Ch 178
The woman’s face was pale, a pair of muddy eyes gleamed with a weird blue-gray luster and under the dim light her features seemed distorted and blurred, as if randomly painted—on that mask-like stiff face, that expression resembling shyness looked extremely weird and abrupt.
She reached out to take the kitchen knife from Ge Xiu’s hand and then gave him a wink with that terrifying face.
Ge Xiu: “…”
? ? ?
Immediately afterwards, the woman turned around and the ominous chopping sound sounded again.
Ge Xiu switched his position slightly and looked at stovetop from a different angle. To his eyes came a pile of black-red sticky internal organs piled up on the chopping board in front of the woman, some of which had been chopped into meat sauce and some were piled aside. Smelly blood slowly oozed out from the intestines. The woman hummed in a low voice while chopping, the monotonous sound of the knife hitting the chopping board echoed in the narrow kitchen.
After chopping all the viscera on the chopping board into minced meat, the woman dropped the kitchen knife, grabbed the minced meat with her pale fingers and stuffed it into her mouth. The vague sound of chewing and swallowing sounded particularly hair-raising in otherwise silent room.
She turned her head to look at Ge Xiu and asked softly,
“Are you hungry?”
The lower half of the woman’s face was completely dyed black and red, sharp shark-like teeth could be seen between the gap of split lips, some minced meat residue stuck inside:
Ge Xiu didn’t change his expression: “No matter how delicious, it’s not as good as your beauty.”
The woman seemed to be pleased and giggled:
“You’re such a sweet talker.”
She slowly pulled out a finger from her mouth, put it in Ge Xiu’s hand, and winked at him again:
“Take it as a meeting gift from jiejie.”
Ge Xiu looked down at the severed bloody finger in his palm. The cross section was very neat and you could still see white bone and broken muscles inside, as if it had been freshly cut.
When he raised his head again, he found that the kitchen in front of him had returned to its previous appearance.
Dilapidated, gray and dusty.
The kitchen knife, the chopping board, blood and pieces of internal organs on the chopping board as well as the woman who chopped the meat had all disappeared, leaving only an empty narrow kitchen.
Ge Xiu was taken aback for a moment, frozen for a moment.
That’s… that’s it? ?
He frowned, and looked down at the severed finger in his hand for two seconds, but he couldn’t see what was special about it.
Ge Xiu put the finger in his pocket and then walked out of the room.
As soon as he went out, he saw that other players were crowded in the corridor, each with solemn faces as the gloomy atmosphere penetrated the air.
Ge Xiu could smell blood in the air.
He frowned and took two steps forward.
Through the gap between the players, Ge Xiu saw what was being the center of attention.
It was a man in a suit lying on his back on the floor of the corridor, his face was deathly pale and he still had a terrified expression. Large swathes of blood spread from under his body. There was a huge gap below his thoracic spine, as if it had been cut open by some sort of a sharp, the internal organs in the stomach had been shattered into meat sauce, flowing out from the torn abdomen and the strong smell of blood filled the entire corridor.
It must have been a while since he died, the exposed skin was bluish-gray, with corpse spots looming faintly.
— not a player.
Lin Xue, who was standing aside happened to see Ge Xiu at this moment, her eyes lit up and she quickly squeezed towards him as if she’d seen her saviour.
She said in a low voice: “Just now everyone was looking for props in rooms 102 and 103, when suddenly this corpse appeared in the middle of the corridor…”
Lin Xuexia looked at the corpse lying on the ground in fear, her voice trembling:
“Whe, when will this game end? I can’t hold on any longer.”
Ge Xiu patted the other party’s shoulder reassuringly.
At this moment, he suddenly thought of something and his eyes looked down slightly.
He noticed that the base of the index finger of the corpse was empty, as if it had been cleanly cut off.
Ge Xiu raised his eyebrows thoughtfully and walked through the crowd.
He took out the finger from his pocket, squatted down, and connected the severed finger to the base of the finger of the corpse.
——Perfect fit.
The man’s lower jaw seemed loose, gradually opening a gap. His mouth was black and toothless and his tongue was broken at the root, only some white fibers could be seen on the remaining section.
Ge Xiu leaned forward and looked at it for a few seconds, then stretched his hand and took out a piece of paper from his mouth.
He opened the blood-stained paper.
There were only three crooked numbers on it: “201”.
The players crowding around stared at Ge Xiu’s operation in a daze, even Chen Jian who was standing aside was slightly stunned:
“This is…you got a special item?”
Ge Xiu stood up and shrugged indifferently:
“Seems like it.”
He threw the note to Chen Jian: “Maybe it’s a clue for the next floor.”
Chen Jian didn’t expect that he would share the information with others so nonchalantly and caught the paper hurriedly. Other players also rushed to his side to get a glance at the note in his head, their heads pushing against each other. For a while, the corridor was in chaos.
Ge Xiu took the opportunity to escape from the crowd and go to the entrance of the corridor.
In the chaos, Chen Jian glanced at Ge Xiu somewhat complicatedly, but hesitated to speak.
Ge Xiu looked up at the stairwell to the second floor.
There was no light in the stairwell, only vague shadows of two small figures at the end of the dark stairs could be be seen. These two silhouettes stood on the top of the stairs holding hands, their blurred outlines were being swallowed up by the darkness.
“Hee hee hee.”
The looming laughter of a young child came from a distance.
Basically all players understood what was written on the note, the noise and crowding just now finally went down. After confirming that no one had the key to 201, they unanimously decided to go to the second floor to take a look and then make further decisions.
The players walked towards the second floor.
When Chen Jian was about to pass by Ge Xiu, he hesitated for a moment, then stopped, pondered for a few seconds and said,
“You…don’t trust other people too much in this game.”
Ge Xiu curled up corners of his lips noncommittally, showing a pure smile:
“Thanks for reminding me.”
Chen Jian looked at him twice before turning around and walking up.
The figures of the children holding hands at the end of the corridor disappeared at some point and the voice-activated lights in the corridor lit up amidst the footsteps of everyone. Ge Xiu looked up and took a glance at the stairwell not far away, before following everyone else up.
The first floor instantly became quiet.
The flickering lights in front of each door illuminated a small space in the narrow corridor and the thick rancid smell of decaying flesh and blood was so strong it was almost tangible. The dead body covered in blue-gray spots laid quietly in the middle of the corridor, its abdomen cut open.
Those long-dead, cloudy eyes slowly turned a few degrees, looking at the empty stairwell.
The layout of the second floor was exactly the same as that of the first floor, the only difference being the walls that had been pasted with dark red wallpaper. The red had long since faded and blurred due passage of time and the color became irregular, as if it had been spattered with blood.
The players came to the door 201 first.
Unexpectedly, the door of room 201 was wide open, the lights inside were bright, fully illuminating the entire room.
Although the furniture in the room looked old, it filled the room to the brim, giving a strong atmosphere of liveable space, it looked way more reassuring than the dimly lit first floor.
Several players looked at each other and saw the same desire to compete in each other’s eyes.
On the first floor, Ge Xiu got a special item without paying any price, without not even a scratch on his body and he still got a hint for the next floor. This was truly a lucrative business—and there were only five special items in total, meaning that one was on each floor of the five-story building. One more item means one more way out, no fool wouldn’t want to snatch it.
And this floor looked much better than the first floor.
Several anxious players scrambled to squeeze into the room.
Two people rushed in first.
——”Badang”!
The door slammed shut behind the two of them.
The huge bang shook the walls violently, the lights flickered and some dust fell at their heads from above.
ten minutes later.
An ear-piercing scream came from behind the door, as sharp as fingernails scratching on glass, making one’s heart quiver slightly.
Right after, thick and viscous blood slowly flowed out from the gap under the door.
The two closest players were taken aback and hurriedly moved back in fear.
The smell of blood spread.
In the next second, the door slowly opened again with a “squeak”.
The lights inside were still shining brightly, the decoration was warm and lifelike, there was not a trace of bloodstains on the ground, only the blood had just flowed to the corridor could show that they had not experienced auditory hallucinations.
Now, nobody dared to rush forward.
A player who had introduced himself as Cheng Cheng rolled his eyes, turned his head to look at Ge Xiu, and said hypocritically: “Hey, you discovered this clue just now so you should have the priority of going inside…”
Hearing this, Lin Xue became angry in an instant:
“What do you mean? Don’t think that others can’t see what you’re thinking…”
Ge Xiu raised his hand to stop her, the smile on his face was still harmless: “It’s okay, I also want to go in and have a look.”
After speaking, he ignored Lin Xue’s urgent stopping action and calmly walked into the room.
The door slammed shut behind Ge Xiu’s back.
At that moment, the overhead light suddenly went out, and everything was plunged into pure darkness.
It was very quiet in the room.
It seemed that even the slightest sound of air movement was isolated in the room by the walls and the door.
In that deathly silence, Ge Xiu could only hear his own breathing.
Immediately afterwards, he felt that a small hand was slowly grasping his hand, as stiff and cold as an ice cube, the giggling and laughing of a child sounded in the deathly silent room: “Gege, play hide-and-seek with me!
“Wah.”
Before Ge Xiu could answer, the child burst out into tears:
“…If you don’t let me play, I won’t play.”
Ge Xiu was stunned.
——The child was obviously not talking to himself.
Immediately afterwards, the other party sobbed and said: “…you, someone asked me to give this to you.”
Ge Xiu felt something was stuffed into his hand.
The next second, the lights came on.
Ge Xiu looked down at his hand.
It was a beautiful rose in full bloom.
————————————————————
Bamboo:
Ge Xiu: This is a severed finger like all others, what’s special about that?
Lin Xue: ….wait, is that prisoner uniform really a costume?
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