WTNL Chapter 86

Fantasy Amusement Park
Chapter 86: Fantasy Amusement Park Employee Rules

In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room:

[Wow wow wow, oh my god, I didn’t even dare to breathe just now!]

[Ahhhhhhhh, so thrilling!!!]

[Wuwu, even though I know I shouldn’t, but… a battle-damaged scammer who is too exhausted to get up is so erotic, damn it!]

Wen Jianyan quickly checked his injuries.

Wrists: soft tissue contusion, slightly dislocated and sprained, but not a big deal.

Limbs and torso: alright. Although many places hurt a lot from the impact, it was basically all superficial wounds.

The young man lifted his shirt and glanced down.

The marks from the rope strangulation were exceptionally prominent on his fair skin. A ring of black, blue, and red bruises encircled his firm and slender waist, the color seemingly continuing to deepen. As his uneven breathing rose and fell, it trembled, giving off a sort of abusive beauty.

Wen Jianyan touched the wound with the pad of his finger and hissed, inhaling sharply.

He had guessed right; the skin was broken.

But it was fine, not a very serious injury, and it wouldn’t affect his subsequent actions.

Wen Jianyan opened the System Shop, redeemed points for a bottle of Painkiller, and chugged it down.

He stood up from his seat, but barely taking a step forward, his brow involuntarily twitched.

…Fuck.

Because his mind had been in a state of extreme tension earlier, many things had easily been ignored under the surge of adrenaline. However, now that things had temporarily settled down, the discomfort he had deliberately forgotten surged up again.

For instance…

The spot on his inner thigh that had been chafed by the garter belt.

The tiny wound, rubbed against the coarse fabric and dampened with sweat, should have felt a burning pain. But under the effect of the painkiller, the pain was gone, leaving only a bizarre numbness, itchiness, and scorching heat branded on that exceptionally sensitive patch of skin, making it truly difficult to ignore.

“…”

The tips of Wen Jianyan’s ears turned a little red.

He gritted his teeth, forced to go back to the Points Shop to redeem a bottle of Desensitizer.

After downing the Desensitizer, the weird sensation disappeared, and he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are you okay?” Yun Bilan’s voice came from the side.

Wen Jianyan turned his head to look.

After the rapid plunge just now, her face was also a little pale. At this moment, she had turned her head to look fixedly at him, a trace of concern in her expression. Elise was also on the coaster, resting her head against the back of the seat in front of her. Her face was ashen, and she seemed to have not recovered yet.

“Don’t worry, they’re just superficial wounds. I just redeemed some painkiller,” Wen Jianyan replied in a relaxed tone, omitting the matter of the Desensitizer as he rolled his shoulders.

“It won’t affect our upcoming plans.”

“…”

Yun Bilan stared at him with complicated eyes.

After the coaster stopped, she quickly realized the danger of this attraction.

First, they had to accurately identify the reason why they entered the [Plunge into the Abyss] theme instead of [Journey Through the Jungle]. After pinpointing exactly which rule they had broken, they then had to figure out whether the corpses or the wooden dolls would be judged as passengers by the instance.

And the most insidious point was that the person who destroyed a wooden doll also violated a rule.

During the process of the roller coaster gradually rising to its highest point, the time was extremely limited, like watching a noose around one’s neck tightening bit by bit. No one would be willing to sacrifice themselves to save everyone. The fear brought by the impending fall and death wrapping around their hearts would eventually cause the streamers on the roller coaster to start killing each other, thereby changing the number of people on board.

To ensure everyone survived, it required not only maintaining extreme composure and observational skills at the critical moment, but also harboring no intent to harm others, as well as the ability to think outside the box and possessing a terrifyingly daring, near-insane capacity for action.

She sort of understood why the other party, as a mere C-rank lone wolf without teammates, would be assigned to this A-rank instance.

Yun Bilan took a deep breath and turned to look at where the commotion was coming from:

“So what exactly happened over there?”

She frowned, seemingly feeling equally puzzled:

“Let’s go, let’s go take a look—”

Before Yun Bilan even had time to take a step, she was abruptly yanked back by the young man beside her:

“Wait.”

His voice was low, carrying a hint of cold solemnity that inexplicably made her heart skip a beat.

“…?”

Yun Bilan froze, subconsciously stopping in her tracks and raising her eyes to look at Wen Jianyan.

She saw the other party’s brow slightly furrowed, the line of his jaw slightly taut. A faint light gleamed in his light-colored eyes as he rapidly surveyed the tunnel in front of them, and he said in a low voice:

“The attraction hasn’t ended. This isn’t the finish line.”

Yun Bilan’s pupils shrank, and a layer of goosebumps instantly rose on her body. She carefully observed the tunnel in front of her.

A pitch-black, icy tunnel, the air carrying the smell of damp, rotting wood. The long tracks extended towards both ends, and beside the tracks was a small control room.

The green-haired clown who originally stayed inside had vanished at this moment, leaving only an empty small room.

It looked exactly the same as before, but…

It constantly gave off a strange sense of incongruity.

Wen Jianyan’s gaze fell on the ground near the track: “Before we boarded the ride, there were many red lines for queuing on the ground, but here it’s empty; there’s nothing.”

He looked again at the control room nearby:

“I remember before boarding, there was nothing posted on the glass of the control room.”

However, on the glass of the control room now, there was a yellowing piece of paper posted. The corners were curled, and it was covered in dense handwriting, but it couldn’t be seen clearly because it was too far away.

“Rule Four,”

Wen Jianyan softly repeated the rule on the ticket:

“There is no possibility of this attraction malfunctioning. If the ride stops operating, please sit quietly in your seat and wait for it to restart.”

Elise, who was lying on her seat nearby, finally recovered from her dizziness.

Hearing their conversation at this moment, her face couldn’t help but turn even paler, and she hastily chimed in:

“Wait, you mean…”

Yun Bilan’s expression was ugly:

“He means, this is just a mid-way stop.”

The attraction had not yet ended.

Elise abruptly stood up and said anxiously, “Then we have to hurry and call them back!”

She opened her mouth: “Hey—”

She had just uttered a single syllable when her mouth was violently clamped shut by Yun Bilan, the rest of her voice swallowed back into her throat, turning into muffled whimpers.

“Did you forget!” Yun Bilan ground her teeth and said:

“The third rule: do not look back.”

Only then did Elise realize how massive of a mistake she had almost made. She widened her eyes slightly, feeling a chill instantly creep over her entire body.

These rules were nested one within another; a moment’s inattention could lead to a wrong step and a plunge into the abyss.

Yun Bilan breathed a sigh of relief and released her hand from Elise’s mouth.

Elise looked terrified and said in a lowered voice: “Th-then what about the streamers who have already gotten off? Are they, are they beyond saving?”

Thinking about the possible fate of those who didn’t follow the rules…

Elise shuddered involuntarily.

“Not necessarily.”

Wen Jianyan said thoughtfully.

The two of them were taken aback and raised their eyes to look at him.

“If we carefully analyze the contents of the rules for this roller coaster, these clauses can probably be divided into two types: one is prohibitive, and the other is advisory.”

Do not open your eyes and look around, do not silently count the loops, do not look back, do not damage the decorations on the car…

These are all prohibitive.

Explicitly prohibited; absolutely must not do.

“But the original text for this rule is: ‘If the ride stops operating, please sit quietly in your seat and wait for it to restart.’ There are no words like ‘do not’ or ‘prohibited’. It merely states that if this situation is encountered, it is advised that tourists remain on the car.”

“That is to say, if you act according to the rule, it can greatly reduce the possibility of danger occurring. However, if you violate the rule, danger will arise, but it won’t necessarily result in certain death.”

While Wen Jianyan spoke, he looked into the distance.

The tunnel that should have led to the exit had at some point turned into a solid wall, sealed tightly from top to bottom, offering absolutely no path for anyone to leave.

The other four streamers stood nearby, talking amongst themselves.

At least they were all still alive and well right now, which proved that this wasn’t a rule of “violating means certain death.”

“Th-then what do we do next? Do we just do nothing and let them continue staying down there?” Elise asked, entirely out of her wits.

Yun Bilan pondered for a few seconds and suggested:

“What if we shout out first: don’t look back, listen to us?”

“It’s a good method, but…”

Wen Jianyan’s gaze fell on the slanted corpses of the wooden dolls on the nearby seats: “I don’t think it’s that simple.”

“What do you mean?” Yun Bilan was startled.

“The previous team of seven were completely wiped out, but there were only five people on the seats.”

Wen Jianyan lowered his eyes and said thoughtfully: “Where did the other two go? Were they deliberately hidden by the NPC in the instance, with only five placed here to confuse us, or…

Did they only have five left?”

The air fell quiet.

“In the [Plunge into the Abyss] themed roller coaster, if they completely failed to solve the puzzle, it makes sense for all seven to die. If they did solve it, that team of streamers should have realized that as long as they disrupt the numbers, they could survive, yet why did more than half of them still die in the end?

Even if there was infighting, they should have stopped once they realized the numbers had been reduced.”

Yun Bilan’s expression also grew solemn: “Are you saying that all five of these people died here?”

Wen Jianyan nodded:

“Exactly. My hypothesis leans towards the idea that in this [Plunge into the Abyss] theme, that team of streamers realized it was related to the number of people. Perhaps a dispute broke out, or perhaps infighting occurred, and two of the seven died. They were swallowed by the abyss, so there are no corpses.”

“And…”

Wen Jianyan recalled the faint “crack” sounds he heard from the corpse in front of him when the roller coaster was climbing, and couldn’t help but narrow his eyes slightly.

He leaned down next to one of the corpses, reached out his hand, and carefully turned its pale, soft neck.

The stiff cervical vertebrae shifted within the loose skin, seemingly having been broken for a long time.

Wen Jianyan’s eyes darkened:

“They looked back.”

These streamers must have also received tickets before entering the attraction. It was impossible for them not to know about the rule “do not look back,” yet they all looked back one by one.

This forced Wen Jianyan to think back to his previous conclusion about mental pollution.

Although they were still on the car now, this absolutely didn’t mean they were definitively safe. After all, no one knew how long they needed to wait for the roller coaster to restart.

Wen Jianyan’s brain raced rapidly. Finally, his gaze fell on the yellowed paper posted on the glass outside the control room.

Could it be…

Is this some kind of hint?

Wen Jianyan took out his phone and opened the camera function.

Focus.

Zoom.

Even through the phone’s camera function, the handwriting on the note was still extremely blurry, as if it was deliberately made impossible to read from a distance. However, the bold title on top was exceptionally clear:

[Fantasy Amusement Park Employee Rules]

Upon clearly seeing the title, Wen Jianyan’s pupils shrank.

Employee rules?!

This amusement park has this kind of thing?

“What did you find?” Yun Bilan’s voice came from behind.

Wen Jianyan took a deep breath: “I have to get off the car for a trip.”

“What?” Yun Bilan was stunned.

Just now he had stopped her from getting off the car, and now he was going to get off himself?

“Wait, what do you mean? Doesn’t this violate the rules—”

Yun Bilan asked anxiously.

Wen Jianyan didn’t answer.

He gritted his teeth, ignoring the nervous voices of the two behind him, and then slowly stepped off the roller coaster.