Chapter 80: Hopeless Sea |
Deep within the dense coconut grove, Angela followed closely behind Lu Li, heading toward the altar.
After they had walked for a while, she asked, "Lu Li, how did you end up in the Weird Game?"
"Someone in my family became gravely ill, and we needed a lot of money. There was no way I could raise that much without breaking the law..." Lu Li sighed, a shadow of sorrow clouding his features. "Just when I had nowhere left to turn, the invitation appeared."
"I see," Angela replied with a forced laugh, not pursuing the topic.
Just a moment ago, she had noticed a change in the money distribution display on her system interface. Toward the altar, one point of light had rapidly approached another. They made contact, then separated, and one of the points had stopped moving...
Something was wrong.
Angela stopped in her tracks, her gaze fixed on Lu Li's back. "If that's the case, you should be even more careful about your safety. You can only earn more money if you stay alive. Let's head back. Exploring the altar can wait."
Lu Li glanced back at her, a bewildered haze flickering in his eyes. "No, I feel it... the crucial clue is just ahead. We'll be able to clear this instance soon... I'm not going back. If you're scared, you can leave. I'm not going back..."
His words were jumbled and vague, his mind clearly no longer lucid.
So he ran into trouble before I even had to make my move? He acted so impressive, but he's just a fraud after all...
Angela scoffed inwardly, but she also couldn't ignore the danger of the altar.
Even a veteran player like Lu Li had fallen victim without realizing it; a newcomer like her stood no chance.
I can't go any further. I have to get away from the altar, I have to...
Angela tested the waters. "Lu Li, why don't you transfer some of your money to me for safekeeping? That way, if anything happens to you, I'll have the resources to help!"
As if he hadn't heard her, Lu Li turned away and continued his slow, deliberate walk deeper into the grove, toward the altar.
A flash of resentment crossed Angela's face, but ultimately, she didn't dare follow, terrified of being ensnared by the instance's power herself.
"Well, you be careful then! I'll go back and get reinforcements!"
She tossed the words over her shoulder and ran back toward the inn without a second glance.
Whether Lu Li lived or died was no concern of hers. Everyone dies eventually. His body, and any others she could collect, would merely serve as her pledge of loyalty to join *that* guild.
...
"My intuition for the supernatural is sharp. I've been able to see ghosts since I was a kid," Chang Xu said, stopping. "I always know when and where they're going to appear." He paused, and a playing card materialized between his fingers, which he deftly slid into a crack in the wall.
Dust coated every surface inside the bell tower. The space was narrow and suffocating, with a spiral staircase wide enough for only a single person twisting its way up toward a sliver of light high above.
It was natural light filtering down from the sky, but the twilight gloom did little to help, offering just enough illumination for the two of them, walking in single file, to make out the steps ahead.
"And?" Qi Si replied, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "I could see ghosts when I was a kid, too. When I got bored, I'd play Ludo with the little girl who lived under my bed."
A faint blue light flickered at Chang Xu's fingertips as he fanned through a series of cards that appeared from nowhere. "Did you hear that?"
Qi Si ignored the question and continued his story. "...Then one day, I don't know what happened, but I just couldn't see them anymore. My doctor said I was cured. Want me to pass along his contact information when we get out of here?"
"I just heard the sound of nails scratching inside the wall," Chang Xu said, embedding the last card into the masonry. The cards now formed a distinct, half-man-high rectangle on the stone.
Blue light arced between the cards, connecting them in a glowing outline. The section of wall within the rectangle vanished, revealing a cavity filled with gleaming white bones.
It was a complete skeleton, but it had been folded and crammed into the space with such violence that it was now a contorted, barely recognizable human form.
His interest piqued, Qi Si leaned in, pulled the skull from the tangle of bones, and turned it over in the dim light. "Modern human," he mused. "Almost certainly a player."
Chang Xu raised an eyebrow. "How can you be so certain?"
"This instance is set somewhere between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries," he explained broadly, casually shoving the skull back into the cavity. "Commoners from that era were generally malnourished, which shows in bone density and thickness. Nobles, on the other hand, often had skeletal deformities from bizarre customs, corsetry, and aesthetic practices."
Chang Xu glanced back at him. "You know a lot."
Qi Si's eyes crinkled into a smile. "Of course. When it comes to this, I'm a professional."
Before Chang Xu could question him further, Qi Si preemptively added, "Taxidermy and specimen preparation cover more species than you might imagine. Where do you think universities and museums get their anatomical models from?"
Chang Xu said nothing.
Qi Si lowered his gaze, and in his peripheral vision, he caught sight of the pale hands of the man in front of him.
Except they weren't hands anymore. They were stark, skeletal finger bones, hanging limply at his sides!
Have I... somehow triggered an instant death trap?
Qi Si held his breath, backing away slowly and silently, putting distance between himself and the figure before him.
The light overhead seemed to recede, growing more distant and unreachable. The cold, cramped tower pressed in from all sides, a tomb of rotting masonry and decaying bones.
His back bumped against something. A face slid over his shoulder from behind, its features pressing right up against the tip of his nose.
It was a bleached-white skull. Its jaw was clenched tight, the lipless teeth frozen in what looked like a grotesque grin...
"Are you feeling better?" Chang Xu asked, standing over a pile of shattered bone fragments as he glanced back.
Snapping out of the hallucination, Qi Si reacted on pure instinct, whipping out a blade and lunging for the back of Chang Xu's neck.
But the attack never landed. Blood-red text flared into existence before his eyes.
[In this instance, you cannot kill players with the "Noble" identity.]
[Violation of instance rules. Warning 1 of 3. Three warnings will result in mission failure!]
The cold, electronic voice echoed in his mind. Qi Si let out a dry chuckle. "Still alive. Didn't manage to die after all."
He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but it seemed he was far more likely to trigger death traps whenever he was around Chang Xu. It had happened in the Rose Manor, and now it was happening again...
As Jin Yusheng would say, perhaps their birth charts were just fatally incompatible.
Sensing the hostility in Qi Si's demeanor, Chang Xu silently made his cards disappear and asked, "Should we keep going up?"
The skeleton in the wall was a grim warning, all but screaming in their faces: *Turn back or you'll die here.*
They'd run into this kind of trouble only halfway up. With a long climb still ahead, who knew what other dangers lay in wait.
Qi Si considered this for a moment. "Someone has to go up, or this lead will remain a dead end. Besides," he added, "I want to get a view of the entire island from the top."
Chang Xu shot him a suspicious look.
In his experience, Qi Si was the type to send others out to test for traps, not walk into danger himself with such noble conviction.
Just as the suspicion took root, Qi Si gestured ahead with a gracious sweep of his hand. "After you, Chang Xu. My constitution has always been a bit weak. A trained fighter like you should take point."
Of course.
Perhaps they had used up all their bad luck in that last encounter, or perhaps the dangers only triggered if you went looking for them. Whatever the reason, the rest of the climb was unnervingly smooth. They didn't see so much as a rat, let alone any ghosts.
The light above grew steadily brighter until they finally emerged from the gloomy stairwell onto the top of the bell tower. For a moment, Qi Si felt as if he could simply reach out and touch the sky.
The most prominent feature on the rooftop was an enormous bronze bell. It hung in silent solemnity, exuding the mysterious aura of something ancient and alive.
Qi Si eyed the striker next to the bell, tempted to hit it ten times just to see if the rule—*When the bell tolls ten times, please go to sleep*—would still activate.
But with Chang Xu standing right there, reason won out over his morbid curiosity. He regretfully shelved the dangerous impulse.
Chang Xu was also studying the bell.
After a few moments, he moved behind it and pointed to a pile of decaying white bones heaped in the shadows. "The bell ringer is dead."
To be precise, about as dead as one can get. He'd never met a living skeleton.
Which raised the deeply unsettling question of what, exactly, had been ringing the bell every day.
Qi Si ambled over, his expression one of solemn respect. "Now that's dedication," he said. "Still ringing the bell after all these years of being dead."
The skeleton remained silent.
Chang Xu, as usual, failed to appreciate Qi Si's unique brand of humor.
He crouched down, his fingers brushing over several lines of small text on the wall, partially obscured by the skeleton.
[Fearing, praying, I see only the sea and the souls of the drowned.]
[They say we can't go back, can't go back, our homeland is lost to the horizon.]
[O, gods, save me. The hold is crowded with bodies and cargo.]
[They say give up, give up, there is no hope of home.]
The words were crooked and the strokes faint, as if scratched into the stone with a fingernail. The moment his eyes fell upon them, the message burrowed into his consciousness like a parasitic worm.
The instant he read them, Qi Si felt like an insect trapped in amber, frozen in place and unable to move.
The light around him faded, inch by inch, until only a profound darkness remained.
A cloying dampness clung to his skin, as if he'd been dragged from the depths of the ocean.
His vision took on the sepia tone of an old oil painting, the perspective shifting, at times detached and at others deeply personal.
An endless stream of alien thoughts and sensations flooded his mind, slowly coalescing into a series of vivid, unfolding scenes...