The Trunk Rustles

Holy crap.

Yang Zhanbai looked at Zhu Zeyu, whose face was visibly much more haggard, and his eyes reddened.

"Alright," his voice carried a hint of a choke and a nasal tone. "I won't say much else, brother. In the future, if you have any difficulties, I'll be the first to step up."

Zhu Yan looked at the hand patting his shoulder and fell silent.

His difficulties... his difficulties...

Yeah.

"Me too," Qi Yinming chimed in with a slight smile. "Brother Zhu, don't be shy."

"We all know you're tough. If you run into trouble later, bring us along to help out."

Bring you along?

Do you guys want to be [Hunter]s too?

Zhu Yan almost passed out.

He could only force a bitter smile and twitch his mouth. "Then I'll have to trouble you."

Seeing that Qi Yinming still wanted to say something, Zhu Yan hurriedly changed the subject, shifting his gaze to the other few people.

"And who are these guys? Introduce them, I don't know them yet."

"That's hilarious. Brother Zhu, how come you aren't afraid of horror creatures, but you're afraid of getting sentimental?"

Qi Yinming mercilessly teased Zhu Yan's embarrassment and pulled over Chen Zhaoxing, who had been curiously sizing Zhu Yan up.

"Chen Zhaoxing. His ability can help you recover from physical and mental trauma. What level was it again? Anyway, the level isn't low."

Chen Zhaoxing narrowed his eyes and gave Zhu Yan a malicious smile.

Zhu Yan felt a little creeped out.

Chen Zhaoxing and Xu Tongguang always gave him the feeling that their thought processes were different from normal people.

He still remembered the scene of these two wearing colorful wigs and maid outfits to participate in an instance.

It really wasn't him being paranoid; he felt that the wigs and clothes might just be things these two came up with to satisfy their own sick tastes.

Who would specifically get such an inconvenient maid outfit just for an instance!

Out of politeness, he still extended a hand to Chen Zhaoxing. "Hello—oh!"

Taking advantage of the moment he opened his mouth, Chen Zhaoxing stuffed a brown object into it. His hand moved so fast it was almost a blur.

Zhu Yan subconsciously bit down, and a crisp cracking sound immediately traveled from his upper palate to his ears.

He lowered his eyes and saw two long antennae sticking out of his lips.

No, no way.

The scene of Chen Zhaoxing feeding a cockroach to Xu Tongguang was still vivid in his mind, and Zhu Yan completely petrified.

What he had just bitten into was...

Zhu Yan subconsciously wanted to spit it out, but Chen Zhaoxing grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously up and down.

"Is it good?" he asked with fiery enthusiasm. "I replaced the outer candy layer with less sweet maltose. The crispness is lower, making it more like cockroach wings..."

Oh, right.

Zhu Yan almost forgot.

Yang Zhanbai had mentioned before that the stuff Chen Zhaoxing fed people was just candy.

Zhu Yan chewed twice.

Slightly sweet, slightly bitter, with the texture of a gummy bear and the taste of liqueur filling.

The crispy, chewy, and soft textures mixed together. It had a rich mouthfeel and was tasty, but it was weird.

"I keep feeling like I'm..."

"Like you're chewing a real cockroach, right?!"

Chen Zhaoxing became excited, as if he had met a soulmate.

"That's exactly the effect I wanted! Hurry up and eat this one, then help me taste the mustard-flavored one."

Zhu Yan let go of his psychological burden and swallowed the fake cockroach.

In an instant, it felt as if a warm stream of water enveloped his stomach—

His fatigue, tension, and fear were swept away.

But that was all, because Zhu Yan was already a level-seven player.

"Don't mind him, haha." Xu Tongguang stepped forward and patted Chen Zhaoxing's shoulder, signaling him to calm down. "Yeah, he doesn't have any bad intentions, he's just quite bad..."

Zhu Yan shook his head to show he didn't mind.

He shook hands with Qin Yang and another boy named Yuan Chen as if it were a routine, then pulled over a stool, sat down, and stretched out his legs.

He was too tired.

It was only the evening of the first day, but he felt as if he had been exhausted for two days.

"Let's worry about the annoying stuff tomorrow. How about we just sleep for today?" Zhu Yan yawned. "What do you guys say?"

[Key Fragment 2] was already in hand, and the supermarket owner was dead. This progress was much faster than he had imagined.

[Key Fragment 3] was on the floor where Dorm 106 was located. He might as well sleep and deal with it when he woke up.

The remaining few exchanged glances.

Yang Zhanbai shook his head. "You sleep first. We'll take turns keeping watch. I'm afraid of that... what is that sound?"

Zhu Yan heard it too.

It was a distant shout coming from downstairs—or rather, a low roar fueled by extreme anger.

Its pitch was very low, but its penetrating power was extremely strong.

Even separated by so many layers of walls, Zhu Yan could feel the terror contained within it.

Qi Yinming suddenly stood up straight.

"Is something coming up?"

He spoke quickly, and his expression was a bit anxious.

"The group chat also said there's a horror creature constantly climbing up."

"I don't know." Chen Zhaoxing shook his head. "It's also possible someone next door is playing Jurassic Park... Ouch!"

He cried out because the quiet Xu Tongguang beside him had poked him.

Zhu Yan yawned.

Not necessarily, really not necessarily.

If he listened carefully, he was actually quite familiar with this tone.

This was clearly the impotent rage of the Treant, the kind that just discovered its key was lost and the [Hunter] hadn't been caught yet.

They shouldn't waste time on this!

Zhu Yan stood up, kicked off his shoes, and climbed into bed.

"I'm too tired," he explained. "Guys, I'm going to sleep for a bit. When it's my turn to guard the door, just call me."

"Sleep peacefully," Yang Zhanbai said.

For some reason, Zhu Zeyu's relaxed attitude gave him great confidence.

If Zhu Zeyu didn't take it seriously, that meant it really wasn't a big deal.

Yang Zhanbai's mood inexplicably relaxed.

"I'm going to sleep for a bit too," he said, decisively tossing the baton to Xu Tongguang.

"Old Xu, I'll leave this place to you for now!"

...

Downstairs.

The Treant stopped roaring.

Facing the square, empty hidden compartment in the center of the room, its anger reached its peak.

Where was its key?!

Where was its treasure?!

The Treant angrily waved its branches.

The dead branches whipped up the wind in the modest-sized space, smashing the desks and chairs piled on both sides into pieces with loud crashes.

"How did he get it?! How did he get it!"

The Toad narrowed its scarlet eyes, standing beside the tree trunk, smiling weirdly.

Happy, it was truly happy.

It finally wasn't the only guard to end up in such a situation.

Looking at the tree's reaction now, wasn't it in an even more pathetic state than it had been?

"The Chest!" The Treant remembered something and suddenly roared in fury, "Where is my Chest?! Why did it open!"

The Chest cowered silently under the ruins of the desks and chairs.

The Toad looked at the Treant's reaction and finally couldn't hold back, laughing with a croaking sound.

"I warned you earlier, but you wouldn't listen."

"I think it's your own fault too. If you hadn't come out and just stayed peacefully inside, how could all this have happened?"

"I say, you should issue a wanted poster too. It's not embarrassing."

The Treant's violent movements stopped.

The trunk pointed straight in the Toad's direction, and its petal-shaped mouth closed dangerously.

It had almost forgotten about this Toad.

If it really came down to it, the [Hunter] had disguised himself as the Toad and used that cicada to lure it out.

If it were not for this Toad prematurely exposing the existence of [Key Fragment 1], how could the [Hunter] have possibly found it?

The tree trunk rustled.

It slowly turned toward the Toad, its fleshy mouth opening and closing as it quickly locked onto the creature's weak spot.