Chapter 44: Carnivorous (16) Nightmare

The four lines of the poem that appeared this time were in messy handwriting, with several words smeared by ink stains. The panic behind them came through the paper.

"Aren't the two of you sitting in the same room?" Qi Si clicked his tongue and raised his eyebrows slightly as he touched the meaning behind the poem.

This sentence is easy to understand. The literal meaning is that two people cannot live in the same room.

There are six guest rooms in total. Not counting the tattooed woman who is almost dead, the remaining players have exactly one room each.

It can be said that there is no suspense.

"What should I say...it was really a good death." Qisi showed a sincere smile, put his hand into his pocket, and rubbed the note Zhou Yilin had sandwiched in his clothes.

——On the first day, the players compared the clues at the dinner table, and it was easy to form a habitual thinking, thinking that the clues in everyone's hands were the same.

——The allocation of one room per person is just enough to fill all the rooms, which is in line with the common sense of players.

After a day of exploration, everyone is tired enough. It is difficult for them to think carefully and calmly, and they will naturally fall into traps.

Seeing the excitement, Qisi didn't think it was a big deal. He had no intention of sleeping for a while, so he simply sat up and stared out the window.

It was completely dark, the moonless sky was pitch black, and there was no trace of any living thing.

I don't know how long it took, but there was a faint sound of sobs in the distance, like threads, and it was very sad. When people heard it, they couldn't help but feel a little sad in their hearts.

Qisi listened for a while and asked patiently: "Why are you crying?"

Got no answer.

The originally blinding darkness was dotted with scattered yellow lights. A gust of cold wind blew in, taking away the heat from the body. The remaining coolness made the sleepiness dissipate in an instant.

The sobs were clearly far away before, as if they were coming from the corner of the courtyard, but now they were closer in an instant, and they were clearly coming from under the bed.

Chiss lowered his eyes and looked under the bed.

A skinny ghost hand like a chicken claw stretched out from the shadow under the bed, grabbed the edge of the bed, and used the support to pull out the skeleton-like body inch by inch.

……excuse me.

Without hesitation, Qisi directly took out the awl from his bracelet and pricked the veins in the joints of the ghost's hand.

The sobs suddenly rose in pitch, and the ghost's hands fell to the ground in pain.

[Side mission has been refreshed]

[Side mission (must do): Dispel the hungry ghosts]

Two lines of silver-white text were refreshed on the system interface, which was particularly bright against the dark background.

Chiss raised his eyes and looked out the window.

Under the dim light, rickety and thin shadows were reflected on the dusty window lattice, their edges blurred and connected into one piece.

Something was attracted by the sobbing of the ghost under the bed. It should be the "starving ghost" mentioned in the prompt text.

Zeiss held his breath, and the whistling sound of wind blowing glass in the silence was particularly harsh.

Strange "crunching" sounds came one after another, like a beast chewing the bones of its prey, or like the flippers of a giant creature crushing hardwood on the ground.

The things outside seemed to have set a target, and various sounds were approaching the room where Qis lived from all directions.

"Dong dong dong."

There was a gentle knock on the window, followed by a "crash", and a hole was broken in the area where the glass was knocked, and cracks rippled like cicada wings.

Zeiss saw two hands pushing side by side into the room through the hole.

The two hands were of different sizes and should belong to different entities, but their skins were exactly the same, as dry as tree bark, completely out of the realm of what a living person could achieve.

The hand is surrounded by a circle of flesh-colored mucus, and fine blood fibers are connected to the skin and flesh, seeming to be an extension of the limbs.

It was extremely malleable like a tentacle. It was squeezed by the window hole and transformed into a shape that could be drilled into the room. At this time, it was getting closer to Qisi inch by inch. In the cramped guest room, it was only one meter away from the bed.

Qisi silently adjusted his posture and moved himself closer to the corner where he could not easily be reached.

The sobs under the bed followed him like a shadow, always coming from right below him, as if guiding the direction of the ghostly hand outside the window.

Sure enough, the hand wrapped in mucus twisted into an awkward angle and continued to approach Qiss.

[Preliminary tip: The bloody truth is buried in the villagers' words. Restore the truth in the words and repeat it at the right time. The villagers will not be able to harm you]

The pre-prompt prompts on the system interface were flashing. Qisi reached out to pick up the tape recorder he had left in the corner before going to bed, and pressed the play button without hesitation.

In the tape recorder, Ah Xi's crisp voice sounded meticulously:

【Every year brings hunger, every year brings famine, there is no rice and no face to cope with the disaster】

[Outside the ancestral hall, next to the locust tree, a large pot is set up to cook meat and taste it]

The chanting sound became blurred after being filtered by the recording medium, but when mixed with the endless night wind, the distortion of the sound quality was just right.

...You asked me to solve the riddle, and I responded directly to the riddle. How should you respond?

Chase turned the volume knob. The chanting became louder and louder, and in a few seconds it succeeded in covering up the sobbing under the bed, occupying the entire room.

The two ghost hands stuck in the window hole stopped, seeming to distinguish the information conveyed by the sound, hesitating whether to move forward further.

Immediately following the first one, the second children's song came out of the tape recorder in the same tone, which was unusually vivid in the silence.

[My sister and brother went to grandma’s house. The children’s meat was tender and the bones were crispy, and grandma was so greedy that her mouth was watering]

[My sister heard a crunching sound at night and asked grandma what she was eating. Grandma said it was dried peas]

[My brother disappeared the next day, and my sister searched and searched, and there were broken bones piled in the corner]

The children's songs that sounded so eerie during the day sounded in the dark, and actually conveyed a bit of liveliness.

It turns out to be Ah Xi's voice, and it starts looping over and over again.

【Every year brings hunger, every year brings famine...】

At this point, Ghost Hand finally made a judgment and slid out of the room like a loach along the window hole. In a few seconds, he disappeared into the continuous shadow outside the window, as if he had never appeared here.

The dim yellow light swayed away like a lantern, and the rickety ghost figures standing in a row by the window dispersed and disappeared into deeper darkness.

[Side mission completed]

Qisi glanced at the system interface and touched the fate watch in his pocket, feeling a little ready to make a move.

He asked abruptly: "Hey, are you just leaving like this?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the ghost hands and shadows that had retreated came back again.

The ghost's sticky and pus-filled hands squeezed into the window hole again, and the ghost's face pressed against the window, its bloodshot eyeballs almost stuck to the glass, and rolled into the room.

Qisi held the cold destiny pocket watch and looked up into those eyes: "If you have any demands or unfulfilled wishes, you can talk about it. Maybe we can make a deal..."

What he answered was a loud "crash" sound, and the entire glass window shattered to the ground in one second.

The rustling sound was a bad warning, and the strong fishy smell made people sick. Qisi's eyelids twitched slightly, and he immediately raised the recorder and turned the volume to the maximum.

But it seems that because of the big death he made before, this recording failed to have any effect, and it didn't even delay things outside the room.

It was too late, countless ghost figures poured into the room from the wide open window and rushed towards him...

At the last second, Zeiss turned the gears of his destiny pocket watch.

[The "Time Backward One Minute" effect has been activated, and this effect cannot be activated again in this copy]

A cold electronic sound sounded in the air, and Qisi held his breath and watched with empty eyes as the ghosts walked crookedly backwards out of the window at a funny pace.

The broken glass on the ground returned to the window frame along the previous path, forming a complete glass with only a small hole.

The dripping mucus flew from the ground to the ghost hand, adhered to the skin, and then exited the room through the small hole along with the ghost hand.

The opportunity to use [Pocket Watch of Destiny] in this copy has been used up, and Qiss does not dare to waste it anymore.

He remained motionless, sitting upright like a wooden man, until time completely went back to one minute ago.

【Every year brings hunger, every year brings famine, there is no rice and no face to cope with the disaster...】

The children's song that had been played twice sounded crisply in my ears.

Qisi listened to the system prompt of [Side Mission Completed] with a bleary expression, and thought boredly: "Is it so unplayable? You can't communicate with ghosts. It's such a boring design..."

As if to appease his resentment, new text was refreshed the next second.

[Congratulations on getting the clue "The hungry ghost with lingering resentment"]

[Did they really starve to death? Did they deserve what they experienced, or was it the beginning of another sinful feast? 】

[The crowds coming and going, the money piled up, who eats their flesh and blood? 】

[New and old ancestral halls, densely packed with memorial tablets, who suppresses their souls? 】

When he saw the last line, Zeiss narrowed his eyes.

He suddenly knew how to extract clues from Su Po.

…

In the middle of the night, Zhu Ling opened her eyes amid the rustling sounds.

Feeling Zhou Yilin's trembling beside her, she asked softly: "Yilin, aren't you asleep yet?"

"Sister Zhu, I'm afraid..." The girl's voice was mixed with the sound of teeth chattering, and the fear sounded particularly real. "Brother Yang, is he... going to die?"

"Yilin, don't be afraid." Zhu Ling raised her hand to hug the girl and patted her back comfortingly, "Only you and I know about this matter, and our original intention is to end the dungeon as soon as possible so that more people can survive. Come down, isn’t it?”

"If we want to clear the final dungeon, sacrifice is inevitable. All we can do is to remember the dead and carry on with their hope, as the Kyushu Guild calls for."

Zhu Ling said righteously and solemnly, and a pen-like prop lay in her pocket, which was vivid to the touch.

[Name: An ordinary pen]

[Type: props]

[Effect: writing strokes]

[Note: Some people use it to record stories, and some people use it to weave lies]

Zhou Yilin insisted on staying in the house because of her instructions.

The text clues in the travel brochure have unclear meanings. If you change a stroke, the information conveyed will be completely different.

"Chang Xu" has missed the stage of accumulating prestige, Zhao Feng's performance is not up to par, and Zhang Licai has no opinion at first sight...

As long as Yang Yundong dies at night, the balance of the game will tilt towards her; with four lives in her hands, why worry about not being able to clear the dungeon?

Even if Yang Yundong survived, it would be fine. He was alone and had no evidence. All he could do was swallow this dumb loss and continue to wait for death.

'I'm sorry, I have no other choice, I just want to survive...' Zhu Ling felt silently sorry in her heart.

She prides herself on not being a bad person, and has saved many players with her knowledge in the past two dungeons, but this dungeon is different after all.

This is her third copy. Faced with a mortality rate of up to 80%, she must use some extraordinary means to be on the safe side.

In the darkness, Zhu Ling didn't notice that the girl beside her raised her lips with a sarcastic and teasing smile.

…

When the pocket watch pointer pointed to six o'clock, Zis woke up naturally.

The early morning sunlight slanted into the house listlessly, casting a layer of milky white on the surfaces of all the furnishings.

Chiss used the light to look under the bed, but saw nothing. The ghostly hands and sobs last night seemed to be just an illusion deep in the nightmare.

He walked out the door with the travel brochure in hand and glanced at every part of the courtyard.

The tattooed woman had died after dinner last night, and her body was resting in the corner. Now there was only a puddle of mucus left.

Even if there is no loss of the rest of the people, there will only be six people left in the player camp. In just two days, nearly half of the damage was lost, and the remaining three days will only be more dangerous.

Qisi walked straight to Yang Yundong's room and knocked on the door twice.

"Wait a minute!" A dull response came from the door, and then it was as silent as a mud cow entering the sea.

Qisi waited patiently. Five minutes later, the door was opened from the inside.

The smell of blood rushed to his face and poured into his nose.

Yang Yundong was covered in blood, and his left arm seemed to have been torn off along with his shoulder, and even the entire sleeve of his military coat was missing.

The bones were faintly visible at the bloody cut.

"I promised to give them meat the night before yesterday, and they came last night." Yang Yundong's eyes were sunken, but his voice was very calm, "Fortunately, the injuries in the dungeon cannot be removed, and it will be over in two or three days. "

Ziss lowered his eyes and said lukewarmly: "Continuous pain and blood loss may put you into shock. Even if your willpower is strong enough, endorphins may affect your thinking and judgment. With your current injury, you will not be able to survive." Not until the end of the copy.”

"I know." Yang Yundong exhaled, with a look of relief on his face, "This is my third copy..."

In the third dungeon, the mortality rate is as high as 80%. There is no reason for the crisis, and the strong ones are more likely to die inexplicably. It is as if the weird game intentionally lowers the average strength of the players and blocks some people from the threshold...

After a long silence, Qisi changed the subject: "Brother Yang, you and I were in a room alone last night, but we both encountered danger. There is only one possibility - there is something wrong with the clues we got."

"Zhou Yilin seemed to want to remind me of something yesterday, but unfortunately I didn't pay attention to her hint..."

Yang Yundong no longer dwelled on the issue of mortality, and recalled with a frown: "My clue is: 'The two of us should not sit in the house together, and do not be alone in the temple. Do not mourn the newly dead ghosts, there is no need to cry when the sins have been paid off.' What do you want to say? , is this clue false?”

Qisi smiled coolly: "Changing a stroke is not difficult for people with props."

The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning. The details of whether it is benign or malignant will not be known until the surgery is completed and the cutouts are sent for further testing. At present, it seems that he will not die. Everything is going well, which is also a blessing among misfortunes...