The three players couldn’t stand it anymore.
They returned in silence.
The two ghosts were completely different from what they had imagined.
Before this, they always felt that the corpses in the bus were terrifying and bloodthirsty, devoid of any humanity.
Pang Yang’s voice was heavy, “They haven’t realized they’re dead, have they?”
Ning Su made a sound of agreement.
Fang Qi felt inexplicably uneasy in his heart. “They were both supposed to go to the same destination, and they didn’t know how they died.”
The old man and the young man hadn’t realized they were dead.
But they knew.
They knew that the old man couldn’t bring his grandson’s favorite little chicken for him to see.
His daughter and grandson would never see the old man again. They wouldn’t know until later that the old man had died on the way to secretly visit them.
They knew that the young man couldn’t surprise his mother with the acceptance letter.
He couldn’t fulfill the dream of studying at the prestigious institution that countless people considered the pinnacle of academic achievement after years of desperate studying.
Looking at the corpses and ghosts on the ship, they unexpectedly saw the joys and sorrows of the mortal world.
How did these people die?
Did they all board with expectations and regrets, wanting to meet someone they liked very much?
On the bus, they noticed many corpses moving back and forth, muttering or crying loudly.
But at that time, they never thought about why.
So, there’s still this part of the journey in the underworld.
Walking the path of the underworld meant transitioning from the living world to the realm of the dead. It symbolized bidding farewell to earthly existence and embracing death.
That night, Ling Xiao received another note thrown up from below.
[I met a senior today who couldn’t get into university.]
[I think I’ll talk to him tomorrow about the scenery and culture of the school.]
That night, Ning Su fell asleep thinking about his campus life.
Not knowing how long he slept, he heard a sound and felt a hand reaching for his wrist.
The cold touch made him realize that it wasn’t a living person.
Originally, Ning Su could sense the presence of life without the other being getting too close. However, upon entering this dungeon, the system seemed to have imposed limitations on his abilities, making Ning Su’s senses less sharp.
But now that his wrist was being pulled, Ning Su couldn’t pretend not to notice.
Ning Su thought to himself, finally, a corpse had come to test him.
These past two days, although no players had died, it didn’t mean that the corpses were inactive.
They hadn’t stopped testing the players. By tonight, almost all players had been tested, including the human pupa master.
However, players had become more cautious and clever now. They knew that no matter what, they must not respond to them, nor touch them. Taking precautions by covering themselves with a blanket and blocking their ears to avoid any encounters.
Or, like the human pupa master, she dealt with the corpse even before it had a chance to touch her.
Xue Wei not only killed the corpse that tested her but also threw the dismembered body of the one called Hu Li into the lake.
Now, it seemed that in the confrontation between players and corpses; the players had the upper hand.
Previously, there had been no corpses coming to test him, and yet at this moment, one had appeared.
Ning Su slowly opened his eyes.
The corpse wasn’t sitting on his bed, staring at him as one might imagine.
The hand gripping his wrist was reaching in from outside the bed curtain.
Having just woken up from his slumber, Ning Su was still a bit groggy, staring blankly for a while before understanding.
This corpse probably couldn’t lift the heavy curtain of the bed.
Ning Su made a sound of acknowledgment and quickly sat up, helping to pull back the bed curtain.
As Ning Su sat up, the two children also woke up. They rubbed their eyes with their small fists and looked out together with Ning Su.
Outside the window, the wind was whistling, the dark river waves were surging, and the chilly smell flooded into the cabin.
The ship was swaying unsteadily, engulfed in dim light.
In the dim light, dark figures of men faced the window, standing by the bed.
Manman lit up a small night lamp, and the two children looked curiously at the other ‘person’.
Manman: “Mister Ghost? Hello?”
In the warm yellow light, Ning Su saw that the ‘person’ was wearing a black robe.
He paused for a moment.
The person slowly turned around.
Gui Sheng widened his eyes in surprise. “It’s you!”
It was Gui Sheng’s acquaintance and also Ning Su’s.
It was the black-robed man who had entered the <Ghost Animal> dungeon together with him before.
It was the black-robed man who died inexplicably after Ning Su destroyed his soul-locking rope.
Thinking like this, Ning Su felt like he wasn’t on the ship anymore; he was back in Huaiyang Village, in that fiery red and dim wedding hall.
This time, he saw how the black-robed man died.
At the wedding hall, the black-robed man, injured and without his soul-locking rope, was lifted by his assistant Lin Liang and smashed into the coffin when the villagers tried to kill him to keep the secret.
The villagers cherished that coffin, rushing towards it immediately.
Seizing the opportunity, Lin Liang escaped, while the villagers who revealed their true faces dragged the black-robed man to a corner of the wedding hall and attacked him.
The black-robed man, who had successfully navigated through the hellish dungeon instances, probably never imagined that one day he would be beaten to death by a group of villagers.
As he was dragged away, his fingernails clung to the marks carved by the scar-faced man on the coffin.
The emblem of the Yinhua Guild.
He kept muttering “President” in his mouth.
He reached out to Ning Su.
Ning Su took a few steps forward, and as soon as he walked past, he got splattered with the blood from the black-robed man.
That was the first blow the villagers struck against the other, and there would be countless more to follow.
The black-robed man extended a trembling hand towards him, his face pleading, “Ning Su, save me!”
“Ning Su! If it weren’t for you destroying my soul-locking rope, I wouldn’t die for sure!”
“Ning Su, save me! As long as you save me, I won’t blame you anymore.”
“If you don’t save me, can you face the president who has been so good to you?”
Just as Ning Su was about to act, the ground suddenly began to tremble.
The coffin lid was shaken open, and the scar-faced man in a bridal gown sat up, laughing loudly at the villagers.
A small beast with a human body and a dog’s head walked up to the black-robed man, viciously barking.
Ning Su saw a bride with a red veil covering her face standing quietly at the door. A deep, hoarse voice came from under the red veil. “Has the groom from Huaiyang Village received my approval?”
In the midst of the whirlwind, Ning Su returned to the ship.
A small grayish-white hand grabbed his hand, and Gui Sheng stared angrily at the corpse in front of him.
Ning Su looked towards the corpse very close to him, realizing that while the ghost was wearing a black robe, he wasn’t the same black-robed man.
Then who was he?
He patted Gui Sheng’s cold hand. Instead of paying attention to the corpse in front of him, he glanced around the cabin. Many corpses were standing in front of the players’ bunks.
Indeed.
This dungeon was not that simple.
The calm of these past few days was just the tranquility before the storm.
Ning Su recalled the words Shi Tianzhu had once said to him.
The people who had been through several dungeons, very few of them could sleep peacefully.
Ning Su understood why this was arranged as a fourth-level dungeon.
Those who could enter a fourth-level dungeon for the first time were definitely not newcomers; they were all experienced players who had been through many dungeons.
They had all fought side by side with many players or opposed numerous enemies.
Tonight, how many players would reach out to those deep within themselves, harboring guilt or regret?
Thanks for the update
ReplyDeletethis is awful, not only do they have to go through a horrible death, but they probably won't find peace after death
ReplyDelete