Chapter 45: Level End (1/2)

The girl’s face was swelling and colored purple, while her eyeballs burst out of its sockets. Even if the haunted house wasn’t well lit, Wang Ziwen could still tell that this wasn’t a living person.

But… the face was indeed Xu Xiaojing’s.

“Xiaojing, you…”

Wang Ziwen took two steps back from the shocking revelation. Her best friend had turned into this, she was obviously already dead.

Wang Ziwen kept instinctively recoiling back as Xu Xiaojing slowly stood up and moved forward, taking small strides.

“Wenwen, do you not recognize me?”

“Didn’t you say that we’re the bestest friends?”

“Being hanged alone made me feel so cold and empty inside. Would you join me?”

While being hanged in the rope’s noose, Wang Ziwen was frantically wide-eyed. She couldn’t believe what was happening and just stared at the insincere smirk her close friend had on her face. She and Xu Xiaojing were face to face, and amid her anger and resentment, she didn’t dare swallow her breath.

“F*ck! She’s dead!” Su Yize nervously spat out, “The two NPCs are dead. The next ones should be us!”

After saying this, the two people had already overtaken the dead body hanging on the rope and ran towards the haunted house’s exit. In the face of the pitch-black exit, the two stopped in their tracks and stood there for quite some time, not daring to enter.

“Bai Yan, have you figured out a way to survive?”

“No, did you?”

Bai Yan shot a glance over to Su Yize. He truly hasn’t figured it out yet, but even if he did, he wouldn’t tell Su Yize. If he did find a way out, why should he share it with others?

Bai Yan gazed at the exit, still not wanting to walk over after quite some time. Right now, there were no NPCs that they could send to death, and the next one to disappear when they entered would be him. They stood in front of the exit as Bai Yan sunk into his bitter thoughts. During the two times they went into the haunted house, only people disappeared and no one had died. Then, why is it that someone had suddenly died now?

Did they somehow trigger a route leading to their deaths?

Bai Yan looked at the time. As of now, the 13 minutes have already passed since they started their third round in the haunted house. Based on this round’s gaming experience, Bai Yan only felt that it was extremely confusing. The clues were all over the place. Besides the note written in blood by the newly deceased that wanted them to return to the entrance, how was that of any help?

It didn’t even mention…

Not being able to solve a way out of the game using the clues, Bai Yan’s heart sank, so he reevaluated the series of events that had happened during their time in the escape room.

Each of the two escape rooms could be completed within ten minutes of playing. For the first one, they only needed three and a half minutes to clear it, so nothing unusual took place at that time. For the second escape room, they used up 15 minutes to clear it, taking into consideration Xu Xiaojing seeing the female ghost hanging on the ceiling as well as their investigation on the violently swinging rope.

After going through the escape room, their team formed a straight line to enter the haunted house. According to their normal pace, ten minutes would have sufficed to completely go through the whole path, but because Xu Xiaojing had many recurring instances of squatting down and crying due to fear, more than ten minutes were added to their trip. And just before they got out, the sight of the female ghost greeted their eyes. They left the place in the same order and had the guide disappear out of nowhere.

In their second round of the haunted house, they consumed eight full minutes to finish the journey, including the guide’s eerie curse, the ghost’s broken hand, and the human head, yet these ghouls didn’t bring any harm to the players and the NPCs. After they passed through the exit once more, Xu Xiaojing suddenly disappeared.

The third time was also like this right now. They used up 13 minutes to complete it, but midway, they encountered the mummified corpse of the earlier player, receiving a clue about the entrance, and finally, Xu Xiaojing murdered Wang Ziwen, making all of the NPCs totally dead.

Moreover, the road leading to the exit of this haunted house became more and more treacherous the further they went in, leading the area around the entrance to be the cleanest, which was confirmed by the dead player’s message. The entrance must be the real way out of here…

Looking back at the entire sequence of events, Bai Yan sensed that there was something missing.  He then reviewed what had happened yet again and felt that he had finally caught onto something.

“The piece of paper with bloody writing wanted us to go back to the entrance, while the haunted house’s environment also suggests that the exit is extremely dangerous.”

“Each escape room was ten minutes, and the guide said that it also takes 10 minutes to get through half of the haunted house…” Bai Yan stared at the countdown on his phone’s screen and thought deeply. “During their time in the second escape room as well as their first trip in the haunted house, they were able to see a ghost’s image, but neither the players nor the NPCs were hurt. When the ghost appeared, I wasn’t able to take note of the time, but it’s been a while since they cleared it. Now that I think about it, is it possible that it was also ten minutes?”

Bai Yan’s train of thought became clearer, leading him to gradually understand the situation. His previous experiences in the app’s games had given them hints. After exceeding 10 minutes in each game, the ghost would kill a person!

They cleared the first escape room rather quickly, so they didn’t cross paths with a ghost. But during the time at the second escape room, their clearance was slightly delayed. As a result, when the time hit the 10-minute mark, the ghost started to appear inside the escape room. That was the hint the game gave them.

During their first round in the haunted house, Xu Xiaojing’s constant squatting down and wailing wasted everyone’s time, so the tour guide’s initial 10-minute route was extended. After ten minutes, a beam of the female ghost flashed right before the exit. But, there was a possibility that the ghost still had not killed anyone during the first round because it was the second hint the game gave them.

“There was also the second round. We only used up eight minutes to complete the journey, so the ghost merely threatened us with its presence, not opting to hurt anyone. When the third round came, we got caught up reading the note, so once 10 minutes had passed, we came across Xu Xiaojing…”

Bai Yan truly believed that this theory was the most probable one. Combining the ill intentions of the haunted house that wanted them to die in this creepy place, every time the haunted house put something in their path, it surely never meant good news for them.

Integrating the two ideas together, Bai Yan decided that he didn’t care if his reasoning was right or wrong. He only needed to run as fast as he could during the next round and reach the exit within 10 minutes. It didn’t matter what he would encounter in his path, he wouldn’t stop for anything!

Once he secured his plans, Bai Yan raised his head and saw Su Yize still racking his brain. Obviously, he still hadn’t figured out how to survive the haunted house.

Bai Yan recalled that this apathetic person was the one who just stood there and watched as he was slowly consumed by the ghostly hands from the wall. He didn’t even offer help or yell out. So, Bai Yan softly chuckled, and without the other noticing, he slowly moved his body, entering headfirst into the exit.