Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Zhou Qingyan was stunned. “No. That’s impossible.”
“Zhang Xueya is human. She’s normal.”
“And why would she do that?”
“Li Zhehan is her baby’s father. Didn’t she go to all that trouble creating a persona to get close to him?”
Assistant Li had no answer.
Even Zhao Xiuming had no idea yet. He’d already begun to suspect Zhang Xueya when the police questioned him.
There was the ghost infant he’d seen on her body, and his second awakening in the rental.
On top of that, their hometown was an instance of the same horror game, and Zhang Xueya was the female lead.
With so many clues piling up, it would have been difficult not to suspect her.
If he was both cannon fodder in a romance novel and an NPC in a rural horror instance,
then what about Zhang Xueya?
After all, the System had told him to trust his memories over the novel’s plot.
The Zhang Xueya he remembered was nowhere near as upright as the plot made her out to be.
With eight minutes left before the NPC rampage, Assistant Li and Zhou Qingyan sat solemnly in the nurses’ break room.
Zhao Xiuming was the opposite. He hadn’t followed the plan. He hadn’t scattered the clothes around the hospital, nor had he masked his own scent.
He was in no hurry as he walked along the empty corridor.
He casually entered the elevator and selected a floor, even humming an unknown tune with both hands in his pockets.
Assistant Li’s shirt was tucked between his arm and waist, half slipping loose.
The System rarely spoke when other people were around Zhao Xiuming.
When he was alone, the System was always especially lively.
Now he hummed along with him.
One wordless melody drifted through the quiet night.
The other existed inside his head, soft and unhurried.
Only when humming did the System breathe like a person, inhaling and exhaling.
[Not bad,] Zhao Xiuming praised him. [If we knew each other better, I’d want you to hum for me every night.]
The System stopped abruptly. [We don’t know each other?]
[I’m inside your head. That isn’t close enough?]
Zhao Xiuming laughed twice. He wasn’t embarrassed. He was deliberately avoiding the subject.
Mischief stirred again in the System’s clear, pleasant boyish voice. This time, he didn’t raise his pitch, only sighed lazily. [Gege, you’re a liar.]
[You’re going to use someone else’s clothes to do unspeakable things.]
[I’m too embarrassed to expose you, Ge.]
Zhao Xiuming’s ears reddened, but his expression remained perfectly serious. [Nonsense. What’s unspeakable about it?]
[Go on. Tell me. I’d like to hear it.]
The System said, […]
[You’re going to see Zhang Xueya.]
Zhao Xiuming nodded, smiling. He did intend to see the male and female leads.
[The anomaly doctors can kill the driver and bodyguards, but they can’t directly hurt cannon fodder like me.]
[Yet the monster made from those men can.]
[And compared with the instance’s other inhabitants, whether anomalies or players, the three-headed monster is more interested in characters from the romance world.]
[When I lured it into attacking the players, I watched. It can hurt the players and damage the hospital around it, too.]
[Why?]
Why could NPCs from a romance novel do as they pleased after becoming a monster, when the instance’s native anomalies couldn’t?
[There must be a principle behind it.]
[Maybe only Zhang Xueya can answer that for me.]
The System listened to his analysis without disagreeing. He simply pointed out, [You have no bargaining chip.]
[But now you do, Ge.]
Zhao Xiuming lifted the shirt and gave it a few shakes. [My guess is she’s working with the hospital’s anomalies.]
[A bargaining chip… Something that can hurt her, for example.]
[The three-headed monster the doctor made to hold me back can hurt Zhang Xueya, too.]
[But it’s not enough. I’ll have to feed it until it’s stronger.]
Between the instance’s NPCs and the romance novel’s NPCs, Zhao Xiuming chose the former. [I’ll have to let it devour some players or anomalies.]
The System sounded on the verge of laughter, then began his high-pitched teasing again. [You really are playing favorites with Assistant Li, Ge.]
[And that girl has left her mark on your heart, hasn’t she?]
[According to the plot, you’ll sweet-talk her into betraying the female lead and becoming a villain later on.]
The odd affectation in that boyish voice wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn’t quite wheedling, nor was it nauseating.
It was a peculiar sort of cuteness. Entertaining.
When the elevator doors opened, Zhao Xiuming tossed the shirt out, then pressed the button for the top floor.
As though he’d heard something, he turned his face slightly, giving nothing away.
He waited for the doors to close. The elevator continued upward.
Outside, the shirt lay quietly on the corridor floor.
After a few soft pattering sounds, a head appeared around the corner, held aloft by feelers.
It was the bodyguard’s head. His dead face was full of cunning, his eyes narrowed unnaturally, foxlike.
His mouth, however, stretched upward grotesquely, the muscles pulled into an unnatural shape across his face.
His eyes darted about, as fast as a shaken bell.
Fixing on the shirt, the creature exposed more of its body. The remaining heads and scraps of flesh slowly emerged.
The three heads whispered to one another, their words indistinct.
“Why does it seem so much smarter now…?” Zhao Xiuming murmured in the elevator.
Then he resumed answering the System. [There are plenty of NPCs in a horror instance. Only a few in the romance novel are special.]
[If they die now, what am I supposed to do when I want to try something more interesting?]
The System laughed, malicious and delighted. At the end, he drew out his words, turning cute again. [It’s so hard doing everything alone, Ge.]
[Use points. Use your little System brother’s great big stash of points.]
[Your little System brother is super generous. Whether you cuddle widows or feed nonhuman little girls, you can earn loads of points.]
Zhao Xiuming said, [Points…]
[That’s not a bad idea.]
The System showed him their uses directly. Countless store pages appeared in his mind. Points could buy not only extraordinary abilities and currency, but all kinds of items, too.
He noticed that the stores looked different. The horror-themed ones were dominated by blood red and expanses of black.
The feminine ones combined all kinds of beautiful, delicate design elements.
The minimalist ones had a strong technological feel, with machinery and hard lines that caught the eye.
The masculine ones offered beautiful female guides as soon as he clicked…
For a moment, the different pages were dazzling. The same products had different names.
One kind of button, for instance, could be used to teleport.
In a store full of cute imagery, it cost eighty points and was meant for catching disobedient nonhuman little girls.
On a horror-themed page, it was an A-rank life-saving item costing a full three hundred points, capable of instantly moving the user out of an attack’s path.
On a page with an ethereal, immortal air, it cost just 0.1 points, because teleportation wasn’t especially useful in a cultivation world.
The array of items was dizzying. When the elevator stopped, Zhao Xiuming stepped out.
To go any higher, he had to take the stairs. The door to the rooftop was locked.
So, quite casually, he spent his two hundred points on a universal key.
The System said, […]
He had only two hundred points. Instead of buying an offensive or defensive item, he’d bought a universal key.
All while a three-headed monster lurked behind him in pursuit, and he was about to confront both the female lead, Zhang Xueya, and the instance’s players.