As the two finally regained their composure and sat down, the
attention of everyone was drawn to someone coming down the stairs.
It was Zhu Ji.
He was the one who had followed Chen Jinpeng first yesterday
and used intimidation to demand his ghost friend’s luck points.
When Chen Jinpeng died last night, everyone was surprised.
They were surprised that it was Chen Jinpeng from the sixth floor who had died
and astonished that such a skilled player could die so easily.
The players who had used intimidation and coercion on their
ghost friends, besides being surprised, were also panicked. They didn’t expect
their ghost friends to commit suicide.
They had hardly slept all night and had been trying to come
up with solutions.
Zhu Ji’s solution was to lock up and tie his ghost friend to
prevent it from committing suicide.
He somehow found a large birdcage and put his ghost friend
inside, tying its arms to the iron bars of the cage with a rope.
The slime toy was bound in the birdcage, leaning against the
bars, hanging its head lifelessly, devoid of any vitality.
Chen Jinpeng’s death not only failed to halt the
deterioration of their relationship with the ghost friends but also pushed it
toward a more severe direction.
Zhu Shuangshuang said, “Zhu Ji, you’ve gone too far. How
could you treat your ghost friend like this?”
This time she wasn’t as angry as last night, but still
managed to provoke the anxious Zhu Ji.
“What do you know? Do you understand the danger I’m in right
now? Do you know how I feel? I’m fucking about to die! And you’re blaming me?!”
Zhu Shuangshuang wasn’t intimidated by his angry voice and
menacing face. She stood up and, with an equally angry tone, said, “By doing
this, you’re only speeding up your own death!”
“He’s not withholding luck points from you. He simply doesn’t
have any. Can’t you understand that?”
Zhu Ji grew even angrier. Who could accept that their ghost
friend had no luck points? That meant they were accepting their inevitable
death.
He strode over, pointing at Zhu Shuangshuang. “What the fuck
are you babbling about? Say another word and see what happens!”
Zhu Shuangshuang was sitting between Ning Su and Meng Jiang.
Zhu Ji’s hand pointing at her was right in front of Meng Jiang’s eyes. With a
forceful movement, Meng Jiang slapped his arm, sending him tumbling halfway
around. “Speak nicely and stop pointing randomly!”
Zhu Shuangshuang didn’t fear him at all. She couldn’t bear it
any longer.
She deftly pulled out a chair and stood on it, positioning
herself to overlook Meng Jiang and face Zhu Ji, as well as those players who
had used intimidation tactics to force their ghost friends or were hesitant
about resorting to such methods. She said, “Think with your brains!”
“The ghost friends are most afraid of the monster children.
They’re the ones who can tear them apart and crush them to death. Bu Bu is
being hung over the monster children’s head. If there’s any luck left, would it
hesitate to give Chen Jinpeng some luck to save its life? Will it fall into the
group of monsters it feared the most? It simply can’t give any more!”
She said with certainty, “I believe that as long as they have
a bit of luck in their hands, they will give it to us.”
The restaurant fell silent, and in the quiet, it was easy to
hear the quiet sobbing of a few ghost friends, especially the slime toy bound
in a cage.
With its arms tied on both sides, its small head drooped
weakly, tears falling drop by drop.
“Puh... Ya...“
The players with low luck turned pale, their faces
alternating between white and black.
Ji Mingrui lowered his head and looked at Sui Sui. He put
down his chopsticks and gently touched the paper-cut doll that was hanging its
head.
Even if it had corpse fragments inside him, so what? It had
only just gained consciousness, and it had given him so much luck.
Even the scarecrow doll could give Qian Dongfang six points
of luck. It had never harmed Qian Dongfang and had always stayed by his bedside
when he was seriously injured.
Shi Tianzhu spoke lightly, “Let’s eat.”
Ning Su nodded, “Mmm!”
And immediately picked up his chopsticks.
Breakfast came to an end amidst a moment of silence.
After finishing breakfast, Ning Su said to Shi Tianzhu, “You
watch over here. I’ll go and give it a try.”
This was what he had discussed with Shi Tianzhu last night
when he went to the sixth floor.
Shi Tianzhu nodded and took the wax figurine with her as she
went upstairs.
Ning Su, along with Gui Sheng and Blood Doll, went to the
garden.
The three individuals on the fourth floor also followed him
to the garden, thinking it would be similar to before, where they would bring
their ghost friend to play for a while. However, they didn’t expect that Ning
Su was gradually approaching a dangerous location.
He brought Blood Doll to the iron gate.
Yesterday, a few players drove their ghost friend out,
demanding luck points in return.
Gui Sheng: “Huh?”
Not just Gui Sheng, but the players in the garden were all
shocked.
“What does this mean? Is he also...?”
“He’s only two luck points away. If they can force it out
now, they can leave. I can understand that.”
“It’s quite funny. His teammate just confidently stated at
the dining table that if a ghost friend had luck points, they’ll give it to us
freely. But now he’s directly demanding it.”
Zhu Shuangshuang: “What are you talking about? He wouldn’t do
that! He’s not that kind of person.”
The next moment, she was proven wrong.
Ning Su pushed Blood Doll toward the gap in the gate.
Blood Doll looked at him with wide eyes, without tears or
blood, clearly looking at him.
In her big eyes, his figure was reflected.
Ning Su placed his hand on her shoulder and forcefully pushed
her backward.
But she couldn’t be moved.
It was as if some force blocked him, not directly opposing
the force he exerted with his hand, but obstructing Blood Doll.
He exerted more force, so much that the veins on the back of
his hand bulged.
Blood Doll’s eyes moistened, about to form tears, but before
that could happen, she was pulled into the gate and half embraced in someone’s
arms.
A familiar embrace with a very familiar aura.
These days, the energy that flowed into her body and nurtured
her.
A hand gently stroked her hair at the back of her head, and a
soft voice said, “I’m sorry.”
Ning Su arranged her hair, which was becoming more and more
like real hair. He pinned her lily flower hairpin to the left side, separating
it from her hair.
The boy said to her, “I’m not trying to force you. I just
wanted to check something. I told you I wouldn’t force you for luck points.”
“You have to believe me. I’m not in a hurry to leave. After
all, the food here is delicious.”
Blood Doll, with big eyes, stared at him without blinking.
Ning Su looked at her for a moment and said, “As promised, on
the first night you came here, I said I would save you. Did I break that
promise?”
“I feed you every day, and you slowly gain energy, gradually
freeing yourself from where you were trapped. I...” The boy swallowed his
words, fell silent for a moment, and said, “I treat you so well, so you better
treat me well in the future.”
“...”
“Hmm?” Gui Sheng leaned over with a small head. “Coming out?”
He and Ning Su both looked at Blood Doll.
Compared to when she first arrived, Blood Doll looked more
like a real person, especially now that her eyes were free from tears. They
were lively and beautiful, an exceptionally beautiful pair of eyes.
Her thick black hair also emitted a healthy shine.
She really seemed like a person appearing from within a doll.
Gui Sheng: “Cute!”
Ning Su: “Beautiful!”
Gui Sheng: “Super cute!”
Ning Su: “Super beautiful!”
“...”
The teardrops in the corner of her eyes were put away.
The two boys flattered and brought fresh flowers for the
Blood Doll, obsequiously placing them in her hands.
All the players in the garden: “...”
Zhu Shuangshuang was also helpless and asked, “What are you
doing exactly?”
Ning Su didn’t answer her. He looked up at the direction of
the sixth floor, then turned to look at Ji Mingrui and Meng Jiang. “Have you
figured it out?”
They nodded.
They were the first ones to figure it out because they were
the first to attempt to escape from the castle.
That night, Ji Mingrui, accompanied by his ghost friend, and
Meng Jiang tried to break through the gate together, but they were all bounced
back, including the ghost friend.
And yesterday, Chen Jinpeng and Zhu Ji successfully expelled
their ghost friends.
Today, Ning Su tried again, but his ghost friend still couldn’t
be pushed out.
The ones that could leave were the ones that slowly provided
luck, the ghost friends considered as authentic Gu Man Tong as the system
speculated.
They raised these Gu Man Tong to help them reincarnate. If
they could leave after being raised for a few days, could they also take the
players out with them?
Afterward, Zhu Shuangshuang also understood.
Chen Jinpeng and Zhu Ji were indeed lucky; they possessed
treasures.
But they didn’t know.
Especially Chen Jinpeng, he would never know how good the
ghost friend he thought of as useless.
They didn’t stay in the garden for long and went to Room 407
to discuss this matter.
They stood on the balcony of Room 407, looking down, unaware
of whether the other players had thought of this.
“Should we tell Zhu Ji?”
“Let’s watch things first. It’s not necessarily a good thing
to talk about this before we’re sure.”
After Zhu Shuangshuang made those remarks on the table, the
rest of the day remained relatively calm.
Those players didn’t completely stop using intimidating
methods; they just became milder. After scaring the ghost friend once or twice
and gaining one or two points of luck, they couldn’t obtain any more through
ordinary means.
They had to accept that the ghost friend no longer had any
luck points.
Obtaining those one or two points had already come at the
cost of the ghost friend’s self-depletion through intimidation.
Looking at the exhausted and weak ghost friend, the players’
expressions weren’t too pleasant.
Zhu Shuangshuang: “From now on, they won’t scare the ghost
friend anymore and will treat them properly, right?”
According to the current situation, that should be the case.
However, this game involved the system.
Shortly after dinner ended, and the players returned to their
respective floors, they heard the familiar command from the system once again.
【Players, please return to your rooms and wait for the
birth of the ghost friend.】
All the players were taken aback.
Meng Jiang asked, “What does that mean? Didn’t our ghost
friend already appear? Wasn’t it one for each of us?”
Zhu Shuangshuang was also puzzled. “I remember when we first
entered the game, the system said ‘a ghost friend,’ implying it was one,
right?”
Ji Mingrui said, “It depends on whether it’s ‘one’ during the
process or ‘one’ as the result.”
Both of them were stunned, not knowing the direction this
development was taking.
“So, when the newly born ghost friend knocks on the door,
should we let them in?” Zhu Shuangshuang asked.
Just imagine, if there were two ghost friends, the obvious
advantage would be that they could obtain luck points from both of them.
But at the same time, they would have to take care of two
ghost friends, and if one of them died, they might die as well.
The four of them simultaneously looked at their respective
ghost friends.
【Players, please return to your own rooms. The first ghost
friend is about to appear.】
The four of them didn’t have time to discuss a definitive
answer before the system prompted them to return to their rooms.
Following the pattern from the first night, the ghost friend
appeared first, followed by the monster children.
With the experience from the previous night and their
interactions with the ghost friends over the past few days, the players weren’t
as scared this time, but they were still bewildered.
“Bang, bang, bang!” The ghost friend knocked on Room
403’s door.
403 didn’t open the door.
“Bang, bang, bang! Bang, bang, bang!” Another ghost
friend knocked on Room 404’s door.
404 didn’t open the door.
405 didn’t open the door.
406 didn’t open the door.
No matter how they knocked or cried, all four doors remained
tightly shut.
The four people behind the doors held onto their ghost
friend, but it wasn’t easy for them.
The reason they confidently chose not to open the doors for
now was that tonight the windows were opened on the fifth floor, and the
monster children couldn’t enter the fourth floor.
If the monster children couldn’t enter, it couldn’t harm the
ghost friends outside the doors.
The knocking stopped.
The sound of footsteps grew distant in the corridor, followed
by the sound of the wooden board being moved at the entrance.
“Did they go upstairs?”
“Yes.”
Not long after, they heard the song of the monster children.
Only then did the four of them open their doors to check.
The ghost friends were nowhere to be seen in the corridor,
but the sound of the monster children’s song grew closer outside.
They stood by their respective doors, waiting.
They heard the monster children crawl across their arched
windows.
It’s unknown how much time passed, but finally, that system
notification sounded.
【Player Bai Shuang’s ghost friend has been destroyed.】
Just that one sentence.
Thanks for the update
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update!!
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