Changsheng Building
Chapter 222: As long as there are rules, there will always be loopholes.
“……”
Wen Jianyan stood still, his eyes tightly closed.
With his vision sealed off, his other senses were magnified a hundredfold.
The air was eerie and cold, causing goosebumps to rise on his skin. Cold sweat seeped out, dampening the thin fabric that clung to his back. His hearing became exceptionally acute.
The sound of heads rolling echoed around, making it impossible to determine the position of any single head. The sense of terror was omnipresent, attacking from all directions.
“Tap, tap, tap.”
Stiff footsteps came from afar, each interval seemingly precisely calculated, slowly and steadily approaching step by step.
His heartstrings were taut, the physiological responses to fear manifesting in his body.
His throat tightened, palms sweating, body icy cold.
Quick.
What should he do? What should he do?
In this situation, there were not many props he could use. The only ones that could be of help were legendary-level items, but all these items could only be used once. Using them now would mean they couldn’t be used for the rest of the instance.
And this was only the second floor.
In other instances, he might take the risk of using them early, but this was an A+ level team, with difficulty equivalent to an SS-level instance. The difficulty would escalate even more terrifyingly later on.
Especially… the enemy he was facing now was far more than just the instance itself.
Wen Jianyan knew that, unless absolutely necessary, he couldn’t activate the items prematurely.
He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
Hurry!
Up until now, based on the characteristics shown by the Changsheng Building, “rules” played an extremely important role and couldn’t be ignored.
Wen Jianyan had experienced various instances. Some instances had “story” as their core, allowing for more flexibility. Others had “concepts” and “rules” as their core, and “Changsheng Building” clearly belonged to the latter.
Here, figuring out the rules was necessary for survival.
A deadlock?
Perhaps it really was.
But as long as there were rules, there would definitely be loopholes.
And in finding loopholes… he was a natural master.
Wen Jianyan clenched his fist, his neatly trimmed nails digging into his palm, bringing a slight pain that made his mind more focused.
He carefully recalled everything that had happened since the second customer entered the store.
Everything that happened after entering the mirror world was also a point of Wen Jianyan’s thinking and analysis.
Carefully, there would definitely be blind spots.
What exactly did he overlook?
The continuous footsteps echoed in his ears, “tap,” “tap”… one after another, bringing a kind of creepy meaning, irresistibly approaching. Each step seemed to strike his heart, causing an instinctive, extreme fear.
Suddenly, Wen Jianyan was startled.
In an instant, he suddenly realized something.
Come to think of it… why did the female corpse stop after “killing” Qi Qian?
The monsters in this instance were not ghosts driven by desire or emotion. They had no consciousness or thinking ability, and they couldn’t be eliminated or stopped.
But just now…
After Qi Qian’s “death,” the female corpse stopped.
It did not pursue, nor did it attack Su Cheng, who was the closest to it, but stood still, motionless, until after a while, it regained the ability to move.
Why?
Did Qi Qian do something?
After killing one person, why did the female corpse enter a cooldown period? Was it merely some kind of setting to prevent them from dying too quickly?
And Qi Qian’s last words:
“Eye contact means death.”
Wen Jianyan felt his throat tighten slightly, and his heart began to pound wildly. He had a vague feeling that he was getting close to the truth.
“Hey, when you approached Qi Qian’s body just now, what was its position?”
Su Cheng was stunned for two seconds before realizing Wen Jianyan was talking to him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, restraining the slight tremor in his voice, “Which direction was his head facing?”
Although he didn’t know why Wen Jianyan was asking such a question, Su Cheng answered honestly:
“It was facing upwards.”
“The female corpse was standing right next to his body, right?” Wen Jianyan asked.
“Yes.”
That was it.
It was like a missing piece of a puzzle being filled in, completing the concept of the rules in his mind. Although Wen Jianyan’s eyes were still tightly closed, he could see more clearly than ever before.
With a thought, the legendary-level item appeared in his palm.
A small, irregular fragment of a mirror, shining brightly and glaringly under the dim oil lamp light.
In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room:
[? Why is the anchor summoning this item now? I thought he would at least activate the Holy Infant and use the invincibility of the Mother of the World to get key items.]
[Yeah, I remember the function of Mr. Mirror is to reveal hidden truths, but it’s useless to activate it now. There’s no past story in this shop to dig up, and even if there was, it wouldn’t be useful. Opening your eyes now means certain death.]
[Is he trying to call for external help?]
[Not sure… seems unlikely?]
To everyone’s surprise, Wen Jianyan neither activated the item nor tried to use the mirror fragment to contact anyone. Instead, he held the mirror fragment in his palm and started walking forward.
“Tap, tap, tap.”
The corpse’s footsteps were stiff, like a wound-up machine, relentlessly approaching without any fatigue or emotion. Even in an advantageous situation, it was something to avoid at all costs. However, Wen Jianyan walked straight toward the sound without hesitation!
His face was pale, his eyes tightly shut, and sweat beaded on his forehead, but his movements and expression were extremely resolute.
“Tap, tap.”
The footsteps were now very close.
Wen Jianyan could feel the cold breath from the corpse pressing against his skin—eerie, sticky, triggering a physiological fear. The rotten stench at the tip of his nose and the overlapping shadows on his eyelids made his eyeballs roll anxiously, judging the distance.
Almost there.
Now!
Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth, raised his hand, and placed the mirror fragment over his right eye.
“Tap.”
Without any warning, the female corpse’s footsteps abruptly stopped in front of Wen Jianyan.
At this moment, if anyone could open their eyes, they would see Wen Jianyan and the female corpse almost face to face. The corpse in the red dress was cold and stiff, exuding a terrifying aura of decay. However, in front of Wen Jianyan, it forcibly stopped and did not move.
It stopped.
It really stopped.
Wen Jianyan’s eyes were still tightly closed, his eyelashes were trembling slightly, and his palm was sweaty.
He guessed right.
The female corpse’s “eye contact means death” had a certain distance.
Its face was always hidden in the shadows. To make eye contact with it, one had to get very close. Otherwise, when they first entered the storage room and looked around, they might have inadvertently met its eyes and died instantly.
Only by getting close enough to see the female corpse’s eyes, like Qi Qian did to obtain the underworld coins, would one trigger the “instant death” condition.
And the vision must be mutual.
At such a close distance, human eyes can also reflect light, forming an image.
The female corpse could also “see” one’s own eyes.
But because it was already dead, under the curse of one’s own sight, it would only fall into a period of silence, entering a so-called “cooldown period.”
The concept that “eye contact means death” was indiscriminate, even for the female corpse itself.
That was why its way of intruding into reality was so strange.
For the female corpse’s curse to take effect, the “distance” requirement was quite high. Since that was the case, whether it walked out of the mirror face-first or back-first, it made no difference from the perspective of the instance design.
Why did it have to walk backward to intrude into reality?
Because if it faced outward, it would eventually “see” itself in the mirror and enter a deadlock. So, it must walk backward to leave the mirror world.
That’s right, that’s how it was.
If it were an ordinary mirror, it might break under the curse’s effect. But the “Mr. Mirror” itself is a legendary-level hidden item, a non-realistic product originating from the instance. That’s why Wen Jianyan took it out—not to activate it, but to let it temporarily bear the curse and stop the female corpse’s movement.
Others, with their eyes tightly closed, couldn’t see what was happening outside, but they could hear the constant, stiff footsteps suddenly disappear.
Everyone was stunned.
The footsteps… stopped?
“…Don’t open your eyes.”
Wen Jianyan, breathing unsteadily, warned.
He slowly took a step back, moving away from the female corpse in front of him.
Now, the female corpse was temporarily unable to move, but this did not mean their crisis was over. The heads that could also transmit deadly curses were still around.
Perhaps due to the female corpse’s temporary silence, the rolling speed of the heads slowed down, but they continued rolling around them.
As long as anyone opened their eyes, they would still face the risk of death.
Moreover, based on previous experience, the female corpse’s cooldown period was short—no more than five minutes. This meant they had to find a way to survive within these last five minutes!
And during this time, they couldn’t open their eyes at all… Although death wasn’t as imminent as before, the deadlock situation remained unavoidable.
Wen Jianyan, with his eyes closed, fumbled to take out a small oil lamp from his pocket.
“An Xin, come here.”
He gave a concise order, “Follow me.”
An Xin groped in the dark, carefully moving towards the direction of Wen Jianyan’s voice. Soon, he felt the other’s fingers finding and gripping his wrist.
The other’s fingers were cold and slender but surprisingly strong, almost painfully so.
“Take this, light it.”
Wen Jianyan ordered.
“…Oh, oh, okay.”
Under the other’s sudden assertiveness, An Xin hurriedly nodded, instinctively obeying the command, easily led by the nose.
“Follow me; don’t fall behind, understand?”
“Un-understood.”
In the “Integrity First” live broadcast room, amidst a tense barrage of comments analyzing the situation, an inappropriate remark quietly appeared:
[Damn, this is too S.]1In this context, “太S” (tài S) refers to the Japanese term “S” (short for “Sadistic”), which is often used in Chinese internet slang to describe someone with a dominant or assertive personality, often in a teasing or playful way.
[Although I know it’s not quite right to say this now, but… when will the big sister come to train me?]
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