(2/3)
Changsheng Building
Chapter 217: Luck is coming to an end
Upon realizing this, Wen Jianyan felt a chill down his spine, and his hair stood on end.
He quickly turned his head to look at the teammates behind him.
Qi Qian, An Xin, Su Cheng… and himself.
The light from the oil lamp was dim and faintly illuminated the entire room. Wen Jianyan surveyed the area with the lamp’s light but did not see the figure of a fifth person.
This meant…
Wen Jianyan had a foreboding feeling.
He slowly turned back to look at the dressing table in front of him.
He didn’t know if it was an illusion, but this time, the bronze mirror seemed clearer than before, not as blurry.
Wen Jianyan carefully looked into the mirror.
Behind the four of them, there was a vague, shadowy figure.
Suddenly, under Wen Jianyan’s gaze, the shadow took a step forward without warning, coming closer to them.
“!”
In previous instances, Wen Jianyan dealt with mirrors more often than ordinary anchors. When encountering such a horrifying event, he instantly realized what was happening and immediately raised his voice to remind them:
“The corpse in this room is in the mirror!”
At this shout, everyone was startled and instinctively turned to look at the bronze mirror.
The previously blurry mirror surface was now clearer.
Under the dim yellow light, they could clearly see that behind the four of them, there was an extra fifth person.
The pitch-black shadow was slowly, step by step, moving forward with stiff steps, approaching An Xin, who was at the end of the team.
“Shit!!!” An Xin stared at the creepy scene in the mirror and jumped up, turning to look behind him.
Behind him, it was empty; there was nothing there.
However, the figure in the mirror was still moving, step by step, forward.
An Xin’s hair stood on end, and he quickly moved away from that spot: “What the hell!”
In just a few seconds, the figure had already entered the area illuminated by the oil lamp.
At this point, they could finally see clearly that the shadow was actually a woman with her back to them.
She was wearing a scarlet long dress, her long black hair hanging down to her waist, with two pale hands hanging at her sides, seemingly already decayed, showing the unique color of a corpse, with only the bright red nail polish on her fingers still strikingly vivid.
Wen Jianyan was stunned.
This… was exactly the hand that had placed the key on the shelf!
In the mirror, the female corpse, with her back to them, did not chase in An Xin’s direction but continued to move backward with stiff steps.
In an instant, many clues connected in Wen Jianyan’s mind.
The hand that reached out from the shadows, not existing in reality; the key placed on the shelf; the lock on the door that could be opened with the key; the scarlet dressing table and bronze mirror; the figure only existing in the mirror; the female corpse with her back to them, not attacking the anchors, just moving backward…
Wen Jianyan’s breath caught:
“It is trying to invade the real world from inside the mirror!”
The hand that placed the key on the shelf was the hand of this female corpse, with its distinctive red nail polish, and Wen Jianyan was sure he couldn’t be mistaken. The reason it gave them the key was to have them open the door at the back of the shop and release itself from the shadows that didn’t exist in the real world.
Qi Qian was stunned and immediately understood Wen Jianyan’s meaning.
So this was why the corpse in the mirror didn’t attack them just now but only kept retreating stiffly, step by step.
Presumably, once it retreats out of the mirror, it can enter reality through it.
An Xin turned to look at Qi Qian, seeking advice:
“Captain, what do we do now?”
Based on the experience downstairs, the extra piece of paper money was tightly held in the hand of the corpse. In other words, to get that extra piece of spirit money, they had to release the corpse from the mirror; otherwise, there was no way to get what they wanted.
But…
This corpse was obviously more ferocious and malevolent than the one downstairs; otherwise, it wouldn’t have been specially locked in the mirror.
Qi Qian looked over the people in front of him and gritted his teeth:
“Withdraw.”
Qi Qian entered this place with the intention of doing their best but retreating if they couldn’t manage. Their team was already down one person, greatly reducing their strength. If they were to stubbornly fight in this situation, the consequences could be dire.
“……”
The others were stunned, looked at each other, and then nodded: “Alright.”
Qi Qian cautiously covered the oil lamp in his hand and quickly walked out of the warehouse.
Soon, they swiftly retreated to the doorway.
In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room:
[Huh? Seriously? Are they chickening out already?]
[Don’t they even have the courage to face it? The captain’s guts are a bit too small, how disappointing.]
Wen Jianyan glanced back at the warehouse.
Although he hadn’t said anything during Qi Qian’s announcement to retreat, he actually agreed with Qi Qian’s decision to retreat.
Red nail polish, a red dressing table, a red key—these things seemed to have an invisible connection. All of these elements together gave Wen Jianyan a very bad feeling.
It was like… everything had been calculated within a scheme.
Even worse, he had just seen the female corpse’s hand moving in the shadowed area that the oil lamp couldn’t illuminate, meaning that if this female corpse was really released from the mirror, they probably couldn’t stop its movement by cutting off the light source like they did upstairs.
It was like opening Pandora’s box, releasing something truly terrible.
In the dark, empty room, with a scarlet painted, mottled dressing table standing in the center of the darkness, the bronze mirror on it faintly showed the motionless back of the female corpse, cold and eerie, giving an inescapable sense of foreboding.
“Creak—”
The rusty door hinges turned.
The room’s door closed, cutting off the last bit of light from the oil lamp and shutting heavily.
***
At the same time, inside shop number 06.
A strong smell of rotting flesh filled the air, and the shop shelves were covered with a thick, sticky yellow substance, sealing off all the goods below. On the glass door, two thick iron chains sealed the door tightly, covered with yellow talismans drawn in red cinnabar with twisted symbols.
Outside the door, near the shop, a corpse lay quietly on the ground.
The body was decayed, the skin pale, completely lifeless. Judging by the clothing, it was a member of the Orange Candy team.
“Crack, crack…”
The sound of bones rubbing against each other echoed.
The corpse got up from the ground with stiff movements, then staggered away into the darkness, disappearing from sight in the blink of an eye.
Inside the shop, there was a dead silence, with only the oil lamp welded to the table still burning, casting a dim yellow light.
It seemed like a fierce fight had just taken place here; many shelves were overturned, the place was in disarray, and the dark blood was smeared around, covered with large and small footprints.
It was evident that on this floor, the Orange Candy team was not handling things as easily as they had on the upper floor.
Not only had they lost a team member, but the remaining members had also been somewhat worn down.
Orange Candy sat on the counter, her slender legs swinging slightly, repeatedly examining the spirit money in her palm.
Strangely, this piece of ghost money was different from the one they had obtained on the lower floor. This piece of ghost money’s surface was slightly red, with a faint smell of putrid blood. Below the words “bank,” there was a pale, smiling human face. No matter from which angle one looked, it felt like being stared at, bringing a spine-chilling sense of eerie ghostliness.
“Hey, Mumu, why don’t we just take action?” Orange Candy put the ghost money back in her pocket, looked up at Mumu, and playfully tilted her head, making what seemed like a joking suggestion.
“Wouldn’t it be better to kill those guys before leaving the second floor?”
However, those familiar with her knew that their captain never joked about such things.
Moreover, Orange Candy’s proposal might seem rash, but it wasn’t entirely unreasonable.
No one could have expected the difficulty gap between the first and second floors of the “Changsheng Building” instance to be so vast. Even the Orange Candy team, the most experienced team in this instance, was struggling.
In the Nightmare instances, the difficulty would gradually increase over time.
The second floor was already this difficult; what kind of horrors would the third and fourth floors hold?
At the point of no return, it would be better to act now while they still had the ability to handle both situations to avoid future troubles.
Although the Dark Fire team had just shown some unexpected strength, according to their information, this team had never participated in any team instances before, and they only had one combat-oriented anchor. If it came to a hard fight, the Orange Candy team still had the upper hand.
Compared to contending with the higher floors of the instance, it was simpler to compete against other anchors.
“……”
Beside her, a pale, thin-faced man sat with his body wrapped in bandages under his clothes.
He closed his eyes and didn’t answer Orange Candy’s question. Instead, he loosely clasped his hands together and shook them up and down.
“Clatter.”
He opened his hands, and several white wooden plaques were scattered on the table.
There were ten plaques in total, red on one side and black on the other, carved with strange symbols. At this moment, the plaques on the table were half red and half black, with six red plaques and four black ones.
Mumu bent down and carefully examined the scattered plaques, his thin back arching into a grotesque hunchback.
“So, have you decided?” The little girl’s casual voice sounded from above.
Mumu simply gathered the plaques back into his hands and shook them again with his eyes closed.
“Clatter.”
The plaques were scattered on the table once more.
This time, eight out of ten plaques had turned black, scattered on the table.
The distribution of the plaques was random, yet there seemed to be some hidden, strange pattern. The pitch-black plaques echoed each other, creating an exceptionally eerie and unusual sensation.
After carefully studying the plaques this time, Mumu raised his head and looked at Orange Candy with his dull gray eyes: “Captain, don’t worry.”
Orange Candy tilted her head.
“Even without our intervention,” Mumu said, “they are doomed this time.”
“Oh? How so?”
For the first time, Orange Candy seemed interested in Mumu’s divination.
She jumped down from the counter, brought her face close to Mumu’s, and smiled, “What makes you think so?”
“The black side dominates; fate has reached its end. The game is a dead end; the life path is blocked, and the death path is wide open.”
Mumu extended a skinny, pale hand and slowly picked up the plaques on the table, placing them into the pocket at his side. However—
His gaze paused on the last plaque.
Orange Candy keenly noticed Mumu’s unusual behavior. She followed his gaze and looked at the last plaque.
That small wooden plaque was standing upright on the table, neither red nor black.
Orange Candy picked up the plaque and examined it curiously: “What does this mean?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Mumu shook his head, took the plaque from Orange Candy’s hand, and put it into his small waist pouch. “The simultaneous appearance of two individual plaque faces usually means ten deaths and one survival. This time, both appeared together, signaling an inevitable demise. Even with a variable, it cannot be reversed.”
Mumu lowered his head and tied up his small waist pouch.
Even if that sole plaque representing change stood right at the center, it didn’t matter. The simultaneous appearance of two great misfortunes meant that no one could survive.
After leaving the small room behind the shop, Qi Qian and his team returned to the counter.
After a short rest, Tong Yao’s complexion had obviously recovered, and even Zhang Yu seemed less lethargic.
“How is it?”
Tong Yao closed her eyes and turned her head in the direction of the voice: “Did you find anything?”
“Unfortunately, quite a bit.” Qi Qian briefly explained what they had seen in the secret room and finally shared his decision:
“In short, I decided not to confront it head-on and to retreat first.”
Qi Qian looked at Zhang Yu apologetically: “Sorry.”
The higher the floor, the greater the difficulty. The extra earnings in the lower-floor secret room would be even harder to obtain, and Zhang Yu’s condition was indeed worsening.
That meant…
His decision was essentially to preserve more teammates, sacrificing the last hope of saving Zhang Yu.
“No.” Zhang Yu shook his head, coughed twice with a suppressed voice, and calmly said, “Captain, you made the right choice.”
They still hadn’t completed their “revenue” on the second floor, meaning they would likely have to entertain one more guest. If they released the female corpse trapped in the mirror at this critical moment, no one knew what might happen.
As the captain, Qi Qian shouldn’t put his entire team at risk of annihilation by making an emotional and reckless decision.
In team battles, the team was always more important.
Soon, they finished their rest, and Wen Jianyan briefly shared his previous breakthrough method with the others, and the team summarized accordingly.
“So, after the customers enter the shop and take the goods, the shop automatically replenishes with a similar item in the same place, and this item will spread the curse. All other ordinary items are just mediums for spreading the curse. Only by finding the source of the curse will the danger disappear.”
Qi Qian pondered for a moment.
The woman in the white dress nodded quietly: “That should be the case.”
“Then… does that mean my finding the radio with hidden dangers wasn’t actually useful?” Tong Yao asked with a grim face.
“Not exactly,” Wen Jianyan replied, “Those should be the first batch of media spreading the curse, the most dangerous after the customers leave the shop. Identifying their locations in advance is beneficial for us.”
Without those items, Wen Jianyan wouldn’t have concluded that “clearing the shelves” would be effective.
Moreover, this also means that the curse’s spread is layered.
At first, only a few key problem items were cursed, but as the curse gradually intensified, other ordinary items were also affected.
This was good news for them.
It meant that the period right after the customer left the shop, before the curse spread to all the items, was relatively safe for them.
As long as they could locate the source of the curse quickly during this time, the risk they faced would be greatly reduced.
“One more thing,” Wen Jianyan added, “In the last round, the radio that was the source of the curse was actually one of the hidden props.”
“!”
The team was stunned, as if they all realized something at the same time. Their eyes lit up.
“So, you’re saying…” Qi Qian leaned forward slightly, asking urgently, “If we use the Hand of Guidance prop right after the customer leaves, we might be able to directly locate the source item?”
“Yes.” Wen Jianyan nodded.
Everyone’s spirits lifted.
During the first wave of attacks, although they had been caught off guard and nearly failed, the experience they had gained from the previous round was invaluable. It was essential for their next actions, practically providing them with an irreplaceable advantage.
They not only understood the operating mechanism of the instance but could also deduce the simplest coping strategies, which was practically a shortcut.
With this, their success rate had increased once again.
After setting their plan, the team began their action once more.
The light-blocking objects on the door were removed. Through the blurred glass, they could see the faint light from the oil lamp, like a lighthouse in the dark sea, silently sending out signals.
Clear and conspicuous, guiding the next customer to come.
The members of the Dark Fire Squad stood behind the counter, staring intently at the slightly ajar glass door, adopting a posture of readiness.
In the dead silence, time ticked by second by second.
Until…
“Tap, tap, tap.”
The familiar sound of footsteps emerged from the darkness.
They were coming.
The group stiffened, holding their breath.
“Jingle.” The clear sound of a copper bell rang in the large store, the glass door was pushed open from the outside, and a cold, foul-smelling wind blew into the shop.
The oil lamp’s wick flickered, and the illuminated area gradually shrank.
There was no difference from the previous two times.
The team stood behind the counter, listening intently to the footsteps moving deeper into the shop, mentally calculating the distance in the darkness.
Soon, the footsteps stopped.
It seemed… as if they had stopped in the middle of the right aisle.
The team remained silent, continuing to wait.
After a brief pause, the footsteps started again, this time heading towards the counter.
In the heavy, impenetrable darkness, a pale, blue-tinted dead hand slowly reached out and placed a paper bill on the counter.
“Tap, tap…”
The footsteps started again, heading straight out of the shop.
“Jingle.”
The copper bell rang again.
As the footsteps receded and the glass door closed, the area illuminated by the oil lamp widened again, and the dim yellow light quickly filled the shop, illuminating this place full of hidden dangers.
Wen Jianyan habitually glanced at the counter.
He was slightly stunned.
This time’s paper bill… seemed different from the previous two times?
The paper was blood-red, and under the word “bank,” there was no longer the image of Yama but a pale, smiling face, staring directly at them from the bill.
However, now was not the time to focus on this.
Wen Jianyan quickly retracted his gaze.
Before the first wave of curses appeared, they would have an extremely short period of safety. If they could locate the key source item during this time, they could immediately ensure their safety and even proceed directly to the third floor.
Getting the maximum benefit with the least cost, a sure win.
Of course, this was assuming they could do it.
“Move.” Qi Qian ordered in a low voice. Except for the immobile Tong Yao and Zhang Yu, the others immediately left the counter at the fastest speed.
According to the plan, Qi Qian quickly activated the “Hand of Guidance” prop.
Using this prop, they could randomly learn the location of a hidden prop. If the source of the curse this round was also a difficult hidden prop, then by using this prop, they could find its location in the fastest way and eliminate the danger in the cradle.
Soon, an arrow jumped out of the air, bouncing up and down and pointing in a certain direction.
Qi Qian said, “That way!”
He followed the arrow of the Hand of Guidance towards the back of the shop.
The others immediately followed closely.
After all, there might not be just one hidden prop in the shop. To prevent the situation where they might encounter multiple hidden props after activating the Hand of Guidance, and thus wasting the prop, the team decided to activate the props in batches.
The four of them moved quickly, following the route towards the back.
However, the arrow did not stop in the middle of the aisle but instead pointed towards the depths of the shop.
Looking at the tightly closed iron door, Qi Qian instinctively paused his steps and frowned tightly.
This was bad.
According to their original plan, even if the first hand of guidance pointed in the wrong direction, it wouldn’t matter. They would obtain the prop as quickly as possible and then immediately activate the next Hand of Guidance.
However…
Who would have thought that the first hidden prop was actually in that room full of endless dangers?
This meant that to get it, they would have to enter the room again.
Clearly, they were in no condition to do so now.
This meant they could only take the risk of wasting the prop and activate the second Hand of Guidance without obtaining the first hidden prop.
But there was no other choice.
And their luck couldn’t really be that bad, could it? They might as well take a gamble.
Qi Qian gritted his teeth and said, “An Xin, activate it.”
An Xin nodded, “Alright.”
He activated the prop.
The second red arrow appeared.
Again, it pointed to the iron door.
Everyone: “…”
Could their luck really be this bad?!
“Integrity First” live broadcast room:
[Here’s the part where luck abandons them again!]
[Hiss, this really matches up with that other prophet’s content. Their luck is indeed at rock bottom.]
Just then, a light “zzzz” sound suddenly echoed, sounding particularly clear in the dead silent shop.
Everyone’s hearts sank.
Oh no.
The first wave of curses was here.
“Click!”
One of the televisions turned on automatically without being touched.
“…Ssshhh…”
The sound of static echoed, and black and white stripes rolled across the screen as if disturbed. A blurry image gradually appeared.
In the endless darkness, a woman in a red dress sat.
She faced away from the screen, sitting in front of a scarlet vanity, as if looking into a mirror.
“!!!”
Everyone was shocked, their pupils constricting.
Wasn’t this the same back view of the female corpse they had seen in the room just now?
Under their horrified gazes, the woman slowly raised her pale hand, with nails painted a crimson red, combing her long, black hair with a comb.
“Ssshh—”
Amid the piercing static, they could faintly hear the sound of the comb running through her hair.
“Click!”
Another television automatically turned on.
The screen showed the exact same scene.
In front of the scarlet vanity, a woman sat with her back to the screen, using a crimson-painted hand to comb her hair. Her movements were stiff and slow, exuding an eerie and sinister vibe.
“Click!”
Next, the third, the fourth…
One by one, the old televisions lit up, each displaying the same image of the woman’s back.
Suddenly, she stopped her hand.
The woman facing away from them slowly stood up without turning around and walked backward step by step towards the screen.
Just like in the room earlier.
For every Ko-fi received for a perticular novel, I will release a new chapter!
