WTNL Chapter 48

Antai Community
Chapter 48: Did you fvcking offend the ghost again?!

No, no, no. Maybe… maybe he was just overthinking things?

Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

Although the Decai Middle School instance shared some individual elements with this Antai Community instance, there was a huge variable here, and that was this so-called “Bodhisattva”.

More importantly, apart from the hidden route, Wen Jianyan still hadn’t seen any ghosts or monsters appear. Only individual elements presented on the surface were similar; the internal differences were still huge.

And… running into the same ghost Boss he had offended in three consecutive instances?

The probability of this was way too small. How could it possibly happen!

Wen Jianyan shook his head, throwing away the ominous premonition in his heart.

However, speaking of which…

He narrowed his eyes slightly, looking thoughtfully at the figure standing at the door—

This guard is a bit strange.

The other party had clearly left the residential complex under his persuasion, so why did he come back right before the Ghost Festival?

The moment he saw the other party, he had already formulated an excuse in his mind to cover up his lies, but this guard didn’t mention the previous incident at all. His hollow gaze swept over him as if he didn’t recognize him at all.

And his face… somehow felt a bit off.

Just then, a low rustling sound, cha cha, came from behind. It was very subtle, almost inaudible amidst the conversation between the streamers and the guard.

The rest of the streamers were mostly gathered at the door, their attention entirely focused on Chen Mo and the guard.

Except for Wen Jianyan, who had been standing far back from the beginning and was constantly zoning out, no one heard this eerie sound.

Wen Jianyan was startled and turned his head to look in the direction the sound came from.

At that instant, a layer of goosebumps sprang up on his skin.

At some unknown point, four paper dolls had sat down in unison on the sofa in the darkness. Four ghastly pale, smiling faces were facing the doorway directly. Their painted-on eyeballs were dark and heavy, devoid of the slightest light, and the corners of their mouths were curled high up. Messy scarlet lines were smeared on their faces, looking exceptionally terrifying in the impenetrable darkness.

They stared fixedly at the humans not far away, the smiles on their faces dull and stiff.

…Fuck!

Wen Jianyan’s pupils shrank, suddenly realizing something, and immediately turned his head to look towards the doorway.

“The Ghost Festival is almost here.”

Under the dim yellow light of the corridor, the guard’s facial features and demeanor looked no different from an ordinary person’s.

But if one looked closely, they would notice his face was excessively pale. When he spoke, the corners of his mouth carried a slight upward curve, and the movement of his lips opening and closing was very small, making him appear somewhat stiff.

“Since you guys aren’t leaving now,”

The corners of the guard’s mouth suddenly lifted upwards, drawing a ghastly, gloomy arc:

“Then there’s no need to leav—”

“Bah!”

A figure rushed out from behind without any warning.

And then delivered a flying kick!

Caught off guard, the guard stumbled back several steps. Only a crisp crack of tearing paper was heard, and his wrist gripping the door handle broke off, leaving only a paper hand still on the door.

“Fuck! Run!”

Wen Jianyan darted straight out through the gap, running and nervously screaming at the same time:

“This thing is a paper doll!”

After all, the other streamers were also C-rank and had experienced at least several instances. The moment Wen Jianyan rushed out, they immediately reacted as well, following closely behind him and running forward rapidly!

All of their expressions looked ugly.

These streamers were different from Wen Jianyan; they had experienced many role-playing limited-time instances of this type.

Since this kind of instance would issue main quests to the streamers based on their identity cards in the later stages, the period before the critical time node was basically peaceful and calm, leaving time for the streamers to gather information in the early stage.

Additionally, they had been communicating with neighbors on the ninth and tenth floors to gather information, encountering normal, communicable NPCs, and hadn’t dealt with such weird paper dolls.

They relied too much on their own experience, so no one could have thought that this instance would start mutating before the time node of the Ghost Festival, striking early before twelve o’clock!

This instance is a bit too wicked!

In the live broadcast rooms of the other streamers, there was a chorus of sighs:

[Sigh, what a pity… none of the streamers fell for it this time? I’m so disappointed.]

[Yeah yeah, after all, this kind of role-playing instance doesn’t mutate until the time node. This Antai Community instance is a bit different; it started slowly mutating before the Ghost Festival. I thought I’d see a few casualties this time, but I didn’t expect someone to interrupt the cast! Damn it.]

[Actually, even if they get locked in the room, they are still given a chance to survive. 1304 isn’t actually too fierce. What I wanted to see was the streamers’ horrified expressions when they realized things went beyond their expectations; it’s super entertaining, sigh.]

[Stop sighing, it’s actually quite interesting now. That kick just now made me die of laughter, directly interrupted the cast.]

[Who was that person just now? Why don’t I remember there being such an NPC in this instance?]

[I’ve never seen him either. I found it very strange when he showed up just now. Could it be that the system adjusted the instance content?]

[Fuck, I just went next door to check, that’s not an NPC at all, that’s a streamer!]

[Good heavens, his acting is quite convincing. What rank is he? Why don’t I remember seeing this guy.]

[Do you guys usually only pick mid-to-high level instances to watch? This guy is a rookie streamer who had crazy momentum a while back. He just passed two instances and recently ranked up to D-level. Pointing the way to the “Integrity First” live broadcast room next door.]

[??]

[????]

[What? D-level?! You’re joking, right?!]

Wen Jianyan put all his effort into sprinting forward, completely unaware that he had unwittingly attracted another wave of new viewers.

The lights in the corridor flickered. Faint light flowed through the open door into 1304, illuminating the four smiling paper dolls on the sofa.

They huddled together, motionless, no different from dead objects, yet seemingly alive.

Zzzt, zzzt…

Electric static came from the chanting machine, and the intermittent, distorted sound of sutra chanting echoed in the empty room.

Beside the shrine, the electronic candles lit up as two scarlet dots.

The faint light shone on the Bodhisattva’s face, making its seemingly loving and peaceful expression become exceptionally eerie.

The guard slowly raised his head. His face lost its human skin color, presenting a rough texture like paper under the light.

He walked step by step to the door, picked up the paper hand hanging on the door handle, reattached it, and then raised his head. Using those pitch-black eyeballs, he stared fixedly at the backs of the streamers not far away, the corners of his mouth stiffly curving upwards.

He smiled, and slowly, word by word, completed what he had just said:

“—there is no need to leave anymore.”

The light outside the window had completely disappeared. The heavy, gloomy darkness was like thick ink that couldn’t be dissolved, seemingly possessing a physical body as it enveloped the entire building, as if trying to seep in through the windows.

Messy footsteps and hurried panting echoed in the corridor. The streamers rapidly ran towards the path they came from. The dim yellow light overhead spilled into the narrow, deep space.

Every short distance, one could see white rice and offerings placed on the floor. The incense stuck in them had been lit at some unknown point, the faint blue smoke rising slowly like a straight line.

Finally, the old, rusty elevator doors were right before their eyes.

Wen Jianyan stopped his steps, his chest heaving rapidly up and down.

He paused and turned to look behind him.

In the bottomless dark tunnel, the paper dolls hadn’t caught up.

Although they didn’t experience a ghost wall this time, Wen Jianyan could very clearly feel that the return path had undergone subtle changes.

The path became longer, taking at least three times the time it took to come.

Most importantly, this building was supposed to have a straight-tube structure. However, along the way Wen Jianyan ran, several pitch-black corners clearly appeared in his peripheral vision!

More passageways were connected to the corridor, like bottomless black holes waiting for the arrival of victims.

A trace of solemnity flashed across Wen Jianyan’s eyes.

This meant the map in his impression would soon be of no use.

If so many changes had already occurred before twelve o’clock, then after midnight, when the Ghost Festival officially arrived…

What else would happen was truly unknown.

Soon, the other streamers who were left behind also caught up panting.

Although their physical fitness wasn’t bad, it was far worse compared to Wen Jianyan who ran like a rabbit. This NPC simply left everyone in the dust when running, making it impossible to catch up even if they tried desperately. Who knew where he trained that from.

They had just steadied themselves when they saw the young man turn his head to look over. His small face was deathly pale, his expression terrified and panicked. Using a trembling, shuddering tone, half in panic and half in disbelief, he slowly asked:

“Just, just now, what the hell was that thing?!”

The streamers who had desperately tried to catch up to him: “…”

?

In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room:

[Hahahahahahahahahaha dying of laughter fuck, hahahahahahahaha this dog scammer really has a knack for acting hahahahahahahahaha!]

[Keep acting, you just keep acting!]

[Hahahahahahaha isn’t this just an innocent NPC caught up in a bizarre event!]

[Bah! How come you didn’t think of playing innocent when you flying kicked the NPC just now and bolted faster than anyone else!]

Finally, Chen Mo stepped forward and briefly explained the current situation to this “poor NPC who was scared silly.”

They were clearly very experienced in this regard, having already summarized a set of highly efficient rhetoric across multiple instances—concealing the existence of the Nightmare Live Broadcast Room, maintaining the identity on their identity cards, while depicting the current level of danger so that the NPC would continue to cooperate.

“As for your mother, there shouldn’t be any need to worry.”

Chen Mo added: “As long as she stays inside her room, there shouldn’t be any major safety issues. Right now, it’s best if you act together with us and see if there’s any way to resolve all this.”

The streamers stood in front of the elevator, talking in low voices. Su Cheng briefly listened and found that they were discussing the next plan of action.

They were basically saying that going to 1306 now was probably not a very good choice. They should temporarily retreat and go to other floors to see if they could find any new clues.

Su Cheng turned around and walked in Wen Jianyan’s direction.

The conversation between Wen Jianyan and Chen Mo had ended. He was currently standing away from the elevator, thoughtfully staring at the pitch-black, deep corridor not far away, thinking about something unknown.

He carefully looked around, confirming that no one nearby noticed him, and then lowered his voice:

“Hey.”

Wen Jianyan retracted his gaze and turned his head to look at Su Cheng beside him:

“I remember…”

He paused, seeming to recall something: “Wang Runcheng, right?”

The young man’s eyes lowered slightly, his amber eyes calm, as if facing a complete stranger he didn’t know at all.

Su Cheng: “…”

Too awesome.

If they hadn’t already experienced three instances together, he would have thought this was really their first time meeting.

However, he also understood that Wen Jianyan’s caution was reasonable. So he nodded, cleared his throat unnaturally, and continued following the other party’s words:

“Yes, that’s correct.”

Su Cheng followed his gaze to look deep into the corridor and asked casually:

“What about you next? Any thoughts? Will you continue to act with us, or…?”

“Not necessarily.” Wen Jianyan pondered for a few seconds and said:

“In this current situation, it’s not easy to act separately. But I also can’t keep following you guys; after all, my mother is still here…”

He turned his head to glance at the other streamers not far behind him, and said pointedly:

“I think they will probably no longer need me very soon.”

Eventually, the streamers decided on the final plan and pressed the elevator button.

Ding—

The elevator doors opened.

Chen Mo looked at Wang Hanyu. Wang Hanyu nodded, closed his eyes, and seemed to be sensing something.

Dozens of seconds later, he opened his eyes: “Safe.”

Wen Jianyan revealed a thoughtful expression.

It seems… this streamer’s talent might be related to inspiration, something similar to a Yin-Yang eye.

A bit like Ji Guan.

After every streamer enters Nightmare, they would receive a “talent”, which is the so-called novice gift pack. However, the novice gift pack couldn’t be used immediately from the start; rather, they had different unlocking conditions. Most streamers died violently before unlocking their talent.

However, most streamers could usually unlock their talent after experiencing two or three instances. The number of people like Wen Jianyan who unlocked it in their very first instance was very small.

The specific content of the talent had a lot to do with the streamer’s own “soul quality”, and it would enhance, gain better effects, or even acquire new skills as their rank increased.

For example, Ji Guan. Perhaps because he had seen a ghost in Fukang Hospital when he was a child, his talent was Spirit Vision, allowing him to sense the presence of spirit bodies nearby.

However, his talent level wasn’t high. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. At this current stage, he temporarily couldn’t actively use it; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been pestered by the ghost infant in Fukang Hospital.

And this C-rank streamer clearly had a higher-level talent, so he could actively choose whether to activate it.

The group of streamers entered the elevator.

“What next? Where are we going?” one streamer asked.

Wang Hanyu: “Let’s go to the notice board in the lobby on the first floor first. We might be able to find more clues.”

Saying that, he pressed the button for the first floor.

The elevator buzzed smoothly. Soon, a ding rang out again, and the elevator doors slowly opened to both sides.

However, what appeared outside the elevator doors was not the first-floor lobby.

But that familiar, pitch-black corridor.

The lights flickered with static, white rice was placed in corners on the floor, the peeling walls were plastered with advertisements with blurred handwriting and talismans, and a strong wave of Yin energy struck them.

It was still the 13th floor.

“…”

The expressions of all the streamers involuntarily changed.

Deep in the corridor not far away, blurry figures seemed faintly visible.

Fuck.

Wang Hanyu pressed the elevator’s close button as fast as he could, and then pressed all the elevator buttons from the 12th floor down to the 2nd floor.

The elevator buzzed into operation again.

Soon, a ding rang out.

The elevator doors opened again.

The lights on the 13th floor were dim, emitting the obstructed sound of electrical current. The figure in the distance drew closer; his ghastly pale face hidden in the darkness, one could vaguely see the guard uniform he was wearing.

Behind the “guard”, several blurry black shadows seemed to be following.

Cha, cha, cha.

The sound of footsteps scraping against the floor rang out, echoing deep in the corridor, almost making one’s scalp tingle.

Now, anyone with eyes could tell that they probably couldn’t leave the 13th floor anymore.

“Go, out of the elevator.”

Chen Mo made a prompt decision and left the elevator first.

Compared to ten minutes ago, the changes on the 13th floor were even greater.

A bizarre smell floated in the icy air, like the stench of rotting corpses mixed with incense ash, giving people a particularly ominous feeling.

On both sides of the straight passageway they had been walking down, several new corridors had extended out. Each corridor looked exactly the same as an ordinary residential floor.

The ceiling lights seemed to have been dyed with a layer of dark red light.

Chanting-like murmurs seemed to come from the distance.

“Should we use items?” a streamer lowered his voice and asked.

At their current rank, they also had a certain reserve of points and a steady audience. Their expenditure on buying items was no longer as stingy as novice streamers. One could even say that if they were willing to ruthlessly smash points, and the ghosts they encountered weren’t the certain-death type, it was still fine to risk it all and fight.

“Right, they are paper dolls after all.” Another streamer chimed in: “Didn’t that N… didn’t that young man make a move earlier too? They shouldn’t be too hard to deal with.”

“No.”

Chen Mo shook his head.

“We’ve only been in here for three hours, and we’re going to use points? What if we encounter other crises later?” He narrowed his eyes slightly and said: “We don’t understand the rules here very well yet, we can’t blindly fight them head-on.”

Deep in the corridor in the distance, the guard’s seemingly ordinary voice drifted over:

“It seems you are all residents here?”

Cha cha.

The sound of rubbing paper echoed deep in the corridor.

“It’s so late, why are you still wandering in the corridor?” As the distance shortened, the ghastly pale face was revealed under the light. That face, which had previously looked at least 90% human, had completely changed.

The corners of his mouth were hooked up widely, showing a smile. On his white-paper-like cheeks, two spots of glaring scarlet were painted. There was almost no difference between him and a paper doll anymore: “Middle of the seventh month, the ghost gates open.”

The guard smiled and asked with concern:

“Aren’t you afraid of bumping into something unclean?”

“…”

Wen Jianyan, who was playing low-key at the end of the line, felt his eye twitch.

You actually have the nerve to call other ghosts unclean things?

Chen Mo gritted his teeth and said, “Let’s split up and run.”

A gathered group makes for too big of a target and is easy to focus down. Now that the layout of the entire floor had become more complex, splitting up to run would at least ensure a higher chance of survival for more people.

“We’ll exchange items to contact each other after this crisis passes.”

The black shadows gradually closed in, their ghastly pale, smiling faces looming faintly in the darkness.

There was no time to hesitate now. The streamers quickly split into two groups and ran into different corridors.

Wen Jianyan and Su Cheng quickly exchanged a glance and chose the same path.

The corridor was pitch black and oppressive. A dizzying smell of burning incense floated in the air. Copper coins wrapped in red paper were pressed against the window frames, looking like red eyeballs in the dark. Small offering plates flashed by the corners from time to time; every stick of incense on the white rice was lit, wisps of blue smoke rising straight up, as if being devoured by an unknown ghost or monster.

As Wen Jianyan ran forward, he swept his peripheral vision across the tightly closed doors on both sides.

Although all the corridors on these two sides had appeared out of thin air, the layout was exactly the same as the other floors of this building. Clutter was piled in the narrow passageway, the doors on both sides were tightly closed, and outside the windows was bottomless, heavy darkness.

Under the dim light, the numbers on the copper plates were faintly visible.

1101, 1102, 1103…

In other words, this was the eleventh floor?

Wen Jianyan paused.

He suddenly understood. This wasn’t a ghost wall in the traditional sense, nor was it an elevator malfunction. Instead, all the floors had converged onto the thirteenth floor!

Those corridors extending out from the thirteenth floor were precisely the other floors of this entire building!

He seemed to have thought of something, took his phone out of his pocket, and lowered his head to glance at the screen.

11:42.

There were only 18 minutes left until midnight.

That time was the official point when the ghost gates would wide open.

Behind him, Wang Hanyu panted heavily as he ran. He looked gentle and refined, with a pair of glasses resting on the bridge of his nose; he probably worked a desk job before entering the live broadcast room.

Although his stamina was decent compared to ordinary people, he was on the weaker side among this group of C-rank streamers. The excessively long chase made his speed gradually slow down.

Wang Hanyu found an opportunity to turn his head and glance back, his face instantly turning pale.

He subconsciously quickened his pace, let out a crude curse, and shouted, half in confusion and half on the verge of breaking down: “Fuck, why the hell are these paper dolls only following us?!”

The streamers clearly split into two groups, but these paper dolls didn’t scatter as they had imagined.

On the contrary, they seemed to have pinpointed their target, all chasing in this direction in unison, without the slightest hesitation.

Wen Jianyan also turned his head and glanced.

Under the flickering red light, he saw the guard whose wrist he had kicked broken. With a smile on his face, holding his broken wrist with one hand, his pitch-black, dull eyes stared fixedly at him.

And behind the guard.

The familiar female paper doll held the two dolls, all their gazes entirely focused on Wen Jianyan.

“Dad, Dad, come play with us.” The paper children giggled from the end of the corridor.

And Zhou Xiuqing, whose identity was inexplicably usurped and whose wife and children were snatched away, also stared fixedly at Wen Jianyan, an eerie smile on his scribbled-over face.

Wen Jianyan: “…”

I’m sorry.

I think I know the reason.

Running beside Wen Jianyan, Su Cheng noticed his small movements and turned his head to look.

“…”

The young man coughed dryly, his eyes dodging to avoid eye contact.

Su Cheng: “……………………”

Recalling the scene of them being chased and intercepted by all the paper dolls right now, a highly probable guess slowly surfaced from the bottom of his heart, causing him to break down instantly.

No way?

You motherfucker offended a ghost again?!

At this moment, Wen Jianyan suddenly thought of something.

He paused slightly.

Wait, this scene…

It seems it can be turned into a treasure!

Wen Jianyan slightly slowed his pace, took his phone out of his pocket again, and turned on the video recording function. As he ran forward, he pointed the phone’s camera at the paper dolls closely following behind.

The scarlet REC appeared in the upper right corner of the screen, recording the horrifying scene behind him into it.

[Countdown begins: 10:00]

Wen Jianyan hooked the corners of his lips.

His main quest this time didn’t have a fixed filming location, which meant that, according to his identity card as a paranormal investigator streamer, as long as it was a paranormal scene, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Simply perfect!

In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room:

[…]

[…Fuck.]

[Hahahahahahaha fuck! Killing two birds with one stone!]

[Hahahahahahahahahaha the system issuing the quests is probably going to die of anger, how come this dog scammer can find a BUG every single day?]

[I’m dying of laughter, the paper dolls forced to participate in completing the main quest: Are you polite?]

__

Author’s Note:

Paper doll: Although I’m not human, you are a real dog.