Chapter 696: Nested
Just as he promised when he left, Wen Jianyan didn’t make the others wait long.
When he returned, besides the inseparable Wu Zhu by his side, there was an additional brightly dressed but gloomily expressioned Figaro.
“Let me introduce you. This is Mr. Figaro,” Wen Jianyan smiled, “A profiteer who makes a killing in the instances by reselling our information. However, under my persuasion, he has now turned over a new leaf, profoundly reflected on his past behavior, and to atone for his sins, has decided to guide us for free for the remainder of the time. It’s truly touching.”
Figaro, who had turned over a new leaf, profoundly reflected, and decided to work for free to atone for his sins: “…”
[Persuasion? Threat!]
[Hahahahaha, this is the first time I’ve seen Figaro deflated like this. Why does it feel like every time he stumbles, it’s because of Pinocchio?]
[LOL, there’s always someone to subdue someone else. This is a case of the treacherous meeting the even more treacherous.]
During Wen Jianyan’s introduction, the group silently and coldly stared at Figaro with undisguised hostility in their eyes.
During the process of being besieged, they had actually noticed clues—the anchors besieging them seemed to know a bit too much detail about them, bringing them to the brink of death multiple times. However, considering Nightmare directly published their real-time locations, they had always thought it was Nightmare manipulating things behind the scenes. They simply hadn’t expected that someone was actually using this information to make money behind their backs.
“Ha, haha.”
Under the temperatureless gazes of the crowd, Figaro let out two dry laughs:
“Everyone’s time is precious, so I won’t waste it. Anyway, please follow me.”
Just like that, under his guidance, the group hurried all the way to the elevator. Compared to the situation of being ambushed every few moments earlier, their movement this time was remarkably smooth. Figaro seemed to have already thoroughly scouted the entire instance—both the terrain and the anchor squads responsible for the encirclement and hunting—and very accurately led them to bypass all locations where encounter battles might occur, arriving safely at their destination.
The elevator began to run.
The narrow space was dead silent; only the monotonous sound of the machinery operating could be heard.
“Before we reach the floor, first tell us what you know right now.” Wen Jianyan’s gaze landed on Figaro as he spoke.
“As you command.” Figaro pressed his small bowler hat to his chest and bowed elegantly. “Ladies first. Then I shall first speak of the situation on the ladies’ end—if my intelligence is correct, Miss Orange Candy should be acting alongside Madam Wen Ya at this moment, and they have dealt with all the pursuers they encountered on their path. However, about twenty minutes ago, their two coordinates disappeared from Nightmare’s map. The specific reason is unknown, but I believe their lives should be temporarily not in danger. As for Mr. Chen Cheng—”
He dragged out his tone, the ominous implication making everyone’s hearts involuntarily skip a beat.
Chen Mo frowned: “Speak quickly.”
“Of course, before I met Pinocchio—that is, before information was blocked by Nightmare—their three names on the bounty list hadn’t disappeared. It’s just that relatively speaking, I’m slightly more worried about Mr. Chen Cheng’s side,” Figaro smiled, not minding the other’s overly tough tone, and continued speaking, “After all, the person he encountered is a anchor you should all be very familiar with.”
Figaro narrowed his long, thin eyes and smiled as he gave the answer:
“Nightmare’s rank four, Hugo.”
“—What?”
Even though they already had a premonition about the answer, truly hearing it still made the group involuntarily draw a sharp breath of cold air, a chill shooting up their backs.
Since entering the instance, the crises each of them had experienced were urgent and fatal. However, compared to the crisis Chen Cheng might be facing, it still seemed like child’s play—you have to know, that was Hugo.
Even among all of Nightmare’s top ten, he could be considered formidably strong on a completely different level. It could even be said that if the people above him weren’t each founders of the top three guilds, and he himself had no intention of initiating any rank-challenging battles, he should have long been ranked among them.
Wen Jianyan’s heart also sank.
“Specifically?” he asked.
“Ah, the way you say that, I’m not omniscient and omnipotent either,” Figaro seemed very apologetic, bowing once again. “The risk of confrontations between anchors of this level is too great. Just getting slightly close makes it easy to be forcefully dragged in. Aside from the general area where it occurred, I know nothing else.”
Accompanied by a “ding,” the elevator doors opened to both sides.
They had arrived at the first floor.
The group left the elevator. They didn’t speak, but their footsteps unanimously became anxious.
The air was heavy, like a water-soaked rag, pressing down until it was hard to breathe.
“We’re almost there,” Figaro suddenly spoke up.
Actually, even if he didn’t say it, they could intuitively feel it from the change in the air around them.
Under the dim lighting, extremely faint smoke drifted. However, unlike when controlled by Hugo, this smoke hadn’t condensed into a solid form, but was drifting strand by strand—with the portholes closed and cabin doors locked tight, it had nowhere to dissipate, and could only randomly fill this narrow space.
It was very clear that this battle didn’t seem to have happened that long ago.
And what made everyone most uneasy was that, amidst this ethereal, scattered smoke, there was distinctly mixed a sharp, pungent stench of blood.
The next second, a correspondingly tragic scene appeared before their eyes.
On the walls, the floor, the ceiling… knife marks covered every direction, each one over an inch deep, with fresh, dripping bloodstains remaining in some of them. It was a complete mess all around, as if swept by a hurricane.
Chen Cheng wasn’t here, and neither was Hugo.
Only the traces of smoke drifting in the air, and the shocking knife marks and bloodstains in every direction—everything indicated what a terrifying, vicious battle had once taken place here.
“This… this…” Blond looked around. His vision was too good, and he captured the most information. After merely sweeping a few glances, his face turned pale, his lips trembling slightly as he squeezed out a few shaking syllables, “Could it be…”
“No.”
Chen Mo interrupted him.
His expression was also very unpleasant, but his tone still maintained rationality and restraint.
“Chen Cheng’s corpse isn’t here.”
“…” Wen Jianyan nodded. “Chen Mo is right.”
Yes, although the surroundings were devastated and bloodstains were everywhere, looking around, there wasn’t a single corpse.
And Nightmare obviously wasn’t the type to collect corpses for people.
Even if they couldn’t get more information from the phones contaminated by Nightmare right now, at least judging from this point, the probability of Chen Cheng still being alive wasn’t small.
Wu Zhu moved his fingertips, and two drops of semi-coagulated fresh blood rose from the knife marks on the floor, presumably belonging to two different people.
Wen Jianyan: “How is it?”
“…” Wu Zhu raised his eyes and shook his head slightly: “Can’t find them.”
“The people who bled these two drops of blood aren’t here.”
What?!
Hearing this, the group was startled.
Chen Cheng’s corpse was missing, his life or death unknown. While there was a possibility he was alive, there was a greater probability he had died, so it was excusable for Wu Zhu not to find him. But even Hugo “isn’t here”? How was this possible?
It was simply unbelievable.
While everyone’s attention was fully focused on “Chen Cheng’s safety and whereabouts”, on the other side, in a corner of the corridor far from the center of events, an enthusiastic voice sounded very inappropriately.
“If I’m not mistaken, you must be Mr. Bai Xue, right?”
Listening to the voice ringing by his ear, the pale-skinned boy raised his head, looking toward the side with those pitch-black eyes.
It turned out that Figaro had unknowingly shifted his position and was standing next to him.
The other narrowed his pair of crafty, slanted eyes, looking at him with a smile: “Ah, I’ve heard so much about you.”
Among Nightmare’s high-level anchors, Bai Xue lived in deep seclusion and rarely appeared in public. For the vast majority of anchors, there were very few opportunities to come into contact with him. In fact, from the moment Figaro was brought in by Wen Jianyan, he had already noticed him, but just hadn’t found an opportunity to strike up a conversation until now.
“Strictly speaking, I’m also a fan of yours.”
Figaro flipped his wrist, handing over a gold-stamped business card like magic:
“If you ever need me in the future—”
However, the next second, a slender hand reached over from the side and lightly pinched away that business card.
Figaro turned his head, coming face-to-face with the young man’s kindly smiling face.
“What are you doing?”
His tone was very light, almost gentle.
Wu Zhu stood behind him. Although he didn’t say a single word, his gaze, which seemed devoid of any human emotional fluctuation, felt like a heavy shackle, pressing down heavily on Figaro’s shoulders.
Figaro let out a dry laugh:
“Ah, what are you saying… I just wanted to make a—”
Before he finished speaking, he saw Bai Xue slowly retreat one step, then another, and then hide behind Wen Jianyan’s back. His attitude toward him was like encountering a ferocious beast, avoiding him at all costs.
[Hahahaha abduction failed.]
[He’s completely treated as a bad guy!]
[But to be honest, he really isn’t anything good anyway!]
“…” Seeing this, the effortless smile on Figaro’s face couldn’t help but stiffen.
It was truly strange. Why was it that no matter what the matter was, as long as it involved Pinocchio, things would never go smoothly? This guy was simply his nemesis.
However, now wasn’t the time to settle scores with Figaro.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and got straight to the point:
“Where did Orange Candy and Wen Ya disappear? Take us to see.”
Figaro froze, seemingly not expecting the other to make this request at this critical juncture. But he still quickly put on a willing-to-cooperate look: “Follow me.”
“One more thing. Do you know where Nightmare hid the original negative seventh floor?”
Wen Jianyan asked as they walked.
“Mm?” Figaro paused. “What do you mean?”
“You should also be able to see that the current instance was obtained by deconstructing and reorganizing the previous ‘Lucky Cruise Ship’,” Wen Jianyan didn’t beat around the bush with him and went straight to the topic. “Since that’s the case, all the contents inside the previous cruise ship shouldn’t have disappeared. In the time since the instance began, have you seen any similar existences?”
“This… I really don’t seem to have an impression,” Figaro pondered for a long time and answered cautiously. “After all, I didn’t have the time to truly walk through every corner of the entire instance, right?”
Soon, Figaro stopped his steps.
“We’re here.”
What appeared before them was a completely empty corridor without a single person in sight. Dim light fell from above, the cabin doors on both sides were tightly shut, and the surroundings looked utterly ordinary, not a bit different from other areas in the instance.
“If I remember correctly, the location where Miss Orange Candy and Madam Wen Ya’s coordinates last appeared is right around here,” Figaro introduced. “However, what they encountered here and where they went after this, I know absolutely nothing about.”
Blond looked around, his gaze suddenly fixating on a certain corner on the wall. He froze, involuntarily stepping forward and pressing his palm against the wall:
“Here…”
“What’s wrong?” came the inquiries of the others from behind.
“I just feel—” Reflected in his blood-red-tinted field of vision was a scene entirely different from reality. Right in the center of the flawlessly smooth wall lay an undulating, scarlet flesh scar, winding across it like a centipede. Yet, under his palm, the wall was smooth and flat without any unevenness, as if everything he was seeing was nothing but a hallucination. Blond swallowed hard and said, “There should have been something here once.”
Wen Jianyan stepped forward from behind: “What did you see? Tell us in detail.”
After struggling to describe the things he saw, Blond looked at the other somewhat apprehensively.
Wen Jianyan didn’t give him an immediate answer, merely slightly raising his eyes, his thoughtful gaze falling on the ordinary wall before him.
His eyes flashed, and suddenly he moved.
The young man pressed one hand against the wall, his upper body leaning in close, his eyelashes lowered as he took a shallow sniff.
The group blanked, all their gazes landing collectively on him, seemingly not understanding the purpose of his action.
The next second, Wen Jianyan straightened his body and looked over.
The dim light fell into his eyes, like misty stars.
He spoke slowly: “A fragrance.”
—A rotting, decaying, heavy floral scent that couldn’t be washed off once tainted.
Coming from flowers blooming upon corpses.
“…Are you saying,” Chen Mo seemed to realize something, he abruptly raised his eyes, opened his mouth, and slowly spat out two words, “Dan Zhu?”
“Yes.” Wen Jianyan’s face was as dark as water as he slowly stepped back.
“Now, I finally understand where we are right now.”
He turned to look at the crowd behind him and spoke slowly,
“We haven’t truly entered the cruise ship proper at all right now.”
The Lucky Cruise Ship inherently existed in two parts: the positive floors and the negative floors. This so-called “instance” they were currently in was nothing more than a temporary maze Nightmare hastily put together using leftover scraps from the positive floors of the cruise ship.
Precisely because of this, these three floors seemed so monotonous, leaving only corridors, portholes, and cabins that looked like they were copied, pasted, and reused. Even if they walked all over the three floors of this instance named “Lucky Cruise Ship,” they still hadn’t come into contact with any existence related to the last time the instance was open—those casinos, racetracks, toy factories… everything had vanished without a trace, as if they had never appeared.
At the same time, this also explained why they hadn’t encountered Dan Zhu and Su Cheng despite being in the instance for so long.
As candidates for the cruise ship captain, their identities restricted and bound each other, locking them in a stalemate, and thus neither could leave the cruise ship proper.
This was also why Chen Cheng and Hugo’s whereabouts were unknown, and Orange Candy and Wen Ya’s coordinates had disappeared.
They had entered the true, deeper place.
And the “negative seventh floor” Wen Jianyan was looking for should also be among them.
“—Meaning, there’s an instance nested outside the instance?” Figaro raised an eyebrow, revealing a highly interested expression, and clapped his hands. “What an amazing deduction. It indeed answers many questions I hadn’t figured out.”
“But here comes the problem.”
“Nightmare didn’t leave you any ways or means to leave this area.”
“Furthermore…” Figaro’s gaze fell on Wu Zhu. “If I’m guessing correctly, your—ally—here should also be powerless in this matter, otherwise, you wouldn’t need to find me to lead the way, right?”
There were already signs of this the last time the instance was opened.
This instance was specially made; even a non-human couldn’t completely break through its constraints.
“So, how do you plan to leave here and enter the place you truly want to go?”
“…”
Wen Jianyan remained silent. He thought for a long time before raising his eyes to look at Figaro. “There is a way.”
“We need to find a train.”
“…Ah?” Now it was Figaro’s turn to be stunned. He seemed somewhat unable to believe what he had just heard, repeating, “Say that again? What train?”
“A train.”
Wen Jianyan smiled slightly.
Yes, in order to prevent them from entering the true instance, Nightmare split the entire cruise ship into two instances, and even very viciously removed all the doors, not allowing anyone to leave from here through normal means. However, while Nightmare could dismantle, reorganize, and mold the instance as it pleased, all the existences available for it to use existed within the instance. An existence that never belonged to this instance in the first place naturally couldn’t be easily changed or shaken by it.
For example—
That train Wen Jianyan had ridden, which smashed straight into the deck and completely connected the upper and lower parts of the cruise ship.
