The Room Next Door

Madam pushed open the door to the kitchen.

“Oh.” It said with disdain. “With such a thick scent of Hunter in here, can Ji Xiting really not smell it?”

“No.” The Clown said, its face gloomy.

The red balloon in its hand had vanished. By the time they turned a corner, it had mysteriously reappeared outside the head chef’s workstation.

“Ah, God.” The Clown said in an exaggerated, grotesque tone. “A balloon never forgives anyone who offends a clown. This is the spot with the strongest scent of Hunter……”

It sniffed with its red nose, its two thin nostrils flaring.

“Strange. It seems like there’s some scent behind us too.”

“Even if there is, it doesn’t matter. A high-tier horror creature has already gone to the office.”

Goatee said grimly, kicking open the workstation door.

“That kid hasn’t opened it yet. The time he’s hesitating is exactly enough for him to finish his last words.”

Goatee’s horror creature laughed, and beneath its grey-pale skin, thin purplish-black veins slowly spread.

“Oh, look who we have here.”

Ji Xiting stood in the very center of the room.

Under the loose school uniform, his whole body was trembling slightly.

“I know what happened now.”

Seeing the group of horror creatures enter, Ji Xiting was visibly panicked, his face growing paler.

He mechanically pulled at the corners of his mouth, like a student who had made a mistake in life and now faced his homeroom teacher.

“It’s the dragonfly!” He choked out. “It’s the dragonfly! The dragonfly helped the Hunter install a fake camera and made me think the Hunter was already dead!”

“I thought he was chopped to death by the head chef! Then, then—ahhhh!”

Ji Xiting’s throat burst with a terrified scream, and within the scream, the faint snapping sound of threads breaking could be heard.

Goatee was clutching Ji Xiting’s head in its hand—

On that head was a face twisted with utter terror, muscles contorting and spasming, mouth stretched wide open, brow furrowed sharply in an inverted V.

“I’m not as merciful as your teacher, kid.”

“You messed up something this big…… I only want one result, so why should I listen to your excuses?”

Ji Xiting opened his mouth in panic, but Goatee threw the head aside with contempt, casting a dismissive glance at the cleanly severed neck.

This young horror creature was certainly interesting—in life, to shock its parents, it had let someone decapitate it with a machine.

Too bad. It had died too young and too stupid.

Even the slightest matter had been handled so badly; forget about joining the Abyssal Eye Club, it couldn’t even shine its shoes properly.

“This kid. Is he really saying that the Hunter—a mere Level 7 player—had skills advanced enough to fool all of us?”

Madam giggled. “Isn’t that the truth?”

She extended the toe of her shoe and stomped it into the chest of Ji Xiting’s mangled body.

The room echoed with the crackling sound of ribs snapping, and his chest caved deeply inward.

Not far away, the eyes in that severed head suddenly widened.

The clear black pupils slowly dimmed, until they melted into a pale gray matching the whites of the eyes.

“The Hunter, pretty capable.”

Madam withdrew her foot, briefly admiring Ji Xiting’s remains.

“Alright. Did we get the code words?”

Goatee sneered, cold light flickering in its dark gray pupils.

“Oh, the code words.” It let out another cold laugh. “Of course. Our people have reported that the Hunter indeed tricked that foolish mimic, and got the code words quite a bit earlier than we did.”

“Oh dear. Then that little one should have already gone down.”

Madam giggled, her laughter ringing out like silver bells.

“With such a huge gap in time, Joyful Paradise still hasn’t notified us that the instance is over. Tell me—what does that mean?”

The Clown pulled at its red balloon, its red lips splitting wide again.

“Who knows.” It said eagerly. “Look at that fellow’s behavior. Maybe he’s trying to tease us?”

It believed this was a very funny joke.

Having said that, it burst into loud laughter.

“Let’s go.” The Clown wiped tears of laughter from its eyes. “When do we go get the Hunter’s head?”

……

The players were filing out of the iron cages.

The male player stood to the side, helping Zhu Zeyu maintain order.

“Everyone, stay quiet. No sounds.”

Sweat dripped one drop at a time from the side of his forehead. The boy’s face was visibly tense.

He reached out and hoisted up a player who had stumbled and fallen, asking in a low voice: “Big boss, what’s the next step?”

What was the next step?

The puppet was too far away to conveniently retrieve itself.

Zhu Yan’s plan, of course, was to have the puppet head downstairs.

As for these people, their favorability was already maxed out. Just make them wait here for the instance to end.

With this in mind, Zhu Zeyu said: “Yang Zhanbai is downstairs, at the instance’s entrance-exit.”

“The entrance-exit?” Someone excitedly interrupted.

Around the puppet, the players who heard these words in the vicinity were clearly excited, buzzing with murmurs.

“Big boss, you found the entrance-exit?”

“Which step are you at now? Are we going down together?”

Zhu Yan looked around. Some people’s gazes were fixed on the air, clearly logging into the Player Forum.

The male player helped the last tear-streaked player out of the cage, handed over a bottle of water, then passed one to Zhu Zeyu as well.

He stepped forward with sparkling eyes.

“Big boss, you and Yang Zhanbai…… what information have you gathered so far?”

He knew Zhu Zeyu had a good heart.

This person may say things like “I don’t care if you die” but really, what he did was risk his life to save others after surviving hardships himself.

For that alone, he unconditionally trusted Zhu Zeyu.

“There are too many of us here. If we all go at once, won’t it cause trouble for you two?”

The male player was still a little uneasy.

The entrance-exit—those three words were too tempting.

That said, he absolutely trusted Zhu Zeyu, but he also wished to head to the entrance-exit as soon as possible.

“It’s very dangerous. You can’t go down for now.” Zhu Zeyu said concisely. “But we have indeed found a way to end the instance.”

The player’s face turned somewhat pale: “So, we’re still staying here?”

Outside, no one knew what was happening.

Everyone could hear vague, eerie laughter from a woman and low, deep voices.

These sounds came from the corridor—or from the other end of the conveyor belt—soft in volume, yet extremely piercing.

A few players even clutched their weapons, nervousness written on their faces.

Some were crying, perhaps from overwhelming joy, or perhaps from deeper unease.

“Yes, you all stay here.”

Zhu Zeyu nodded in confirmation, then started walking toward the conveyor belt.

Once in the next room, out of sight of these people, slipping away would be much easier.

“I’ll take a look. I’ll stay in contact with Yang Zhanbai. If there’s any progress, I’ll lead you all into action as soon as possible.”