Chapter 43: The Rope (1/2)
“Wenwen! Help me, please. There’s a hand on my shoulder!”
Wang Ziwen immediately looked over and saw the ghost’s hand resting on the mortified Xu Xiaojing’s shoulder, alarming her as well.
The deathly pale broken fingers shifted slightly, while its sharp fingernails were poking the delicate skin. It was clear that there was no way that these were just machines.
Towards the ghost’s hand, Wang Ziwen showed fear in her heart, but she couldn’t just drop her friend like she a hot potato that she didn’t care for.
Wang Ziwen saw Xu Xiaojing’s nearly fainting demeanor and toughened herself up, slowly reaching out and grabbing the broken hand’s wrist, forcefully yanking it away!
For a moment, the rotten and bloody flesh on the broken hand’s wrist stained her hand with blood. The broken hand’s fingernails were initially digging into Xu Xiaojing’s skin, so Wang Ziwen had to expend more energy than usual before being able to get it off of Xu Xiaojing’s shoulder.
Her hand reluctantly grasped the ghost’s broken hand, making Wang Ziwen feel sick to the pit of her stomach. Her arm swung with great force, throwing away the ghost’s hand to the skeleton’s direction!
‘Pa-ta.’ The half-up skeletal body fell to the ground. Wang Ziwen took advantage of this distraction and firmly said, “Xiaojing! Let’s move! We need to hurry and leave this place!”
It was a human head that still had not yet been appeased.
The human head slowly opened its eyes, appearing to have extremely dilated pupils. Its mouth drew back its corners into a wide unearthly grin. Its stitches were arched into a terrifying curve, taking up almost half of its almost deformed face.
The human head inconveniently blocked the only way out of the haunted house and suddenly stopped moving.
Seeing a real living human head in front of her, Xu Xiaojing let out a weak whimper again, while Wang Ziwen cautiously distanced themselves from the human head, taking three steps back before stopping. On the other hand, Bai Yan and Su Yize had grave looks on their faces when they first saw the human head. Neither of them wanted to risk their lives by rashly charging forward.
“What do we do? Do we still advance?”
Wang Ziwen eyed the human head and specifically paid close attention to it. She couldn’t help but tightly clench Xu Xiaojing’s hand, “There’s a weird head in the middle of our path. Should we just turn back?”
“The haunted house’s entrance basically doesn’t have a door. So if we go back, we might as well end up dead.” Bai Yan said, “When the time comes where we have to turn back, ghosts will surely appear from behind, and we’d have nowhere to run. It would be better to fight it and rush forward to get out of this place!”
If there were no NPCs in the situation, Bai Yan wouldn’t have acted this crude. Su Yize seemed to be someone who valued life and wasn’t someone who would have his opinion swayed easily, so there was no way that he’d let Bai Yan use the NPCs as scapegoats. However, the fearless Wang Ziwen was with them, so Bai Yan had plans to test her luck.
The ghost’s hand that wasn’t currently on Xu Xiaojing’s body didn’t bring her much harm just now. Xu Xiaojing’s skin wasn’t even scratched, it was just lightly bruised.
So compared to getting his entire body ruthlessly chopped up by the old granny, the broken hand placed on Xu Xiaojing’s shoulder was nothing much. It couldn’t even be compared to the ghost baby and the family of three, who died from getting bitten by their dead dog.
The potentially dangerous broken hand gave Bai Yan a clue, leading him to think that the gory head would be harmless as well. But, he didn’t have any resurrection coins with him this round, so this life was all he had. As a result, he could only manipulate the NPC to do his bidding and test out his theory.
“Let’s move along! I’ll try it out first.” Wang Ziwen turned her head around to face Xu Xiaojing and said in a worried tone, “Be careful when passing by it. You should pay attention and don’t step on it!”
“Okay.”
Xu Xiaojing just silently nodded her head. When Wang Ziwen took a tentative step forward, much to their surprise, the head had also begun to roll after she moved, barreling straight at her.
“F*ck! It’s not over yet! Get away from me!” Wang Ziwen cursed at the head, being unable to avoid it, but her heart hardened in a flash, resulting in her fiercely kicking the human head with her foot and sending it flying towards the wall.
The human head stuck to the wall like glue. And in an instant, the wall gradually extended a pair of ghostly white hands, pulling the human head into the wall, slowly but surely. And in the end, only the face’s cheeks were faintly protruding on the surface of the wall.
Soon, the round cheeks rapidly turned black, assimilating to the color of the wall and leaving a particular pattern on it.
Bai Yan examined the wall, only to discover that the pitch-black wall actually had countless embellishing patterns on it.
Wang Ziwen silently watched with shock as the human head absorbed into the wall. She never considered that there would be ghosts on the wall too!
Needless to say, Xu Xiaojing was so traumatized that she couldn’t risk walking alongside her friend anymore. Xu Xiaojing cowered as she strolled forward, terrified that she herself would be dragged into these dangerous walls.
After the human head had disappeared, the group used up two full minutes to venture on the remaining path. Bai Yan looked at the time and saw that they only used a total of eight minutes on this round, which beat their last attempt by three minutes.
“Wenwen! Let’s get out of here!”
Xu Xiaojing’s throat inadvertently gulped as she stared at the pitch-black exit. The haunted house’s only exit appeared as a black abyss since there were no traces of light beyond it. If they went out through here, will they truly return to the shopping mall’s building safe and sound?
Seeing that Xu Xiaojing was extremely hesitant and was just plain slow to leave, Wang Ziwen firmly said, “I’ll go out first. I’ll be holding your hand, so don’t loosen your grip. We’ll be fine.”
“En.” Xu Xiaojing summoned all her courage, and when Wang Ziwen passed through the exit, she also did the same.
In front of the door, Bai Yan stood still and turned his head to ask Su Yize’s thoughts, “What do you think?”
“I don’t believe that this level is that simple.” Su Yize answered, “The tour guide cryptically disappeared, so she must not be a regular person. Apart from her, not a single NPC has died yet, so there must certainly be a more terrible situation waiting us in a while.”
Bai Yan nodded his head in agreement and went through the exit without saying another word. Su Yize followed him closely behind because he was scared to be left all alone in this strange haunted house.
“Wenwen, are you there?”
“Wenwen where did you go?”
“Where is everyone? Don’t tease me! I’m absolutely terrified!”
Xu Xiaojing was standing in front of the dusky entrance of the haunted house, trembling from fear.
She timidly looked around her dark surroundings, but no one else was around. Besides her, Wang Ziwen and the other two guys she didn’t know all that well had entirely disappeared without a trace as if she was the only person left.
“Why… Why am I the only one left here? Didn’t everyone go out?”
Xu Xiaojing bit her lip nervously as her vision had suddenly turned fuzzy.
Compared to the fear she felt the last two times in the haunted house, this time, she felt completely naked from despair!
Numerous dreadful thoughts immediately popped out in her mind. The thought of everyone but her escaping and being left in the haunted house alone made her believe that she was done for. Misery and anxiety fully consumed her heart, making her unable to breathe properly!
“Wenwen! Wang Ziwen! Wang Ziwen! Can you hear me? Where the hell are you?”
Xu Xiaojing used the loudest voice she had mustered her entire life to call for her friend, but her voice only echoed throughout the absolutely empty haunted house. Out of nowhere, the music that played in the haunted house had suddenly come to a halt.