair tie.
Information was limited, so there was very little to discuss.
However, there was one point of interest.
“If the entire town goes to sleep around 9:30 PM, why is Wanzi an exception?”
They kept this question in mind as they returned to their respective rooms while the rest of the town slept. One person stayed on guard while the other napped, with instructions to wake the other immediately if anything felt wrong.
Under these circumstances, almost no one could sleep peacefully; they had essentially all become insomniacs.
Ning Wang was now calling him ‘brother’ quite naturally. “Brother, I’m hungry.”
It was only four or five in the morning, but staying up all night did make one prone to hunger. Ning Shuo felt it too.
Ning Shuo asked, “Can you protect me at close range?”
Ning Wang replied, “I can stay glued to your side if you want.”
When Ning Shuo stood up, he couldn’t help but stagger a few steps. Ning Wang supported his arm. “How about I go make something?”
Ning Shuo leaned against him like a delicate willow in the wind, his voice rising and falling dramatically. “Brother Ning! If you leave, whatever shall I do?”
He raised a hand to wipe away non-existent tears, about to say “Safe travels, watch yourself on the way,” when he heard Ning Wang say slowly, “Are you that worried? Then let’s go together.”
Ning Shuo: “…”
By 5:00 AM, it was still dark outside. While Ning Shuo cooked, Ning Wang truly stayed by his side, at most wandering around within the kitchen.
After he finished preparing a simple breakfast, a rooster crowed outside the courtyard. As Ning Shuo was plating the food, the other Players arrived in the kitchen, sporting dark circles under their eyes.
Ning Wang went to call Wanzi for breakfast, returning a short while later. He said, “Wanzi is dead.”
Wanzi’s state of death was the same as the Dreamweaver’s: she had been disemboweled, her internal organs completely missing.
They had only been away from her for three or four hours.
What was even stranger was that despite such a gruesome death-and judging by the amount of blood splatter in the room, it was clearly the primary crime scene-they had all been awake in the same small courtyard last night and hadn’t heard a single sound.
Shen Xiao suddenly asked, “Where… where did the organs go?”
When they had gone out yesterday, they hadn’t just talked to the Townspeople; they had also searched everywhere for the Dreamweaver’s long-missing internal organs.
Ning Shuo looked out toward the small courtyard.
The Dreamweaver’s courtyard was located in the center of town, a prime location.
It was barely 6:00 AM now. Looking out, the world was blanketed in fog.