Chapter 8 (2/2)
“Hey! How can you say that!” Lu Xiaotao was a little unhappy.
“Humph! What I said is the truth. You rookies are way too naive.” Luo Mansu seemed to have eaten his fill. He stood up and patted his beer belly, “There are three rooms in this house, and every room has two beds. It was supposed to be four to five people to a room, but those three didn’t come back yet. I’m guessing they won’t be back. Ding Tiantian, Ding Mimi and I will take a room. What you do with the other two rooms is up to you.”
Xiao Tangqiu had no time to wonder if Luo Mansu had any ulterior motives in sharing a room with the twin sisters because he was shocked by the implication of his words.
“You said they won’t be coming back. What do you mean by that? Are they all dead?”
“Since there are twelve plates of fish left, they should still be alive.” Luo Mansu laughed ominously, “But I can’t say if they’ll still be alive tomorrow.”
Lu Xiaotao hesitated, then opened her mouth to say, “……….. Actually, a few hours ago, Yang Bing and I saw the three of them enter that big house.”
“What?! They went into that big house?” They were all stunned.
Lu Xiaotao nodded her head and turned to look at her boyfriend before continuing, “That big house seems to be called Yun Manor. We saw them knock on the door, and then the door opened on its own. But they weren’t frightened at all, and entered without a second thought…….. Yang Bing and I were a little afraid, so we didn’t follow them in.”
Everyone was quiet for a few seconds, until Lu Dadong broke the silence, “They must be dead then!”
Luo Mansu shrugged and left for one of the rooms in the house. The twin sisters followed after him. Zeng Jinping and his other two teammates picked the innermost room, so Xiao Tangqiu and the remaining three of them had no choice but to take the room closest to the door.
However, it didn’t matter which room they got, since the rooms were equally run-down. There were two narrow, old-fashioned wooden beds in the room; there wasn’t any other furniture but there was a very small window, high up on one of the walls.
Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian shared a bed, while Lu Xiaotao and Yang Bing shared the other.
The room didn’t have a diesel lantern, so they could only feel their way around in the dark. Xiao Tangqiu asked the couple how they got here.
At first, Yang Bing was hesitant to talk about it, but maybe it was because Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian looked harmless, he eventually said truthfully, “Xiaotao and I were playing games at an internet cafe, when the electricity got cut off. Next thing we know, we’re here.”
“Game? What game?” Xiao Tangqiu felt his heart skip a beat.
Yang Bing mentioned the name of a very popular online game, then asked, “What about you guys?”
Xiao Tangqiu left out some of the more important details and said, “We were playing video games too.”
“…….. Why is it related to video games?” Yang Bing looked baffled.
“I’m not sure as well…..” Xiao Tangqiu sighed.
After that, Yang Bing and Lu Xiaotao started to whisper to each other. Xiao Tangqiu also turned to Tang Mianmian and said softly, “Don’t mention anything about ‘Abyss’ to anyone first.”
Tang Mianmian nodded in the dark, and then quietly said, “I’m hungry…..” The fish was smelly and disgusting, and even with his nose pinched, he could only eat a slice.
Xiao Tangqiu searched his pockets and found a milk candy, which he offered to Tang Mianmian. Tang Mianmian hesitated, but Xiao Tangqiu immediately reassured him, “Don’t worry, I have more.”
Tang Mianmian took the candy and quietly ate it.
“Although it feels really dangerous here…..” Xiao Tangqiu lamented, ‘No one died today, so thank God.”
Tang Mianmian sucked on the candy as he mumbled, “Fuck! Can you stop raising Flags?! Don’t you know if you pull a Flag you’ll have to receive it!”
Tang Mianmian argued, “But this isn’t a game……….”
He had just finished speaking when they suddenly heard a scream.
“Aaaaaaahhh!”
In the dead of the night, the silence was broken by that blood-curdling scream.