Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Zhao Xiuming enunciated clearly. His mutated mouth hadn’t robbed him of speech. Instead, it had given his normally bright voice a sinister edge.

It hadn’t been obvious while they were bickering. Now, as he delivered the truth with a hint of helplessness, he sounded like a devil whispering.

Zhang Xueya’s voice tightened. It wasn’t that she’d never considered the possibility. She simply had no other choice. “What do you mean?”

“Unless you can offer me something worth changing my mind for, I won’t break the agreement.”

“My cooperation with the anomalies isn’t a one-off deal. If they violate the terms, my halo will protect me from harm.”

“Besides, I have two goals: first, to kill Li Zhehan; second, to have the child who should have been mine.”

She stepped back until she stood directly beneath the cocoon. Perfectly clearheaded, she spoke with chilling cruelty. “You’ve probably misunderstood something.”

“I only mentioned the child to explain the terms of my cooperation with the anomalies.”

“That doesn’t mean everything I’ve done has been for that child.”

“I’m no selfless mother who can sacrifice herself for her child.”

“If I really were such a softhearted mother, I probably wouldn’t have fought fate or killed Li Zhehan.”

“I’d have stayed with him and given the child the same stable, wealthy life as last time.”

“But I can’t.” She spread her arms, allowing the tendrils to coil around her and pierce her abdomen.

The enormous cocoon drew back all the parts of its body spread around the room, revealing the original ceiling, floor, and walls.

Golden light flickered over Zhang Xueya. Pain appeared on her face as, before everyone’s eyes, the cocoon began to be forced into her belly.

No. More precisely, the cocoon had matured and was trying to burrow inside her.

It wanted to be born through the female lead’s body, gaining a legitimate identity in the romance novel’s world.

As the “female lead’s son,” it could bear a halo and integrate into that world, escaping rejection and receiving its share of fortune.

The shocking, grotesque sight held Zhou Qingyan and Assistant Li spellbound. They stared as if struck mute, unable to react.

The biker, however, seemed accustomed to such things. He didn’t even raise his head.

Only Zhao Xiuming flexed his right hand. The flesh monster he’d subdued had become part of the cocoon, giving him access to the tendrils’ senses as well.

Standing lazily, he explained without raising his voice. “I never said you were doing this for the child.”

“I meant that if I were this anomaly instance, I wouldn’t honor the deal at all.”

His mouth curved upward, the grin stretching all the way to his ears. With a hand on the biker’s arm, he looked up and scoffed. “How could eating just one male lead be enough?”

“Wouldn’t eating all the protagonists and supporting characters in the world it invades serve its purpose even better?”

The biker stood still, letting Zhao Xiuming use him as an armrest.

He was Zhao Xiuming’s audience. Indulgently, he ruffled his hair, praising the idea in his own way.

Zhang Xueya heard. That was why her expression changed drastically and her female lead’s halo shone more brilliantly.

Zhao Xiuming had said… why honor the deal?

Her mind churned violently as her eyes met his.

She stared at his almost-smiling face, unable to look away, as if bewitched.

He swatted away the biker’s wrist as the man played with his hair, then urged her further. “Anomalies don’t hurt protagonists with halos. They don’t hurt named supporting characters. But if they did, would there be any punishment?”

“In the real world, they might truly be unable to hurt you. But this is an anomaly instance.”

He sowed doubt. “Who made all the rules in this instance?”

“Was it the anomalies?”

“Then whatever they want us to believe, whatever rules they want us to obey, all they have to do is put on a performance for us.”

The biker nodded, encouraging him to continue. He stayed at Zhao Xiuming’s side, dealing with the cocoon’s sneak attacks.

Danger surrounded them, but Zhao Xiuming seemed oblivious. “Even if they really can’t hurt protagonists, this thing has already swallowed Li Zhehan’s male lead halo.”

“Don’t forget that the monster made from the bodyguards and driver could attack me, Assistant Li, and the others.”

“The cocoon has a halo, and it’s merged with the flesh monster made from the bodyguards. Why couldn’t it simply swallow you, the female lead?”

He laughed. “The best part is…”

“You think this is an agreement between you and an anomaly instance. In reality, it’s two worlds invading each other.”

Whether the cocoon formed by the instance understood him or not, his words spurred it to enter Zhang Xueya’s body faster. Its attacks on him grew more frenzied too.

The biker scooped Zhao Xiuming up, protecting him in his arms.
Ignoring gravity, he dodged attacks from all around. Even hanging upside down from the ceiling, he could hold Zhao Xiuming securely at an improbable angle.

After several attacks missed, roars erupted from within the cocoon. They sounded very much like threats and warnings for Zhao Xiuming to shut up.

The thought of dying, of all her efforts benefiting someone else, was more than Zhang Xueya could bear.

She wanted to escape fate, not remain its plaything even after being reborn.

So she began to struggle. “Zhao Xiuming, save me!”

“What you’ve offered really is enough to make me switch sides!”

Most importantly, one of his remarks had kindled another idea in her mind: why honor the deal?

It now seemed the anomaly instance had set her up.

The cocoon might well go back on its word and eat her too.

All her efforts would amount to nothing. Tricked and unable to leave the instance, she’d become nourishment for the cocoon alongside the male lead.

Worse, she would unleash the anomaly instance, letting it expand into the romance world.

Zhang Xueya wasn’t the sort of person who worried about the fate of nations and humankind, swallowing her grievances and sacrificing herself for world peace.

Zhao Xiuming knew that, of course. That was why he’d hinted that she needn’t honor the agreement.

Li Zhehan was dead anyway, and the child wasn’t her priority. She could simply go back on her word and eliminate the danger altogether.

The advantage should be hers. The cocoon was the one that ought to panic.

Excitement lit Zhao Xiuming’s face. Taking advantage of his mutated state, he lashed out with tendrils and nimbly used the biker’s shoulder as a springboard.

With the biker’s assistance, he pushed himself up and leaped toward Zhang Xueya.

The cocoon was indeed enraged. Once she began to resist, the protective power of her female lead’s halo grew stronger.

That left the cocoon constrained by her resistance, making it difficult to establish itself as a parasite.

Realizing that Zhao Xiuming, the troublemaker responsible, was now trying to attack it as well, the cocoon flew into a rage and tried to destroy him.

Mutated flesh writhed at tremendous speed and slammed toward him.

With the biker there, Zhao Xiuming wouldn’t die, so naturally he was bold. He used the collision to get close to Zhang Xueya, the tendrils on his right hand slicing straight through the connection like blades.

The two sides fought fiercely, the battle engulfing the entire room.

With only ordinary human bodies, Assistant Li and Zhou Qingyan could do nothing but hide in a corner and watch. She couldn’t grasp the situation, but he could.

Zhang Xueya had been stalling, waiting for the cocoon to mature so she could complete the transaction. With just a few sentences, Zhao Xiuming had shattered her relationship with the anomaly instance.

For a moment, even Assistant Li couldn’t tell whether Zhao Xiuming’s words were merely an attempt to sow discord or the truth.

If the former, he was exceptionally good at manipulating people.

If the latter, that depth of calculation was just as frightening.

Zhou Qingyan murmured, “How did this turn into the end of the world?”

“Is Zhao Xiuming stopping the world from being destroyed? Is he a hero saving the world?”

Even she didn’t believe her own overdramatic words.

She’d never seen a savior like Zhao Xiuming. He was far too different from a conventional hero.

Assistant Li couldn’t help saying, “He might simply be stirring up trouble. He enjoys watching things unfold.”

“I think he’s taking advantage of the monster not having a mouth.”

If the cocoon had a mouth and could argue back, Zhang Xueya wouldn’t have switched sides so quickly.

Zhou Qingyan was still troubled. “I don’t understand. Who’s breaking the agreement now: the anomaly or Xueya?”

“Why does it feel as though Zhao Xiuming is encouraging Xueya to break it?”

“That doesn’t seem very ethical. What if the anomaly refuses to let us go?”

Assistant Li didn’t know how to explain it. He could only offer a vague answer. “No one cares whether it’s ethical. The odds of the other side breaking the agreement are too high. We’re striking first.”

His shrewd expression and confident tone actually convinced her.

After hearing that, Zhou Qingyan couldn’t help slapping herself. Whatever else was true, she was in the same boat as Zhao Xiuming. Why was she speaking up for the cocoon for no reason?

Assistant Li might have jinxed them. In the fierce fighting, the morgue cabinets had been crushed to pieces, their rectangular frames compressed into scrap metal. Hurled by the impacts, those pieces could take someone’s head off.

He and Zhou Qingyan barely dodged them. They’d only just caught their breath when a corpse trolley came flying too, grazing her hair before slamming into the wall.

The immense force cracked the wall and ceiling. The whole floor shook, tiles jumping and shattering with a succession of sharp cracks.

Amid the chaos, a great split suddenly opened across the cocoon and stretched vertically. Minced flesh and tendrils churned inside, gradually forming a very familiar organ… a mouth.

The cocoon had gotten so angry it grew a mouth.
Sound soon emerged, but it wasn’t ordinary human speech. It was an indistinct whispering.

It sounded like a crowd of people secretly chattering beneath blankets. Lively as it was, they couldn’t make out the words. They could only feel the voices close to their ears, following them everywhere.

Whether Assistant Li and Zhou Qingyan covered their ears or hid their heads, they couldn’t shut the sound out.

The contaminating power carried by those voices made both of them begin to hear things.

They grew dizzy to varying degrees. Their minds were affected too; losing awareness, they began to hurt themselves.

Zhou Qingyan kept striking her head against the floor, bowing uncontrollably, oblivious even when her forehead began to bleed.

Assistant Li couldn’t get up for the moment. He took the wire hidden in his pocket and drove it straight into his palm, letting the blood flow.

Zhao Xiuming felt neither a desire to kill nor an urge to harm himself.

From the cocoon’s mouth, he heard Li Zhehan’s voice, the voices of the long-dead bodyguards and driver, and even those of some dead players.

Something was attacking his mind. Without hesitation, he grabbed the biker beside him and lifted his head to kiss the man’s chin.

Even through the mask, he felt the biker go still. Then the man pushed his luck, wrapping an arm around Zhao Xiuming’s waist and pressing a hand to the back of his head to deepen the kiss.

Zhao Xiuming thought he was probably being affected by the contamination too. Tilting his head, he looked at the biker’s face and met his gaze through the goggles. He didn’t pull away.

On the verge of losing it, Zhang Xueya shrieked, “What are you two doing? What the hell are you doing?”

The System seemed to be saying something in his mind, but Zhao Xiuming’s disrupted attention kept him from hearing clearly.

Only by concentrating did he realize the System was notifying him that points had arrived. He immediately spent them on a bomb and threw it into the cocoon’s mouth.

This time the explosive packed considerable force. The blast was tremendous.

It didn’t blow the cocoon apart, but it left it in poor shape. Limbs and pieces of torso fell to the floor, and more than half its body was blown away.

Most importantly, that irritating mouth was destroyed. It could no longer make those maddening sounds.

On the floor, Assistant Li and Zhou Qingyan returned to normal. Clearly, neither knew what had happened.

But under the influence of the voices, they’d injured themselves. One had blood streaming all over her head, a horrifying sight.

The other had a punctured palm, its flesh torn and bloody.

At that moment, the cocoon seemed to realize that this cannon-fodder character named Zhao Xiuming was difficult to handle. The masked man of unknown origin beside him had a strange presence too.

It stopped attacking recklessly and extended its tendrils and mold once more. Soon the basement stopped collapsing.

Many footsteps sounded outside the door. They were unhurried, even orderly.

The battered morgue doors opened to reveal a crowd of anomaly doctors and nurses. Behind them were the remaining players.

The players were all tightly bound. Every last one had been captured, apparently some time ago.

In other words, while the battle raged inside the morgue, the doctors and nurses had captured every player without coming in to help.

Only when the cocoon summoned them did they appear. Who knew how long they’d been hiding?

At their head, Dr. Pu Yuanliang removed his own head to wipe it clean, then glared viciously at Zhao Xiuming.

Strangely, despite his intense killing intent, he didn’t attack.

Nor did he touch Assistant Li, Zhang Xueya, or Zhou Qingyan. Instead, he directed the other anomalies to put the players at the front.

Yet that very appearance of friendliness, that refusal to attack, made Zhang Xueya’s already grim expression darken further.

Why wasn’t he attacking?

Was he afraid an attack would expose the truth?

It seemed Zhao Xiuming had been right. Inside an anomaly instance, even characters from a romance novel could die.

There was no such rule as “anomalies cannot attack NPCs from other worlds.”

The anomaly doctors could kill Zhao Xiuming and the others. They’d merely pretended otherwise from the start.

They’d even gone out of their way to turn the bodyguards and driver into a flesh monster and have it attack the group, concealing the truth.

Zhao Xiuming laughed, utterly delighted. He was always happy to make things worse for the sake of a good show. “If you’re so angry, Dr. Pu Yuanliang, why not try killing me?”

“Or you could kill Zhang Xueya, Assistant Li, or Zhou Qingyan.”

“Hey!” Zhang Xueya snapped.

Zhou Qingyan had some faith in him. She knew he was mostly joking, so even as she trembled with fear, she tried to stay calm.

Growing interested, Zhao Xiuming urged Zhang Xueya on. “Aren’t you curious?”

“If you can’t bear to let Zhou Qingyan die, we could try Assistant Li. See whether Pu Yuanliang gets punished after killing him.”
“If he does, that’ll prove everything I said was just sowing discord. Your agreement with the cocoon stands, and I’m the one with ulterior motives.”

“If he doesn’t, that’ll prove I was right. This deal was the cocoon’s scheme from the beginning. It sweet-talked you because it wanted to eat you too.”

He sighed wistfully. “The chance to prove it is right in front of me. How tempting.”

Now Zhou Qingyan truly couldn’t tell whether he was joking.

Assistant Li’s heart rose into his throat. In truth, he felt far from secure.

For all his solemn declarations that he trusted Zhao Xiuming to save him, he was only feigning composure and flattering him.

He wasn’t an innocent like Zhou Qingyan. He could see that Zhao Xiuming really wanted to try it.

His mind raced. Trying to find a way to survive, he spoke with forced ease. “Stop messing with me, Zhao Xiuming.”

“You’re the one who’s right.”

“Your explosives can kill this cocoon. I don’t know how you do it, but I won’t bring up your secrets again.”

“The doctors and nurses have all come. Can we take that to mean the cocoon is afraid of you, and that both the anomalies and the humans are its reinforcements?”

He was hinting that the doctors and nurses had probably kept the captured players alive because of their livestreams.

The cocoon was using Horror Game to threaten Zhao Xiuming.

If he made a rash move, it would expose them as NPCs from a romance novel.

Then Horror Game’s players and viewers, and perhaps Horror Game itself, would know there was a problem with the instance. They might very well eliminate Zhao Xiuming and the others.

Cold sweat poured off Assistant Li as he pretended to be calm.

He kept trying to confirm Zhao Xiuming’s theory, so the man wouldn’t use him as an experiment. “You don’t have to kill me to prove it. The flaw was there when we were on the road.”

“You wouldn’t let me get out of the car then. Looking back, getting out would have been the right choice.”

Zhao Xiuming answered unhurriedly. “Yes. That was when I noticed something strange and started to question it.”

Assistant Li smiled weakly. “Pu Yuanliang attacked us then. He injured us.”

“There was no backlash. No punishment.”

Even if the bodyguards and driver had been attacked and mutated because they didn’t count as “supporting characters,” Assistant Li, the second male lead, had been injured too.

If the biker hadn’t appeared and the instance hadn’t begun admitting players, the anomalies really could have killed Assistant Li and the others on that looping road.

Understanding what he was thinking, Zhao Xiuming said regretfully, “By your reasoning, we don’t have to kill anyone to infer that the cocoon and the doctors haven’t been honest with us.”

“Besides…” He pointed at the players. “The cocoon always killed them before. Now they’re all alive, and it’s deliberately brought them here to threaten us.”

“It had a backup plan ready.”

The captured players had no idea what this group of NPCs was up to.

They didn’t know why the anomaly doctors hadn’t killed them after catching them, either.

They’d found the hospital’s hidden space, at least. But the NPCs seemed to be fighting among themselves.

Was there an instance storyline the players didn’t know about? If so, this one had been buried awfully deep.

Thoroughly confused, they guessed that perhaps “being captured and taken to the hidden space” was a mandatory stage of the instance.

Their hands and feet were bound, and NPCs surrounded them. Being encircled by anomalies was deeply unpleasant.

They’d thought the hospital only contained anomaly doctors. Grit their teeth, and they could still handle those.

They’d never expected so many anomaly nurses to be hidden in the basement, along with a huge cocoon monster they’d never seen. The newcomers hadn’t fought at all and were still at full strength.

The players didn’t dare make a reckless move. Two more of them had died, and the Terror players were all out. The six who remained stood no chance in a fight.

Now the beautiful woman in red became everyone’s hope. They remembered that she’d bewitched Zhao Xiuming.

They urged her in low voices. “Should we take a chance?”

“What are you waiting for? Hurry.”

“If we don’t act now, we’ll die here!”

Sensing that her irresistible charm skill was still active, the woman in red boldly ordered, “Zhao Xiuming! Kill all the anomalies! Hurry!”

Zhang Xueya frowned. Hearing the female player’s cry, Assistant Li and Zhou Qingyan couldn’t help looking over.

They saw the beautiful woman in red lying on the floor, so pitiful she invited sympathy. Full of hope, she asked, “Don’t you like me?”

“Didn’t you promise to protect me from harm?”

“Don’t you love me enough to do anything for me?”

“Then do it!”