Ruan Qing lowered his eyes to the coin in his hand, the reverse side facing up. His slender, pale fingers curled slightly as he gently grasped the coin in his palm.
After the system broadcast sounded, under normal circumstances, one would leave the instance after ten seconds.
Ruan Qing looked up at Han Ze and no longer held his hand over his still-bleeding abdomen. Instead, he reached out and used all his strength to choke Han Ze by the neck.
The neck was an exceptionally fragile area. Most people, when touched there, would instinctively become alert.
They might even attack.
But Han Ze didn’t move at all. He simply looked at Ruan Qing in silence, allowing the blood from Ruan Qing’s hands to stain his neck red.
The blood trickled down his neck, and Ruan Qing’s pale fingers, also smeared with blood, added a hint of inexplicable seduction and sensuality.
Ruan Qing was almost too weak to stand. After grabbing Han Ze’s neck, he used the leverage to tilt his head up and then leaned in for a kiss.
Because of the blood at the corners of Ruan Qing’s mouth, Han Ze’s thin lips were also stained with blood.
But it didn’t look frightening at all. On the contrary, it seemed incredibly tender.
The lighting in the Life and Death Casino wasn’t harsh. The two of them weren’t standing directly under the light, with alternating shadows casting over them, creating a breathtakingly beautiful scene.
The entire picture carried a hint of peaceful serenity, as if time itself had come to a halt.
Han Ze’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected Ruan Qing to kiss him. His heartbeat paused for a moment, and then he reflexively reached out to embrace Ruan Qing and kiss him back.
However, the ten seconds were up, and the person in his arms vanished—disappearing just as his hand was about to reach him.
Han Ze was left holding nothing but air.
***
[Congratulations, player Ruan Qing, for clearing the instance <Life and Death Casino>, earning 300 points.]
[Congratulations, player, for killing a key NPC, earning 3,000 points.]
[Due to player breaking character settings, points deduction: ???]
[Final point total: 3,300.]
Upon returning to the system space, all ordinary physical injuries would be healed, restoring players to the state they were in before entering the instance.
So, the wound on Ruan Qing’s abdomen had long since disappeared, leaving only the bloodstains covering his body and the coin he had originally brought into the instance.
Ruan Qing glanced down at the coin in his hand, casually slipping it into his pocket, and then turned his attention to his settlement panel.
The massive debt of points he owed had already been erased, and even though he had revealed his identity as a player, there was no indication of any collapse in his character setup.
It was obvious that someone had tampered with it.
That person was very likely Su Zhen.
After Ruan Qing’s gaze lingered on the question mark for a few seconds, he looked at his total points.
The points gained from this dungeon weren’t many, but the rewards were probably the greatest.
‘Did you obtain Han Ze’s power?’
The system was silent for several seconds before responding with a simple “Mm.”
The system’s voice was somewhat deep, making it hard to discern any particular emotion.
Ruan Qing didn’t pay attention to the system’s tone, and spoke thoughtfully, ‘On to the next dungeon.’
The system paused for a moment upon hearing this. [Aren’t you going to rest for a bit in the game’s main city?]
‘No.’
Going to the main city now would mean a guaranteed run-in with those people.
When Ruan Qing kissed Han Ze, he had caught a glimpse of those people leaving the casino out of the corner of his eye.
In other words, they had seen him kiss Han Ze.
Going to the main city now would be courting death. It was better to dive straight into the next dungeon.
The system said nothing more. It selected a dungeon for Ruan Qing, but just as it was about to transport him there, the data became erratic, and the name of the selected dungeon suddenly changed.
After cooperating with Ruan Qing, the system had naturally chosen the most suitable dungeon for him.
For example, the previous Life and Death Casino.
But the altered dungeon was one the system had never considered, one completely unsuitable for Ruan Qing.
The system quickly attempted to use his power to revert the dungeon, but he was utterly unable to resist that force.
It was a power that came directly from the Infinite Horror game itself, from ‘It.’
A power impossible to resist.
The system could only watch helplessly as Ruan Qing entered the altered dungeon.
***
[Welcome, players, to the dungeon <Haunted Building>.]
[The Mingya Building is located in a luxury neighborhood and is a top choice for many wealthy people.]
[But this building seems to be somewhat strange. At midnight, the residents always hear some odd sounds.]
[It seems like... it’s not the sound of a human.]
[Dungeon Task: Survive for seven days, or find out who ‘It’ is.]
[Friendly reminder: Each player has only one chance to identify ‘It.’ If you choose incorrectly, something bad will happen～]
Ruan Qing didn’t immediately reach for his phone because the moment he entered the dungeon, he was stunned.
He only received three days’ worth of the original owner’s memories.
And those memories told Ruan Qing that his current situation was worse than ever before.
The original owner suffered from Moyamoya disease, a condition where memory could not be retained for long.
Moyamoya disease*, also known as spontaneous occlusion of the circle of Willis**, is a chronic cerebrovascular condition with no known cause and no cure.
People with this disease have memories similar to a goldfish: after a period of time, they would forget everything that happened before.
While Moyamoya disease could be treated with a bypass surgery, the surgery carried significant risks. The original owner’s father refused to allow it, delaying any surgery indefinitely.
The original owner only took medication to alleviate the symptoms.
But even with medication, memories could only last two or three days. After that, everything would be forgotten, leaving only basic life skills.
Without medication, the memory could only last one day at most.
The original owner typically relied on a notebook to record important matters to remind himself.
Now, Ruan Qing had become the original owner.
In other words, he might even forget that he was a player and forget to strive to clear the dungeon.
What’s worse was that he’s currently been kidnapped.
The original owner, named Ren Qing, was the son of a real estate developer.
Ren Qing’s father was not a good man. He refused to pay his workers, outright denying their wages.
He even erased all traces of the workers ever having worked there.
The original owner’s father had never signed any labor contract with the workers. With this situation erased, it was almost impossible to find any evidence to prove anything.
And so, the original owner was kidnapped.
The ones who kidnapped him were the workers who had been wronged by the original owner’s father.
These workers had been working on this building for several years without receiving a penny. Now, the chances of them getting paid were even slimmer, forcing them into a desperate situation.
That’s why they took the risk and kidnapped the original owner, hoping to use him to threaten his father into paying the workers the wages they were owed.
The original owner’s father had only one son. Although this plan seemed risky, the chances of success were quite high.
However, if it had succeeded, Ruan Qing wouldn’t have become the original owner.
His status as a special NPC meant that, upon entering the game, he was destined to face life-threatening danger.
If his guess was correct, there were only two possible outcomes in the current situation.
The first was that the original owner’s father didn’t care about him, letting the workers kill him.
The second was that the original owner’s father paid the ransom, but the workers, out of spite, killed him anyway.
People who have been pushed to the brink are capable of anything, including killing the only son of a real estate developer.
In either scenario, it seemed like he wouldn’t survive.
Moreover, there wasn’t just one worker guarding him, so even trying to escape would be extremely difficult.
…If he could even remember that he had been kidnapped later.
Three days were about to pass, and the original owner’s memory reset time was fast approaching.
Ruan Qing was currently lying on the cold floor, his hands and feet bound, making it difficult to move.
He ignored the chill spreading through his body and struggled to lift his head to survey the surroundings.
He had to escape before losing his memory.
It was a dimly lit room. The door not far away was locked, and the room was dark with no lights on.
Only a sliver of light was coming through a window in the distance, indicating it wasn’t nighttime yet and casting a faint glow across the room.
The room was bare, looking like an abandoned building.
The original owner had been kidnapped for several hours now, and the workers had taken both his notebook and phone.
His abdomen still throbbed with a dull pain—not from hunger, but from the beating he endured after being kidnapped by the workers venting their anger.
The incident involving the original owner’s father had nothing to do with the original owner. He only found out after being kidnapped.
But the workers didn’t hold back despite the original owner’s innocence, which showed how much hatred they harbored for his father.
The original owner was pampered and sheltered as he grew up, and his body was frail due to illness. Naturally, he couldn’t withstand the workers’ force and passed out immediately.
There was no phone, and he couldn’t move at all. Right now, Ruan Qing couldn’t even check the mission objectives.
The workers had blindfolded the original owner when they kidnapped him, and his memories offered no clues about the current location.
Ruan Qing looked at the glass not far away and tried hard to crawl toward it.
However, just as he was struggling to move toward the glass, a man’s deep, hoarse voice came from outside.
“Boss Ren, it’s been three hours already. You’ve had plenty of time.”
The moment Ruan Qing heard the voice, he immediately froze and didn’t make another sound, quietly listening to what was happening outside.
The “Boss Ren” they were talking about was probably the original owner’s father.
There was no way the original owner’s father would show up here in person, so it was clear that the man outside was talking to him over the phone.
“If we don’t see the money soon, you’ll only be receiving your son’s corpse.”
The man’s voice was hoarse and laced with menace, as if he were a desperate criminal.
Ruan Qing lowered his eyes to his bound hands, and upon hearing the man’s words, his heart sank uncontrollably.
It was unclear what the person on the other end of the call said, but the man let out a cold laugh, his voice filled with cruelty. “Boss Ren, if you dare to call the police, we can’t guarantee that your young master will return unharmed.”
After saying that, the man fell silent for several seconds, seemingly listening to the person on the other end.
The man didn’t put the phone on speaker, so Ruan Qing couldn’t hear the voice on the other side.
“Half an hour.”
“If I don’t see the money in half an hour, Boss Ren, you’ll receive one of your son’s hands.”
The man laughed softly, his voice carrying a trace of madness. “Although we can’t return the young master to you whole until we see the money, sending him back in pieces is no problem at all.”
After he finished speaking, it seemed the man hung up the phone, and the next second, footsteps began to sound.
The sound was growing closer and closer.
He was... walking toward him.
Ruan Qing immediately closed his eyes, adjusted his breathing, and pretended to still be unconscious.
T/N: *Moyamoya disease is a rare, chronic cerebrovascular disorder where certain arteries in the brain, particularly those in the circle of Willis, become narrowed or blocked. This leads to reduced blood flow to the brain, causing the development of small, fragile blood vessels as a form of compensation. These tiny vessels resemble a “puff of smoke” on an angiogram, which is where the term Moyamoya comes from—it’s Japanese for “hazy, like a puff of smoke.”
**The circle of Willis is a ring-like structure at the base of the brain formed by the joining of several important arteries. It provides multiple pathways for blood to circulate, which helps protect the brain from reduced blood flow if one part becomes blocked or narrowed.
Puta que pariu fudeu demais agora
ReplyDeleteIt hit right in all his weeks spots （/TДT)/