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Chapter 31: Zhong Yirou, where are you? Why don’t you answer?
After leaving the studio, Yang Erci, Josh, and Wu You continued their search, exploring every room they could enter for clues.
Probably because of digital management, the available clues and information were scarce.
They found hard drives in a few rooms and inserted them into the mainframes to investigate. Most of the content was related to the children in the containment center, including information about height, weight, blood type, and genetic diseases.
To Yang Erci’s surprise, the number of these children was much higher than they had imagined.
“This hard drive is different from the previous ones,” Josh said, pointing to the floating screen connected to the mainframe. “It’s encrypted, requires a password, and must have administrator permissions. The mainframe model is also different; we might not be able to open it in this room.”
Yang Erci nodded. “The administrator might be Zhong Yirou. Let’s check if we can plug it into the room we initialized earlier.”
She always felt something strange, especially since Wu You had not returned since he left.
The sense of unease persisted as Yang Erci and Josh returned to the first-floor control room. Because Josh was afraid of the dark, she left the door open.
Without much ado, Yang Erci inserted the encrypted hard drive into the mainframe’s slot, but Josh tapped her shoulder.
“Look at the surveillance on the screen.” Josh’s voice trembled.
Yang Erci glanced over.
At first, she didn’t notice anything unusual, but upon closer inspection, it felt eerie.
There were countless surveillance images on the screen, from rooms to corridors, but not a single person was visible in any of them.
“Where… have they all gone?”
The corridor’s lights, snow-white walls, and reflective floor made the space exceptionally bright. However, standing here, Zhong Yirou felt a chill, and even the air seemed to flow ominously past her.
There was a voice in her earpiece, an An Wujiu, but another voice of An Wujiu came through.
[Hey? I could hear your voice just now. Is there no signal now?]
He was still talking.
At this point, one of them had to be true and the other false. So far, Zhong Yirou has not detected any dangerous signals from either of them, indicating that impersonating the other person requires gaining trust. Before that, there shouldn’t be a threat to life.
If the person in front of her was real, then the one in the earpiece was likely trying to lure her. After all, the person in front of her appeared intact, while the other only existed through sound.
But what if it was the other way around?
Following behind An Wujiu, Zhong Yirou touched her ear and finally found a slightly raised dot. She tentatively tapped it with her finger, and with a beep, the voice in the earpiece was cut off.
Dammit.
Why isn’t there a user manual for this thing?
She took a deep breath, walked to a position parallel to An Wujiu, and then put on her usual smile.
There must be a flaw in the fake one. Let’s start with this.
There’s always something that can be extracted.
“By the way, you mentioned a work log. In which room did you see it?”
An Wujiu turned his face and calmly said, “Data room.”
“Oh, I see.” Zhong Yirou nodded. “Is there anything scary in the data room? This instance is really terrifying, with a strange feeling everywhere. I was scared to death just now.”
After hearing this, An Wujiu paused and said, “This place is weird. I was thinking just now, could what you encountered be an illusion?”
He added, “When I separated from the others, I also experienced illusions.”
“What kind of illusions?” Zhong Yirou stared into his eyes.
They were truly identical, and no difference could be discerned from their appearances.
An Wujiu glanced at her and smiled lightly, “I saw all of you turn into monsters, trying to kill me.”
With just one sentence, it seemed to create a vivid image, sending shivers down one’s spine.
Zhong Yirou frowned but quickly relaxed.
She didn’t want to reveal any flaws.
“Really? That’s even scarier than mine. At least the illusions I saw were of unfamiliar people. Those kids would turn from living to fake corpses, and I was the only one who could see it.”
“That’s what you call the morgue.” An Wujiu lowered his eyes and said, “After getting the work log, you’ll know what your job is. Considering what just happened, there should be new clues.”
As they continued walking forward, Zhong Yirou felt the temperature suddenly rise, but the corridor remained empty. She had expected to encounter another player by now, but there was still no one.
It was too strange.
Thinking of something, she turned her head to look at An Wujiu and asked in a casual tone, “By the way, where’s the guy with green eyes? Surprisingly, he’s not following you.”
An Wujiu remained silent for a while.
Perhaps the silent time was not very long, but in Zhong Yirou’s eyes, every detail on his face seemed to be infinitely magnified.
The face was right in front of her, but at this moment, the voice from the earpiece echoed in her mind, and it matched perfectly with the one in front of her.
[Yirou…]
[I am Wujiu.]
Yirou.
Zhong Yirou suddenly stopped in her tracks.
The An Wujiu in front of her sensed her pause and turned around.
Zhong Yirou’s eyelashes gently touched each other, and a daring idea popped into her mind, which she decided to execute.
“Wu You, did you lose him?”
Her heart was almost about to jump out of her chest.
The An Wujiu in front of her showed no change in expression and was terrifyingly calm.
“No, he wanted to go to other rooms to gather clues. He said separating would be more efficient.”
He finished speaking, stared at Zhong Yirou’s face, and even flashed a friendly smile.
Zhong Yirou’s expression didn’t change much; she appeared relaxed. She smiled and then patted An Wujiu’s shoulder. “That guy can be surprisingly independent at times.”
It seemed that this disguised guy didn’t even know the player’s personal information.
Originally thought to be an NPC, would the Altar really send someone to confront players without disclosing player information?
It didn’t seem very logical.
As An Wujiu turned his face forward, the corners of Zhong Yirou’s upturned mouth fell.
Her other hand discreetly touched her ear, and her fingertips kept tapping.
Just as this fake An Wujiu said to her, “Do you know where the others are?” Zhong Yirou’s communication device emitted a sharp burst of noise, followed by a beep.
“Did you encounter anyone else on your way?” An Wujiu asked again.
At this moment, a woman’s voice appeared in the earpiece, cold in tone.
[Who are you? Is An Wujiu beside you?]
Zhong Yirou’s heart raced even faster. The cold white corridor in front of her seemed endless, and it was gradually melting.
Was this an illusion?
She even smelled that strange and nauseating odor again, as if countless wriggling insects were wrapping around her, slowly rotting.
Zhong Yirou tried hard to endure this almost vomit-inducing illusion, attempting to calm herself down.
She pretended not to hear the voices in the communicator and continued to talk to the fake An Wujiu in front of her.
“Oh, by the way, where is the room you mentioned with my work log?”
“An Wujiu” pointed along the path.
“It’s the second room at the corner ahead.”
As he spoke, there was also a cold voice on the communicator.
[Zhong Yirou, where are you? Why aren’t you answering? Can’t you hear my voice?]
Zhong Yirou quickly said, “Ah, I know.”
“Is this one in front of the northwest corner? We are in the northwest corner now, right?” Zhong Yirou took a few steps forward, pointed at the corner, and turned to look at the person pretending to be An Wujiu.
“An Wujiu” made a sound of agreement and nodded slightly.
On the other end of the communicator, Yang Erci noticed something was amiss.
[Are you in the northwest corner now? An Wujiu has been monitoring you, so you couldn’t answer my question, right?]
[You don’t need to answer. Make a mark or give a signal.]
Facing the wall with her back to “An Wujiu”, Zhong Yirou turned her face toward him one second later, with a proud expression as if she had come up with a brilliant idea.
“Let’s do this. Let’s mark a spot. This place is too maze-like, and we might get lost easily. Besides, we might fall into illusions again at any time, and encountering dangerous situations like before would be troublesome.”
She deliberately repeated what “An Wujiu” had said.
“And you mentioned seeing other players turn into monsters in an illusion that tried to kill you. Maybe something like that will happen again later. Having a mark will make things clearer when we need to escape.”
She made a convincing argument, and “An Wujiu” nodded. “What should we use?”
Originally, Zhong Yirou was thinking of using her fingernails to make a mark, but after some thought, she extended her index and middle fingers, brought them together, kissed them, and then pressed the lipstick from her fingers onto the wall.
The snowy white corner of the wall now had an additional lip-shaped mark.
“It’s marked now. Nail marks might not be visible, but lipstick is red and more noticeable. This way, we’ll remember when we go around later.”
“Okay.” “An Wujiu” nodded. “Let’s go inside.”
Yang Erci, hearing the conversation on the opposite side, felt that there must be a problem.
“I’ll be back in a moment.”
“Where are you going?” Josh asked, but Yang Erci had already run out of the room. Initially, he thought he had been left alone, but soon, footsteps were heard again.
Yang Erci returned to the doorway and made a gesture to Josh.
“Come with me.”
The two of them glanced at the evacuation map, confirmed their current location, and then went straight to the northwest corner on the first floor. However, even after several rounds of wandering, they couldn’t find the so-called lip mark.
“Could we have entered some strange loop?” Josh looked at the corridor, where no one was present, feeling a chill in her heart.
Yang Erci furrowed his brow.
They must rescue her.
While they were circling the corridor, they suddenly saw a strange nine-square grid appear on the floor, with a trace of a route on top.
Yang Erci stepped forward.
What is this?
Soon, a golden light flashed, and the nine-square grid on the ground suddenly disappeared, leaving nothing behind. Not long after, a strange heat flowed from somewhere.
Following this heat, Yang Erci and Josh once again moved forward, guided by the temperature. This time, as if something had been deciphered, even though they didn’t find the source of the heat flow, they suddenly saw a mottled red lipstick mark at the corner ahead.
The next moment, Yang Erci heard a voice—
There was no work log in this so-called data room!
Zhong Yirou followed “An Wujiu” into the room, feeling uneasy. She discovered that there was a small suite inside, resembling an office. Something felt off, so she kept asking, “Where is the log?”
But “An Wujiu” never answered.
He made Zhong Yirou walk in front, himself following closely behind, forcing her toward the inner suite, and then approaching a wall.
Just as the panic in Zhong Yirou’s heart reached its peak, the “An Wujiu” beside her somehow pulled out a soft leather whip. With a swift motion, he wrapped it around Zhong Yirou’s slender neck, dragging her to the ground.
The survival instinct made Zhong Yirou try to resist. One hand grabbed the wall, and the other desperately clutched the leather whip, screaming for help.
“Help! An Wujiu! Someone is impersonating you! I’m going to die! Help…”
Under the intense pain, the air was squeezed out of her body. Zhong Yirou almost lost the strength to call for help when a loud “bang” sounded from behind.
Followed by a muffled and fierce impact.
The assailant behind her collapsed beside Zhong Yirou, like crumbling debris after a foundation collapsed.
The tightly held whip loosened, and Zhong Yirou, like a dying fish released back into the water at the last moment, weakly gasped for air and looked back.
It was Yang Erci who had come to her rescue. On her usually icy face, a faint emotion was revealed.
As if lingering fear.
“Help…” Lying on the ground, Zhong Yirou, who had regained her senses, directly grabbed his pant leg, wearing a smile of relief on her face.
“Beauty rescuing beauty, you arrived just in time. I love you so much; you’re truly a good person…”
Her words were hollow, and she was clearly joking.
Yang Erci took a long breath, put down the chair he had grabbed, and ruthlessly smashed it against the assailant’s head twice, both times targeting the back of the skull.
It better not be the real An Wujiu.
Meanwhile, An Wujiu who had been wandering in circles with Shen Ti suddenly sneezed.
His sneezing expression was quite amusing, and Shen Ti looked at him with a tilted head.
An Wujiu sneezed two more times in a row, then rubbed his nose.
“What’s wrong with you?” Shen Ti asked.
An Wujiu looked puzzled and touched his head, “I don’t know.”
“I feel… a chill on the back of my head.”
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